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The purpose of this paper is to adopt an institutional theory perspective to investigate the adoption of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems by medium-sized firms in India. The rationale for this study is to provide a more complete understanding of ERP adoption, moving beyond the traditional technical and economic perspectives to include social, cultural and structural influences. These later influences are more implicit, insidious and pervasive and hence require elucidatory studies such as this, but offer a greater understanding of the adoption of information systems (IS).

The study is undertaken by means of nine case studies of medium-sized firms in India that have adopted ERP systems. Qualitative interviews were undertaken with a range of staff in each firm and are supplemented by data from other sources such as site visit notes.

Institutionally based studies have tended to focus on three high-level isomorphic pressures: coercive, normative and mimetic. The study identifies number of more detailed factors that contribute to each of these three pressures. These more detailed factors are then used to consider how factors can interact and how they can explain aspects of the Indian context of the study.

The conceptual contribution of this study is to move beyond the technical and economic rationales frequently identified for the adoption of IS by identifying influences that are social, cultural and structural in nature. The study shows that the three high-level isomorphic pressures, mimetic, coercive and normative are comprised of more detailed factors. The empirical contribution of the paper is to identify these detailed factors, and to explore their influence, in the case of ERP adoption by Indian medium-sized firms. The study is of value to practitioners, since it is at the detailed level of factors that managers can recognize the forces they are subject to and can take action. It is also valuable to researchers since the detailed factors help address two limitations of institutional theory; a lack of agency perspective and a degree of conceptual ambiguity.

We issue a double Souvenir number of The Library World in connection with the Library Association Conference at Birmingham, in which we have pleasure in including a special article, “Libraries in Birmingham,” by Mr. Walter Powell, Chief Librarian of Birmingham Public Libraries. He has endeavoured to combine in it the subject of Special Library collections, and libraries other than the Municipal Libraries in the City. Another article entitled “Some Memories of Birmingham” is by Mr. Richard W. Mould, Chief Librarian and Curator of Southwark Public Libraries and Cuming Museum. We understand that a very full programme has been arranged for the Conference, and we have already published such details as are now available in our July number.

The purpose of this paper is to study gender diversity on the board of directors and the relation to risk management and corporate performance as measured by the variability of stock market return.

The sample consists of companies from the RiskMetrics database from 2007 to 2011. This database contains information on corporate board of directors. Financial variables were collected from the Compustat database and CRSP database for the years 2005-2011. The authors then measure the effect of gender diversity on corporate performance in terms of firm risk, using the model by Cheng (2008) which measures the variability of stock market return.

The study shows that more gender diversity on the board of directors impacts firm risk by contributing to lower variability of stock market return. The higher the percentage of female directors on the board, the lower the variability of corporate performance.

The research design and findings assist in providing additional evidence about the role of women in corporate leadership positions and the association with corporate performance. The approach combines Cheng's (2008) model of stock market variability with the impact of gender diversity on the board of directors.

This paper aims to bring to the fore the importance of feminist epistemologies in the history of the organization of management studies since the 1980s by following various intellectual moves in the development of feminist theorizing as they cross over to organization studies, including their analytical possibilities for reclaiming historically the voices of major women scholars, especially in doctoral seminars. The paper narrates these epistemological activities by mobilizing and reconsidering from the past to the present, the notions of “unmuting,” “mutating” and “mutiny.” It ends in a reflection addressing the state of business schools at present and why the field of organization and management studies needs “mutiny” now.

The paper adopts a narrative approach in which the voices of its authors appear to be central as they consider and reconsider over time their understanding of “unmuting,” “mutation” and “mutiny” as notions with analytical potential. This approach is influenced by Foucault’s “history of the present” but with contingencies brought about by feminist interpretations. The application of these notions is demonstrated by reclaiming and clarifying the epistemological underpinning in the works of three major women scholars as included in a doctoral seminar: Mary Parker Follett, Edith Penrose and Rosabeth Moss Kanter. These notions are further redeployed for their potential in institutional applications.

At present, the findings are discursive – if they can be called so, but the main motivation behind this writing is to go beyond discourse in the written sense, and to mobilize other activities, still in the realm of epistemological and scholarly work. These activities would legitimize actual interventions for changing business schools from their current situation as neoliberal entities, which mute understanding of major problems in the world, as well as the voices of most humans and non-humans paying for the foibles of neoliberalism.

The paper demonstrates the necessity of developing approaches for interventions in knowledge producing institutions increasingly limited by neoliberal premises in what can be said and done as legitimate knowledge. In doing this, the paper articulates the importance of keeping history alive to avoid the increasing “forgetfulness” neoliberalization brings about. The paper, in its present form, represents an active act of “remembering”.

Medical and nursing students are often anxious about communicating with patients with mental health problems, even when they have received general communication skills training. Communication is particularly challenging when patients are compulsorily admitted to hospital. The study reported here sought to explore medical and nursing students' attitudes to this challenge, stimulated by watching a DVD illustrating professional‐patient communications in this situation. Facilitated discussions of the DVD were recorded and the transcripts were thematically analysed. A strong commitment to three underlying principles of patient‐centred care emerged.1. A preference for egalitarian over authoritarian relationships between patients and professionals.2. A preference for empathetic over bureaucratic approaches to patients.3. Respect for patients as autonomous beings.Students seemed less aware of the need for clear and effective communication of information, and some appear confused about patient‐professional boundaries.

Higher Education (HE) teaching, learning and research require not only cognitive but also emotional commitment from all who are involved in those dialogic processes: the academic and the student. The focus of this chapter is on unexplored territory: emotions at play within undergraduate research (UR) outside the classroom, specifically experienced by students who are engaged in these opportunities for the first time. After reflecting on the problem and bringing together theoretical approaches related to this theme, the authors present a case study, drawing on qualitative data collected in two institutional contexts – one in the UK and other in Portugal. The data analysis leads us to create a framework that addresses the authors’ two research questions, concerning: the emotions that students experience when they are involved in an UR project, and the aspects of that experience the reported emotions relate to. This leads the authors to suggest some recommendations at the end, so they can move toward a more humanized HE experience. This chapter gives an original contribution to discussions on emotions in HE teaching, learning and research in general, and UR in particular.

This chapter draws on 10 years of ethnographic fieldwork collected in gay bars from three American cities to explore the strategies LGBTQ subcultures deploy to recreate meaningful places within the vestiges of local queer nightlife. As gentrification and social acceptance accelerate the closures of LGBTQ-specific bars and nightclubs worldwide, venues that once served a specific LGBTQ subculture (i.e., leather bars) expand their offerings to incorporate displaced LGBTQ subcultures. Attending to how LGBTQ subcultures might appropriate designated spaces within a gay venue to support community (nightlife complexes), how management and LGBT subcultures temporally circumscribe subcultural practices and traditions to create fleeting, but recurring places (episodic places), and how patrons might disrupt an existing production of place by imposing practices associated with a discrepant LGBTQ subculture(place ruptures), this chapter challenges the notion of “the gay bar” as a singular place catering to a specific subculture. Instead, gay bars increasingly constitute a collection of places within the same space, which may shift depending on its use by patrons occupying the space at any given moment. Beyond the investigation of gay bars, this chapter contributes to the growing sociological literature exploring the multifaceted, unstable, and ephemeral nature of place and place-making in the postmodern city.

Provides a bibliography of CD‐ROM for librarians, covering case studies, costs, product evaluation guidelines, databases, CDI, downloading/copyright and CD vs. online, for use when making decisions about the adoption of CD‐ROM.

This chapter charts the recent evolution of research focused on reflective supervision provided to practitioners delivering services to young children and their families through early intervention programs. The authors explore research focused on defining reflective supervision, identifying five essential elements or “active ingredients” of reflective supervision as a professional development model and demonstrating the impact on practitioners. The impact studies described in this chapter have produced empirical data demonstrating an increase in reflective supervision behaviors as a result of participation. In addition, the studies provide qualitative accounts of practitioners’ experiences, conveying positive effects on intervention practice and reduction of practitioner job stress.

Through analysis of interviews conducted in 1996‐98 with reduced‐load professionals and managers in organizations, this study examines in‐depth the meaning of a good family life from the perspective of those seeking to enhance their personal and family experience by cutting back on hours devoted to work. The results suggest that the concept of family well‐being is more complex and multi‐faceted than prior research has indicated. Six different dimensions of family well‐being are identified through examination of recurrent themes in the interviews: (1) spending high quality time with family members; (2) being able to relax in free time; (3) emotional well‐being and health of family members; (4) high quality communication and support; (5) high quality child care and education; (6) satisfaction with work and work load at home. Finally, three paradigms of family well‐being derived from interview data are proposed: Family well‐being as effective parenting, family well‐being as love and being together, family well‐being as peace and harmony.