Search results

The prospect of employees being permitted to work at their homes offers the potential of significant benefits to employers, employees and the wider community. A survey of 360 employees in an Australian government organization revealed a great deal of interest in and potential for the concept. The extent to which potential benefits can be realized needs to be assessed in the context of the nature of the organization′s business, employee attitudes, union policies and attitudes and the flexibility of management. One way of determining the likelihood of success is to run a pilot programme of, say, 2 per cent of the workforce, studied in comparison with a control group.

Management development needs to be aligned to the career stage reached by each individual, and to make the best use of individual talents regardless of promotion prospects. The concept of critical career crossroads, involving a major redefinition of the work to be performed, is used to identify career points, and five main types of manager found between the crossroads are described, together with their needs and expectations and those of their organisations. A mix of development strategies – mentoring, exposure to external influences, formal development programmes and skill training – is proposed for each career turn, forming the basis of a learning contract between each manager and immediate superior.

This paper aims to examine the role a recordkeeping informatics approach can play in understanding and addressing these challenges. In 2011, the Wind Tunnel located at the Defence Science Technology Organisation (DTSO)’s Fisherman’s Bend site in Melbourne and managed by the Flight Systems Branch (FSB) celebrated its 70th anniversary. While cause for celebration, it also raised concerns for DSTO aeronautical scientists and engineers as to capacities to effectively and efficiently manage the data legacy of such an important research facility for the next 70 years, given increased technological, organisational and collaboration complexities.

This paper will detail how, through a collaborative action research project, the twin pillars of continuum thinking and recordkeeping metadata and the three facets of organisational culture, business process analysis and archival access, were used to examine the data, information, records and knowledge management challenges in this research data context. It will discuss how this perspective, was presented, engaged with and evolved into a set of strategies for the sustained development of FSB’s data, information and records management infrastructure, along with what is learnt about the approach through the action research process.

The project found that stressing the underlying principles of recordkeeping, applied to information resources of all kinds, resonated with the scientific community of FSB. It identified appropriate strategic, policy and process frameworks to better govern information management activities.

The utility of a recordkeeping informatics approach to unpack, explore and develop strategies in technically and organisationally complex recordkeeping environment is demonstrated, along with the kinds of professional collaboration required to tackle research data challenges.

In embracing technical and organisational complexity, the project has provided FSB with a strategic framework for the development of their information architecture so that it is both responsive to local needs, and consistent with broader DSTO requirements.

This paper further develops recordkeeping informatics as an emerging approach for tackling the recordkeeping challenges of our era in relation to maintaining and sustaining the evidential authenticity, integrity and reliability of big complex research data sets.

The continuous pursuit of excellence is the underlying and ever present goal of benchmarking practices. Benchmarking is an external focus on internal activities, functions, or operations in order to achieve continuous improvement. It is the process of judging a company’s processes or products by comparing them to the world’s best, including those in other industries. Benchmarking is emerging in leading‐edge companies as a tool for obtaining the information needed to support continuous improvement and gain competitive advantage. In order to benchmark effectively, there needs to be a strong strategic focus and some flexibility in achieving the goals set forth by management. Perhaps the most important aspects of effective implementation are adequate planning, training, and open interdepartmental communication.

Of matters concerning man's day‐to‐day living, none receives more attention than his diet; the foods which housewives should buy, how they should be prepared and cooked. All women's journals and most daily newspapers profess to give expert advice on diet, nutritional needs, recipes, meals, etc. Radio and television have programmes on the subject and television advertisements, when not eulogising drink of all sorts, cigarettes or soap, are largely devoted to extolling proprietary foods, without the generous addition of which to the diet, one gathers, malnutrition is unavoidable.

WE endorse with much pleasure the welcome that has greeted the election of the new President of the Library Association. When the Association, in what seems now a somewhat remote past, determined to place the executive side of its business in the hands of a permanent Secretary, the question of the continuance of an Honorary Secretary was given careful consideration. It was resolved that he should continue and that his main function would be to represent the President at all times when the latter was not available. He had other duties, even if they were not clearly expressed, including a general overall initiative in committee and Council matters. The successive holders of the office since, Stanley Jast, Dr. E. A. Savage and Lionel R. McColvin proved so clearly the wisdom of that decision that the Association made each of them President; they have been heads of the profession in a real sense, inspiring and actively creative. The last of them, Mr. McColvin, is known everywhere librarians meet, here and overseas, and only the newest library recruits are unfamiliar with his reports, essays and many books, or have not heard of his home and other county surveys and his fearless, suggestive appraisals of what he has seen and thought. In a rather difficult time the Library Association is fortunate to have so statesmanlike a librarian to lead it.

The purpose of this study is to attempt to provide an insight into the individual aspects of academic entrepreneurship, defining a series of entrepreneurial profiles and investigating the challenges associated with each specific role as well as their impact on firm's performance.

The presented findings are based on the analysis of secondary and primary data. First, a series of articles and reports regarding academic entrepreneurship have been accessed in order to define the research framework. Second, primary data were collected through semi‐structured interviews conducted with 26 academic entrepreneurs working in UK biotech firms.

The analysis of data revealed that academics choose mainly three forms of academic entrepreneurship: founder‐manager of an entrepreneurial firm; project manager in an existing firm; or scientific advisor to the board of directors of one or several firms. In each of these three situations, the personal responsibilities, the level of implication and the performance impact of the academic entrepreneur are different.

Findings demonstrate a direct relation between the specific responsibilities associated with the three types of academic entrepreneurship and the scientific/research performance of the investigated firms. Unfortunately, the small sample does not permit generalizations at industry or national level. Future studies should, on one hand, increase the field of investigation, in order to develop reliable measurements of academic entrepreneurship performance; and, on the other hand, collect additional qualitative information using a case study approach.

The findings may provide useful information for academic entrepreneurs working in the biotech sector, regarding the specific challenges and positioning of each entrepreneurial role, allowing them to take better professional decisions.

The study enriches the existing literature on academic entrepreneurship, expanding the definition and the profile of entrepreneurial roles to include also intrapreneurship activities in medium‐size or larger organizations.

Evans Library at Texas A&M University has developed and released a Virtual Library Tour available via the World Wide Web (WWW). The URL for the tour is 〈http://www.tamu.edu/library/reference/ virtual/tour00.htmlhttp://www.tamu.edu/library/reference/ virtual/tour00.html〉. The tour, designed as a remotely accessible alternative to the basic library orientation tour, provides information on library departments, services, materials, and policies. Development and implementation of this new orientation tool involved technological issues and library instructional techniques. Approximately 165 hours of professional time were required to create and release the tour. To achieve an optimum combination of effective instruction and technical expertise, the development team for the Texas A&M University Evans Library's Virtual Library Tour consisted of the coordinator of instructional services, Pixey Anne Mosley, and the automated information retrieval services (AIRS) librarian, Daniel Xiao. This article discusses the process used and lessons learned through the creation of the Virtual Library Tour.

The purpose of this paper is to examine user perceptions toward consumer-facing words used by fashion brands to stimulate sustainable consumption and post consumption behavior.

A self-completion, survey based matching exercise was administered to 100 active fashion-shoppers in Hong Kong aged between 18 and 35 years old. A probability sampling method was used for on-street intercepts to ensure a random selection within the defined population. This was accompanied by 20 individual ethnographic interviews.

A lack of understanding and comprehension of key green language terminology used frequently in user facing communications is problematic for fashion brand marketers as the impact of their messages is often unclear, distributed and more likely to lead to user frustration rather than positive engaged consumer decision making and action. Further, there is an emerging indication that this approach is highly unlikely to enhance knowledge, engagement and action or to influence brand loyalty.

Data were collected in Hong Kong and is culturally bounded, so while providing a good indication of the findings in situ this can also be replicated in other locations.

Recommended outcomes from the findings suggest that brand messages should be delivered that are intended to stimulate sustainability behaviors that are core to one key brand theme so that user outcome decision making and actions fit with the core brand values. This suggested approach will have a greater likelihood of leading to brand trust, responsible business action and greater clarity about the issue of sustainability and related action to be taken on behalf of the user.

The paper raises concerns about the effectiveness and outcomes of fashion brand marketing communications and findings provide insights into the confusion of understanding and the rise in frustration among targeted fashion shoppers 18-35 years, despite the use of frequently used words in brand communications to promote sustainable fashion consumption behaviors.