Search results

The purpose of this paper is to explore multiple Canadian educators' experiences with the Map the System (MTS) competition, designed to foster and grow systems thinking capacity among students exploring complex questions. The challenge has been an opportunity for social innovation programs (from the nascent to the established) across Canadian post-secondaries to engage both with their own communities and with social innovators internationally, connecting social innovation spaces as part of their third mission. Across the organizations, students valued the interdisciplinary and systems thinking qualities, and organizations benefited from the external competition, there remain questions about organizational engagement in social innovation as a deeply transformative process internally.

All Canadian post-secondary institutions who participated in the 2020 MTS competition (17) were invited to a digital roundtable to discuss their experiences. Ten were able to participate, representing a range of post-secondaries (including large research institutions, undergraduate-only universities and colleges). To facilitate discussion, participants met to discuss format and topics; for the roundtable itself, participant educators used a google form to capture their experiences. These were summarized, anonymized and redistributed for validation and clarification. To reflect this collaborative approach, all participant educators are listed as authors on this paper, alphabetically after the organizing authors.

For students participating in MTS, they have built both their interdisciplinary and systems thinking skills, as well as their commitment to achieving meaningful change in their community. But MTS arrived in fertile environments and acted as an accelerant, driving attention, validation and connection. Yet while this might align with post-secondary education’s third mission, educators expressed concerns about sustainability, internal commitment to change and navigating tensions between a challenge approach and collaborative work, and internal work and national competition limitations. This complicates the simple insertion of MTS in a post-secondary’s social innovation-related third mission.

This study was limited to Canadian post-secondaries participating in MTS, and therefore are not representative of either post-secondaries in Canada, or all the MTS participants although Canada is well represented in the challenge itself. Additionally, while the authors believe their approach to treat all participants as authors, and ensured multiple feedback opportunities in private and collectively, this is a deliberate and potentially controversial move away from a traditional study.

More than half of Canadian universities (a subgroup of post-secondaries) had at least one social innovation initiative, but questions have been raised about whether these initiatives are being evaluated internally, or are triggering the kinds of transformative internal work that might be an outcome. Understanding the impact of MTS one example of a social innovation-related initiative can help advance the broader conversation about the place (s) for social innovation in the post-secondary landscape – and where there is still significant work to be done.

As Canada has only participated in MTS for four years, this is the first inter-institution consideration of its related opportunities and obstacles as a vehicle for transformational social innovation. As well, educators talking openly and frankly to educators reinforces the collaborative quality of social innovation across the post-secondary landscape.

This study investigates the nature of the substitutability relationships among capital, labor, and imported inputs in the context of a production function for Spain, with estimates obtained from an aggregate cost function. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that all of the inputs are substitutes for one another. The findings with respect to domestic inputs and imports are particularly important as the internationalization of the Spanish economy continues since, in the short run and ceteris paribus, further removal of import restrictions may have a negative impact on the demand for domestic factors. The estimates obtained here are also consistent with the hypotheses that: a decrease in the price of imports will have a proportionately larger impact on the price of domestically‐produced investment goods than on consumption goods; and second, that the elasticity of demand for each input with respect to consumption goods production is considerably higher than for investment goods production.

The aim of this chapter is to bring to the forefront the potential of discourse analysis in higher education research. It characterises discourse analysis as a constructionist perspective, underlying its empirical applications in the field of higher education. A two-phase model is proposed as a possible answer to the often stressed lack of methodological devices in the area of discourse analysis. This model combines the theory of discourse of Laclau and Mouffe with the critical discourse analysis of Fairclough, on the assumption that they have complementary elements that may be employed for research in the field of higher education. We selected a text to exemplify the use of discourse organisers (phase one) and to analyse the way discourses become dominant/excluded (phase two). We conclude by arguing that higher education research looking into discourses has major advantages to consider discourse analysis, both as a theory and method.

Purpose – This chapter examines the campaign, election and governance of Antonio Villaraigosa as Los Angeles’ first Latino mayor in over 130 years. The intersection of electoral coalitions, governing regimes, political incorporation, and deracialized/racialized campaign methods has wide-ranging implications for 21st century urban and racial politics. This study seeks to better understand the high expectations placed upon minority mayors as they develop policies and programs that benefit minorities and others as well.Method – This chapter employs the case study method. A form of qualitative research grounded in theory, scientific in nature, and investigative in approach. The examination of official city documents, archives of local newspapers, exit poll data, and select interviews join to make a rigorous ethnography. The data were complemented by the use of racial politics as a lens through which to interpret results.Findings – This chapter provides empirical insights about the realities of racial politics, the impact of extreme demographic shifts, and the prospects for coalition formation. Governance and resource allocation among minorities by minorities may be the challenge of the 21st century. Deracialized/racialized campaigns and elections make governing a difficult proposition. Even when broad progressive movements are underway (shared ideology) those arrangements seem much more fragile when long-term alliances cannot be forged.Research implications – This chapter applies the case study method. This approach uses the researcher as the primary tool of data collection and employs rigorous methods to avoid bias and ensure accuracy of data. However, because of the chosen approach, the research results may lack generalizability. Hence, we recommend further testing of the research propositions.Practical implications – This chapter posits implications for long-term coalition building and alliance formation among minority voters; the realities of race and representation; and a re-examination of governance style (“racialized” vs. “deracialized”) in municipal government.Originality/value – This chapter intersects urban and racial politics and purports to examine 21st century minority voting behavior and the impact of such behavior upon the policy process (policy responsiveness). Hence, can political incorporation be better achieved with the interests of minorities’ merged (universal interests)?

Literature and textbooks about intercultural communication and management often feature cultural differences rather than similarities. Japanese culture is frequently distinguished in business and management contexts from Western culture. This process arguably leads to an overemphasis of the uniqueness of Japanese culture. A review of relevant literature, however, reveals that the tendency to overemphasise the uniqueness of Japanese culture is one shared by both Western and Japanese scholars. This paper discusses how the discourse has emerged in business and intercultural literature by tracing the influence of historical and economic factors. It also explores the implications of describing Japanese business culture in relation to practices in the West for both managers and students internationally. International students of business, who are grappling with intercultural communication literature as it pertains to Japan and the West, need to engage in critical ways with the discourse adopted in the literature. The intention therefore of the paper is to illuminate how a “differences‐focused” approach in texts could promote a stereotypical and potentially facile view of Japanese culture rather than one that encourages a more meaningful and informed understanding that appreciates the context in which the uniqueness of Japanese culture has hitherto been presented.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an assessment guide based on the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) model criteria. Courts have been under pressure to become more accountable and responsive organisations. In this context, self-assessment models that drive attention to the way resources are being used and to the results that are being achieved, incorporating the views of different stakeholders, are of particular interest.

A case study approach was used. The meaning of the quality principles that underline the EFQM model was discussed with the court administrator, judges, prosecutors and justice officers. Those perspectives were taken into account when translating the criteria and criterion parts of the EFQM model. The assessment guide was validated by an experts’ panel.

The EFQM model captures the essential features of a court even if the courts terminology and governance models challenge the translation of some criteria. The resulting guide includes a description of the various criteria and criterion parts and the identification of key focus areas, while giving some illustrative examples of initiatives and indicators that could be looked at under each model dimension.

The assessment guide can be used to undertake self-assessment exercises in different courts.

There is a lack of studies on the measurement of courts’ performance apart from the publication of simple lists of process indicators. The assessment guide developed in this study is perhaps one of the most comprehensive resources for assessing the quality of a court.

Investigates whether the Chinese perceive products to possess gender and whether these perceptions are based on who buys the product, who uses the product, and/or who promotes the product. The results indicate that the Chinese do indeed perceive many products to have gender. For those products which are clearly sex‐typed, the primary determinant of these perceptions is the user; for more ambiguous products, uses the cues of user, buyer and promoter. Discusses the marketing implications regarding how to use these cues in creating and/or avoiding gender images of products.

Discusses the circumstances under which a firm′s customer can become its competitor. Examines the threats posed by consumer cooption and the conditions under which customer‐to‐competitor role switch presents a firm with opportunities. Explores these opportunities within the context of the travel and tourism industry.

This study examines the consequences of stigmatization that occurred during a tuberculosis outbreak concentrated among Puerto Rican clients enrolled in a Chicago drug treatment center. Using ethnographic methods, I examine three factors that contributed to the stigmatization of those with TB. One factor concerns the fear elicited by the deadly disease that aroused reactions among Puerto Rican community members that were derived from earlier experiences. A second factor involves traditional public health measures enacted in response to the outbreak that facilitating labeling of those with TB, further fueling stigmatization. A third factor concerns the re‐articulation of group boundaries occurring among drug program inhabitants, whereby TB‐impacted persons were marginalized in order to reaffirmed the status of others whose identity had been compromised by the epidemic. The study’s implications for public health are discussed and suggestions are offered for developing innovative intervention approaches.