City of Bristol College has significant experience of developing and delivering Higher Apprenticeships (HAs). The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of delivering HAs…
Abstract
Purpose
City of Bristol College has significant experience of developing and delivering Higher Apprenticeships (HAs). The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of delivering HAs in the engineering sector.
Design/methodology/approach
Information presented in the paper is drawn from the organisation's own experience delivering an HA programme and presents key issues and challenges that it has faced.
Findings
Recent studies within the sector have highlighted dissatisfaction amongst employers that the competence and knowledge elements of apprenticeships traditionally offered were separated and that the “hand skills” elements were omitted from frameworks above level 3. Employers and sector‐wide bodies have worked together to develop a new framework containing all of these elements. Gaining recognition as an “undergraduate apprenticeship” this option is proving attractive for companies.
Originality/value
The paper is based on the author's own experience and employer consultation. It presents a case study of an apprenticeship programme specific to their organisation.
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This paper presents the theory of the global environmental system to explain the different climate change regimes emerging from advanced industrialized nations. Using data…
Abstract
This paper presents the theory of the global environmental system to explain the different climate change regimes emerging from advanced industrialized nations. Using data collected regarding the formation of domestic climate change regimes in the United States, Japan, and the Netherlands, the specifics of the theory are outlined. I begin by analyzing the expectations of some of the more prominent sociological theories about the society‐environment relationship in the advanced world finding that they do not explain the disparate responses to the regulation of greenhouse gases in these countries. The theory of the global environmental system is proposed as an alternative to the rather extreme expectations of the sociological literature on society/environment relationships. Through this proposed theory, we can better understand successful cases of global climate change regimes within the context of the interrelations among domestic and international actors.
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To those concerned with challenges and challengers to conventional wisdom, the entirely credible perception of ours as a planet in the midst of a deep environmental crisis offers…
Abstract
To those concerned with challenges and challengers to conventional wisdom, the entirely credible perception of ours as a planet in the midst of a deep environmental crisis offers fruitful grounds for analysis. Crises stimulate those who have, in the existence of the crisis, firm proof that the wisdom which girds the status quo is deficient and/or those who apply it are. This is particularly true when the crisis is perceived to be grave and dread‐laden. Skin cancer due to the depletion of the ozone layer is on the increase. Large, at times devastating, climate changes are loose upon the planet. Whether given quasi‐ scientific names like the “greenhouse effect” or lumped together in a melange of “acid rain”, “toxic waste” and “industrial cancers”, the result is the same. Rational citizens of the everyday‐person‐on‐the‐street sort feel threatened. The threat is given shape and substance by the mass media. The environmental crisis is a credible crisis. One need not list radical political activism as one's vocation to list the environmental crisis as one of one's fears as we enter the 1990's.
This paper provides a review of the progress made in both academic literature and corporate practice over the last forty years. Although there has been an increase in the number…
Abstract
This paper provides a review of the progress made in both academic literature and corporate practice over the last forty years. Although there has been an increase in the number of companies producing social and environmental reports, the quality of the disclosures has not increased. Further, there is little evidence of progress in the integration of social and environmental impacts into management decisions. The paper provides suggestions on research needs to increase the integration of social and environmental impacts into management decisions and improve both the internal reporting and external disclosures and accountability of corporations.
Douglas H. Constance, William H. Friedland, Marie-Christine Renard and Marta G. Rivera-Ferre
This introduction provides an overview of the discourse on alternative agrifood movements (AAMs) to (1) ascertain the degree of convergence and divergence around a common ethos of…
Abstract
This introduction provides an overview of the discourse on alternative agrifood movements (AAMs) to (1) ascertain the degree of convergence and divergence around a common ethos of alterity and (2) context the chapters of the book. AAMs have increased in recent years in response to the growing legitimation crisis of the conventional agrifood system. Some agrifood researchers argue that AAMs represent the vanguard movement of our time, a formidable counter movement to global capitalism. Other authors note a pattern of blunting of the transformative qualities of AAMs due to conventionalization and mainstreaming in the market. The literature on AAMs is organized following a Four Questions in Agrifood Studies (Constance, 2008) framework. The section for each Question ends with a case study to better illustrate the historical dynamics of an AAM. The literature review ends with a summary of the discourse applied to the research question of the book: Are AAMs the vanguard social movement of our time? The last section of this introduction provides a short description of each contributing chapter of the book, which is divided into five sections: Introduction; Theoretical and Conceptual Framings; Food Sovereignty Movements; Alternative Movements in the Global North; and Conclusions.
Jan Svanberg, Peter Öhman and Presha E. Neidermeyer
The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether transformational leadership affects auditor objectivity.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether transformational leadership affects auditor objectivity.
Design/methodology/approach
The investigation is based on a field survey of 198 practicing auditors employed by audit firms operating in Sweden.
Findings
This study finds that transformational client leadership negatively affects auditor objectivity and that the effect is only partially mediated by client identification. Given these results, suggesting that auditors are susceptible to influence by their clients’ perceived exercise of transformational leadership, leadership theory appears relevant to the discussion of auditor objectivity in the accounting literature.
Originality/value
Previous accounting research has applied the social identity theory framework and found that client identification impairs auditor objectivity. However, the effect of transformational client leadership on auditor objectivity, which reflects an intense auditor-client relationship, has been neglected before this study.
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In this chapter, I want to take some stock of the subdiscipline of environmental sociology. I believe that a productive approach to restoring some of the coherence of…
Abstract
In this chapter, I want to take some stock of the subdiscipline of environmental sociology. I believe that a productive approach to restoring some of the coherence of environmental sociology is to conceive of mainstream environmental sociology as reflecting several paradoxes. The bulk of this chapter will be devoted to a brief explication of environmental sociology's theoretical and empirical paradoxes. I will begin with three paradoxes that have played a major role in environmental sociology since the 1970s. However, many of the theoretical and empirical paradoxes of the subfield are relatively new ones – and some have not even been thought of as paradoxes. The thrust of the present chapter consists of something of a research agenda for environmental sociology for the next decade or so.