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Considers the recent increase of violence in the workplace, citing specific situations. Outlines the impact on the workplace in relation to areas such as morale, productivity, communication and responsibility. Covers the legal obligations and responsibilities of employers before profiling a case study of a government department. Provides details of the assessment and the findings together with recommendations for future improvement.

Investigates conflict in the workplace and states that mediation is beneficial to both employees and employers. Suggests that managers should cultivate team communication, and collaborative problem‐solving skills in employees who serve on problem‐solving teams. Summarizes that managers who serve as mediators can learn the root cause of conflicts in organizations, and aid employees to deal with the problems.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the relationship between the number of waves a surfer will catch, the surfer’s characteristics, and the surf conditions; and utilize this relationship to explain wave allocation strategies chosen by surfers.

The study employed a discrete event simulation to model surfers at a well-known surf break in Southern California. Several experimental designs were implemented in the simulation to measure the effect of a surfer’s characteristics and surf conditions on waves caught; and compare different wave allocation strategies.

The number of waves that a surfer will catch is largely dependent upon the surfer’s skill level and the wave allocation strategy used at the surf break. Common wave allocation strategies fail with large crowds.

This study is the first to model the entire lineup at a surf break, providing quantitative insights into why surfers choose different wave allocation strategies.

This paper analyses what is seen as a crisis of authority in financial reporting. It considers the view that an element of authority may be restored to accounting through communicative reason. The paper argues that the justice‐oriented rationality of traditional, Habermasian, communicative ethics is incapable of providing a solid foundation for the re‐authorisation of financial reporting. The paper argues that a more adequate foundation might be found in an enlarged communicative ethics that allows space to the other of justice‐oriented reason. The inspiration for the enlargement is found in Ricoeur's analysis of narrative, his exploration of its role in the figuration of identity, and in his biblical hermeneutics which reveals the necessity of an active dialectic of love and justice.

This chapter examines similarities in government policies that have accelerated and privatized the extraction of offshore oil, coal, and oil sands on public lands in the United States and Canada, as well as the arguments used to justify those policies. Sociologist William Freudenburg argued that the diversion of public resources into private hands was made possible by a second diversion, the diversion of attention. Freudenburg, with Gramling, later applied this concept to U.S. offshore oil leases, noting that when it came to offshore oil, the myth of “energy independence” was often used to justify policies that were actually antithetical to the concept, promoting further dependence on fossil fuels. We extend the double diversion concept from offshore oil to U.S. coal and Alberta oil sands, noting the similarities in both the policy changes and the diversionary frameworks. The frameworks also divert attention from the increasing risks associated with energy extraction.

Investigates the dimensions of accounting information prepared for use in managing non‐corporate pastoral entities in pre‐Federation Western Victoria and the local, time‐specific environmental factors which shaped these dimensions. Based on examinations of 23 sets of surviving business records prepared during 1836‐1900, provides evidence of the structure and usage of pastoral accounting information in an unregulated financial reporting environment. Draws conclusions about the likely impact of cultural, legal and political, professional, educational, economic and other factors as key explanatory variables. Also argues a case for lost relevance based on the evidence of accounting change in the closing decades of the nineteenth century.

Wages have been spreading out across workers over time – or in other words, the 90th/50th wage ratio has risen over time. A key question is, has the productivity distribution also spread out across worker skill levels over time? Using our calculations of productivity by skill level for the United States, we show that the distributions of both wages and productivity have spread out over time, as the right tail lengthens for both. We add Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) countries, showing that the wage–productivity correlation exists, such that gains in aggregate productivity, or GDP per person, have resulted in higher wages for workers at the top and bottom of the wage distribution. However, across countries, those workers in the upper-income ranks have seen their wages rise the most over time. The most likely international factor explaining these wage increases is the skill-biased technological change of the digital revolution. The new artificial intelligence (AI) revolution that has just begun seems to be having similar skill-biased effects on wages. But this current AI, called “supervised learning,” is relatively similar to past technological change. The AI of the distant future will be “unsupervised learning,” and it could eventually have an effect on the jobs of the most highly skilled.

THE ANCIENT and royal burgh of Stirling, at one time the capital of Scotland, was at the turn of the century the county town of Stirlingshire and the centre of a thriving agricultural community. With the exception of a carpet and woollen mill and some neighbouring coal mines, there was little industry in the town. This was reflected in its social structure. There was growing up in the village of Raploch, beneath the castle rock, a sizeable Irish community of labourers and artisans, but of a population of around 20,000 in 1900, middle class businessmen and shopkeepers predominated. The town's structure in turn was reflected in the nature of the Town Council, which, although not always conservative in politics, was generally conservative when faced with innovation, be it a swimming pool or a modern town centre. This might explain why in Stirling the public library movement was late in starting, nearly 25 years after the Public Libraries (Scotland) Act of 1870 authorising the use for library purposes of 1 d. in the £ from the rates. It might also explain why there was some opposition from the Town Council to providing for the upkeep of the library after its foundation.

After briefly covering Bill Freudenburg’s early years, this essay reviews his major scholarly contributions and professional accomplishments while a faculty member at Washington State University, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of California-Santa Barbara. Bill’s unique strengths – especially his keen sociological imagination – and crucial conceptual, theoretical and empirical contributions are highlighted, as well as his commitment to providing valuable mentoring for students and colleagues. The enduring importance of his work is ensured by the continuing application and extension of his ideas by other scholars.

The history of the public library is long and rich, and continues to reflect this institution's initial mission: to respond to the needs of an evolving democratic society. From its early days as a subscription service for the middle-class, through its evolution to become an educational site for the lower-classes and new immigrants, the public library has served as a touch-stone for urban industrial society in North America (Lerner, 1998, p. 138; Shera, 1974). Over the past century, public libraries have evolved to respond to the growing needs of the communities they serve and continue to do so with recent advances in technologies (such as DVDs, electronic books, the Internet, etc.), and with a more global outlook on the ways that people seek and share information. Indeed, the public library's constituents today are exceedingly diverse, including children and adults from a broad range of socio-economic, cultural, and educational backgrounds, all of whom seek information for a variety of personal and work-related purposes. The fact that public libraries have been fulfilling patrons' information needs for well over a century is a testament to their enduring success and versatility as information providers, and also points to the overall effectiveness of public librarians as intermediaries in the provision process.