Search results

The paper provides a detailed historical account of Douglass C. North's early intellectual contributions and analytical developments in pursuing a Grand Theory for why some countries are rich and others poor.

The author approaches the discussion using a theoretical and historical reconstruction based on published and unpublished materials.

The systematic, continuous and profound attempt to answer the Smithian social coordination problem shaped North's journey from being a young serious Marxist to becoming one of the founders of New Institutional Economics. In the process, he was converted in the early 1950s into a rigid neoclassical economist, being one of the leaders in promoting New Economic History. The success of the cliometric revolution exposed the frailties of the movement itself, namely, the limitations of neoclassical economic theory to explain economic growth and social change. Incorporating transaction costs, the institutional framework in which property rights and contracts are measured, defined and enforced assumes a prominent role in explaining economic performance.

In the early 1970s, North adopted a naive theory of institutions and property rights still grounded in neoclassical assumptions. Institutional and organizational analysis is modeled as a social maximizing efficient equilibrium outcome. However, the increasing tension between the neoclassical theoretical apparatus and its failure to account for contrasting political and institutional structures, diverging economic paths and social change propelled the modification of its assumptions and progressive conceptual innovation. In the later 1970s and early 1980s, North abandoned the efficiency view and gradually became more critical of the objective rationality postulate. In this intellectual movement, North's avant-garde research program contributed significantly to the creation of New Institutional Economics.

-- The purpose of this paper is to identify unique oral history centres and collections which provide users with training and research methodology techniques necessary to planning an effective oral history programme

-- This article provides a list of oral history centres and collections with unique oral history programmes. Most centres listed also offer the user detailed instructions on planning oral history programmes and use of the collection in research methodology courses. The bibliography is an international list of oral history programmes and collections.

-- There are numerous oral history programmes within university departments, museums, and as part of state and regional organizations.

-- This bibliography includes international as well as programmes in the USA. The annotations describe the oral history programmes' subject content, and will be of interest to scholars looking to start and expand on research with an oral history methodology component.

The purpose of this paper is to show how the implementation of the European Working Time Directive in August 2004 has dramatically decreased junior doctors' working hours, as a consequence of which new ways of working will need to be found. Traditionally both doctors and nurses record the same generic history (past medical history, social and family history, drug history and allergies) in their own notes. This is unnecessary duplication and maybe only nursing staff should record this information. This study is undertaken to identify the differences between junior doctors' and nurses' clerking to assess whether they are comparable.

A prospective study of 100 case notes from elective and emergency admissions was undertaken. The completeness of various parts of the history and the recording of the vital signs were compared between nurses and house officers.

The Past Medical History was complete in only 30 per cent of the house officers' notes and 42 per cent of nursing records. The social history was complete in all the nursing records but only 35 per cent of the doctors' notes. Nurses recorded a complete personal history more than doctors (62 per cent v. 13 per cent respectively). The drug history was poorly recorded in house officers' notes, being complete in 22 per cent, whereas this was complete in 73 per cent of nursing records. The record of the history of allergies was poor in both groups at just over 10 per cent. Finally 87 per cent of nurses managed to record vital signs but these were missing from nearly half of the house officers' notes.

The study has shown that details of the generic medical history are recorded more completely by the nursing staff and only they should record this information. This will allow junior doctors more time to deal with the increased demands and reduced hours of work.

The growth of interest in local history shows no sign of dying down. Public libraries have clearly been affected by the increasing number of people who use them and by the foundation of new societies and journals. Equally great, but perhaps less obvious, is the impact made by certain specific developments. Local history is now integrated into the educational curriculum at all levels, it is the subject of radio and television programmes and has grown in popularity with publishers of monographs. The ways in which local studies libraries have been affected by these factors are examined. Public libraries are concentrated on, though there is some reference to local collections in academic libraries. In conclusion, it is suggested that staff should be specifically allocated to an education service and to media liaison work, and that one librarian should specialise in acquisitions.

This paper reports the results of a Management History Division survey within the Academy of Management which investigated the current status and future direction of management history teaching in the management curriculum and the role and direction of the Management History Division in general. Comparisons were made to a similar 1989 survey. While management history as a separate course remains elusive, management history continues to be taught in other mainstream management courses. The role of the Management History Division is seen as critical in encouraging others to teach management history. Significant accomplishments have been made in this area since the earlier survey including an expanded Executive Committee, a revised newsletter, new awards for service in the field, and the initiation of the Journal of Management History as an outlet for publication in the field.

Guest history is a valuable service and marketing tool. In particular, it is likely to become a strategic device for the development of brand loyalty in the 1990s. Reports on a nationwide Australian study of 121 hotels′ use of guest history, and describes some of the key opportunities for optimizing the guest history function. The findings suggest that while guest history is being widely utilized by hotels, the extent of that utilization is limited. Three major areas for developing strategies to optimize the guest history function were found to include: specific guest history training modules; an internal service orientation emphasizing the organization‐wide usage of guest history to service the customer better; and further enhancement of the use of guest history for increasing brand loyalty.

This research study evaluated K-12 American history textbooks for gender balance. Elementary, middle school, and high school texts were assessed for the number of male and female historical figures in text content and illustrations. Significantly more males than females were found at all levels in both content and illustrations, and all differences were significant at the .001 level. However, American history textbooks do include more women than in previous editions and since the publication of the National History Standards. The challenges of defining gender balance are discussed, and recommendations for teachers and textbook adoption committees are presented.