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1 – 10 of over 9000Philip A. Ritson and Lee D. Parker
This paper aims to examine the employment of the military metaphor by the management thinker and writer Lyndall Urwick who in the twentieth century developed and articulated his…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the employment of the military metaphor by the management thinker and writer Lyndall Urwick who in the twentieth century developed and articulated his ideas over a 60-year period, arguably the longest continuous period of any management writer of his day.
Design/methodology/approach
This study draws on published research into Urwick as well as upon the breadth of his published writings over a 60-year period. It offers a contextualised explanatory analysis of his military theory ideas and explores their lack of traction by reference to British military, economic and social history.
Findings
The study reveals the wartime context that surrounded the emergence of his ideas and motivated Urwick’s faith in the military approach to management. This stood in contrast to the countervailing forces of the post-war decline in British industry and a populist mythology of British Army mismanagement and failure in the Great War.
Originality/value
In this case of a management idea’s failure to gain traction, the importance of the congruence between management theory and societal beliefs emerges as crucial to the likely uptake of new management thinking.
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Recent trends in Western civics education have attempted to secure democratic institutions from perceived threats. This paper investigates how political securitisation…
Abstract
Purpose
Recent trends in Western civics education have attempted to secure democratic institutions from perceived threats. This paper investigates how political securitisation historically operated within civics textbooks in Australia and Aotearoa, New Zealand. It further evaluates how Māori, Aboriginal and other Indigenous peoples were variably incorporated or marginalised in these educational discourses.
Design/methodology/approach
This discourse analysis evaluates a sample of civics textbooks circulated in Australia and New Zealand between 1880 and 1920. These historical sources are interpreted through theories of decoloniality and securitisation.
Findings
The sample of textbooks asserted to students that their self-governing colonies required the military protection of the British Empire against undemocratic “threats”. They argued that self-governing colonies strengthened the empire by raising subjects who were loyal to British military interests and ideological values. The authors pedagogically encouraged a governmentality within students that was complementary to military, imperial and democratic service. The hypocritical denial of self-government for many Indigenous peoples was rationalised as a measure of “security” against “native rule” and imperial rivals.
Originality/value
Under a lens of securitisation, the discursive links between imperialism, military service and democratic diligence have not yet been examined in civics textbooks from the historical contexts of Australia and New Zealand. This investigation provides conceptual and pedagogical insights for contemporary civics education in both nations.
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This article presents a historical investigation into the foreign policy messages of the British Union of Fascists' (BUF) publicity and propaganda from its foundation in 1932…
Abstract
Purpose
This article presents a historical investigation into the foreign policy messages of the British Union of Fascists' (BUF) publicity and propaganda from its foundation in 1932 until the outbreak of World War II in 1939, along with a discussion of the methods and institutional arrangements used to propagate its ideas of peace, empire and transnational co-operation.
Design/methodology/approach
The historical investigation is based upon scrutiny of original BUF documents relating to the period 1932–1939 from various archives. After cataloguing of the relevant publicity and propaganda materials in time sequence and thematically, analysis was organised using a historical institutionalism approach.
Findings
The article explains the different phases of the BUF's message development and how publications, meetings and media were used to project its ideas. It also discussed the impact of support from Viscount Rothermere's newspapers and financial support from Benito Mussolini. Consideration of publicity materials alongside files from BUF headquarters enabled identification and investigation into the communicative actors who did the publicity work, including Director of Publicity, John Beckett.
Social implications
The article reflects upon how the British Union of Fascists' publicity and propaganda relates to modern manifestations of the communication of authoritarian and nationalistic political propositions and the historical continuities that endure therein.
Originality/value
The project makes an original contribution to the history of British political propaganda and public relations through an inquiry based upon scrutiny of historical documents in UK archives relating to BUF publicity related to foreign policy.
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Helen Brunger, Jonathan Serrato and Jane Ogden
Ex‐service personnel face numerous and significant problems upon discharge from the forces. The purpose of this paper is to explore experiences of the transition from military to…
Abstract
Purpose
Ex‐service personnel face numerous and significant problems upon discharge from the forces. The purpose of this paper is to explore experiences of the transition from military to civilian life and to identify some of the barriers and facilitators to re‐employment.
Design/methodology/approach
In‐depth interviews were carried out with 11 ex‐servicemen who had previously served in the UK armed forces and analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA).
Findings
Participants described their experiences in terms of three broad themes: characteristics of a military life; loss as experienced upon return to civilian life; and the attempt to bridge the gap between these two lives. Transcending these themes was the notion of identity, illustrating that the transition from military to civilian life can be viewed as a shift in sense of self from soldier to civilian.
Research limitations/implications
The current study only recruited male ex‐service personnel and therefore the findings may not accurately represent the experiences of female service leavers.
Practical implications
The military needs to ensure that not only is support provided for all service personnel, but that it goes beyond basic vocational advice. Although the needs of ex‐service personnel are defined by factors other than unemployment, such as trauma or the sudden loss of security, they do relate back to unemployment in some capacity. Methodological changes to the discharge process could help this population to achieve a more continuous trajectory rather than a fragmented one.
Originality/value
The present study has provided further insight into the identity experiences of ex‐service personnel along their journey from soldier to civilian. Breakwell's Identity Process Theory provided a valuable framework for understanding the experiences of ex‐service personnel.
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Compares the methodology of the medical decision‐making process with that of the military. The key to both professions is reliable, efficient decision making. Effective decision…
Abstract
Compares the methodology of the medical decision‐making process with that of the military. The key to both professions is reliable, efficient decision making. Effective decision makers use the hypothetical‐deductive approach which utilizes intuition to generate ideas which are tested by the available evidence. Medicine is developing a holistic, conceptual and student‐centred education process which compares with the more rigid, external system of military training. The military system has a better methodology for communication both verbally and in writing than medicine. Suggests that both professions may benefit from an examination of each professional culture.
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In the last year or two the number of ad hoc record‐listing projects in this country has increased quite dramatically. After a long period during which any such initiatives were…
Abstract
In the last year or two the number of ad hoc record‐listing projects in this country has increased quite dramatically. After a long period during which any such initiatives were few and far between, the regular, long‐term work of the major libraries and of the various central and local government record‐holding or ‐listing institutions is now being massively supplemented by a network of non‐official efforts, already numerous enough to amount to a distinct para‐activity of their own.
This paper gives a general survey of the methods of contamination control related to assembled printed circuits. Particular emphasis is given to those aspects of the subject which…
Abstract
This paper gives a general survey of the methods of contamination control related to assembled printed circuits. Particular emphasis is given to those aspects of the subject which are currently in a state of change because of environmental difficulties, notably those due to the curtailment of use of chlorofluorocarbon solvents.
Abstract
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The following extracts from the Plowden Committee's report on the aircraft industry cover the conclusions and summary of recommendations made by the Committee, and includes the…
Abstract
The following extracts from the Plowden Committee's report on the aircraft industry cover the conclusions and summary of recommendations made by the Committee, and includes the reservation by Mr Aubrey Jones. Excerpts from some of the earlier chapters, discussing the environment in which the industry operates and its history, are also given, together with the first three chapters of Section 4] on ‘The Case for an Aircraft Industry’. The text is slightly abridged in some places. The full report, Command 2853, is obtainable at 10s. from Her Majesty's Stationery Office.
This paper aims to describe, analyze and explain British military graffiti (“latrinalia”) in ablutions blocks in two operational camps in the 1970s. This material was chosen for…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to describe, analyze and explain British military graffiti (“latrinalia”) in ablutions blocks in two operational camps in the 1970s. This material was chosen for two reasons: first, it allowed the researcher to approach what the soldiers were thinking about and sharing in an unofficial context; second, such material is not represented in the scholarly literature on the British army. The aim of the research was, therefore, to explore a regularly occurring but under-researched field of British army organizational culture.
Design/methodology/approach
Latrinalia from one operational base was recorded and analyzed by quantity and type into a typology that emerged from the data. From this analysis, areas in which the graffiti authors were preoccupied were deduced. These graffiti were compared with similar material recorded from a different unit (with no personnel in common with the first) in the same context, two years later.
Findings
There was extensive common ground between the two sets of graffiti, particularly in the areas of identity, attitudes to the campaign, and opinions held about officers. Differences in the sets of results were explained by reference to factors external to the military campaign.
Research limitations/implications
In view of the paucity of other research with which to compare, confirm or refute the findings of this study, further research on British military graffiti is needed.
Practical implications
It is clear that ablution graffiti/latrinalia in military units on operations provide insights into a unit’s organizational culture and matters of current concern to the soldiers. Such graffiti may, therefore, be considered as a useful ethnographic source.
Social implications
There are implications for the better understanding of soldiers’ concerns on operations.
Originality/value
The paper approaches a hitherto unexplored aspect of the lived experience of British soldiers on operations.
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