Search results

This paper aims to ground Harvey’s (2003) top-down theory of “accumulation by dispossession” in the everyday lives of people and places with specific focus on the role of law. It does this by drawing upon the lived experiences of residents on a public housing estate in England (UK) undergoing regeneration and gentrification through the Private Finance Initiative (PFI).

Members of the residents association on the Myatts Field North estate, London, were engaged as action research partners, working with the researchers to collect empirical data through surveys of their neighbours, organising community events and being formally interviewed themselves. Their experiential knowledge was supplemented with an extensive review of all associated policy, planning, legal and contractual documentation, some of which was disclosed in response to requests made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Three specific forms of place-based dispossession were identified: the loss of consumer rights, the forcible acquisition of homes and the erasure of place identity through the estate’s rebranding. Layard’s (2010) concept of the “law of place” was shown to be broadly applicable in capturing how legal frameworks assist in enacting accumulation by dispossession in people’s lives. Equally important is the ideological power of law as a discursive practice that ultimately undermines resistance to apparent injustices.

This paper develops Harvey’s concept of accumulation by dispossession in conversation with legal geography scholarship. It shows – via the Myatts Field North estate case study – how PFI, as a mechanism of accumulation by dispossession in the abstract, enacts dispossession in the concrete, assisted by the place-making and ideological power of law.

Human capital theory suggests that any increase in skills translates into greater productivity of the workforce. Non-cognitive skills, in particular, play a critical role in many domains in life. The aim of this study is to gain a greater understanding of one such skill, discipline. Viewing discipline as a tool for enhancing learning, personal development and increasing overall achievement, this study offers an alternative way to measure discipline in higher education.

This paper presents the results of an online survey of 537 current students and recent graduates from the United States, South Korea and China. Principal component analysis was used to test the overarching assumption that student discipline is composed of five dimensions. Multiple analysis of variance (ANOVA) with post hoc analyses and t-tests were applied to test for country and gender-related differences between the three country groups. Cluster analysis was used to profile the respondent groups based on similarities across the samples.

The results confirm that student discipline is a construct comprising five discipline dimensions – focus, intention, responsibility, structure and time (F.I.R.S.T). In addition, the identification of low, medium and high discipline levels among the respondents provides support for the recently introduced concept of a layered “threshold of Discipline”.

A F.I.R.S.T. discipline measurement questionnaire for capturing student discipline – underpinned by a conceptual model encompassing self-determination, goal setting, self-efficacy, self-regulation and time management principles – was developed and tested. Suggestions for enhancing graduate work readiness through increasing levels of the skill of discipline are outlined.

As may be evident from its sub‐title, Text Retrieval 86, the fourth text retrieval seminar organised by the Institute of Information Scientists (IIS), was targeted at an application area which is becoming topical in many organisational environments — the linking of office automation (OA) techniques, word processing, e‐mail, database management, etc. with full text software packages capable of storing massive amounts of data. The hardware and software to do this are available and several commercial systems claim to provide complete integration. Yet as the seminar programme stated, little consideration has so far been given to, ‘… the organisation, storage and retrieval of the mass of information which will be fed into them.’

The following bibliography focuses mainly on programs which can run on IBM microcomputers and compatibles under the operating system PC DOS/MS DOS, and which can be used in online information and documentation work. They fall into the following categories:

Today Croydon, tomorrow the world Chris Batt, Borough Libraries and Museum Officer for the London Borough of Croydon, believes that public libraries can use the Internet to become the most important players in the future development of their communities. Physically and virtually, the public library is the enabling institution for everyone. The Internet, and community computing, mean that new networks of interaction and new paradigms of service can be created. At February's Computers in Libraries conference, Mr Batt described Croydon's plans, and how they are being put into practice.

1 There is little doubt that one of the most versatile pieces of visual teaching hardware is the overhead projector — and this perhaps is one reason there are so many brands on the market. A recent newcomer is the AV001, from E. J. Arnold & Son. This uses a 650W quartz lamp cooled by a fairly silent 7in fan. The makers claim their equipment has the coolest surface temperature of any similar machine, something they regard as essential for increasing the efficiency of items such as spirit pens, which are liable to dry rapidly in warm conditions. The plate glass top lifts off easily, allowing the Fresnel lens beneath to be ejected from its positioning beneath spring‐loaded clips. This ejection is coupled to a safety cut‐out device. Together with other items in the Arnold range, this projector has been designed to stand up to hard use and, to use their own phrase, as far as possible to be ‘boy proof’.

Nelco were pleased to announce the appointment of Mr George Grant to the position of Sales Manager from June 1st 1990. Mr Grant, who has considerable stature in the industry and brings a wealth of experience to Nelco from his previous 13 years with Gould Foil Division and more recently as Sales Director with GTS Flexible Materials, will report to Mr Charles Carter, President European Operations.

This paper aims to provide a twofold empirical comparison: first, a comparison between the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on agency costs proxies and firm performance measures, and second, this comparison was used before and after the 2008 financial crisis, capturing two different economic states.

Panel regression methods were applied to two data sets of non-financial firms incorporated in the FTSE ALL-Share index over the period 2005-2011.

The results provide evidence that not all mechanisms lead to lower agency conflicts and/or higher firm performance. Ownership identity has a significant impact and the role of the governance mechanisms changes with the changes in the economic conditions surrounding the firm.

The results lend support to the notion that forcing a certain code of practice on firms to follow could compel them to move away from conflict reduction governance structures.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to provide a comparison of empirical evidence for the impact of board characteristics and ownership identity on agency costs and firm performance by using a comprehensive set of corporate governance mechanisms. This comparison challenges the prior studies that use performance as an indirect proxy for lower agency costs. Additionally, it compares the impact of the governance mechanisms during two different economic conditions.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.