Search results

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the creation of a performing arts archive website, exploring impact in relation to the marketing and promotion of opera and understanding of opera history.

The paper sets out a case study reflection in relation to a social enterprise in the arts.

The paper confirms that development of a specialist or niche website is a slow process requiring significant effort and resource. Promotion draws on a variety of activities including networking, face-to-face selling, word of mouth and use of new media.

The paper summarises participant experience of launching a hobby website in the cultural sector. Constraints such as patchiness of coverage are noted together with the need for collaboration. Finally, qualitative examples of impact are identified and discussed to indicate directions for further development and research.

A case study offering insights and potential learning points for those considering such projects or in similar positions.

The project described is unique yet addresses a research problem noted by many. The paper highlights some areas for future collaboration and research both nationally and internationally.

In light of contemporary critiques of New Zealand comprehensive schooling published mainly in the popular press, it is timely to re‐examine the origins of and the rationale for the widespread adoption of this model of education. The comprehensive schooling philosophy, it was recently alleged, has produced a situation in which ‘as many as one in five pupils in the system is failing’ and where ‘there is a large group at the bottom who are not succeeding’. This group was estimated to include some 153,000 students out of the total current New Zealand student population of 765,000. In this context, however, Chris Saunders and Mike Williams, principals of Onehunga High School and Aorere College in Auckland respectively, have noted that having underachieving students in secondary schools in particular is not a recent phenomenon. A large ‘tail’ of poor performing high school students has long been a cause of concern, Williams suggests.

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a framework to guide learning and teaching practice in next generation learning spaces. The framework is informed by both learning and teaching theory and the current context of the sector. The framework provides guidance to those who teach in next generation learning spaces and is illustrated with examples of effective pedagogic practices that use the affordances of spaces while avoiding their limitations. The chapter discusses the tension between next generation learning space design and use. Design is influenced by drivers ranging from a need to accommodate ever-larger student numbers and responding to digital technologies and other developments in educational media, to providing for new approaches to learning. Use is determined by understandings of the teaching task, which can range from presentation by a teacher through to students working individually or in groups to generate meaningful knowledge, useful skills and professional values. In this chapter we identify drivers underpinning the creation and design of next generation learning spaces in universities today and associated expectations of the ways in which the spaces will be used. We reflect on understandings of sound pedagogic practice and work through to implications for learning and teaching in NGLS. In some cases advocated pedagogic practice asks teaching staff to make the most of spaces designed to allow students to engage constructively in their learning. In other cases it involves teaching constructively in spite of the design of the space.

This paper argues that we should better encourage our students to represent organisational life and their experience of it. Two options are discussed, the first one of which is to consider the adoption of a reflexive posture, in which the researcher reflects both on their own behaviour and of those they meet. The second might be to adopt some form of the clinical method employed by the psychotherapist. Whatever the options that are considered we should be working to foster the creation of case studies and narrative.

This paper has emerged out of recent and continuing empirical work carried out as part of a doctoral proposal to consider creativity, identity and survival in the microbusiness in general and, more specifically, the one‐person‐business (OPB). Inevitably therefore issues at the core of marketing and entrepreneurship are prominent. Some perspectives from Complexity Science are appealed to in an effort to understand better some of the behavioural patterns encountered in this sector and in the research for this thesis. I will consider what if any insights, applications and further avenues in the study of marketing and entrepreneurship are suggested by reassessing SMEs, micro businesses, the solo self‐employed and interpreting their behaviours in terms of complexity perspectives.

Using material from contemporary New Zealand experience as a case study, this paper presents a functional analysis of the organizational problems facing secondary schools, develops a typology of dilemmas posed as a result of these problems, and discusses the manner in which various educational agencies, including the central Department, Teachers' Organizations and the recent Educational Development Conference have attempted to persuade schools to resolve these dilemmas in particular ways. Comments are also made on the internal characteristics of schools which may influence their resolution of these dilemmas in different ways thus leading to a growing heterogeneity within the state educational system.

The study aims to empirically examine the impact of organizational culture on accounting information system and corporate performance of firms in Ghana.

A survey was conducted using top corporate executives of diverse firms from different industrial sectors. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) and a further post hoc test was done using analysis of variance (ANOVA).

The study demonstrates that there is a statistically significant relationship between organizational culture on accounting information system and corporate performance. The results indicate that mission, adaptability and consistency dimensions of organizational culture were significant and also accounting information system influences corporate performance. Moreover, there are significant differences in the means of accounting information system on different industrial sectors.

The study is limited to the extent that only overall profitability was used to measure performance. In addition, the study did not control for leadership style and organizational structure in the relationships. The implication of the study is that ethical culture-shaped accounting information system and financial reporting practice which ultimately leads to corporate performance.

Ghana is a developing country where structures and institutions are not well developed. Businesses and organizational forms are now beginning to pick up; therefore, organizational culture, accounting information systems and their impact on corporate performance are not well documented. These are all new phenomena in this part of the globe. The context of Ghana in terms of national culture that feeds into organizational culture, institutions, quality and application of accounting information is entirely different from that of advanced countries. The study therefore contributes to the extant literature by applying the constructs of organizational culture, accounting information system and corporate performance within a developing country perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of order on the quality of outcomes when making sequential decisions and test the widely‐held belief that choosing earlier is preferable and results in better outcomes than choosing later.

Quantitative performance from the sequence of athletic decisions made by the teams of the National Hockey League (NHL) at the annual amateur entry draft is longitudinally analyzed using a participation threshold of 160 games.

Analysis indicates that earlier choice does result in outcomes that are significantly and substantially better but that this effect is muted beyond approximately the first 100 decisions, after which there is no discernable advantage.

The dichotomous performance measure excludes more qualitative or stratified assessments of performance and does not include context of the individual decision choices. The results may not generalize beyond the National Hockey League or other human resource situations.

The research suggests that sequential decision processes are suboptimal in the presence of large amounts of information and choice. Recommendations include reallocating the amount of confirmatory attention spent on highly‐ranked candidates.

The paper exposes limitations to the widely‐held belief that choosing earlier is preferable to choosing later.