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The purpose of this paper is to explore parents as “stakeholders” in higher education in England and how they perceive teaching excellence.

The study adopted a qualitative research design using an interpretative approach through which the authors aimed to develop understandings of parents’ perspectives as higher education “stakeholders”. The empirical data were gathered via focus group interviews and an online survey with 24 participants in the UK.

This study found that the majority of parents wished to be treated as an important stakeholder group in higher education. Parent participants perceived that teaching excellence could be evidenced through indicators and measures, for example, the design and delivery of the courses, progress measures, contact hours, speed of return of marked work, graduate employability and so on. They also saw value and significance in the students’ exposure to ideas and perspectives not previously experienced, in zeal and passion in the teaching, and in an academically nurturing, understanding and supportive pedagogical relationship between academic and student.

This study uncovered some apparent tensions, contradictions and challenges for parents as stakeholders in higher education, for example, in reconciling the co-existence of their desire to be involved and engaged with scope for students to be formed as independent young adults. Parents’ desire to measure teaching excellence is also compounded by their concern that excellent teaching is thereby reduced to a box-ticking exercise. This study has implications for higher education institutions wishing to engage parents as a stakeholder group in a meaningful way.

There has been very little qualitative “fieldwork” of audit practice. This is especially the case in relation to investigations into how audit engagements proceed. The purpose of this paper is to engage with audit practice in order to explore and explain the internal dynamics and paradoxical conditions within audit engagement teams.

The research adopts a qualitative methodology, framed around an intensive case study that involves several methods of data collection and analysis including interviews, observation and document analysis. The authors observe audit team practices, work programmes and organisation including observations of individual and teams involved in audit engagements.

Using the lens of paradox theory, the authors explore the backstage of audit work, where audit teams are challenged with recurring contradictory requirements and opposing demands. The authors provide insight on the complexity associated with inadequate resourcing and planning that tend to stimulate the emergence of paradoxes in audit engagement work in a government audit context. As a result, the authors identify the occurrence of cascading reduced audit quality practices (RAQP) as the teams respond to the paradoxes they face.

The authors reveal the interlinked and cumulative coping strategies, namely, downplaying responsibility and downscaling audit processes. These strategies are performed concurrently by team leaders and audit members to manage paradoxical tensions. The authors also identified superficial audit supervision as another type of RAQP performed by team leaders.

This paper argues for an increased volume of references to Gabriel Tarde and Georg Simmel in the field of organization sociology. The text emphasizes the importance of these two sociologists in understanding the role of imperfection in organizing and the phenomena of fashion and imitation in contemporary organizations. Tarde’s theory challenged the antinomy between continuity and discontinuity, considering finite entities as cases of infinite processes and stable situations as transitory. Simmel’s theory of fashion explores the democratic and democratizing nature of fashion, which satisfies the demand for social adaptation and differentiation. They both saw fashion as a selection mechanism for organizational forms and managerial practices. Furthermore, referring to Tarde and Simmel can help counter the overemphasis on identity construction and the neglect of alterity in social sciences. The construction of identity often overlooks the inevitability of difference and alterity, which are essential aspects of collective projects. Lastly, this paper discusses Simmel’s concept of the stranger and its relevance in analyzing the experiences of foreigners and their potential advantages as “double strangers” in academia and society. The conclusion is that Tarde and Simmel’s contributions offer valuable insights for understanding the dynamics of management, organizing, and social interactions in contemporary organizations.

Investigates male attitudes towards healthy eating and makes comparisons with a group of women of similar age and socio‐economic status. Claims the results indicate that men are less likely to use books and magazines as a source of nutrition information and are less likely to buy or eat products advertised as “low calorie”, “diet” or “lite”. However, products which are labelled “low fat” are more likely to be eaten by men, suggesting that reducing dietary fat is the part of the healthy eating message which has been absorbed most effectively by men. Finds less interest in healthy eating among older men, although it was not clear whether the men interviewed who were aged over 56 years played a major role in food choice decision making within their individual families.

Reports a recipe modification exercise which was undertaken to determine whether an acceptable sponge cake could be produced using low‐fat spreads in place of full‐fat margarine or butter. The textural and sensory qualities of the cakes were studied and a price analysis carried out to identify price differences between low‐fat and full‐fat spreads. Presents results which indicate that, as the fat content of cakes decreases, the sensory quality also decreases, although an acceptable product can be produced using a spread containing 65 per cent fat. Finds that low‐fat spreads are in many cases more expensive than their full‐fat equivalents. Highlights the need for further work to identify a fat replacer which can be used successfully in baking.

This paper aims to provide a critical comment on complex funding systems.

This is a critical comment written in the form of a poem. The poem is in the style of the English light opera composers Gilbert and Sullivan, and is a variation on their song “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General”, from The Pirates of Penzance.

The poem spotlights financial failure.

The poem spotlights the crazy names and poor transparency of special purpose vehicles.

The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss the results of research conducted among Scottish communication professionals, which investigated their perception of and attitudes toward recent trends and future developments with respect to the free organisational publication.

The mainly qualitative data presented in this paper were gathered using an in‐depth self‐completion questionnaire.

The paper finds that first, there have been significant changes in purpose, content, design and distribution of free organisational publications in recent years, but for the foreseeable future communication professionals envisage important roles for both print and electronic organisational publications. Second, practitioners tend to adopt the rhetoric and language of “technological determinism” when discussing new media technologies. That is, they tend to see themselves as relatively powerless in the face of “technological advances” and see their role as simply adopting what is given to them. This article argues that viewing the technology/society relationship from a more “social shaping” perspective will allow practitioners to utilise new media technologies in ways which will benefit them and their stakeholders.

The paper provides a more complete picture of the “value” of free organisational publications. Future research must necessarily investigate the viewpoint of the audiences.

The paper draws lessons for practitioners on how best to employ print and electronic publications and how they should respond to current claims made about new media technologies.

This paper investigates what is, in many ways, a quite different new media environment from that analysed by previously published UK research in this area. This study also theorises practitioner discourses in a more comprehensive way than many earlier studies by examining them in the context of the theoretical debates surrounding the relationship between technology and society.

The purpose of this paper is to consider hierarchical control as a mode of governance, and analyses the extent of control exhibited by central government over local government through the best value (BV) and comprehensive performance assessment (CPA) performance regimes.

This paper utilises Ouchi's framework and, specifically, his articulation of bureaucratic or hierarchical control in the move towards achievement of organisational objectives. Hierarchical control may be inferred from the extent of “command and control” by Central Government, use of rewards and sanctions, and alignment to government priorities and discrimination of performance.

CPA represents a more sophisticated performance regime than BV in the governance of local authorities by central government. In comparison to BV, CPA involved less scope for dialogue with local government prior to introduction, closer inspection of and direction of support toward poorer performing authorities, and more alignment to government priorities in the weightings attached to service blocks.

The paper focuses upon the hierarchic/bureaucratic mode of governance as articulated by Ouchi and expands on this mode in order to analyse shifts in performance regimes in the public sector.