Search results

An important wave of anti-austerity protests has swept across Western Europe in recent years. We can thus distinguish between three different types of protest occurring in Western Europe recently: “old” issue protests, relating to the trade union and labor movement; “new” issue protests, relating to culture and identity issues; anti-austerity protests, emerging directly in reaction to austerity measures and cuts enacted in the current period. Following previous literature, we hypothesize that anti-austerity protests have attracted a new constituency to the streets and that they will be different from both “old” and “new” protests in terms of their social composition, value orientations, and action repertoires. We expect anti-austerity protesters to be on the whole younger, and in more precarious working conditions, to be more concerned with economic over social issues, but also to be considerably less institutionalized and embedded in organizational networks, and to have fewer experiences of previous extra-institutional participation. We test these hypotheses by analyzing a unique and novel dataset containing data from over 10,000 protestors from 72 demonstrations (2009–2013). Our results lend broad support to our hypotheses with the exception of the idea that “precarity” forms a new social base for anti-austerity protests.

This study examined the impact of resonance expressed by the positive emotional attractor (PEA) and dissonance represented by the negative emotional attractor (NEA) created by medical students during diagnostic encounters with standardized patients (SPs) (laypeople) from the clinical skills exam (CSE). Secondary data were collected from 116 videotaped CSE encounters between SPs and medical students. Associations among the PEA and NEA states, and medical student effectiveness measured by SP, faculty, and differential diagnosis scores using moderated multiple regression analysis were determined. Results suggest that the PEA and NEA are powerful conditions for determining medical student effectiveness in clinical encounters.

DURING the past fifteen to twenty years the demands of the engineering industry have resulted in the development of a great number of new ferrous and non‐ferrous alloys, the efficient use of which has necessitated the development of new methods of fabrication and production. Manufacturers of machine tools and other plant have enabled industry to maintain its high position in world markets by producing large numbers of special purpose and high production machines for this purpose. The successful operation of these machines depends almost entirely upon the lubricants, metal cutting and drawing oils, etc., available and developments in this field have likewise been considerable.

A NUMBER of major industrial fires which were fed in part by the petroleum oils used in the hydraulic systems have accelerated the trend towards the use of fire‐resistant fluids in systems located where a fire hazard exists and wherever heat or flame are in proximity to high pressure hydraulic equipment, a fractured pipe line or faulty fitting can result in the hydraulic oil being ejected considerable distances into open furnaces, melting pots, welding torches, etc. It is for all such cases where a true fire hazard exists that the fire‐resistant fluids are now in demand.

This chapter reports on the interaction dynamics of a workplace exercise group for beginners. Dramaturgical stress occurred here as individuals who already knew each other as competent colleagues felt embarrassed about encountering one another in this low ability exercise group. To resolve this role conflict, participants sought to define themselves as familiar strangers (which they were not) through minimal interaction in non-binding relationships. This was achieved through three types of facework strategy: not only the defensive and protective kinds that Goffman identified as saving individual faces, but also collective strategies, which sought to repair the face of the whole group. Paradoxically, therefore, in attempting to deny their “groupness,” these actors actually displayed and reinforced their solidarity as a performance team.

While media records have become an increasingly popular source of data on social movement activities, some researchers have also relied upon materials produced by movements themselves. Unlike information culled from the press, which have been subject to considerable methodological scrutiny, there has been no effort to assess what movement actors consider “newsworthy.” The current research addresses movement selection bias through an analysis of the United Steelworkers' coverage of strikes and organizing drives in Steelabor, a periodical produced by the union four times annually. In some respects the results mirror previous research on media selection bias; larger, more contentious events tend to receive disproportionate attention. Yet movement reporting practices diverge from typical media coverage: movements use their publications strategically to construct a positive self-image. The findings have considerable implications for scholars interested in exploring new data sources on social movements.

Sendzimir mills have already been referred to as notable examples of cluster mills (p. 142 and Fig. 9). They exploit the advantages of well‐supported small diameter work rolls, making heavy reductions possible and producing very accurate cold rolled strip. The work rolls can be finished to produce the sheet surface quality required, can be very rapidly changed in service, and can be made of special very hard material such as tungsten carbide when minimum flattening is needed. Accordingly these mills are used for a great variety of materials — not only all types of steel (including stainless), copper and its alloys, and aluminium and its alloys, but titanium, tantalum, zirconium and even rarer or more intractable metals.

This chapter will present an analysis of mobilisation, framing processes and outcomes of environmental conservation campaigns in Ireland. By locating contemporary disputes about the public space in Ireland within an understanding of this transition from a traditional rural and agrarian society into that of a modern industrialised and urbanised European state, a wider understanding of the circumstances surrounding such contests emerges.¹ This form of analysis goes beyond a social narrative, and facilitates a fuller understanding of the consequences emanating from the framing and reframing of heritage within a context of a society where an obsession with history has been displaced by a zealous predilection for economic development.

This chapter proposes that organizational strategy formation should be characterized theoretically as a process that is subject to several interacting forces, rather than represented by separate discrete decision-models or theoretic perspectives, as is commonly done in the strategic management literature. Based on an extensive review of relevant theory and empirical work in strategic decision-making, organizational change theory, cognitive and social psychology, and strategy processes, seven kinds of “forces” – rational, imposed, teleological, learning, political, heuristic, and social – are identified as interacting in and having significant influence on the strategy formation process. It is further argued that by applying a holistic “forces-view” of the significant and interacting influences on strategy formation, we can better understand the dynamics and challenges in managing the process of defining and changing organizational strategies.

We study the impact of tax and minimum wage reforms on the incidence of informality. To gauge the incidence of informality, we use measures of the extent of tax evasion, the extent of minimum wage noncompliance, and the size of the informal workforce. Our approach allows us to examine (i) the distinction between determinants of firm-level reported wage distribution and actual wage distribution, (ii) the complementarity of tax and minimum wage enforcement, (iii) the impact that a minimum wage reform has on tax and minimum wage compliance, and (iv) the impact that a tax policy reform has on tax and minimum wage compliance. We conclude with the design of optimal minimum wage and tax policies (even in the complete absence of minimum wage enforcement). We do so based on two objectives derived from popular concerns associated with an unchecked expansion of informality: tax revenue maximization, and poverty alleviation among workers.