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1 – 10 of 376
Article
Publication date: 1 January 2006

Louise Briand and Guy Bellemare

The purpose of this paper is to use case study evidence to show that post‐bureaucracy is less marked by a discontinuity in surveillance than by its displacement and…

4182

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to use case study evidence to show that post‐bureaucracy is less marked by a discontinuity in surveillance than by its displacement and intensification.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper describes the complex changes that occurred at the International Development Research Center, a Canadian public corporation.

Findings

Fundamental clash of values is evident. The reform has brought about a “new order” which relies on a centralized model of governance. Moves towards the “post‐bureaucratic organization” have entailed intensified surveillance and produced a new structure of domination.

Originality/value

The paper argues that Anthony Giddens' theories of late modernity and structuration contain elements that explain the emergence of new organizational forms, their continuity and transformation.

Details

Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 19 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0953-4814

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 12 April 2013

Timothy Eccles and John Pointing

The paper explores theories of regulation by examining their consistency and fit with the development of smart regulation, better regulation and self‐regulation. It achieves this…

Abstract

Purpose

The paper explores theories of regulation by examining their consistency and fit with the development of smart regulation, better regulation and self‐regulation. It achieves this through the use of two case studies. Building control is offered as an example of deregulation, the 1980s approach to “smart” regulation, whilst the Primary Authority scheme is provided as an example of current thinking. The paper develops an explanation of how these shifting regulatory architectures have generated current views of how to manage the issue of regulation and then proposes a framework to explain how professional and local authority regulation works and can be made to work better.

Design/methodology/approach

Analytical, as a preliminary to testing theoretical constructs by further empirical research. The paper examines case studies to draw out the drivers for regulatory practice and then establishes a model from this as the basis for further work.

Findings

The use of Giddens's concept of Late Modernity is useful in describing the loss of authority by traditional regulators and explaining the adoption of “smart” regulation by others seeking to dominate regulation. A lack of theoretical definition as to what is meant by smart regulation can be countered by the development of constructs, such as the regulatory “triptych” developed here.

Practical implications

The development of a structure for professional and local authority regulation allows researchers to place developments in smart regulation in context. It also allows those newly emerging dominant authorities, in Giddens's terms, to be encouraged to develop a higher quality form of regulation.

Originality/value

The paper generates a grounded set of concepts that have explanatory efficacy.

Details

International Journal of Law in the Built Environment, vol. 5 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1756-1450

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 May 1992

Michael Reed

The focus for this paper is the changing relationship between expertise, professional power and organisational control within advanced industrial societies. The analysis of this…

Abstract

The focus for this paper is the changing relationship between expertise, professional power and organisational control within advanced industrial societies. The analysis of this changing relationship is located within a more detailed appreciation of the ways in which the ‘expert division of labour’ within such societies is being restructured and the impact of this restructuring process on established patterns also raises some fundamental questions concerning the increasingly strategic role which specialist knowledge, and the organisational structures through which it is developed and managed, plays in shaping the power struggles that will determine the distribution of rewards between contending social groups within the ‘new’ political economies beginning to emerge in ‘disorganized societies’.

Details

Management Research News, vol. 15 no. 5/6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0140-9174

Article
Publication date: 7 March 2008

Kristin Demetrious

This paper aims to analyse why some contemporary corporate organisations are reluctant to articulate the effect of their market positioning behaviour on the unwilling communities…

2440

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to analyse why some contemporary corporate organisations are reluctant to articulate the effect of their market positioning behaviour on the unwilling communities that oppose their activities. It describes the communicative interactions between several large corporate organisations and the grassroots activist groups opposing their activities, in Victoria, Australia.

Design/methodology/approach

Extensive secondary data were collected, including extensive newspaper and radio transcripts from the campaign periods, web site downloads, letters and other campaign documents. The research design applied to the data, a qualitative, interpretative analysis, drawing on key theoretical frameworks.

Findings

The research findings suggest that powerful protest strategies, combined with the right political and social conditions, and a shift in the locus of politics and expertise, bring to light public concerns about the ethics of corporate practices, such as public relations, used egocentrically by organisations, to harmonise their activities in late modern Western society. It finds that no serious overhaul of business ethics can occur until the unity of public relations is critically scrutinised and reformed. It helps define an alternative holistic communicative approach which could be applied more widely to business practice that helps avoid the limitations and relativism of public relations.

Originality/value

The research flags new ways of thinking expressed in the notion of public communication that could lead to creative and unusual coherences vital to deal with the apparent ecological challenges for society in late modernity.

Details

Social Responsibility Journal, vol. 4 no. 1/2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1747-1117

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 March 2007

Jason Powell, Azrini Wahidin and Jens Zinn

The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of “risk” in relation to old age. Ideas are explored linked with what has been termed as the “risk society” and the extent to…

2038

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of “risk” in relation to old age. Ideas are explored linked with what has been termed as the “risk society” and the extent to which it has become part of the organizing ground of how we define and organise the “personal” and “social spaces” in which to grow old in western modernity.

Design/methodology/approach

A theoretical paper in three parts, including: an introduction to the relevance and breakdown in trust relations; a mapping out of the key assumptions of risk society; and examples drawn from social welfarism to consolidate an understanding of the contructedness of old age in late modernity.

Findings

Part of this reflexive response to understanding risk and old age is the importance of recognising self‐subjective dimensions of emotions, trust, biographical knowledge and resources.

Originality/value

This discussion provides a critical narrative to the importance and interrelatedness of the sociology of risk to the study of old age.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 27 no. 1/2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 27 July 2010

Amber Gazso and Susan A. McDaniel

This paper aims to explore how neo‐liberalism shapes income support policy and lone mothers' experiences in Canada and the USA.

1931

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to explore how neo‐liberalism shapes income support policy and lone mothers' experiences in Canada and the USA.

Design/methodology/approach

A critical comparative analysis is undertaken of how Canadian and US governments take up sociological concepts of risk, market citizenship, and individualization, whether explicitly or implicitly, in the design and administration of neo‐liberal income support policies directed at lone mothers. Specifically, the contradictory life circumstances that Canadian and American lone mothers experience when they access income supports that are designed ostensibly to construct/reconstruct them as citizens capable of risk taking in their search for employment and self‐sufficiency are compared.

Findings

The paper finds that the realities for poor lone mothers are remarkably similar in the two countries and therefore argue that income support policies, particularly welfare‐to‐work initiatives, underpinned by neo‐liberal tenets, can act in a counter‐intuitive manner exposing lone mothers to greater rather than lesser economic and social insecurity/inequality, and constructing them as risk aversive and dependent.

Research limitations/implications

The economic and social implications/contradictions of neo‐liberal restructuring of income support policies for lone mothers is revealed.

Originality/value

This paper contributes to broader scholarship on the gendered dimensions of neo‐liberal restructuring of welfare states in late modernity.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 30 no. 7/8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 February 2000

Anthony J. Berry

The “risk society” presents a considerable challenge to current understanding of the question of risk and the task of organisational leadership. Beck has proposed that we, in late…

2527

Abstract

The “risk society” presents a considerable challenge to current understanding of the question of risk and the task of organisational leadership. Beck has proposed that we, in late modernity, are moving from an industrial society to a risk society, which requires a corresponding shift from modernism to reflexive modernism. A brief discussion of the risk compensation ideas of Adams will be used to bridge to some observation about how humans approach and understand risk in our society. Four stances towards risk are used as a basis for considering the modes of leadership associated with each of them. It is argued that this provides a starting point from which leadership theory may be extended from its mainly intra organisation perspective to include critical reflexiveness in an inter‐ and extra‐organisational framing. This goes beyond social responsibility to include a critical attention to how a risk society requires leadership to be construed in institutional terms.

Details

Leadership & Organization Development Journal, vol. 21 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0143-7739

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 March 2015

Leila Bustami

The Abdoun Circle which is located in the prestigious part of Amman, changes its relationship with its users from that of an ordinary business district during the day to a very…

Abstract

The Abdoun Circle which is located in the prestigious part of Amman, changes its relationship with its users from that of an ordinary business district during the day to a very popular city night-life spot offering a variety of leisure services, mainly in the form of cafes and restaurants. This study focuses on that phenomenon of dual usage as it mirrors the major social and psychological implications of late modernity in Jordan, and adopts a transactional approach (Altman and Rogoff 1987) to explore and explain its complexity. Information for the study was obtained by observing, interviewing, and listening to a variety of opinions and voices. This process supported the development of the mutual definitions between the behavioural elements and the environmental feature elements of the studied phenomenon. The identified definitions to describe the district at night, which include pleasantness, crowdedness, complexity, variety, novelty, and dominance, in turn supported the development of a range of psychological and social benefits important to the users of the circle (i.e. new aesthetics, modernity, freedom, and opportunities to meet and socialize).

The analysis of additional data about the setting's formal and perceptual properties added the benefits of sociability and democracy, which combined with the previous benefits described, meant that the setting is seen and experienced by people from most age and social ranges, except for those from the upper class, as an outlet for pleasure in these modern times. This clearly indicates that Jordan has yet to experience a transition toward democracy and that these new public spaces, as the Abdoun Circle should be developed throughout the city in order to support the progression towards a socially balanced society.

Details

Open House International, vol. 40 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0168-2601

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 13 July 2015

Hanna Carlsson

The purpose of this paper is to sketch out the general tendencies, gaps and opportunities within the body of research studying the social web as a new facet of public…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to sketch out the general tendencies, gaps and opportunities within the body of research studying the social web as a new facet of public librarianship in order to delineate the findings so far and suggest directions for future research.

Design/methodology/approach

Literature searches were conducted through the Library, Information Science and Technology Abstract database, The ISI Web of Science database and the Directory of Open Access Journals. A selection process in two steps resulted in 44 articles that were subjected to a two-stage analysis and coding process: a coding analysis based on the stated aims or research questions of each article and analysis of the articles as clusters around a shared theme.

Findings

The articles, exhibiting a richness and diversity in research directions, are dispersed in a wide range of journals and the topics addressed cover a variety of segments within Library and Information Science. Despite this diversity, research exploring the consequences of the social web for public libraries in situ and considerations of research on the broader political economic conditions of the public library institution in late modernity is largely lacking. Furthermore, the status of librarianship and the professional expertise of librarians, in light of the social web, need to be further addressed.

Originality/value

The rising interest and investment of library professionals into the practices, principles and technologies of the social web calls for further studies into the consequences of this ongoing development for public library services. This paper gives a preliminary overview of the research done 2006-2012 and identifies gaps in the literature that may serve as a point of departure for future research.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 71 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 June 2015

Ralph Tench and Brian Jones

This paper aims to posit the central argument that traditional media of old presented a clear, ordered world of communication management for organisations to extol their corporate…

4952

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to posit the central argument that traditional media of old presented a clear, ordered world of communication management for organisations to extol their corporate social responsibility (CSR) credentials. In contrast to this, new Web 2.0 social media is increasingly being used by activists and hactivists to challenge corporate communication CSR messages and does so by highlighting instances and examples of corporate social irresponsibility (CSI) (Jones et al., 2009; Tench et al., 2012).

Design/methodology/approach

The paper reports on research data from the European Communication Monitor, 2010, 2011 and 2012 (www.communicationmonitor.eu/) and draws on work already published in this area (Tench et al., 2009; Verhoeven et al., 2012; Zerfass et al., 2010, 2011) to illustrate the unruly, unregulated Web 2.0 social media communication landscape in Europe. A range of literature is drawn on to provide the theoretical context for an exploration of issues that surround social media.

Findings

In late modernity (Giddens, 1990), communication comes in many guises. Social media is one guise and it has re-shaped as well as transformed the nature of communications and the relationship between organisations and their stakeholders.

Originality/value

Communicating CSR in the Wild West of social media requires diplomatic and political nous, as well as awareness and knowledge of the dangers and pitfalls of CSI. The data reported on in this paper well illustrate the above points and set out scenarios for future development of corporate communication of CSR through and with social media.

Details

Social Responsibility Journal, vol. 11 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1747-1117

Keywords

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