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The purpose of this work is the development of a structured case study design process for developing case studies in humanitarian logistics, in particular for short-term predictable disaster situations like floods and hurricanes. Moreover, useful public sources are presented in order to enable researchers to find relevant data for their case studies more easily.

A structured framework for case study design is set up, splitting the process into different steps and phases.

The framework is applied to an illustrative example, where case studies with different numbers and levels of detail of scenarios are designed based on the three-day forecast for hurricane Harvey in 2017. The corresponding solutions demonstrate the relevance of using as much forecast information as possible in case study building, and in particular in scenario design, in order to get useful and appropriate results.

The case study design process is mostly suitable for short-term predictable disasters, but can also be adapted to other types of disasters. The process has been applied to one specific hurricane here which serves as an example.

Also for practitioners, the results of this work are highly relevant, as constructing realistic cases using real data will lead to more useful results. Moreover, it is taken into account in the case study design process that relief agencies are regularly confronted with disasters in certain areas and hence need to define the basic planning situation and parameters “once and for all” and on a long-term basis, whereas disaster specific data from forecasts are only available within a short time frame.

The new design process can be applied by researchers as well as practitioners, and the publicly available data sources will be useful to the community.

Much of the administrative literature on public participation in environmental decision making assumes that citizen involvement contributes to reflexive deliberations, communication, effective representation, and consensus building in the public sphere. We will argue that for all the intuitive appeal of public participation, it may ironically limit the boundaries of possible change all under the normative guise of democracy and fair and open deliberations concerning environmental issues. In particular, we critically examine the citizen as a stakeholder as one mechanism that obscures as much as it reveals about public participation. To explore some of the implications of this critical approach, Jurgen Habermas and David Harvey’s ideas will be examined, who, from their own differing perspectives, contend that the forces of social conflict and change cannot be so easily contained under a public participative approach to environmental decision making.

As organizations globalize their operations, there is a heightened need to identify and select qualified managers for overseas assignments. The increased complexity of these foreign assignments necessitates a recalibration of the traditional selection procedures and processes used in the past. In particular, there is some evidence that expatriation becomes strategic as organizations increasingly grow and compete globally. Therefore, the critical issues, which arise as expatriates’ assignments evolve into a global assignment scope, must be viewed in a systematic manner. This paper develops a unique theory‐based expatriation selection process based upon a systemic assessment of potential expatriate candidates’ multiple IQs, learning styles, thinking styles, and the nature of the expatriate assignment. In addition, a practical step‐by‐step managerial process is developed that can be used in the selection of expatriate managers for global assignments.

Purpose – This chapter explores the commercially successful and critically acclaimed motion picture The Dark Knight as a cultural artifact that both reflects and influences popular notions of crime and justice in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Design/methodology/approach – From a cultural criminological perspective, this chapter examines ideological messages pertaining to crime and justice presented in the film, including the framing of conflict as one between good and evil, justifications for extralegal violence, and reliance on absolute power as a means of social control. This chapter assesses reactions to the film as a “ritual moral exercise” in which viewers assuage their anxieties and insecurities in a post-9/11 world.

Findings – This chapter investigates representations of justice in the film, including the construction of the villain as “other,” the perception of constitutional procedures as impediments to justice, the embrace of vigilantism, and the willingness to sacrifice transparency of government authorities while accepting widespread surveillance in a time of crisis. Such themes resonated with some viewers who interpreted the film as offering explicit vindication for many of the questionable tactics used in the war on terror.

Originality/value – This chapter argues that popular media, specifically fictional entertainment media, play a role in reflecting and informing collective sentiments of justice. It offers an analysis of The Dark Knight as celebrating individualized, American-style retributive justice in a post-9/11 context.

Identifies two approaches to quality assessment in education. The Higher Education Funding Council for England favours the control paradigm which renders assessment political. Until recently, Her Majesty′s Inspectorate (HMI) practised assessment within the enhancement paradigm, intended to enhance the practice of the assessed tutor or teacher. Evaluation should be based on a review of evidence, but is now widely treated as a simple matter of political rhetoric by apologists for control. The control paradigm cannot be properly evaluated for some time, but the changing practice of HMI examined here, raises important questions: could control also bring about enhancement, or does change from enhancement to control necessarily involve relinquishing key values?

Ideally, quality should be, and is, an integral element of education, yet capturing and articulating quality is not simple. Programme quality reviews in third-level education can demonstrate quality and identify areas for improvement, offering many potential benefits. However, details on the process of quality programme review are limited in the literature. This study aims to report on the introduction of a standardised programme review process in one university.

Using a standardised template, the annual programme review (APR) process captured student voice, external examiner reports, statistical data and action/s since the previous review. Following completion of programme reviews across the university, the APR process was itself evaluated using questionnaires and focus groups.

Findings showed that the programme chairs understood the rationale for the review, welcomed the standardised format and felt the information could inform future programme planning. However, in the focus group, issues arose about the timing, ownership and possible alternate use of the data collected in the course of the review.

This case study demonstrates the experience of APR in a single third-level institution, therefore, limiting generalisability.

APR offers a comprehensive record of the programme that can be carried out with efficacy and efficiency. The study illustrates one institution’s experience, and this may assist others in using similar quality evaluation tools. Using APR allows quality to be measured, articulated and improved.

Using APR allows quality, or its lack to be to be measured, articulated and improved in the delivery of education at a third-level institution.

This study demonstrates the experience of the introduction of an APR process in one higher education institute. Programme review is an important and essential part of academia in the 21st century. At third level, quality assurance is, or should be, a central part of academic programmes and delivery. The review of the first implementation has provided valuable information that will inform future programme review processes. Academic programmes grow, evolve and need to be reviewed regularly. It is hoped that the information reported here will aid others developing academic review procedures.

Purpose: This project examines both the media practice of covering perp walks and the discourse of perp walks as performative rituals, with the goal of understanding how grounded practice shapes meaning.

Methodology/approach: This project combines ethnographic observation and interview research to explore the grounded experience of perp walk participants, including journalists, law enforcement, and defendants.

Findings: The analysis suggests that perp walks are constructions that serve the interests of the state and that their resulting images are not neutral documents. Visual journalists are managed by law enforcement through embodied gatekeeping in practice and experience pressure from newsrooms to capture a particular moment. Defendants report feeling violated because they are unable to control the discourse of their recontextualized image.

Research limitations: As a qualitative-research project using a non-representative sample, the study results cannot be generalized, but they instead offer a rich understanding of embodied practice.

Originality/value: Because this study offers the subjective perspectives of three sets of stakeholders, including journalists, law enforcement, and defendants, it offers a unique and in-depth analysis of perp walks as media ritual.

Using a market model of international equity returns, which fully incorporates the regime switching and heteroskedasticity effects, we conduct an empirical study on the asymmetric behavior of 31 emerging equity markets across the different regimes of both the global and the local markets. Asymmetric correlation is found to be much weaker than that among developed markets as documented in the recent studies. There is little evidence of performance enhancement by possessing information on asymmetric correlation in international asset allocation strategies involving emerging markets.