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Purpose – The aim of the present chapter is to analyse episodes of dispute and conflict in co-located computer gaming. The main purpose is to extend prior research on dispute-interaction to a computer mediated setting.

Methodology – Naturally occurring multiplayer computer gaming was video recorded in Internet cafés (28 hours). A single case was selected that involved a series of escalating disputes over the course of 45 minutes of gaming. The social interaction involved – of two 16-year-old boys playing World of Warcraft – was analysed using conversation analytical procedures.

Findings – The sequential analyses show how the two players engaged in disputes at the points where one or both of the players’ avatars had been killed. The players held each other accountable for their in-game performance, and avatar death was a central event in which gaming competence was contested, often in outright confrontations. Such disputes, where each player attempted to present the other as inferior, were used for negotiating player identities in what Goffman (1967) has called character contests. In gaming, players thus risk losing the game as well as their social standings. Disputes were also linked to the variable stakes of the game: with more at stake, players were more likely to escalate conflicts to the point of even quitting the game altogether.

Originality – The chapter shows how disputes are central components in adolescents’ computer gaming, and how they both structure the players’ intersubjective understanding of the game, and how they play a role in local identity work.

This paper aims to introduce and demonstrate a method that supports design decisions in an easy and practicable way.

Complete paired comparison is a well‐established scaling method for ratio‐scaling sets of stimuli. This method is well‐proven for scaling variants of user interface designs. The paper demonstrates how the method can be applied to input forms, for example search masks of a library catalogue.

The investigation shows that paired comparison is well applicable for interfaces used in library systems and results are presented of the comparison that are relevant for the design of catalogue searches. Major aspects are influences of visual design, vertical alignment of (search‐) fields, and vertical spacing of form elements.

Since the method can be used without much (technical) effort, a theoretically quite complex approach can be used also by persons not familiar with psychometric scaling techniques.

Organizational researchers live in two worlds. The first demands and rewards speculations about how to improve performance. The second demands and rewards adherence to rigorous standards of scholarship (March & Sutton, 1997, p. 698).Those of us who study organizations and are professors of management work on the front lines, so to speak, where the beliefs we have about how to improve managerial performance get passed directly on to practitioners. The question is, What right do we have to put our beliefs in a privileged position? Beliefs, by definition, are supposed to be true. According to Webster’s (1996) a belief is a conviction about the truth of some statement and/or reality of some phenomenon, especially when based on examination of evidence. Are all of our lectures based on consensually agreed upon evidentiary standards? What are these standards and who should maintain them?

Examines the marketing problem of knowing what customers look for in a product. Claims that for some product groups, consumers may evaluate products and their characteristics differently from what is expected, and that consumers may distort or bias their evaluation of products in the marketplace. Reports on a study that suggests that consumers may distort their evaluations of products on the basis of beliefs about how certain product attributes should go together. Finally, offers implications and recommendations in terms of how marketers may address what is referred to as “systematic distortion” of products.

Much of the prior literature on arbitrator acceptability is focused primarily on demographic characteristics of arbitrators and parties. This article draws from several behavioral theories to build a single conceptual model of arbitrator acceptability. Key concepts from the theory of planned behavior, control theory, organizational justice theories, and the decision making literature are integrated into a single framework that enhances our understanding of this topic and provides useful directions for future research.

Presents over sixty abstracts summarising the 1999 Employment Research Unit annual conference held at the University of Cardiff. Explores the multiple impacts of globalization on work and employment in contemporary organizations. Covers the human resource management implications of organizational responses to globalization. Examines the theoretical, methodological, empirical and comparative issues pertaining to competitiveness and the management of human resources, the impact of organisational strategies and international production on the workplace, the organization of labour markets, human resource development, cultural change in organisations, trade union responses, and trans‐national corporations. Cites many case studies showing how globalization has brought a lot of opportunities together with much change both to the employee and the employer. Considers the threats to existing cultures, structures and systems.

The awarding of terminals to private operators is considered a prime task of landlord port authorities. Yet, terminal concessions in seaports have only recently gained interest in academic circles. The awarding process poses a complex set of managerial challenges to port authorities, one of the key issues being the determination of the duration of the concession.

Despite the importance of the duration of terminal concessions in seaports, the issue has not received much attention in academic circles. Factors impacting on the duration of contracts, leases or concessions have, however, been studied extensively in other research areas, such as agriculture, coal contracts, franchising and natural gas. This paper uses insights from these academic studies to obtain a better understanding of the impact of concession duration on the stakeholders involved and relates them to empirical evidence on concession length in European seaports. The paper then proposes a classification scheme for the exogenous determination of concession duration, based on techniques developed for Public-Private-Partnerships in large infrastructure projects. In the last section the paper discusses the importance of concession durations to various stakeholders in seaports and illustrates these principles using a case study.

Presents a special issue, enlisting the help of the author’s students and colleagues, focusing on age, sex, colour and disability discrimination in America. Breaks the evidence down into manageable chunks, covering: age discrimination in the workplace; discrimination against African‐Americans; sex discrimination in the workplace; same sex sexual harassment; how to investigate and prove disability discrimination; sexual harassment in the military; when the main US job‐discrimination law applies to small companies; how to investigate and prove racial discrimination; developments concerning race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; developments concerning discrimination against workers with HIV or AIDS; developments concerning discrimination based on refusal of family care leave; developments concerning discrimination against gay or lesbian employees; developments concerning discrimination based on colour; how to investigate and prove discrimination concerning based on colour; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; using statistics in employment discrimination cases; race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning gender discrimination in the workplace; discrimination in Japanese organizations in America; discrimination in the entertainment industry; discrimination in the utility industry; understanding and effectively managing national origin discrimination; how to investigate and prove hiring discrimination based on colour; and, finally, how to investigate sexual harassment in the workplace.

Recognizes the inherent conflict between multinationals’ (MNEs’) need to respond to local markets while using global integration to achieve economies of scale; and outlines relevant research from the fields of both economic and organizational theory. Criticizes the process approach based on normative theory and suggests that loose coupling theory is a more practical way of looking at MNEs. Discusses the application of these ideas to their management and identifies seven behavioural characteristics of loosely coupled systems (Weick). Links these to Doz and Prahalad’s (1991) criteria for assessing the applicability of organizational theory to MNEs. Considers the research implications and believes that MNE organization will eventually be seen, not as a special case, but as a general model.

The Department of Information Science at the University of Pretoria (UP), with funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, has, for the past six years, offered a fully funded specialized two-year coursework degree at Masters’ level in Information Technology (M.IT degree). The purpose of this paper is to discuss the technological and teaching methodologies as well as the unique advantages and challenges of collaboration between four partner institutions on two continents as well as local industry partners and local and international academic and public libraries, in offering a blended learning program to students from six different countries.

The contribution is based on a pragmatic and reflective analysis of the success of the strategic partnerships formed during the M.IT program. The data-gathering instrument used was a questionnaire containing open-ended questions.

Analysis of the comments shows that it is evident that faculty still prefer face-to-face classes. Furthermore, to experience an effective online blended learning, the technology would have to improve. The complicated levels of partnerships were important to provide the necessary expertise for this broad-based program. Lecturers from industries and libraries brought different perspectives based on their day-to-day work and practical experience and, through this, a level of reality as opposed to the theory that can be learnt from textbooks.

This is a descriptive analysis of the program and feedback of co-workers that has not been reported before.