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Article
Publication date: 29 October 2019

Alessandro Moretti

The purpose of this paper is to argue that the use of legally and ethically dubious methods in ethnography can sometimes be justified in the pursuit of new knowledge. The paper…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to argue that the use of legally and ethically dubious methods in ethnography can sometimes be justified in the pursuit of new knowledge. The paper offers reflections on the risks that participatory methods of enquiry can bring upon both researcher and research participants, particularly in terms of the physical and reputational risks that researchers must face when adopting ethnographic methods in unwelcoming research environments.

Design/methodology/approach

Ethnographic methods, specifically participant observation (PO), were adopted to penetrate a gang of criminal ticket touts in the UK through a gatekeeper who provided access to knowledge and experience.

Findings

Pushing the legal and ethical boundaries of research is not only justifiable, but sometimes necessary in the discovery of new, socially valuable and otherwise unobtainable knowledge. Ethnographic research and PO are the only methods through which it is possible to gauge an understanding and appreciation, and thus present a valid depiction, of deviant and hard to access groups. As such, the use of these methods can sometimes be justified, within certain parameters.

Originality/value

This research adopts ethnographic methods in the under-researched and topical area of black market ticket touting in the UK. Ethnography alone, through an “internal” understanding of the participants’ viewpoints, can reveal that much of what is discussed in the media and in Parliament is inaccurate. The paper builds on the existing literature on touting and on conducting illegal research, and offers reflections on why these methods can sometimes be justified.

Details

Journal of Organizational Ethnography, vol. 9 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2046-6749

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 9 August 2011

Sarah West and John Sugden

The purpose of this paper is to provide a clear outline of how external training and development support helped AZ Essentials, part of AstraZeneca, during a period of major…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to provide a clear outline of how external training and development support helped AZ Essentials, part of AstraZeneca, during a period of major change. This involved bringing nine existing functions together into the single operating unit that was AZ Essentials.

Design/methodology/approach

Oakridge's approach was to better understand current opinions of the proposed new organization and its requirement through one‐to‐one interviews. Using this approach it was able to understand better the current view of the change and decide which development tools to adopt to bring the business functions together to operate as one cohesive group.

Findings

Interviews demonstrated there was inconsistency in understanding of the role and purpose of AZ Essentials. What Oakridge understood from this was the need to move acceptance and development forward quicker and more effectively. The leadership team needed to better understand the rationale for the new organization and its purpose in order to accept the change.

Practical implications

A workshop program engaged the leadership team in a highly involved and participative way to achieve the desired outcomes. From here work on the value proposition sought to identify what the different functions had in common and how they could be coordinated and work together. The leadership team worked on the vision for AZ Essentials, which needed to be clear, consistent and one that would drive the organization. Oakridge was totally focused upon the requirement and engaged with each issue ensuring the group remained motivated throughout the development work.

Originality/value

The paper provides useful information on how external training and development support can help during a period of major change.

Content available
Article
Publication date: 9 August 2011

Sara Nolan

3261

Abstract

Details

Strategic HR Review, vol. 10 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1475-4398

Article
Publication date: 2 November 2012

Stephen Hardy, Brian Norman and Sarah Sceery

The purpose of this paper is to review and explore topics that might constitute a history of branding in sport and might also contribute to understanding today's sport branding…

3839

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to review and explore topics that might constitute a history of branding in sport and might also contribute to understanding today's sport branding practices.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper employs both secondary and primary sources on a range of sports across centuries of time and space. The paper also employs Mayer's principles of multi‐media learning.

Findings

The paper finds that sport brands have a long history driven by entrepreneurs and organizations through rule‐making, equipment, distinct names, and employment of new technologies.

Originality/value

The paper identifies a series of topics that merit closer scrutiny by historians whose research might inform contemporary scholars and practitioners of sport marketing.

Details

Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, vol. 4 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1755-750X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 December 2016

Tony Burns

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between Amartya Sen’s notion of adaptation and his views on identity politics by focussing on the issue of slavery and…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between Amartya Sen’s notion of adaptation and his views on identity politics by focussing on the issue of slavery and, more specifically, on the example of the happy or contented slave.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper is text based. The methodological approach adopted is that of conceptual analysis, as is typical for work of this kind.

Findings

The paper concludes that the example of the happy or contented slave is indeed a fruitful one for those interested in exploring the relationship between Sen’s views on “the adaptation problem” and his views on identity politics, especially in relation to the subjection of women. Here Sen’s debt to the ideas of Mary Wollstonecraft and John Stuart Mill is particularly important.

Research limitations/implications

One implication of the argument of the paper is that there is a need to consider more carefully the differences that exist between the views of Wollstonecraft and Mill, so far as the example of the happy or contented slave is concerned.

Practical implications

One practical implication of the paper is that, hopefully, it establishes the continued relevance of the ideas of thinkers such as Wollstonecraft and Mill today, not least because of the influence that they have had on theoreticians such as Amartya Sen.

Social implications

The paper addresses issues which are of considerable social and political significance, especially for women in underdeveloped societies today.

Originality/value

The example of the happy or contented slave has not received much discussion in the literature on Sen, although Sen himself has suggested that the distinction between happiness and contentment is an important one, which does merit further discussion.

Details

International Journal of Social Economics, vol. 43 no. 12
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0306-8293

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 February 2004

Renee Prendergast

This paper is an attempt to understand how Amartya Sen's thinking on development and freedom has evolved from his critique of welfare economics and his concern with…

1978

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to understand how Amartya Sen's thinking on development and freedom has evolved from his critique of welfare economics and his concern with underdevelopment and poverty. It is argued that Sen has done a great deal to rescue welfare economics from the consequences of methodological individualism by seeking an objective basis for comparisons of well‐being, by insisting on the need for interpersonal comparability and by creating a space for normative evaluations. Sen's contribution to the human development approach with its emphasis on positive freedom has also helped to provide a valuable counterweight to the dominant free market approach. However, some concerns are expressed that the approach does not give sufficient attention to long‐run dynamics and that the conception of capability employed is not helpful for the understanding of development

Details

Journal of Economic Studies, vol. 31 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-3585

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 January 2006

John Forster

To identify the organisations that provide global governance within the sports industry, to discuss their role, and to suggest that they have self‐governance problems due to both

14126

Abstract

Purpose

To identify the organisations that provide global governance within the sports industry, to discuss their role, and to suggest that they have self‐governance problems due to both their evolution and the massive commercialisation of sport of recent decades.

Design/methodology/approach

An empirical‐based argument is conducted. Standing at the apex of a hierarchy of national governing bodies and playing organisations, global sports organisations (GSOs) are defined and classified in terms of their governance functions, their commonalities and differences and their interconnections described and analysed. The GSOs for soccer, the Olympics and athletics are used as illustrative cases. Deficiencies in the small sports governance literature are identified. It is argued how the GSOs have maintained their authority as governance organisations despite being private organisations. Hirschman's “Voice, exit and loyalty” model is offered as a partial theoretical interpretation of their situation.

Findings

Although one of the GSOs' original major functions of formalising international sport is now complete, they have retained not only their sport governance monopolies and authority but also the original structures designed for amateur sport. This creates problems when the governance monopoly can be used as a revenue device.

Originality/value

Sport is an important part of global culture and an industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars where accusations of corruption are common but global governance is little examined. The GSOs, present‐day commercial roles and enormous revenues create unresolved governance problems and these are described.

Details

Corporate Governance: The international journal of business in society, vol. 6 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1472-0701

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 January 1976

The Howard Shuttering Contractors case throws considerable light on the importance which the tribunals attach to warnings before dismissing an employee. In this case the tribunal…

Abstract

The Howard Shuttering Contractors case throws considerable light on the importance which the tribunals attach to warnings before dismissing an employee. In this case the tribunal took great pains to interpret the intention of the parties to the different site agreements, and it came to the conclusion that the agreed procedure was not followed. One other matter, which must be particularly noted by employers, is that where a final warning is required, this final warning must be “a warning”, and not the actual dismissal. So that where, for example, three warnings are to be given, the third must be a “warning”. It is after the employee has misconducted himself thereafter that the employer may dismiss.

Details

Managerial Law, vol. 19 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0309-0558

Article
Publication date: 1 March 1992

John Conway O'Brien

A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balanceeconomics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary toman′s finding the good life and society enduring…

1155

Abstract

A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balance economics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary to man′s finding the good life and society enduring as a civilized instrumentality. Looks for authority to great men of the past and to today′s moral philosopher: man is an ethical animal. The 13 essays are: 1. Evolutionary Economics: The End of It All? which challenges the view that Darwinism destroyed belief in a universe of purpose and design; 2. Schmoller′s Political Economy: Its Psychic, Moral and Legal Foundations, which centres on the belief that time‐honoured ethical values prevail in an economy formed by ties of common sentiment, ideas, customs and laws; 3. Adam Smith by Gustav von Schmoller – Schmoller rejects Smith′s natural law and sees him as simply spreading the message of Calvinism; 4. Pierre‐Joseph Proudhon, Socialist – Karl Marx, Communist: A Comparison; 5. Marxism and the Instauration of Man, which raises the question for Marx: is the flowering of the new man in Communist society the ultimate end to the dialectical movement of history?; 6. Ethical Progress and Economic Growth in Western Civilization; 7. Ethical Principles in American Society: An Appraisal; 8. The Ugent Need for a Consensus on Moral Values, which focuses on the real dangers inherent in there being no consensus on moral values; 9. Human Resources and the Good Society – man is not to be treated as an economic resource; man′s moral and material wellbeing is the goal; 10. The Social Economist on the Modern Dilemma: Ethical Dwarfs and Nuclear Giants, which argues that it is imperative to distinguish good from evil and to act accordingly: existentialism, situation ethics and evolutionary ethics savour of nihilism; 11. Ethical Principles: The Economist′s Quandary, which is the difficulty of balancing the claims of disinterested science and of the urge to better the human condition; 12. The Role of Government in the Advancement of Cultural Values, which discusses censorship and the funding of art against the background of the US Helms Amendment; 13. Man at the Crossroads draws earlier themes together; the author makes the case for rejecting determinism and the “operant conditioning” of the Skinner school in favour of the moral progress of autonomous man through adherence to traditional ethical values.

Details

International Journal of Social Economics, vol. 19 no. 3/4/5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0306-8293

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 April 2000

Valerie Ratcliffe‐Martin, Elayne Coakes and Gill Sugden

This paper describes some basic concepts of knowledge management, and explains, using these definitions, why universities are not always seats of learning or knowledge sharing. A…

Abstract

This paper describes some basic concepts of knowledge management, and explains, using these definitions, why universities are not always seats of learning or knowledge sharing. A knowledge management programme, initiated by a leading British university, is described. The authors conclude by suggesting that knowledge management tools may be beneficial to supporting academics in their multi‐faceted work. However, time will tell as to the extent to which they can actually share tacit knowledge and enable real organisational learning across cultures in universities.

Details

VINE, vol. 30 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0305-5728

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