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The paper aims to give an interesting insight into the rise in event bidding and delivery of sports mega‐events from Qatar and the Middle East. This paper seeks to examine the shift in government policies and citizen relationships in the Middle East and Gulf Region, focusing on the specific case of Qatar from its staging of the 15th Asian Games in 2006 to present.

The paper begins with an overview of the main literature on the importance of sport events as a vehicle for securing global profile for cities and nations. The paper draws upon the authors' participation at the 15th Asian Games and interviews conducted there and latterly, desk‐based research involving scrutiny of Qatar's recent policy pronouncements and published materials pertaining to sporting events in the intervening period since the 2006 Games.

The findings are presented in the form of a case study, using the Asian Games as a starting point and finishing with Qatar's latest bids for sporting mega‐events. The paper presents a conceptual analysis of the situation in Doha and reveals a ten‐year strategy from Qatar to set itself apart from its neighbors in bidding to host mega‐sporting events and in its progress in terms of civil rights for women. This has allowed wider participation in sport and ensured Qatar can bid for the most prestigious global sporting events.

This paper adds to the wider public policy discussion and contributes to the body of knowledge in this area. The authors have written extensively on events policy but believe issues of democracy versus ruling states, emotional bidding and awarding to such states will continue to rise over the coming years and these have significant implications for both event owners in awarding such bids but also for policy makers in legitimizing bidding for such events in this context.

The paper reveals that the currency of awarding events to countries in the Middle East, Africa and South America is politically and socially important and of major interest to both the public and academics at present.

Explores the changing relationship between work and leisure with particular reference to women’s equality in economic and other activities through a review of the history of leisure opportunities since the industrial revolution; indicates the ways in which social and economic changes have had a major impact on women’s leisure needs and activities. Focuses in particular on the provision of workplace fitness facilities, undertaking a survey of more than 200 companies across a number of industry sectors (the rationale for selection is outlined here) to discover the reasons behind such provision and the actual facilities provided; identifies the reasons behind provision as primarily commercial (e.g. being seen as an additional benefit to help recruit high quality employees) and notes that assessment of user group needs was not carried out, with the result that women’s particular needs tended not to be taken into account, for example gyms (favoured by men) being more widely provided than space for aerobic exercise (favoured by women). Concludes that the findings strongly suggest that women remain unequal in their leisure as well as working lives.

Offers insights into workplace empowerment by concentrating on the wider contemporary (UK) context of work, conceptualising work in the on‐going debates on human resource management (HRM) and postmodernity. Connections are made between theory and practice in HRM and postmodern critique, drawing on an empirical case study. Compares the postmodern motifs of consumerism and consumption, commodification and image projection and the HRM ideals of commitment, individuality and continuous development. Suggests that viewing HRM as discourse may enable a focus for, if not a reconciliation of, the debate between theoretical HRM and HRM in practice.

Commonly referred to as dark tourism or thanatourism, the act of touristic travel to sites of or sites associated with death and disaster has gained significant attention with media imaginations and academic scholarship. However, despite a growing body of literature on the representation and tourist experience of deathscapes within the visitor economy, dark tourism as a field of study is still very much in its infancy. Moreover, questions remain of the academic origins of the dark tourism concept, as well as its contribution to the broader social scientific study of tourism and death education. Thus, the purpose of this invited review for this Special Issue on dark tourism, is to offer some critical insights into thanatourism scholarship.

This review paper critiques the emergence and current direction of dark tourism scholarship.

The author suggests that dark tourism as an academic field of study is where death education and tourism studies collide and, as such, can offer potentially fruitful research avenues within the broad realms of thanatology. Secondly, the author outlines how dark tourism as a conceptual typology has been subject to a sustained marketization process within academia over the past decade or so. Consequently, dark tourism is now a research brand in which scholars can locate a diverse range of death‐related and tourist experience studies. Finally, the author argues that the study of dark tourism is not simply a fascination with death or the macabre, but a multi‐disciplinary academic lens through which to scrutinise fundamental interrelationships of the contemporary commodification of death with the cultural condition of society.

This review paper scrutinises dark tourism scholarship and, subsequently, offers original insights into the potential role dark tourism may play in the public representation of death, as well as highlighting broader interrelationships dark tourism has with research into the social reality of death and the significant Other dead.

This paper views the growing popularity of death tourism which directs the confrontation with grief and mortality with the expressed purpose of orchestrating travel that culminates in assistance to end one's life. The specific aims of this paper are to describe the emerging phenomenon of death tourism and situate it as a form of dark tourism, to present briefly the social and legal aspects of assisted suicide in conjunction within the tourism industry, and to conclude with how the trend of death tourism is potentially spreading to other countries beyond Europe.

By employing a variety of primary and secondary resources, from death tourism industry documents, legal statutes, and news reports, this study explores the propositions of this article.

Whereas much of the contemporary research in dark tourism focuses on sights, experiences, and actual memorialization, death tourism tends to comprise a holistic view of the emerging phenomenon by viewing supply and demand management (and promotion), political interpretation and control. The final component of the paper views societal interpretations of death tourism and its potential for market expansion.

There have been several social movements and legislative attempts to curtail the spread of assisted suicide and death tourism; however, the demand for the services has grown to the point where jurisdictions are considering measures to allow this practice. Such an expansion of legalized assisted suicide will allow those seeking the right to die more options for a death within a diversified tourism industry.

Death tourism, within dark tourism, represents an emerging field with few academic resources. This paper works to conceptualize and clarify the unique place death tourism holds within tourism and dark tourism specifically.

WE are pleased to devote this Special Number of THE LIBRARY WORLD to a discussion of Irish libraries and librarianship. Our contributors are all distinguished members of the profession in Ireland, none more so than Dermot Foley, to whom we are greatly indebted for having convened this issue.

The purpose of this paper is to apply an existing theoretical model of organisational culture contextualised for total quality management (TQM) as a means of assessing the readiness for implementing TQM in the workplace. The “Amalgamated Model” is a hybrid that encapsulates organisational culture traits and their relative contribution as indictors of effective TQM implementation.

A questionnaire that would test the theoretical model was devised and administered to a sample population in a production facility located in Central Europe, Organisation X.

A profile of the organisation was derived which revealed the strengths and weaknesses of the organisation in relation to the cultural traits of the theoretical model.

The research population comprised management/supervisory staff only and thus provides a partial view of Organisation X.

For practitioners, particularly those who specialise in quality management, the practical implications of this research are twofold: first, it provides insights into aspects of organisational culture and TQM implementation; and second, it demonstrates how a theoretical framework may be applied in the workplace to assess readiness for TQM implementation.

This research contributes to the subject area body of knowledge by applying a recent theoretical model to assess readiness for implementing TQM.

During the last decades, different quality management concepts, including total quality management (TQM), six sigma and lean, have been applied by many different organisations. Although much important work has been documented regarding TQM, six sigma and lean, a number of questions remain concerning the applicability of these concepts in various organisations and contexts. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to describe the similarities and differences between the concepts, including an evaluation and criticism of each concept.

Within a case study, a literature review and face‐to‐face interviews in typical TQM, six sigma and lean organisations have been carried out.

While TQM, six sigma and lean have many similarities, especially concerning origin, methodologies, tools and effects, they differ in some areas, in particular concerning the main theory, approach and the main criticism. The lean concept is slightly different from TQM and six sigma. However, there is a lot to gain if organisations are able to combine these three concepts, as they are complementary. Six sigma and lean are excellent road‐maps, which could be used one by one or combined, together with the values in TQM.

The paper provides guidance to organisations regarding the applicability and properties of quality concepts. Organisations need to work continuously with customer‐orientated activities in order to survive; irrespective of how these activities are labelled. The paper will also serve as a basis for further research in this area, focusing on practical experience of these concepts.

The theory of human capital has arguably been the most influential theory impacting upon higher education policy (and educational policy in general) worldwide over the last half century or more. In more recent years it has been supplemented by social capital theory. This chapter reports on a systematic review of publications that have applied these theories in the context of higher education research, examining the origins and meanings of the theories, their application and practice, and the issues and critiques that have been raised. It concludes that while both theories have underlying faults, most notably perhaps in their treatment of human beings and their relationships as resources, they remain essential to higher education and higher education research in maintaining the interest of policy-makers and funders.