Examines a European Commission Institute survey investigating TQM and its application to the European construction industry and suggests that the short‐term nature of construction…
Abstract
Examines a European Commission Institute survey investigating TQM and its application to the European construction industry and suggests that the short‐term nature of construction projects means that obtaining long‐term benefits of TQM can be difficult. Uses the experience of BP Chemicals to investigate what TQM offers in these circumstances, comparing the results of the ECI study with one from the University of Manchester Institute of Science & Technology on a similar theme. Concludes that if TQM simply speeds up the integration of different construction industry “cultures”, that is in itself beneficial.
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Lynn Weiher, Christina Winters, Paul Taylor, Kirk Luther and Steven James Watson
In their study of reciprocity in investigative interviews, Matsumoto and Hwang (2018) found that offering interviewees water prior to the interview enhanced observer-rated rapport…
Abstract
Purpose
In their study of reciprocity in investigative interviews, Matsumoto and Hwang (2018) found that offering interviewees water prior to the interview enhanced observer-rated rapport and positively affected information provision. This paper aims to examine whether tailoring the item towards an interviewee’s needs would further enhance information provision. This paper hypothesised that interviewees given a relevant item prior to the interview would disclose more information than interviewees given an irrelevant item or no item.
Design/methodology/approach
Participants (n = 85) ate pretzels to induce thirst, engaged in a cheating task with a confederate and were interviewed about their actions after receiving either no item, an irrelevant item to their induced thirst (pen and paper) or a relevant item (water).
Findings
This paper found that receiving a relevant item had a significant impact on information provision, with participants who received water providing the most details, and significantly more than participants that received no item.
Research limitations/implications
The findings have implications for obtaining information during investigative interviews and demonstrate a need for research on the nuances of social reciprocity in investigative interviewing.
Practical implications
The findings have implications for obtaining information during investigative interviews and demonstrate a need for research on the nuances of social reciprocity in investigative interviewing.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to experimentally test the effect of different item types upon information provision in investigative interviews.
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The question of violence in hunter-gatherer society has animated philosophical debates since at least the seventeenth century. Steven Pinker has sought to affirm that…
Abstract
Purpose
The question of violence in hunter-gatherer society has animated philosophical debates since at least the seventeenth century. Steven Pinker has sought to affirm that civilization, is superior to the state of humanity during its long history of hunting and gathering. The purpose of this paper is to draw upon a series of recent studies that assert a baseline of primordial violence by hunters and gatherers. In challenging this position the author draws on four decades of ethnographic and historical research on hunting and gathering peoples.
Design/methodology/approach
At the empirical heart of this question is the evidence pro- and con- for high rates of violent death in pre-farming human populations. The author evaluates the ethnographic and historical evidence for warfare in recorded hunting and gathering societies, and the archaeological evidence for warfare in pre-history prior to the advent of agriculture.
Findings
The view of Steven Pinker and others of high rates of lethal violence in hunters and gatherers is not sustained. In contrast to early farmers, their foraging precursors lived more lightly on the land and had other ways of resolving conflict. With little or no fixed property they could easily disperse to diffuse conflict. The evidence points to markedly lower levels of violence for foragers compared to post-Neolithic societies.
Research limitations/implications
This conclusion raises serious caveats about the grand evolutionary theory asserted by Steven Pinker, Richard Wrangham and others. Instead of being “killer apes” in the Pleistocene and Holocene, the evidence indicates that early humans lived as relatively peaceful hunter-gathers for some 7,000 generations, from the emergence of Homo sapiens up until the invention of agriculture. Therefore there is a major gap between the purported violence of the chimp-like ancestors and the documented violence of post-Neolithic humanity.
Originality/value
This is a critical analysis of published claims by authors who contend that ancient and recent hunter-gatherers typically committed high levels of violent acts. It reveals a number of serious flaws in their arguments and use of data.
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Steven T. Schwartz, Eric E. Spires and Richard A. Young
Chris Hallinan and Steven Jackson
This chapter adopts a reflective approach exploring and setting out the contrasting factors that led to the establishment of the subdiscipline in both countries. The factors…
Abstract
This chapter adopts a reflective approach exploring and setting out the contrasting factors that led to the establishment of the subdiscipline in both countries. The factors included the role of key individuals and their respective academic backgrounds and specialisations within each country’s higher education system. Furthermore, attention is given to the particular circumstances in a case analysis comparison of the oldest programs in Aotearoa/New Zealand and Australia. This sheds light upon the factors linked to the disproportionate success profile for the sociology of sport in Aotearoa/New Zealand. An analysis of scholars and programs within each country reveals important differences aligned with the politics of funding and the variety and extent of systematic structures. Additionally, scholars’ specialisations and preferences reveal a broad offering but are primarily linked to globalisation, gender relations, indigeneity and race relations, social policy, and media studies. This work has been undertaken variously via the critical tradition including Birmingham School cultural studies, ethnographic and qualitative approaches and, more recently by some, a postmodern poststructuralist trend. Lastly, along with a brief discussion of current issues, future challenges are set out.
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In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, labour movements across the world fragmented along racial lines. Across the English-speaking world, and especially in the colonies and…
Abstract
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, labour movements across the world fragmented along racial lines. Across the English-speaking world, and especially in the colonies and metropole of the British Empire, a tradition which scholars term ‘white labourism’ became important and then, in the first half of the 20th century, dominant as a political and ideological trend within the labour movements of white British countries. This article concerns the prehistory of white labourism as a dominant strain in three of these British-ruled white settler states, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, by looking at the activities there of the American-based working-class movement, the Knights of Labor. As the Knights expanded into these countries in the 1880s and 1890s, they brought with them an emphasis on the exclusion of Chinese immigration and other racial exclusionary practices later associated with white labourism; on the other, their racial egalitarianism with respect to African-American workers in the United States, tens of thousands of whom became members of the movement, placed them as an alternative to later white labourist currents. This chapter addresses these contradictory contributions of the Knights as a global movement to the way that later workers understood the connections between race and class, empire and whiteness.
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In almost 100 years of Colombian cinema, very few productions have had action-oriented narratives at the core of the film, as this cinema has chiefly developed around mainstream…
Abstract
In almost 100 years of Colombian cinema, very few productions have had action-oriented narratives at the core of the film, as this cinema has chiefly developed around mainstream genres of melodrama and popular comedy. Rather than a cinematic end, ‘action’ has worked more as a specific means, mainly through thrillers, for directors to represent, question, and denounce the Colombian armed conflict – a central national issue for over 70 years. Whilst such films have tended to showcase male heroes, some recent productions subvert this tradition, and echo aspects of contemporary action cinema in Hollywood, where female representations problematise the perpetuated male image of the action hero.
This chapter examines contemporary Colombian films that offer hybrid images of female warriors who are (anti)heroic or disruptive, within the conventions of the action genre and within the dominant patriarchal discourse of Colombian narrative cinema, concentrating on Rosario Tijeras (Maillé, 2005) and La Sargento Matacho (González, 2017). Following research on Colombian cinema, context and conflict, this chapter highlights how female characters subsist in the public sphere, taking an active part in illegal armed organisations. It also questions how these representations may promote typologies of female emancipations (victimisers, anti-heroines, hybrid tomboys and war fighters), articulating key notions of emancipation. Ultimately, this chapter reiterates how postmodern representations of the female body subvert classic features of the Hollywood action cinema, by offering inaugural images of tough women within the Colombian/Hispanic popular culture and contexts, by examining particular sequences through Creed's multiple views on the female multi-faceted representations in cinema and Tasker's ample theory on action women and bodies.
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At a time when the future of the British state pension is being debated events in Australia provide an interesting example of an alternative approach. This article examines the…
Abstract
At a time when the future of the British state pension is being debated events in Australia provide an interesting example of an alternative approach. This article examines the introduction in Australia of the 1992 Superannuation Guarantee Charge Bills (SGC). The article considers the key debates which accompanied the SGC along with the role of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), the poverty lobby and employer organisations in the reform process. The Australian model can not simply be transposed to the UK but the politics of reform in this case illustrate the issues of equity, exclusion and social division that are likely to arise.
Kirk C. Heriot, Noel D. Campbell and R. Zachary Finney
This article argues that existing research poorly specifies the link between planning and performance because of omitted variable bias. Researchers agree planning is a critical…
Abstract
This article argues that existing research poorly specifies the link between planning and performance because of omitted variable bias. Researchers agree planning is a critical part of creating any new venture. Many researchers assess planning by whether a small firm has a written business plan. Unfortunately, efforts empirically to validate this relationship have been inconclusive. This article proposes that researchers should assess business plans both on the quality of the plan (and the planning process that produced it), and on the quality of the underlying business opportunity. Failure to account for both aspects of a business plan amounts to omitted variable bias, frustrating attempts to accurately estimate the true relationship.