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The primary purpose of this research paper is to understand the role of national cultural dimensions on e‐learning practices in India. India is considered a major player in the world economy today. US multinationals are significantly increasing their presence in India and understanding cultural preferences will help global companies transition better.

This conceptual paper uses the national cultural dimensions of the global leadership and organizational behavior effectiveness project, which is identified as the most topical theoretical framework on culture. The national cultural scores are used to develop hypotheses for specific cultural dimensions. Examples from the literature are also used to strengthen the proposed hypotheses.

This research proposes that national cultural dimensions of power distance, uncertainty avoidance, in‐group collectivism, and future‐orientation influence e‐learning practices. This study distinguishes between synchronous and asynchronous methods of e‐learning and the role of culture on the same. Future research can definitely empirically test the hypotheses proposed.

This study provides strategic implications for multinationals with a guide sheet identifying the role of the various cultural dimensions on e‐learning. The suggested strategies can be implemented by multinationals in other countries with similar national cultural dimensions also.

This research also proposes a theoretical e‐learning model identifying the impact of national cultural dimensions on e‐learning practices. This research also provides practitioners a strategic implications model that could be implemented for e‐learning initiatives in multinationals.

This chapter is interested in the challenge of governing beyond crime, surveillance and control. It argues for the need to re-imagine the governance of security in ways designed to both build and enrol the capacities of different actors. The authors draw on regulatory theory and the ideas developed in the areas of ‘responsive regulation’ and ‘nodal governance’ to explore the opportunities for, and the challenges associated with designing governance institutions and processes that serve to de-centre hierarchy, command and interventionism as essential rationalities and practices. Its empirical focus is on the case of child protection, where the authors argue for the importance of nurturing the capacities of families and communities to govern both beyond and in tandem with hierarchical modalities. It is hoped that the theoretical issues raised and the agenda articulated can be engaged with across a variety of empirical domains.

In many states, legislators have serious concerns about American competitiveness in the global economy. Based on Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat – perhaps the most highly read book in policy communities over the past decade – legislators are aware the United States is falling behind other countries on many indicators of educational attainment. Although the United States was once a leader in higher education access, with 60 percent of its population attending at least some college, nine countries now exceed this level of participation (Wagner, 2006). Our educational attainment is predicted to increase in the future, not because of increasing participation rates, but because of the expanding college-going population. In production of bachelor's degrees, the United States is now merely average among the 20 most prosperous countries. On a per capita basis, one could argue that the United States no longer has the best higher education system in the world.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the views of community representatives participating in a large health service in Australia.

Cross-sectional survey of 49 community representatives and interviews with a purposeful sample of representatives (n=10) and staff (n=19).

Most community representatives had positive attitudes about their value and potential for influence, citing concrete examples of impact. Having an external network or group was related to their beliefs in their ability to add value to their health service. Community representatives largely agreed they provided a link to, and represented, the wider community although most thought staff did not understand their role or how to work with them. Some staff questioned representativeness of their community representatives.

Improving community participation is argued to be important in delivering better healthcare services, but effective engagement and representation at the local level is often challenging. Focusing on community representative views takes us beyond debates around representativeness to identify practical strategies to improve practice. The authors recommend health services recruit consumers with strong links to networks in the community, provide a structured and supported program, and improve staff understanding of the range of possible roles for community representatives. Local examples of community representatives’ impact on policy and practice should be widely communicated.

In giving prominence to the views of consumers using triangulated methods, the authors found most could report with clarity what their role was and how they impacted at their local health service.

The main emphasis of nutritional study, until within comparatively recent years, was placed on a consideration of the energy or calorie value of a diet. A diet was considered sufficient or otherwise depending on the number of calories it contained. The modern trend in nuitrition, however, has tended to follow an opposite direction—the quantitative aspect has been relegated to a subsidiary position, and the quality of the diet is now considered as of supreme importance. In this qualitative assessment vitamins have been placed in the forefront, and there has been a tendency to overstress the nutritional importance of these essentials to the exclusion of perhaps as important dietary constituents.

This volume presents recent insights in the sociological study of surveillance and governance in the context of criminal justice and other control strategies in contemporary societies. The collected chapters provide a varied set of theoretical perspectives and substantive research domains on the qualities and quantities of some of the most recent transformations of social control as well as their historical precursors in diverse social settings. Drawn from several quarters of the world, the contributors to this volume testify to the increasing relevance of surveillance and governance across the globe and, at the same time, demonstrate the cross-national spread of scholarly ideas on the study thereof.

This volume centers on introducing and exploring issues of and approaches to demonstrating the potential nonexclusively commercial values of individual university innovations, such as social, ecological, and economic values of innovation that may be realized through movement to the private marketplace. The volume papers comprised the basis for discussion and formation of a 2008 colloquium that was conceptualized and organized by the McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship and co-hosted by the McGuire Center and the Office of Technology Transfer at The University of Arizona. The goal of the colloquium and conference volume was to increase university-based ability to advance innovation by conducting technology-specific assessments of the social (and other noncommercial) gains of the individual innovation. New technologies and knowledge sets generated by university faculty are most frequently measured for potential academic value by the innovating faculty member, department, and general peer structure, and for potential commercial value when appropriate by technology transfer offices and other market-oriented units that are charged with the management of the intellectual property of the institution. A formal, institutionally supported valuation of the social, ecological, and/or economic potential of individual innovations may provide evidence of gain needed to motivate more parties to become engaged in academic entrepreneurship. Thus, the capacities of colleges and universities to more confidently forecast the noncommercial value of new knowledge and discovery has the potential to act as an additional link in the often disconnected value proposition of university innovation.

The question of violence in hunter-gatherer society has animated philosophical debates since at least the seventeenth century. Steven Pinker has sought to affirm that civilization, is superior to the state of humanity during its long history of hunting and gathering. The purpose of this paper is to draw upon a series of recent studies that assert a baseline of primordial violence by hunters and gatherers. In challenging this position the author draws on four decades of ethnographic and historical research on hunting and gathering peoples.

At the empirical heart of this question is the evidence pro- and con- for high rates of violent death in pre-farming human populations. The author evaluates the ethnographic and historical evidence for warfare in recorded hunting and gathering societies, and the archaeological evidence for warfare in pre-history prior to the advent of agriculture.

The view of Steven Pinker and others of high rates of lethal violence in hunters and gatherers is not sustained. In contrast to early farmers, their foraging precursors lived more lightly on the land and had other ways of resolving conflict. With little or no fixed property they could easily disperse to diffuse conflict. The evidence points to markedly lower levels of violence for foragers compared to post-Neolithic societies.

This conclusion raises serious caveats about the grand evolutionary theory asserted by Steven Pinker, Richard Wrangham and others. Instead of being “killer apes” in the Pleistocene and Holocene, the evidence indicates that early humans lived as relatively peaceful hunter-gathers for some 7,000 generations, from the emergence of Homo sapiens up until the invention of agriculture. Therefore there is a major gap between the purported violence of the chimp-like ancestors and the documented violence of post-Neolithic humanity.

This is a critical analysis of published claims by authors who contend that ancient and recent hunter-gatherers typically committed high levels of violent acts. It reveals a number of serious flaws in their arguments and use of data.