Search results

This study aimed to evaluate the “Out of the Box” initiative, by investigating any impacts on participants’ wellbeing. Aimed at general population adults, Out of the Box comprised two art‐oriented groups and one social group, led by a community art worker.

Individual semi‐structured interviews were undertaken with 14 group members (six men, eight women; age range 36‐71 years) from a potential pool of around 30. Data were analysed thematically.

Dramatic benefits in confidence, outlook and happiness were reported by people who had experienced poor mental or physical health, or adverse life events. Participants believed Out of the Box to have facilitated social contact and friendships. They appreciated the opportunity to get out of the house and take part in activity. They described feeling accepted and encouraged. Artistic skills were developed to the extent that work was exhibited and sold.

The focus on contemporaneous Out of the Box participants, and a level of awareness of funding uncertainty, could have biased findings towards beneficial outcomes. The relative importance of the group leader and other contextual features was unclear. Community‐based art may offer opportunities for effective cheap public mental health interventions.

As well as providing evidence of benefits to wellbeing from Out of the Box, new knowledge was generated on mental health benefits of community‐based art including becoming more outgoing, improved self‐efficacy, worrying less and not panicking.

The student revolt of 1967 to 1974, which finally expired about 1978, retains its fascination and much of its significance in the twenty‐first century. But the seven or so years which preceded it are often passed over as simply a precursor, the incubation of a subsequent explosion; they deserve a higher status. The concentration of interest on the late 1960s and early 1970s arises from the driving role of students in the cultural revolution whose traumatic impact still echoes with us. As late as 2005 some commentators saw federal legislation introducing Voluntary Student Unionism as the culmination of struggles in the 1970s when Deputy Prime Minister Costello and Health Minister Abbott battled their radical enemies. Interest in these turbulent years at a popular, non‐academic level has produced a succession of nostalgic reminiscences. In the Sydney Morning Herald’s ‘Good Weekend’ for 13 December 2003 Mark Dapin pondered whether the Melbourne Maoists had changed their world views (‘Living by the Little Red book’.) In the Sydney University Gazette of October 1995 Andrew West asserted that the campus radicals of the 1960s and ‘70s had remained true to their basic beliefs (‘Not finished fighting’.) Some years later, in April 2003, the editor of that journal invited me to discuss ‘Where have all the rebels gone?’ My answer treated this as a twofold question: What has happened to the former rebels? Why have the students of today abandoned radicalism?

Entrepreneurship is a source of innovation, job creation, and vibrancy for local and regional economies. As a direct result, there is a profound interest in creating an infrastructure that effectively encourages entrepreneurship and incubates entrepreneurial endeavors. Western State University has responded to this call by developing the Harvey Entrepreneurship Program, which is integrated in the Enterprise Residential College.The Harvey program provides a socially embedded experiential learning approach to entrepreneurial education. Faculty, students, entrepreneurs, and technical experts are drawn together in an environment that provides space for business incubators and an entrepreneurially focused curriculum. In this article, we present a case study in which we use qualitative research methods to explore the benefits and challenges of creating such a program.The delivery model that Enterprise Residential College provides for entrepreneurial education is examined through the perspectives of program administrators, faculty, and students. The findings reveal evidence that a residential college can form a powerful nexus of formal instruction, experiential learning, socialization, and networking to influence entrepreneurship. We discuss relevant findings that may aid others considering similar endeavors.

MUCH has already been said and written upon the subject of the indicator: but in view of the general trend of advanced Public Library administration a little space may with advantage be devoted again to the consideration of its value as a modern library appliance. Passing over (a) the decision of that curiously constituted committee formed in 1879 to consider and report on indicators, and (b) the support which it received in 1880 from the Library Association, it may be said that for the next fourteen or fifteen years the indicator system was the popular, almost the universal, system in vogue throughout the country. Of late years professional opinion as to its value has undergone a remarkable change. The reaction which has set in was brought about chiefly by the introduction of Open Access in 1894, with the many reforms that accompanied it, though much, doubtless, was due to the prevalence of a more exact and systematic knowledge of librarianship, and to the natural evolution of ideas. It is not, however, intended in this paper to compare the indicator with the open access system, but with others suitable to the requirements of a closed library.

This study aims to examine the link between boards and audit committees and firm performance in Kuwaiti listed firms in the context of recent and extensive corporate governance regulatory reform.

Panel data regression analysis with fixed effects and clustered standard errors of firm performance for 61–97 listed industrial and services firms in Kuwait over a seven-year period. The dependent variables are the returns on assets and equity, the debt-to-equity ratio and leverage and Tobin’s Q and the independent variables comprise board of directors and audit committee characteristics, including size, the number of meetings and the numbers of independent and outside board and expert committee members. Firm size, subsidiary status and cash flow serve as control variables.

Mixed results with respect to the characteristics of the board of directors. Board size and independent and outsider board members positively relate only to Tobin’s Q and insiders only to debt to equity. For audit committee characteristics, committee size, independence and expertise positively relate to the return on equity and committee size and expertise only to Tobin’s Q. Of the five performance measures considered, board and audit committee characteristics together best determine Tobin’s Q.

Data from a single country limits generalisability and control variables necessarily limited in a developing market context. Need for qualitative insights into corporate governance reform as a complement to conventional quantitative analysis. In combining accounting and market information, Tobin’s Q appears best able to recognise the performance benefits of good corporate governance in terms of internal organisational change.

The recent corporate governance code and guidelines reforms exert a mixed impact on firm performance, with audit committees, not boards, of most influence. But recent reforms implied most change to boards of directors. One suggestion is that non-market reform may have been unneeded given existing market pressure on listed firms and firms anticipating regulatory change.

Kuwait’s corporate governance reforms codified corporate governance practices already in place among many of its firms in pursuit of organisational legitimacy, and while invoking substantial change to audit committees, involved minor change to firm performance, at least in the short term. Some firms may also have delisted in expectation of stronger corporate governance requirements. Regardless, these direct and indirect processes both improved the overall quality of listed firm corporate governance and performance in Kuwait.

Seminal analysis of corporate governance reforms in Kuwait, which have rapidly progressed from no corporate governance code and guidelines to an initially voluntary and then compulsory regime. Only known analysis to incorporate both board of directors and audit committee characteristics. Reveals studies of the corporate governance–firm performance relationship may face difficulty in model specification, and empirical significance, given the complexity of corporate governance codes and guidelines, leads in changing firm behaviour and self-selection of firms into and out of regulated markets.

What part does gender play in professionalism? How does gender translate into hierarchies in professions? This paper attempts to deal with these questions and to move towards an embedded approach that can account for paradoxes of gender and professions. It focuses on the notion of context and the hypothesis that gender is both stable and variable. Using empirical material from a multi‐method study of the German dental profession, three main issues are considered: the impact of different structuring modes and diverse actors on gender relations, the relation of gender difference and hierarchy, and differentiation between women as a group. Gender becomes manifest on the symbolic level as well as in structural arrangements. However, its impact on each of these levels varies. Most striking is the empirical proof that gender does not lead to the construction of hierarchies under all conditions. Female symbolism can also favour women. Professionalisation theories help to reconstruct these processes.

Compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals published by MCB University Press: Facilities Volumes 8‐18; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐18; Property Management Volumes 8‐18; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐18.

Index by subjects, compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals: Facilities Volumes 8‐18; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐18; Property Management Volumes 8‐18; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐18.

Compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals published by MCB University Press: Facilities Volumes 8‐18; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐18; Property Management Volumes 8‐18; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐18.

Compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals published by MCB University Press: Facilities Volumes 8‐18; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐18; Property Management Volumes 8‐18; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐18.