Nicolas Kachaner, Kermit King and Sam Stewart
The authors identify the practices that the companies that get the most benefit from their strategic-planning activities have in common:
Abstract
Purpose
The authors identify the practices that the companies that get the most benefit from their strategic-planning activities have in common:
Design/methodology/approach
The authors describe how successful companies achieve better strategic planning: They explore strategy at distinct time horizons. They constantly reinvent and stimulate the strategic dialogue. They engage the broad organization. They invest in execution and monitoring.
Findings
By focusing a standard process on addressing new questions, the strategic dialogue will remain rich, because participants will have new analyses to consider and fundamentally different ideas to discuss; so strategists – and business leaders – have to learn the “art of questioning.””
Practical implications
A good approach is to ask the leaders of the business units to identify the most important questions that the center should be asking them in today’s turbulent competitive environments.”
Originality/value
An high-value overview of strategic planning for the novice and seasoned practitioner alike. A well-chosen extended strategy team and an always-on monthly strategy assessment process can be a powerful early-warning system.
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Kay Greasley, Alan Bryman, Andrew Dainty, Andrew Price, Robby Soetanto and Nicola King
This study aims to examine how empowerment is perceived by individuals employed on construction projects. In contrast with previous research which has predominantly been conducted…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine how empowerment is perceived by individuals employed on construction projects. In contrast with previous research which has predominantly been conducted from a management perspective, this paper deals with employee perceptions of empowerment.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative approach was adopted for this study employing in‐depth interviews on four major construction projects.
Findings
The findings from the study indicate that there can be a gap between the employee experience and the management rhetoric. Health and Safety issues were often cited by the employees as a major barrier to empowerment. The strict Health and Safety regulations under which construction employees operate limit their freedom to influence the work that they undertake. A further factor that was found to have a strong influence on the diffusion of empowerment was the role of the employees’ immediate supervisor.
Research limitations/implications
The data are based on case studies that illuminate our understanding of empowerment in relation to construction projects. This area of research would benefit from alternative research approaches that could establish the generalizability of the findings reported.
Originality/value
This article explores the notion that, as empowerment is a perception, management cannot easily regulate employees’ empowerment. This emphasises the importance of exploring employee perspectives when examining employee empowerment and its impact on workplace relations.
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Purpose – This chapter explores my responses to Carolyn Steedman’s Landscape for a Good Woman (1986) as a historian and an educated working-class woman and considers the ‘blind…
Abstract
Purpose – This chapter explores my responses to Carolyn Steedman’s Landscape for a Good Woman (1986) as a historian and an educated working-class woman and considers the ‘blind spots’ in some commentary on the book. The aim of this study is to unpick understandings of subjectivity, class and education in certain kinds of academic text.
Methodology/Approach – The chapter draws on a qualitative analysis of works of history and cultural studies and reflections on the author’s own emotions and experiences.
Findings – Education and class are equally important in the experiences of educated working-class people, but there are considerable difficulties in communicating these different aspects of selfhood and in ensuring they are understood.
Originality/Value – ‘Autobiographical histories’ as a form, and the use of the first person in contexts where it is not usually accepted, provide new possibilities of identification and knowledge for marginalised peoples. ‘Vulnerable writing’ therefore has a political purpose.
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Snow White is one of the most popular fairy tales worldwide. Therefore, it is not surprising that the story has been reconsidered multiple times during the current trend of…
Abstract
Snow White is one of the most popular fairy tales worldwide. Therefore, it is not surprising that the story has been reconsidered multiple times during the current trend of producing fairy tale adaptations. Especially the Evil Queen has become an object of further examination in many recent instalments of the story. In this chapter, I analyse the revision of Snow White's stepmother in the book series The Lunar Chronicles (2012–2016), the films Mirror Mirror (2012), Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) and The Huntsman: Winter's War (2016), as well as the TV-series Once Upon a Time (2011–2018). Compared to other villains in recent fairy tale adaptations, who are, like Maleficent, redeemed, the queen remains an embodiment of evil and terror in most adaptations. I outline the depiction of the Evil Queen in present-day US-American fairy tale narratives, assessing what makes her the most villainous woman in all the fairy tale realms and questioning why many of these stories try to understand but do not forgive her. The focus of this investigation is on the backstory that she is equipped with, her crimes, and her ultimate fate. Although she has been abused, traumatized, and betrayed, she seems to remain an uber villain, not only attempting to kill her stepdaughter but also destroying nature, starving her people, and spreading a deadly virus. This kind of representation might result from the fact that her opponent is by the very name the purest fairy tale princess ever known.
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Rosie Morrow, Alison Rodriguez and Nigel King
The purpose of this paper is to explore the perceived wellbeing benefits of the unstructured camping experience for young adults.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the perceived wellbeing benefits of the unstructured camping experience for young adults.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a cross-sectional descriptive phenomenological study. Young adults between the ages of 21 and 30 years with recent experiences of camping were invited to participate in the study. A descriptive phenomenological approach was taken, involving photograph-guided semi-structured interviews and Colaizzi’s seven-stage analysis framework. Ethical approval was granted by the university where the study was managed.
Findings
Four female participants were interviewed; each interview lasted approximately 60 minutes in duration. Unstructured camping holidays were perceived to heighten general perceptions of health and wellbeing. Five themes emerged: “Getting away”, “Appreciation of the Natural Environment”, “Relationship Maintenance”, “Tranquility and Relaxation” and “Freedom and Adventure/Exploration”. The unstructured nature of the activity encouraged participant’s freewill to appreciate the natural environment and to engage in physical activity. Escape from everyday stressors to a tranquil environment provided the space and time to think and talk, relax and be active.
Originality/value
Green care initiatives could use the unstructured camping experience, or what the authors have framed as the “back to basics” model of camping, as a tool to promote general health and wellbeing in clinical and non-clinical young adult populations. Further research is needed to substantiate the evidence base, especially to probe further around the benefits of the spontaneity of the “back to basics” camping experience, in contrast to the structured group camp experiences the authors advocate in the UK and overseas for children’s leisure or health purposes.
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Through an analysis of the French crown's investigation into the greatest scandal of Louis XIV's reign, this article examines the unstable boundary between sin and crime at the…
Abstract
Through an analysis of the French crown's investigation into the greatest scandal of Louis XIV's reign, this article examines the unstable boundary between sin and crime at the height of the Catholic Reformation in France. The prosecution of the suspects in the Affair of the Poisons, it argues, allowed a key change in the French state's definition of crime. In 1682, the crown decriminalized magic. It continued to prosecute “so-called magicians,” however, because their practices were deemed sacrilegious. Any person convicted of “treason against God” was therefore sentenced to the most severe form of execution inflicted under French law: to be burnt alive. Louis XIV's determination to ensure social order and religious orthodoxy was made manifest in the state's rituals of punishment.