Search results
1 – 10 of 179This article explains how and why the University of Birmingham have started using the Internet in the acquisitions process. Some of the practical problems as well as the…
Abstract
This article explains how and why the University of Birmingham have started using the Internet in the acquisitions process. Some of the practical problems as well as the advantages are discussed. Suggestions are made about what conditions need to be met for more use of the Internet to be made.
From 1782 to 1834, the English social legislation shifted from a safety net devised to deal with emergencies to a social security system implemented to cope with the threat of…
Abstract
From 1782 to 1834, the English social legislation shifted from a safety net devised to deal with emergencies to a social security system implemented to cope with the threat of unemployment and poverty. In the attempt to explain this shift, this chapter concentrates on the changed attitudes toward poverty and power relationships in eighteenth-century British society. Especially, it looks at the role played by eighteenth-century British economic thinkers in elaborating arguments in favor of reducing the most evident asymmetries of power characterizing the period of transition from Mercantilism to the Classical era. To what extent did economic thinkers contribute to creating an environment within which a social legislation aimed at improving the living conditions of the poor as the one established in 1795 could be not only envisaged but also implemented? In doing so, this chapter deals with an aspect often undervalued and/or overlooked by historians of economic thought: namely, the relationship between economic theory and social legislation. If the latter is the institutional framework by which both individual and collective well-being can be achieved the former cannot but assume a fundamental role as a useful abstraction which sheds light on the multifaceted reality in which social policies are proposed, forged, and eventually implemented.
Details
Keywords
Jeppe Nicolaisen and Tove Faber Frandsen
Citation analysis as a method for studying scientific communication is frequently criticized for being based on biased citation practices. Questionable motives for the reference…
Abstract
Purpose
Citation analysis as a method for studying scientific communication is frequently criticized for being based on biased citation practices. Questionable motives for the reference selection have been suggested including the claim that authors tend to cite hot papers in order to show-off. In this study, the authors investigate the claim that authors tend to cite the recent literature in order to show-off.
Design/methodology/approach
Following Moed and Garfield (2004), the authors investigate the claim by analyzing the proportion of recent references as a function of the length of the reference lists of citing papers. The authors analyze reference lists of citing papers in the fields of biomedical engineering, economics, medicine, psychology and library and information science between 2010 and 2019. From each of these fields, a number of journals are included in the analysis to represent the field. In total, 42 journals are included in the analyses comprising a selection of almost 65,000 journal articles. The proportion of recent references is calculated using two citation windows. The proportion of recent references as a function of the length of the reference lists is calculated through simple linear regressions to predict the share of recent references based on the number of references.
Findings
The results of the linear regressions indicate that in most cases, there are a statistically significant relationship between the share of recent references and the number of references. This study’s results show that when authors display selective referencing behavior, references to the recent literature tend to be only marginally increased, and some results even display the opposite tendency (marginally overciting the older literature).
Originality/value
This study of the claim that authors tend to cite the recent literature in order to show-off does not confirm the hypothesis.
Details
Keywords
An aircraft retractable undercarriage comprising a landing wheel strut having pivotally articulated upper and lower sections, a landing wheel carried at the lower end of said…
Abstract
An aircraft retractable undercarriage comprising a landing wheel strut having pivotally articulated upper and lower sections, a landing wheel carried at the lower end of said lower section, said upper section being ipivotally mounted at its upper end upon said aircraft, a worm wheel sector fixed to said lower section concentrically with the pivot axis of said articulated connection, a worm meshing with said sector, a bearing rotatably mounting said worm upon said upper section to be positionally fixed thereto and to have its thrust axis directed generally upwardly toward the upper pivoted end of said upper strut section with the strut in extended position, a prime mover mounted upon said upper section adjacent the position of said worm and operatively connected' to the latter, and strut brace means pivotally connected to said strut and extending laterally therefrom into pivotal connection with said aircraft at a position spaced from said pivotal connection of said upper strut section.
This chapter contributes to drawing Melanesian ethnography out of the exoticizing interest for gift exchange and demand-sharing. Furthermore, it provides an analytical perspective…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter contributes to drawing Melanesian ethnography out of the exoticizing interest for gift exchange and demand-sharing. Furthermore, it provides an analytical perspective from which it is possible to conceptualize the manipulation of gift and commodity logics as mutually compatible frameworks. Rather than seeing them as contradictory, this perspective enables the theorization of shared calculative agencies that are becoming increasingly common in contemporary Melanesia.
Methodology/approach
The chapter draws on 13 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Gilbert Camp, a peri-urban settlement on the outskirts of Honiara, Solomon Islands with a focus on the domestic moral economy of its inhabitants.
Findings
The people of Gilbert Camp are confronting a difficult economic and moral dilemma. On the one hand, they are at constant risk of financial failure because of their general conditions of scarcity. On the other, they face the prospect of disrupting some of their much-valued social relationships because such scarcity prevents them from fulfilling their cultural obligations. In order to avoid both risks, they make use of their financial competence and cultural creativity to set up strategies that save them money and preserve these relationships. Situated at the interface between kinship and market values, these strategies contribute to achieving the kind of ‘good’ life that they see as the correct balance between financial prosperity and morality.
Originality/value
Current negotiations over the meaning of buying, selling and taking are changing the values of contemporary sociality in Honiara, Port Vila, and other Melanesian cities. Tradestores simultaneously supply households with food and money, create a sense of sharing, and limit the demand-sharing and the taking of wantoks. Hence they create the conditions for the resolution of tensions over the incompatibility of values of kinship and market that confront the inhabitants of Melanesian cities. Household tradestores thus constitute a major site of these negotiations, and they provide a unique vantage point from which to look at the moral and economic processes that are leading to the future identity of urban Melanesia.
Details
Keywords
– The purpose of this paper is to present a process, grounded in Buddhist practical wisdom, which trains managers to negotiate effectively.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a process, grounded in Buddhist practical wisdom, which trains managers to negotiate effectively.
Design/methodology/approach
After comparing Western notions of phronesis/prudentia with insights from Buddhist tradition, it reports on the author's 20+years’ work in cross-cultural communication-skills training and examines sample training exercises.
Findings
Even experienced business-people rarely register the detail of what happens in their meetings. Simple behavioural routines, using checklists, can help here. The self-image of a problem-solver, reinforced by corporate culture, produces an urge to prove oneself right. So people get locked in to abstract, analytical thinking, and interpersonal relations are inhibited. A good way to overcome this constraint is to practise applying certain heuristics, or rules-of-thumb, for addressing contentious points in a negotiation.
Practical implications
An impractical ideology of analytical perfection dominates much of corporate cultures; much management education suffers from a hypertrophy of theory. A different, more practical approach seems overdue. A good way to catalyse a paradigm shift is indirectly, by focusing on specific behaviours. There are some important goals which we cannot attain by an instrumental process.
Social implications
Unethical business behaviour, which is also ineffective, is often rooted in mistrust of direct experience. To improve ethics and effectiveness, businesses and managers need to recognise non-instrumental goals. Important as they are, efficiency and profitability are subordinate to the need for people to stay sane, to continue learning and to grow as humans, in the course of doing business.
Originality/value
Buddhist speech ethics and the culture of skill-in-means have much to offer management education.
Details
Keywords
This paper considers what purposes regulation and supervision of financial institutions are designed to serve. Historical experience with regulation and supervision is considered…
Abstract
This paper considers what purposes regulation and supervision of financial institutions are designed to serve. Historical experience with regulation and supervision is considered, and it is argued on the basis of that examination that a fairly ‘light touch’ in regulation is likely to achieve the objectives that governments and citizens require regulation to achieve. Accordingly, the paper concludes that when regulation is evaluated and compared against unregulated systems, one should be careful to compare fallible regulation with fallible markets, rather than implicitly assuming regulation is perfect. Otherwise over‐regulation will result.
The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of the War on two prominent academic liberal historians.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of the War on two prominent academic liberal historians.
Design/methodology/approach
The research is based on a narrative of their lives and careers before and during the War.
Findings
The findings include an analysis of how the War engaged these academic liberals in the pursuit of the War effort.
Originality/value
By the end of the War, both sought to reaffirm much of their earlier academic liberalism despite the political and social changes in the post-war world.
Details