Search results

It is now forty years since there appeared H. R. Plomer's first volume Dictionary of the booksellers and printers who were at work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1641 to 1667. This has been followed by additional Bibliographical Society publications covering similarly the years up to 1775. From the short sketches given in this series, indicating changes of imprint and type of work undertaken, scholars working with English books issued before the closing years of the eighteenth century have had great assistance in dating the undated and in determining the colour and calibre of any work before it is consulted.

“Imprisonment,” remarked Isaac D'Israeli, in his Curiosities of Literature, “has not always disturbed the man of letters in the progress of his studies, but has unquestionably greatly promoted them.” Support of this contention is to hand in a number of world famous books which have been written behind bolts and bars. The list of their authors includes Sir Walter Raleigh, John Bunyan, George Fox, William Penn, Daniel Defoe, and Dr. Dodd, with, in more modern times, William Cobbett and Leigh Hunt.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role and implications of storytelling and narrative as a means of making sense of, and giving sense to, the ambiguous concept of materiality.

The use of stories was “discovered” through the authors' attempts to “make sense” of data from 16 interviews with participants from the financial and nonfinancial reporting and assurance contexts. The authors analyse the participants' use of stories through a sensemaking/sensegiving lens.

While participants struggle to define what materiality is, they are able to tell “stories” about materiality in action. The authors find stories are a key vehicle through which participants make sense of and give sense to materiality, for themselves and (an)other. Participants tell three types of stories in sensemaking/sensegiving processes: the lived, the adopted and the hypothetical. The authors further identify “rehearsed” and “ongoing” narratives, which take any of the three story types. The use of stories to make and give sense to materiality reveals a disconnect between the static, technical definitions of materiality currently favoured by standard setters and guidance providers, and the creative authoring processes the participants employ.

The authors argue for a move towards the use of stories and narratives about materiality in standard setting, specifically “materiality in action”, which the findings suggest may assist in creating shared understandings of the ambiguous concept.

While previous research considers what materiality means within financial and nonfinancial reporting and assurance contexts, the authors empirically analyse how people understand and make sense/give sense to materiality. The authors also contribute to the use of sensemaking/sensegiving processes within the accounting literature.

This paper proposes to explore the circumstances of the word management's entry into English usage, to deepen understanding of this neglected chapter in management history, and to urge further historical research into seminal management terms and concepts. It also aims to offer a brief explanation of John Florio's role in the introduction of management into English and of that of the Italian Renaissance's influence in England.

The paper's guiding theoretical premise is historian Daniel Rodgers' observation that concepts in government and business often pass from one country to another through “cross fertilization,” effected by the movements and offices of highly connected, cosmopolitan individuals. The sources for this exploration include Florio's World of Words, histories of Florio's circumstances and of the Italian Renaissance, and Evans' edition of La pratica della mercatura (ca 1340) by Francesco Balducci Pegolotti of the fourteenth century Florentine banking firm of Bardi.

The exploration's findings reinforce Rodgers's account of the spread of government and business concepts and rediscovers a vital link between business practice and humanistic studies.

Modern business education, e.g. in its frequent omission of a foreign language requirement in business college curricula, tends to obscure this linkage, now critical in our global economy. The implication is that this linkage should be revived.

Deeper knowledge of the Italian Renaissance roots of management and of the business practices it denoted brings new light to the interplay between humanistic studies associated with the Italian Renaissance and Renaissance business practices in an international context. Accordingly, the authors believe that this exploration turns a page, albeit the first page, of a neglected chapter in the history of management thought and practice.

The 1896 presidential election between William Jennings Bryan and William McKinley has new salience in the wake of the 2016 presidential contest. We provide the first systematic analysis of presidential voting in 1896, combining county-level returns with economic, financial, and demographic data. We show that Bryan did well where interest rates were high, railroad penetration was low, and crop prices had declined. We show that further declines in crop prices or increases in interest rates would have been enough to tip the Electoral College in Bryan’s favor. But to change the outcome, the additional changes would have had to be large.

In light of significant changes over the past decade in the nature of the workforce, the workplace, and retirement itself, this article examines the factors that predispose employees to retire. The study uses a sample of older workers who had attended pre‐retirement planning sessions open to employees over age 45. Results suggest that employment status of spouse (rather than marital status per se), continuous years of service (rather than salary), the physical demands of the job (rather than overall health), and certainty about the plans for retirement (rather than the content of those plans) are significantly related to intentions to retire.

The past few years have witnessed a substantial growth in development and use of computerized financial planning models. Success stories involving the use of planning models abound but so, alas, do failures. Having had our share of each in the past several years, we thought it might be useful to pass along some lessons learned.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the use made of the Research Commons during its first year of operation in an attempt to establish whether it actually provides a genuinely new and different service from the point of view of the end‐users, and whether a facility such as this could indeed be presumed to support research and enhance research output at the university.

Using Lippincott's assessment grid, an attempt was made to assess activities in the Research Commons according to the dimensions of extensiveness, efficiency, effectiveness, service quality and usefulness. Methodology was mixed, with quantitative and qualitative components that logged the extent and nature of the use of the various facilities in the Research Commons and sought to establish from stakeholder perceptions whether the services on offer are regarded as substantially different from those in the undergraduate Knowledge Commons and whether they are indeed seen to be supporting research activities.

It was found that a combination of numerical and qualitative measurements has yielded sufficient evidence for the drawing of preliminary conclusions. The evidence gathered demonstrates that the Research Commons, designed primarily as a site for the creation of new knowledge in the form of original writing by researchers at postgraduate and academic level, is indeed an advance on the well‐established “library commons” concept, and that its creation represents an instance of “parallel invention” – the “new creature” that the title refers to.

This paper provides a multifaceted perspective on the activities taking place in a new library facility and should provide librarians and researchers with evidence‐based insight into how meaningful research support may be provided to young researchers from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds as part of an academic library service in a middle income country.