Search results for ""emerald publishing limited""

In his best selling book "The World is Flat", Friedman (2005) argues that many more countries and companies now compete in global markets than ever before. The effects of globalization are pervasive and are leading to the emergence of new social, political and business models. This flattening of the world represents a fundamental change and requires that managers of organizations throughout the world develop and use a global mindset. A global mindset is 'a set of individual attributes that enable an individual to influence individuals, groups, and organizations from diverse socio/cultural/institutional systems'. The importance of this global mindset suggests that we need to better understand both its theoretical base and its practical relevance. The purpose of this book is to explore the content of a global mindset, how it is developed, when and how it should be applied, and what its consequences are. Therefore, a new source of competitive advantage is emerging: the ability to integrate players from many parts of the world faster and more effectively than others. The challenge to global corporations is increasingly to create seamless globally integrated systems to satisfy diverse customer needs in diverse global markets. Corporations ability to create globally integrated systems depends to a large extent on their success in getting their employees, managers, and executives to understand and adapt to a flat world. Thus, the new competitive advantage of global corporations lies in their ability to shape the minds and actions of their employees to ensure successful performance. The contributions in this volume suggest that the concept of global mindset represents an important competitive tool for today's managers. Corporate leaders are advised to develop, exhibit and act with a global mindset in order for their firms to achieve and maintain a competitive advantage in international markets. Without such a mindset, such firms are likely to encounter better prepared and more knowledgeable global competitors, thereby threatening their very survival. This work gives a detailed account of the global mindset as an important competitive tool. It is international in scope and is edited by field leaders. This book series is available electronically at website.

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In an international context, public management arrangements differ significantly from country to country, but also regionally and locally. One reason for these differences may be differences in culture resulting in differing views of the state and its institutions. This may sound trivial, but it becomes highly important when public management reform models are proposed and transferred from one country to others, such as was (and still is) the case with, for example, the new public management. Scholars in public management as well as internationally acting practitioners should be aware of the impact culture has on the possibilities and limits of concept transfers between different jurisdictions.Having said this, one precondition for a better consideration of cultural elements in public management reforms is a better understanding of culture itself. Among the public management community, cultural theory has gained considerable attention. There are, however, other concepts for the analysis of cultural facts that may be of interest to the subject, too. In this book, cultural influences (including organizational culture of public organizations) on public management and its reform are explored. The articles address definitions and conceptualizations of culture in the context of public management, cultural artifacts in public management, and give examples of cultural elements in public management from various countries. This volume helps to structure the discussion of cultural elements and points out approaches to study and incorporate cultural aspects in public management research and debate.

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Volume 18 of the popular "Political Power and Social Theory" series is broken up into three parts examining political power, state formation, and economic development with examples from Africa, Russia, and Chile. It also looks at the status of opposition politics in America. It is suitable for graduate students and researchers in the field of political science and social theory. Part I examines political power, state formation, and economic development with examples from Africa, Russia, and Chile. Part II looks at the history and current status of opposition politics in America. Part III discusses scholarly controversy within the discipline with some of the field's leading thinkers authoring chapters. With its international scope, this volume is a valuable reference for graduate students and researchers in the field of political science and social theory.

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Innovation has become one of the primary core competencies of effective organizations. It leads to changes in products, services, organizational design, processes, strategies, and the systems that support them. It occurs when someone has an idea, shares it with others, and all find ways to turn the idea into action. The sharing is a critical step. Creative ideas blossom in a collaborative environment. Implementation depends on collaboration. The chapters in this volume explore a variety of methods and settings that show how collaboration can be utilized to enable and enhance innovation. The innovation may be incremental or breakthrough and evident at any level of organization: team, community of practice, project or program, company, joint venture, alliance, partnership, or supply chain. In this volume, we refer to high quality interaction in the social network as collaboration. We believe creating the context for effective collaboration is a core competency of the organization. Working together well involves deepening trust among members and sharing ideas, perspectives, energy, and knowledge to address organizational challenges and opportunities. As innovation becomes the key to competitive advantage at company, supply chain, and regional levels, a shift from silos to collaboration becomes essential collaborating across boundaries becomes critical. World class levels of performance are impossible without mastery of collaborative methods, processes, and designs. Few companies have mastered the discipline of collaboration well enough to achieve the highest levels of performance. Inter-agency collaboration in government is equally challenging. The chapters in this volume explore collaborative approaches to innovation and the mechanisms and tools that contribute to the quality of collaborative effort. It discusses the importance of collaborative environments to improve innovation; and addresses how to create a collaborative environment within an organization.

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Affect and emotion have been recognized as important factors in understanding behavior in organizations, as evidenced by the increasing frequency of special journal issues, themed conferences, and books and articles devoted to the topic. The articles in this volume represent a selection of the best papers presented at the Fourth International Conference on Emotions and Organizational Life (which was held in London, England, in June, 2004), together with invited papers by some of leading scholars in the field. The theme of this volume, "Individual and Organizational Perspectives on Emotion Management and Display", concerns the management by organizations of the emotions of employees and the effects on individuals. It begins by looking at the effective self-management of emotion and how leaders can use emotions, intelligently and sometimes paradoxically, to foster effective personal and team outcomes, and goes on to examine the nature of emotionally charged incidents between employees and supervisors. The effective management of emotion is particularly relevant to organizational outcomes in service organizations. Specific chapters look at emotion work performed by employees in hospitality and healthcare organizations, and others consider the role that culture plays in the perceptions of service workers regarding emotion work. Others examine the critical interplay between characteristics of employees, organizational practices, and the emotions that customers experience when service encounters go awry. Finally the volume comes full circle in an examination of how the thinking strategies individuals use can foster 'adaptive emotions' and more emotionally intelligent, constructive responses to workplace stressors. This book features a selection of the best papers presented at the Fourth International Conference on Emotions and Organizational Life (London, UK, June, 2004). It represents a cross-section of cutting-edge research in the field and includes contributions from established leading scholars as well as the 'rising stars' in the field.

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This volume of "International Perspectives on Education and Society" explores how educational research from a comparative perspective has been instrumental in broadening and testing hypotheses from institutional theory. Institutional theory has also played an increasingly influential role in developing an understanding of education in society. This symbiotic relationship has proven intellectually productive. In light of the impact that comparative education research has had on institutional theory, the chapters in this volume ask where the comparative and international study of education as an institution is heading in the 21st century. Chapters range from theoretical discussions of the impact that comparative research has had on institutional theory to highly empirical comparative scholarship that tests basic institutional assumptions and trends. Two pioneers in the field, John W. Meyer and Francisco O. Ramirez, contribute the Forward and the concluding chapter. In addition to the editors, other contributors to this volume include M. Fernanda Astiz, Janice Aurini, Jason Beech, Edward F. Bodine, Karen Bradley, Claudia Buchmann, Scott Davies, Gili S. Drori, David H. Kamens, Jong-Seon Kim, Hyeyoung Moon, Hyunjoon Park, Emilio A. Parrado, Lauren Rauscher, John G. Richardson, David F. Suarez, and Regina E. Werum.

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Over the past decades, human rights have gained an increasing significance in law, politics and society, at the national and the international level. According to the American scholar Louis Henkin, human rights have become the paradigm of our time, thereby displacing previous paradigms such as religion and socialism. The criminal justice system has not been immune to this rapid rise of human rights. In the past two decades, considerable attention has been paid to the rules of due process for suspects and offenders, during criminal proceedings and in situations of detention.In recent years, the rights of victims have gained more weight in the criminal justice system, also in international tribunals and courts. Moreover, the principles and norms of human rights have received wide attention in conceptualizing crime and delinquency. Some crimes, e.g. trafficking in human beings or violence against women and children, are now defined in terms of human rights violations. The same is true with gross and systematic human rights violations, such as genocide and crimes against humanity.This volume wishes to address these major developments in a systematic way, from the perspective of criminology and sociology, by way of original contributions. In the first part, we look at several types of crimes, old and new, from the angle of human rights and human rights violations, while the second part sketches the influence of the human rights paradigm on some parts of the justice system in North America, Europe and elsewhere. This volume is addressed to students and researchers in criminology and criminal justice studies, and to professionals and policy-makers in the criminal justice system, primarily but not exclusively in North America and Europe.

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In recent years concerns over the use of results of scientific advances, expectations about how medical decisions are made, and demographic changes have raised ethical questions about how resources are allocated, and how the principles of beneficence, and respect for patient autonomy are applied. The effect that bioethics can have on policy decisions and health care delivery demand an enhanced approach to our understanding of such complex issues. This volume opens a window to how empirical social research can be used to illuminate and answer such quandaries and offers a practical resource for those wishing to engage in this type of research. Through a thorough look at both quantitative and qualitative methods utilized in key research investigations in bioethics, the book examines the impact of such investigations on clinical and policy decision-making, scholarship and on the advancement of theory. The varied sociological and anthropological research examples that are presented allow readers to better understand the richness and breadth of such work as well as relevant practical and theoretical approaches. Last, but not least, the book aims to stimulate further discussion of avenues toward a more solid integration of bioethics and empirical social research and, in that process, further our understanding of the complex bioethical environment surrounding us. This book offers insights into clinical and policy implications of empirical research, enhances understanding of methodologies as applied to bioethics. It is comprehensive - gives a range of examples of empirical bioethics studies, interdisciplinary - geared to a wide audience and a reference source - includes a large number of references.

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The study of emotion and affect on organizational settings has been steadily gaining momentum for much of the last decade. Important catalysts in this process have been the Emonet e-mail discussion group and the biannual International Conferences on Emotions and Organizational Life. The articles in this volume represent a selection of the best papers presented at the fourth Conference (which was conducted in London, England, in June, 2004), together with invited papers by some of the leading scholars in the field. The theme of the book, "the effect of affect in organizations," was chosen to capture the centrality of emotion and affect in everyday organizational life.The opening chapter, co-authored by Howard Weiss, one of the inventors of "Affective Events Theory" (AET), sets the scene. At the heart of AET is the idea that organizational members experience daily hassles and uplifts that are reflected in their attitudes and behaviours. Following chapters flesh out the way that AET can be applied, covering a variety of constructs that relate to organizational life, including emotional intelligence, motivation, employee monitoring of web access, and emotional regulation. Other chapters deal with other aspects of emotion in organizations, such as loneliness, leader-member relationships in teams, organizational justice, negative behaviour, creativity, and organizational reactions to crisis situations. In the final chapter, Rob Briner and his colleagues round out the theme in a critical account of emotion in organizations.

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This fifth volume of "Advances in Health Care Management" examines international health care management. It consists of 12 papers, one of which serves as an introduction, with the other papers arranged into three sections. The first section on patients and providers focuses on such issues as how socio-cultural forces affect the health care experience; how hospital providers function differently under various governance structures; how global strategies affect providers and patients; and why and how provider organizations should consider integrating within a health delivery system. The second section on policy and management addresses such dilemmas as whether some health care issues are impossible to solve through traditional policy reforms; how international refugees should receive health care; and whether policy reform lessons from other countries can be adapted and applied to transform another country's health system. The third and final section on performance and management addresses issues such as whether the quality of care can be managed at the hospital level, how human resource management can be benchmarked within and across health care organizations, how health care informatics and telemedicine can improve the continuity of care, and whether different ways of accessing care within health systems can be systemically compared and improved. Authors from Australia, Chile, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, South Africa, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America contributed to this volume. They explore the delivery and organization of care in health systems from Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America, encompassing more than 20 countries in their comparisons. The papers included in this volume were only accepted following a rigorous peer review process. Each paper, whether solicited or responding to our open call, went through a double-blind review and revision process. The result is a select collection of outstanding papers.

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Paradigms, intellectual insights, and buzzwords have always reflected and informed social practices and have provided impetus and rationalization for macro policies. "Corporate Governance" has become a recent manifestation, creating interplays of political, private, academic, cultural, and economic consequences. This issue of "Advances in Public Interest Accounting" offers provocations challenging the received views of Corporate Governance, illuminating the controversies and ethical outcomes of using it as a prescription for public action. Whether, how, and why Corporate Governance provides innovation, mystification, or creative participation for diverse populations with diverse interests is examined in this issue. With an eclectic group of academics representing a wide range of countries, perspectives, narratives, and themes, Volume 11 provides the space for creating new sensibilities for advocating for the public interest.

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Full-scale Bioethics research began in America around 1970, a decade later America introduced it into Japan. More recently Japanese researchers have realised the growing necessity to evaluate Bioethics more objectively. The principles and policies concerning Bioethics differ between countries. In particular, considerable discrepancies have been occurring between Japanese medical practices and the principles of Bioethics originally imported from America. This has lead to the need for a close investigation into the Japanese approach to Bioethics. Despite this however, there are currently only a few researchers studying the Japanese approach to Bioethics. This interdisciplinary anthology uniquely provides a significant examination of the Bioethics from Japan by considering Japanese views from various aspects, such as life and death, dignity, family and care. The authors of this volume believe that in establishing their own approach to Bioethics each country will increase the practicality of this discipline and, by doing so, will aid the search for the universal elements in Bioethics. The members of the Kumamoto University Bioethics Research Group have published a number of books on Bioethics in Japan over the past decade and in doing so have been preparing for the production of this anthology. The contributors of this volume are both current and former faculty members at Kumamoto University; a well-known institute for Minamata Disease and the volume contains essays written specifically in relation to this area of research.

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"The Advances in Bioethics" series is devoted to publishing collections of original papers and multi-authored volumes that advance the field of bioethics either by exploring new areas, or by taking new approaches to traditional areas. Although the series is published in English, its scope is international, and manuscripts are welcome from authors throughout the world. This volume adopts a more personal view of bioethics by examining the physician. It discusses character formation, ethics, professional character, and other concepts and addresses the interpersonal aspects of physicians as well as the importance of character.

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The chapters in volume 15 of ROCD address a wide array of topics, challenges, and gaps in our knowledge of organizational change. Purser, Bluedorn and Petranker explore the dynamics of time in organizational change, proposing the use of the concept of "flow time." Falkenberg and her colleagues examine the issue of excessive change in organizations, which they define as the simultaneous pursuit of multiple unrelated changes. Real and Poole develop a framework for classifying approaches to conceptualizing and measuring innovation implementation. Roth provides a case description of knowledge creation stemming from a team composed of university, business, and consulting organizations.Ferdig and Ludema examine change via self-organizing processes at the U.S. National Regulatory Commission, the government agency that monitors nuclear reactors. Wischnevsky and Damanpour explore the punctuated equilibrium model of organizational transformation in the banking industry. Golembiewski and his colleagues address the application of organization development across cultures, specifically the use of OD within those cultures where Confucian ideas are prominent. Coghlan and Coughlan report on the CO-IMPROVE project - an action research initiative funded by the European Union. Finally, Yeager, Sorensen and Bengtsson assess the current state-of-the-use of appreciative inquiry in programs of organizational change.

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"Advances in Public Interest Accounting" is a research publication with two major aims. First, it aims to provide a forum for researchers concerned with critically appraising and significantly transforming conventional accounting theory, practice, teaching and research. Second, it aims to increase the social self-awareness of accounting practitioners, educators, and researchers, encouraging them to assume a greater responsibility for the profession's social role. We seek original manuscripts exploring all facets of this broad agenda. Illustrative of these aims, authors are concerned with: expanding accounting's focus beyond the behavior of individual corporate entities, encompassing the conflicts of interest within the accounting-regulatory process and effected groups; exploring alternatives to traditional economic and sociology models, beyond conventional efficiency and profitability measures of corporate performance; recognizing and examining the influences of gender and feminist theory, class and race, on accounting practice, education, and research. They are also concerned with: incorporating the significance of accounting as a communicative practice, as social dialogue, and as a social arbiter; recognizing and examining the effect of accounting practice on environmental issues and on the externalities imposed on local and global communities; examining accounting's participation in multinational expansion, consolidations, and changing economies undergoing transformations, such as Eastern and Central Europe and the Former Soviet Union, and the European Community; and, addressing the impact of new advances in information technologies.

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A total of eleven papers in this volume represent recent research on important topics in finance. The contributions include analyses of issues relating to asset prices, the behaviour of stock returns, and capital-raising activities. Hodges, et al employ stochastic dominance arguments to show that the efficiency of time diversification depends on the degree of autocorrelation in security returns. In their study of the announcement effects of ninety-three minority equity investments, Chan, et. al find a neutral stock price response on average for acquiring firms but a significantly positive response for selling firms. Nguyen, et al provide evidence on the returns structure of U.S. information technology stocks surrounding the bursting of the internet bubble in early 2000. In a study of the informational effects of auditor reputation, Godby and Mahar, Jr. find that implied volatilities for firms audited by Andersen have increased relative to those for firms audited by other Big Five firms. Charaput and Chang find that the usage of installment receipts enhances liquidity in Canadian secondary equity offerings. The contributions to this volume also examine important issues in international finance and financial institutions. Brailsford, et al use a VECM technique to examine Purchasing Power Parity and causality between the yen and the dollar. Sarmas studies the impact of Hong Kong's fixed exchange rate system and Singapore's floating exchange rate system on the correlation between the US and the two respective countries' stock markets. Povel develops a theoretical model to explain multiple banking as a commitment device. Baer, et al develop a model and empirically examine how the creation of a futures clearinghouse can reduce the need for margin in bilateral and multilateral settings. Roberts and Siddiqi provide an empirical analysis of the link between collateralization and the number of lenders in private debt contracts. Finally, Tripp et al empirically examine the relative efficiency of single versus multiple common bond credit unions.

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"Advances in Hospitality and Leisure", a new peer-review serial, delivers refreshing insights from a host of scientific studies in the domains of hospitality, leisure, and tourism. It provides a platform to galvanize thoughts on contemporary issues and emerging trends essential to theory advancement as well as professional practices from a global perspective. The main focus of this series is to transcend the innovative methods of inquiry so as to inspire new research topics that are vital and have been in large neglected. The series is keen to address the needs of the populace having interests in disseminating ideas, concepts and theories derived from scholarly investigations. Potential readers may retrieve useful texts to outline new research agendas, suggest viable topics for a dissertation work, and augment the knowledge of the subjects of interest.

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"Advances in Accounting Behavioral Research" publishes quality articles encompassing all areas of accounting that incorporate theory from and contribute knowledge and understanding to the fields of applied psychology, sociology, management science, and economics. The series promotes research that integrates accounting issues with organizational behavior, human judgment/decision making, and cognitive psychology. Volume 7 contains papers on a variety of behavioral accounting topics including tax, financial, audit, forensic, and managerial accounting. One paper in the area of taxation is an insightful look at the influence of the earned income tax credit in which the authors collected the data from low-income individual taxpayers. The other taxation paper examines the variables that influence tax professional judgments. This volume also contains a paper examining the behavioral implications of alternative going concern reporting formats, a particularly timely issue as many countries struggle with how to make financial reporting more transparent. Another study examines how forensic experts at professional service firms assess the factors that indicate financial statement fraud. Three research studies examining performance in a managerial setting are also reported. One investigates the differences between individual and collective budgeting decisions with respect to budgetary slack creation and task performance; a second examines conditions that affect budget team performance; and a third examines whether superiors who evaluate the performance of their subordinates consider information asymmetry. The final paper develops an assurance services model that identifies the gaps in expectations between users and providers of assurance services. Overall, these papers provide interesting insight into the problems examined.

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"Multi-Level Issues in Organizational Behavior and Processes" is Volume 3 of "Research in Multi-Level Issues", an annual series that provides an outlet for the discussion of multi-level problems and solutions across a variety of fields of study. Using a scientific debate format of a key scholarly essay followed by two commentaries and a rebuttal, we present, in this series, theoretical work, significant empirical studies, methodological developments, analytical techniques, and philosophical treatments to advance the field of multi-level studies, regardless of disciplinary perspective. Similar to Volumes 1 and 2, this volume, Volume 3, contains five major essays with commentaries and rebuttals that cover a range of topics, but in the realms of organizational behavior and processes. In particular, the five critical essays offer extensive literature reviews, new model developments, methodological advancements, and some empirical data for the study of part-time work, trust, diversity, construct validation, and organizational processes. While each of the major essays, and associated commentaries and rebuttals, is unique in orientation, they show a common bond in raising and addressing multi-level issues or discussing problems and solutions that involve multiple levels of analysis.

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This peer reviewed volume is part of an annual series, dedicated to the presentation and discussion of state of the art studies in the application of management science to the solution of significant managerial decision making problems. It is hoped that this research annual will significantly aid in the dissemination of actual applications of management science in both the public and private sectors. Volume 11 is directed toward the applications of mathematical programming to Multi-criteria decision making, Supply chain management, Performance management, and Risk analysis. Its use can be found both in university classes in management science and operations research, (management and engineering schools), as well as to both the researcher and practitioner of management science and operations research.

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Human experience can only be understood across the landscape of time. Yet organizational and groups research has traditionally paid little attention to time as a construct. Over the last 15 years, several authors have begun to study different aspects of group temporality, but these contributions have been published in disparate books and journals. As a result, no integrated set of readings or unified perspectives has emerged, and little research impact has been realized. The goal of this volume is to consolidate, integrate, and build upon existing research to create a framework for studying group temporality. The book approaches group temporality through four lenses: 1. The study of how group processes, such as relationship and trust building, information exchange, consensus building and performance, evolve over time 2.The study of how group members internally synchronize their activities over time and align them to meet the temporal demands of a group's constituents 3. The study of how time pressure affects members' cognitive functioning, interactions, and task performance 4. The study of how organizational context directs the nature of group temporality - both enhancing and impeding group flow. Together, the twelve chapters, authored by 27 leading groups scholars, lead the way in solidifying current understanding and highlighting critical new research directions

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Eleven papers in this volume present some current interesting and important research in finance. Based upon the CAPM, Chen and Kane show that double taxation and differential tax rates on a personal and capital-gains income, affect corporate stock values and financial policies in nonneutral ways. Sengupta shows tax evasion decisions of a monopolist in a price-ceiling regulatory environment. In their paper, Osterberg and Thomson empirically examine the impact of state-level deposit preference laws on resolution type and costs for all operating FDIC-BIF insured commercial banks that were closed, or required FDIC financial assistance, from January 1986 through December 1992. Peek and Wilcox show that during periods of international financial crises, or of domestic economic stress, the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) are well suited to stabilize mortgage markets. In their paper, Chen, Robinson and Siems empirically show the association between banks' subordinated debt and their loan sales activities and its implications in the transmission mechanism of monetary policy. Also in this volume, Lin et al. use the Granger causality test to examine the linkage between the euro exchange rate and the money supply and GDP in the euro community, as well as its impact on the UK exchange rate and the London stock exchange market index. In their paper, Kane and Muzere extend the Diamond-Dybvig model of bank runs to an open market economy and show that adding the central banks and the IMF, guarantees will reduce, but not eliminate the banking as well as currency crises. The paper by Chung et al. empirically shows the presence of a long memory, property in currency, future markets, and discusses its hedging implications. In their paper, Lee, Lee and Yu develop a valuation model for the pension benefit guarantees that incorporates the plan termination conditions as well as a stochastic interest rate. In a case study, Hung et al. empirically show that the specially designed dividends (SDD) have positive signals in the Taiwan Stock Exchange. Finally, in their paper, Guerard and Mark show that the use of an R&D quadratic term enhances the mean-variance efficient portfolios and stockholder returns.

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This volume contains articles and essays from internationally renowned authors and thinkers about the relationship among business, business ethics, religion, and spirituality. The authors included in this book represent multiple perspectives including Christian, Jewish, Hindu, philosophical, and others. This volume will be of interest to both academics and business practitioners who promote a contemporary re-integration of business and religious values and for those concerned about the dangers inherent in this project. In the end, this volume suggests that in a pluralistic and democratic society the only justification for going back home again to traditional religious texts is to help us all move forward together. If the real reason we're invoking religion in the public sphere is to strengthen our own religious communities and our own identities as members of particular religious communities, we are making a fundamental error in judgement. The goal of a legitimate religiously grounded business ethics can and must be the desire to critique, enhance, and strengthen the democratic values and institutions of society including business. These values include noncoercion, transparency, equal rights, pluralism, compromise, individual and communal responsibility, and many others.

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Research methods present the strategic management field with great opportunities and challenges. This first volume includes three types of chapters aimed at exploiting the opportunities and meeting the challenges. One group of chapters addresses broad issues of science, including the state of strategy research, issues surrounding the age of data, and how to build cumulative knowledge within the strategic management field. A second group of chapters highlight ways to improve specific practices, including the measurement of knowledge, the assessment of limited dependent variables, and designing studies. A final group of chapters describe how strategy researchers can better use particular methods. These methods include social network analysis, longitudinal analysis, qualitative methods, survey research, and structural equation modeling. Collectively, the chapters offer state of the art thinking about research methodology provided by intellectual leaders within the strategic management field.

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In work environments world-wide, whether simple or complex, the ways in which people think, do their jobs, and interface with other human beings grow out of their experiences in the groups of which they are or have been a part. How these influences affect their performance and human interfacing in work environments throughout the world is the subject of cultural ergonomics. In this volume, distinguished scientists explore these cultural influences in relation to significant current concerns of ergonomics and human factors. These include scientific-philosophical considerations, aircraft safety, maritime safety, cross-national training, effective use of the world-wide web, multinational decision making, third-world industrial development, implementation of technology transfer, and the functioning of multicultural teams.

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Papers in this volume focus upon corporate governance, broadly defined as the system of controls that helps the corporation effectively manage, administer and direct economic resources. Questions of what and how to produce become equally important as organizations strive to better serve demanding customers. As a result, the design and control of effective organizations structure has been described by the vertical and horizontal relationships among the firm, its customers and suppliers. More recently, researchers have come to understand that the efficiency of firms depends upon the ability of participants to find effective means to minimize the transaction costs of coordinating productive activity. As financial economists have learned, resource allocation will be efficient so long as transaction costs remain low and property rights can be freely assigned and exchanged. An important problem that must be addressed is the so-called agency problem resulting from the natural conflict between owners and managers. Agency costs are the explicit and implicit transaction costs necessary to overcome the natural divergence of interest between agent managers and principal stockholders. The value-maximizing organization design minimizes unproductive conflict within the firm. Papers in this volume show how corporate control mechanisms inside and outside the firm have evolved to allocate decision authority to that person or organization best able to perform a given task.

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International Perspectives on Higher Education Research is a series which aims to feature something of the variety of research being undertaken into higher education systems and issues outside of North America. The theme of this volume covers what is and isn't permitted, included or allowed within our higher education institutions. As with the first volume, this one deliberately sets out to convey a diversity of ideas and approaches. Thus, it includes contributions from researchers working in Australia, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, relating to higher education experiences and systems in Australia, Europe and South Africa. They offer examples of quantitative, survey based approaches and more qualitative, interview based strategies for data collection and analysis, with methodological strategies ranging from multinational comparisons to analyses of newspaper reportage. The consideration of what it is that is being accessed or excluded from is also deliberately broad. Thus, the ten chapters in this volume do not solely concern themselves with students, and the differential access or exclusion they experience in relation to their social class, wealth, ethnicity, sex, age, religion, location, etc. They also examine access and exclusion as they impact upon academics and their managers, are experienced in terms of teaching and learning approaches, effect the content of the curriculum, relate to disciplines and what counts as academic knowledge, and are perceived externally in the media.

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This fifth volume of "Research on Managing Groups and Teams" focuses on the relationship between identity issues and individual and group functioning. Identity issues encompass a wide range of phenomena involving the individual identities people bring to the groups they join, individuals' level of identification with particular groups they join, and the collective identities of specific groups or organizations. The authors in this volume take full advantage of the broad scope of identity-related phenomena, pushing our thinking about the interplay between identity and groups in new and exciting directions. In doing so, they make inroads into seemingly intractable practical problems with groups by understanding how these difficulties are rooted in the identities people strivve to create and maintian. This book should be of interest to social scientists from all domains who are interested in how identity issues influence the performance of individuals, groups and organizations.

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The theoretical frameworks political sociologists use to understand, describe and predict political behaviour have evolved since the 1980s in response to empirical challenges and interdisciplinary influences. The diverse collection of work contained in this volume also suggests that present and projected theoretical trends will continue to be shaped by previous questions and past debates. Contributions to the volume reflect the influence of globalization and the rising interest in nationalism, whilst also including examinations of class, elite and world systems theory in response to questions posed in the age of post-modernity. The authors also consider the continued need for an integration of class, race and gender in theoretical approaches. The questions raised in this volume are not only relevant to political sociology, but also to the discipline of sociology as a whole. The blend of classical sociological tradition with contemporary thought should prompt readers to critically evaluate theoretical assumptions and expand their current thinking.

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For a long time in industrialized countries the state occupied a comfortable and unquestioned position in dealing with environmental problems. Since the 1960s we have witnessed the rather smooth institutionalization of environmental tasks in state policies and politics, leading to the emergence of the "environmental state". In the 1980s, the ideologies of deregulation and privatization formed the start of the debate on the environmental state and the 1990s left the debate facing new challenges. First, the debate became broader and more sophisticated, moving away from simple deregulation and privatization arguments and toward the issue of political modernization and reinventing government. Second, in addition to the ongoing debate on the environmental state within national boundaries, the processes of and political debates on globalization led to new challenges in the viability of the (nationally ordered) environmental-regulatory state. Third, the debate widened geographically, from Europe and the North American continent to the central and East-European countries undergoing transition away from centrally planned economies with all-dominating states, and to states in the so-called South. Various analytical frameworks and social theories are now being applied to understanding and evaluating the nature of these social processes, transformations and continuities related to the environmental state. This text provides a thorough examination of these issues with particular emphasis on the treadmill-of-production and the ecological modernization perspectives. The volume draws upon case studies and evidence from environmental states in the North American continent, Western Europe, Africa, Southeast and East Asia and Central and Eastern Europe.

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Effective knowledge work depends on bringing people together to form a team with the right mix of expertise for the project or problem on hand. Increasingly, that mix can only be created by finding people who are geographically dispersed across sites of the company or across several companies. These virtual teams typically work by linking through electronic tools, such as the telephone, fax, email, NetMeeting, Lotus Notes, and other web-based communication systems. Recent research suggests that these teams have all of the challenges of face-to-face teams in addition to others, such as the limitations of technology, cultural differences, and multiple supervisors. The papers included in this volume identify some of the problems and some of the solutions to these kinds of problems, but most importantly, in a dynamic field such as virtual teams, the papers provide a framework for thinking about such problems and a collection of ideas that can form a foundation for advancing both research and practice in the field. Much of the literature on virtual teams focuses on the technology. The technology is an enabler, but it does not seem to have advanced far enough to make electronic communications as effective as face-to-face meetings. Like other teams, virtual teams consist of human beings and they have interpersonal and identity needs that must be met to optimize their ability to work and to collaborate. So, issues such as member solidarity, cooperation and unity of actions and values become special concerns. Such issues are addressed in this volume with the hope that this work will provide a foundation for moving ahead in this field toward more effective virtual teams.

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This volume faithfully reproduces the public correspondence between Mr. Thomas A. Murphy, former Board Chairman of General Motors Corporation, and two accounting leaders, during the latter two's term of service as Chair of the Financial Accounting Standards Board [FASB]. The volume provides evidence of Murphy's importance as a thoughtful and influential accounting theorist, whose ideas are shared in the context of the open standard setting process adopted by the FASB. The chronological sequence of these letters provides the reader with a sense of momentum around a variety of important technical topics from consolidations through stock compensation. It also addresses a variety of other matters such as the importance of the Board's role as an independent standard setting agency. Also included are references to materials supplied in support of the correspondence and speech materials which relate to points of discussion in the correspondence. This volume represents a unique contribution to the literature of accounting thought for classroom and related use by scholars, practitioners and standard setters.

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Analysts are generally agreed - dramatic changes are unfolding in the character of work, managerial authority, and the employment relationship. However, there is little agreement as to precisely how such changes are reshaping people's working lives, the nature of their careers, and the distribution of opportunity among members of different classes, genders, and ethnic groups. Confronting these issues head on, this text focuses on a series of critical questions concerned with the restructuring of work under capitalism at the beginning of the 21st century. The papers collected here address a wide array of workplace settings, from traditional manufacturing settings to "knowledge work" in high tech and university contexts. The volume devotes attention to the impact of production concepts in various national settings, ranging from Germany to Mexico and Australia. Among other themes, the volume also examines the linkage between gender inequality and efforts to establish innovative, "flexible" forms of work organization.

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Reflecting the cultural diversity in critical theory, Current perspectives in social theory presents work from a variety of theoretical traditions demonstrating the problems of sociological theorizing. Volume 21 echoes a current trend by publishing articles that reconsider Marx, Althusser and Gramsci.

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Since the 1970s, we have witnessed astonishing scientific and technical progress in the field of organ transplantation. Patients who suffer organ failure can now often have their lives greatly improved both in terms of quality and quantity of years. The success of transplantation techniques has created an enormous demand for donor organs. Unfortunately, donor organs are in short supply, relative to the number of patients who could greatly benefit from them. Therefore, donor organs are a scarce and valuable resource that must be thoughtfully and fairly allocated among waiting patients. Not surprisingly, this situation raises many pressing ethical questions, each requiring careful consideration. This volume presents a systematic and balanced treatment of some of the most pressing ethical questions including: what is our ethical obligation to become organ donors and who should be allowed to donate?; to what extent can markets facilitate the fair allocation of organs and how should we most fairly determine who should be recipients?; how do we determine death when the donor is not brain dead?; should non-human donor organs be used to save human lives and should we use organs from anencephalic infants and tissue from embryos? ; and what is the role of the news media in covering stories about organ transplantation? Many of the leading authorities in medical ethics come together in this volume to develop extensive analyses and arguments. The reader is provided with a sound understanding of the ethical, as well as many of the broader issues in organ donation and transplantation.

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This volume presents five studies on key dimensions of union-management relations. Topics examined include union representation, financial consequences of unionism, wage determination, workplace innovation and conflict resolution in unionized enterprises in North America. In addition, the volume features four papers that examine university degree programmes in human resource management and industrial relations and, in particular, the extent to which the programmes provide students with the skills and competencies currently in demand by employers.

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The philosophy of technology has been dominated by metaphysical analyses of the "essence" of technology and by moral/critical reflections on the consequences of technology for individual and social forms of life. To develop a more internally oriented philosophy of technology, the authors in this volume believe that an empirical turn is necessary, similar to the turn witnessed in the philosophy of science. In this volume, authors explore the various ways in which empirical data can be used in ontological, epistemological, ethical or more general discussions in the philosophy of technology. All the chapters in the volume therefore contribute to an empirical turn in the philosophy of technology.

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This monograph offers writing that is both professional and academic. Volume 18 continues to be characterized by a focused eclecticism, informed by theory and reflection, and stretching the boundaries of practice. Among the 11 contributions here are forward-thinking pieces on professional stress resulting from the impact of virtual libraries, an integrated approach to the development of an information resources strategic plan, an international perspective on quality assurance in library support of distance learning, and a research study that offers a methodology to determine and measure gender-based salary disparities in academic libraries. Additionally, this volume includes papers presented at a symposium at the University of Michigan in honour of the career of Richard Dougherty, one of America's most well-regarded library administrators. These papers note some of the obstacles and challenges that those working in today's academic libraries face in their attempts to clear the way for fresh visions of library leadership suited for the years ahead.

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A group of academics and practitioners in urban planning and development present an array of essays, primarily focused on Pacific Rim cities, that analyze successful policies and programmes in urban development and explain why they have worked. These essays identify a number of key themes of change that are leading to innovation in strategic planning and management of urban regions/cities in the context of globalization, economic restructuring, social change, and the changing interface between government, the private sector, and the community sectors. These themes include, among others: electronic commerce and its impact on urban development, community involvement in planning, historical preservation, strategies for central city growth and revival, private sector versus government leadership in planning, creation of new cities from scratch contrasted with reinventing existing cities, and tools for urban planning and management. This should be a useful tool to all those actively involved and interested in the process of urban development worldwide.

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Sociology of Crime, Law and Deviance" is an annual series of volumes that publishes scholarly work in criminology and criminal justice studies, sociology of law, and the sociology of deviance and social control. These are very broad topics, and the series reflects this breadth. The series includes theoretical contributions, critical reviews of literature, empirical research, and methodological innovations. The series especially showcases "big picture" pieces that review and critically reconceptualize what is known and what remains to be understood about broad directions of research and theorizing about crime, justice, law, deviance, and social control. In addition, the series showcases a diversity of methodological approaches. "Volume 2" demonstrates such methodological diversity by presenting quantitative studies, ethnographies and discourse analyses. Through an application of these methodologies, the authors examine sanctions, crime and fear and legal and social control organizations and processes. The volume concludes with four chapters contributing to theory development.

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In the face of contemporary strife, the American marketplace is reeling from repeated examples of ethics violations. These violations cross all industries, from securities and investment firms, to public school districts, to local municipal government, as well as the US federal government. Why the abdication of right or good conduct, especially at this point in time? Is there a commonality within the US culture, or perhaps the world, that serves to underscore why we are collectively struggling with such a serious desertion of conformity to previously accepted principles of right and wrong. With the assistance of colleagues, professionals, friends and family, I have had the opportunity to explore this issue domestically, as well as to travel in search of answers as to how we define our ethical world. The results of these efforts are included for the purpose of engaging the reader's curiosity around this topic.This book explores a wide variety of parameters regarding ethical inquiry, including, looking at the ethical parameters used by city and town managers and how, in turn, these parameters serve to define and delineate the ethical parameters adopted and maintained by the public sector culture. This book also provides insight into the application of the tenets of Systems Theory, symbolic interactionism and societal "rule breaking" known for the purpose of this context as unethical conduct. This book also examines how the perspectives of city and town managers are related to the assumptions of ethical parameters by other public sector employees, as well as the effect(s) of societal labelling once these parameters have been assumed. Overall, it contributes to the content of curricula for the field of public administration and therefore, will provide needed information for individuals whose role it is to practice ethics in the public sector.

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This third volume in the series presents research on technology as either a tool or context for groups and teams. The volume is more broad than some other treatments of technology and groups. Thirteen chapters by leaders from both organizational behavior and information technology present management issues from two critical perspectives: groups and teams in evolving high-tech contexts (e.g., high precision manufacturing, computer virus assessment, space shuttle mission control, minimally invasive cardiac surgery); and leading edge research on technology for communication and knowledge management within groups and teams. The latter including research on virtual teams, adaptive structuration theory, conflict management, and the management of status and deception in electronic mail. Each chapter presents a unique view of groups and teams in modern organizational environments. Readers in the fields of management, organizational behavior, management information systems, information technology, social psychology, technology management and engineering will find useful results and interpretations for both research and practice. The summary chapter by Professor Linda Argote provides an integration and starting point for future assessments of technology, groups, and teams.

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Thomas A. Fetherston explores the financial markets in the 6th volume of Advances in Pacific Basin Financial Markets.

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This book traces various developments in business breakthroughs during the most productive period in world history. The half century from 1946 to 1996 brought space trips to the moon, artificial intelligence, cloning of animals, and much more.

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With This Ring is the 19th volume of the series Contemporary Studies in Sociology from their Sociology collection, edited by R.Robin Miller.

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This is the fifth volume in a series which studies research in urban sociology, this work is an analysis of race and ethnicity in urban areas.

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The contributors to this volume consider policy implications of gender research with an emphasis on its relevance for children-particularly girls; and gender inequality within a range of contexts from that of Cameroon society where basic education is an issue, to that of feminist family settings in the United States.

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This book places Oakland's public policy response (nine major ordinances) to building damage suffered in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in a full historical and intergovernmental context. Using a combined non-decision making and advocacy coalition approach, the book demonstrates how and why hazardous-structure abatement was kept off the local political agenda prior to the Loma Prieta disaster. The book then demonstrates how and why city government in Oakland became proactive on the problem of earthquake-damaged and, more importantly, earthquake-vulnerable buildings in general after the disaster.

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