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This study contributes to the understanding of the health effects of pesticides exposure and of how pesticides have been and should be regulated.

This study presents literature reviews for the period 2000–2013 on (i) the health effects of pesticides and on (ii) preference valuation of health risks related to pesticides, as well as a discussion of the role of benefit-cost analysis applied to pesticide regulatory measures.

This study indicates that the health literature has focused on individuals with direct exposure to pesticides, i.e. farmers, while the literature on preference valuation has focused on those with indirect exposure, i.e. consumers. The discussion highlights the need to clarify the rationale for regulating pesticides, the role of risk perceptions in benefit-cost analysis, and the importance of inter-disciplinary research in this area.

This study relates findings of different disciplines (health, economics, public policy) regarding pesticides, and identifies gaps for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to identify socio-economic/demographic characteristics and to evaluate the knowledge on different open distance learning (ODL) concepts of BSc undergraduates of The Open University of Sri Lanka (OUSL) at first registration.

The surveying technique was adapted with a piloted structured questionnaire consisting of two components. The structured component was used to evaluate personal, socio-economic and demographic data. The open ended component evaluated the student’s perception on ODL concepts. The questionnaire was randomly adapted to 456 (35 percent Colombo Regional Centre (CRC) registrants) prospective BSc undergraduates at first registration time at the CRC in 2014. Data collected from the structured component were frequency tabulated and cross-tabulated with the SPSS computer software. Responses of the open ended part were examined, categorized and the frequency percentages of each response category were calculated.

The structured component recognized that the majority of BSc undergraduates of the OUSL represent employed (53 percent), late adolescents (92 percent below age 27) who reside in rural or semi-urban areas (75 percent). They belong mostly to the lower middle class and 69 percent are from families which have a monthly family income below SLR30,000/(USD208). Answers of the open ended component on ODL concepts recognized that, prior knowledge on ODL concepts were developed by most BSc undergraduates. Approximately 50 percent of respondents perceived OUSL as an institute which facilitates working people by conducting part time-based or distance mode education with self-learning features. In total, 56.9 percent students perceived the role of an ODL teacher correctly as a facilitator or a guide. The educational process was perceived correctly as an ODL system by 52 percent, while the remainder also identified the system to be a more self-study and student centered flexible learning system. However, the role of a BSc student at OUSL was recognized as self-independent learners by only 36.7 percent and the majority had no clear perception of the role they have to play as an ODL student. Hence, more attention should be paid to make students recognize the role they have to play in an ODL system in order to succeed at OUSL.

Although research has been carried out periodically on the process of ODL education system at OUSL, on the graduate (output) and dropouts, etc., not many have focused on the nature of input such as characteristic features of first registrant and their prior knowledge on ODL. As the output invariably depends on the input and the process, this type of survey is timely and novel.

This essay addresses the topic of research lifeworlds and personal lifeworlds and what we gain and lose as researchers, and as people, from their overlaps and collisions. The essay analyses six narrative accounts of the authors lived experience of a unique collision between research and personal lifeworlds when the researcher-mother presented with her sick daughter to the hospital emergency department that served as the field site for her own research. This analysis revealed the following themes through which a researcher’s personhood animates the research process: feeling exposed but empowered; gaining conceptual clarity while opening up ethical ambiguity; and becoming liminal because of identity shifts and coping through self-reflexivity. The essay contributes to our collective understanding and shared learning of the ways a researcher’s personhood shapes, and is shaped by, the research process and (re)production of knowledge.

Ethnographers and other qualitative social scientists have long reflected on the ways researcher identity – who we are – shapes how we see and understand what and whom we encounter in our research, and how research participants see and understand us. In “Insider–outsider–inbetweener? Researcher positioning, participative methods, and cross-cultural educational research,” Milligan (2016) takes up questions regarding researcher positionality in qualitative research in the field of comparative and international education. In particular, Milligan argues for the use of participative techniques to gain insider perspectives and to lessen unequal power relations between researcher and the researched in cross-cultural research. In this chapter, we will engage Milligan’s discussion of participative research by analyzing the similarities and differences in studying participants with relative social privilege versus studying those from marginalized communities. Specifically, we will reflect on two ethnographic studies that explored the global educational aspirations of middle and upper middle-class Asian students. Furthermore, we attempt to complicate the discussion of “cross-cultural” research by arguing that in the neoliberal global context, researchers and the researched may move back and forth across national and cultural boundaries. The chapter concludes by raising questions regarding the unique challenges of conducting cross-cultural studies that flow across national boundaries.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss researcher subjectivity in social entrepreneurship ethnographies. Previous research has highlighted a need for alternatives to the heroic representations of social entrepreneurship. Ethnographic methods have been mentioned as a relevant direction to create such emerging understandings.

This paper shows what followed from a decision of a researcher to do an ethnography of a co-working cooperative established for social innovation. Based on the notion of “working the hyphens” in previous research, further developed by other scholars as “working within hyphen-spaces”, the position of the researcher shifted during the research process between a distant outsider and an engaged insider. In addition, a new hyphen-space of hopefulness – hopelessness emerged based on fieldwork.

The shifting positions are manifested in the entanglement of stories of the researcher and the people met during the fieldwork in the hyphen-spaces of insiderness – outsiderness, engagement – distance and hopefulness – hopelessness. The stories reveal how for some the co-working space was a place for hope while for others it caused distress and even burnout.

The ethnographic understanding of social enterprises go beyond heroic representations, which affects how the phenomenon is represented in academic and public discussions.

This study concludes that despite its failure in the form of a bankruptcy, the co-working cooperative succeeded in enabling “social innovation” in the form of hope and personal development – also for the researcher.

This study contributes to the social entrepreneurship literature in showing how ethnographic fieldwork and acknowledging researcher subjectivity bring up alternative representations of social entrepreneurship. The entangled stories of participants and researchers can be a powerful way to reveal situated understandings.

While organizational access is central to much qualitative research, little is known about how researchers secure it. The purpose of this paper is to provide a systematic assessment of this critical methodological step.

A systematic review was conducted to establish how researchers gained access to organizations for qualitative research. Access type was identified and explanatory indicators were inductively developed to illuminate how access was obtained in a sample of 216 qualitative articles published in Administrative Science Quarterly and Academy of Management Journal between 1986 and 2013. A supplemental review of 306 articles published in Organization Studies over the same period augmented the primary analysis with a broader view of published accounts of access.

Learning prior to entering organizations, researchers’ backgrounds, organizational insiders, and outside contacts facilitated access. The role of these factors, which served as indicators of legitimacy, varied with the type of access. In addition, the authors found that many articles provide little information about how the researchers gained access, regardless of a publication’s domicile.

This study furthers the understanding of how researchers gain access to organizations to conduct qualitative research and discusses the implications of the limited access accounts in published studies. In addition, this research provides practical guidance for authors, editors, and reviewers.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between people-related total quality management (PTQM) practices and employee work attitudes, as well as the impact of the specific PTQM practices on work attitudes in the context of the Sri Lankan apparel industry.

The five PTQM practices included top management commitment, employee empowerment, training, employee involvement and teamwork. Employee work attitudes comprised of job satisfaction, affective commitment, job involvement and turnover intention. Data collected from the machine operator-level employees in the top 100 apparel exporters in Sri Lanka were analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM).

The findings suggest that the PTQM practices were significant drivers of job involvement but not of job satisfaction, affective commitment and turnover intentions. It was also found that teamwork, training and employee involvement were the most important PTQM practices towards employee work attitudes. Top management commitment drove affective commitment and job involvement, while employee empowerment was important only for job involvement.

The research only considered the top 100 export- apparel manufacturers in Sri Lanka; hence, care has to be taken for the findings to represent the entire manufacturing industry in Sri Lanka.

Based on the perceptions of floor level employees, which is scarcely investigated in the PTQM domain, the paper presents an interesting and unique perspective on the relationship between the PTQM practices and employee work attitudes, challenging majority of previous research findings. Besides making theoretical contributions, the findings offer valuable insights into the management of Sri Lankan apparel companies by highlighting the PTQM practices, which need to be strengthened.

The Open University of Sri Lanka (OUSL) is the only institution to deliver legal education through Open and Distance Learning (ODL) in Sri Lanka. This study aims to analyze technology usage in learning and teaching law in the ODL under OUSL to evaluate the accessibility and also challenges.

A combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies has been used for the study. This includes both interviews with teachers and surveying among students on the usage of technology in learning and teaching law at OUSL. Since the LL.B Degree Programme of OUSL delivered at six regional centres in Sri Lanka, this study also includes the comparative analysis of technology usage in teaching and learning at selected regional centres.

The findings indicate that the majority of students have access to technology through mobile phones and are aware of blended learning. Even though they prefer to integrate blended learning with learning law, they do not prefer learning entirely online. Social media and mobile applications are the most preferred modes of blended learning by students. It is also acknowledged that the internal staff has knowledge and access to the use of technology in teaching law while the external staff faces challenges and is in need of adequate training.

The original contribution of this article provides insightful guidelines not only to the OUSL of Sri Lanka but also to the institutions offering similar disciplines through ODL to understand lecturers, learners in the future integration of technology.

As a critical and intimate form of inquiry, ethnography remains close to lived realities and equips scholars with a unique methodological angle on social phenomena. This paper aims to explore the potential gains from an increased use of ethnography in social enterprise studies.

The authors develop the argument through a set of dualistic themes, namely, the socio-economic dichotomy and the discourse/practice divide as predominant critical lenses through which social enterprise is currently examined, and suggest shifts from visible leaders to invisible collectives and from case study-based monologues to dialogic ethnography.

Ethnography sheds new light on at least four neglected aspects. Studying social enterprises ethnographically complicates simple reductions to socio-economic tensions, by enriching the set of differences through which practitioners make sense of their work-world. Ethnography provides a tool for unravelling how practitioners engage with discourse(s) of power, thus marking the concrete results of intervention (to some degree at least) as unplannable, and yet effective. Ethnographic examples signal the merits of moving beyond leaders towards more collective representations and in-depth accounts of (self-)development. Reflexive ethnographies demonstrate the heuristic value of accepting the self as an inevitable part of research and exemplify insights won through a thoroughly bodily and emotional commitment to sharing the life world of others.

The present volume collects original ethnographic research of social enterprises. The editorial develops the first consistent account of the merits of studying social enterprises ethnographically.

With a global increase in the prevalence of obesity, nutrition and exercise play a key role in its prevention and treatment. Natural product (nutraceutical) interventions are currently being investigated on a large‐scale basis as potential treatments for obesity and weight management. This paper aims to examine current research on nutraceuticals and their role in the management of obesity and body composition. This paper will focus specifically on nutraceuticals, which are plant‐based, which may aid in preventing/treating the metabolic syndrome. Those that will be discussed include conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), capsaicin, Momordica Charantia (MC) and Psyllium fibre.

Recent empirical evidence has suggested that the utilization of such nutraceuticals to treat human cases of the metabolic syndrome may indeed be warranted. By examining various databases and conducting literature searches the following herbs and food additives were found to be of significant importance within this realm of food science. More importantly, emphasis was placed on research which used the randomized placebo control design.

Whilst many of the nutraceuticals already have widespread usage, dosage and utilization have still not been critically examined in research literature. Many studies have focused solely on animal research, while others have implemented these nutraceuticals in controlled human trials.

Whilst many journal articles met rigorous scientific standards, international research in this area has also revealed that, language barriers may exist. The field of clinical nutraceutical research is rel atively new in North America, and thus much information is still available in the East but barriers still exist with respect to knowledge of certain herbs.

Clinical nutritionists as well as physicians must gain knowledge of nutraceutical usage as well as availability. With recent marketing of products online, issues of safety should also be raised with respect to clinical treatment. Some products may have contra‐indicatory properties and thus further investigation with nutraceuticals and significant interactions with physician supervised treatment should also be evaluated in future research.

To date few papers have evaluated nutraceutical usage specifically clinical usage and, furthermore, the implications that some may have on obesity and treatment of the metabolic syndrome. Filling this gap in the literature may allow other researchers, clinicians and physicians to learn more about nutraceuticals.