Search results

This paper offers design cybernetics as a theoretical common ground to bridge diverging approaches to design as they frequently occur in collaborative design projects. Focusing on the education of architects and structural engineers in China, the paper examines how compatible approaches to design can be established in both disciplines.

The paper analyses relevant literature as well as observations from Chinese practice and academia. Design cybernetics is introduced and examined as a basis for establishing shared narratives to support cross-disciplinary collaborations involving architects and structural engineers.

Design cybernetics offers a body of vocabulary and a rich resource of strategies to address applied designing across design-oriented disciplines such as architecture and science-based disciplines such as structural engineering. The meta perspective of design cybernetics also provides a basis for the implementation of pedagogy supporting cross-disciplinary collaboration in applied design.

The scope of the paper is limited to the examination of the theoretical framing as well as the implementation of pedagogy in the cultural and geographical context of China.

The paper outlines several design cybernetic strategies for pedagogy in support of cross-disciplinary collaborative design processes and illustrates their implementation in applied design education.

Addressing a significant and persistent gap between the two disciplines of architecture and structural engineering in the context of Chinese building practice, this paper examines the particularities of this context and presents an educational approach to support cross-disciplinary collaboration that has value in and beyond the context of China.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the main factors affecting information and communication technology (ICT) adoption and process redesign within organizations, with the objective of defining a systematization framework and a set of methods and tools useful for students and practitioners.

The review of literature focused on organizational change and ICT‐enabled process innovation allows to extract the key issues for building the model and approaches presented.

The effective introduction of change requires addressing aspects placed at strategy, people, process and enablers level. A system view of these components and their relationships is a key to streamline ICT adoption and process redesign.

The roadmap is addressed to support only the design or pre‐implementation phase of change, with a major intra‐organizational perspective.

The main asset of this paper is to combine several frameworks into a unique roadmap to support the investigation of human, process, and technology dimensions of organizational change. Besides, a set of methods and tools are proposed to streamline the design of ICT‐enabled and process‐based change within an organization.

The purpose of this paper is to revisit the special issue of Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal published in 1996 on the theme “Accounting history into the twenty‐first century”, in order to identify and assess the impact of the special issue in shaping developments in the accounting history literature, and to consider issues for future historical research in accounting.

A retrospective and prospective essay focusing on developments in the historical accounting literature.

The special issue's advocacy of critical and interpretive histories of accounting's past has influenced subsequent research, particularly within the various research themes identified in the issue. The most significant aspect of this influence has been the engagement of increasing numbers of accounting historians with theoretical perspectives and analytical frameworks.

The present study examines the content and impact of a single journal issue. It explores future research possibilities, which inevitably involves speculation.

In addressing recent developments in the literature through the lens of the special issue, the paper emphasises the unifying power of history and offers ideas, insights and reflections that may assist in stimulating originality in future studies of accounting's past.

Purpose – In this chapter, we report on the lessons of cross-disciplinary collaborative workshop between sociologists and engineering educators to synthesize what is known about legitimating and disseminating educational reform and to develop a research agenda for what needs to be known in order to spread educational reform and to overcome on-the-ground resistance to change.

Methodology/approach – This chapter is based on a case study of this workshop, describing the “white papers” prepared by participants prior to the workshop and the research agendas that emerged from discussions of them during the workshop and after.

Findings – The workshop resulted in a sophisticated research agenda as well as some modest efforts to create cross-disciplinary links to implement it. However, a one-time workshop did not overcome institutional barriers to this kind of activity.

Research limitations – Since this is a case study of a single collaboration we cannot generalize to all cross-disciplinary collaborations, although it does provide an example of what works to facilitate cross-disciplinary efforts and what obstacles remain.

Practical implications – An advantage to the workshop was the absence of institutional barriers to cross-disciplinary collaboration. Attendees were removed from their institutions, departments, disciplines, and turf battles. However, without increased institutional support for cross-disciplinary efforts, such as this one, the value of the social sciences for diffusing the innovations of science and engineering reform movements may not be realized.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to establish some of the reasons why there exists a chasm between micro and macro disciplines of organizational sciences. We aim to suggest some fecund areas for bridging the gap between the micro and macro side of our science.

Methodology/Approach – In this chapter, we have polled our colleagues to ascertain the areas that they believe have the most potential to bridge the micro–macro divide. In addition, we have reviewed extant literature to identify some of the areas where bridging work has already started.

Findings – Through our survey and literature review, we have identified a number of areas which can help in narrowing the micro–macro divide.

Social Implications – By suggesting some ways to bridge the micro–macro divide, this chapter helps in setting future research agenda that will help in viewing organizational problems from multiple lenses. Our work also encourages the scholars from various disciplines to explore ways that can integrate the broad disciplines of organizational sciences.

Originality/Value of Paper – We have attempted to take the pulse of researchers in management disciplines concerning the chasm between micro and macro disciplines, and we have tried to integrate this information with the bridging research that has already been reported. Moreover, we have suggested a number of reasons why this gap is so difficult to remediate. We discuss how bridging the gap is connected to the way in which we train, develop, and reward nascent scholars in our field.

We are three teacher educators – Christi, Bethney, and Abby – representing literacy, educational leadership, and special education, who have collaborated in self-studies of our teacher education practices (S-STEP) over a period of five academic years. Through this collaborative engagement, we came to recognize the similarities and differences in our language and values found within each of our individual disciplinary cultures. It was through the juxtaposition of studying ourselves alongside of that of our colleagues that we further generated a shared culture and common understandings. In our chapter, we explore the ways in which self-study enabled collaboration with teacher educators representing different disciplines. The research brought to light specific disciplinary values, assumptions, and terminology that, when articulated and examined among critical friends, facilitated our ability to both broaden and deepen our individual understandings of teacher education practices in light of each other’s diverse disciplinary perspectives.

This introductory chapter starts off by discussing the differences and interconnections of visual sociology and urban sociology in their quest to understand human settlements. It then moves to argue for expanding the focus to other disciplines that are equally geared toward researching aspects of the city in visual and multimodal ways, since the urban context cannot be studied comprehensively without engaging a multitude of disciplines and trying to make productive connections between them. The chapter continues with a concise overview and discussion of each of the contributions in this first of two volumes of “Visual and Multimodal Urban Sociology” in the “Research in Urban Sociology” series. These twin volumes explore multiple ways in which the city and city life may be approached, studied, and expressed through visual and multimodal means and methods, thereby as much as possible including sensory experiences other than those related to seeing and hearing. It concludes with drawing some contours and challenges of visual and multimodal urban studies and the critical role of technology in advancing this cross-disciplinary field of inquiry.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework in the form of a generic matrix of options for integrating sustainability in higher education (SHE) so that university faculty and administrators can make more appropriate and strategic choices with respect to SHE.

This original matrix draws from and extends previous empirical and conceptual research on integrating SHE. The paper addresses the needs and weaknesses stated in earlier literature on SHE.

The matrix includes four different options or scenarios for integrating SHE; these options are based on delivery of SHE and focus of SHE. Advantages and disadvantages of each option are discussed, as well as rationales for choosing each option. In addition, suggestions for future research are included.

The matrix can provide a platform from which to launch discussions about SHE, as well as a template with respect to “how to” integrate SHE.

This original matrix contributes to the literature by providing a broad, non‐discipline‐specific orientation; it is applicable at course, program, and cross‐disciplinary/cross‐university levels, and can be applied internationally. Users can move between and among options, and can implement multiple options simultaneously. Further, the matrix includes all dimensions of sustainability – environmental, social, and economic/financial.

This purpose of this paper is to examine whether disciplines outside law demonstrate consensus on the attributes of home, whether, to the extent that there is consensus, property law supports those attributes, whether those attributes can be reconciled with working from home, and how far property law is able to address uncertainty regarding the regulation of working from home.

This paper identifies conceptions of “home” from non-law disciplines. It examines the extent to which property law in England and Wales supports or challenges those conceptions. It examines the extent to which working in homes disrupts or distorts those conceptions. It assesses the extent to which property law engages with that disruption.

A lack of clarity in how “home” is defined and perceived in non-law disciplines, and a tendency in those disciplines to produce static and decontextualized notions of home is reflected in inconsistent property law approaches to protection of important “home” attributes. Recognition by property law of the prevalence of home working is relatively undeveloped. An under-appreciation of “context” dominates both cross-disciplinary perceptions of home, and the support which property law provides to those perceptions.

This paper focuses on conceptions of “home” drawn from disparate disciplines and seeks to find consensus in a diverse field. It concentrates on the regulation by covenants of the use of homes for non-domestic purposes in England and Wales.

Suggested alterations to property law and practice, and to the imposition and construction of covenants against business use, might better reflect the prevalence of working from home and clarify the circumstances in which homes can properly be used for work purposes.

This paper identifies that in its inconsistent recognition of “home” attributes in general, and in the lack of established principles for regulating the use of homes for business purposes in particular, property law offers insufficient certainty to occupiers wishing either to work at home, or to resist doing so. It identifies that a broader cross-disciplinary investigation into the inter-relationship between living spaces and working spaces would be beneficial.

The originality of this paper lies in its examination from a property law perspective of established cross-disciplinary conceptions of home in the context of the recent growth of working in homes.