Business Commons^™

The Protean Career: Exemplified By First World Foreign Residents In Western Europe?, Marian Crowley-Henry

Articles

This article presents findings from a qualitative study exploring the career-related motivations and experiences of a sample of 20 expatriates living and working on a permanent basis in the South of France (Sophia Antipolis) and in Germany (Munich). By virtue of their having established local links in the host country, either in having local working contracts or being installed in the area on a permanent basis (home owners; children born/being schooled in the host country), these expatriates could also be termed foreign residents in the host country. The study’s sample of highly educated workers originating from the United States of …

Using The Technology Of The Confessional As An Analytical Resource: Four Analytical Stances Towards Research Interviews In Discourse Analysis, Brendan O'Rourke, Martyn Pitt

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Among the various approaches that have developed from FOUCAULT's work is an Anglophone discourse analysis that has attempted to combine FOUCAULTian insights with the techniques of Conversation Analysis. An important current methodological issue in this discourse analytical approach is its theoretical preference for "naturally occurring" rather than research interview data. A FOUCAULTian perspective on the interview as a research instrument, questions the idea of "naturally-occurring discourse". The "technology of the confessional" operates, not only within research interviews, but permeates other interactions as well. Drawing on FOUCAULT does not dismiss the problems of the interview as research instrument rather it shows …

Upping The Ante, Thomas Power

Articles

The aim of this essay is to present the inherent barriers to the achievement of full co-operative solutions to global environmental problems. It reviews the literature of Swanson, Barrett, Pearse and Helme to explain the problems associated with multilateral bargaining and to compare two types of bargaining, namely “ex-post” and “ex-ante”. It attempts to apply the theoretical guidelines on multilateral bargaining to GATT.,

The Need For Wider Supply Chain Management Adoption: Empirical Results From Ireland, Bernd Huber, Edward Sweeney

Articles

Purpose - Empirical results are provided which suggest that there is a need for more widespread adoption of supply chain management among Irish firms.

Design/methodology/approach - The Republic of Ireland is a small, open, trade-dependent economy and is one of the fastest growing economies in the developed world. However, due to rising costs, there is an increasing trend in Ireland to outsource lower function manufacturing processes to lower cost locations but to retain high skill functions (such as R&D). This trend, together with other factors such as its peripheral location, suggests that supply chain management is critical from an Irish …

An Investigation Into Outsourcing Practice In Ireland: A New Direction In Logistics And Supply Chain Management, Aoife O'Riordan, Edward Sweeney

Articles

Companies are increasingly focusing on the development of core competencies as an integral part of their overall strategy development and implementation. The corollary of this is that functions regarded as being non-core are being outsourced. This paper investigates the case for and against outsourcing and in addition what is happening in Ireland regards outsourcing. Furthermore to analysis of current literature in
the field, an Irish-wide postal and e-mail survey, as well as three case studies revealed many interesting facts. The key findings of the work are manufacturing outsourcing is now the most popular function to be outsourced for both small …

The Technological Gaze In Advertising, Norah Campbell

Articles

This article is concerned with what a technological gaze might mean; what regimes of truth and what new modes of subjectivity are filtered through it. By drawing on television and print advertising, we can see the pervasiveness of a gaze that is technological in contemporary Western consumer culture. This article argues that, far from being a simple “ high-tech” effect, a technological gaze is a way of seeing that may be deconstructed. To this end, it will call on visual culture studies, feminism, film theory and Derridean deconstruction to highlight how high-tech images are cultural artefacts, which underscore contemporary imaginings …

The Dutch Auction Myth, Peter B. Oh

Articles

The bursting of the internet bubble continues to have ripple effects on the initial public offering (IPO) process. Critics of this process have fashioned a complex set of interconnected objections to the orthodox bookbuilding method for conducting IPOs, pricing shares, and allocating them to preferred investors. Critics instead hail online reverse-bid, or Dutch, auctions (Dutch IPOs) as an alternative method promising more equitable access, efficient prices, and egalitarian allocations.

This article comprehensively assesses the case for Dutch IPOs. Part I dissects critiques of bookbuilding, which rely on anomalous data, derogate established financial literature, and largely evaporate in the face of …

The International Protean Career: Four Women’S Narratives, Marian Crowley-Henry, David Weir

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In this paper, we share individual narratives outlining the experiences of four well-educated western women following a permanent international career in the South of France. By virtue of detailed interview transcripts and contextual information regarding the specificity of the location in question, a comprehensive picture of the experiences and choices of individual women in leadership business positions on an international level is painted. Our aim is not to generalise the findings to a wider population, but to gain an insight into the depth and complexity of career issues for women in general, and particularly for women working in a foreign …

An Anthology Of Enterprise Policy In Ireland, William Gorman, Thomas Cooney

Articles

Ruane and Gorg (1996: 37) remarked that 'any careful comparison of the Irish economy with other economies in the European Union immediately focuses on two key features of Ireland's pattern of industrial development: the enormous significance of foreign direct investment (FDI) and the very high export ratios in the Irish manufacturing sector among foreign-owned companies. These two features have not developed by accident, but are directly related to the industrial strategy which Ireland has pursued over the past forty years, namely, of promoting export-led growth in Irish manufacturing through various incentives and of encouraging foreign companies to establish manufacturing plants …

Jurisprudential Schizophrenia: On Form And Function In Islamic Finance, Haider Ala Hamoudi

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Despite its explosive growth over the past several decades, Islamic finance continues to have trouble attracting large numbers of otherwise pious Muslims as potential investors. The underlying reason for this is that the means that the practice employs to circumvent some of the central Muslim bans relating to finance (most notably, the ban on interest) are entirely formal in their structure and are equivalent to conventional structures both legally and economically. However, the practice purports to serve functional ends; namely, through offering Muslims alternative means of finance that are intended to further Islamic ideals of fairness and social justice. This …

Informed Retail Location Decisions: A Critical Concern For Irish Smes, Edmund O'Callaghan

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No abstract provided.

Webs Of Power: Multiple Ownership In Tourism Destinations, Ziene Mottiar, Hazel Tucker

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It has been widely noted in the tourism small business literature that collaboration between groups of businesses operating within clusters contributes both to business development and the success of destinations and regions. This paper aims to contribute to the research on tourism destination networks by focusing on multiple ownership, or portfolio entrepreneurship, when more than one small or micro business within a specific destination are owned by the same entrepreneur. Courtown, in Ireland and Göreme in Turkey are presented as two case studies in which the existence of multiple owners was identified. The implications of multiple ownership on tourism operation …

Broadening The Entrepreneurial Perspective, Ziene Mottiar, Sarah Ingle

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In this paper entrepreneurial literature is combined with industrial district literature to try and explain regional success in an Irish industrial sector. A new approach called interpreneurship is introduced as an explanatory concept for regional success in an Irish case study. A number of conclusions are drawn regarding the extent to which the interpreneurship approach is valid and the authors recommend that this is an important concept for further research.

Lifestyle Entrepreneurs And Spheres Of Inter-Firm Relations: The Case Of Westport Co. Mayo, Ireland, Ziene Mottiar

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A relatively small body of literature in tourism which concentrates on the issues of small firms and entrepreneurs and ‘this area of inquiry is vastly under-researched’ (Thomas, 2004, p.1). A key piece of research (Rimmington et al, 1999) classifies entrepreneurs in the tourism sector and one category which has received research attention has been that of lifestyle entrepreneurs. This article outlines the literature on lifestyle entrepreneurs and concludes that much of the focus to date has been on the individual entrepreneur. This current paper investigates how lifestyle entrepreneurs interact with other entrepreneurs in the destination in which they operate, and …

City Break Motivation: The Case Of Dublin, A Successful National Capital, Gerard Dunne, Sheila Flanagan, Joan Buckley

Articles

This paper investigates why people take city break trips. The main objective of the study was to reveal the underlying push and pull motivational factors associated with taking a city break holiday to Dublin. In-depth interviews with 40 city break visitors uncovered six push factors and eight pull factors. The main push motives involved were, ‘escape,’ ‘socialising,’ and ‘self esteem (gift giving).’ City breaks were generally viewed as active or ‘doing’ holidays, with the ‘relaxation’ motive hardly featuring at all as a reason to visit. Pull factors were found to be particularly important in terms of the travel decision. Factors …

Thermal Effectiveness Characteristics Of Low Approach Indirect Evaporative Cooling Systems In Buildings, Ben Costelloe, Donal Finn

Articles

Meteorological enthalpy analysis of temperate and maritime climates above latitude 45°N suggests that the water-side evaporative cooling technique has considerable unrealised potential with contemporary “high temperature” building cooling systems—such as chilled ceilings and displacement ventilation. As low approach conditions are the key to exploiting the cooling potential of the ambient air, thermal performance at such conditions needs to be investigated. To address the research issues, an industrial scale test rig, based on a low approach open cooling tower and plate heat exchanger and designed to maximise evaporative cooling potential, has been constructed. The thermal effectiveness of such systems (as a …

Muhammad's Social Justice Or Muslim Cant?: Langdellianism And The Failures Of Islamic Finance, Haider Ala Hamoudi

Articles

Though it is advertised and promoted as the bulwark of an alternative economic system based on populist Muslim notions of social justice and fairness, Islamic finance as a practice has failed to meet these objectives. The causes of that failure and the question of whether alternative approaches are possible are the subject of this Article.

The failure of Islamic finance to provide that which it promotes is the direct consequence of the application of an Islamic logic driven interpretive system through which rules are derived, which its adherents claim was formalized and systematized by the early jurist Muhammad Ibn Idris …