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This paper aims to study the relationship between structure and agency of Indian women executives in the area of work-life balance in a developing and globalized context. It examines social production in a collectivist culture.

The approach is qualitative and interpretative. Semi-structured interviews of 105 senior women executives from major metropolitan cities in India (Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai) form the rich data for this research. It uses sociological theories of McNay and Bourdieu to discuss the narratives of women executives.

The agency of women executives in India is influenced by cultural meta-narratives of marriage and motherhood. They experience conflict in the home front and less at the work place. Their negotiations with their structures reveal a nuanced agency wherein they try to fit cultural roles and also seek self fulfillment in a career.

First, it includes women executives only from the corporate sector. Second, opinions expressed by women executives alone have been taken for this study and is not cross-validated by opinions of others. This study is also limited to socio-cultural roles and expectations from women executives. Other variables that affect agency are not examined.

This study contributes to the understanding of how women executives, who have a greater agency, negotiate their structural constraints and how these actions contribute to social production.

It studies the societal impact of the agency of women executives in India.

The study provides a theoretical insight into structure and agency of women executives in India and thus adds an Indian perspective to the gender discourse.

The social science research community in higher education in the United Kingdom constitutes the largest group of staff covered by any of the six research councils. Over 25% of the people entered in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) had a social science base. This chapter examines the way the pattern of social science research in the UK has been affected by, mainly, the RAE, the interpretations and strategic implementations that flow from it, and the funding allocations it informs. It draws on my own previous work, and that of others across a range of social science disciplines, as well as a small survey of active researchers conducted in late 2004/early 2005 as processes were set in train for the 2008 exercise. The critique of a process based mainly on peer review provides food for thought for those in Australia, where a research quality assessment exercise is in prospect. Paradoxically, the UK may be moving, after 2008, to an approach close to the one being abandoned in Australia.

This chapter aims to advance understandings of agency and embodiment by considering the relationship between identifying as a feminist and choosing to engage in sexually submissive practices with men.

Thematic analysis of seven feminist-identified women’s solicited diaries and follow-up interviews are paired with a feminist phenomenological framework of agency and embodiment in order to highlight how inhabiting and investing in dominant heterosexual norms is a means of locating oneself in one’s own desires and sexuality.

Engaging in sexual submission as a feminist can be met with feelings of guilt and a sense of justification; a number of participants questioned whether these sexual choices put their political identity in crisis or open to critique. Others felt that their choice to be submissive warranted no problematization – even if the female, feminist subject inhabits dominant heterosexual norms surrounding what it means to be a woman as defined by heteronormative, patriarchal terms.

The present study is part of a broader PhD project based on heterosexuality and feminism in practice, where choosing submission also occurs between instances of sex (in everyday encounters with men) and beyond the context of sex (within the broader context of a romantic relationship). As such, choosing submission within the context of sex is only one aspect of this much more complex relationship.

This chapter aims to contribute to a growing body of literature that considers the way agency is conceptualized and in doing so, offers empirical evidence to show these theories are applicable to sexual practices as well as understandings of gender and feminism.

A more rigid and specific quality management system in higher education institutions (HEIs) is developing under the auspices of the Quality Assurance Agency. The use of models of organisational culture suggest that organisation cultures vary greatly in the higher education sector. Within each HEI there is a mosaic of sub‐cultures making it very difficult to discern what is the dominant culture. The author’s initial analysis of an empirical study of seven HEIs points up the great variance of culture which emanates from differing mission statements, aims and objectives, size and nature of student intake, range of courses and emphasis on research. This article questions whether the developing quality management approach based on standards and benchmarks can gauge accurately and fairly the quality of provision in such a variety of HEIs.

The need to establish key performance indicators for facilities management (FM) is well recognised. However, difficulties in establishing universally‐accepted definitions of the FM function and its management process continue to confound the identification and application of a generic set of performance parameters. This paper describes the process of developing a management‐by‐variance tool for monitoring the performance of the FM function of a major financial services company. The dual problems of the absence of a standardised set of key performance indicators (KPIs) and the lack of existing data for performance evaluation were addressed using a Delphi group. The principle of management‐by‐variance is based on the monitoring and analysis of performance trends, which is done by monitoring changes in performance using a bespoke (rather than generalised) set of performance indicators. This paper describes the process of creating the pilot version of a management‐by‐variance tool in sufficient detail to allow the process to be replicated to create other sets of bespoke KPIs. The process and outcomes of the exercise to short‐list, rank, and weight a finalised list of 23 KPIs are discussed. The KPIs are analysed in the context of the method of their selection, prioritisation and weighting for their intended custom application.

As people again consider what the future holds for higher education, this paper aims to provide a review of the futures documented for higher education. Authors including McNay; Schuller; Bourner et al.; Abeles; Avila and Ledger; Tynan and Lee; and Melville‐Ross, have scoped the future for higher education. This paper aims to consider the structure of these predictions and to explore the changes that have been proposed.

The analysis of literature in this paper refers to documents produced by: governments and their agencies; books; and academic articles. This categorisation is based on the framework used by Tight. Two additional constraints are placed on the literature to keep it focused and manageable. First, the literature is restricted to publications in the English language. Second, the literature is limited to material published in the last 20 years. The rationale for this restriction is that the majority of futures research is produced with a 20 year horizon.

Numerous ideas on the future of higher education have been proposed over the last 20 years. Authors have proposed ideas under a range of themes. Although no significant pattern emerges, repeatedly authors have proposed change in relation to: access, teaching, institutional design, funding, ICT/virtual delivery, the student experience and the needs of the economy/labour market.

The value of this article is to help create some order, providing an overview of previous writing on the future of higher education.

Seeks out whether technical performance indicators may be challenged by perception data thereby forcing a paradigm shift in building assessment. Reports the development of a conceptual framework and thereby justification of methodological approaches for a currently undertaken research project. Employs a subjective approach, based on inhabitants’ perceptions of their own environments. Concludes the measure of productivity used herein may be questionable but the use of productivity as the performance variable (against cost) is recognition of peoples’ importance as occupiers and their views equally so.

Considers the state of benchmarking in facilities management and finds that most academic and practice literature is mainly concerned with measurement techniques, and a formal approach of reducing performance gaps. Limitations are discussed, and the orientation of facilities management performance priorities is questioned. Argues that benchmarking is limited by the ability to identify the priorities, or performance indicators, that can measure contemporary issues such as customer satisfaction to any benefit. Applies the search for benchmarking issues to the human environment, home of the much‐discussed knowledge worker. Research indicates that, far from being static measurable constructs, the environmental conditions in such offices rely on the influence of the market, the organisation culture, the type of users, and the external political conditions. Facilities and business managers often fail to consider these influences in the selection of the performance priorities. Concludes by suggesting that the tendency to rely on a general set of indicators leads to benchmarking issues that are often unhelpful in the pursuit of continuous improvement. Benchmarking issues are more clearly understood to need rich analysis that an investigative methodology could provide.

The author's role as a nurse consultant in a Mental Health Trust in the north of England is particularly interesting because of the peculiar position of the nurse consultant. One of the main components of the role is leadership, yet they are not operational managers so cannot draw on traditional positional power as a way of influencing people. This led the author to explore the concept of power and its implications for leadership. The paper is the result of this exploration: it reviews theories of power and how these can be applied to an understanding of leadership.

The purpose of this paper is to synthesize the previously established list of key performance indicators (KPIs), to identify and categorize the core performance indicators that are measurable and quantifiable.

A literature-based qualitative approach is adopted for accumulating desired information on identifying and categorizing the core indicators. The list of KPIs established in an earlier paper is narrowed down considering the future research needs suggested by the literature.

The quantifiable and measurable core indicators are identified and categorized in the form of a list. The core indicators are defined and the variables required to quantify them are described by citing peer-reviewed literature.

This paper represents the first step toward establishing a relevant list of quantifiable and measurable core KPIs. Future research papers could emphasize derivation of mathematical expressions for determining the identified core KPIs and validating these KPIs using simulation of real building data.

The need to establish a concise and relevant list of quantifiable and measurable KPIs that could express more than one type of information about a facility's performance is identified in this paper. This paper presents and describes a narrowed down list of core KPIs, which could be utilized by facility management industry professionals while performing a holistic performance assessment.

This paper provides a list of core KPIs that could express more than one aspect of a facility's performance and that is measurable and quantifiable.