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1 – 10 of 22Christopher J. Coyne, Courtney Michaluk and Rachel Reese
US military contracting has been plagued by systematic corruption, fraud, and waste during both times of peace and war. These outcomes result from the inherent features of…
Abstract
Purpose
US military contracting has been plagued by systematic corruption, fraud, and waste during both times of peace and war. These outcomes result from the inherent features of the US military sector which incentivize unproductive entrepreneurship. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on the insights of Baumol (1990) as their base theoretical framework, the authors explore how the industrial organization of the US military sector creates incentives for unproductive entrepreneurship. Evidence from US government reports regarding US efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq is provided to illustrate the central claims.
Findings
The military sector is characterized by an entangled network of government bureaus and private firms whose existence is dependent on continued government spending. These realities, coupled with a dysfunctional procurement processes, reward unproductive behaviors during peacetime. During wartime these incentives are intensified, as significant emergency resources are injected into an already defective contracting system. The recent experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq illustrate these dynamics.
Originality/value
The authors make three main contributions. First, contrary to common treatments by economists, much military spending fails to meet the definition of a public good. Second, waste, fraud, and abuse in military contracting is a result of rules and the incentives those rules create. Third, the only way to change the situation is to change the overarching rules governing the people operating in the military sector.
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The purpose of this paper is to encourage librarians to teach digital archiving practices to journalists as a way of giving journalists the skills they need to save their…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to encourage librarians to teach digital archiving practices to journalists as a way of giving journalists the skills they need to save their work for future use and to facilitate the preservation of journalism for posterity.
Design/methodology/approach
The author has reviewed the personal digital archiving literature and analyzed how it might be specifically tailored to the unique needs of journalists.
Findings
Daily journalism has traditionally been preserved by libraries in the form of newspapers and magazines housed in library periodicals departments. Now that nearly all journalism is published online and libraries generally only have access via temporary subscriptions, libraries are prevented from doing any kind of traditional preservation work (e.g. storing copies locally). In the future, this lack of local preservation may lead to a shortage of early twenty-first century primary source material for historians.
Research limitations/implications
The needs of journalists do vary greatly based on the nature and format of their work and its publication venue, making it difficult to offer a single set of standards or recommendations.
Originality/value
While personal digital archiving advocates have generally interpreted the word “personal” to be synonymous with “private,” this paper points to the need to expand the concept to include professional activities, particularly in light of the prevalence of telecommuting and freelance work arrangements, and the lack of support and training received by remote workers and independent contractors.
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Drawing on 61 interviews with Mexican immigrants and ethnographic participant observation conducted over three years, I compare social movement organizing in two cities in…
Abstract
Drawing on 61 interviews with Mexican immigrants and ethnographic participant observation conducted over three years, I compare social movement organizing in two cities in one California County: one more progressive and the other more repressive. I profile two campaigns waged by Mexican immigrants and their allies in response to two threats posed by police: (1) car impoundments of undocumented, unlicensed drivers’ vehicles and (2) police killings. As political process theory was extended to authoritarian settings, scholars have demonstrated that both growing political opportunity and threat stimulate mobilization. Building on this trend in the literature, this study’s contribution lies in its specification of the relationship among political opportunities, threat, and mobilization tactics. I argue increasing local political opportunity gives rise to more collaborative protest tactics, while relatively more threatening environments yield more confrontational tactics. Because opportunity and threat are not objectively assessed, nor do they automatically inspire protest, I also consider the role of state targets, formalized SMOs, and the influence of coalition partners on tactics. Ethnographic methods are particularly useful for understanding the way organizers and activists, from within organizations that favor distinct tactical repertoires, perceive and attribute threat and opportunity, shedding light on the micro- and meso-level dynamics that shape the social form of mobilization.
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From the point of view of reference service, the crucial fact about my desert island is that I am its sole human resident: I am therefore the sole potential recipient of…
Abstract
From the point of view of reference service, the crucial fact about my desert island is that I am its sole human resident: I am therefore the sole potential recipient of any service I may manage to create, hence the sole subject of whatever user study seems called for. One Finding of the latter being, by the way, that I can meet my life‐survival needs simply by exploiting, thoughtlessly and effortlessly, my island's resources. Its climate is mild, it harbors nothing immediately or remotely dangerous to me, and it offers me a never failing and perfectly balanced diet.
From the point of view of reference service, the crucial fact about my desert island is that I am its sole human resident: I am therefore the sole potential recipient of…
Abstract
From the point of view of reference service, the crucial fact about my desert island is that I am its sole human resident: I am therefore the sole potential recipient of any service I may manage to create, hence the sole subject of whatever user study seems called for. One finding of the latter being, by the way, that I can meet my life‐survival needs simply by exploiting, thoughtlessly and effortlessly, my island's resources. Its climate is mild, it harbors nothing immediately or remotely dangerous to me, and it offers me a never failing and perfectly balanced diet.
Mary Tomsic and Claire Marika Deery
The purpose of this paper is to examine how the contemporary “refugee crisis” is being presented to children through picture books and teaching materials. It uses the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how the contemporary “refugee crisis” is being presented to children through picture books and teaching materials. It uses the concept of refugeedom as an approach that takes into account the multiple facets involved in the forced movement of people in the past and present and seeks to show the value of historical understandings in educational contexts when framing resources for teachers and students.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper examines a sample of high-profile English language picture books about children’s stories of forced displacement and the most prominent freely available teaching materials connected to the books. A critical discursive analysis of the books and educative guides considers the ways in which ideas and information about forced displacement is framed for child readers and children in primary school classrooms. The context for the authors’ interest in exploring these books and educational resources is that in response to the numbers of children who are part of the current “refugee crisis” alongside a public call for the “crisis” to be explained to children.
Findings
The paper argues that picture books open up spaces for children to explore refugeedom through experiences of forced movement and various factors involved in the contemporary “refugee crisis”. In contrast, in the teaching resources and some peritextual materials, the child in the classroom is addressed as entirely disconnected from children who are forcibly displaced, students in classrooms are positioned to learn from the refugee “other”. When links are made between students in classroom and children who have been forcibly displaced it is through activities that position students in classrooms to imagine themselves as forcibly displaced, or to suggest they act within a humanitarian framework of welcoming or helping refugees. The authors believe that if teaching resources were more directly informed by discipline specific tools of historical concepts, more nuanced approaches to past and present histories of forced movement could be considered and from that more fruitful learning opportunities created for all students.
Practical implications
This research provides ideas about how materials to support the use of picture books in educational settings could be developed to promote historical thinking and contextualisation around key social and political issues in the world today. It also makes the case for historians to be involved in the creation of teaching materials in a collaborative way so that academic insights can be brought to teachers and students at all levels of education.
Originality/value
The value of this research is to understand how children are positioned in reading and learning about forced displacement and query the impact of decontextualised approaches to learning. It argues for the critical interpretative value that historical understanding can bring to present day issues which are history in the making.
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Purpose – Responsible investor (RI) engagement seeks to change corporate strategic priorities while balancing the financial imperative. This chapter uses…
Abstract
Purpose – Responsible investor (RI) engagement seeks to change corporate strategic priorities while balancing the financial imperative. This chapter uses an institutional theory framework to explore the tension between financial performance and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues in RI engagement.
Methodology – Discourse of the proponent, supporters and opponents of Australia’s first climate change shareholder resolution – a minority proposal, will be analyzed using framing analysis.
Findings – Framing indicated that the discourse emphasized the dominant financial performance logic while often omitting the ESG logic. One possible explanation is that the process of shareholder proposal nomination and the financial imperative of investment organizations effectively co-opted the engagement.
Research limitations – A case of responsible investment engagement is used to illustrate multiple logics in the investment field. Although there are significant limitations to drawing inferences from a single example, the discussion is relevant to RI support for engagement initiatives such as the UN Principles of Responsible Investment clearinghouse and Carbon Disclosure Project Carbon Action. This chapter argues that attempts to change corporate strategic actions on climate change by RI through engagement will be less effective while the financial performance logic provides relatively more legitimacy to investors.
Practical implications – Integrating the ESG logic with the financial logic is vulnerable to co-optation due to incommensurability. Operationalizing both logics requires establishing a boundary between ESG and financial logics to develop legitimacy.
Social implications – RI engagement on climate change has the potential to be an important part of the social response to the sustainability agenda.
Originality – In applying institutional theory to RI climate change activism this chapter presents original insights into the potential of engagement to effect change.
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Since the 19th century, peace movements have consistently called on women to oppose war based on their roles as mothers and citizens. The women's rights and women's peace…
Abstract
Since the 19th century, peace movements have consistently called on women to oppose war based on their roles as mothers and citizens. The women's rights and women's peace groups that participated in the anti-war movement of the 2000s continue this pattern drawing on both maternalist and egalitarian frames in their mobilizations. This chapter seeks to understand the forces that shape individual perceptions of the persuasiveness of these frames using face-to-face survey data collected at three 2004 demonstrations. The analyses show that different frames appeal to people with different levels of movement experience. The maternalism frame is negatively correlated with social movement experience and the egalitarian feminist frame is positively correlated. I extrapolate from this finding that that the maternalism frame may serve as a recruitment frame and that the egalitarian frame may serve as a retention frame. The conclusion theorizes that rather than thinking of women's groups that use different framing in oppositional contexts, it may be useful to think of the two sets of social movement organizations as working together in a symbiotic relationship that draws in new participants and maintains existing adherents through the use of distinctly different frames. This paper applies social movement framing theory in two unconventional ways: (1) it focuses on framing reception and the way that frames link individuals with organizations; (2) it encourages social movement scholars to think about the relationship between different frames within a broader movement and proposes an alternate conception of frame competition.