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Article
Publication date: 11 May 2021

Hisahiro Ishijima, Noriyuki Miyamoto, Fares Masaule and Raynold John

The purpose of this study is to see how the 5S-KAIZEN-TQM approach can contribute to improve the management of healthcare waste (HCW) in the regional level public hospitals in…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to see how the 5S-KAIZEN-TQM approach can contribute to improve the management of healthcare waste (HCW) in the regional level public hospitals in Tanzania.

Design/methodology/approach

This study employed an explanatory case study framework and focused on improvement of HCW management by assessing the information obtained through the direct observation and systematic interviewing during the consultation visits and external hospital performance assessment (EHPA) and the self-administrated questionnaires as sources of evidence.

Findings

Based on the observations, 100% adoption of the 5S approach was observed in 25 of 28 regional referral hospitals (RRHs). At these RRHs, segregation of HCW management has been improved by applying color codes and symbols for establishing self-explanatory system on proper segregation. In addition, seven out of 28 RRHs applied the KAIZEN process and reduced occurrences of improper waste segregation.

Research limitations/implications

This study has the following limitations in terms of the information. The data were collected through the direct observation. Moreover, areas for the implementation of the KAIZEN vary from hospital to hospital, and only 25% of RRHs completed the KAIZEN processes for improvement of HCW management. Caveats are, therefore, needed in extrapolating the study results to other settings. Despite these caveats, the findings will provide important insights for implementing the 5S-KAIZEN approach in Tanzania and other African countries for improvement of HCW management.

Originality/value

This is an original study to provide evidence about the usefulness of the 5S-KAIZEN-TQM approach for improving HCW management in a low-income country in Africa.

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Book part
Publication date: 16 December 2017

Masazumi Wakatabe

This chapter investigates the nature of the transformation of macroeconomics by focusing on the impact of the Great Depression on economic doctrines. There is no doubt that the…

Abstract

This chapter investigates the nature of the transformation of macroeconomics by focusing on the impact of the Great Depression on economic doctrines. There is no doubt that the Great Depression exerted an enormous influence on economic thought, but the exact nature of its impact should be examined more carefully. In this chapter, I examine the transformation from a perspective which emphasizes the interaction between economic ideas and economic events, and the interaction between theory and policy rather than the development of economic theory. More specifically, I examine the evolution of what became known as macroeconomics after the Depression in terms of an ongoing debate among the “stabilizers” and their critics. I further suggest using four perspectives, or schools of thought, as measures to locate the evolution and transformation; the gold standard mentality, liquidationism, the Treasury view, and the real-bills doctrine. By highlighting these four economic ideas, I argue that what happened during the Great Depression was the retreat of the gold standard mentality, the complete demise of liquidationism and the Treasury view, and the strange survival of the real-bills doctrine. Each of those transformations happened not in response to internal debates in the discipline, but in response to government policies and real-world events.

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Including a Symposium on New Directions in Sraffa Scholarship
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78714-539-9

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Book part
Publication date: 3 December 2014

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.

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Alternative Agrifood Movements: Patterns of Convergence and Divergence
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78441-089-6

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Article
Publication date: 17 May 2013

Alastair Michael Smith

The purpose of the article is to move beyond positivistic political economy analysis of fair trade, and to examine competitive dynamics between competing interpretations in terms…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of the article is to move beyond positivistic political economy analysis of fair trade, and to examine competitive dynamics between competing interpretations in terms of the very fair trade concept itself.

Design/methodology/approach

Grounded in an ideational ontology, the paper provides a theoretical framework concerned with the contestation of meaning. Analysis applies this framework through a heuristic reading of fair trade's history, drawing on secondary literature, documents and primary qualitative research; and the discursive construction of Fair for Life – a new programme seeking to negotiate the “constitutive rules” of fair trade.

Findings

The article identifies that the history of fair trade and its current competitive dynamics are constituted by a negotiation and contestation of the constitutive rules that set the parameters of the fair trade concept.

Research limitations/implications

The paper complements political economy analysis of socially constructed governance such as fair trade, and adds value to academic analysis by exposing important, yet previously unconsidered, micro‐politics of language and practice. The description and initial analysis of “Fair for Life” opens a new area of empirical interest for scholars of fair trade and sustainability governance.

Practical implications

Analysis highlighting the important implication of discourse and practice for the very definition of fair trade offers practitioners important insights into little considered implication of their practices and their representations in language.

Originality/value

The article complements political economy analysis by demonstrating the value of an ideationally grounded analysis of fair trade and similar socially constructed governance systems.

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Article
Publication date: 1 January 2002

Alexander James Nicholls

Notes that there has been a significant increase in the market for fair trade products in the UK over the past five years. Provides a definition of fair trade and goes on to set a…

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Abstract

Notes that there has been a significant increase in the market for fair trade products in the UK over the past five years. Provides a definition of fair trade and goes on to set a context for the expansion of this market by examining the key drivers behind it, particularly noting the growth of ethical consumerism as a contributory factor. Develops the ethical strategy matrix, outlining the strategic options open to retailers for addressing this increase in ethical consumerism. It is argued that addressing the fair trade market in the UK offers retailers not only the opportunity to develop their profile in terms of corporate social responsibility, but also a chance to develop a competitive advantage in a new niche market. Recasts Strong’s marketing analysis of the difficulties of translating fair trade principles into actual purchase behaviour into an operational context and proposes solutions to the issues raised.

Details

International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, vol. 30 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-0552

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Book part
Publication date: 22 May 2015

Angus Nurse

While corporations may embrace the concepts of social and environmental responsibility, numerous examples exist to show corporations claiming to act sustainably and responsibly…

Abstract

Purpose

While corporations may embrace the concepts of social and environmental responsibility, numerous examples exist to show corporations claiming to act sustainably and responsibly, while simultaneously showing disregard for the communities in which they operate and causing considerable environmental damage.

This chapter argues that such activities illustrate a particular notion of Baumol’s (1990) criminal entrepreneurialism where both creative and constructive compliance combine to subvert environmental regulation and its enforcement.

Design/methodology/approach

This chapter employs a case study approach assessing the current corporate environmental responsibility landscape against the reality of corporate environmental offending. Its case study shows seemingly repeated environmental offending by Shell Oil against a backdrop of the company claiming to have integrated environmental monitoring and scrutiny into its operating procedures.

Findings

The chapter concludes that corporate assertion of environmental credentials is itself often a form of criminal entrepreneurship where corporations embrace voluntary codes of practice and self-regulation while internally promoting the drive for success and profitability and/or avoidance of the costs of true environmental compliance deemed too high. As a result, this chapter argues that responsibility for environmental damage requires regulation to ensure corporate responsibility for environmental damage.

Originality/value

The chapter employs a green criminological perspective to its analysis of corporate social responsibility and entrepreneurship. Thus, it considers not only just strict legal definitions of crime and criminal behaviour but also the overlap between the legal and the illegal and the preference of governments to use administrative or civil penalties as tools to deal with corporate environmental offending.

Details

Exploring Criminal and Illegal Enterprise: New Perspectives on Research, Policy & Practice
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78441-551-8

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Article
Publication date: 1 September 1980

John McCafferty

How can we encourage and help managers to become more innovative in their problem‐solving and decision‐making, so that the commitment of today's resources to the future leads to…

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Abstract

How can we encourage and help managers to become more innovative in their problem‐solving and decision‐making, so that the commitment of today's resources to the future leads to the achievement of appropriate long‐term strategies for their companies? It is inevitable that this article can attempt to cover only a small area of the ground, and it would be naive to offer solutions which should be situationally determined. However, I feel that consideration should be given to such important issues as:

Details

Education + Training, vol. 22 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0040-0912

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Article
Publication date: 26 September 2007

Bob Doherty and Sophi Tranchell

The purpose of this paper is to further develop the recent discourse surrounding the mainstreaming of fairtrade (FT) products, particularly the concepts of “radical…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to further develop the recent discourse surrounding the mainstreaming of fairtrade (FT) products, particularly the concepts of “radical mainstreaming”, “clean‐wash” and “the Alternative High Street”. The research investigates the pros and cons of mainstreaming FT in the concentrated UK retail sector via the exemplar of The Day Chocolate Company.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper draws on a longitudinal case study of one of the original “trail blazers” for FT in the mainstream, the 100 per cent FT social enterprise, The Day Chocolate Company (Day). The authors possess special insight to this pioneering FT model due to their unique experience of working at Day and the lead author's research, which includes findings from a series of in depth semi‐structured interviews with key informants.

Findings

With particular reference to the concepts Clean‐wash/ “Fair Trade Lite” the paper critically analyses the advantages and disadvantages of mainstreaming FT. The paper demonstrates how radical mainstreaming by 100 per cent FT companies can actually strengthen the transformative message of FT and not undermine the original ethical interest. Their ability to communicate a more complex deep message to a wider audience via unique FT brands allows radical mainstreaming companies to raise the bar and avoid the dangers of Clean‐wash. Finally the paper illustrates the significance of the Alternative High Street for radical mainstreaming companies.

Research limitations/implications

The radical mainstreaming innovation in the paper demonstrates the value of intangibles such as relationships and networks. This means companies such as Day, could be better positioned than their private sector rivals to take advantage of the new dominant logic of marketing as it uses more operant resources to co‐create value between producers, retailers and consumers. Further research will investigate in more depth the nature of those operant resources.

Originality/value

This paper will be of interest to all key stakeholders within the FT movement including marketing professionals and other “values‐driven organisations” such as social enterprises. This research shows that sales in the UK mainstream retail market are not enough in maintaining the original ethical interests of FT; you need business models such as Day, that share power and value added between Southern and Northern partners. Further development of such radical mainstreaming business models is key to strengthening both sales and the original transformative message of FT.

Details

Equal Opportunities International, vol. 26 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0261-0159

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Book part
Publication date: 19 September 2006

John Wilkinson

This chapter reviews the recent polarisation of debates in agrofood and rural studies, in particular the opposition between network (social relations, actor-network) and political…

Abstract

This chapter reviews the recent polarisation of debates in agrofood and rural studies, in particular the opposition between network (social relations, actor-network) and political economy analyses. It explores the contributions of different network approaches and draws on the French convention and regulation traditions, which provide alternative guidelines for confronting micro–macro tensions. Networks have similarly assumed analytical centrality in the new institutional economics and subsequent elaborations of the Williamsonian transaction costs paradigm have involved an approximation to some of the central tenets of social network analysis. Alternative traditions of political economy analysis (Global Value Chains (GVC), Global Production Networks) are now making an important contribution to agrofood studies. A distinctive feature of these analysts is their overture to social networks, actor-network, transaction costs and convention theory in the effort to capture the multiple dimensions of economic power and coordination. The possibilities for a fruitful convergence between these apparently conflicting approaches are best captured in the emergence of the concept of the “netchain”. At the same time, the intractability of values to absorption within economic transactions suggests the need to move forward to a focus on the tensions between netchains and social movements and a different type of network, the global policy network.

Details

Between the Local and the Global
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-417-1

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Book part
Publication date: 1 September 2008

Catherine S. Dolan

This chapter examines the Kenyan Fairtrade flower as a site of value making, one that provides a constructive lens into how moral obligation and ethical accountability are shaped…

Abstract

This chapter examines the Kenyan Fairtrade flower as a site of value making, one that provides a constructive lens into how moral obligation and ethical accountability are shaped by risk perceptions and become visible through the process of transnational commodity exchange. Specifically, it argues that while Fairtrade labeling responds to the risks of corporate capitalism through consumption practices predicated on extending care and compassion to distant communities, it is also embedded within commodity chains that advance liberal ethics as a mode of “governmentality” over African producers. These ethics are associated with new technologies of information gathering, regulation, and surveillance that simultaneously assuage consumers’ anxieties and channel their sympathy-based humanism into new forms of ethical normativity. Fairtrade's relational ethic, for example, is accompanied by a private regulatory assemblage that authorizes certain knowledge forms, thereby circumscribing the social and economic rights available as well as the form of personhood through which they can be claimed. Thus, although Fairtrade is cast as morally unproblematic, it can also serve as a mechanism through which specific interests are naturalized and circulated through a benevolent vernacular of economic and social rights.

Details

Hidden Hands in the Market: Ethnographies of Fair Trade, Ethical Consumption, and Corporate Social Responsibility
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84855-059-9

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