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1 – 10 of 112Chris Hallinan and Steven Jackson
This chapter adopts a reflective approach exploring and setting out the contrasting factors that led to the establishment of the subdiscipline in both countries. The factors…
Abstract
This chapter adopts a reflective approach exploring and setting out the contrasting factors that led to the establishment of the subdiscipline in both countries. The factors included the role of key individuals and their respective academic backgrounds and specialisations within each country’s higher education system. Furthermore, attention is given to the particular circumstances in a case analysis comparison of the oldest programs in Aotearoa/New Zealand and Australia. This sheds light upon the factors linked to the disproportionate success profile for the sociology of sport in Aotearoa/New Zealand. An analysis of scholars and programs within each country reveals important differences aligned with the politics of funding and the variety and extent of systematic structures. Additionally, scholars’ specialisations and preferences reveal a broad offering but are primarily linked to globalisation, gender relations, indigeneity and race relations, social policy, and media studies. This work has been undertaken variously via the critical tradition including Birmingham School cultural studies, ethnographic and qualitative approaches and, more recently by some, a postmodern poststructuralist trend. Lastly, along with a brief discussion of current issues, future challenges are set out.
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It is often said, in business and business schools, that accounting is the language of business. This paper attempts to deconstruct this nostrum by demonstrating the possibility…
Abstract
It is often said, in business and business schools, that accounting is the language of business. This paper attempts to deconstruct this nostrum by demonstrating the possibility of a language of business existing and why accounting is not it. The paper will briefly discuss the technical ability of accounting to behave as a communication medium and finally suggest that other functions may have a stronger claim.
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Ian Robson and Jim Rowe
In the Book of Revelation, the “whore of Babylon” is a metaphor for Satan. In applying this religious analogy to the current state and status of marketing thought, deliberately…
Abstract
In the Book of Revelation, the “whore of Babylon” is a metaphor for Satan. In applying this religious analogy to the current state and status of marketing thought, deliberately takes an anti‐positivist and an anti‐modernist stance, metaphorically replacing modernism and positivism with “The Mother of Prostitutes” (Rev. 17:5). Evaluates the applicability of the eschatological metaphor within the context of the current modernist/postmodernist debate. In using the analogy of the religious (essentially Christian) perspective of the end of the world, the analysis which follows utilizes biblical text and Christian concepts to illuminate and enhance the discussion.
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The purpose of this paper is to argue that in a strategic context organising is a cybernetic process that corresponds leadership and management. The paper reflects on the obverse…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to argue that in a strategic context organising is a cybernetic process that corresponds leadership and management. The paper reflects on the obverse condition where the lack of correspondence may facilitate failure.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper applies Stafford Beer's viable systems model to consider management and leadership's relationship in the organisational context and draws on the practice of leadership and management to support the theoretical assertions.
Findings
That management and leadership are key processes in organising that need to be in mutual correspondence in order to sustain the viability of the organisation.
Research limitations/implications
The paper explores management and leadership from a systems perspective and so further practical work could be initiated to consider both successful organising and failure.
Practical implications
The paper is attempting to demonstrate that organisations may need to develop leadership and management contiguously as control and viability drivers; and that the duopoly of management and leadership is at the heart of the cybernetics of organising.
Originality/value
The paper attempts to consider the seminal cybernetic process of organising.
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The purpose of this paper is to argue that culture is our primeval management that has its roots the same desire for control that management does. The paper explores the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to argue that culture is our primeval management that has its roots the same desire for control that management does. The paper explores the fundamental cognitive systems that allow us to create culture.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper applies basic systems concepts to the notion of culture and draws parallels with other cybernetic processes in order to consider the means of developing culture as a systemic possibility and/or inevitability.
Findings
Where management is reductive relying on cause and effect to apply its models to organising, culture is emergent and relies on correspondence to develop mutual models of organising.
Research limitations/implications
The paper explores the creation of culture from a systems perspective and so further work could be devised to consider the demise of specific cultures such as the entropy of culture and its radical change in crisis.
Practical implications
The paper is attempting to demonstrate that organisations may need to see culture along with structure and management as a control issue. That culture is at the heart of the individual and in the ether of the organisation and so the cybernetics of culture should not be considered as an adjunct to the management of the organisation but seminal to it.
Originality/value
The paper attempts to consider culture as a cybernetic process of development.
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Richard A.E. North, Jim P. Duguid and Michael A. Sheard
Describes a study to measure the quality of service provided by food‐poisoning surveillance agencies in England and Wales in terms of the requirements of a representative consumer…
Abstract
Describes a study to measure the quality of service provided by food‐poisoning surveillance agencies in England and Wales in terms of the requirements of a representative consumer ‐ the egg producing industry ‐ adopting “egg associated” outbreak investigation reports as the reference output. Defines and makes use of four primary performance indicators: accessibility of information; completeness of evidence supplied in food‐poisoning outbreak investigation reports as to the sources of infection in “egg‐associated” outbreaks; timeliness of information published; and utility of information and advice aimed at preventing or controlling food poisoning. Finds that quality expectations in each parameter measured are not met. Examines reasons why surveillance agencies have not delivered the quality demanded. Makes use of detailed case studies to illustrate inadequacies of current practice. Attributes failure to deliver “accessibility” to a lack of recognition on the status or nature of “consumers”, combined with a self‐maintenance motivation of the part of the surveillance agencies. Finds that failures to deliver “completeness” and “utility” may result from the same defects which give rise to the lack of “accessibility” in that, failing to recognize the consumers of a public service for what they are, the agencies feel no need to provide them with the data they require. The research indicates that self‐maintenance by scientific epidemiologists may introduce biases which when combined with a politically inspired need to transfer responsibility for food‐poisoning outbreaks, skew the conduct of investigations and their conclusions. Contends that this is compounded by serious and multiple inadequacies in the conduct of investigations, arising at least in part from the lack of training and relative inexperience of investigators, the whole conditioned by interdisciplinary rivalry between the professional groups staffing the different agencies. Finds that in addition failures to exploit or develop epidemiological technologies has affected the ability of investigators to resolve the uncertainties identified. Makes recommendations directed at improving the performance of the surveillance agencies which, if adopted will substantially enhance food poisoning control efforts.
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Social studies teachers engage a vast subject area within which they can enlist a wide scope of possible curriculum and pedagogy choices. Despite the opportunity to engage…
Abstract
Social studies teachers engage a vast subject area within which they can enlist a wide scope of possible curriculum and pedagogy choices. Despite the opportunity to engage students with an abundance of potentially fruitful themes, topics, and ideas, social studies teaching can be captured by the need to cover specific content in particular ways. Philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (1983), in Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, would connect such an agenda to the capitalistic machine that shrinks potential sources into what Foucault (1980) sees as tendencies to seek control rather than the openness of becoming. We contend that Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the rhizome opens new lines of flight in social studies curricula and works to revolutionize social studies as a subject area that often has been over-standardized and taught as one-size-fits-all. We also contend that rhizomic thinking can renew how students see the world and transform how they interpret events, epochs, eras, and cultures by drawing from rhizomic research’s bamboo-like qualities.
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The conservation management plan (CMP) for a heritage building establishes the nature of the work required to conserve, maintain and enhance the cultural heritage significance of…
Abstract
Purpose
The conservation management plan (CMP) for a heritage building establishes the nature of the work required to conserve, maintain and enhance the cultural heritage significance of the property. A missing element from many CMPs has been a realistic consideration of the cost of the work at this early stage. The paper aims to show how cost planning of works in a heritage building's conservation environment can be achieved.
Design/methodology/approach
A background to the structure and preparation of CMPs from the literature in Australia and the UK is presented. Experience gained from the costing and budgeting in the CMP for several heritage projects in Australia and the process, are both described, summarised and discussed.
Findings
The CMP provides a comprehensive working management guide for owners and other stakeholders to follow when carrying out works to the heritage property and includes components such as current condition, legal responsibilities and statutory obligations, sequencing and timing of proposed actions. The addition of significant financial information such as maintenance programmes, funding sources, long and short term costs, financial resources of owner, technical constraints, current owners needs and requirements and conflict resolution provides the possibility of making the CMP a more valuable document to the funding agencies and the building's users.
Practical implications
Heritage clients and users increasingly need to know their likely financial commitment before work commences. This early stage cost advice (indicative costs) integrated into CMPs can establish realistic budgets for decision making.
Originality/value
The addition of the cost of the works as proposed in a CMP can support client and community groups in making requests for funding from the various government and private agencies with an interest in, or responsibility for, the future care and use of these properties.
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Jim Taylor, Dennis Reynolds and Denise M. Brown
The purpose of this paper is to develop a multi‐dimensional, holistic model that: avoids the variable interdependency found in earlier tools; and integrates multiple factors that…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop a multi‐dimensional, holistic model that: avoids the variable interdependency found in earlier tools; and integrates multiple factors that characterize menu item costs more accurately by considering more than gross profit.
Design/methodology/approach
Using data gathered during a three‐month period from three same‐brand units of a full‐service chain restaurant firm, the paper applies data‐envelopment analysis (DEA), a non‐parametric approach that accounts for both controllable (discretionary) and uncontrollable (non‐discretionary) variables, producing a single relative‐to‐best index based on an efficiency rating calculated on a 0 to 1 scale.
Findings
The findings suggest that the DEA‐equipped model, which is not constrained by the limitations of traditional matrix approaches, supports a more robust approach by incorporating more cost determinants than traditional menu engineering approaches.
Research limitations/implications
The paper consists of only a single restaurant concept and the evaluation results are purely theoretical. Future research should include the application of the menu analysis recommendations to an actual menu to determine the effectiveness of the model on actual operation profitability.
Practical implications
The research suggests that DEA is an effective tool in the evaluation of a restaurant menu by evaluating individual menu items based on attributes of labor and profitability factors.
Originality/value
The paper shows that by combining DEA with traditional menu analysis methodologies, a more efficient menu analysis tool may be utilized to evaluate menu items without the arbitrary allocation of non‐food costs.
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To describe the meaning of emotion.
Abstract
Purpose
To describe the meaning of emotion.
Design/methodology/approach
Describes how emotion has recently become a popular concept for discussion, but it is not often recognised that human beings are, in essence, meaning‐creating creatures and that emotion is one of the forms of meaning they create.
Findings
What one experiences as “I”, “me”, “myself”, that is, one's sense of being a person, is a meaning‐structure, which has developed through one's interaction with one's environment. One's physiological make‐up is such that all the meanings are guesses about what is going on. Consequently the sense of being a person is always in danger of being invalidated by events. Emotions are meanings, which relate to the validation or invalidation of one's sense of being a person. It is necessary to survive both physically and as a person, but, if there is to be a choice between these two ways of surviving, one almost always chooses to survive as a person and let one's body go. This is seen in acts of heroism and in suicide.
Originality/value
Emphasises how the need to survive as a person is so important that children as young as 16 months are able to understand and respond to the emotional meanings of their parents and siblings even though they do not develop an intellectual understanding of the theory of mind until they are about four years old. All interactions between people in health‐care management involve validation and invalidation.
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