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1 – 10 of 208John Storey and Elizabeth Barnett
Large numbers of organizations are taking great interest in the idea of knowledge management and many are launching knowledge management initiatives and programmes. A large…
Abstract
Large numbers of organizations are taking great interest in the idea of knowledge management and many are launching knowledge management initiatives and programmes. A large proportion of such initiatives will fail. Yet, despite the injunctions to “learn from failure”, little detailed attention has been paid to why and how these apparently popular initiatives run into difficulties. The purpose of this article is to examine, in some unusual detail, a significant example of a failed knowledge management initiative in order to analyse what went wrong and to identify the key learning points.
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Elizabeth Barnett and John Storey
Fifty managers from five highly innovative medium‐sized enterprises were interviewed in depth about their experience of innovation. In order to deepen and enrich our understanding…
Abstract
Fifty managers from five highly innovative medium‐sized enterprises were interviewed in depth about their experience of innovation. In order to deepen and enrich our understanding of these experiences, respondents were asked to reconstruct their insights in narrative form. Following a careful analysis of the transcripts, it was found that three interlocking themes recurred in each of the cases. First, each of the firms had creatively configured their customer relationships in order to secure long‐term resourcing in both financial and knowledge terms. Secondly, they saw innovation as part of their long‐term organisational evolution. Thirdly, they gave priority to human resource development issues, and they viewed this stance as necessary in order to underpin the other two elements.
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Michael Dotson and W.E. Patton
Reports on the difficulties currently faced by department stores.Argues that a return to a true service orientation is needed. Discussesconsumer attitudes towards the service…
Abstract
Reports on the difficulties currently faced by department stores. Argues that a return to a true service orientation is needed. Discusses consumer attitudes towards the service offered in such stores via the results of a focus group interview, ranking and perceptual mapping of store services. Offers managerial guidelines for implementing a successful service strategy.
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Rowena Senior, Elizabeth Cleaver, Gilmar Queiros, Helen King and Kirstin Barnett
This discussion paper supports the new development of Apprenticeships at Level 8 of the UK’s Framework for Higher Education Qualifications (QAA, 2014). This exciting development…
Abstract
Purpose
This discussion paper supports the new development of Apprenticeships at Level 8 of the UK’s Framework for Higher Education Qualifications (QAA, 2014). This exciting development, one that employers and universities had been waiting for paves the way for, apprenticeships, sold as the ladder of opportunity, to go all the way to the top.
Design/methodology/approach
Here, we explore in brief the emergence of the new apprenticeship landscape and the importance of the addition of this new highest of levels.
Findings
Importantly, however, we make the case that such progress needs to be met with an equally progressive approach to the design of the new doctoral pathway.
Research limitations/implications
We sketch out a possible shell for the assessment of a Doctoral Apprenticeship, one that allows for flexible occupationally relevant inputs to create an applicable role-based and academically rigourous whole.
Originality/value
The importance of such a design is discussed within the context of the potential for impact in three priority areas: social justice, broadening the talent pool and ensuring the relevance and sustainability of the doctoral award.
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Alicia Mason, Elizabeth Spencer, Kaitlin Barnett and Jaquelyn Bouchie
This study examines the prominence and congruence or “fit” between corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities and medical tourism providers (MTPs). In doing so, this study…
Abstract
Purpose
This study examines the prominence and congruence or “fit” between corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities and medical tourism providers (MTPs). In doing so, this study seeks to understand the forms of CSR commonly used in the marketing of health-care services by international MTPs.
Design/methodology/approach
Exploratory quantitative content analysis methods are used to examine CSR communication provided by MTPs. Descriptive statistics and analyses of variance are used to analyze the data.
Findings
Results show that 22% of MTP websites provided CSR information. There was a high degree of congruence or “fit” between the MTPs and the CSR. Furthermore, each MTP averaged between three and six CSR engagements demonstrating a commitment to not only the practice of CSR but also the stakeholders and communities who benefit.
Research limitations/implications
This analysis focused on organizational websites and did not examine CSR communications delivered through alternative media channels (e.g. digital platforms, promotional brochures, print advertising, etc.).
Practical implications
This study adds to the CSR framework in the medical tourism context by discovering what forms of CSR are commonly used in the marketing and promotion of international health services and further analyzes the strategic communication techniques used to deliver these messages.
Social implications
CSR is argued to have direct impacts on employee satisfaction, investor relations and consumer behavior; therefore, current findings may contribute to the development of measurement tools for empirical studies that test relationships between the persuasiveness of CSR messages on the attitudes of medical tourists.
Originality/value
Research inquiries into the CSR strategic communication practices help to identify strengths and opportunities, while informing reputation management and relationship-building practices.
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Tina M. Ellsworth and Karen Burgard
The purpose of this paper is to illuminate for teachers how the suffrage movement is centered in whiteness. The authors posit that this historical erasure is intentional, and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to illuminate for teachers how the suffrage movement is centered in whiteness. The authors posit that this historical erasure is intentional, and teachers should actively find ways to counter that erasure. This paper positions teachers to ask critical questions of dominant narratives, and have students do the same.
Design/methodology/approach
Given the existence of historical erasure and the absence of Black suffrage stories, the authors sought to build teachers' content base by conducting a historiography of the dominant narrative of the women's suffrage movement. They examined how state standards and popular online archival collections perpetuate the dominant narrative. They provide teachers with a rich content base and include primary sources they could use to teach this content to their students.
Findings
Unsurprising, the Texas and Missouri state standards do little to advance the voices of underrepresented people, especially when it comes to the suffrage movement. Likewise, archival collections are limited by the choice of those who curated the collections. The article presents teachers with lesser known stories of the movement and accompanying primary sources.
Practical implications
Teachers cannot teach what they do not know. So the authors sought to build a teacher's content base so they could tell a more inclusive history. They want to help teachers identify dominant narratives and where historical erasure is happening, and commit to asking critical questions of those narratives and seek to diversity their histories.
Originality/value
This piece is original because much of this content is missing from current history classrooms. In addition, the primary sources and additional resources provided can strengthen a teacher's ability to teach about it.
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Purpose: One of the objectives of this research was to identify whether “mad”, “bad” and “sad” frames, identified in modern news reporting in other Western nations, are also…
Abstract
Purpose: One of the objectives of this research was to identify whether “mad”, “bad” and “sad” frames, identified in modern news reporting in other Western nations, are also evident in historical newspapers in New Zealand, a nation geographically distant. Methodology/approach: Qualitative content analysis was used to analyze reporting of multiple-child murders in New Zealand between 1870 and 1930. Content was sourced from a digitized newspaper database and identified media frames were analyzed under the categories of “mad”, “bad” and “sad”. Findings: Historical New Zealand media constructed “mad,” “bad,” and “sad” frames for the killers, however, instead of being classified with a single frame many killers were portrayed using a combination of two or even three. In some cases, media ignored facts which could have provided an alternative portrayal of the killers. In other cases, no obvious frames were employed. Research limitations: This research does not include analysis of media frame building in modern news reporting. Originality/value: Media construction of frames for multiple-child killers in historical New Zealand news reporting has not been explored before.
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Life studies are a rich source for further research on the role of the Afro‐American woman in society. They are especially useful to gain a better understanding of the…
Abstract
Life studies are a rich source for further research on the role of the Afro‐American woman in society. They are especially useful to gain a better understanding of the Afro‐American experience and to show the joys, sorrows, needs, and ideals of the Afro‐American woman as she struggles from day to day.
This work examines assumptions of positivism and the traditional scientific method.
Abstract
Purpose
This work examines assumptions of positivism and the traditional scientific method.
Design/methodology/approach
Insights from quantum mechanics are explored especially as they relate to method, measurement and what is knowable. An argument is made that how social scientists, particularly sociologists, understand the nature of “reality out there” and describe the social world may be challenged by quantum ideas. The benefits of utilized mixed methods, considering quantum insights, cannot be overstated.
Findings
It is the proposition of this work that insights from modern physics alter the understanding of the world “out there.” Wheeler suggested that the most profound implication from modern physics is that “there is no out there” (1982; see also Baggott, 1992). Grappling with how modern physics may alter understanding in the social sciences will be difficult; however, that does not mean the task should not be undertaken (see Goswami, 1993). A starting point for the social sciences may be relinquishing an old mechanistic science that depends on the establishment of an objective, empirically based, verifiable reality. Mechanistic science demands “one true reality – a clear-cut reality on which everyone can agree…. Mechanistic science is by definition reductionistic…it has had to try to reduce complexity to oversimplification and process to statis. This creates an illusionary world…that has little or nothing to do with the complexity of the process of the reality of creation as we know, experience, and participate in it” (Goswami, 1993, pp. 64, 66).
Research limitations/implications
Many physicists have popularized quantum ideas for others interested in contemplating the implications of modern physics. Because of the difficulty in conceiving of quantum ideas, the meaning of the quantum in popular culture is far removed from the parent discipline. Thus, the culture has been shaped by the rhetoric and ideas surrounding the basic quantum mathematical formulas. And, over time, as quantum ideas have come to be part of the popular culture, even the link to the popularized literature in physics is lost. Rather, quantum ideas may be viewed as cultural formations that take on a life of their own.
Practical implications
The work allows a critique of positivist method and provides insight on how to frame qualitative methodology in a new way.
Social implications
The work utilizes popularized ideas in quantum theory: the preeminent theory that describes all matter. Little work in sociology utilizes this perspective in understanding research methods.
Originality/value
Quantum insights have rarely been explored in highlighting limitations in positivism. The current work aims to build on quantum insights and how these may help us better understand the social world around us.
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