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1 – 10 of 17Histories of American public administration during the Progressive era (1890‐1920) tend to highlight the positive contributions of its major founders, skimming lightly over…
Abstract
Purpose
Histories of American public administration during the Progressive era (1890‐1920) tend to highlight the positive contributions of its major founders, skimming lightly over nativist, anti‐democratic and racial writings. The purpose of this paper is to broaden the given narrative by setting the record straight regarding the latter writings of three major figures: Frederick Cleveland, Frank Goodnow and W.F. Willoughby. Not intended as an exercise in presentism, the goal is a more nuanced understanding of public administration history. This research approach can be used internationally by other management historians to examine cultural biases by other management theorists.
Design/methodology/approach
Mainstream qualitative research techniques in management history and a close literary examination of lesser known and out‐of‐print writings.
Findings
The three major public administration figures on President Taft's Commission on Economy and Efficiency (1910‐1913) expressed nativist, racial and anti‐democratic views in their published writings, before and after serving on the commission. These views are little known and need to be added to the given historical narrative. The three deemed that only limited populations were qualified to govern a democracy and provide efficient public administration to the masses.
Research limitations/implications
Internationally, scholars can apply this approach to the forgotten or largely hidden publications of other key management theorists.
Originality/value
Management histories of early American public administration have passed lightly over the works of its founders with nativist, racial and anti‐democratic views. This has had the effect of sanitizing the historical record by ignoring publications that provide a fuller contextual understanding of the worldviews of these major figures.
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This exploration of management history focuses on mass entertainment media to determine the history of the efficiency expert in popular culture. It reviews the history of the…
Abstract
This exploration of management history focuses on mass entertainment media to determine the history of the efficiency expert in popular culture. It reviews the history of the image of the efficiency expert in film and on American‐produced television programs. The review shows that this profession is a universal and pervasive one, permanently embedded in our culture and catholic in background, occupation and workplace. It is generally a man’s job. The most significant historical trend is a sharp change from the efficiency expert as an amusing and relatively harmless character to a malevolent one who is to be feared. Although television has only existed for about half as long as motion pictures, the depiction of the efficiency expert on TV is similar to his movie image. This widely recognized profession needs no introduction to the viewer. He is a negative figure, often laughed at but never admired.
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This paper is an initial attempt to discuss the American institutionalist movement as it changed and developed after 1945. Institutionalism in the inter-war period was a…
Abstract
This paper is an initial attempt to discuss the American institutionalist movement as it changed and developed after 1945. Institutionalism in the inter-war period was a relatively coherent movement held together by a set of general methodological, theoretical, and ideological commitments (Rutherford, 2011). Although institutionalism always had its critics, it came under increased attack in the 1940s, and faced challenges from Keynesian economics, a revived neoclassicism, econometrics, and from new methodological approaches derived from various versions of positivism. The institutionalist response to these criticisms, and particularly the criticism that institutionalism “lacked theory,” is to be found in a variety of attempts to redefine institutionalism in new theoretical or methodological terms. Perhaps the most important of these is to be found in Clarence Ayres’ The Theory of Economic Progress (1944), although there were many others. These developments were accompanied by a significant amount of debate, disagreement, and uncertainty over future directions. Some of this is reflected in the early history of The Association for Evolutionary Economics.
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THE IFLA Conference—or to be more precise—the 34th Session of the General Council of IFLA—met at Frankfurt am Main from the 18th to the 24th of August, 1968. Note the dates, for…
Abstract
THE IFLA Conference—or to be more precise—the 34th Session of the General Council of IFLA—met at Frankfurt am Main from the 18th to the 24th of August, 1968. Note the dates, for they include the 21st of August, the day when the delegates heard, as did the rest of the world, of the invasion of Czechoslovakia. Until then the Conference had been proceeding happily, and with the smoothness inborn of German organisation. During and after that date, a blight was cast over the proceedings, and although the Conference carried out its formal and informal programmes as planned, concentrations were disturbed as delegates sometimes gathered round transistor radios, their thoughts on Eastern Europe.
DIMITRIS PSYCHOYIOS, GEORGE SKIADOPOULOS and PANAYOTIS ALEXAKIS
The volatility of a financial asset is an important input for financial decision‐making in the context of asset allocation, option pricing, and risk management. The authors…
Abstract
The volatility of a financial asset is an important input for financial decision‐making in the context of asset allocation, option pricing, and risk management. The authors compare and contrast four approaches to stochastic volatility to determine which is most appropriate to each of these various needs.
The purpose of this paper is to address a somewhat under‐researched aspect of readers' advisory services in public libraries in North America, namely, readers' advisory for…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to address a somewhat under‐researched aspect of readers' advisory services in public libraries in North America, namely, readers' advisory for immigrant readers, with a particular emphasis on the readers' advisory interaction/interview.
Design/methodology/approach
The argument draws on the review of relevant scholarly and professional literature and the author's experience in working with immigrant readers.
Findings
It is suggested that public libraries in North America are not actively involved in providing readers' advisory services to immigrant readers aside from developing and maintaining multilingual collections. This trend in readers' advisory practices is clearly reflected in professional and scholarly publications of the field. It is argued that personal interactions with immigrant readers, in the context of the readers' advisory interview, can be an efficient way to engage immigrant readers in the life of the host society, thus fostering their socio‐cultural integration beyond information needs and basic coping skills.
Originality/value
The paper offers practical insights and suggestions for the enhancement of readers' advisory interactions with immigrant readers in public libraries. It also places readers' advisory interactions with immigrant readers in the broader context of readers' advisory practices, public library services to immigrant users, and the theory of readers' advisory interviews.
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Luca Fiorito and Sebastiano Nerozzi
According to what is reported by the North America Oral History Association, oral history was established in 1948 as a modern technique for historical documentation when Columbia…
Abstract
According to what is reported by the North America Oral History Association, oral history was established in 1948 as a modern technique for historical documentation when Columbia University historian Allan Nevins began recording the memoirs of people who had played a significant role in American public life. While working on a biography of President Grover Cleveland, Nevins found that Cleveland's associates left few of the kinds of personal records – private correspondences, diaries, and memoirs – that biographers generally rely on for their historical reconstructions. Nevins thus came up then with the idea of filling the gaps in the official records with narratives and anecdotes from living memory. Accordingly, he conducted his first interview in 1948 with New York civic leader George McAneny, and both the Columbia Oral History Research Office – the largest archival collection of oral history interviews in the world – and the contemporary oral history movement were born (Thomson, 1998).