Search results

Discusses a simple overview of systems and systems theory. Describes what a system is and does. Suggests seven principles to use when designing or evaluating a system including tips such as: organize to reduce complexity, do not over‐optimize the system, and leave details of managing sub‐elements to the specialists who know how. Illustrates with graphic examples.

In the years following the publication of A Theory of Consumption (1923), Hazel Kyrk’s book became the flagship of the field that would later be known as the economics of consumption. It stimulated theoretical and empirical work on consumption. Some of the existing literature on Kyrk (e.g., Kiss & Beller, 2000; Le Tollec, 2020; Tadajewski, 2013) depicted her theory as the starting point of the economics of consumption. Nevertheless, how and why it emerged the way it did remain largely unexplored. This chapter examines Kyrk’s intellectual background, which, we argue, can be traced back to two main movements in the United States: the home economics and the institutionalist. Both movements conveyed specific endeavors as responses to the US material and social transformations that occurred at the turn of the 20th century, notably the perceived changing role of consumption and that of women in US society. On the one hand, Kyrk pursued first-generation home economists’ efforts to make sense of and put into action the shifting of women’s role from domestic producer to consumer. On the other hand, she reinterpreted Veblen’s (1899) account of consumption in order to reveal its operational value for a normative agenda focused on “wise” and “rational” consumption. This chapter studies how Kyrk carried on first-generation home economists’ progressive agenda and how she adapted Veblen’s fin-de-siècle critical account of consumption to the context of the household goods developed in 1900–1920. Our account of Kyrk’s intellectual roots offers a novel narrative to better understand the role of gender and epistemological questions in her theory.

To determine where, when, how, and wherefore European social theory hit upon the formula of “the True, the Good, and the Beautiful,” and how its structural position as a skeleton for the theory of action has changed.

Genealogy, library research, and unusually good fortune were used to trace back the origin of what was to become a ubiquitous phrase, and to reconstruct the debates that made deploying the term seem important to writers.

The triad, although sometimes used accidentally in the renaissance, assumed a key structural place with a rise of Neo-Platonism in the eighteenth century associated with a new interest in providing a serious analysis of taste. It was a focus on taste that allowed the Beautiful to assume a position that was structurally homologous to those of the True and the Good, long understood as potential parallels. Although the first efforts were ones that attempted to emphasize the unification of the human spirit, the triad, once formulated, was attractive to faculties theorists more interested in decomposing the soul. They seized upon the triad as corresponding to an emerging sense of a tripartition of the soul. Finally, the members of the triad became re-understood as values, now as orthogonal dimensions.

This seems to be the first time the story of the development of the triad – one of the most ubiquitous architectonics in social thought – has been told.

The Librarians of Glasgow University since 1641 are identified, and their periods of office summarised and assessed as far as information allows. The terms of appointment in early years and pattern of town and university alternating nominations are outlined, and the gradual development of the post into that of a professional librarian in the twentieth century is illustrated.

This research explored the storytelling (collection, curation and use) in the Cabrach, a remote Scottish glen. This study aims to capture the methodological process of storytelling and curation of heritage knowledge through the lens of the Cabrach's whisky distilling history, a central part of the area's cultural heritage, tangible and intangible. This research was conceptualised as “telling the story of telling the story of the Cabrach”. It was concerned with how the history, heritage, historiography and testimony associated with the parish could be harvested, made sense of and subsequently used.

The study was epistemological in nature and the research was concerned with how heritage knowledge is gathered, curated and understood. It was built around the collection of knowledge through expert testimony from Colin Mackenzie and Alan Winchester, who have extensively researched aspects of life in the Cabrach. This was done using a series of theme-based but free-flowing conversational workshop involving participants and research team. Issues of trust and authority in the research team were crucial. Data were recorded, transcribed and coded. A conceptual model for heritage storytelling in the Cabrach was developed together with a transferable version for other contexts.

The research was conceived around identifying the stories of the Cabrach and grouping them into cohesive narrative themes focused on the most important aspect of the glen's history (the development of malt whisky distilling). The research showed how all crucial narratives associated with the Cabrach were interconnected with that malt whisky story. It was concerned with identifying broad thematic narratives rather than the specific detailed stories themselves, but also from a methodological perspective how stories around those themes could be collected, curated and used. It presents the outcome of “expert testimony” oral history conversations and presents a conceptual model for the curation of heritage knowledge.

This paper reports on research which focuses on the confluence of those issues of heritage-led regeneration, intangible cultural heritage, as well as how stories of and from, about and for, a distinctive community in North-East Scotland can be collected, curated and displayed. It presents methodological conceptualisations as well as focused areas of results which can be used to create a strong and inclusive narrative to encapsulate the durable sense of place and support the revival of an economically viable and sustainable community.

This conceptual model offers a framework with universal elements (Place, People, Perception) alongside a strong core narrative of storytelling. That core element may vary but the outer elements remain the same, with people and place being omnipresent and the need to build an emotional or visceral connection with visitors being crucial, beyond “telling stories” which might be regarded as parochial or narrowly focused. The model informs how communities and heritage organisations tell their stories in an authentic and proportionate manner. This can help shape and explain cultures and identities and support visitors' understanding of, and connection with, places they visit and experience.

The originality lies in two principal areas, the exploration of the narratives of a singularly distinctive community – the Cabrach – which plays a disproportionately significant role in the development of malt whisky distilling in Scotland; and also in terms of the methodological approach to the collection and curation of heritage storytelling, drawing not on first-hand accounts as in conventional oral history approaches but through the expert testimony of two historical and ethnographic researchers. The value is demonstrating the creation of a conceptual model which can be transferred to other contexts.

Discusses British Rail’s (BR’s) organizational transformation during the 1980s and in particular the position of R.B. Reid, chairman of the British Railways Board (BRB) during that period. As a career railwayman, Reid was an atypical choice to chair the BRB. Considers how Reid brought his professional knowledge and experience to bear in carrying through arguably one of the most fundamental processes of change and organizational development that BR has experienced in the past 40 years.

The purpose of this paper is to posit that a key sustainability tool can help provide a needed guide for the many forms of new curricula for academic, public and professional learning communities. The authors demonstrate that key sustainability competency (KSC) research can highlight and provide an array of learning outcomes that can be back cast to co-design flexible, detailed curriculum, pedagogy, practice and assessment structures. They also briefly outline the connection of KSC to education for sustainability (EfS) to provide the educational basis for designing and facilitating classrooms that contribute directly to the sustainability movement.

This paper is a review of literature with a specific focus on Glasser's (2018b) promising use of the tree as an analogy and metaphor for KSCs.

Some, for example, Glasser and Hirsh (2016) claim significant progress in identifying a KSC framework (Wiek et al., 2011) However, the authors raise concerns about the impasse that the literature has demonstrated because these stand in the way of the co-creation of sustainable societies by adjusting how we learn and interact with the world. The authors argue that we must realize and disrupt the destructive actions that form their usual approach and replace them with sustainable habits (Glasser, 2018a), and this requires the emergence of a new class of sustainability practitioners with the skills, attitudes and dispositions that are consistent with being wise, future-oriented, interdisciplinary and global decision-makers (Biasutti, 2015; Biasutti and Frate, 2016; Corney and Reid, 2007; McNaughton, 2012; Scoullos, 2013).

Using Glasser’s metaphor, the authors assert a process through which the future sustainability practitioner might shift their values and understanding such that their habits and norms shift to create a new, sustainable way of being. The practitioner might demonstrate the competencies of implementing transformative change, modelling sustainable behaviour and wise decision-making. The competency of “empathy, mindfulness and social learning” implies critical reflection on one’s actions in comparison to their social context. Thus, reflection at this stage (tree branches and fruits) could create transformation that shifts one’s values and commitments (tree roots); the cyclical process could potentially begin again.

An adaptive and flexible framework of KSC could provide learning benefits by building the capacity for learners to think critically and tackle complex sustainability problems in novel ways (Brown, 2017; Glasser and Hirsh, 2016; Sterling et al., 2017; United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) 2017; Vare and Scott, 2007). Innovation and knowledge generation are possible since the KSC could teach “students how to think, rather than what to think, while letting [them] apply this thinking to real-world sustainability problems” (Wiek and Kay, 2015, p. 29). Through the KSC, people could also learn how to transform knowledge into action in their communities (Sterling et al., 2017, p. 160) and create real-world change. This is important, since unsustainable habits that comprise the “business-as-usual” case must be replaced with life-affirming actions and facilitate a new way of being in the world. After all, “[g]ood ideas with no ideas on how to implement them are wasted ideas” (Scott, 2013, p. 275).

The authors have asserted that the implementation of the KSC could have social benefits because its associated pedagogies aim to actively involve learners in transforming society. The sequence sees the individuals’ reflecting upon and evaluating one’s growth vis-à-vis KSC and promotes the development of learning and other habits that betters ones’ competencies (Rieckmann, 2012). Such reflection and empathy are more likely to be inherent to people who contribute to their own learning about the need to be truly compassionate for each other and the planet (Glasser and Hirsh, 2016). In achieving this level of empathy, it is a relatively simple matter then to understand that technology and policy alone are not adequately able to facilitate large-scale and positive change; unsustainability is a problem created by human action and therefore must be counteracted with theories of and solutions to unsustainable behaviours. Integrating a responsive KSC tool into higher education could help build the capacities, capabilities, competencies and eventually mastery and habits of mind and body that give rise to sustainable well-being societies.

The authors summarize and critique the KSC literature with an eye to creating a flexible and adaptive tool for individuals to chart their own path towards being a sustainability practitioner. The conceptual work herein is the first of its kind, and it will assist program who wish to accentuate contextual factors and individual learning objectives into their design.

A further illustration of the increasing grip of the law of equity in enabling monies that are part of a fraud to be recovered by the victim is provided by the Privy Council decision in Attorney‐General for Hong Kong v Warwick Reid. Previous decisions of English and Commonwealth courts based on the old established principles of equity have employed a constructive trust to recover monies that are the proceeds of fraud or are part of a fraudulent design. AG for Hong Kong v Reid showed how the constructive trust would operate to enable the Crown to recover bribes that had been paid to a Hong Kong public officer.