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1 – 10 of 14
Open Access
Article
Publication date: 2 October 2017

Palie Smart, Stefan Hemel, Fiona Lettice, Richard Adams and Stephen Evans

The purpose of this paper is to progress operations management theory and practice by organising contributions to knowledge production, in industrial sustainability, from…

5445

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to progress operations management theory and practice by organising contributions to knowledge production, in industrial sustainability, from disparate researcher communities. It addresses the principal question “What scholarly dialogues can be explicated in the emerging research field of industrial sustainability?” and sub-questions: what are the descriptive characteristics of the evidence base? and what thematic lines of scientific inquiry underpin the body of knowledge?

Design/methodology/approach

Using an evidenced-based approach, a systematic review (SR) of 574 articles from 62 peer-reviewed scientific journals associated with industrial sustainability is conducted.

Findings

This paper distinguishes three prevailing dialogues in the field of industrial sustainability, and uses Kuhn’s theory of paradigms to propose its pre-paradigmatic scientific status. The three dialogues: “productivity and innovation”, “corporate citizenship” and “economic resilience” are conjectured to privilege efficiency strategies as a mode of incremental reductionism. Industrial sustainability espouses the grand vision of a generative, restorative and net positive economy, and calls for a future research trajectory to address institutional and systemic issues regarding scaling-up and transition, through transformative strategies.

Research limitations/implications

The review is limited by the nature of the inquiries addressed in the literatures by specific researcher communities between 1992 and 2014.

Originality/value

This study performs the first SR in the field of industrial sustainability, synthesises prevailing scholarly dialogues and provides an evaluation of the scientific status of the field.

Details

International Journal of Operations & Production Management, vol. 37 no. 10
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-3577

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 18 July 2019

Fiona Winfield and Tabani Ndlovu

The purpose of this paper is to present a case study of how a UK business school has explicitly linked sustainability to employability and embedded these into all levels of its…

3304

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present a case study of how a UK business school has explicitly linked sustainability to employability and embedded these into all levels of its undergraduate and postgraduate degree portfolio.

Design/methodology/approach

This case study features Nottingham Business School’s (NBS’s) journey of linking sustainability with employability to achieve the University’s strategic objectives and help deliver on the sustainable development goals (SDGs). After reviewing all courses, a cross-school approach was adopted in re-designing the curriculum, first at undergraduate and later postgraduate level. Partnerships, both internal and external were developed, involving the employability and enterprise teams, the University’s students and alumni, local employers, local authorities and businesses and charities. Feedback from graduates is included.

Findings

When NBS introduced new undergraduate modules in 2012, there was resistance with concerns over already crammed curricula and the perceived irrelevance of sustainability. This changed as students realised that an understanding of sustainability was benefiting them at interviews and adding value to their employers. While it cannot be proved that increased self-awareness and sustainability literacy have a direct effect on graduate prospects (as measured by the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education survey), NBS has seen the percentage of students in graduate level employment and/or study increase from 71 to 89.6 per cent over the past five years.

Originality/value

Linking sustainability to employability, and embedding these in the curriculum, should benefit any institution, its students, employers and society, and can be replicated anywhere in the world.

Details

International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, vol. 20 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1467-6370

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 12 March 2020

Frank Siedlok, Paul Hibbert and Fiona Whitehurst

The purpose of this paper is to develop a more detailed understanding of how embedding in different social networks relates to different types of action that individuals choose in…

1784

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to develop a more detailed understanding of how embedding in different social networks relates to different types of action that individuals choose in the context of organizational closures, downsizing or relocations. To develop such insights, this paper focuses on three particular types of social networks, namely, intra-organizational; external professional and local community networks. These three types of networks have been frequently related to different types of action in the context of closures and relocations.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a conceptual paper. The authors develop the argument by integrating relevant recent literature on the salience related to embedding in different types of social networks, with a particular focus on responses to organizational closure or relocation.

Findings

The authors argue that at times of industrial decline and closure: embeddedness in intra-organizational networks can favor collective direct action; embeddedness in professional networks is likely to favor individual direct action and embeddedness in community networks can lead to individual indirect action. The authors then add nuance to the argument by considering a range of complicating factors that can constrain or enable the course (s) of action favored by particular combinations of network influences.

Originality/value

On a theoretical level, this paper adds to understandings of the role of network embeddedness in influencing individual and collective responses to such disruptive events; and direct or indirect forms of response. On a practical level, the authors contribute to understandings about how the employment landscape may evolve in regions affected by organizational demise, and how policymakers may study with or through network influences to develop more responsible downsizing approaches.

Details

Organization Management Journal, vol. 17 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1541-6518

Keywords

Open Access

Abstract

Details

Journal of Work-Applied Management, vol. 15 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2205-2062

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 16 April 2024

Emma Audrey Adams, Desmond Hunter, Joanne Kennedy, Tony Jablonski, Jeff Parker, Fiona Tasker, Emily Widnall, Amy Jane O'Donnell, Eileen Kaner and Sheena E. Ramsay

This study aims to explore the experiences of living through the COVID-19 pandemic for people who faced homelessness and dealt with mental health and/or substance use challenges.

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to explore the experiences of living through the COVID-19 pandemic for people who faced homelessness and dealt with mental health and/or substance use challenges.

Design/methodology/approach

This qualitative study was comprised of 26 1:1 interviews (16 men and 10 women), conducted between February and May 2021 with people who experienced homelessness in North East England during the COVID-19 pandemic. An inductive reflexive thematic analysis was undertaken, with input from individuals with lived experience who were involved throughout the study.

Findings

Four themes were developed. The first theme, lack of support and exacerbation of mental health and substance use difficulties, highlighted how the lack of in-person support and increased isolation and loneliness led to relapses or new challenges for many people’s mental health and substance use. The second theme, uncertainty and fear during the pandemic, explored how the “surreal” experience of the pandemic led to many people feeling uncertain about the future and when things would return to normal. The third theme, isolation and impacts on social networks, discussed how isolation and changes to relationships also played a role in mental health and substance use. Finally, opportunity for reflection and self-improvement for mental health and substance use, explored how some people used the isolated time to re-evaluate their recovery journey and focus on self-improvement.

Practical implications

The experiences shared within this study have important implications for planning the future delivery and commissioning of health and social care services for people facing homelessness, such as sharing information accessibly through clear, consistent and simple language.

Originality/value

As one of the few papers to involve people with lived experience as part of the research, the findings reflect the unique narratives of this population with a focus on improving services.

Details

Advances in Dual Diagnosis, vol. 17 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1757-0972

Keywords

Open Access
Book part
Publication date: 25 July 2022

Angela Wroblewski and Rachel Palmén

Gender equality plans (GEPs) are currently the preferred approach to initiate structural change towards gender equality in research organisations. In order to achieve structural…

Abstract

Gender equality plans (GEPs) are currently the preferred approach to initiate structural change towards gender equality in research organisations. In order to achieve structural change, GEPs have to be more than just a formally adopted institutional policy. Effective GEPs lead to a transformation of gendered practices and thus to structural change. This chapter presents the innovative approach developed for an H2020 structural change project and its theoretical background. We argue that due to the dual logic, which characterises academic organisations, the organisational logic and the academic logic, change is a complex endeavour. To deal with this complexity, one of the main functions of a GEP is to provide space and initiate reflexivity at an individual as well as at an institutional level. A theory of change approach supports reflexivity in all stages of a GEP as it ensures that basic assumptions of the institutional change process are questioned and reflected on by the different stakeholder groups involved in the implementation.

Details

Overcoming the Challenge of Structural Change in Research Organisations – A Reflexive Approach to Gender Equality
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80262-122-8

Keywords

Open Access
Book part
Publication date: 16 August 2023

Jennifer Fleetwood and Caroline Chatwin

This chapter examines representations of gender in online modafinil markets. While gender has often been absent from scholarship on online drug markets, our analysis demonstrates…

Abstract

This chapter examines representations of gender in online modafinil markets. While gender has often been absent from scholarship on online drug markets, our analysis demonstrates the ubiquity of gender in representations of modafinil users and sellers. The analysis draws on visual images, blogs, and marketing emails relating to three websites selling modafinil, discussed pseudonymously. We describe the range of ways that notions of gender are represented in advertising. Although women represent around 40% of that buying modafinil online, websites and communications tended not to feature women. Although sexist stereotypes of women were rarely present (in contrast to direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising), the ways that modafinil was imagined tended to focus narrowly on corporate spheres of work and productivity. We contrast this narrow imaginary with female journalists’ own accounts of using modafinil to manage illness and enhance creativity. Thus, we conclude that the ways that modafinil has been imagined reflects working assumptions as to who is considered the ‘normal’ participant in online modafinil markets.

Details

Digital Transformations of Illicit Drug Markets: Reconfiguration and Continuity
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80043-866-8

Keywords

Open Access
Book part
Publication date: 4 October 2023

Abstract

Details

Participatory Research on Child Maltreatment with Children and Adult Survivors
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80455-529-3

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 23 August 2020

Margaret Hodgins, Sarah MacCurtain and Patricia Mannix-McNamara

Bullying affects at least one-third of the workers through either direct exposure or witnessing, both of which lead to compromised health, and as a result, reduced organizational…

14361

Abstract

Purpose

Bullying affects at least one-third of the workers through either direct exposure or witnessing, both of which lead to compromised health, and as a result, reduced organizational effectiveness or productivity. However, there is very little evidence that organisations provide effective protection from bullying, and in fact, the converse appears to the case. The purpose of this paper to explore the role of both individual and organisational power in the creation and maintenance of the problem. Such an approach moves away from the specific practice of identifying “bullying” that typically engages targets and perpetrators in a dance that is really just around the edges (Sullivan, 2008) of a larger problem; a culture that permits the abuse of power and ill-treatment of workers, in both practices and through organisational politics.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper elucidates key problems with organisational response as identified in the literature and critically examines weak organisational response to workplace bullying using the power theory, arguing that while overt approaches to addressing bullying appear to be underpinned by a simplistic, functionalist understanding of power, practices on the ground are better explained by more sophisticated “second-dimension” theorists.

Findings

There is a need for organisations to move beyond the current individualistic understanding of bullying towards a more nuanced understanding of how anti-bullying policies and procedures are themselves an exercise in institutional power protecting and reinforcing dominant power structures.

Research limitations/implications

The literature from which this paper is drawn is limited to studies published in English.

Practical implications

The authors advocate a realistic assessment of the role of both individual and organisational power in the creation and maintenance of workplace bullying, as a way forward to plan appropriate intervention.

Social implications

Workplace bullying is problematic for organisations at several levels, and therefore for society.

Originality/value

That power is relevant to workplace bullying has been apparent since the work of Brodsky in 1976 and Einarsen's early work, this paper builds on a the more nuanced work of McKay (2014), D'Cruz and Noronha (2009), Liefooghe and MacDavey's (2010) and Hutchinson et al. (2010), exploring the organisational response to the raising of bullying issues by individual employees as an exercise of power.

Details

International Journal of Workplace Health Management, vol. 13 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1753-8351

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 6 August 2019

Anton Wiberg, Johan Persson and Johan Ölvander

This paper aims to review recent research in design for additive manufacturing (DfAM), including additive manufacturing (AM) terminology, trends, methods, classification of DfAM…

16454

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to review recent research in design for additive manufacturing (DfAM), including additive manufacturing (AM) terminology, trends, methods, classification of DfAM methods and software. The focus is on the design engineer’s role in the DfAM process and includes which design methods and tools exist to aid the design process. This includes methods, guidelines and software to achieve design optimization and in further steps to increase the level of design automation for metal AM techniques. The research has a special interest in structural optimization and the coupling between topology optimization and AM.

Design/methodology/approach

The method used in the review consists of six rounds in which literature was sequentially collected, sorted and removed. Full presentation of the method used could be found in the paper.

Findings

Existing DfAM research has been divided into three main groups – component, part and process design – and based on the review of existing DfAM methods, a proposal for a DfAM process has been compiled. Design support suitable for use by design engineers is linked to each step in the compiled DfAM process. Finally, the review suggests a possible new DfAM process that allows a higher degree of design automation than today’s process. Furthermore, research areas that need to be further developed to achieve this framework are pointed out.

Originality/value

The review maps existing research in design for additive manufacturing and compiles a proposed design method. For each step in the proposed method, existing methods and software are coupled. This type of overall methodology with connecting methods and software did not exist before. The work also contributes with a discussion regarding future design process and automation.

Details

Rapid Prototyping Journal, vol. 25 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1355-2546

Keywords

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