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1 – 10 of over 7000Usman Umar Akeel, Sarah Jayne Bell and John E. Mitchell
The purpose of this study is to present an assessment of the sustainability content of the Nigerian engineering curriculum in universities.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to present an assessment of the sustainability content of the Nigerian engineering curriculum in universities.
Design/methodology/approach
Content analysis is used to generate and analyse data from three engineering documents, namely, the Benchmark Minimum Academic Standards for Engineering Programmes in Nigeria and the engineering handbooks of two Nigerian higher education institutions.
Findings
The Nigerian engineering curriculum is revealed to have a low sustainability content, with environmental concepts being the most cited themes and social topics as the least stated issues.
Research limitations/implications
The sustainability assessment approach adopted in the study is constrained by the question of what constitutes a sustainability syllabus. Expert-derived sustainability themes used in the study are unavoidably incomplete and may limit the conduct of an exhaustive sustainability content assessment.
Practical implications
Based on the research outcome, the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria and other stakeholders can consider ways to adequately incorporate sustainability themes in the Nigerian engineering curriculum.
Originality/value
The research is an effort to determine the presence of sustainability issues in the Nigerian engineering education, which has hitherto been scarcely documented. This study provides a baseline and a rationale for sustainability education interventions in the Nigerian engineering curriculum. It also presents a methodology for analysing sustainability content in university curriculum and contributes to the continuing sustainability education discourse, especially in relation to sub-Saharan Africa.
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Kaouthar Lajili, Michael Dobler, Daniel Zéghal and Mitchell John Bryan
This paper aims to investigate the attributes and information content of risk reporting in two different institutional and regulatory, namely, Canadian and German, settings during…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the attributes and information content of risk reporting in two different institutional and regulatory, namely, Canadian and German, settings during the period surrounding the financial crisis of 2008.
Design/methodology/approach
For a matched sample of manufacturing firms in the period 2006–2010, this study conducts a detailed content analysis of annual reports to assess and compare the volume and patterns of risk disclosures. Panel regressions are used to explore how risk disclosures related to corporate risk proxies and performance indicators.
Findings
Over the sample period, Canadian and German firms increase the volume but largely maintain the patterns of risk disclosures. Risk disclosures relate to corporate risk proxies but are not incrementally informative to assess firm performance.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to research on risk reporting by providing detailed cross-country evidence for a period particularly shaped by significant risk. The findings have implications for the regulation and usefulness of risk reporting.
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Dr J. H. Mitchell, who was a member of the Editorial Board of this journal since its foundation in 1972, died at his home in Paisley, Scotland, on the morning of 7 August 1988, at…
Abstract
Dr J. H. Mitchell, who was a member of the Editorial Board of this journal since its foundation in 1972, died at his home in Paisley, Scotland, on the morning of 7 August 1988, at the age of 59. This is, indeed, a tragic loss. The medical and computer worlds are very much poorer for the loss of a pioneer and outstanding contributor to knowledge in the domain of the applications of computers in medicine. I am also mourning the passing of a loyal friend and splendid collaborator over a period of more than 20 years.
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The new Lloyd's Corporation building seems to be unique in terms of its exterior cleaning requirements as in so many other aspects. John Mitchell, Facilities Manager for the 1986…
Abstract
The new Lloyd's Corporation building seems to be unique in terms of its exterior cleaning requirements as in so many other aspects. John Mitchell, Facilities Manager for the 1986 Lloyd's building, is responsible for managing and maintaining a building unlike any other, and cannot look to colleagues for experience and advice.
This paper is an initial attempt to discuss the American institutionalist movement as it changed and developed after 1945. Institutionalism in the inter-war period was a…
Abstract
This paper is an initial attempt to discuss the American institutionalist movement as it changed and developed after 1945. Institutionalism in the inter-war period was a relatively coherent movement held together by a set of general methodological, theoretical, and ideological commitments (Rutherford, 2011). Although institutionalism always had its critics, it came under increased attack in the 1940s, and faced challenges from Keynesian economics, a revived neoclassicism, econometrics, and from new methodological approaches derived from various versions of positivism. The institutionalist response to these criticisms, and particularly the criticism that institutionalism “lacked theory,” is to be found in a variety of attempts to redefine institutionalism in new theoretical or methodological terms. Perhaps the most important of these is to be found in Clarence Ayres’ The Theory of Economic Progress (1944), although there were many others. These developments were accompanied by a significant amount of debate, disagreement, and uncertainty over future directions. Some of this is reflected in the early history of The Association for Evolutionary Economics.
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William McColloch and Matías Vernengo
The rise of the regulatory state during the Gilded Age was closely associated with the development of institutionalist ideas in American academia. In their analysis of the…
Abstract
The rise of the regulatory state during the Gilded Age was closely associated with the development of institutionalist ideas in American academia. In their analysis of the emergent regulatory environment, institutionalists like John Commons operated with a fundamentally marginalist theory of value and distribution. This engagement is a central explanation for the ultimate ascendancy of neoclassical economics, and the limitations of the regulatory environment that emerged in the Progressive Era. The eventual rise of the Chicago School and its deregulatory ambitions did constitute a rupture, but one achieved without rejecting preceding conceptions of competition and value. The substantial compatibility of the view of markets underlying both the regulatory and deregulatory periods is stressed, casting doubt about the transformative potential of the resurgent regulatory impulse in the New Gilded Age.
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In the 1960s those on the political left flattered themselves that the vast number of publications by socialists, anarchists, feminists, and other groups on that wing of the…
Abstract
In the 1960s those on the political left flattered themselves that the vast number of publications by socialists, anarchists, feminists, and other groups on that wing of the political spectrum were evidence of the rich intellectual life of the struggle to create a progressive America. Conversely, the lack of publishing by the right was evidence of a general lack of intelligence. But that was then, and this is most certainly now. The right in America has moved from margin to center over the last two decades, vindicating former Attorney General John Mitchell's boast that “the country is going so far to the right that you won't recognize it.”
Ashleigh Djachenko, Winsome St John and Creina Mitchell
Prisoners are vulnerable to tobacco addiction and have a smoking prevalence significantly higher than that of the general community. The context of this study was the…
Abstract
Purpose
Prisoners are vulnerable to tobacco addiction and have a smoking prevalence significantly higher than that of the general community. The context of this study was the implementation of a “smoke-free prisons” policy, which imposed forced smoking cessation onto the Queensland, Australian prison population. The study asked the question: “What are the psychosocial processes in which male prisoners engage during smoking cessation in a smoke-free environment?”
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative interviews were conducted with 15 prisoners in South-east Queensland smoke-free correctional centres. Grounded theory methodology was applied to construct a theory of the processes of smoking cessation.
Findings
The constructed theory was named Engaging with Quitting. In this model, prisoners proceed through a cycle of evaluations, adjustments and reflections on their reality as related to the smoke-free prison. The study gives first-hand accounts of the prisoners’ use (and abuse) of nicotine replacement therapy. Three personality typologies emerged from the data: The Angry Smoker, the Shifting Opportunist and the Optimistic Quitter.
Research limitations/implications
This qualitative study makes no claim of generalisability and cannot be taken to represent all prisoners. Females, youths and culturally diverse prisoners were not represented in the sample.
Practical implications
Smoking cessation in prisons must be recognised as an ongoing process, rather than a discrete event. A coordinated approach between custodial and health authorities is required to minimise maladaptive coping strategies.
Originality/value
This study provides a descriptive account of the processes prisoners undertake during involuntary smoking cessation and has described the manner in which prisoners manufacture home-made tobacco from nicotine patches. The study has produced an original theory named Engaging with Quitting.
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The singular success of Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. in rescuing IBM from dismemberment and destruction in terms of his shifting the institutional memory of 300,000 employees from…
Abstract
Purpose
The singular success of Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. in rescuing IBM from dismemberment and destruction in terms of his shifting the institutional memory of 300,000 employees from corporate politics to customer service focus, has been expalined memory management explain failures as well?
Design/methodology/approach
Chacko (memory management in survival decisions of corportions 1956‐2003, Barmarick Publications, UK, 2006) published a sequence of ordered procedures (protocol) of memory management: memory management disequilibria dimensions (MD)2 protocol. This paper applies the protocol to the birth and death of the GO computer.
Findings
The memory management disequilibria dimensions (MD)2 protocol analyzes accurately the Jerry Kaplan narrative of founding on August 14, 1987, the GO corporation to AT&T firing the last remaining employees of EO, the spin‐off of GO on July 29, 1994. (MD)2 Step 1: Chief Ntrapreneur officer will to win became a casualty, founder CTO/CNO Kaplan reflecting that money wasn’t the problem, but loss of faith of the chief financial officer on the viability, of the Software VP on the development schedules, of the CEO on market momentum, and of the CTO/ECO on the “stick‐to‐itveness” of the new management team.
Orginality/value
The habit patterns of thought and action that make a corporation/country unique are instructed/inscribed in individual/institional memory. This paper demonstrates that the (MD)2 protocol explains both success and failure, providing a basis to make memory management effective.
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