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This study examines how the Fortune 500 use transactional public Web sites (TPWS). It applies innovation diffusion theory to identify variables and construct a model to explain differences in adoption rates of TPWS across industries. The study finds high rates of TPWS adoption in the airline, computer and office equipment, commercial banking, and retailing industries. The study also explains why the rates of TPWS adoption vary across different industries. Characteristics of both the innovation and the industry’s environment affect TPWS adoption. A high level of TPWS adoption is associated with industries where: products, services, and sales processes “fit” electronic transactions, the level of price competition is extreme, competitors are aggressively adopting the same technology, and firms are experienced with related technologies and have already developed the necessary information technology infrastructure. The study is significant because it identifies the specific innovation and environmental characteristics that drive varying rates of TPWS adoption among large firms across different industries.

In this study, senior executives with electronic data interchange (EDI) experience explained the factors their firms considered when deciding to use EDI. The majority of their comments focused on the operational (i.e., internal) benefits they are receiving from EDI. Most of the firms that participated in the study have moved from an operational mindset regarding EDI and noted external/competitive benefits as they electronically link to customers and suppliers. The executives acknowledged power inequities between their large firms and the trading partners with whom they use EDI. Although EDI is a mature technology, when classified by innovation adoption and diffusion theory, it provides adopting firms significant benefits.

The purpose of this paper is to examine a national sexual health and relationships education (SHARE) educational package for behaviour change techniques (BCTs) utilised in order to make recommendations for further improvements.

Using BCTs taxonomy (BCT V1), two coders independently examined the 22 session plans within SHARE for their utilisation of BCTs. All three authors then examined the results, and agreed on any discrepancies.

The SHARE package utilises only a small range of BCTs detailed in BCT V1. SHARE makes use of a range of techniques which may impact on the distal factors that influence sexual risk taking, such as self-esteem and building confidence to say “no” to sex.

SHARE – and perhaps other sexual health education programmes – may need to draw on more BCTs, particularly those supported by evidence, in order to effectively reduce risky sexual behaviours among young people. Programmes may also benefit from including broader elements around pleasure, self-examination and screening behaviour.

Sexual health packages rarely encounter such scrutiny, particularly being examined in relation to the BCTs. The new and rigorous way of rating the SHARE package has enabled a range of recommendations relating to BCTs to be made both for improving the package and other sexual health education programmes.

This paper reports a study that incorporated a reasoning by analogy (RBA) system into a business simulation game of the microcomputer industry. The RBA system was designed to support a manager’s intuitionand judgement by facilitating the use of analogies. Users search for comparable (i.e., analogous) firms througha simple pattern‐matching routine built into the system. We argue for including RBA tools within decision support systems in order to facilitate analogical reasoning by decision makers. The study results support the conclusion that implementation of RBA systems significantly improves decision making effectiveness. The design and implementation of an RBA system, including the environmental scanning required to create the databases needed to support the system,is described and implications for practitioners and designers are discussed.

The purpose of this study is to understand the meaning of the term well-being as conceptualised by parents, grandparents, principals and teachers in the Irish primary education system.

A hermeneutic phenomenological approach was adopted to understand the nature and meaning of the phenomenon of well-being. Interviews were carried out with 54 principals, teachers, parents and grandparents from a representative sample of primary schools in Ireland. Each participant was asked the same, open, question: “What does well-being mean to you?” Responses were transcribed verbatim and analysed using a combination of the principles of the hermeneutic circle and Braun and Clarke’s framework for thematic analysis.

Three conceptualisations of well-being were identified (1) well-being is about being happy, (2) well-being is about being healthy and safe and (3) well-being is something you “do”.

To the best of our knowledge this paper is the first of its kind to describe how well-being is conceptualised by adults in Irish primary school contexts. In particular it highlights how neoliberal conceptualisations of well-being as a “thing”, a commodity exchanged on assumptions of individualism, moralism and bio-economism, have crept into the education of our youngest citizens.

This chapter explores how long-distance truckers in the contemporary United States navigate work and family obligations. It examines how Christianity and constructions of masculinity are significant in the lives of these long-haul drivers and how truckers work to construct narratives of their lives as “good, moral” individuals in contrast to competing cultural narratives which suggest images of romantic, rule-free, renegade lives on the open road.

This study is based upon ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, observations of long-haul truckers, and participation in a trucking school for eight months in 2005–2006 and an additional four months in 2007–2008. Using feminist grounded theory, I highlight how Christian trucking provides avenues through which balance is struck between work and family and between masculinity and other identities.

Christian truckers draw upon older ideas about responsible, breadwinning fatherhood in their discourse about being good “fathers” while on the road. This discourse is in some conflict with the lived experiences of Christian truckers who simultaneously find themselves confronted by cultural narratives and expectations of what it means to be a good “worker” or a good “trucker.”

As these men navigate both work and social locations, gender expectations are challenged and strategies to ameliorate the work/family balance are essential.

The chapter contributes to discourse on gender studies as well as to the reshaping of ideology and practices of work and family in contemporary American culture.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an understanding of the WEB 2.0 phenomenon and its implications on knowledge management; thus, in order to learn whether using WEB 2.0 concepts and tools can yield better assimilation of knowledge management in organizations.

A range of recently published articles regarding WEB 2.0, Enterprise 2.0 and KM 2.0 are examined and critiqued (2005‐2007). These are analyzed and compared to knowledge management principles and attributes as known and learned from works defining the sharing of knowledge in organizations (1995‐2005). The sources are divided into three basic elements: The Internet (WEB 2.0), the organizational implementation (Enterprise 2.0) and the organizational implementation of knowledge sharing (KM2.0).

WEB 2.0 is very close in its principles and attributes to knowledge management. WEB 2.0 should affect knowledge management in organizations; yet, it cannot be copied, as differences between the two will not enable organizations to benefit from such. In the first stage, tools can be adopted, and in further stages, deeper aspects such as active users' participation will be followed.

Organizations are encouraged to start using WIKI's and in some cases also blogs. Knowledge Managers should examine if younger employees can serve as knowledge catalysts. WEB 2.0 concepts should be tested as to organization's maturity, to decide if they can be adopted as part of the organizational knowledge sharing.

This paper analyzes an important issue whether better assimilation of knowledge management can exist triggered by the WEB 2.0 phenomenon. It is unique in its broad analysis of the three related terms – WEB 2.0, Enterprise 2.0 and KM2.0.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of national identity, as imparted to students by the Western Australia Education Department, in the early part of the twentieth century. By specifically examining The School Paper, as a part of a broader investigation into the teaching of English, this paper interrogates the role “school papers” played in the formation of the citizen subject.

This paper draws on all available editions of Western Australia’s Education Department school reader, The School Paper, between 1909 and 1911, and on the Department’s Education Circular publication between the years 1899 and 1911. These are read within the context of the prevailing education philosophy, internationally and domestically, and the extent to which it was shaped by Australia’s cultural heritage and the desire to establish a national identity in the years post-federation.

The School Paper featured stories, poems, songs and articles that complimented the goals of the new education. Used in supplement to a revised curriculum weighted towards English classics, The School Paper, provided an important site for citizenship training. This publication pursued dual projects of constructing a specific Australian identity while defining a British imperial identity from which it is informed.

This research builds on scholarship on the role of school readers in other states in the construction of national identity and the formation of the citizen subject. It is the first research conducted into Western Australia’s school paper, the school reader, and provides a new lens through which to view how the processes of national/imperial identities are carried out and influenced by state-sanctioned study of English.