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1 – 10 of 158It has often surprised and intrigued this author during his career why certain children's licences seem to work better than others but to a casual observer they all seem the same…
Abstract
It has often surprised and intrigued this author during his career why certain children's licences seem to work better than others but to a casual observer they all seem the same. Using a few well‐ chosen examples which are popular to children he attempts to get under their skin and comprehend what makes them successful.
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This paper looks at how over the past 14 years we have seen the licensing business grow from a small almost cottage industry into the multi million dollar marketing operation…
Abstract
This paper looks at how over the past 14 years we have seen the licensing business grow from a small almost cottage industry into the multi million dollar marketing operation today. Licensed properties are now one of the tools which many FMCG brands and products use to create new products and/or increase sales for existing ones. In fact there is a genre of products that rely solely on the licenced property as the main marketing proposition to gain distribution and sales based on the strength of the licence. We have seen businesses as diverse as BT (with their ET adverts) through publishing, especially children's magazines (Sorry, but Roy of the Rovers doesn't cut any ice any more!) to petrol companies and greeting cards. It is undeniable that the use of a licenced property is a very very powerful tool in the armoury of a brand manager. In addition, many brands and companies also like to use licences tactically and ‘rent’ in licenced properties in key periods of the year to give their brands a ‘sales boost’. This is more a short‐term relationship but still ongoing as the brands use licences regularly. Some companies such as McDonalds and Nestle have gone further by purchasing the rights to all Disney properties exclusively for their categories and become ‘preferred partners’. The cost of the purchase of these licences is often not small and a brand that buys into a licence that fails to deliver is an expensive and costly business. It is often said that choosing a licenced property is an art and one in which there is little or no guarantee of success.
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TO WRITE that Robert Louis Stevenson in his books and essays draws deeply upon his own experiences to an unusual degree would be commonplace, but it is precisely because of this…
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TO WRITE that Robert Louis Stevenson in his books and essays draws deeply upon his own experiences to an unusual degree would be commonplace, but it is precisely because of this characteristic that we are able to catch a glimpse of the early beginnings of the library finally established at Vailima on the island of Upolu in the Samoas, where Stevenson's restless wanderings at last came to an end. Almost incredibly, some of his own childhood books, together with many inherited from his father and grandfather, were shipped half way across the world to Samoa. There they were varnished against the tropical humidity to form the nucleus of his library.
The strategy for sport in Wales, Climbing Higher, establishes some very ambitious targets for raising the levels of sport and physical activity participation over the next 20…
Abstract
The strategy for sport in Wales, Climbing Higher, establishes some very ambitious targets for raising the levels of sport and physical activity participation over the next 20 years. To support its strategy, the Welsh Assembly Government has promised an additional 12,000 jobs within the sport and recreation sector. Research conducted with employers highlights that many sports degree programmes are not “fit for purpose” and are not fully preparing graduates for work within the industry. This paper considers how the University of Glamorgan, in liaison with key industry partners, has designed a sports development degree “fit” for the industry and which meets the expectations of Climbing Higher. The success of the degree programme relies upon the formation of multi‐agency partnerships at a local and regional level. Experiential learning underpins the degree with students required to reflect upon the challenges that they face in getting participants more active; the community placements embedded within modules allow students to experience the complexities of working within the sports development sector. It is a unique and holistic approach, supported by key local and national partners and is fundamental in supporting the objectives set by the Welsh Assembly Government.
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A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balanceeconomics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary toman′s finding the good life and society enduring…
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A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balance economics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary to man′s finding the good life and society enduring as a civilized instrumentality. Looks for authority to great men of the past and to today′s moral philosopher: man is an ethical animal. The 13 essays are: 1. Evolutionary Economics: The End of It All? which challenges the view that Darwinism destroyed belief in a universe of purpose and design; 2. Schmoller′s Political Economy: Its Psychic, Moral and Legal Foundations, which centres on the belief that time‐honoured ethical values prevail in an economy formed by ties of common sentiment, ideas, customs and laws; 3. Adam Smith by Gustav von Schmoller – Schmoller rejects Smith′s natural law and sees him as simply spreading the message of Calvinism; 4. Pierre‐Joseph Proudhon, Socialist – Karl Marx, Communist: A Comparison; 5. Marxism and the Instauration of Man, which raises the question for Marx: is the flowering of the new man in Communist society the ultimate end to the dialectical movement of history?; 6. Ethical Progress and Economic Growth in Western Civilization; 7. Ethical Principles in American Society: An Appraisal; 8. The Ugent Need for a Consensus on Moral Values, which focuses on the real dangers inherent in there being no consensus on moral values; 9. Human Resources and the Good Society – man is not to be treated as an economic resource; man′s moral and material wellbeing is the goal; 10. The Social Economist on the Modern Dilemma: Ethical Dwarfs and Nuclear Giants, which argues that it is imperative to distinguish good from evil and to act accordingly: existentialism, situation ethics and evolutionary ethics savour of nihilism; 11. Ethical Principles: The Economist′s Quandary, which is the difficulty of balancing the claims of disinterested science and of the urge to better the human condition; 12. The Role of Government in the Advancement of Cultural Values, which discusses censorship and the funding of art against the background of the US Helms Amendment; 13. Man at the Crossroads draws earlier themes together; the author makes the case for rejecting determinism and the “operant conditioning” of the Skinner school in favour of the moral progress of autonomous man through adherence to traditional ethical values.
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Health care organizational research should pay greater attention to the specific settings where health is practiced. An ethnographic account of humor, ritual and defiance is…
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Purpose
Health care organizational research should pay greater attention to the specific settings where health is practiced. An ethnographic account of humor, ritual and defiance is presented from 29 months spent in a private, concierge-type radiation oncology center. A thick description of the setting and interaction among center staff and patients is offered in an attempt to establish why qualitative research of health care settings is so important. Findings are compared to Ellingson’s work on health care setting. Humor, ritual and defiance have therapeutic value and deserve greater attention in cancer treatment centers and health care organizations more broadly. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
An ethnographic account of humor, ritual and defiance is presented from 29 months spent in a private, concierge-type radiation oncology center through thick description.
Findings
This study reinforces the literature on the value of institutionalizing humor and ritual to improve patients’ experience in cancer care given the dominance of large public institutions, most easily accessed by academic researchers. Suncoast Coast Radiation Center’s “institutionalized humor” is an important finding that should be examine further. Scholarship can also illuminate the use of ritual in settings where health care is practiced.
Research limitations/implications
This study is limited to a particular research setting which is a private, concierge care radiation oncology treatment center in the Southeastern USA.
Practical implications
Cancer care centers should consider carefully institutionalizing humor and ritual into their daily practices. Further, patient defiance should be reinterpreted not as a patient deficiency but as a therapeutic coping mechanism by patients.
Social implications
While nearly half of cancer care in the USA is offered in private, for-profit institutions, the vast majority of the understanding of cancer care comes only from non-profit and government-run institutions. Shining a light of these neglected cancer care settings will add to the understanding and the ability to improve the care offered to patients.
Originality/value
This is the first health ethnography in a concierge care, cancer care treatment setting. It tests the proposition that humor, ritual and defiance play an important role in a private concierge cancer care organization.
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MANY and sundry are the worries which fall to the lot of the librarian, and the matter of book‐repair is not the least among them. The very limited book‐fund at the disposal of…
Abstract
MANY and sundry are the worries which fall to the lot of the librarian, and the matter of book‐repair is not the least among them. The very limited book‐fund at the disposal of most public library authorities makes it imperative on the part of the librarian to keep the books in his charge in circulation as long as possible, and to do this at a comparatively small cost, in spite of poor paper, poor binding, careless repairing, and unqualified assistants. This presents a problem which to some extent can be solved by the establishment of a small bindery or repairing department, under the control of an assistant who understands the technique of bookbinding.
Book review by James W. Bronson. Rob van der Horst, Sandra King-Kauanui, and Susan Duffy, ed., Keystones of Entrepreneurship Knowledge, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005…
Abstract
Book review by James W. Bronson. Rob van der Horst, Sandra King-Kauanui, and Susan Duffy, ed., Keystones of Entrepreneurship Knowledge, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005. ISBN 9781405139212
Iain McPhee, Chris Holligan, Robert McLean and Ross Deuchar
The purpose of this paper is to explore the hidden social worlds of competent clandestine users of drugs controlled within the confines of the UK Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, which…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the hidden social worlds of competent clandestine users of drugs controlled within the confines of the UK Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, which now includes NPS substances. The authors explore how and in what way socially competent drug users differ from others who are visible to the authorities as criminals by criminal justice bureaucracies and known to treatment agencies as defined problem drug users.
Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative research utilises a bricoleur ethnographic methodology considered as a critical, multi-perspectival, multi-theoretical and multi-methodological approach to inquiry.
Findings
This paper challenges addiction discourses and, drawing upon empirical evidence, argues the user of controlled drugs should not be homogenised. Using several key strategies of identity management, drug takers employ a range of risk awareness and risk neutralisation techniques to protect self-esteem, avoid social affronts and in maintaining untainted identities. The authors present illicit drug use as one activity amongst other social activities that (some) people, conventionally, pursue. The findings from this study suggest that punitive drug policy, which links drug use with addiction, crime and antisocial behaviour, is inconsistent with the experience of the participants.
Research limitations/implications
Due to the small sample size (n=24) employed, the possibility that findings can be generalised is rendered difficult. However, generalisation was never an objective of the research; the experiences of this hidden population are deeply subjective and generalising findings and applying them to other populations would be an unproductive endeavour. While the research attempted to recruit an equal number of males and females to this research, gendered analysis was not a primary objective of this research. However, it is acknowledged that future research would greatly benefit from such a gendered focus.
Practical implications
The insights from the study may be useful in helping to inform future policy discourse on issues of drug use. In particular, the insights suggest that a more nuanced perspective should be adopted. This perspective should recognise the non-deviant identities of many drug users in the contemporary era, and challenge the use of a universally stigmatising discourse and dominance of prohibition narratives.
Social implications
It is envisaged that this paper will contribute to knowledge on how socially competent users of controlled drugs identify and manage the risks of moral, medical and legal censure.
Originality/value
The evidence in this paper indicates that drug use is an activity often associated with non-deviant, productive members of the population. However, the continuing dominance of stigmatising policy discourses often leads to drug users engaging in identity concealment within the context of a deeply capitalist Western landscape.
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Leah Watkins, Rob Aitken and Jess Ford
A sustainable future requires that we empower our children to not only make green consumer choices but also consider the wider issues of sustainable consumption. This paper aims…
Abstract
Purpose
A sustainable future requires that we empower our children to not only make green consumer choices but also consider the wider issues of sustainable consumption. This paper aims to investigate suitable measures to evaluate children’s sustainable consumption and production (SCP) knowledge, attitudes and behaviour and develop and test intervention content aimed at improving literacy in this area.
Design/methodology/approach
A mixed method approach was adopted to develop measurement and intervention materials for SCP. 21 Year Eight (12-13-year-old) New Zealand children participated in one-hour focus groups where they completed scales to measure their sustainable consumption attitudes two major environmental values, behaviours The middle school environmental literacy survey and knowledge and participated in discussions to evaluate the SCP knowledge intervention content and questions developed.
Findings
A qualitative analysis of group discussion was used to test the understandability, perceived usefulness and level of difficulty of the intervention booklet to inform its further development. The results show children’s (prior) knowledge score was highly correlated with their attitudes, and attitudes were highly correlated with both intention and behaviour scores. The paired t tests demonstrated significant differences in the pre- and post-intervention knowledge scores.
Research limitations/implications
The measures and intervention content piloted in this study fill an important gap in existing literature, addressing the lack of appropriate measures and resources to encourage and enhance children’s important role in contributing to a sustainable consumption future.
Originality/value
The development of a measurable intervention will enable the establishment of a platform for the continued and participatory development of sustainable consumption and production resources for children.
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