The purpose of this paper is to examine male and female executives as leaders “championing” gender change interventions. It problematizes current exhortations for male leaders to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine male and female executives as leaders “championing” gender change interventions. It problematizes current exhortations for male leaders to lead gender change, much as they might lead any other business-driven change agenda. It argues that organizational gender scholarship is critical to understanding the gendered nature of championing.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper draws on a feminist qualitative research project examining the efficacy of a gender intervention in a university and a policing institution. Interviews with four leaders have been chosen from the larger study for analysis against the backdrop of material from interviewees and the participant observation of the researcher. It brings a social constructionist view of gender and Acker’s gendering processes to bear on understanding organizational gender change.
Findings
The sex/gender of the leader is inescapably fore-fronted by the gender change intervention. Gendered expectations and choices positioned men as powerful and effective champions while undermining the effectiveness of the woman in this study.
Research limitations/implications
Further research examining male and female leaders capacity to champion gender change is required.
Practical implications
This research identifies effective champion behaviors, provides suggestions for ensuring that gender equity interventions are well championed and proposes a partnership model where senior men and women play complementary roles leading gender change.
Originality/value
This paper is of value to practitioners and scholars. It draws attention to contemporary issues of leadership and gender change, seeking to bridge the gap between theory and practice that undermines our change efforts.
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Geoff Dickens, Philip Sugarman, Marco Picchioni and Clive Long
In this study we demonstrate how the Health of the Nation Outcomes Scales for secure and forensic service users (HoNOS‐secure) tracks risk and recovery in men with mental illness…
Abstract
In this study we demonstrate how the Health of the Nation Outcomes Scales for secure and forensic service users (HoNOS‐secure) tracks risk and recovery in men with mental illness and men with learning disability in a secure care pathway. Total and individual HoNOS‐secure item ratings made by multi‐disciplinary teams across the course of a period of admission (mean 15 months) for 180 men were examined. There was significant positive change on the clinical and risk‐related scales of HoNOS‐secure for patients in the learning disability care pathway (N = 48) between initial and final ratings. In the mental health care pathway (N = 132 patients) an apparent lack of change masked a more complex picture, where initial decline in HoNOS‐secure ratings was succeeded by significant improvement. Results suggest that it is challenging to measure clinical and risk‐related medium‐term clinical outcomes objectively for these patients, particularly in relation to core issues of treatment of mental disorder, and reduction of both problem behaviour and risk to others. However, it is important that practitioners continue to strive to demonstrate the benefits of care and treatment through appropriate outcomes measures.
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The IT POINT project based at Chelmsley Wood Library is seeking to assess the use and the usefulness of a range of IT and networked services in a deprived outer‐city environment…
Abstract
The IT POINT project based at Chelmsley Wood Library is seeking to assess the use and the usefulness of a range of IT and networked services in a deprived outer‐city environment. Experiences gained will be applicable to similar communities elsewhere in the UK and should influence future planning of networked public library services. The Project is already planning enhancements to the current IT POINT services and activities, and is likely to include exploration of the delivery of training and education into homes via the Internet.
Andrew Lindridge, Lisa Peñaloza and Onipreye Worlu
This research aims to explore how female immigrants use consumption to challenge and support their husband's position within the context of their patriarchal bargain.
Abstract
Purpose
This research aims to explore how female immigrants use consumption to challenge and support their husband's position within the context of their patriarchal bargain.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample group (n = 20) consisted of ten first-generation Nigerian immigrant married couples living in Britain, who were interviewed together, with the married female then re-interviewed separately.
Findings
This paper demonstrates how women transition from being a wife in a consanguine family in Nigeria, which they describe as patriarchal, to becoming one within a nuclear family in the UK, a society to which they attribute gender equality. Nigerian immigrant women alter their ways of thinking and consuming, with implications to their agency and empowerment. In particular, consumption choices demonstrated the limits of these women’s willingness to challenge their patriarchal bargain and instead often colluded with their husbands to maintain his position as the head of the family.
Practical implications
Immigrant women should not be seen as passive receptors of their male partner’s wishes or demands, but instead active participators in purchasing and consumption decisions. Although marketing encourages direct targeting of customers, this approach raises a number of ethical issues for female African immigrants.
Originality/value
Previous research on the consumption behaviour of immigrants is limited in scope and tends to focus on male immigrants, with female immigrants either invisible or stereotyped. Compounding this problem are disciplinary, geographical and linguistic barriers that hinder social scientists' research into the consumption of female migration. This paper works to address these omissions.
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Kristin Warr Pedersen, Emma Pharo, Corey Peterson and Geoffrey Andrew Clark
The purpose of this paper is to profile the development of a bicycle parking hub at the University of Tasmania to illustrate how the Academic Operations Sustainability Integration…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to profile the development of a bicycle parking hub at the University of Tasmania to illustrate how the Academic Operations Sustainability Integration Program promotes real change through the engagement of stakeholders from across an institution to deliver campus sustainability. This case study outlines one example of how place-based learning initiatives focused on campus sustainability challenges have delivered authentic education for sustainability in the Australasian higher education setting.
Design/methodology/approach
This case study outlines the process through which a cross-disciplinary place-based learning initiative was designed, implemented and evaluated over a three-year period. The evaluation of the project was designed to assess the impact of this education for sustainability approach on both operational and student learning outcomes, and to make recommendations on the continuation of place-based learning initiatives through the Academic Operations Sustainability Integration Program.
Findings
This case study illustrates how learning can be focused around finding solutions to real world problems through the active participation of staff and students as members of a learning community. This experience helped the authors to better understand how place-based learning initiatives can help deliver authentic education for sustainability and the success factors required for engaging staff and students in such efforts.
Originality/value
The case study highlights an example of an education for sustainability initiative that was mutually driven by the operational and learning objectives of an institution, and specifically the ways in which the engagement of staff and students from across an institution can lead to the successful integration of these two often disparate institutional goals.
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Brian Griffin, Kate Hills, Geoff Andrew, Stephen Drodge, Roy Huse and David Reid
I REMEMBER one elderly librarian who insisted on keeping the works of obscure authors like Lermontov on the shelves, even when faced with the plain fact that no dates were ever…
Abstract
I REMEMBER one elderly librarian who insisted on keeping the works of obscure authors like Lermontov on the shelves, even when faced with the plain fact that no dates were ever stamped on the labels of the books in question. Whatever happened, the books stayed, year‐in, year‐out. Here, then, was a librarian of the old school, a guardian of culture, keeping to his post while the inner‐city housewives ran for the Mills and Boons on the returned‐books trolley like piranhas hot on the scent of human flesh. He didn't care: sitting at his desk, making careful notations on the backs of book‐cards, he could ignore the crowd and think about Lermontov.
This work was originally commissioned during 1982, the year that was designated Information Technology Year; the year that the personal computer replaced the space invader machine…
Abstract
This work was originally commissioned during 1982, the year that was designated Information Technology Year; the year that the personal computer replaced the space invader machine as a focus for teenage obsession; the year of the library symbol, the Hunt Report on cable TV; the year the US Post Office issued two stamps celebrating American libraries, and the British Post Office issued a stamp for IT year suggesting that libraries were a thing of the past. The work was intended to look at “the background to the IT revolution, the benefits of applying technology to library services and the reasons for its relatively slow progress”. It was envisaged at the time that what would have been effectively a state‐of‐the‐art report on the technology available to libraries, and who was doing what with it, would be a useful tool for library managers introducing or extending library technical services. It might usefully have complemented the LA publication, The impact of new technology on libraries and information centres (LA, 1982). However, for a variety of reasons it was not possible to produce the publication in 1983 as intended; the person commissioned to write it was unable to do so; and eventually, in 1984, it was realised that the speed of development and availability of technology was such that any such work would be useless as a practical guide within months of publication. The growth, during the period, of journals on the subject of library applications of IT of all kinds; the appearance of regular updates in the generalist professional press; the formation of, for example, the Library Association IT Group: all these developments clearly offered better opportunities of current awareness to the library manager than could be achieved by a single monograph.
Steven J Curtis has been appointed general manager for Ellis + Everard Chemicals South East region taking in London, Wellingborough and Stowmarket branches.