Search results

This paper aims to provide insights into the moral values embodied by a popular social networking site (SNS), Facebook.

This study is based upon qualitative fieldwork, involving participant observation, conducted over a two‐year period. The authors adopt the position that technology as well as humans has a moral character in order to disclose ethical concerns that are not transparent to users of the site.

Much research on the ethics of information systems has focused on the way that people deploy particular technologies, and the consequences arising, with a view to making policy recommendations and ethical interventions. By focusing on technology as a moral actor with reach across and beyond the internet, the authors reveal the complex and diffuse nature of ethical responsibility and the consequent implications for governance of SNS.

The authors situate their research in a body of work known as disclosive ethics, and argue for an ongoing process of evaluating SNS to reveal their moral importance. Along with that of other authors in the genre, this work is largely descriptive, but the paper engages with prior research by Brey and Introna to highlight the scope for theory development.

Governance measures that require the developers of social networking sites to revise their designs fail to address the diffuse nature of ethical responsibility in this case. Such technologies need to be opened up to scrutiny on a regular basis to increase public awareness of the issues and thereby disclose concerns to a wider audience. The authors suggest that there is value in studying the development and use of these technologies in their infancy, or if established, in the experiences of novice users. Furthermore, flash points in technological trajectories can prove useful sites of investigation.

Existing research on social networking sites either fails to address ethical concerns head on or adopts a tool view of the technologies so that the focus is on the ethical behaviour of users. The authors focus upon the agency, and hence the moral character, of technology to show both the possibilities for, and limitations of, ethical interventions in such cases.

According to the traditional view of public administration, a critical component of good policy formulation is the provision of frank and fearless advice to elected decision-makers. This advice can be provided by permanent public officials or by the people selected by the elected governments to fill key and continuing posts. However, there are major questions as to whether new Governor-in-Council (GIC) appointment processes rooted in new public governance (NPG) are yielding the expected results promised, such as less partisanism, as a consideration for appointment.

The paper uses a mixed methods approach to examine the GIC process as it is used in Canada. In using these methods, the authors employed interviews with senior officials, governmental documents review and expert validation interviews to triangulate its main findings.

The paper uses the case of the revised appointment process for GIC appointments in Canada and suggests that the new arrangements do not deliver on merit-based criteria that ensures independence is protected between political executive and senior bureaucratic officials. Although new processes may be more open and transparent than past processes, the paper suggests that such processes are more susceptible to partisan influence under the guise of being merit-based.

The research was limited to one country context, Canada. As such, it will be necessary to expand this to other Westminster countries. Testing whether manifestations of new public governance in appointment processes elsewhere will be important to validate whether Canada is unique or not.

The authors are left to wonder if this innovation of merit-based appointments in the new administrative state is obscuring the lines of accountability and whether it forms the basis for good policy advice despite promises to the contrary.

Trust in the government is affected by decisions behind closed doors. They appear partisan, even when they may not be. Process matters if only to highlight increased value placed on meritorious appointments.

Previous studies on GIC appointments have generally been to explore representation as a value. That is, studies have questioned whether diversity is maintained, for example. However, few studies have explored appointment processes using institutional approaches to examine whether reforms to such processes have respected key principles, such as merit and accountability.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on issues of corporate control around the announcement of the decision of Hertz Global Holdings to relocate its corporate headquarters from New Jersey to Florida in 2013. The relocation decision and accounting irregularities discovered after the announcement raised interest from activist investors. The firm responded by enacting a “poison pill,” but control was eventually wrestled away and the CEO was replaced. Examining these events gives students insights into corporate control issues facing a major US corporation.

This case study presents a history of the firm from its founding in 1918 through 2017, with an emphasis on key events from 2012 through 2017. These events include acquisition of a competing firm (Dollar Thrifty), relocation of corporate headquarters, accounting irregularities, restatement of financials, activist investor responses, issuance of a “poison pill,” and turnover in the CEO position.

The case is intentionally written to “tell the story” of events that relate to issues involving control of the company around the decision to relocate its corporate headquarters. The case highlights potential agency problems between management and shareholders and the market’s response to those problems.

No prior case study considers the topic of corporate control from the perspective of Hertz Global Holdings. This case study can be used by instructors in graduate and undergraduate courses to examine corporate control issues from a “real world” perspective.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

As a site of contestation among job seekers, workers, and managers, the bureaucratic workplace both reproduces and erodes occupational race segregation and racial status hierarchies. Much sociological research has examined the reproduction of racial inequality at work; however, little research has examined how desegregationist forces, including civil rights movement values, enter and permeate bureaucratic workplaces into the broader polity. Our purpose in this chapter is to introduce and typologize what we refer to as “occupational activism,” defined as socially transformative individual and collective action that is conducted and realized through an occupational role or occupational community. We empirically induce and present a typology from our study of the half-century-long, post-mobilization occupational careers of over 60 veterans of the nonviolent Nashville civil rights movement of the early 1960s. The fourfold typology of occupational activism is framed in the “new” sociology of work, which emphasizes the role of worker agency and activism in determining worker life chances, and in the “varieties of activism” perspective, which treats the typology as a coherent regime of activist roles in the dialogical diffusion of civil rights movement values into, within, and out of workplaces. We conclude with a research agenda on how bureaucratic workplaces nurture and stymie occupational activism as a racially desegregationist force at work and in the broader polity.

Presents three autobiographies to show the link between personal experiences and consulting. All are stories of personal change and involve the processes of feeling, reflection, voice and nurturance (FRVN). Gives an example of a consultation to show how FRVN became an underlying process. Presents definitions of FRVN and shows how these relate to personal involvement. Stresses that authenticity is central to effective consulting and that it is through the process of FRVN that this can be achieved.

The purpose of this project was to examine the extent to which early-career women faculty in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) experience working in a chilly interpersonal climate (as indicated by experiences of ostracism and incivility) and how those experiences relate to work and non-work well-being outcomes.

Data came from a sample of 96 early-career STEM faculty (Study 1) and a sample of 68 early-career women STEM faculty (Study 2). Both samples completed online surveys assessing their experiences of working in a chilly interpersonal climate and well-being.

In Study 1, early-career women STEM faculty reported greater experiences of ostracism and incivility and more negative occupational well-being outcomes associated with these experiences compared to early-career men STEM faculty. In Study 2, early-career women STEM faculty reported more ostracism and incivility from their male colleagues than from their female colleagues. Experiences of ostracism (and, to a lesser extent, incivility) from male colleagues also related to negative occupational and psychological well-being outcomes.

This paper documents that exposure to a chilly interpersonal climate in the form of ostracism and incivility is a potential explanation for the lack and withdrawal of junior women faculty in STEM academic fields.

The purpose of this paper was to develop a framework linking the concept of nostalgia and experiential consumption, articulating the transformation of a mundane activity to a special experience, using the context of the small business and afternoon tea.

The methodology is based on a grounded theory approach and draws on multiple methods of data collection including participant observation, in-depth interviews with afternoon tea room managers, researcher introspection and consumer interviews.

By employing nostalgia cues through product, ritual and aesthetics, an idealised home can be constructed emphasising belonging and sharing. The small business owner can be effective in transforming an ordinary activity to an experiential event. Contemporary tea rooms do not replicate tradition; they use it as a cultural resource to construct something novel.

This paper demonstrates how the careful configuration of the retail space can be a key success factor, not only for marketers in large flagship brand stores, but also for smaller, independent and local businesses. The essential interplay between product, ritual and aesthetics creates positive moods of belonging and sharing and may increase satisfaction.

Understanding the emotional value of everyday experiences is a point of differentiation in a crowded marketplace and may directly influence consumer loyalty. Staging experiences is a key competitive strategy.

This paper is one of the few to empirically assess links between the nostalgia paradigm and experiential consumption. Existing research has emphasised large retail spaces; in contrast, the authors demonstrate how consumer experiences can be staged in smaller, independent and local businesses.

Virtual teams have received increased attention in both the practitioner and academic literature, yet little attention has been given to the development of individual team member physical health as a way to improve virtual team performance. While some recent research has examined the role of physical health on managerial andlor employee performance (e.g. Frew & Bruning, 1988; Neck & Cooper, 2000; Shephard, 1999), we argue the role of physical health on an organizational team is equally important. Consequently, this chapter specifically examines the benefits of physical fitness on virtual team performance, and suggests that there is a positive relationship between team member physical fitness and overall team performance.