Search results

Review essay on Farrant, A. (Ed.). (2011). Hayek, Mill, and the liberal tradition. Routledge: London. ISBN: 978-0415779340. $130.00.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and analyse the extent to which socio‐political obstacles have influenced the successful establishment and performance of an institutional framework to implement the privatization programme in Sri Lanka.

Secondary data have been extensively used in this paper to interpret, analyse and strengthen the arguments. Further, the recent data collected through semi‐structured interviews with stakeholders in the telecommunications sector in Sri Lanka have been used. The analysis has been confined to the Sri Lankan context.

This paper finds that the institutional framework, one of the preconditions necessary for successful implementation of reforms, has not been successful in the implementation due to the unsound socio‐political milieu prevailing in the country.

This paper addresses only one aspect, i.e. the importance of a proper institutional framework. It emphasizes the need for further case studies to investigate the importance of other preconditions in developing countries.

The paper shows that the current analysis could be of immense value to the policy makers of both Sri Lanka and countries in South Asia.

The findings in this paper suggest that careful consideration of the country‐specific socio‐political conditions in developing countries should be taken, and reform measures devised accordingly.

Entrepreneurship is ubiquitous, but it is not unequivocally a human force for social and economic good. Critical perspectives of the entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurial success (and failure) are evolving in the scholarly literature. Dark side theory has emerged as a language for critiquing the dominant narratives of entrepreneurship portrayed in scholarship, education, planning, policy, and other forms of practice. This chapter draws from dark side entrepreneurship theory, Baumolian entrepreneurship, and exemplars of counterculture to craft language for an emerging theory of misfit entrepreneurship, which consists of misfit entrepreneurs and alternative enterprises. Alternative enterprises and misfit entrepreneurs are conceptualized, and literary examples (i.e., Robin Hood and Song Jiang) and modern-day examples (i.e., Hacker groups) are supplied. The unique actions and impacts of misfit entrepreneurs and alternative enterprises are offered for discussion. This new theory of misfit entrepreneurship leaves readers with exploratory questions that enhance critical perspectives and modern understandings of entrepreneurship today.

The purpose of the paper is to demonstrate that history has much to teach leaders in understanding resistance to affirmative action and how a greater commitment to diversity can be fostered.

This narrative review provides a timeline of a case for resolution‐by‐agreement in the wake of the landmark Knight v. Alabama case.

There have been dramatic increases in the enrollment of students of color and the presence of African‐American faculty in the three major public universities that comprise the University of Alabama System, as well as others in the state.

The present review does not contend that historic and fundamental inequities no longer exist in business and society. Moreover, the authors recognize that present inequities in the realms of diversity have important and historical roots. Likewise, there is no attempt to suggest that affirmative action is no longer a necessary or desired program in some areas. Neither do the authors deny the potential for inordinate management influence in the implementation and practice of some programs that focus on “diversity” instead of “affirmative action.”

The numbers are not optimal. But future studies, along with this paper, should make a significant contribution to the affirmative action literature in the hope that organizations of all types may exceed their goals in the area of “diversity” as part of a larger quest for genuine advancements in the realm of diversity and fairness throughout society.

The paper provides an additional lens through which to examine diversity initiatives. Organizations can learn from the resolution‐by‐agreement process used to settle this desegregation dispute.

Since the first Volume of this Bibliography there has been an explosion of literature in all the main areas of business. The researcher and librarian have to be able to uncover specific articles devoted to certain topics. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume III, in addition to the annotated list of articles as the two previous volumes, contains further features to help the reader. Each entry within has been indexed according to the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus and thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid information retrieval. Each article has its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. The first Volume of the Bibliography covered seven journals published by MCB University Press. This Volume now indexes 25 journals, indicating the greater depth, coverage and expansion of the subject areas concerned.

Paul Heyer is to be commended for producing a very informative book on Harold Innis’ history of communications. It pulls together the communications elements in Innis’ wide-ranging works, and presents the result in an account that an otherwise uninformed reader can digest. The book is unique. Donald Creighton's biography of Innis is about the man, primarily, and only secondarily about his contribution to economic history (Creighton, 1957). Indeed, it is more about Creighton's own interpretation of Canadian history than about much that Innis had to say. My own intellectual biography of Innis (Neill, 1972) is a labored presentation that fails in at least one respect in which Heyer has not failed so badly. Heyer's Harold Innis is a neat, readable presentation of something Innis had to say. Of course, Heyer has been limited by his commission. In a contribution to a series of books on “Key Thinkers in Critical Media Studies,” Innis’ broad interest in many aspects of economic activity and his obsessive concern with the state of economics itself had to be relegated, more or less, to comments in passing. Still, it is Heyer who notes that Innis’ book of essays, Political economy in the modern state (Innis, 1946) “is pivotal” in his thought, though not given much attention by his interpreters, among whom I must include myself.

Since individual and/or sectional interests are embedded in organisational relations, the meaning and significance of manpower plans will depend very much on the political and career systems of which they are both a condition and a consequence. Manpower planning can never be seen simply as a technical solution to practical problems for insofar as it reflects and reinforces power‐knowledge practices within organisations, it is as much part of the problem as of the solution. The post‐Griffith climate of industrial management in the NHS is leading to the imposition of an artificial consensus through bureaucratic and technicist means, rather than identifying and developing new ways to mobilise the creative collective power of the majority, who at present remain peripheral to, and disinterested in, their organisation.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the elements of country image that influence gatekeepers of the European food distribution sector when making industrial purchasing decisions regarding imported food products.

In‐depth interviews were conducted with key informants of seventeen food distribution companies and industry organisations in five European countries to determine the factors that they consider important when deciding from which countries to source food products.

Confidence and trust in production systems, the integrity of regulatory systems, and the reliability of suppliers appear to be the major determinants of product‐country image as viewed by gatekeepers of the food distribution channel.

These specific factors relating to confidence, trust, integrity and reputation appear to over‐ride more general perceptions of country image based on scenic or environmental considerations.

Provides useful information for public policy makers and companies in food exporting countries.