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1 – 10 of 12Derek Jeffrey Raine, Sarah Gretton and Duncan Greenhill
This paper aims to report on a project to adapt existing material from some modules on sustainability delivered face-to-face by the Centre for Interdisciplinary Science to create…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to report on a project to adapt existing material from some modules on sustainability delivered face-to-face by the Centre for Interdisciplinary Science to create a non-credit bearing course in sustainability delivered on-line and available to all students at the University. A total of 250 staff and students signed up for the course, 104 completed at least one multiple choice test and 49 completed the essay assignment for the Higher Education Achievement Record (HEAR) recognition. Feedback from students completing the evaluation questionnaire was overwhelmingly positive. The authors reflect on lessons learnt in preparing and delivering the course and the impact on university strategy.
Design/methodology/approach
The course was piloted in the 2014-2015 academic year.
Findings
A total of 250 staff and students signed up for the course; 104 completed at least one multiple choice test and 49 completed the essay assignment for HEAR recognition. Feedback from students completing the evaluation questionnaire was overwhelmingly positive.
Originality/value
The paper presents a case study of a bottom-up approach to the introduction of sustainability literacy modules on an institution-wide scale that has influenced changes at senior management level.
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Sarah Chauhan and Nusrat Yasmeen
Travel aimed in experiencing the arts, heritage, and activities that authentically depict the stories and people of the past and present is referred to as cultural and heritage…
Abstract
Travel aimed in experiencing the arts, heritage, and activities that authentically depict the stories and people of the past and present is referred to as cultural and heritage tourism. This has gathered a lot of attention in the last 10 years. In order to protect their valuable history, developing countries require assistance from the international community. Cultural heritage tourism is a significant economic development tool and one of the best components of the tourism sector.
In the 21st century, in terms of museums and showcasing culture, there has been a significant commotion toward the role of people or community, rather than the morality of objectification of knowledge in a close-ended glass case. This concept can be traced back to “New Museology,” emerging since the 1970s, where a section of like-minded museologists believed that museums are for the people and of the people. It is important to include the “voices of the community” as a whole, therein, becoming a broad parlance of social culture (MacDonald, 2006).
Community participation is a process where people are facilitated by themselves and their responsiveness to their own traditions and culture. Henceforth, this chapter is an approach toward a case study of an emerging concept in Delhi – A Neighbourhood Museum in Shadi Khampur area, where the locality is prevalent since the 12th century. Other locals preside over the predating of Partition in the 17th century, when their ancestors settled from Lahore since then.
The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of project settings on empowerment experiences of individuals and teams by examining the effects of specific project…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of project settings on empowerment experiences of individuals and teams by examining the effects of specific project characteristics on facets of the empowerment concept (i.e. the structural and psychological perspectives).
Design/methodology/approach
A parallel questionnaire survey of client, consultant and contractor organisations was conducted in Hong Kong to test hypotheses relating three facets of the empowerment concept and five project-level antecedents. Hierarchical linear modelling and ordinary least square regression were employed to test the hypotheses.
Findings
The analyses show that dynamic project environments, high project team integration and high interdependence of project tasks lead to high individual psychological empowerment, while public-client projects (compared with private-client projects), a hostile project environment and high client integration lead to a low individual psychological empowerment. Uncertainty in project technology also leads to high team psychological empowerment, while hostile project environments lead to low team psychological empowerment. Further, dynamic project environments lead to more empowering work climate, while hostile project environments lead to less empowering work climate. However, project team integration, project complexity, project lifecycle and quasi-public-client projects (compared with private-client projects) have no significant association with the empowerment of individuals and teams.
Originality/value
This study examined task-related factors (i.e. project in this case) which traditionally have not been the focus of studies examining the antecedents of empowerment. Further, project-level antecedents and their link to an integrated perspective of empowerment comprising a sociostructural perspective, a psychological perspective and a team-based perspective are examined, which is a significant departure from the unitary perspective of empowerment taken in most previous studies.
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Memories and musings of the long ago reveal revolutionary changes in the world's food trade and in particular, food sources and marketing in the United Kingdom. Earliest memories…
Abstract
Memories and musings of the long ago reveal revolutionary changes in the world's food trade and in particular, food sources and marketing in the United Kingdom. Earliest memories of the retail food trade are of many small shops; it used to be said that, given a good site, food would always sell well. There were multiples, but none of their stores differed from the pattern and some of the firms — Upton's, the International, were household names as they are now. Others, eg., the Maypole, and names that are lost to memory, have been absorbed in the many mergers of more recent times. Food production has changed even more dramatically; countries once major sources and massive exporters, have now become equally massive importers and completely new sources of food have developed. It all reflects the political changes, resulting from two World Wars, just as the British market reflects the shifts in world production.
Sharon Glazer, Małgorzata W. Kożusznik and Irina A. Shargo
Global virtual teams (GVTs), also known as transnational or distributed teams, are increasingly common as organizations strive to maintain a global presence, find top and diverse…
Abstract
Global virtual teams (GVTs), also known as transnational or distributed teams, are increasingly common as organizations strive to maintain a global presence, find top and diverse talent, and cope with economic constraints. Despite increasing adoption of GVTs, there is a dearth of research addressing whether GVTs are an effective coping strategy for dealing with the world economic crisis and if there are unintended negative consequences on employee well-being as a result of their use. Thus, a focal question guiding the development of this chapter is whether or not GVTs are a sustainable solution for organizations? In this chapter we present a generic framework depicting the cycle by which macroeconomic demands impose changes on organization's structures, which trickle down to the level of the individual who has to cope with the demands the new structure has imposed. We discuss GVTs as an intervention (or cure) for organizations’ dealing with the current world economic crisis and how this organizational intervention inevitably becomes the context (or cause) for the kinds of stressors or demands employees face.
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One of the major developments of the post‐War years has been the rise of consumer protection ‘watchdog’ committees galore, a flood of legislation and completely changed…
Abstract
One of the major developments of the post‐War years has been the rise of consumer protection ‘watchdog’ committees galore, a flood of legislation and completely changed enforcement methods by existing local authority officers who to all and intents have become a completely new service. Voluntary agencies, national and local, based on the local High Street, have appointed themselves the watchdogs of the retail trade; legislation and central departments, the larger scene. The new service has proved of inestimable value in the changed conditions; it continues to develop. When shopping was a personal transaction, with the housewife making her purchases from the shopkeeper or his staff on the opposite side of the counter; when each was well known to the other and the relationship had usually lasted for many years, often from one generation to the next, things were very different, complaints few, unsatisfactory items instantly replaced, usually without question. This continuing state of equanimity was destroyed by the retail revolution and new methods of advertising and marketing. Now, the numbers of complaints dealt with by consumer protection and environmental health departments of local authorities are truly enormous. We have become a nation of “complainers,” although in all conscience, we have much to complain about. Complaints cover the widest possible range of products and services, of which food and drink form an integral component. The complaints to enforcement authorities include many said to be unjustified, but from the reports of legal proceedings under relevant enactments, it is obvious that the bulk of them now originate from consumer complaints. Not all complainants, however, relish the thought of the case going before the courts. Less is heard publicly of complaints to the numerous voluntary bodies. Enforcement authorities see complaints in terms of infringements of the law, although their role as honest broker, securing recompense to the aggreived customer, has become important; a few departments being able to claim that they secured reimbursements and replacements of value totalling upwards of amounts which annually run into six figures. The broker role is also that adopted by voluntary bodies but with much less success since they lack the supporting authority of legal sanction.
Drawing on the scientific literature, the purpose of this paper is to elucidate the harmful effects of toxic stress on the developing brain. It explains how severe, chronic…
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing on the scientific literature, the purpose of this paper is to elucidate the harmful effects of toxic stress on the developing brain. It explains how severe, chronic adversity during development, in the absence of responsive caregiving, can impair brain architecture. It also outlines policy implications for preventing or mitigating the effects of toxic stress in early childhood.
Design/methodology/approach
The National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, based at the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, is a multidisciplinary, multiuniversity panel of scholars that seeks to bring science to bear on public decision making. Council members selected excessive stress as a topic meriting translation for a general audience and conducted extensive peer review in drafting the paper's key scientific concepts.
Findings
The paper discusses how healthy development can be derailed by excessive or prolonged activation of the biological stress response systems and how that increases lifetime risk for certain behavioural and physiological disorders. It finds that supportive relationships with caregivers can help buffer the negative consequences of toxic stress.
Social implications
The paper calls for improvements to family support programmes, mental health services, and the quality and availability of early care and education.
Originality/value
This paper describes an original taxonomy of positive, tolerable, and toxic stress and demonstrates the need to translate scientific knowledge about the developing brain into actionable strategies for the prevention and treatment of the effects of adverse childhood experiences.
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The purpose of this paper is to highlight and reflect on the increased use of social media in the museums sector in the UK and beyond. It seeks to explore the challenges of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to highlight and reflect on the increased use of social media in the museums sector in the UK and beyond. It seeks to explore the challenges of utilising such media for institutions steeped in discourses of authority, authenticity and materiality.
Design/methodology/approach
Arguments are illustrated using examples of practice and policy from across the museums sector, and are informed by critical theory. In particular, Erving Goffman's frame analysis is used as a means for understanding and articulating the current use of social media by museums.
Findings
There is currently a gulf between the possibilities presented by social media, and their use by many museums. This leads to forms of frame misalignment, which can be intensely problematic. It is crucial that museums increase their understanding of the frames within which such activity is being encouraged and experienced.
Research limitations/implications
The paper does not offer a comprehensive mapping of social media use by museums at the current time. Rather, it uses notable examples to foreground a number of concerns for exploration through further research.
Originality/value
The paper calls into question the naturalised discourse surrounding social media use in the museums sector. It calls for a re‐appraisal and re‐framing of such activity so that it might more genuinely and satisfactorily match the claims that are being made for and about it.
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