Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Surf-N-Turf, But The Sustainable Kind? The Limits And Potential Of Market-Driven Regulation In Food Production, Zdravka Tzankova

Zdravka Tzankova

This article examines the dynamics and likely effects of NGO efforts at private, market-driven regulation of antibiotics use in US agriculture. Such NGO efforts aim to eliminate the routine feeding of antibiotics to healthy animals for the purposes of prophylaxis and growth promotion. To that end, NGOs are pressing large food retailers, who are some of the most powerful market actors, to demand antibiotic- free meat and to refuse selling meat produced with sub-therapeutic use of antibiotics.

Curbing agricultural overuse of antibiotics is critically important for public health because overuse erodes the curative power of antibiotics by creating antibiotic resistant …

In The Jungle Of Cities [Review Of The Book Harold Washington And The Neighborhoods: Progressive City Reform In Chicago, 1983-1987], Nick Salvatore

Nick Salvatore

[Excerpt] At first glance such a spatial transformation of work may seem positive, as indeed it was for the largely white work force that left the city and staffed these new positions. But left behind geographically, economically, and socially were the largely black (and to a lesser extent, Mexican) working-class residents. It was at this juncture, with jobs disappearing and the urban social structure fragmented, that black Chicago, symbolized in the person of Harold Washington, finally assumed political power. In Harold Washington and the Neighborhoods, editors Pierre Clavel and Wim Wiewel have collected a group of essays that examine the …

The Politics Of Human Resource Management In Implementing Process Innovation, Michael Zanko, Richard Badham, Maren Schubert

Michael Zanko

This paper analyses a longitudinal case study of organizational and human resource management (HRM) dimensions in the implementation of an approach to product development (concurrent engineering (CE)) in a multinational firm engaged in defence electronics. Most aspects of managing product development in CE are linked to people management. Yet in this case, other than project team structure, prescriptive HRM dimensions of CE received little attention in the implementation process. This failure to address the 'formal' prescribed HRM issues is explained by a multilayer analysis of the play of power and political lobbying among 'stakeholders' over time: the HRM function, key …

The Politics Of Sociotechnical Intervention: An Interactionist View, Karin Garrety, R Badham

Karin Garrety

In this article, we apply concepts from symbolic interactionism - a well-established tradition of interpretivist sociology - to investigate the social and political processes involved in a sociotechnical intervention. The intervention was designed to elicit operator involvement in an experimental trial of an advanced manufacturing system at an industrial site in Australia. The interactionist concepts of social worlds, boundary objects and trajectories are used to explore the interrelationships among the theoretical, practical and contextual elements of intervention. We believe that these concepts are flexible intellectual resources that can extend and enrich our understanding of the politics involved in the shaping …

Humanistic Redesign And Technological Politics In Organizations, R. Badham, Karin Garrety, Christina Kirsch

Karin Garrety

The political nature of technology design and implementation is explicitly addressed in human centered projects to introduce technologies that support job enrichment, group autonomy and industrial democracy. Yet the political meaning of such projects does not simply manifest itself in pure form from the methods employed or the intentions of the humanistic actors but, rather, from the complex configuration of these and other factors present in the design and implementation context. This paper illustrates this theme in an analysis of a case study human centered project. It argues that an improved understanding of the configurational politics surrounding such projects is …

Rebels Without Applause: Time, Politics And Irony In Action Research, R J. Badham, Karin Garrety, M. Zanko

Karin Garrety

Purpose of this paper: This paper seeks to raise for discussion and reflection some of the key dynamics of action research projects-in-practice. It focuses in particular on how action researchers broker academic and client interests, and how this brokering shifts over time. Design/methodology/approach: The paper is based on participant observation, drawing on the reflective and processual accounts of action researchers involved in a collaborative academic-industry-government project. Findings: The paper argues that the scope of action research projects to effectively address the needs of both audiences is compromised by managerialism in universities and organizations. However, the emergent and chaotic nature of …

Organizational Change Stories And Management Research: Facts Or Fiction, Patrick M. Dawson

Patrick Dawson

Company change stories are often constructed around a linear series of ‘successful’ events which serve to show the company in a positive light to any interested external party. These stories of company success sanitise this process and offer data for change experts to formulate neat linear prescriptions on how to best manage change. This position is criticised in this paper which draws on processual case study data to argue that change is a far more complex muddied political process consisting of competing histories and ongoing multiple change narratives which may vie for dominance in seeking to be the change story. …

The Way It Really Happened: Competing Narratives In The Political Process Of Technological Change, Patrick M. Dawson, D. Buchanan

Patrick Dawson

Corporate narratives concerning technological change are often constructed around a linear series of events that show the organization in a positive light to internal and external observers. These narratives often sanitize the change process, and present data from which commentators can formulate neat linear prescriptions on how to implement new technology. In contrast, this paper draws on processual-contextual theoretical perspectives to argue that technological change is a more complex political process represented by multiple ongoing narratives which compete with each other for dominance as definitive change accounts. A central aim of this paper, therefore, is to demonstrate the analytical significance …

Agrarian Reform And Philippine Political Development, Frede G. Moreno, Susana Evangelista Leones

Frede G Moreno

Landownership problem and control of resources remains as a political development issue in the Philippines. Agrarian reform is a necessary condition for agricultural modernization and rural industrialization and the fundamental mooring for global competition. Agrarian Reform has contributed to improvement of the socio-economic conditions of landless farmers and political development of the Philippines in terms of engaging the landless in the process of policy making and distribution of large private landholdings to the landless. Modalities giving peasants a stake in society such as decisive role in agrarian legislations, engaging them in dialogue to resolve agrarian cases, presenting manifesto pinpointing their …

The Sidelining Of Top It Executives In The Governance Of Outsourcing: Antecedents, Power Struggles, And Consequences, Subrata Chakrabarty, Dwayne Whitten

Subrata Chakrabarty

Contesting The Dinosaur Image: The Labor Movement’S Search For A Future, Richard W. Hurd

Richard W Hurd

[Excerpt] But the increased effectiveness of labor's political activities has not resulted in major improvements legislatively, and now there is a hostile President who opposes nearly every aspect of the union policy agenda. The promise for the future lies in the demonstrated ability to mobilize at the grassroots. But there are recent signs that national unions are breaking ranks and pursuing narrow self interest. The USWA joined with the steel industry to persuade the Bush administration to restrict imports, and even hinted at a possible endorsement for his reelection in 2004 (Murray). The UMWA has praised the president's energy policy, …

The Convergence Of Ifrs In China: A View On The Influence Of Political Ideology On Chinese Accounting Profession, Y. Zhang, J. Andrew, H. W. Collier

Henry Collier

A historical perspective lens may be useful to help people understand the world of accounting and accounting research. Some believe that the role that accounting plays in current society could be better understood by reviewing its historical association with the institutionalization development within which it operates. Accounting as it is practiced in capitalist system has been predominately viewed as a technical and context-free activity. However, if a meta-level concern addressing broad structural and institutional environment from which accounting emanated is absent, there must be doubt that the conventional accounting can claim to be comprehensible and to contain true information. This …