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The purpose of this paper is to describe how the introduction of new technologies has affected student support at the United Kingdom Open University (UKOU) particularly focusing on face-to-face tutorials and online tutorials, what this impact implies for open universities and in what direction the innovations toward the sustainability of open universities should proceed.

Research on the historical development of UKOU and a literature review was conducted.

The rationale behind the foundation of UKOU has been to provide higher education to those who have time and physical constraints. There is no doubt that the introduction of advanced technologies has played a significant role in the growth of the university. However, when the university attempted to replace face-to-face tutorials with online tutorials on the basis of its purpose, a number of students and faculty members opposed the decision even though online tutorials fit within its original objective. This paper suggests that face-to-face tutorials have become the essence of the university through the process of identifying the university in the past and the university’s identity may need to be distinguished from the rationale.

This paper emphasizes the necessity of rethinking the Open and Distance Education rationale and, on the basis of past studies on UKOU, offers a unique perspective about the changes that have taken place at the university.

To explore the future visions outlined in one of the first academic books on UK tourism to venture into tourism futures. Through today’s lens, their visions are explored through three topics: Future Markets and Destinations; Future Resources; and the Future Organization of Tourism.

Exploring the backstory, key drivers and tipping points of UK tourism development and tourism education during the 1960s and 1970s, they help to understand the rationale for the authors 1974 future visions of UK tourism. These visions are tested against reality, using a mixture of data, softer evidence and the authors’ judgements.

Acknowledging the authors showed courage in presenting their future visions, when so little was known about the development of tourism, let alone tourism futures. The article highlights the successes and failures of their future visions across 20 tourism sectors, through 55 tourism forecasts. The reasons for weaknesses in some of their forecasts, and their foresight in highlighting little known issues are explored, along with key learning points for tourism futurists.

The future visions of UK tourism were tested against data and other evidence, but this was not always possible. Therefore, the success or failures of some of the visions are based on the authors’ judgement.

Over the past 50 years, there has been a steady growth in tourism futures studies. Given the recent increase in awareness of history in driving futures thinking, perhaps now is the time to apply this viewpoint to previously published tourism futures studies because such reviews provide a timely reminder of the transient nature of tourism futures gazing.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse why Malta continues to show the highest level of turnout for European Parliament (EP) elections in a country where voting is not obligatory. By analysing the Maltese EP elections from 2004 to 2019, the paper seeks to understand why the Maltese engage with a second order election to the degree that they do.

The paper is a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, first assessing the context of the 2019 elections, the historical trends and then the factors that help explain why the Maltese continue to engage with EP elections.

The paper finds that the Maltese political system, highly polarised and dominated by two parties, primarily galvanises people to engage with elections, that it is more about party leadership than actual engagement with Europe and that second order elections in Malta are often run as first order elections.

This paper is the only systematic evaluation of the 2019 EP elections in Malta, discusses categorically that EP elections are rarely about Europe while also showing clearly that political parties can make second-order elections appear as first-order elections should the stakes be high enough.

The purpose of this paper is to offer a critical examination of industrial relations in Denmark.

The approach is based upon available data and a mixture of Marxist theory and systems theory. The theoretical position is discussed in relation to the academic discourses on the main characteristics of Danish industrial relations and provides a review of the foundation and historical development of the Danish system.

From this basis, it is analysed how the stagnation or decline has taken place in recent years regarding representation of workers’ interest as well as the ability of the Danish system to maintain its key importance when challenged by decentralisation, decreasing union affiliation rates, cuts in unemployment insurance and social dumping due to labour migration.

It is an original paper which offers a critical analysis of the institutional decline and increasing inequality that are the result of the liberalist political-economic hegemony.

The purpose of the article is to outline the insights provided by Alan Fox in Man Mismanagement in relation to the rise of the New Right political economy and the spread of unitarist managerialism. The article assesses the contemporary work and employment relations implications of mismanagement arising from a “second wave” of the New Right ideology from 2010 in the UK.

Responding to the Special Issue on Alan Fox, the article focuses on Alan Fox's book Man Mismanagement, considering industrial relations developments arising between the 1st (1974b) and 2nd (1985) editions relating to the political rise of the New Right. It reviews various literature that illustrates the contemporary IR relevance of the book and Fox's insights.

The New Right’s ideology has further fragmented work, disjointed labour rights and undermined collective industrial relations institutions, and macho mismanagement praxis is even more commonplace, compared to when Fox wrote Man Mismanagement. The stripping away of the institutional architecture of IR renders the renewal of pluralist praxis, like collective bargaining and other forms of joint regulation of work, a formidable task.

The value of the article relates to the identification of dramatic historical industrial relations events and change in the UK in Alan Fox's book Man Mismanagement, most notably relating to the rise to power of the Thatcherite New Right in 1979. Originality is evidenced by the authors’ drawing on Fox's ideas and assessing the implications of the “second wave” of the New Right in the contemporary industrial relations (IR) context of the 2020s under the conceptual themes of fragmented work, disjointed labour rights and undermined collectivism.

The authors investigate how COVID-19 has influenced the amount, type or topics of abuse that UK politicians receive when engaging with the public.

This work covers the first year of COVID-19 in the UK, from March 2020 to March 2021 and analyses Twitter abuse in replies to UK MPs. The authors collected and analysed 17.9 million reply tweets to the MPs. The authors present overall abuse levels during different key moments of the pandemic, analysing reactions to MPs by gender and the relationship between online abuse and topics such as Brexit, the government’s COVID-19 response and policies, and social issues.

The authors have found that abuse levels towards UK MPs were at an all-time high in December 2020. Women (particularly those from non-White backgrounds) receive unusual amounts of abuse, targeting their credibility and capacity to do their jobs. Similar to other large events like general elections and Brexit, COVID-19 has elevated abuse levels, at least temporarily.

Previous studies analysed abuse levels towards MPs in the run-up to the 2017 and 2019 UK General Elections and during the first four months of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK. The authors compare previous findings with those of the first year of COVID-19, as the pandemic persisted, and Brexit was forthcoming. This research not only contributes to the longitudinal comparison of abuse trends against UK politicians but also presents new findings, corroborates, further clarifies and raises questions about the previous findings.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-07-2022-0392

The purpose of this paper is to reconsider, from a historical perspective, New Zealand’s reputation as a country largely without corruption, with particular reference to the colonial government’s confiscation of Māori land in the 19^th century and beyond.

This paper is based on published historical commentary.

The findings are that much of the Māori land confiscation was rendered legal for illegitimate purposes, and that the colonial and successive New Zealand governments abrogated the country’s foundational document, the Treaty of Waitangi, signed between the colonial government and many Māori chiefs in 1840. Adverse consequences for Māori have been felt to this day, despite the Treaty settlements process that began with the Māori renaissance in the mid-1970s.

The academic analysis of corruption in New Zealand has seldom if ever adopted this historical perspective.

This study attempts to figure out the factors that contributed to deposing certain elected presidents before the end of their constitutional terms, alongside tracing the new political context that prevailed in Latin America since 1978 and its impact on direct political participation and military behavior during presidential crises.

The paper uses the comparative method to investigate the causes of presidential instability in three case studies.

The likelihood of presidential instability increases when a president enacts austerity economic policies that marginalize large sectors of the citizenry, becomes implicated in acts of corruption and develops a hostile relationship with members of the ruling coalition.

This study integrates the social movement theory with analytical perspectives from parliamentary behavior to explain presidential instability. It attempts to investigate the dynamics of interaction between the acts of furious citizens and disloyal legislators through the in-depth analysis of three case studies.

This study aims to explore whether adopting a sustainability narrative in city branding and urban development strategies results in more inclusive governance arrangements (process) and a more pluralistic approach to generating sustainability value (outcome), in line with the triple bottom line approach advocated by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The authors argue that a necessary step to enable meaningful sustainable urban development is to rethink the way in which “value” and “value creation” are being interpreted in urban development policies and city branding narratives.

Mixed-methods case study of New York City’s (NYC) urban development and city branding strategies (2007–2019) combining analysis of academic and grey literature on NYC’s urban development and city branding, value hierarchies in NYC urban development strategic plans and local media reports covering NYC’s development and branding processes.

Despite claiming commitment to urban sustainability, NYC’s urban development and branding narratives reveal a clear dominance of interpreting “value” primarily as “exchange value”, thus prioritising economic growth.

In the authors’ view, a systemic, systematic and structured approach to generating “sustainability value” is necessary if city branding is to become a governance tool to support sustainable urban development. A “tetravaluation” approach is recommended as a practical, structured framework that can bridge across the ideas of “sustainability value” and “pluralistic governance”, ensuring effective implementation. Further investigation in additional urban contexts is required.

The research contributes to current scholarly debates towards more balanced and pluralistic conceptions of “value” and place branding as a more holistic, participatory and democratic governance model for sustainable urban development.

This article aims to explore whether and how economic, political and demographic municipal conditions shape citizens' attitudes regarding decentralised social policies.

The authors analysed the 2018 wave of the Dutch Local Election Studies, which includes a novel survey item asking respondents whether they prefer local social policies to be primarily: (1) protection-based, (2) cohesion-building or (3) activation-based. The authors appended context indicators to that survey and performed multilevel logistic regression analyses (1,913 respondents nested in 336 municipalities).

At the individual level, these preferences are affected by gender, age, income, education and political inclination, as expected. However, preferences towards local social policies are not shaped by local economic, demographic or political conditions. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for future research.

By using unique data, including a newly developed survey item, this study is the first to explore whether and how municipal conditions shape preferences regarding local welfare. Understanding those preferences is increasingly important as many Western European countries have decentralised swathes of social policies from the national to the local level in recent decades.