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1 – 10 of 71Elisabeth Davenport, Martin Higgins and Mark Gillham
The authors are engaged in a three‐year study of home information systems in the United Kingdom. The project addresses cable and satellite, multimedia CDs and paper‐based systems…
Abstract
The authors are engaged in a three‐year study of home information systems in the United Kingdom. The project addresses cable and satellite, multimedia CDs and paper‐based systems, and considers both supply (many of the companies involved are inward investors) and demand. Our aim is to profile and compare the expectations and perceptions (the ‘dreams’) of both sides. The first phase of the project (January‐June 1995) had led the team into households (some co‐terminous with families, some not) in both rural and urban Central Scotland. The initial visits, with as many members of the household as possible, were structured round an interview protocol covering four main areas: tasks; perceptions of technology; using the machine; the aesthetics of interaction. Subsequent visits explored salient issues which emergedfrom the protocol. Our preliminary findings suggest that the concept of integrated household channels is not being widely embraced by participants in our study who like to keep their technologies separate; that mixed motives (some of them task‐related) lie behind the purchase of systems; and that disposable time is a major constraint on use. We have derived a preliminary description of appropriation patterns: where do different systems fit in perceptions of home and work? of public and private space? of knowledge, information and entertainment?. The second phase of the project (October 1995‐May 1996) will consolidate this framework with results from a larger random sample in the EH12 postal area of Edinburgh.
Ian Somerville, Emma Wood and Mark Gillham
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…
Abstract
Purpose
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.
Design/methodology/approach
The mainly qualitative data presented in this paper were gathered using an in‐depth self‐completion questionnaire.
Findings
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.
Research limitations/implications
The paper provides a more complete picture of the “value” of free organisational publications. Future research must necessarily investigate the viewpoint of the audiences.
Practical implications
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.
Originality/value
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.
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The licensed property marked has never been busier. However, it is not one market but several. There is a drive by operators of the big theme pubs to acquire more units in retail…
Abstract
The licensed property marked has never been busier. However, it is not one market but several. There is a drive by operators of the big theme pubs to acquire more units in retail trading areas where they compete head‐on with retailers and caterers. Valuations reflect not only the huge profits to be made from these units but also stock market valuations of the companies themselves and the alternative use values of key A1/A3 sites. The traditional tenanted pubs, the town and village “local”, is also in keen demand from expanding specialist companies who need size to be ever more efficient. These companies are in competition with those who wish to provide securitised packages of assets. This paper discusses these trends and the effect that they have on the value and valuation of licensed premises.
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TO say that the Twenty‐fourth S.B.A.C. Show was an unqualified success is perhaps to gild the lily. True there were disappointments— the delay which kept the TSR‐2 on the ground…
Abstract
TO say that the Twenty‐fourth S.B.A.C. Show was an unqualified success is perhaps to gild the lily. True there were disappointments— the delay which kept the TSR‐2 on the ground until well after the Show being one—but on the whole the British industry was well pleased with Farnborough week and if future sales could be related to the number of visitors then the order books would be full for many years to come. The total attendance at the Show was well over 400,000—this figure including just under 300,000 members of the public who paid to enter on the last three days of the Show. Those who argued in favour of allowing a two‐year interval between the 1962 Show and this one seem to be fully vindicated, for these attendance figures are an all‐time record. This augurs well for the future for it would appear that potential customers from overseas are still anxious to attend the Farnborough Show, while the public attendance figures indicate that Britain is still air‐minded to a very healthy degree. It is difficult to pick out any one feature or even one aircraft as being really outstanding at Farnborough, but certainly the range of rear‐engined civil jets (HS. 125, BAC One‐Eleven, Trident and VCIQ) served as a re‐minder that British aeronautical engineering prowess is without parallel, while the number of rotorcraft to be seen in the flying display empha‐sized the growing importance of the helicopter in both civil and military operations. As far as the value of Farnborough is concerned, it is certainly a most useful shop window for British aerospace products, and if few new orders are actually received at Farnborough, a very large number are announced— as our ’Orders and Contracts' column on page 332 bears witness. It is not possible to cover every exhibit displayed at the Farnborough Show but the following report describes a wide cross‐section beginning with the exhibits of the major airframe and engine companies.
The purpose of this paper is to challenge the notion that culture change programmes will inevitably gain support from employees by exploring ways in which policy implementation is…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to challenge the notion that culture change programmes will inevitably gain support from employees by exploring ways in which policy implementation is affected by and provokes shifts in organizational cultures.
Design/methodology/approach
Case studies investigated aspects of cultural change post‐implementation of family‐friendly policies. A grounded theory approach was adopted in the collection and analysis of the data, largely but not exclusively obtained through three sets of interviews, giving a limited longitudinal dimension to the study.
Findings
As both organizations had been sated with change, the idea that further adjustment was necessary to facilitate better work‐life balance for employees was potentially alienating to the very members most needing to be “brought on board”. Harnessing widely esteemed values and adopting the language of “cultural revitalisation” rather than cultural change appeared more effective in securing broader support of employees.
Research limitations/implications
Studies began after policy implementation so there was significant dependence on participant recall to access perceptions of any shifts and HR managers determined sample composition. Both necessitated the use of a wide range of supplementary evidence (as befits case study research) and the latter the development of an “informal track” of participants.
Practical implications
Cultural change programmes must appreciate the importance of enduring values, correctly identifying those which appear most resonant for employees, ensuring that these feature prominently when promoting a “work‐life balance” agenda.
Originality/value
It is unusual for case studies to look in detail at processes of change. This paper refines notions of organizational culture change and considers how best to include employees most likely to be resistant to a “work‐life balance” agenda.
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Ioannis Anagnostopoulos and Roger Buckland
This paper aims to draw on the potential behavioural implications of the new (economic) measurement attributes initiated recently by the International Accounting Standard Board…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to draw on the potential behavioural implications of the new (economic) measurement attributes initiated recently by the International Accounting Standard Board (IASB) in their efforts to reflect more relevant, “true” underlying economic values as opposed to historical.
Design/methodology/approach
Owing to lack of readily observable market prices (market values) for loans (retail and commercial operations) for statistical testing and initial conservatism on the part of banks for a survey to be conducted, 15 interviews were employed (from October 2005 to November 2006) with major bankers (CEOs and CFOs of major banks) and standard setters. The paper analyses the perceived benefits and costs associated with the application of two diametrically opposite measurement methodologies for banks. These can also have important implications for the “perceived” value/measurement profile of a bank – as argued in the concluding section – for bankers and their regulators, on the one hand, and accounting standard setters and investors, on the other.
Findings
The propositions constitute a significant departure from current accounting practices in that all financial assets and liabilities should uniformly be recognised and reported under a universally accepted “economistic” measurement framework.
Originality/value
The paper captures perceptions and attitudes as to the future “behavioural” direction of banks and provides a balanced argument between the rigours of historical cost accounting and fair value accounting.
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Very much more might be done to improve the quality of our food supplies by the great organisations that exist for the avowed object of furthering the interests of traders in…
Abstract
Very much more might be done to improve the quality of our food supplies by the great organisations that exist for the avowed object of furthering the interests of traders in foodstuffs. It is no exaggeration to say that these organisations claim, and rightly claim, to speak in the aggregate on behalf of great commercial interests involving the means of livelihood of thousands of people and the most profitable disposal of millions of money. The information that they possess as to certain trade methods and requirements is necessarily unique. Apart from the commercial knowledge they possess, these organisations have funds at their command which enable them to obtain the best professional opinions on any subjects connected with the trades they represent. Their members are frequently to be found occupying positions of responsibility as the elected representatives of their fellow‐citizens on municipal councils and other public bodies, where the administration of the Food Laws and prosecutions under the Food and Drugs Acts are often under discussion. Such organisations, then, are in a position to afford an unlimited amount of valuable help by assisting to put down fraud in connection with our food supply. The dosing of foods with harmful drugs is, of course, only a part of a very much larger subject. It is, however, typical. Assuming the danger to public health that arises from the treatment of foods with harmful preservatives, the continued use of such substances cannot but be in the long run as harmful to the best interests of the traders as it is actually dangerous to public health. The trade organisations to which reference has been made might very well extend their sphere of usefulness by making it their business to seriously consider this and similar questions in the interests of public health, as well as in their own best interests. It is surely not open to doubt that a great organisation, numbering hundreds, and perhaps thousands of members, has such a membership because individual traders find it to their interest, as do people in all walks of life, to act more or less in common for the general advantage ; and, further, that it would not be to the benefit of individual members that their connection with the organisation should terminate owing to their own wrong‐doing. The executives of such trade organisations hold a sufficiently strong position to enable them to bring strong pressure to bear on those who are acting in a way that is contrary to the interests of the public generally, and of honest traders in particular, by adulterating or misbranding the food products that they gain their living by selling. It should also be plain that such trade organisations could go a long way towards solving many of the very vexed questions that arise whenever food standards and limits, for example, form the subject of discussion. These problems are not easy to deal with. The difficulties in connection with them are many and great; but such problems, however difficult of solution, are still not insoluble, and an important step towards their solution would be taken if co‐operation between those who are acting in the interests of hygienic science and those who are acting in the interests of trade could be brought about. If this could be accomplished the unedifying spectacle of alleged trade interests and the demands of public health being brought, as is so often the case, into sharp conflict, would be less frequent, and there can be no doubt that general benefit would result.
Much like their residential counterparts, commercial leases have a reputation problem. Although often derided as painfully dull and mundane documents, residential leases have…
Abstract
Purpose
Much like their residential counterparts, commercial leases have a reputation problem. Although often derided as painfully dull and mundane documents, residential leases have begun to be interrogated by socio-legal scholarship with renewed interest. This paper aims to continue this line of work in the commercial context through a detailed examination of a widespread form of leasehold in the pub sector: the “tied lease”.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws on interviews with 14 publicans and archival research.
Findings
The author argues that the lease is a decisive actor in determining the balance of power between publicans and pub-owning companies and shaping the physical environment of pubs in the UK.
Originality/value
The author’s broader agenda is to argue that socio-legal scholars’ renewed interest in leases should not be confined to the residential context: commercial leases warrant far greater socio-legal scholarly attention.
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Karin Du Plessis, Tim Corney, Robyn Broadbent and Theo Papadopoulos
The aim of the paper is to locate the role of social and emotional support during the school‐to‐work transitions of apprentices, within the Australian vocational education and…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of the paper is to locate the role of social and emotional support during the school‐to‐work transitions of apprentices, within the Australian vocational education and training context.
Design/methodology/approach
The research reported here is based on an independent evaluation of an apprentice suicide prevention and support program. This program has been implemented in rural and regional Australia, and findings highlight the program's retention of key messages in the long‐term (i.e. 6 months to 2 years post‐completion). The work is based on both quantitative questionnaires from 119 apprentices as well as 18 face‐to‐face interviews.
Findings
The research showed that apprentices’ resilience to face school‐to‐work transitional challenges can be enhanced by increasing knowledge of suicide risk factors and sources of social and emotional support had increased. Findings indicate that a number of apprentices had made significant changes in their lives as a result of participating in the program. While 10 per cent of apprentices identify as “socially isolated”, it was encouraging to note that peer support, as a result of the program, can be considered an informal referral point to formal help‐provision and support.
Research limitations/implications
While the program has been successfully applied to building and construction industry apprentices, there is overlap in school‐to‐work transition issues of other types of apprenticeships/traineeships; this merits consideration of wider application of apprentice support programs within the Australian vocational education sector.
Originality/value
This paper draws together a focus on school‐to‐work vulnerabilities and social‐emotional support (similar to that found in youth development programs) as it can be applied to the vocational education and training sector.
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