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This paper aims to suggest that the concept of clinical governance goes beyond a bureaucratic accountability structure and can be viewed as a negotiated balance between imperfectly aligned and sometimes conflicting goals within a complex adaptive system. On this view, the information system cannot be separated conceptually from the system of governance it supports or the people whose work it facilitates or hinders.

The study, located within the English National Health Service (NHS) between 1999 and 2005, is case study based using a multi method approach to data collection within two primary care organisations (PCOs). The research strategy is conducted within a social constructionist ontological perspective.

The findings reflect the following broad‐based themes: mutual adjustment of a plurality of stakeholder perceptions, preferences and priorities; the development of information and communication systems, empowered by informatics; an emphasis on education and training to build capacity and capability.

Limitations of case study methodology include a tendency to provide selected accounts. These are potentially biased and risk trivialising findings. Rooted in specific context, their generalisability to other contexts is limited by the extent to which contexts are similar. Reasonable attempts were made to minimise any bias. The diversity of data collection methods used in the study was an attempt to counterbalance the limitations highlighted in one method by strength from alternative techniques.

The paper makes recommendations in two key governance areas: education and learning to manage health information. In practice, the lessons learned provide opportunities to inform future approaches to health informatics educational programmes.

With regard to topicality, it is suggested that many of the developmental issues highlighted during the establishment of quality improvement programmes within primary care organisations (PCGs/PCTs) are relevant in the light of current NHS reforms and move towards commissioning consortia.

Like the hero of the 1946 Capra movie It's a Wonderful Life, Norman Denzin has been a builder of his local community. While much attention has been paid to his intellectual contributions on methods and in several substantive areas, possibly his greatest accomplishments have been in the area of building and fostering a robust, international, multidisciplinary qualitative research community. This chapter explores some of these contributions, focusing on Denzin's leadership in creating the Handbook of Qualitative Research, the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, and eight different journals or book series for which he serves as editor or coeditor. Through these channels, he has fostered the work of younger scholars, of marginalized groups, and of qualitative communities throughout the world, and supported innovative directions in qualitative theory and practice.

Narrative inquiry and life history are privileged methods for studying people's lives, experiences, and identity construction. In this article, I argue that critical life history inquiry is especially suitable for studies of those, who have actively involved in progressive social and cultural movements and have developed an identity as activist educators.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a qualitative research method for which the empirical material is drawn from the experience of a practitioner-researcher.

First, a review of other autobiographical methods is made to show that the proposed method offers something different. Subsequently, it briefly outlines the epistemological and theoretical anchors that guided the development of the proposed method. Then it follows the path and the peculiarities of this method. And finally a few guidelines are presented for the legitimization of the knowledge generated, illustrated by an example.

The proposed method is aimed at experienced practitioners who are involved in a process of scientific research. Ideally, it is carried out with a co-searcher.

A new method of qualitative research to explore new avenues in management science.

The purpose of this study is to determine the extent to which two existing models of information behaviour could explain the information behaviour of visually impaired people seeking health and social care information.

The research was conducted within a constructivist paradigm. A total of 28 semi‐structured interviews (face‐to‐face or telephone) with 31 visually impaired people were conducted. Framework analysis was used to analyse the results.

This study identified several factors that may affect a visually impaired person's information behaviour. These related to the presence of other health conditions or disabilities, participants' understanding of the word “information”, their interactions with information providers, their degree of independence, the support they received from friends and family, their acceptance of their own visual impairment, as well as their awareness of other visual impairments, their registration status and their willingness and ability to pay for aids, adaptations and equipment.

This study provides a new and valuable insight into the information behaviour of visually impaired people, as well as testing the applicability of a specific and generic information model to the information behaviour of visually impaired people seeking health and social care information.

The purpose of this paper is to examine critically both utopian and dystopian discourses of offshoring so that a more considered, nonetheless theoretically informed, view of the global offshore phenomenon can be formed.

Drawing upon some preliminary research on offshoring ventures from the UK to India, and the extant literature, the practice of business process outsourcing (BPO) via offshoring is explored and critiqued.

It is argued that neither dream nor nightmare is the adequate discursive metaphor to capture what we have discerned through our research on offshore outsourcing.

The primary contribution of this paper is that demonstrates that utopian and dystopian discourses fail to adequately explain the practice of offshore BPO and that in cultural, economical, ethical, and political terms, it is much more complex.

The Croxton + Garry (C+G) Melton Whiting Plant is the largest calcium carbonate production unit within the Croxton + Garry Group, as well as one of the biggest U.K. producer of this type of mineral. It is the second plant to achieve registration to BS 5750: Part 2:1987 and ISO 9002 — 1987, the internationally recognised standards for quality assurance and control.

My feminist, narrative research privileges women’s voice. It comprises a cross‐cultural narrative analysis of 11 Mongolian and 11 Australian women’s stories of survival, recovery and remaking of self following domestic/intimate partner violence. With a major focus on narrative identity, I identified plots and themes of individual autobiographical narratives, as well as relevant canonical narratives (general stories of lives arising from dominant discourses in a particular culture). From these elements I created a meta‐narrative which constitutes the body of the research report. The strength of this narrative research method was to elicit narratives of women’s journeys through and beyond domestic violence. The research process involved myself as researcher, as well as participants themselves, bearing witness to and reflecting on the women’s stories. Particularly empowering for participants was hearing and responding to their own stories and the sharing of stories among participants. In this article I give an overview of my theoretical approaches and research methods, tell the story of conducting the research and give a brief summary of my findings and conclusions.

Examines early retail trade advertising in two typical UK provincial newspapers ‐ the ‘Leicester Journal’ and the ‘Leicester Chronicle’. Looks in depth at the differences in the style of advertising of the two newspapers, citing: food and drink; fashion; household products; and national brands ‐ but focusing more on localised adverts. Concludes that the years 1855‐1871 were exciting and of seemingly unlimited expansion for the middle class with a new affluence and that advertising enhanced this view, and ergo, the ‘Golden age of advertising’ in the 1890s was presaged by its foundation.