The Inclusive Libraries Project began in March 2009 and is due to be completed in March 2010. The practical outcome from the project has been the development of two inclusive…
Abstract
The Inclusive Libraries Project began in March 2009 and is due to be completed in March 2010. The practical outcome from the project has been the development of two inclusive public libraries in Birmingham. The libraries have bought new technology, books and other resources, and they have run projects for groups of people with learning disabilities from the local area. At the end of the project, there will also be a training DVD and booklet for other public libraries and learning disability services. The research design has enabled the researchers to survey public libraries in the Midlands and other parts of the country and then conduct action research with the two libraries. Data are being collected mainly through observations and interviews.
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Penny Lacey and Jeanette Scull
There has been a policy for including pupils with severe, profound and multiple learning difficulties in mainstream schools in England since the 1980s. However, effective…
Abstract
There has been a policy for including pupils with severe, profound and multiple learning difficulties in mainstream schools in England since the 1980s. However, effective inclusive education has proved to be very difficult to achieve in practice. Currently, there is a mixed economy of special and mainstream schools offering inclusive education, and we argue that the place of education is less important than the quality of that education. Ideally, pupils with S/PMLD would be educated in their own local communities, alongside their non-disabled peers, but this situation is not yet established in English schools.
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Just‐in‐time (JIT) production methods were popularized by the excellent results achieved by Japanese industry. When it became evident during the 1970s that the Japanese were…
Abstract
Just‐in‐time (JIT) production methods were popularized by the excellent results achieved by Japanese industry. When it became evident during the 1970s that the Japanese were gaining markets previously dominated by Americans, there was considerable interest in learning how Japanese industry operates. Then, during the early 1980s, Toyota’s highly effective JIT production system had a particular appeal to Americans who were trying to understand Japanese production methods. While Taichi Ohno, creator of Toyota’s production system, credits Henry Ford as the originator, it is now known that Ernest Kanzler, one of Ford’s subordinates, played a major role in developing JIT production methods. This article reports Ford’s and Kanzler’s contributions and explores the possible influence that Frederick W. Taylor may have had on the development of this approach at the Ford Motor Company.
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WE have to announce with deep regret the death of Mr. I. Chalkley Gould, founder and director of the Library World since its establishment in 1898. Mr. Gould was a member of an…
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WE have to announce with deep regret the death of Mr. I. Chalkley Gould, founder and director of the Library World since its establishment in 1898. Mr. Gould was a member of an old Essex family associated with Loughton and its neighbourhood, and was born in 1844, his father being the late George Gould, of Traps Hill House, Loughton. His connection with the firm of Marlborough, Gould & Co. and other stationery and printing concerns led him many years ago to give some attention to library and museum work, towards which he had always been attracted because of his personal interest in archaeology and literature. In this way he became associated with many museums, libraries and antiquarian societies, and identified himself more particularly with the movement for the preservation of ancient British earthworks. He was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, vice‐president of the Essex Archaeological Society, the Essex Field Club, and the British Archaeological Association. Within recent years he acted as hon. secretary of the Committee for Recording Ancient Earthworks and Fortified Enclosures—a committee for the formation of which he was largely responsible and in the work of which he took a very deep interest. He was chairman of the Committee for the Exploration of the Red Hills of Essex—an important undertaking which is not yet completed. He also contributed several valuable papers to the Victoria History of Essex, and assisted the editor of that publication in revising the earthworks sections of other counties.
The social licence literature contains two quite different accounts of the concept. Sometimes social licence is presented as an essentially empirical matter; sometimes it is…
Abstract
The social licence literature contains two quite different accounts of the concept. Sometimes social licence is presented as an essentially empirical matter; sometimes it is portrayed as having normative significance. Both advocates and critics assume that the normative version is easy to generate from the empirical version but the author argues that it is difficult to account for the normativity of social licence. It is commonly claimed that social licence is a ‘metaphor’ or ‘analogy’ drawing on familiar understandings of institutional licences, and standard accounts purport to ‘build in’ normativity. Neither strategy establishes the normativity of social licence. If that is correct, we have reason to be sceptical about the normative significant of claims about the possession of empirical social licence. The approval or acceptance by affected communities may be one factor to be taken into account in such analysis, but it will not itself settle whether a practice ought to be approved or accepted or licenced.
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Successful incorporation of transducers into measuring devices depends on choosing the type most suited to the task.
The purpose of this paper is to test Chandler’s dictum that “unless structure follows strategy, inefficiency results” (Chandler, 1962, p. 314) by assessing the continuing efforts…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to test Chandler’s dictum that “unless structure follows strategy, inefficiency results” (Chandler, 1962, p. 314) by assessing the continuing efforts to align structure with strategy in the automobile industry from the turn of the century through the 1980s.
Design/methodology/approach
The historical analysis utilized conceptual mediation and moderation methodologies wherein the impacts of strategy on structure were mediated by their impacts on coordination and control, and moderated by external conditions such as uncertainty, variability, interdependence and asset specificity.
Findings
The findings demonstrate that structure followed differing strategies at General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, and provide strong support for Chandler’s dictum. The findings demonstrate the difficulties of maintaining alignment of strategy and structure with changes in the external competitive environment, and the severe consequences of a misalignment of strategy and structure. The findings also demonstrate that structure alone is not sufficient to implement strategy effectively, and that firms must judiciously utilize both internal firm and external market coordinating and control mechanisms to optimize performance.
Research limitations/implications
Limitations include that this is a study of a single industry over an extended, but specific time period.
Practical implications
Generalization is limited by a study of a single industry, but there are numerous implications for organizational design and strategy implementation that are not industry-specific.
Originality/value
Chandler’s dictum is often cited, but this is one of very few studies that demonstrate the relationship between specific organizational designs and company strategies, and the consequences of misaligning strategy and structure.