Search results for ""emerald publishing limited""

Grafton Whyte introduces and explores a new academic theory for customer service delivery for Africa, aimed at addressing issues of poor customer service and poor service delivery. The V-Model of Service Quality (VMSQ) offers a powerful tool for measuring service quality, augmented by a service exchange model to provide a general framework for services, describe core components and provide contexts within which the VMSQ can operate. The VMSQ provides an indication of where problems may lie in a service operation, and an additional African Management Matrix identifies some of the historical and contextual barriers that need to be overcome by African managers to achieve effective customer service delivery. This book grounds the theoretical interventions in data drawn from case studies in the Sub-Saharan African context to make the models applicable to both researchers and working managers. It looks at the complex question of customer service delivery in Africa, and embraces both concepts of customer service and service delivery.

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Sustainable Development Goal 4 seeks to 'Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.' It acknowledges that quality education is a foundational necessity for sustainable development and an enhanced quality of life. SDG4 - Quality Education: Inclusivity, Equity and Lifelong Learning For All explores the multifaceted and complex nature of the concepts of inclusivity and quality education. Drawing examples from two different country contexts (Latvia and Jamaica), the book explores how and why inclusive and quality education is critical to sustainable development. It considers the indicators of inclusive and quality education, how the concept of education for sustainable development is evolving, and the ways in which these indicators are being pursued. The book pays specific attention to the roles of teachers, teacher educators, and the curriculum in the attainment of inclusive and quality education and 21st Century skills for a sustainable society. Concise Guides to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals comprises 17 short books, each examining one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The series provides an integrated assessment of the SDGs from economic, legal, social, environmental and cultural perspectives.

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This interdisciplinary edited collection will challenge the idea of the static family that can be 'broken', and instead think of family as always 'on the move', both conceptually and in practice. This dual approach to family is the unique contribution of the book, which offers new perspectives on the sociology and geography of the family, drawn together by the shared lens of family mobilities. As such it brings together insights from the diverse work of interdisciplinary academics working alone and collaboratively on different aspects of family lives and relationships. The central argument of the book is that the concept of family is always in motion: a disruption in one aspect of family relations, for example, the ending of the intimate relationship between parents, is part of the ongoing project of family. In addition, families are made through mobility and immobility in relation to people, communications, objects and ideas. Contributions from a range of academics across disciplines consider changes in family practices and the ways in which they are produced through motion. This book seeks to understand families as always in motion; changing, adapting and re-routed. Integral to this discussion is the spatiality and temporality of family, that families are produced in different times and spaces. Families are also made through interactions with material things, including non-human living things and through the emotional ties and responses that determine their form and practices.

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The Funerary International series comprises essential reference texts for policy-makers, practitioners and academics with an interest in funerary practices globally. Each book has a country or region specific focus, addressing a standard framework of questions to aid comparison. This book sets English and Welsh funerary practice in its wider legal, national and local governance framework, including the continuing role of the Church of England. It provides the historical context for current practice, provides data on new trends in burial and cremation and examines recent developments including direct cremation and alkaline hydrolysis. It provides detail of current practice and includes a detailed description of a typical funeral, including commemorative practice, and discussion of funeral costs. Chapters address the legalities and technicalities of burial and cremation, explaining the concept of burial rights and the technicalities of grave construction, and outlining cremation certification requirements and the process of cremation. This book is a valuable desk-top resource to give a broader frame of reference for policy makers, and to provide explanation of key concepts for practitioners who may be new to this area of work. The text will be of particular value to academics that may be unfamiliar with the legal, technical and professional aspects of the funerary industry. The text is fully referenced, with an additional bibliography of further reading, and includes illustrations, charts, tables, diagrams and boxed text including key information.

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As organizational scholars, we are accustomed to using theoretical lenses to understand organizational practices and outcomes. That is, we conceptualize what people do, feel and think in their everyday organizational interactions through the use of theoretical language and models to uncover individual and/or social antecedents and outcomes. We tend to ignore, however, how our own day-to-day work as scholars - doing research - is subjected to the same pressures, affected by similar factors, and should be accounted for through similar modes of analyses. We treat our studies and theories as solid anchor points and as objective truths rather than as constructions embedded within individual, organizational, field and societal contexts. This volume is a must read for all researchers interested in understanding our own craft. Building on established traditions in the sociology of knowledge, we direct a reflective and critical gaze towards the structures, practices and meaning systems that ground and shape how we produce and consume managerial knowledge and organization theory. The volume includes both empirically-based papers and reflective essays that explore theoretical concepts and analytical reasoning to explain, critique and advance the ways in which we write about, produce, and consume theory.

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Research in the Sociology of Education is an important and established series, highlighting how societal contexts shape the educational experiences and outcomes of individual children and youth. Including five single-country studies from settings as diverse as rural China, Germany and the United States, as well as two cross-national comparative studies, this insightful new volume continues the series tradition for publishing research from across a broad range of settings. It demonstrates that various educational issues (including student victimization at school, immigrant-native gaps in educational aspiration, and STEM outcomes) are not limited to specific societies but are relevant worldwide. By exploring national and regional situations and then placing them within this broader context, readers are able to see both the commonality and uniqueness of educational issues around the globe.

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Urban ethnography has produced some of the most influential and memorable studies in sociology since the discipline's founding. Showcasing the ideas, analysis, and perspectives of experts in the method conducting research on a wide array of social phenomena in a variety of city contexts, this volume provides a look at the legacies of urban ethnography's methodological traditions and some of the challenges its practitioners face today. This volume considers the ongoing influence of esteemed scholars in the famed 'Chicago School' in teaching ethnography and mentoring young ethnographers. In doing this it addresses the numerous definitions of space and place that ethnographers grapple with, considers the social and spatial locations in which research is conducted, and examines the intertwined forms of social identity that shape the relationships that scholars form in the field, as well as the data they produce. In addition to these themes, the authors in this volume also consider the importance of taking a global perspective when conducting local fieldwork, and of taking an intersectional approach to reflexivity and analysis. Mixing self-reflection, practical guidance, theoretical engagement, empirical analysis, and even humor, the chapter authors offer a large slice of what ethnography has to offer for understanding the global urban world.

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Narrative criminology is an approach to studying crime and other harm that puts stories first. It investigates how such stories are composed, when and why they are told and what their effects are. This edited collection explores the methodological challenges of analysing offenders' stories, but pushes the boundaries of the field to consider the narratives of victims, bystanders and criminal justice professionals. This Handbook reflects the diversity of methodological approaches employed in narrative criminology. Chapters discuss the practicalities of listening to and observing narratives through ethnographic and observational research, and offer accessible guides to using diverse methodological approaches for listening to and interpreting narrative data. With contributions from established and emerging scholars from all over the world, and from diverse fields including politics, psychology, sociology and criminology, the Handbook reflects the cutting edge of narrative methodologies for understanding crime, control and victimisation and is an essential resource for academics studying and teaching on narrative criminology.

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Sustainable Development Goal 11, one of 17 Global Goals that make up the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, recognizes the need to make cities and human settlements ‘inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.’ This book uses empirical analysis to address challenges associated with the implementation of SDG11. It considers policies, strategies and success stories from various regions, countries and cities, including actions to improve natural resources management, reduce GHG emissions, and develop urban adaptation and resilience strategies and disaster risk management to help decision-makers, planners and practitioners in achieving the 2030 agenda. Concise Guides to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals comprises 17 short books, each examining one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The series provides an integrated assessment of the SDGs from economic, legal, social, environmental and cultural perspectives.

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U.S. students exit undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics programs at alarming rates. Less than 50 percent of the undergraduate students who enter STEM degree programs as aspiring freshmen complete degrees in these areas. This is especially true for minorities, whose departure from STEM degree programs is often twice the rate of others.Broadening Participation in STEM features chapters from developers of high impact educational practices and programs that have been effective at broadening the participation of underrepresented groups in the STEM disciplines. It explores strategies used with special populations of STEM aspirants including minority groups such as African Americans, Latino Americans, and Native Americans; persons from economically disadvantaged background; and persons with disabilities. This volume contributes to national knowledge of best practices in educating underrepresented students aspiring to STEM careers. This book provides campus-based faculty, administrators, and diversity professionals with a guide that can be used to develop programs designed to address specific student success and inclusion goals in STEM programs.

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Since the outbreak of the US subprime crisis in 2007, financial stability has become a pressing item in the agenda of governments and policy-makers worldwide. However, to date, there are no books that provide a comprehensive analysis of financial stability in all of its dimensions. Understanding Financial Stability undertakes an in-depth analysis of all the concepts and issues related to financial stability. It establishes a general framework for a holistic assessment of financial stability, provides a comprehensive analysis pertaining to the genesis of financial crises, and offers key terms and elements embodied in financial stability. Posing the question of whether financial stability should rely only on resilience or predictability issues when it comes to handling crises, the book provides: • Extensive coverage of all key issues involved in the field of financial stability. • A consideration of the political economy. • A complete and in-depth assessment of crises in the world based on full historical coverage; including a definition of crises, various theories of crises, costs related to crises, types of crises and policy responses to crises. This book will prove valuable to central bankers, economists, and policy-makers who are involved in the field of financial stability, as well as researchers studying the field.

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This book focuses on approaches to teaching and learning that integrate emerging technologies to enhance the quality of education. It brings together conceptual and empirical insights to elaborate on the design of effective programs, educational policies and educational administration requirements. The chapters cover topics such as social media’s use in learning, virtual learning, innovative pedagogy, data mining, massive open online courses (MOOCs) and sustainable education. Special emphasis is placed on virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR), and the use of electronic devices such as tablets and smartphones in the classroom. The authors explore how advances in information and communication technology (ICT) can improve opportunities through education for all. It presents an international perspective, with authors from Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and North and South America.

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This book critically reviews existing digital divide research and challenges its core thesis, which posits unequal Internet access as a newly formed source of social disadvantage. The author begins by introducing the building blocks of the information society theory. The book goes on to present a systematic overview of digital divide research - its development, arguments attesting to the social gravity of the digital divide, and current findings on the uneven diffusion and use of the Internet. It evaluates the validity of the theories and concepts associated with digital divide research. The author offers an overview and re-examination of six presumptions and biases found in the prevailing approach to the digital divide. Given that Internet use has, in certain contexts, become an absolute necessity, an alternative approach is proposed, recognizing the indispensability of Internet use as context dependent. The book concludes with a consideration of the implications that this new perspective has for the information society theory and policies as well as for the role of social science in the informatization process.

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Alternativity delineates those spaces, scenes, club-cultures, objects and practices in modern society that are considered to be actively designed to be counter or resistive to mainstream popular culture. The idea of the alternative in popular culture became mainstream with the rise of the counter culture in 1960s America (though there were earlier forms of alternative cultures in America and other Western countries). Alternativity is associated with marginalization, both actively pursued by individuals, and imposed on individuals and sub-cultures, and was originally represented and constructed through acts of transgression, and through shared sub-cultural capital. This edited collection maps the landscape of alternativity and marginalization, providing new theory and methods in a currently under-theorized area, setting out the issues, questions, concerns and directions of this area of study. It demonstrates the theoretical richness and empirical diversity of the interdisciplinary field it encompasses, and is deliberately feminist in its approach and its composition, with a majority of the contributors being women. Divided into three sub-sections, focused on sub-cultures, bodies and spaces, contributors explore this exciting new terrain, both through critiques of theory and new theoretical developments, and case studies of alternativity and marginalization in practice and in performance, expanding our understanding of the alternative, the liminal and the transgressive.

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The armed forces of the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan are in dire need of reform to address a plethora of problems including inadequate training, low morale, poor public perception, and low recruitment numbers. This book uses the postmodern military model to measure how public perception of the military is influenced by self-identification in Taiwan, and it shows that the public has little confidence or trust in their military, even as they remain acutely aware of the threat posed by an increasingly belligerent China and its ever-growing People's Liberation Army. While there has been much analysis as to what strategies and weapons systems should be adopted by ROC defense planners, relatively little has been written on how to create a more relevant military within Taiwan society. Ultimately, this book addresses these matters and provides policymakers within the ROC government and military, as well as researchers of Asia Pacific security, with an understanding of the current relationship between military and society, to assist in the creation of a more accountable military.

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Advances in Management Accounting (AIMA) is a publication of quality applied research in management accounting. The journal’s purpose is to publish thought-provoking articles that advance knowledge in the management accounting discipline and are of interest to both academics and practitioners. As one of the premier management accounting research journals, AIMA is well-poised to meet the needs of management accounting scholars. Featured in Volume 30 are articles on: Risk management and internal control: A study of management accounting practice; Properties of performance measurement and management systems used dialogically between parent companies and foreign subsidiaries; CEO turnover and major business restructurings; The effect of informed outside directors on investment efficiency; Proactive strategic responses to corporate sustainability pressures: A sustainability control system framework; On the interplay between strategic performance and managerial accounting.

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Advances in Entrepreneurship, Firm Emergence and Growth provides an annual examination of the major current research, theoretical and methodological efforts in the field of entrepreneurship and its related disciplines, including firm emergence and growth research. The Advances series also publishes papers from other fields, such as strategy, organizational behavior or sociology, that use entrepreneurial samples or make a contribution to entrepreneurial theory or research. It is a key source of articles-of-record for major concepts in the discipline of entrepreneurship. Volume 20, Reflections and Extensions on Key Papers of the First Twenty-Five Years of Advances, is the first in a two volume collection that celebrates the series' anniversary and embodies the idea of "past as prologue." This first volume showcases some of the most important and well-cited papers from the series including works by Dean Shepherd, Zach Zacharakis, and Connie Marie Gaglio. Reflections on their original works by each author as well as commentary by rising scholars of today are also included. The volume demonstrates the timelessness of the original classic works and demonstrates how they connect and energize leading-edge contemporary research in entrepreneurship today.

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The politics of land are vital. They stretch from fights over fracking, gentrification, and taxation to land grabs, dispossession, and border conflicts. And they raise crucial questions about power, authority, violence, populism, and neoliberalism. This volume of Research in Political Sociology seeks to carve out a renewed political sociology of land, bringing together classic questions about the state, commodification, and social change and contemporary studies of contentious land use in various parts of the world. An introductory essay sketches foundations for a political sociology of land and specifies what is unique about land in comparison to other political objects. Chapters are based on highly original qualitative, quantitative, and/or historical analyses to shed light on numerous dimensions of land politics. They include analyses of anti-fracking campaigns, property tax caps, and "green gentrification" in the United States, soil protection regulation in Europe, squatter settlements in Peru, land grabs in peri-urban China and rural Senegal, violent expulsions in Colombia, and the privatization of property rights in Morocco. The volume brings together high quality, peer-reviewed research, opens up novel comparisons, and enriches theories of the state, commodification, and collective resistance.

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While it is generally accepted that both governance and corporate social responsibility are concerned with the way that an organisation manages its relations with its stakeholders, the actual relationships are not simple. The stakeholders who are considered to be dominant and most powerful can change dramatically over time. This is particularly so when governance or CSR is considered in the context of non-commercial forms of organisation. This book re-examines these relationships and the way in which they are changing and developing. The various contributions to the book address different aspects of these relationships from a wide international and interdisciplinary perspective.

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This volume presents the latest perspectives and practices on quality services and experiences in hospitality and tourism. It offers conceptual discourse, empirical evidence, application of existing and emerging theories, and considers the implications of practical findings to extend beyond the academic realm of service quality, and examine the quality issues of both services provided and experiences encountered across a wide spectrum of tourism sectors. As such, it provides new intelligence and contributes to the study of new consumers, as well as organizations and destinations that serve and host them. The book continues the series’ tradition of connecting scholarly works and real-world cases, with a unique mix of geographic representations. The majority of its chapters are drawn from the proceedings of the 2016 conference on Service Quality in Hospitality and Tourism: Experiencing Persian Heritage held in Isfahan, Iran. The regional focus of the conference is augmented in this book with contributions from elsewhere, resulting in a more diverse and global context for the treatment of quality services and experiences in hospitality and tourism. The volume will appeal to academic scholars and industry professionals interested in exploring new frontiers of knowledge on the subject. Organized in three parts with distinctive themes, the chapters are appropriate course readings, either collectively or selectively, for undergraduate and graduate students in educational programs focusing on global curricula.

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Volume 36 of Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management contains seven chapters written by scholarly leaders in the field. Each chapter addresses an important area of current research in human resources management. This volume focuses on team leadership issues, job search processes, human resource technology systems, organizational citizenship behaviors, pregnancy issues at work, strategic human resources management, and emotions at work.

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Meeting consumer needs and desires, while promoting cleaner production and sustainable consumption, is one of the greatest challenges facing industry today. Addressing poverty and environmental degradation requires changing how global organizations produce and distribute goods and how people and organizations consume and dispose of them. It requires a more efficient use of resources, together with action-oriented thinking but raises a range of highly specific challenges for organizations operating in emerging economies. Best Practices in Green Supply Chain Management offers new insights on the challenges of integrating environmental awareness into supply chain management operations in developing countries. The authors present in-depth case studies from the Indian and Mexican manufacturing industries, which are used to illustrate broader lessons in the implementation of sustainable practices for developing economies. This book presents detailed findings and practical guidance to both researchers and practitioners working in the fields of business management, sustainability and green practices, as well as all those who wish to understand why organizations should integrate sustainable strategies and how to implement them.

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The ebook edition of this title is Open Access, thanks to Knowledge Unlatched funding, and freely available to read online. Corporate executives immersed in the turbulent markets of today face a world not of clear cut moral dilemmas such as right or wrong, or good or evil, but instead must confront large corporate grey areas of lesser good, lesser evil, less true, less unfair, and less unjust. Often these choices become almost indistinguishable.; Corporate Ethics for Turbulent Markets: Executive Response to Market Challenges sets out a universal moral foundation of corporate executive ethics. Its chapters attempt to extend the discussion on human dignity to its practical applications, map out strategic approaches for responding to current turbulent markets, and drill moral skills for taming and tapping current turbulent markets. The book features modern techniques of critical thinking, moral reasoning, moral judgment, and moral justification, and charts how to uphold stakeholder rights and duties and understand corporate moral responsibilities. Written as a guide for corporate executives who strive daily not only to be legal in all they decide, choose and do, but to also be ethical, moral, and even spiritual, the book provides skills and insights that are urgently needed to fathom and capitalize upon in the turbulent markets of today.

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The tapestry of human behaviour in the marketplace today is turbulent, unpredictable, and chaotic. Yet it is also so diverse, rich and global that it presents a rare ethical and moral opportunity, and challenge, to out-behave competition and create enduring value. This is corporate ethics for corporate advantage. Corporate Ethics for Turbulent Markets: The Market Context of Executive Decisions focuses on the HOW of doing business – the economic, social, ethical, moral and spiritual values we bring to our business ventures - and how thereby we impact the world. The book focuses on the LEMS (legality, ethicality, morality, and spirituality) technique that we submit as a prescriptive benchmarking tool for all corporate thinking, deliberation, explanation, evaluation, choices, strategic implementation, accountability and moral responsibility. It demonstrates that by going beyond the legal obligation (legality) to do the “right thing” (ethicality), to do the “right thing rightly” (morality), and doing the “right thing rightly and for the right intentions” (spirituality), we can create a sure strategy for good decision making and implementation that can heal the world from its current addictions to corporate fraud in all its evil forms. Envisioning a moral reawakening, this book will challenge business students and executives alike to re-evaluate the moral justification of business choices, decisions, actions and their consequences. LEMS as a four-dimensional cross-checking skill for all that we think, do, become and be takes time and patience but it can surely heal an otherwise divided and broken world.

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Volume 36A of Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology features a symposium on Bruce Caldwell’s Beyond Positivism after 35 years. Contributors to the symposium include Kevin Hoover, Wade Hands, Tony Lawson, and Peter Boettke. The volume also features general-research essays from Luis Mireles-Flores and Alain Marciano. Luca Fiorito presents a new discovery from the archives.

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This book is a timely re-introduction to the work and life of one of criminology’s most respected theorists, Jack Katz, exploring the current relevance of this important author and highlighting his work to a broad audience. The scholarship of Jack Katz, as evidenced in his seminal Seductions of Crime and otherwise, has over the past three decades offered an alternative philosophical perspective to the study of crime and criminal behavior that is not defined by quantitative method or approach. Katz has radically altered the focus and range of contemporary criminology in a way that few if any other scholars have done and his work been foundational in the development of cultural criminology, itself now a high-profile alternative criminological perspective. Through a diverse range of chapters from recognized authors in the field – including a major new interview with Jack Katz himself, in which he describes the development of his ideas, work, and growth as a researcher – contributions take up aspects of his work from a variety of perspectives and discuss and expand its contemporary relevance to the discipline of criminology. This book will appeal to postgraduate students and scholars in the areas of criminology, cultural criminology, critical criminology, phenomenology, and sociology.

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The expectations of the Catholic Church and the demands of the state are a precarious balancing act that have been apparent throughout the history of Catholic education. It is a relationship that is under scrutiny, even in the contemporary context. Drawing on the works and lives of key figures in the history of teacher preparation in Catholic education internationally, this important text illuminates the contributions they made and the challenges they faced. In providing this rich historical synthesis, the authors invite further reflection on the most appropriate methods of teacher preparation for contemporary Catholic schools and on possible contributions to wider teacher preparation from cogitating the history of the Catholic tradition. This book addresses teacher preparation for Catholic schools at both the 'pre-service' and 'in-service' levels by looking at the Church and its relationship with the state. The former will allow opportunities for a deep study of the role of 'faith' in Teacher Preparation, while the latter focuses on how a distinctive faith-based model of education can be in dialogue with the expectations of civil society. By using this multi-layered framework, the book offers exciting and innovative opportunities to inform contemporary practice from international examples, proving an invaluable text for researchers in the fields of comparative education, theology and the sociology of religion.

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Advances in Environmental Accounting & Management aims to advance knowledge of the governance and management of corporate environmental impacts and the accounting for these, including issues related to measurement, valuation, and disclosure. It also aims to increase the awareness of management, accounting practitioners, investors and other stakeholders of the financial and social consequences of corporate environmental impacts, encouraging greater environmental accountability and responsibility. The first chapter in this volume (Dr Yousuf Kamal) is set in the context of the Bangladeshi garment industry, while the second chapter (Delphine Gibassier) explores the practice of water accounting. The remainder of this volume presents three chapters from the 3rd French Conference on Social and Environmental Accounting Research, guest edited by Sophie Giordano-Spring, Jonathan Maurice and Charles H. Cho. These chapters consider sustainability in Canadian CPA teaching programmes (Emilio Boulianne and S. Leanne Keddie); mandatory environmental reporting in France (Juliette Senn); and CSR reporting practices in Brazil and South Korea (Hyemi Shin and Adrián Zicari).

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Access to big data, the “new commodity” for the 21st century economies, and its uses and potential abuses, has both conceptual and methodological impacts for the field of comparative and international education. This book examines, from a comparative perspective, the impact of the movement from the so-called knowledge-based economy towards the Intelligent Economy, which is premised upon the application of knowledge. Knowledge, the central component of the knowledge-based economy, is becoming less important in an era that is projected to be dominated and defined by the integration of complex technologies under the banner of the fourth industrial revolution. In this new era that blends the physical with the cyber-physical, the rise of education intelligence means that clients including countries, organizations, and other stakeholders are equipped with cutting-edge data in the form of predicative analytics, and knowledge about global educational predictions of future outcomes and trends. In this sense, this timely volume links the advent of this new technological revolution to the world of governance and policy formulation in education in order to open a broader discussion about the systemic and human implications for education of the emerging intelligent economy. By providing a unique comparative perspective on the Educational Intelligent economy, this book will prove invaluable for researchers and scholars in the areas of comparative education, artificial intelligence and educational policy.

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Debates around the concept of authenticity date to the earliest theories of tourism, as scholars attempted to understand motivations for traveling away from 'home' and touristic experiences of places far 'away'. Over time, theories of authenticity have burgeoned from epistemological to ontological notions drawing a broad range of philosophers into tourism research. This edited volume features chapters that engage with key debates about authenticity – its materiality, how it is perceived, and how it is experienced. The book is comprised of four sections thematically organized around popular trends in authenticity research in tourism, making this volume appropriate as both a comprehensive text and as individual investigations. Authenticity & Tourism: Materialities, Perceptions, Experiences includes chapters that engage with the pragmatic and the theoretical, including conversations on marketing and the production of tourism attractions, examinations of the constructive nature of authenticity, and the politics of authentication processes. Also included are contributions that revisit technological trends in tourism and advance debates of authenticity in souvenirs, photographs, and simulated experiences, as well as those more firmly anchored in the theoretical, pushing boundaries and establishing paths for future research. Across these chapters, the authors employ a range of methodologies, from autoethnography to photo and food-elicitation combinations to discourse and content analyses. Set against a backdrop of truly global case studies, this collection exemplifies the multiple facets of authenticity research in tourism.

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Present day knowledge about public sector reforms in Asia is quite scattered and seldom focuses on the challenges of leadership. This edited collection seeks to address this issue by presenting country cases that reflect the great diversity of the region. Home to roughly one-third of the world’s population, Asia-Pacific governments typically play leading roles in social and economic development, yet by measures of expenditures or civil servants per capita, most are among the smaller ones in the world. These regimes include democracies, one-party states and unstable systems; there is a broad range of cultural legacies including Confucian, Buddhist, and Western, and vastly different levels of economic development; the region includes some of the very least corrupt countries and those with high corruption levels; it includes the world’s most populous country, as well as some of the smallest. Public sector reforms are very relevant to these countries and their leaders. In Asia, a strong government is invaluable and public sector reforms are relevant to helping modern states meet their goals and performance. This collection explores what is known about these reforms with an eye towards helping leaders responsible for reforms. Clearly, there is very large variation; some Asia-Pacific countries are leading in public sector reforms, while others are not, and this book also seeks to further our understanding what leaders might need to do to be successful.

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This book analyses the role of technology in the realm of health. Health apps can promote medicalization and the idea that health is an individual matter, rather than a political and social one. The authors base their arguments around three theoretical frameworks. Quantification: the growing importance in our society of markers, rankings, and scores, which thanks to digital devices is fueled by the ease with which it is now possible to collect data. Gamification: a powerful trend in digital society, using playful features to transform what are seen as dull tasks into competitive and appealing ones. Gamified self-tracking seemingly increases our productivity without oppressing us with apparent self-governance. Finally, Medicalization: a growing social phenomenon of the transformation of a 'normal' condition into something pathological. Several health apps presuppose a conception of the user as an individualized subject divorced from any social determinants of health. The authors investigate the possibility of people sharing their most private states leading to new forms of algorithmic surveillance. Alongside this negative vision of medicalization the authors recover the now-rare concept of positive medicalization, looking at how apps can work as positive self-help devices though promoting a medical framework. A selection of digital programs related to fitness in the workplace are also presented and discussed.

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This book makes a strong case for the abiding relevance of Dewey’s notion of learning through experience, with a community of others and what this implies for democratic education in the 21st century. Its first section addresses the experience of today’s generation of so-called ‘digital natives’ in terms of how we should now understand ‘knowledge’ and how their online experience creates opportunities and challenges for the curriculum, such as schools linking internationally to study classical texts; an exposition of why makerspaces, hackerspaces and Fab Labs might support Dewey’s democratic communities in our time, with on-line affordances of ‘a commons’, a space to use imagination and invent and share with others. The book’s second section is original in its focus on the central Deweyan idea of ‘embodiment’ with chapters on Dewey and the Alexander technique and on experiences of Afro-American students, in public schools, especially those situated in multi-racial, multi-ethnic countries like the U.S. with deep, racial divides and tensions. The section ends with a chapter on the somaesthetic, educational value of learning outside of buildings. A third section on experience related to democracy and education, has chapters on Dewey and the democratic curriculum, experience as a preparation for democracy, communication and the critique of individualism. Dewey’s notion of interest is analyzed and questioned as to whether it is a sympathetic notion for educational development. With contributions from Spain, Cameroon, the US and the UK the book ranges across varied curricular and policy contexts to explore what reading Dewey can contribute to contemporary education studies.

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Growing tensions and disagreements over globalization, as well as the role of multinational enterprises in the global economy, and competition among countries, has made the challenge of managing reputation across national institutional environments increasingly complex. Global Aspects of Reputation and Strategic Management addresses these critical strategic issues by exploring how country-level factors influence reputation development and how reputation obtained in one context can be transferred to another. This volume of Research in Global Strategic Management addresses three broad themes - Managing a Global Reputation, National Context and Reputation, and Approaches to Reputation Measurement - and identifies opportunities for future research on global aspects of reputation and strategic management to inspire and strengthen this key area. The complexity resulting from this multi-level exploration of reputation makes illuminating reading for researchers and scholars in the areas of international business, strategy and management, as well as for practitioners wanting to develop and implement an international strategy.

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The twentieth volume of Research in Consumer Behavior presents twelve chapters, selected from the best papers submitted at the 13th annual Consumer Culture Theory Conference held in Denmark in June 2018. Aligned with the conference's thematic emphasis on storytelling, the contributors' research stories open the eyes and minds of readers to thought-provoking ideas, theories, and contexts. This book will allow researchers and graduate students working in the area of consumer research and marketing to explore three narrative lines that were prevalent during the conference: 'Objects and their doings', 'Glocalization', and 'Constituting Markets'. The volume concludes with an awarded paper by Brown, who takes a critical look at the quality of storytelling in the CCT tradition and helps us learn from the great storytellers of the past.

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Failure informs more generously and reliably than success. Failure is the best indicator of what’s working and what’s not in any complex system or enterprise. All failures will inevitably reveal latent defects and/or failure modes that are invariably buried within the people, processes, materials, design, manufacturing, and management that comprise the complex system. In this new framework from former NASA aerospace professionals, Newman and Wander employ a unique system failure case study (SFCS) paradigm, originally developed to stimulate systems thinking and lessons learning at NASA, that combines storytelling and systems engineering designed to enhance organizational learning. The authors employ the SFCS approach to explore a vast array of failure events in multiple sectors of transportation, industry, aerospace, construction, and critical infrastructure. They provide an Integrated Analysis seeking trends, patterns, and universally applicable insights that readers can use to recognize areas of potential vulnerability within their own activities. The authors then identify specific actions within the span of control of enterprise leaders, project managers, process owners and operators which can be implemented to manage risk in high consequence, high risk activities.

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Culture has been referred to as a shared frame, the lens through which group members make sense of the world. It has been robustly linked to economic outcomes on the macro level and is also directly linked to decision-making: in recent years, experimental and behavioral economists have found evidence that culture impacts behavior in games and impacts value orientation, trust, fairness, cooperation and enforcement. Culture research in experimental economics is still in its early stages and part of the challenge is methodological and conceptual: how to measure culture and how to define the level at which individuals share a culture. In the coming years, this research will help delineate where the results from our current experiments apply. For example, do current results speak specifically to WEIRD (Western Educated Industrialized Rich Democracies) societies? Do they say something more fundamental about human nature across time, experience, and geography? With increasing migration and globalization, subject pools may become more culturally diverse and cultural questions therefore increasingly important for experimentalists. The contributions in this volume are both conceptual and experimental. The earlier chapters discuss new approaches to the measurement of culture and how to conceptualize and define values and beliefs and the groups that share them. The latter experimental chapters contribute to the growing body of literature that documents cultural differences in social and economic behavior.

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Contemporary Issues in Economic and Financial Analysis 99 includes fourteen studies on contemporary issues within governance and regulations by authors invited from various universities and institutions. The chapters are a mix of discussion-based studies and empirical research studies aimed at understanding particular aspects of governance and regulations. Some refer to a particular country—specifically Malta, Indonesia, and India—and others are more generic and/or European-focused. These chapters include studies of the following: the challenges of corporate governance in small family-owned firms; a credit institution's perspective for managing conduct risk in the boardroom; the implications of the regulation and governance of financial advice in Europe for the retail financial advice sector and its consumers; the barriers to the development of Maltese cooperatives; corporate governance and cash holdings in Indian firms; whether good governance fosters trust in the government; the impact of takeover bids on European law and corporate governance; the developments and outcomes of the reform of the doctrine of “utmost good faith” in the UK; whether corporate decisions in Indonesia are a result of corporate governance requirements; earning management and audit reports; the European deposit insurance scheme; product intervention of supervisory authorities in financial services; the teaching of financial services regulation; how to link the human element to the risk management process, which is one of the internal control processes in governance of an organisation; and whether the transparency regime on the financial institutions market really works.

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Taking us on an ethnographic journey into the spatially transgressive practice of parkour and freerunning, Parkour, Deviance and Leisure in the Late-Capitalist City: An Ethnography attempts to explain and untangle some of the contradictions that surround this popular lifestyle sport and its exclusion from our hyper-regulated cities. While the existing criminological wisdom suggests that these practices are a form of politicised resistance, this book positions parkour and freerunning as hyper-conformist to the underlying values of consumer capitalism and explains how late-capitalism has created a contradiction for itself in which it must stoke desire for these lifestyle practices whilst also excluding their free practice from central urban spaces. Drawing on the emergent deviant leisure perspective, this book takes us into the life-worlds of young people who are attempting to navigate the challenges and anxieties of early adulthood. For the young people in this study, consumer capitalism's commodification of rebellious iconography offered unique identities of 'cool individualism' and opportunities for flexibilised employment; while the post-industrial 'creative city' attempted to harness parkour's practice, prohibitively if necessary, into approved spatial contexts under the buzzwords of 'culture' and 'creativity'. This book offers a vital contribution to the criminological literature on spatial transgression, and in doing so, engages in a critical reappraisal of the evolution of the relationships between work, leisure, identity and urban space in consumer capitalism.

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The investment alternatives offered by mutual funds have had a significant effect on the savings patterns of many countries. Industry research has primarily focused on the funds themselves rather than on their management companies, but like other financial institutions, these companies, also known as mutual fund families, have experienced great periods of both expansion and contraction. It is important to address the efficiency of these institutions, as well. Carlos Sánchez González fills this gap in our knowledge with this empirical study. He develops an innovative model that considers the management stages of mutual fund companies, overcoming the traditional dispute between the different approaches used in banking and insurance research. Using data envelopment analysis (DEA) to evaluate efficiency levels, Sánchez González investigates the Spanish case, one of the most relevant industries in the Euro market, in order to provide insights into issues that have never been explored before. His study consists of two parts. The first explains the basic concepts, offers a brief explanation of the basic DEA models, and gives a review of the most important applications to financial institutions, all while developing a unique set of industry-specific variables in order to show how to apply the original slacks-based measure (SBM) approach. The second reviews the major concepts of SBM variations and shows how they can be applied to the Spanish mutual fund family industry in order to obtain unprecedentedly accurate empirical measures of its efficiency. This ground-breaking work offers much food for thought to academic researchers and postgraduate students of management, finance, and marketing.

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Executives in today's business environment have never been busier. Time constraints are ever present. Resources are strained. Strategic planning constantly competes with the tactical demands of running an organization. To make matters worse, most organizational leaders, when confronted with the need for strategic planning, have no idea about how to go about it. They have plenty of knowledge and information about the organization and their situation, but no effective tools to analyze their thoughts, to make decisions that will lead to effective strategies, and most importantly, to create a plan of action. In Performance Based Strategy, Steve Fairbanks and Aaron Buchko offer a practical set of simple, productive tools that will enable leaders to develop effective strategies. The book offers tools that have been tested in small, medium, and Fortune 100 companies, with for profit and not-for-profit organizations, and across a breadth of industries, such as manufacturing, health care, banking, distribution, transportation, government, and charities, among others. The authors have used these tools as insiders to turn around companies, and as outsiders in advisory and board roles. When properly applied, the strategies offered here enable leaders to see their situations and organizations in new ways. Managers will be able to present information in a way that everyone in the organization will understand. Executives can provide a sense of direction that will provide a framework for decision making that will give guidance to people. Above all, applying these tools will enable managers to improve their firm's performance.

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When it was published in 2002, the first edition of African Economic Development offered an authoritative statement about economic growth on the continent. Its multidisciplinary regional studies built an analytic framework that served as a cornerstone of the field for over a decade. The second edition offers a new collection of authoritative articles for a new age. In a sweeping survey of African economies, leading scholars offer the latest research into the biggest current influences on African growth and development, taking account of relevant institutional contexts as well as significant or unique problems that have slowed Africa's progress. Despite recognizing the factors that have resulted in underdevelopment, however, the contributors paint a hopeful picture of the efforts being made to overcome barriers, and they suggest that a significant reduction of poverty is possible in the near future. Each chapter singles out a particular problem-be it related to demography, geography, politics, climate change, agriculture, or industrialization-and proposes pragmatic solutions that put Africans' needs and capabilities first. Balancing theory and empiricism, and eschewing vague ideological or political language, this book provides an important vantage point from which to herald Africa's elusive dawn. For its rigorous scholarship, its unique breadth, and its actionable suggestions for the near future, the second edition of African Economic Development is a must-read for students, researchers, and practitioners of international development.

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The Evolution of the British Funeral Industry in the 20th Century examines the shifts that have taken place in the funeral industry since 1900, focusing on the figure of the undertaker and exploring how organisational change and attempts to gain recognition as a professional service provider saw the role morph into that of ‘funeral director’. As the disposal of the dead increased in complexity during the twentieth century, the role of the undertaker/funeral director has mirrored this change. Whilst the undertaker of 1900 primarily encoffined and transported the body, today’s funeral director provides other services, such as taking responsibility for the body of the deceased and embalming, and has overseen changes such as the increasing preference for cremation, the impact of technology on the production of coffins and the shift to motorised transport. These factors, together with the problem of succession for some family-run funeral businesses, have led large organisations to make acquisitions and manage funerals on a centralised basis, achieving economies of scale. This book examines how the occupation has sought to reposition itself and how the ‘funeral director’ has become an essential functionary in funerary practices. However, despite striving for new-found status the role is hindered by two key issues: the stigma of handling the dead, and the perception of making a profit from loss.

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Life and health sciences and biomedical studies have developed rapidly over the last few decades raising previously unanticipated ethical concerns and questions. New and emerging technologies require novel approaches, protocols and raised awareness to ensure adequate levels of biosecurity and biosafety as well as the implementation of special measures to prevent their potential misuse or dual use. This volume brings together an international collection of prominent ethics experts in health and life sciences, with the aim of providing clear and comprehensive guidelines for the establishment of efficient ethical strategies related to current and emerging biotechnologies and health research. Important current topics in research ethics including CRISPR-Cas9 technologies, gene editing, ‘big data’ in healthcare and life sciences, nutrition in medicine among other topics have found their place in this volume. In addition, the volume discusses the prospects for the implementation of an international unification of ethical standards in life sciences.

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Global and Culturally Diverse Leaders and Leadership explores diverse cultural leadership styles and paradigms that are dynamic, complex, globally authentic and culturally competent for the 21st century. An outstanding group of scholars considers how the different worldviews and lived experiences of leaders influence their leadership styles. They discuss several dimensions, models and initiatives for examining leadership in a global and diverse world, ultimately offering ways in which these leadership processes may be assessed and cultivated in a culturally sensitive and ecologically valid manner. Redefining leadership as global and diverse, this book imparts a new understanding of the criteria for selecting, training and evaluating leaders in the 21st century.

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The ebook edition of this title is Open Access, thanks to Knowledge Unlatched Funding, and is freely available to read online. Our aging societies have become increasingly digitalized, leading to concerns that older adults (those age 65 and older) will be disenfranchised by the grey digital divide. However, those familiar with the elder population have long noted a diversity of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) use. While some older adults reject digital technologies, others embrace them with an enthusiasm that mirrors some of the youngest members of our society. Gerontechnology: Understanding Older Adult Information and Communication Technology Use explores, theorizes, and explains this diversity in older adult technology use. Illustrated through interpretive interactionist case studies of 17 older adults and data from their friends, family, and co-workers, the book incorporates perspectives from Gerontology, Communication, and Information Studies in its creation of the ICT User Typology. This typology not only describes the diversity in ICT use, but categorizes older adults' motivations in domesticating technologies into their everyday lives. Focusing not only on technology adoption, it explores the challenges and joys elder users face, and the meanings these technologies come to develop for older adults. Useful for the researcher interested in older adult technology use, domestication studies, and technology adoption; Gerontechnology also provides valuable guidance to those practitioners and service providers who want to understand how older adults use and view technology. Practical implications for designers and advertisers seeking to engage the growing senior market are included.

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Theory and Method in Higher Education Research provides a forum specifically for higher education researchers to discuss issues of theory and method. This latest collection includes discussion of a variety of theories, including; complex systems theory, organisational identity, curriculum theory, knowledge management framework, evaluation-based decision-making, and the market-university. It also includes a number of chapters focused on methods, including mixed methods and virtual ethnography, as well as a chapter situated between theory and method on the network paradigm. This latest volume presents a truly international approach with contributions from Argentina, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Norway, Portugal, the U.K. and the U.S. to provide an important contribution to international debates regarding the application and development of theory and methodology in researching higher education that will be relevant to researchers globally.

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Volume 37 of REA features eleven original articles organized in four different sections, each focusing on a specific, popular and significant theme in economic anthropology: production, exchange, vending, and tourism. The first section investigates the brewing (and selling) of homemade beer among Maragoli women in western Kenya, continuity and change in small-scale family farming in a rural part of Costa Rica, and theoretical models of the transitions to farming that marked the Neolithic Revolution. The second section, on exchange, opens with another archaeological examination—of relationships between long-distance exchange and the centralization of political power in Pre-Columbian America. This section also explores adaptations of the Ten Thousand Villages fair trade organization following the recent global recession, exchanges and “productive leisure” at North Market in Columbus, Ohio, and social values in flux over problems relating to exchange amidst conditions of scarcity in the Solomon Islands. The third section investigates the plight and adaptations of vendors in a southern Chinese city and on a Mexican beach, drawing attention to the effects of both national government policies and international trade agreements on their lives. The volume closes with a section that considers important and timely issues in tourism—the role of debt in commission-based relationships between showroom owners and tour guides in Agra, India, and risk, resilience, health, and government policy in Jamaica’s sex tourism industry.

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