Theodore S. Glickman, Jennifer Holm, Devlin Keating, Claudia Pannait and Susan C. White
The purpose of this paper is to provide an in‐depth examination of the outsourcing of food services on a university campus.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide an in‐depth examination of the outsourcing of food services on a university campus.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses a detailed case study including interviews with university administrators, contractor administrators, and students and background information taken from student satisfaction surveys and local newspapers.
Findings
A new set of challenges has arisen – both for the university and the corporate partners providing the outsourced services. On the one hand, universities need to ensure the delivery of high‐quality services while operating under increasing fiscal pressures. And, on the other, corporate partners are dealing with unique issues at every different institution they serve, ranging from local competition to labor availability and serviceability and low margins, among others.
Research limitations/implications
This case study examines the events at one private university located in the mid‐Atlantic region in the USA. While many of the findings may be applicable in a variety of settings, it is not possible to draw direct inferences from a case study.
Practical implications
As outsourcing increases at universities, administrators need to consider the unique aspects of the local environment – with respect to labor availability and wage structure, the student population and their relationship with the contracted employees, the surrounding community and the interplay among the local residents, the contractor, and its employees – as they develop the contract and structure long‐term agreements.
Originality/value
Empirical studies have examined broad trends in outsourcing at universities; this research provides valuable insight into specifics – and the insights are instructive to administrators who are in charge of managing the outsourcing.
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Willard A. Hanna's astute observation above about the institutionalization of corruption in Indonesia was published in August 1971, five years after President Soeharto assumed…
Abstract
Willard A. Hanna's astute observation above about the institutionalization of corruption in Indonesia was published in August 1971, five years after President Soeharto assumed power. The origins of corruption in Indonesia can be traced to the Dutch colonial period as bribery was rife among the lowly paid personnel of the Dutch East India Company (Day, 1966, pp. 100–103). However, corruption became institutionalized during President Soeharto's 32-year reign as his cronies and family “made an art form of creaming off many of Indonesia's most profitable ventures … while being protected by monopoly regulations and their relationship to the president” (Kingsbury, 1998, p. 202). Raymond Bonner (1988, p. 80) has used the euphemism “the family business” to describe “the corruption surrounding members of the Suharto family,” which was “a public secret” in 1988.
Recent hurricanes, dust storms, and wild fires have presented great learning opportunities that have largely been missed, yet still may stimulate improvements in currently…
Abstract
Recent hurricanes, dust storms, and wild fires have presented great learning opportunities that have largely been missed, yet still may stimulate improvements in currently dominant policies driving settlement of large numbers of Americans into places exposed to fire, dust, and flood. Equivalent opportunities led to large and beneficial alterations in policy during the administrations of Presidents Hayes, Harrison, Theodore Roosevelt, Taft, Franklin Roosevelt, and Eisenhower, when changes sprang from recognition that federal subsidy programs and land allocations channel settlement. Induced by public policies acting like magnets under the tables of their lives, millions of Americans, like iron filings, have been migrating into increasing peril of fire and flood; it is not only possible to slow this down, but even to encourage settlement away from areas recurrently subject to natural disaster. Tax-payer subsidies, systematically contrived in the Cold War period to disperse the older industrial centers lest they be readily obliterated by Soviet nuclear weapons, are still in place, though the Cold War has thawed, and the world now presents challenges toward which Cold War policy is not only inept but making matters worse.
James Ko, Yin Cheong Cheng and Theodore Tai Hoi Lee
The purpose of this paper is to trace the development of school autonomy and accountability and related multiple changes and impacts in key areas of school education in Hong Kong…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to trace the development of school autonomy and accountability and related multiple changes and impacts in key areas of school education in Hong Kong since implementing school-based management (SBM) from 1990s.
Design/methodology/approach
To explore the evolution and the uniqueness of autonomy and accountability in the Hong Kong school system, the paper begins with an historical account, followed by an evaluation of the effects of SBM as shown in policy documents, local research, international reviews and illustrative findings from a case study. The local and international implications of SBM for research and practice are then discussed.
Findings
This paper shows the links between school autonomy and accountability by exploring the potential effects of both of these factors on educational management and student achievement, which are increasingly emphasised in educational policies. The investigation shows that the assumed links and effects are not always consistent or empirically supported. The positive effects that school autonomy has on school governance and management, teachers’ work, school-based curriculums and student learning are all significant when there is also strong leadership, comprehensive continuous professional development and a positive, collaborative school climate. These key elements work alongside school autonomy to facilitate positive change.
Research limitations/implications
School autonomy and accountability should be viewed as necessary, but not sufficient, conditions for school improvement and development. Further characterisation of the processes happening in schools is needed to explore the different realisations of school autonomy and accountability.
Originality/value
This investigation of school autonomy and accountability in Hong Kong provides the international audience with a deeper understanding of the dynamics involved in the development of SBM.
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The conclusion of the Cold War rivalry between the United States and former Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s created new areas of opportunity and concern for U.S…
Abstract
The conclusion of the Cold War rivalry between the United States and former Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s created new areas of opportunity and concern for U.S. national security policy. No longer menaced by the threat of nuclear war from Soviet military might, the United States emerged from the Cold War as the world's preeminent military power. Successful developments such as this often produce elation in the pronouncements of U.S. officials as a recent Clinton administration declaration demonstrates:
This paper explores the advertising strategy of crockery importers and dealers in relationship to their origins and backgrounds. This is a departure from earlier ceramic-history…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper explores the advertising strategy of crockery importers and dealers in relationship to their origins and backgrounds. This is a departure from earlier ceramic-history literature which tended to focus on the Staffordshire producers, with limited awareness on how the identity of importers and dealers influenced what products were sold, and their individual approaches to marketing.
Design/methodology/approach
Within a context of historical marketing research, this paper analyses newspaper advertising and commentary. It combines an examination of marketing practices with a wider consideration of the cultural identities of ceramic importers and dealers. The digitalization of historical records, combined with sophisticated search engines, makes it more feasible to examine a broader range of sources. Thus, modern research methods can enhance our understanding of production and demand and reveal how marketing strategy was diverse.
Findings
Awareness on how advertising was influenced by the backgrounds and socio-political views of importers and dealers demonstrates ways in which Anglo-American ceramic trade could be far more market-led. More significantly, marketing approaches were not necessarily responding to American demand, but rather that importers could engage in commissioning goods which reflected their own views on politics, religion or slavery.
Originality/value
Examining the advertising of importers demonstrates the complex relationship between production and ceramic demand. This paper opens up debates as to how far the advertising of other merchandise in the USA shows evidence of taking a more individual approach by the 19th century.
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This paper aims to explore the relationship between childhood, consumption and the Cold War in 1950s America and the Soviet Union. The author argues that Soviet and American…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the relationship between childhood, consumption and the Cold War in 1950s America and the Soviet Union. The author argues that Soviet and American leaders, businessmen, and politicians worked hard to convince parents that buying things for their children offered the easiest way to raise good American and Soviet kids and to do their part in waging the economic battles of the Cold War. The author explores how consumption became a Cold War battleground in the late 1950s and suggests that the history of childhood and Cold War consumption alters the way we understand the conflict itself.
Design/Methodology/Approach
Archival research in the USA and the Russian Federation along with close readings of Soviet and American advertisements offer sources for understanding the global discourse of consumption in the 1950s and 1960s.
Findings
Leaders, advertisers, and propagandists in the Soviet Union and the USA used the same images in the same ways to sell the ethos of consumption to their populations. They did this to sell the Cold War, to bolster the status quo, and to make profits.
Originality/Value
This paper offers a previously unexplored, transnational perspective on the role that consumption and the image of the child played in shaping the Cold War both domestically and abroad.
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This paper aims to present a visually documented brand history of Winchester Repeating Arms through a cultural analysis of iconic Western images featuring its lever action rifles.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present a visually documented brand history of Winchester Repeating Arms through a cultural analysis of iconic Western images featuring its lever action rifles.
Design/methodology/approach
The study applies visual culture perspectives and methods to the research and writing of brand history. Iconic Western images featuring Winchester rifles have been selected, examined, and used as points of departure for gathering and interpreting additional data about the brand. The primary sources consist chiefly of photographs from the nineteenth century and films and television shows from the twentieth century. Most visual source materials were obtained from the US Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West and the Internet Movie Firearms Database. These have been augmented by written sources.
Findings
Within a few years of the launch of the Winchester brand in 1866, visual images outside company control associated its repeating rifles with the settlement of the American West and with the colorful people involved. Some of these images were reproduced in books and others sold to consumers in the form of cartes de visite, cabinet cards and stereographs made from albumen prints. Starting in the 1880s, the live Wild West shows of William F. Cody and his stars entertained audiences with a heroic narrative of the period that included numerous Winchesters. During the twentieth century and into the present, Winchesters have been featured in motion pictures and television series with Western themes.
Research limitations/implications
Historical research is an ongoing process. The discovery of new primary data, both written and visual, may lead to a revised interpretation of the selected images.
Originality/value
Based largely on images as primary data sources, this study approaches brand history from the perspective of visual culture theory and data. The research shows how brands acquire meaning not just from the companies that own them but also from consumers, the media and other producers of popular culture.
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Galina Gaivoronskaia and Knut Erik Solem
The potential of biotechnology to cure disease and feed the Third World has not eased public disquiet about its safety. In the rush to commercialization, can lessons be learnt…
Abstract
The potential of biotechnology to cure disease and feed the Third World has not eased public disquiet about its safety. In the rush to commercialization, can lessons be learnt from the introduction of nuclear power a generation ago? While France’s nuclear programme stayed on track, America’s was derailed by accidents and corporate secrecy. So is an industry under state control safer than one in private hands? And in the absence of clear evidence about the long‐term effects of genetic manipulation, how can we design a consultation process that addresses public concerns?