Brendan McSweeney and Sheila Duncan
Considers why different explanations of the same event can be produced and discusses the characteristics of a good explanation. It identifies and analyses a wide range of…
Abstract
Considers why different explanations of the same event can be produced and discusses the characteristics of a good explanation. It identifies and analyses a wide range of different published explanations of a seminal public administration policy‐change. It separates those accounts of that event into families of explanations and describes their common underlying presuppositions. These shared presuppositions are used to construct four models of public policy‐making: sovereign policy‐makers; policy‐makers as relays; policy‐making as the personal; and the discursive construction of policy. Each explanation (and its conceptual model) is challenged by historically grounded counter‐evidence. Based on this analysis the paper suggest ways in which analysis of public management changes might be more fruitfully orientated.
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The London Classiffcation of Business Studies (LCBS) has now been published for 3 years and is used by at least 17 British and 11 overseas libraries. Twenty‐eight users might not…
Abstract
The London Classiffcation of Business Studies (LCBS) has now been published for 3 years and is used by at least 17 British and 11 overseas libraries. Twenty‐eight users might not seem a great many, but for a specialist scheme it really represents a significant impact. The first impression of 400 copies was sold out within a year, and 200 copies of the second impression (June 1971) had been sold by the end of March 1973. It is reasonable to suppose that these 600 copies are having some influence on the organization of business literature throughout the world, and that more libraries are considering adopting LCBA than the six known to the London Business School.
The purpose of this paper is to describe and critique ways in which the threats from confirmation bias have been rejected.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe and critique ways in which the threats from confirmation bias have been rejected.
Design/methodology/approach
Dismissals of the existence of, or threats from, confirmation bias are identified from a review of literature across a very wide range of disciplines. The dismissals are robustly examined.
Findings
The dismissals are categorised as: (1) radical scepticism (2) consequentialism: and (3) denial. Each type of dismissal, it is argued, is flawed.
Originality/value
The three-fold structuring of confirmation bias dismissal is novel. In addition to drawing from organisation, management and wider social science literature, the article also uses arguments and examples from the creative arts.
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Birgit Helene Jevnaker and Inge Hill
This chapter investigates heritage craft entrepreneurship ‘in the wild’, creative start-ups emerging within a rural context in Norway and the UK. The research asks how…
Abstract
This chapter investigates heritage craft entrepreneurship ‘in the wild’, creative start-ups emerging within a rural context in Norway and the UK. The research asks how entrepreneurs accomplish heritage craft entrepreneuring. To answer this question, we apply relational ontology, conceptualising entrepreneurship as the ongoing accomplishment of entrepreneurial activities, labelled entrepreneuring. We compare two rural heritage craft businesses: Running a spinnery located on a farm in a valley in Norway and a tweed-based textile creating organisation, co-located with other artisan entrepreneurs positioning in a community-led craft heritage building in the United Kingdom. Both entrepreneuring settings employ heritage craft in their businesses and engage in various forms of collaborations and placemaking in their creative entrepreneuring. This chapter unpacks three facets of artisan entrepreneuring through the lens of placemaking – connecting, organising, and co-developing in rural settings. We contribute to the entrepreneurship-as-practice and creative entrepreneurship literature and highlight the implications of placemaking for rural development.
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To describe the implicit epistemic flaw of “confirmation bias” and to illustrate and evaluate the threats to qualitative research trustworthiness from that bias.
Abstract
Purpose
To describe the implicit epistemic flaw of “confirmation bias” and to illustrate and evaluate the threats to qualitative research trustworthiness from that bias.
Design/methodology/approach
The article overviews evidence and analysis from a wide range of disciplines. The adverse effect of three varieties of confirmation bias is described in some detail in illustrative examples.
Findings
It is argued that the threats from the bias go to the heart of the research. A subsequent article summarizes and critiques counter-arguments.
Practical implications
Discussions and illustrations of varieties of confirmation bias can increase awareness of the unwitting bias and reduce its influence.
Social implications
The bias not only threatens the trustworthiness of academic and other professional research but also underpins much ideological extremism, the effectiveness of post-truth politics and inter- and intra-group conflict. These are directly discussed in the article.
Originality/value
The article extends and enriches descriptions of threats to the trustworthiness of qualitative from confirmation bias. Such threats are inadequately recognized in many qualitative research arenas. It identifies a previously unrecognized variety of confirmation bias: hollow citations.
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Lara Maestripieri, Sheila González Motos and Raquel Gallego
This chapter focusses on how early childhood education and care (ECEC) has been extended and configured in recent decades in advanced capitalistic countries. We will first set out…
Abstract
This chapter focusses on how early childhood education and care (ECEC) has been extended and configured in recent decades in advanced capitalistic countries. We will first set out the main societal benefits associated with public investment in ECEC and then discuss how neoliberalism and cutbacks in social services have coexisted with the expansion of ECEC as a social policy in recent years.
In particular, we will delve into the role of Social Investment as a policy framework that supports the expansion of ECEC in advanced capitalistic countries, and then we will highlight the challenges that ECEC faces in terms of universalisation and diversity of needs, areas in which social innovation (both citizen and institution-led) is playing an emergent and growing role.
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Tiffany L. Gallagher and Sheila M. Bennett
The purpose of this paper is to identify a set of principles that are necessary to overcome the challenges that inclusion coaches encounter with teachers as they transition into…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify a set of principles that are necessary to overcome the challenges that inclusion coaches encounter with teachers as they transition into an inclusive service delivery model.
Design/methodology/approach
Online written reflections of 13 inclusion coaches (K-12) who were a part of a larger, mixed-methods research design are the primary data source. For the two years of the project, the inclusion coaches provided bi-annual reflections, each with 7-11 entries. The reflections were downloaded, coded, collapsed, and thematically presented as the inclusion coaches’ perspectives for supporting teachers’ inclusive classroom practices.
Findings
The findings are presented as six principles for the process of coaching teachers for inclusion: pre-requisite: teachers’ receptivity; process: from building trust to collaborating and reflecting; precipice: tension between knowledge and beliefs; promotion: administrative support; proof: evidence of change, impact, and capacity building; and promise: future of the role.
Practical implications
These six principles of coaching for inclusion offer considerations, conditions, and guides for inclusion coaches that are striving for fully inclusive classrooms in their jurisdictions. With a view to future practice, the six principles are reiterative as they should be revisited each time a coaching interaction is initiated in a school site and with a classroom teacher.
Originality/value
As a conclusion, a conceptual model is offered. This spiraling staircase displays the conditions that exist prior to coaching and during coaching interactions and considerations for coaching sustainability.
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SHEILA CORRALL, JANE LITTLE, ALLAN BUNCH, EDWIN FLEMING and WILFRED ASHWORTH
During 1982–84, BLR&DD supported a study of medical information and its use by practitioners. The problem of low usage of information services was investigated by looking at the…
Abstract
During 1982–84, BLR&DD supported a study of medical information and its use by practitioners. The problem of low usage of information services was investigated by looking at the characteristics of information itself and the consequences of not knowing — the penalties for ignorance. Experts were invited to contribute papers on information and communication problems in specialist areas, such as addiction, drugs, alcoholism and exotic diseases. In June 1984, a conference was organised to enable a larger group to discuss the issues raised and consider implications for information transfer. A recently‐published volume now brings together the ten specialist contributions, an overview of the project and a report of the conference. Consensus and penalties for ignorance in the medical sciences, edited by J Michael Brittain (BL R&D Report 5842) is published by Taylor Graham, at £15 (isbn 0—947568 03 4).
The problems of One‐Man‐Bands (OMBs) began to be taken seriously in the early 1980s when the Aslib OMB group was formed. The group received considerable attention in the…
Abstract
The problems of One‐Man‐Bands (OMBs) began to be taken seriously in the early 1980s when the Aslib OMB group was formed. The group received considerable attention in the professional press, and became the object of a study by Judith Collins and Janet Shuter who identified them as “information professionals working in isolation”. Many of the problems identified in the Collins/Shuter study remain — not least of these being the further education and training needs of OMBs. These needs are studied in this report. The author has firstly done an extensive survey of the literature to find what has been written about this branch of the profession. Then by means of a questionnaire sent to the Aslib OMB group and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (INVOG), training and education needs have been pinpointed. Some of these needs have then been explored in greater detail by means of case studies. The author found that the most common deterrents to continuing education and training were time, cost, location, finding suitable courses to cover the large variety of skills needed and lastly, lack of encouragement from employers. The author has concluded by recommending areas where further research is needed, and suggesting some solutions to the problems discussed.
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“Where HAS that book been reviewed?” This question seemed to arise daily during my work as Adult Services Consultant for an upstate New York library system. Since I was…
Abstract
“Where HAS that book been reviewed?” This question seemed to arise daily during my work as Adult Services Consultant for an upstate New York library system. Since I was responsible for the selection of new titles for the system pool collection as well as preparing buying lists for member libraries, I felt the need to have some way of “pulling together” all the reviews for new titles as they appeared in the book review media. It seemed to me that the book review indexes currently being published were inadequate in several ways, especially in the timely listing of current reviews and in the fact that you usually had to know the author's name in order to find citations to the reviews. How did I progress from perceiving a need for a more current listing of citations to book reviews and actually publishing my own index, Title Index of Current Reviews? Initially, several seemingly unrelated events led me in the direction I was eventually to take.