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1 – 10 of 403
Article
Publication date: 1 May 1986

Brian A. Richardson and C. Grant Robinson

Despite technological advances banking still concerns people. Frontline personnel form a critical means of competition in the marketplace and motivating them is a key task…

1407

Abstract

Despite technological advances banking still concerns people. Frontline personnel form a critical means of competition in the marketplace and motivating them is a key task. Internal marketing provides the framework for such activities. Data gathered and analysed prior to and after the implementaton of an internal marketing programme confirms that it does impact on the quality of the service provided, recognising the value of communication in informing and motivating staff and creating positive attitudes and a sense of belonging. Apart from size there is little to differentiate banks from one another as all carry a similar range of services and charge similar rates. The bank that shows its superiority in the customer contact area should have a competitive tool and a means of successfully differentiating itself from competitors.

Details

International Journal of Bank Marketing, vol. 4 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0265-2323

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 20 November 2017

D.G. Brian Jones and Alan J. Richardson

The aim of this study is to explore the attempts by early twentieth century cyclecar manufacturers in the UK and USA to segment the personal transportation market and to position…

1165

Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this study is to explore the attempts by early twentieth century cyclecar manufacturers in the UK and USA to segment the personal transportation market and to position early cyclecars through the development of unique product attributes and advertising. More specifically, the authors speculate about early twentieth century British cyclecar marketing strategies that implicitly recognized a sports car segment and positioned cyclecar brands to meet the needs of that segment.

Design/methodology/approach

The primary source material for this research is a sample of 205 print ads and articles from the early twentieth century (1912-1921) specialty magazines devoted to cyclecars in the UK and USA. We combine the content analysis of the sample of ads with a critical reading and interpretation of a sub-sample of those same ads.

Findings

Between 1910 and 1921, a new form of personal transportation was developed that combined the technology of motorcycles with the utility of automobiles. Known as “cyclecars”, these vehicles were typically constructed from off-the-shelf motorcycle parts and assembled in small batches by a myriad of manufacturers. Current scholarship suggests that the cyclecar craze of the 1910s ended with the introduction of low cost “real” automobiles such as the Ford Model T, Austin 7 and Morris Oxford. We use the content analysis of cyclecar advertisements to construct a brand-positioning map of this emerging segment of the transportation market. We argue that while the core cyclecar positioning was in direct competition with small economically positioned cars such as the Ford Model T, a significant part of the market, primarily centered in the UK, could be considered as for sports cars. That segment of the cyclecar market, along with the development of cyclecars into urban delivery vehicles, continued over time and has re-emerged today in a range of three-wheeled sports cars, including the updating and continuation of the British Morgan 3 Wheeler model which was launched during the heyday of cyclecars.

Research limitations/implications

The authors can only speculate about the impact of the Ford Model T in this study. Further research on that issue is needed.

Originality/value

This is the first historical study of cyclecar marketing. Most of what little has been published about cyclecars focuses on their design and technology.

Details

Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, vol. 9 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1755-750X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 January 2023

Mizla Manandhar-Richardson, Ceri Woodrow and Georgia Cooper-Taylor

This study aims to understand the experiences of professional paid carers providing community support to people with intellectual disability “at risk of admission”. This study…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to understand the experiences of professional paid carers providing community support to people with intellectual disability “at risk of admission”. This study explores factors that were helpful or lacking in terms of the support the carers received from NHS health services during this time.

Design/methodology/approach

This study conducted semi-structured interview with eight participants. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data.

Findings

Three main themes and ten subthemes were identified. The first main theme was “support systems” that were available or lacking for the client and their carers. The second main theme was “training and supervision” available to the carers and their team when the individual they supported needed additional support. The third theme was “change” clients encountered which included changes in the environment as well as changes because of COVID-19 pandemic.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study on experiences of carers during specifically high stress periods, such as when the clients they are supporting are at risk of hospital admission.

Abstract

Details

The Canterbury Sound in Popular Music: Scene, Identity and Myth
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78769-490-3

Article
Publication date: 1 January 1985

Brian J. Loasby

Professor Shackle is the most courteous, the most erudite, and the most radical critic of orthodox economics. The concept of profit, which apparently serves as such a convenient…

Abstract

Professor Shackle is the most courteous, the most erudite, and the most radical critic of orthodox economics. The concept of profit, which apparently serves as such a convenient instrument of equilibrium, on closer enquiry is revealed to be necessarily subversive of such schemes of order; for profit can arise only where knowledge is not adequate to support any agreed — even probabilistically agreed — assessment of a situation. Thus any consideration of Professor Shackle's (1972, Chapter 35) discussion of profit focuses our attention on the insufficiency of knowledge which is the core of his criticism of orthodoxy. It should be no surprise, therefore, to find that the problem of coherence within economic systems resembles the problem of coherence in the growth of knowledge. Both appear to depend upon a productive but precarious tension between imaginative conjectures and a framework of serviceable conventions within which they may be tested.

Details

Journal of Economic Studies, vol. 12 no. 1/2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-3585

Article
Publication date: 1 January 1975

Deryck CBE Mumford

When Sir William Mather becomes President of the Association of Colleges for Further and Higher Education in February, he will be assuming an office which was first occupied by…

Abstract

When Sir William Mather becomes President of the Association of Colleges for Further and Higher Education in February, he will be assuming an office which was first occupied by his grandfather, The Right Honourable Sir William Mather PC, in 1895. Continuity—of which this is anexample—amongst people, policies and philosophies has strongly characterised the 80‐year history of the Association. R. L. Roberts, father of the present Honorary Treasurer, Brian Roberts, also served the Association for many years as Honorary Treasurer. He was in addition Chairman of the Council in 1930 and 1950, as was Brian in 1964. In the last thirty years the Association has had only three Honorary Secretaries—J. C. Jones, Eric Richardson, and myself—all three of whom, by rare coincidence, were present at the 1974 summer conference in Bournemouth.

Details

Education + Training, vol. 17 no. 1/2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0040-0912

Article
Publication date: 17 December 2020

Brian Richardson

This study aims to explore the character and attainment of an effective URL system by expanding the concept of URL normalization, originally connected to machine-reading access of…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to explore the character and attainment of an effective URL system by expanding the concept of URL normalization, originally connected to machine-reading access of web pages, to form a broader understanding of URL systematization that includes user-focused cognitive and practical elements.

Design/methodology/approach

A revised understanding of URL normalization will be used to critically analyzed URLs of main admissions pages from M1 universities, as designated by the Carnegie Foundation.

Findings

The study found that very few institutions implemented well-organized systems of Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) and redirects and that many included unintelligible and impractical URLs that would hinder the effective use of their websites.

Practical implications

A broader understanding of URL systematization will result in more effective website design. URLs must serve an indexical function pointing to a unique web resource, whatever the URL's format. However, URLs should also consider human usability issues and strive to be simple, short, communicable, intelligible and ultimately useful as part of social interactions. Poorly designed URLs create frustration, if not failure, by being difficult to use, confusing or interminable. An effective URL system should also include redirects to anticipate alternate, meaningful URLs that are different from the canonical path. The framework and recommendations arising from this study are applicable to many website structures.

Originality/value

The expanded understanding of the concept of URL normalization and subsequent evaluation principles can be used to assess the overall coherence and completeness of the website in general, thus improving website usability.

Details

International Journal of Web Information Systems, vol. 17 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1744-0084

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 March 1994

Andrew M. McLaughlin and Jeremy. J. Richardson

Budgetary reform in the UK since the International Monetary Fund (IMF) intervention under a Labour government in 1976 has been prompted by a new conventional wisdom that public…

Abstract

Budgetary reform in the UK since the International Monetary Fund (IMF) intervention under a Labour government in 1976 has been prompted by a new conventional wisdom that public expenditure was too high, and consequently, "crowded out" private sector investment. Although this belief became widespread in western democracies, in Britain it developed relatively early and was closely linked to the wider debate about Britain's relative economic decline. The first section of this article reviews the main reforms of the budgetary process which these concerns prompted.

In the second section we note that, despite the political concern with reducing public expenditure in the 1980s, success has been limited and priority is now the improvement of the underlying control and evaluation mechanisms in government spending. In practice, the main policy activity of the Thatcher administrations was on gaining "value for money" from existing expenditure. These developments are discussed and the likelihood of success considered. The nature of the present annual budgetary cycle is described as are the most recent developments designed to finally gain some form of effective expenditure control.

Details

Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management, vol. 6 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1096-3367

Book part
Publication date: 1 January 2004

Rebecca Gasior Altman is a graduate student in the Department of Sociology at Brown University. Her focus is on medical sociology, environmental sociology, organizational theory…

Abstract

Rebecca Gasior Altman is a graduate student in the Department of Sociology at Brown University. Her focus is on medical sociology, environmental sociology, organizational theory, and social movement theory. Her current research projects analyze narratives about community toxics activism, environmental advocacy support organizations, and medical waste.Phil Brown is Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies at Brown University. He is currently examining disputes over environmental factors in asthma, breast cancer, and Gulf War-related illnesses, as well as toxics reduction and precautionary principle approaches that can help avoid toxic exposures. He is the author of No Safe Place: Toxic Waste, Leukemia, and Community Action (Phil Brown & Edwin Mikkelsen), co-editor of a collection, Illness and the Environment: A Reader in Contested Medicine, and editor of Perspectives in Medical Sociology.Daniel M. Cress is Associate Professor of Sociology in the Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences at Western State College of Colorado. His research and teaching interests include social movements – particularly among poor and marginalized groups, environmental sociology, and globalization. His published work has focused on protest activity by homeless people.Jennifer Earl is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research areas include social movements and the sociology of law, with research emphases on the social control of protest, social movement outcomes, Internet contention, and legal change. Her published work has appeared in a number of journals, including the American Sociological Review, Sociological Theory, and the Journal of Historical Sociology.Myra Marx Ferree is professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her work on social movements has focused on women’s mobilizations and organizations in Germany, the U.S., and transnationally, most recently looking at interactions between American and Russian feminists (Signs, 2001), German and American abortion discourses and the definition of radicalism (AJS, 2003), and the European Women’s Lobby in relation to transnational women’s organizations on the web (Social Politics, 2004).Joshua Gamson is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of San Francisco. He is author of Freaks Talk Back: Tabloid Talk Shows and Sexual Nonconformity (Chicago, 1998), Claims to Fame: Celebrity in Contemporary America (California, 1994), and numerous articles on social movements, gay and lesbian politics, popular culture and media. He is currently working on a biography of the disco star Sylvester.Teresa Ghilarducci is Associate Professor of Economics and Director of the Higgins Labor Research Center at the University of Notre Dame. She is author of Labor’s Capital: The Economics and Politics of Private Pensions (MIT Press) and Portable Pension Plans for Casual Labor Markets: Lessons from the Operating Engineers Central Pension Fund (with Garth Mangum, Jeffrey S. Petersen & Peter Philips). She is a former Board of Trustees member of the Indiana Public Employees Retirement Fund, a former advisory board member for the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, and a Fellow of the National Academy of Social Insurance.Brian Mayer is a doctoral student in the Sociology Department at Brown University. His interests include environmental and medical sociology, as well as science and technology studies. His recent projects include an investigation of the growth of the precautionary principle as a new paradigm among environmental organizations and a study of social movements addressing environmental health issues.Sabrina McCormick is a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology at Brown University. She is a Henry Luce Foundation Fellow through the Watson Institute of International Studies. Her main interests are environmental sociology, medical sociology, and the politics of development. As a Luce Fellow, she is engaged in comparing environmentally-based movements in the U.S. and Brazil. Additional special interests include the social contestation of environmental illness, the insertion of lay knowledge into expert systems, and the role of social movements in these struggles. She has recent publications by Ms. Magazine and The National Women’s Health Network related to these areas.Rachel Morello-Frosch is an assistant professor at the Center for Environmental Studies and the Department of Community Health, School of Medicine at Brown University. As an environmental health scientist and epidemiologist, her research examines race and class determinants of the distribution of health risks associated with air pollution among diverse communities in the United States. Her current work focuses on: comparative risk assessment and environmental justice, developing models for community-based environmental health research, children’s environmental health, and the intersection between economic restructuring and environmental health. Her work has appeared in Environmental Health Perspectives, Risk Analysis, International Journal of Health Services, Urban Affairs Review, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, and Environment and Planning C. She also sits on the scientific advisory board of Breast Cancer Action in San Francisco.Daniel J. Myers is Associate Professor, Chair of Sociology, and Fellow of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. He has published work on collective violence, racial conflict, formal models of collective action, urban poverty, and the diffusion of social behavior in the American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Journal of Conflict Resolution, and Mobilization. He is also author of Toward a More Perfect Union: The Governance of Metropolitan America and The Future of Urban Poverty (both with Ralph Conant), and Social Psychology (5th edition) with Andy Michener and John Delamater. He is currently conducting a National Science Foundation-funded project examining the structural conditions, diffusion patterns, and media coverage related to U.S. racial rioting in the 1960s.Sharon Erickson Nepstad is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Duquesne University and the author of Convictions of the Soul: Religion, Culture, and Agency in the Central America Solidarity Movement (Oxford University Press, 2004).Francesca Polletta is Associate Professor of Sociology at Columbia University. She is the author of Freedom Is an Endless Meeting: Democracy in American Social Movements (University of Chicago, 2002) and editor, with Jeff Goodwin and James M. Jasper, of Passionate Politics: Emotions and Social Movements (University of Chicago, 2001). She has published articles on culture, collective identity, emotions, law, and narrative in social movements, and on the civil rights, women’s liberation, new left, and contemporary anti-corporate globalization movements.Nicole C. Raeburn is Assistant Professor and Chair of Sociology at the University of San Francisco. She is the author of the book, Changing Corporate America from Inside Out: Lesbian and Gay Workplace Rights (University of Minnesota Press, 2004). Her new research project compares the adoption of gay-inclusive workplace policies in the corporate, educational, and government sectors.Leila J. Rupp is Professor and Chair of Women’s Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. A historian by training, her teaching and research focus on sexuality and women’s movements. She is coauthor with Verta Taylor of Drag Queens at the 801 Cabaret (2003) and Survival in the Doldrums: The American Women’s Rights Movement, 1945 to the 1960s (1987) and author of A Desired Past: A Short History of Same-Sex Sexuality in America (1999), Worlds of Women: The Making of an International Women’s Movement (1997), and Mobilizing Women for War: German and American Propaganda, 1939–1945 (1978). She is also editor of the Journal of Women’s History.David A. Snow is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine. He taught previously at the universities of Arizona and Texas. He has authored numerous articles and chapters on homelessness, collective action and social movements, religious conversion, self and identity, framing processes, symbolic interactionism, and qualitative field methods; and has authored a number of books as well, including Down on Their Luck: A Study of Homeless Street People (with Leon Anderson), Shakubuku: A Study of the Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist Movement in America, 1960–1975, and The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements (edited with Sarah Soule & Hanspeter Kriesi). His most current research project involves an NSF-funded interdisciplinary, comparative study of homelessness in four global cities (Los Angeles, Paris, São Paulo, and Tokyo).Sarah A. Soule is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Arizona. Her research examines U.S. state policy change and diffusion and the role social movements have on these processes. Current projects include the NSF-funded “Dynamics and Diffusion of Collective Protest in the U.S.” from which data for this paper come; an analysis of state-level contraception and abortion laws; an analysis of state ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment; and an analysis of state-level same-sex marriage bans. She has recently completed an edited volume, The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, with David Snow and Hanspeter Kreisi.Verta A. Taylor is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is coauthor with Leila J. Rupp of Drag Queens at the 801 Cabaret (University of Chicago Press) and Survival in the Doldrums : The American Women’s Rights Movement, 1945 to the 1960s (Oxford University Press); co-editor with Laurel Richardson and Nancy Whittier of Feminist Frontiers VI (McGraw-Hill); and author of Rock-a-by Baby: Feminism, Self-Help and Postpartum Depression (Routledge). Her articles on the women’s movement, the gay and lesbian movement, and social movement theory have appeared in journals, such as The American Sociological Review, Signs, Social Problems, Mobilization, Gender & Society, Qualitative Sociology, Journal of Women’s History, and Journal of Homosexuality.Nella Van Dyke is currently an Assistant Professor in the Sociology Department at Washington State University. Her research focuses on the dynamics of student protest, social movement coalitions, hate crimes, and the factors influencing right-wing mobilization. Her recent publications include articles in Social Problems and Research in Political Sociology. She is currently conducting research on the AFL-CIO’s Union Summer student internship program and its influence on student protest, how the tactics of protest change over time, and how movement opponents influence the collective identity of gay and lesbian movement organizations.Stephen Zavestoski is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of San Francisco. His current research examines the role of science in disputes over the environmental causes of unexplained illnesses, the use of the Internet as a tool for enhancing public participation in federal environmental rulemaking, and citizen responses to community contamination. His work appears in journals such as Science, Technology & Human Values, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Sociology of Health and Illness, and in the book Sustainable Consumption: Conceptual Issues and Policy Problems.

Details

Authority in Contention
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-76231-037-1

Article
Publication date: 7 November 2018

Nicholas Kavish and Brian Boutwell

Criminology has produced more than a century of informative research on the social correlates of criminal behavior. Recently, a growing body of theoretical and empirical work has…

Abstract

Purpose

Criminology has produced more than a century of informative research on the social correlates of criminal behavior. Recently, a growing body of theoretical and empirical work has begun to apply evolutionary principles, particularly from life history theory (LHT), to the study of crime. As this body of research continues to grow, it is important that work in this area synthesizes evolutionary principles with the decades of sociological research on the correlates of crime. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

The current paper reviews the brief history of research applying life history concepts to criminology, providing an overview of the underlying framework, exploring examples of empirically testable and tested hypotheses that have been derived from the theory, discussing cautions and criticisms of life history research, and discussing how this area of research can be further integrated with existing theory.

Findings

A growing body of research has, with relative consistency, associated indicators of a faster life history strategy with aggression and violence in humans and across the animal kingdom. Research into these associations is still vulnerable to genetic confounding and more research with genetically sensitive designs is needed. The use of hypotheses informed by evolutionary insight and tested with genetically sensitive designs provides the best option for understanding how environmental factors can have an impact on violent and criminal behavior.

Originality/value

The current paper provides an updated review of the growing application of LHT to the study of human behavior and acknowledges criticisms and areas of concern that need to be considered when forming hypotheses for research.

Details

Journal of Criminal Psychology, vol. 8 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2009-3829

Keywords

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