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How can public institutions achieve their goals and best nurture virtue in their members? In this chapter, I seek answers to these questions in a perhaps unlikely place: the television series The Wire. Known for its unflinching realism, the crime drama narrates the intertwined lives of police, criminals, politicians, teachers and journalists in drug-plagued urban Baltimore. Yet even in the thick and quick of institutional dysfunction the drama portrays, human virtue springs forth and institutions (despite themselves) sometimes perform their roles. I begin this exploration of The Wire by drawing on Montesquieu and other political theorists to evaluate the problems facing state institutions – problems of diversity and principle as much as selfishness and power-mongering. I then turn to the prospects for virtue within modern institutions, developing and applying the system of Alasdair MacIntyre and paying particular attention to the role of narrative in cementing and integrating virtue.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature on microcredit impacts by quantifying the gender disaggregated effects of long-term borrowing on capital accumulation in order to address the existing gap. Separate models are estimated for male-headed and female-headed households to determine if the effects of microcredit differ between these gender types.

The paper adopts the method proposed by Deaton (1990) in which he specifies a model without borrowing restrictions whereby the household maximizes an inter-temporal utility function. To account for self-selection and endogeneity of micro credit, the fixed effects instrumental variable approach is used. Data are disaggregated by gender and analyzed separately.

The paper finds that micro credit indeed increases productive assets and human capital but has no significant effect on non-productive assets. One striking result is that after disaggregating the data by gender, the authors find no effect of micro credit on women-headed households.

The paper provides an empirical evidence for the need to address gender issues in finance and lending. Furthermore, targeted lending particularly to women makes a great difference in the fight against poverty.

This paper fills the gap on gender and micro credit impacts on capital accumulation in a developing country context.

Drawing from theories of structural power and relational competence, this paper proposes an innovative theoretical model able to predict relationship outcomes during adolescence by mapping the partners’ resources and patterns of exchange in four contexts (family, work/school, leisure time, and survival) as power bases in the relationship. Adolescent dating is an important juncture in the developmental pathway to adult partnership, both in terms of relational satisfaction and relationship violence. Power processes can capture the dynamics of both healthy and unhealthy relationships, regardless of gender, contingent to the power advantage (or disadvantage) within the relationship and can produce predictable consequences for partner’s behavior. Knowing which partner holds what kind and amount of power and in which decision-making areas may be used to predict the actions of either partner and ultimately identify the trajectories of their relationships.

This chapter sets out to examine the topic of a spatial analysis of urban crime through an analysis of David Simon’s seminal television series The Wire. By developing an analysis of the issues that are presented in the series, issues such as race, ethnicity and representation will be addressed in order to add to the understanding of these topics in relation to race and media representations. Each section will address a set of themes which are evident in The Wire. The chapter highlights the idea of race in the series and how characters are presented on screen. The research is also concerned with economic issues depicted in the series and the effect of the economy on the characters in Baltimore, the U.S. city in which The Wire was set.

The conclusion of the chapter addresses poverty class and inequality as topics and sets out to document these themes in relation to race. The third chapter also discusses the racism and discrimination that is apparent in The Wire. By contextualising the series, the book is attempting to theorise relevant issues surrounding race, gender and power through an examination of relevant literature and the development of a theoretical framework from which key issues will be addressed.

The World of Concrete trade show organizers negotiate a block of approximately 30,000 rooms with a different location each year. The case was developed through interviews with the trade show director. The issues under negotiation include the room rate, cancellation clauses, and amenities for the conference organizers and VIPs. The case is written for a negotiations course and may be used in two ways: as an intermediate exercise for refining student skills at information management and integrative bargaining or as a fairly advanced exercise about appropriate preparation for major negotiations.

Simon Cowell, the impresario behind The X Factor, a popular television talent show, has often been compared to P.T. Barnum, the legendary nineteenth century showman. This paper aims to examine the alleged parallels in detail and attempts to assess this “Barnum reborn” argument.

Putative parallels between the impresarios are considered under the aegis of two long‐standing, if contentious, historical “theories”: time's cycle and the great man thesis.

Seven broad similarities between the showmen are identified: vulgarity, hyperbole, rivalry, publicity, duplicity, liminality and history. In each case, the arguments pro and con are explored, as is humanity's propensity to personify.

In accordance with the iconic literary critic Harold Bloom, who “strikes texts together to seek if they spark”, this paper strikes two celebrated showmen together to generate historical sparks.

A key vision of tomorrow's industry is creating supply chains which collaboratively strive on enhancing the value to the end‐consumer. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the food value chain analysis (FVCA) methodology for improving consumer focus in the agri‐food sector based on the lean paradigm, value stream mapping and value chain analysis (Porter, 1985).

This contribution presents a case‐study of a UK red meat supply chain explaining how the FVCA method enabled a team of researchers and practitioners to identify the misalignments of both product attributes and supply chain activities with the consumer needs.

This paper explains how the FVCA methodology potentially realigned the processes along the supply chain with the true consumer requirements and why the supply chain effectiveness was improved; this follows with a description of the subsequent efficiency gains from application of the FVCA methodology.

This paper further defines the demarcation between supply chain “effectiveness” and “efficiency”. This paper contributes to the debate on the importance of supply chain effectiveness by linking to consumer value at every stage of the supply chain.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the characteristics and the performance of the Catalan pork supply chain, with the objective to assess whether this operates according to the parameters of a lean chain. Moreover there is a tentative lean supply chain model contribution.

To test lean approaches in the Catalan pork supply chain we have used case research methodology. The research strategy started with a conceptual model proposal as a tool to carry out the assessment. The research went on a multiple case studies in a large‐scale sample of the population and developed a semi‐structured interview as a basic instrument to apply it.

The article shows the pork sector has actively adopted the productive techniques associated with lean management. The structure of the specific chain in the Catalan pork sector is suitable to implement lean supply chain strategies according to the presented model.

This paper should be of value to researchers in this area as it contributes in a tentative generic lean model for the pork sector. Further research to affirm the cultural support for lean collaboration is recommended as a precursor to the application of the five lean principles.

It provides empirical evidence from a significant pork producing region indicating that the model proposed has applicability. These findings support industry wide business associations' efforts to initiate actions which will reinforce these techniques and improve the competitiveness of the sector.

A review of this literature ascertained that there were no existing published works centred on the study of the pork supply chain development in Spain and particularly nothing focussed on the applicability of the “lean” discipline in this area. This gap in research along with the importance of the pork sector at national and regional levels demonstrates the necessity and importance of the study.