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In vol. 6, 1976, of Advances in Librarianship, I published a review about relevance under the same title, without, of course, “Part I” in the title (Saracevic, 1976). [A substantively similar article was published in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science (Saracevic, 1975)]. I did not plan then to have another related review 30 years later—but things happen. The 1976 work “attempted to trace the evolution of thinking on relevance, a key notion in information science, [and] to provide a framework within which the widely dissonant ideas on relevance might be interpreted and related to one another” (ibid.: 338).

The purpose of this paper is to develop a distributed model of structuration of information technology (IT) in organizations to complement the collective that dominates the application of structuration theory to organizational phenomenon.

This paper draws on secondary qualitative data to specify how differences among people's practices with and around IT determine the effect of IT in organizations.

The paper provides an analytical framework to extend the structuration theory of IT in organizations that can also explain differences among people's use of IT and track their consequences for the effect of IT in organizations.

This paper extends the theory of the structuration of IT so that it can take into account the effect of the different ways in which people use IT at work.

This paper underscores the increase adaptability that managers can build during IT implementation by taking advantage of the differences among people's appropriation of IT, instead of attempting to make people use IT in similar ways.

The paper introduces the role of variation among people's practices into research on the structuration of IT on organizations. This research, which is one of the dominant approaches to the effect of IT in organizations, assumes that people share the same practices with and around IT and is ill suited to explain the consequences of variation among people's use of IT at work.

The work of Michel Foucault is taken as inspiration for a study of the organizational field of asylums, prisons, orphanages, and other carceral organizations operating in New York City in 1888. Foucault argues that institutional power is organized into dually ordered system of truth and power. Using text data describing the clients and institutional technologies (organizational “power signatures”) of 168 organizations, we apply structural equivalence methods to unpack speech activity, showing that as Foucault suggests, there may be dually ordered sub-domains of truth and power that help define the underlying logic of this institutional field.

One main concern and issue affecting earnings quality is the extent to which managers manipulate earnings to mislead stakeholders about the underlying economic performance of the company or to influence contractual outcomes that depend on reported accounting numbers. This study builds on prior research and examines empirically the relationship between board leadership structure and earnings quality of manufacturing firms in Nigeria. The purpose of this paper is to specifically focus on four board structure characteristics: board size, composition, proportion of non-executive directors and CEO duality.

Data used for this investigation were collected from secondary sources, i.e. annual reports and accounts. The study used the Pooled OLS regression model to examine the effect of the board structure on earnings management for a sample of 45 non-financial listed Nigerian companies (conglomerates, consumer goods and industrial goods firms) for the years 2011 to 2016.

Based on the analysis, board size and board composition were positive and significant. However, proportion of non-executive directors was negative and significant; while, CEO duality was positive and statistically significant. It was consequently recommended that audit firms should review their audit business model and become more circumspect of their client, e.g. provide fraud assessment and checks for earnings quality. Boards should not just reflect size but rather the skills and expertise of individuals appointed to the board. Furtherance to this, the effectiveness of boards can be improved by committees and sub-committees allocation of duties.

Few studies have addressed this area in the country.

This paper introduces key themes and debates in education and educational history that engage education's complicity in injustice and violence, as well as those that continue to position education as a vehicle for positive change and possibility. The paper introduces the papers that comprise the special issue “Challenges of Contested Spaces: Constructing Difference and its Legacies in Educational History”.

The paper canvasses pertinent historiographical, theoretical and methodological debates that shed light on education's dual capacity to empower and oppress.

Papers in this collection reveal the many ways that agendas justified in the name of education, training and reform have often invoked that name as justification for actions that harmed, discriminated or oppressed, and yet also, how despite this, education can still be imagined as a space of possibility and transformation.

The paper offers a summative introduction to the themes and papers of the special issue.

The purpose of this paper is to survey and express the advantages and disadvantages of the existing approaches for solving grey linear programming in decision-making problems.

After presenting the concepts of grey systems and grey numbers, this paper surveys existing approaches for solving grey linear programming problems and applications. Also, methods and approaches for solving grey linear programming are classified, and its advantages and disadvantages are expressed.

The progress of grey programming has been expressed from past to present. The main methods for solving the grey linear programming problem can be categorized as Best-Worst model, Confidence degree, Whitening parameters, Prediction model, Positioned solution, Genetic algorithm, Covered solution, Multi-objective, Simplex and dual theory methods. This survey investigates the developments of various solving grey programming methods and its applications.

Different methods for solving grey linear programming problems are presented, where each of them has disadvantages and advantages in providing results of grey linear programming problems. This study attempted to review papers published during 35 years (1985–2020) about grey linear programming solving and applications. The review also helps clarify the important advantages, disadvantages and distinctions between different approaches and algorithms such as weakness of solving linear programming with grey numbers in constraints, inappropriate results with the lower bound is greater than upper bound, out of feasible region solutions and so on.

This paper aims to examine the migrant dilemma about operating extensively in migrant enclaves vs integration in host communities.

The paper is a critical literature review contrasting views and perspectives of the role of migrant enclaves in migrant integration and contribution in new societies. Research in the area of ethnic enclaves has been polarised: on the one hand, the optimists argue the critical benefits of migrant and ethnic community networks, thus downplaying potential drawbacks of such networks and the disadvantage externally imposed on migrants; on the other hand, the pessimists overemphasise the disadvantages of ethnic enclaves, portraying them as ghettos of alienation.

Based on the social solidarity integration model and immigrant-host and social interaction theory, the paper posits that migrant community networks could intentionally or unintentionally engender cultural alienation, worsening an already precarious educational, cultural and economic exclusion. Thus, migrants could remain in lower societal roles and experience limited upward social mobility if they operate exclusively within migrant and ethnic networks. However, ethnic enclaves, at the same time, offer the initial psychological nurturing on which future successful socialisation work with migrant communities can be built.

From a research angle, the theorisation of migrant enclave requires a new approach, which identifies dynamism and contextualisation as central to the debate.

From a policy perspective, the research suggests the rethinking of the role of community support systems (and the wider enclave debate). The organisational implications the research suggests a shift of the organisational paradigm in the way migrant organisations manage themselves and support members in the enclave.

This paper’s contribution is to take a duality approach to studying the ethnic enclave and posits that this will engender effective social policy that helps reduce economic inequality.

Purpose – The integration of librarians and technologists to deliver information services represents a new and costly organizational challenge for many library administrators. To understand how to control the costs of integration, this study uses structural contingency theory to study the coordination of librarians and technologists within the information commons.

Design/methodology/approach – This study tests the structural contingency theory expectation that an organization will achieve higher levels of performance when there is a positive relationship between the degree of workflow interdependence and the complexity of coordinative structures necessary to integrate these workflows. This expectation was tested by (a) identifying and collecting a sample of information common; (b) developing and validating survey instruments to test the proposition; and (c) quantitatively analyzing the data to test the proposed contingency theory relationship.

Findings – The contingency theory expectations were confirmed by finding both a positive relationship between coordination and interdependence and a positive relationship between perceptions of performance and degree of congruency between interdependence and coordination.

Limitations – The findings of this study are limited to both the context of an information common and the structures tested. Future research should seek to both broaden the context in which these findings are applicable, and test additional structural relationships as proposed by contingency theory

Practical implications – This study contributes to the library profession in a number of ways. First, it suggests that managers can improve IC performance by matching coordination structures to the degree of interdependence. For instance, when librarians and technologists are strictly co-located, managers should coordinate workflows using less resource-intensive policies rather than meetings. Second, the instruments developed in this study will improve the library manager's ability to measure and report unit interdependence and coordination in a valid and reliable manner. Lastly, it also contributes to the study of structural contingency theory by presenting one of the first empirical confirmations of a positive relationship between interdependence and coordination.

Originality/value – This study represents one of the first empirical confirmations of the structural contingency theory expectations of both a positive relationship between workflow interdependence and coordination, and a positive relationship between performance and coordination's fit to workflow interdependence. These findings are of value to both organizational theorists and to administrators of information commons.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an accurate model for simulation of inrush current in power transformers with taking into account the magnetic core structure and hysteresis phenomenon. Determination of the required model parameters and generalization of the obtained parameters to be used in different conditions with acceptable accuracy is the secondary purpose of this work.

The duality transformation is used to construct the transformer model based on its topology. The inverse Jiles-Atherton hysteresis model is used to represent the magnetic core behavior. Measured inrush waveforms of a laboratory test power transformer are used to calculate a fitness function which is defined by comparing the measured and simulated currents. This fitness function is minimized by particle swarm optimization algorithm which calculates the optimal model parameters.

An analytical and simple approach is proposed to generalize the obtained parameters from one inrush current measurement for simulation of this phenomenon in different situations. The measurement results verify the accuracy of the proposed method. The developed model with the determined parameters can be used for accurate simulation of inrush current transient in power transformers.

A general and flexible topology-based model is developed in PSCAD/EMTDC software to represent the transformer behavior in inrush situation. The hysteresis model parameters which are obtained from one inrush current waveform are generalized using the structure parameters, switching angle, and residual flux for accurate simulation of this phenomenon in different conditions.

This paper aims to investigate whether multinational enterprises (MNEs) are more or less likely than local firms to violate their employees’ human rights in emerging economies, whether regional institutional pressures influence the likelihood of violating employee human rights and whether the density of MNEs in a region affects the likelihood of employees’ human rights violation by local firms.

Building on neo-institutional theory, this paper hypothesizes that, in an emerging economy, MNEs violate their employees’ human rights significantly less than local firms do. Moreover, it is hypothesized that the quality of regional institutions only influences the social behavior of local firms toward their employees. In addition, it is hypothesized that the density of MNEs in a region has a positive effect on local firms’ attitudes toward employee human rights. These hypotheses are examined using a sample of 1,211,638 respondent–year observations in 32 Mexican regions between 2005 and 2014.

This paper shows that MNEs are less likely to violate their employees’ human rights than local firms are. It also provides evidence that regional institutions do not influence MNE behavior toward employee human rights violation, but affect local firms. Furthermore, contrary to what was hypothesized, the density of MNEs in a region has a negative rather than positive influence on local firms’ respect of employee human rights.

This paper advances understanding of the behavior of MNEs in an emerging economy setting and contributes to the ongoing debate in the literature on their social impact.