Search results

In the 1950s, a combination of technological and scientific advancement, political competition, and changes in popular opinion about spaceflight generated public policy in favor of an aggressive space program. This and that of 1960s moved forward with a Moon landing and the necessary budgets. Space exploration reached equilibrium in the 1970s, sustained through to the present. The twenty-first-century progresses signals that support for human space exploration is waning and may even begin declining in the coming years. This chapter reviews this history and analyzes five rationales suggested in support of continued human spaceflight: discovery and understanding, national defense, economic competitiveness, human destiny, and geopolitics.

The quantitative literature on levels of analysis emphasizes identifying the level of a construct as a confirmation rather than a discovery process. Based on the comments we received from Parry and Gephart we integrate some of their ideas regarding discovery in our earlier model to augment the verification process associated with construct validation. However, we also emphasize the need to use structure even with qualitative methods, given the nature of the level verification process. We begin by discussing their specific comments as well as our reactions to these comments. We then discuss the ideas of theoretical sampling, discovery and levels of abstraction, and include an example to demonstrate the utility of using a “discovery”-oriented approach to level specification for construct validation. Finally, we provide a brief conclusion for our reply.

This chapter describes public space exploration services’ business goals, purpose, and strategy. It reinforces space exploration organizations’ fundamental bureaucratic administrative culture (Tier 1). The authors describe the influence that political appointees as leaders may play in shaping public sector cultures. Next, the public service culture (Tier 2) is deconstructed, and each of the five layers is described in detail. Additionally, the authors explain why focusing on the beliefs layer is the dominant layer and the essential starting point for analysis in space exploration cultures. Next, the chapter outlines the landscape of external influencing cultures (Tier 3) in the space exploration landscape. Finally, the potential value and challenges of developing internal KLC cultures are explored.

Exploration and exploitation comprise one of the most well-known constructs in management and organization studies. However, there are three gaps in the extant literature on this topic. First, these studies focus mainly on large organizations and neglect small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and new ventures. Second, when adopting a longitudinal perspective, the research typically consists of cross-sectional studies that fail to capture evolution. Third, the research focuses more on the role of antecedents and mediators of strategies that pursue exploration and exploitation than on the practices that embody such goals. In this chapter, we address these three gaps and complement the previous literature with a study of the growth of an SME from start-up to sale over a 19-year period (1993–2011). We depict the evolution of exploration and exploitation over time through an analysis of management system practices that employs a longitudinal perspective. We analyze the different roles that management systems have played in various stages of the growth paths of the organization. We show that the role of management systems in shaping exploration and exploitation only loosely depends on the design of these systems. The same management systems can fulfill an explorative function in one stage and an exploitative function in another, depending on how such systems are used. Conversely, across stages, the role of management systems typically changes from exploration to exploitation.

Storytelling began quite possibly as early as 15,000 bc, with cave drawings of animals and a man. Enduring because of its appeal to the human spirit and imagination, stories illuminate and inspire as well as bridge a gap between fact and fiction. From the time we are little children, stories have taken us on a journey. Whether simple or complex, we use them to remember; we use them to create; we use them to disrupt. But there is a Part Two to the power of a story that can be found in telling it – in the act of becoming the storyteller. In either presenting a narrative or sharing the narrative as the character, one transforms from a learner to a teacher. And in that transformation is found deep understanding and learning. There is a story at every turn in education – in history, in languages, in maths, in science – everywhere. This chapter will discuss the tremendous value of the story, not just in the telling but as the teller.

Nipissing University in North Bay, Ontario, Canada, working in partnership with leading health science centers in Toronto, Ontario, has developed a unique second-degree entry Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BScN) program called the Scholar Practitioner Program. This program is a response to the increasing demand for nursing programs which builds on prior university learning.

The program uses an educational model based on narrative inquiry and cognitive apprentice pedagogies. Narrative inquiry pedagogy is the overarching philosophical framework of the program, which embraces values that connect teachers and learners. A spirit of inquiry is cultivated in every student and a research culture embedded in the student’s practice.

The six-semester two-year full-time program occurs in a learner-driven environment which shapes how specific semester program objectives are met. A strong emphasis is placed on experiential learning within the Toronto-based academic health sciences centers.

A continuous interactive process involving teachers and learners encourages self-directed learning and participant accountability. Application of knowledge and skills in a professional, caring, and holistic manner is expected. This type of undergraduate learning environment which includes immersion in the employment milieu enables the future scholar practitioner to be relevant in the evolving profession of nursing.

Using the case of the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, I argue that the catastrophe was less an example of a low probability-high catastrophe event than an instance of socially produced risks and insecurities associated with deepwater oil and gas production during the neoliberal period after 1980. The disaster exposes the deadly intersection of the aggressive enclosure of a new technologically risky resource frontier (the deepwater continental shelf) with what I call a frontier of neoliberalized risk, a lethal product of cut-throat corporate cost-cutting, the collapse of government oversight and regulatory authority and the deepening financialization and securitization of the oil market. These two local pockets of socially produced risk and wrecklessness have come to exceed the capabilities of what passes as risk management and energy security. In this sense, the Deepwater Horizon disaster was produced by a set of structural conditions, a sort of rogue capitalism, not unlike those which precipitated the financial meltdown of 2008. The forms of accumulation unleashed in the Gulf of Mexico over three decades rendered a high-risk enterprise yet more risky, all the while accumulating insecurities and radical uncertainties which made the likelihood of a Deepwater Horizon type disaster highly overdetermined.

This chapter examines the oil and gas industry and the efficacy of vertical integration strategies. Using multiple theoretical lenses ranging from the resource-based view, transactions costs, and parenting perspective, the chapter considers different arguments associated with vertical integration. The 2011 breakup of ConocoPhillips and its global value chain helps address the question of which strategy is best – integrated or nonintegrated. We provide several conclusions about the structure of integration and value chains within the oil and gas industry. First, vertical integration based on the physical transfer of products between value chain activities will generate little firm advantage in the form of classical integration benefits, such as control over input quality or speed to market. Second, competing across the industry value chain as a hedge or strategy against industry cyclicality is not theoretically defensible. Third, pure play industry specialists can create value through management focus, agility, and, transparency for investors. Fourth, firms that compete across a wide range of industry value chain activities can create value-adding corporate strategies if they are able to leverage knowledge and assets across different industry sectors.

There are many beliefs about how additional languages are learned, several of which have informed some of the most tenacious pedagogical constructs. In this chapter, additional language teachers working with additional language students in high schools are asked to challenge some widely accepted beliefs about language learning and methods of teaching language, and consider a technique that better aligns with constructivist theories of learning and the inquiry-based learning (IBL) approach. This chapter includes a brief discussion on IBL, its constructivist roots, and its many permutations. It also explores some constructivist-based additional language teaching approaches and discusses to what extent they align with IBL. Also provided is a six-step inquiry language-learning process, specifically designed to teach additional languages, with discussion on how each stage builds upon the other, optimizing language learning. In addition, a series of lessons are described which show how the inquiry language-learning process can be employed to teach additional languages to students who are not yet fully proficient in the school’s language of instruction. The chapter concludes with a discussion on some of the challenges of using IBL with additional language students, citing some of the psychological, cultural, and cognitive needs often present in these students. The chapter ends with a call for further research into the use of IBL to teach additional languages.

Inquiry-based learning (IBL) is one of many approaches that enhance the quality of education by moving away from teacher-centered instructional methods and toward more student-directed approaches. This chapter describes the adult-centered program delivered by The College of New Rochelle, School of New Resources – a northeastern, liberal arts institution that is a pioneer in educating adult learners. A model program for educating today’s adult learner is introduced with particular emphasis on faculty implementation of IBL in the classroom and student’s responses to the Life Arts Project (LAP), which is incorporated in each six credit course seminar. Through the LAP, adult learners investigate course content through exploration and discovery, participate in critical inquiry, investigate various research methodologies, and experience project-based learning.