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The purpose of this paper is to adopt an institutional theory perspective to investigate the adoption of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems by medium-sized firms in India. The rationale for this study is to provide a more complete understanding of ERP adoption, moving beyond the traditional technical and economic perspectives to include social, cultural and structural influences. These later influences are more implicit, insidious and pervasive and hence require elucidatory studies such as this, but offer a greater understanding of the adoption of information systems (IS).

The study is undertaken by means of nine case studies of medium-sized firms in India that have adopted ERP systems. Qualitative interviews were undertaken with a range of staff in each firm and are supplemented by data from other sources such as site visit notes.

Institutionally based studies have tended to focus on three high-level isomorphic pressures: coercive, normative and mimetic. The study identifies number of more detailed factors that contribute to each of these three pressures. These more detailed factors are then used to consider how factors can interact and how they can explain aspects of the Indian context of the study.

The conceptual contribution of this study is to move beyond the technical and economic rationales frequently identified for the adoption of IS by identifying influences that are social, cultural and structural in nature. The study shows that the three high-level isomorphic pressures, mimetic, coercive and normative are comprised of more detailed factors. The empirical contribution of the paper is to identify these detailed factors, and to explore their influence, in the case of ERP adoption by Indian medium-sized firms. The study is of value to practitioners, since it is at the detailed level of factors that managers can recognize the forces they are subject to and can take action. It is also valuable to researchers since the detailed factors help address two limitations of institutional theory; a lack of agency perspective and a degree of conceptual ambiguity.

Health policies often require individuals to limit behaviours deemed enjoyable or suffer other burdens. This leads to considerable and contested discourse often played out in the popular media. The aim of this study is to determine the effects of such contested media discourse on viewers' perceived attitude change towards the target behaviour.

Combining concepts from discourse analysis and marketing-psychology elaboration models, the authors undertook an online survey in which a large sample of the public (N = 855) watched parts of a real daytime news debate on the UK Sugar Tax. The authors then evaluated the effects of this discourse on the perceived understanding of the tax and perceived attitude change to the consumption of sugary drinks.

Participants differentiated between parts of the discourse related to facts and arguments (termed argument-related discourse devices) and parts related to the format and tone of the debate (termed debate-/speaker-related discourse devices). Contrary to what might be expected, debate-/speaker-related discourse devices, which might be thought of as subjective, appeared to effect positive perceived attitude change through a cognitive processing route that involved perceived improved understanding. The argument-related discourse devices, which may appear objective or rational, were not associated with perceived improved understanding but were directly associated with positive perceived attitude change.

Given the authors' interest in the relationship between discourse and perceived attitude change, the authors take the novel step of linking concepts from discourse analysis with models of attitude change taken from the marketing-psychology domain. Furthermore, the authors' large-scale survey “democratises” discourse analysis, allowing non-expert participants to reflect upon discourse.

This paper aims to explore alternative literacy instruction with incarcerated youth, add to the body of existing literature documenting the literacy of those incarcerated and investigate the construction of book clubs through a critical lens.

This qualitative case study answered the following research questions: What can a critical book club reveal about the literacy lives of these incarcerated youth? What can we learn from incarcerated youth through a critical book club? Data were collected through participant observation and in-depth interviews and analyzed using a critical literacy framework.

Findings indicate students used text connections to critically reflect on selves and schools. They questioned issues of power, particularly the power of literacy in their own lives as well as the power of schools, teachers and curriculum. The paper concludes with the authors’ critical reflection on both the findings and process which results in implications for future book clubs in settings with incarcerated youth.

As educators, administrators and community members living in the “age of incarceration” (Hill, 2013), there is a social responsibility to design curriculum and pedagogy that expands instruction in correctional facilities.

The need for expanded literacy instruction in juvenile detention centers has been widely documented and supported; however, conventional methods of teaching literacy are not always successful for youth who may not have had positive experiences with traditional schooling. This study expands and explores literacy instruction with incarcerated youth through book clubs, an alternative literacy structure which challenges traditional curricula, pedagogical practices and culturally irrelevant texts which often contribute to the alienation and disempowerment of many students. Book clubs can facilitate new understandings through a critical lens.

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.

It is now forty years since there appeared H. R. Plomer's first volume Dictionary of the booksellers and printers who were at work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1641 to 1667. This has been followed by additional Bibliographical Society publications covering similarly the years up to 1775. From the short sketches given in this series, indicating changes of imprint and type of work undertaken, scholars working with English books issued before the closing years of the eighteenth century have had great assistance in dating the undated and in determining the colour and calibre of any work before it is consulted.

Purpose – To discover and unravel the contribution of women to innovation and invention. This chapter builds upon a book published in 2003, called, Ingenious Women. The purpose of the book was to discover the invisible women inventors and patent holders operating between 1637, when the first patent was awarded to a woman, and the outbreak of war in 1914. For the purpose of this essay, the time frame has been extended to the present.

Methodology – Historical patents are used as the main research base, supported by searches of other relevant databases, directories and specialist archives (census records, registered designs, company records, museum collections) as well as specialist literature.

Findings – The research illustrates that women and men were often part of a wide network of discoverers and innovators and were able, by using the latest technologies and materials available, to resolve problems both large and small.

Research limitations/implications – This categorisation on patent databases or directories and searches were by female first names or by object type. his categorisation highlights the historical assumption that women are not inventors. Although this search method highlighted hundreds of women, there must be many still undiscovered.

Practical implications – Not all the ideas went into production and some have now become obsolete. Others continue to be produced and have formed the basis of successful companies. Many women became entrepreneurs and developed businesses based on their inventions and some, as widows, successfully ran their deceased husbands' companies.

Social implication – The women in this hidden history often had to navigate a path through social attitudes and legislative frameworks. They are all an example to women today that anyone, regardless of gender, can be innovative and entrepreneurial. What is crucial is that the ideas being developed are unique and have a purpose.

This piece argues that television families’ shift away from the traditional nuclear family form is crucial to understand the relatively rapid acceptance of same-sex marriage in mainstream politics. Released in the early 2010s, The Americans focusses on a KGB-created family composed of two Soviet spies, total strangers who ultimately have two children to further their cover as an innocent American family running a DuPont Circle travel agency and living in a Virginia suburb of Washington D.C. Rather than being idealised or sought after, The Americans reveals that the nuclear family is legally, socially, and politically constructed, and, in the end, doomed to failure. Sex and love and even children are instrumentally manipulated on a regular basis to further political goals, transforming basic assumptions about how marriage and family life really work beyond the façade of suburban America. This opens space for consideration and acceptance of alternative family forms, including same-sex marriage.

The purpose of this paper is to extend the work of Carnegie and Walker and report the results of Part 2 of their study on household accounting in Australia during the period from the 1820s to the 1960s.

The study adopts a microhistorical approach involving a detailed examination of actual accounting practices in the Australian home based on 18 sets of surviving household records identified as exemplars and supplemented by other sources which permit their contextualisation and interpretation.

The findings point to considerable variety in the accounting practices pursued by individuals and families. Household accounting in Australia was undertaken by both women and men of the middle and landed classes whose surviving household accounts were generally found to comprise one element of diverse and comprehensive personal record keeping systems. The findings indicate points of convergence and divergence in relation to the contemporary prescriptive literature and practice.

The paper reflects on the implications of the findings for the notion of the household as a unit of consumption as opposed to production, gender differences in accounting practice and financial responsibility, the relationship between changes in the life course and the commencement and cessation of household accounting, and the relationship between domestic accounting practice and social class.