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Highlights the key elements of a mentor scheme which is running to support the NHS students on the part‐time MBA programme at Durham University Business School. Outlines the background and scope of the MBA programme in the context of the Northern Regional Health Authority. Examines the origins of mentoring and shows how the key elements from the ancient Greek tale are used as a model for the mentor system. Goes on to look at many aspects of the system in relation to both the mentee and the mentor. Draws on the writings of Georg Simmel to explain the uniqueness of mentoring and attempts to offer some solutions to the problems involved in the scheme. Forms part of an ongoing research project.

Purpose – We examine electoral politics in the City of Atlanta, GA, and shed light on the prospect that in 2009 Atlanta elected its “last Black mayor.”  We consider how African American tensions around class and social identity may demobilize key constituents of the Black electoral coalition while an increasing Black out-migration and White in-migration had changed the city’s racial balance of electoral power. Recognizing the margin of victory in the 2009 mayoral election between Kasim Reed (an African American) and Mary Norwood (a White challenger) was small (714 votes), we examine how electoral and demographic characteristics explain this result.Methodology – We utilize (1) the 2009 State of Georgia Board of Elections voter demographic file; (2) 2010 Census data (ACS 5 year estimates), and 2009 Mayoral Election count data. We presented descriptive statistics, comparing community level factors and voter characteristics.Research implications – The limitations of this work is that it is exploratory and thus we do not statistically isolate the effects of class and social identity.Findings – Our findings indicate that Reed and other Black elected officials will have to make concerted efforts if they hope to “retain” the Black poor as well as gay and lesbian citizens within a progressive electoral coalition.

This is an interpretive study in the sociology of literature that explores Aeschylus’s trilogy of dramatic plays known as the Oresteia. The plays dramatize a normative argument that exemplifies the dialectical struggle between domination and democracy. Social relations are characterized by agon (struggle), domination, and contradictions brought about by learning through suffering. These social realities reflect the primary theoretical claim of radical interactionism (RI) that domination and conflict are profound, pervasive, and perennial. On the interpersonal level, the plays dramatize structure, agency, role-taking, and the Thomas Axiom. As the first drama to interrogate an inchoate polity as an object of the public’s gaze, the Oresteia anticipates the sociological importance of critical consciousness, collective decision-making, political institutions, moral and, ultimately, cultural transformation. Despite a social context of slavery, imperialism, xenophobia, ostracism, misogyny, exclusivity, and constant warfare, the Oresteia foreshadows Western civilization’s ideals of legal-rational domination, citizenship, human rights, persuasion, and justice that have been imperfectly institutionalized to reduce surplus domination. The West still struggles to realize those ideals.

The past few years have seen the emergence of new retail strategies in the marketplace, but do they necessarily cater for the changing nature of the UK shopper? Mintel's 6th annual retail conference, held in June, looked at this theme and in particular asked the question — “Is the customer king?”

The Asian paradigm is more than just a demonstration of visually impactful behaviors and practices by hospitality establishments that can be explained by their different Asian cultural backgrounds and reinforced by training; it is focused on the customer, leveraging of the commercial environment while highlighting, not hiding, cultural and destination differences to give people more reasons to visit and repeatedly use their properties. This chapter examines to evaluate transferability of Asian paradigm in hospitality management concepts to non-Asian countries; what and how Asian paradigm in hospitality management can be transferred. For the detailed level on examination and discussion of transferability of Asian concepts, the chapter includes case of Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts for operators’ point of view.

The purpose of this paper is to show how managers of Polish local radio stations construct their organizations in terms of archetypes of rivalry as a response to perceived changes in the environment.

First the central notions are explained, such as market, competition, archetype, and then the findings from a prolonged empirical study are presented.

Environmental change is seen as the plot on the managers' narratives, whereas the chosen archetypes of rivalry – as characters in those stories – are supposed to handle the changes.

The paper explores some aspects of the narrative construction of environmental change.

This paper is a reflective piece on a PhD workshop on “feminist organising” organised in November 2017 by the three authors of this paper. Calls to resist the neoliberalisation of academia through academic activism are gaining momentum. The authors’ take on academic activism builds on feminist thought and practice, a tradition that remains overlooked in contributions on resisting neoliberalisation in academia. Feminism has been long committed to highlighting the epistemic inequalities endured by women and marginalised people in academia. This study aims to draw on radical feminist perspectives and on the notion of prefigurative organising to rethink the topic of academic activism. How can feminist academic activism resist the neoliberal academia?

This study explores this question through a multi-vocal autoethnographic account of the event-organising process.

The production of feminist space within academia was shaped through material and epistemic tensions. The study critically reflects on the extent to which the event can be read as prefigurative feminist self-organising and as neoliberal academic career-focused self-organising. The study concludes that by creating a space for sisterhood and learning, the empowering potential of feminist organising is experienced.

The study shows both the difficulties and potentials for feminist organising within the university. The concept of “prefiguration” provides a theoretical framework enabling us to grasp the ongoing efforts on which feminist organising relies. It escapes a dichotomy between success and failure that fosters radical pessimism or optimism potentially hindering political action.