bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
From Intergovernmental Bargaining to Deliberative Political Processes: The Constitutionalisation of Comitology
Authors: Joerges Christian , Neyer Jürgen
Published: March 2003

Abstract: This article argues that the irresistible rise of Comitology is an institutional response to the deep‐seated tensions between the dual supranational and intergovernmentalist structure of the Community on the one hand, and its problem‐solving tasks on the other. Comitology has accordingly provided a forum in which problems are addressed through evolving and novel processes of interest formation and decision‐making. However, neither legal nor political science have been able properly to evaluate the workings of the committee system, both disciplines remaining trapped within normative structures and traditional methodologies ill‐suited to the analysis of these institutional innovations. As a consequence, this article advocates the trans‐disciplinary study of Comitology, and furthermore argues that the two disciplines might be drawn together by the concept of ‘deliberative supranationalism’: being on the one hand a normative approach which seeks both to preserve the legitimacy of national democracies and to set limits upon the traditional Nation State within a supranational community; and on the other, a theoretical tool which is nonetheless responsive to and accomodating of ‘real‐world’ phenomena.
The Fall and Renewal of the Commission: Accountability, Contract and Administrative Organisation
Authors: Craig Paul
Published: March 2003

The fall of the Santer Commission, prompted by the Report of the Committee of Independent Experts, sent shock waves throughout the entire Community. This article seeks to examine the nature of the problems which beset the Commission, to place these within the broader context of decision‐making by public bodies, and to consider also the responsibilities of the Council and European Parliament for the delivery of agreed Community policies. The article analyses in detail the Reports of the Committee of Independent Experts, and the subsequent reforms initiated by the Prodi Commission, in order to assess the prospects for improved service delivery in the future.
On the Technology of Collective Identity: Normative Reconstructions of the Concept of EU Citizenship
Authors: Prentoulis Nikos
Published: March 2003

The unsatisfactory present of European Union Citizenship and the unclear integration telos have given rise to many questions regarding the future of the European Citizen and the possibility of a European demos. On what sort of foundation can such a demos be constructed, and what will its relationship with national demoi be? This article presents the theoretical approaches on the future of EU citizenship, varying from civic‐centered thesis to social models, with a view to exploring the potential and dynamics of a different European identity based, not on supposedly common history and culture, but on newly‐founded shared political values. The aim is to go beyond the classic federation–confederation dilemma and look deeper into the process of creating an actual European demos.
Application of artificial neural networks for the development of a signal monitoring system
Authors: Keyvan Shahla , Durg Ajaya , Nagaraj Jyothi
Published: March 2003

A prototype of a Signal Monitoring System (SMS) utilizing artificial neural networks is developed in this work. The prototype system is unique in: 1) its utilization of state‐of‐the‐art technology in pattern recognition such as the Adaptive Resonance Theory family of neural networks, and 2) the integration of neural network results of pattern recognition and fault identification databases.

The system is developed in an X‐windows environment that offers an excellent Graphical User Interface (GUI). Motif software is used to build the GUI. The system is user‐friendly, menu‐driven, and allows the user to select signals and paradigms of interest. The system provides the status or condition of the signals tested as either normal or faulty. In the case of faulty status, SMS, through an integrated database, identifies the fault and indicates the progress of the fault relative to the normal condition as well as relative to the previous tests.

Nuclear reactor signals from an Experimental Breeder Reactor are analyzed to closely represent actual reactor operational data. The signals are both measured signals collected by a Data Acquisition System as well as simulated signals.
Learning classifier system for graph coloring
Authors: Ezziane Zoheir
Published: March 2003

In this paper, the use of genetic algorithms and classifiers systems in the graph coloring application was considered. A crossover derivative was developed to accommodate the graph coloring specifications. Also, a method for verifying and validating the new offspring coloring rules and regulations was considered. Through a series of experiments conducted on randomly generated graphs of a relatively small size, the importance of various parameters and their impact to the overall system performance is demonstrated and discussed. In conclusion, suggestions for future study regarding this topic are proposed and briefly discussed.
Hybrid artificial intelligence approach to urban planning
Authors: Feng Shan , Xu Li D
Published: March 2003

Knowledge‐based modeling and implementation of the various urban planning processes represent an intensive research area. This paper presents a hybrid artificial intelligence system using a knowledge‐based approach, neural networks and fuzzy logic that automates the decision‐making process in urban planning. The system is used for developing urban development alternatives based on real‐world data. Results show that, by integrating knowledge‐based systems, artificial neural networks and fuzzy systems, the system achieves improvements in the implementation of each respective system as well as an increase in the breadth of functionality within the application. With this approach, the best of three technologies can be compiled together to solve complex urban problems. We discuss the structure of the combined technologies, as well as providing examples of its application in the field of urban development.
Feedforward networks in financial predictions: the future that modifies the present
Authors: Budcema Massimo , Luigi Sacco Pier
Published: March 2003

The main goal of this paper is to show how relatively minor modifications of well‐known algorithms (in particular, back propagation) can dramatically increase the performance of an artificial neural network (ANN) for time series prediction. We denote our proposed sets of modifications as the ’self‐momentum’, ’Freud’ and ’Jung’ rules. In our opinion, they provide an example of an alternative approach to the design of learning strategies for ANNs, one that focuses on basic mathematical conceptualization rather than on formalism and demonstration. The complexity of actual prediction problems makes it necessary to experiment with modelling possibilities whose inherent mathematical properties are often not well understood yet. The problem of time series prediction in stock markets is a case in point. It is well known that asset price dynamics in financial markets are difficult to trace, let alone to predict with an operationally interesting degree of accuracy. We therefore take financial prediction as a meaningful test bed for the validation of our techniques. We discuss in some detail both the theoretical underpinnings of the technique and our case study about financial prediction, finding encouraging evidence that supports the theoretical and operational viability of our new ANN specifications. Ours is clearly only a preliminary step. Further developments of ANN architectures with more and more sophisticated ’learning to learn’ characteristics are now under study and test.
Monitoring the supply of products in a supply chain environment: a fuzzy neural approach
Authors: Lau H.C.W. , Hui I.K. , Chan Felix T.S. , Wong Christina W.Y.
Published: March 2003

Fuzzy logic principles and neural networks, both being computational intelligence technologies, can be combined to produce synergetic effects through the formation of a unified approach which takes advantage of the benefits and at the same time counterbalances the flaws of the two technologies. In this paper, a fuzzy neural approach, which is characterized by its ability to suggest the appropriate adjustment of product quantity from various suppliers with different quality standards in a supply chain network, is presented. This approach is particularly useful in situations where multiple supply chain partners are involved to achieve the common objective of producing products to the best satisfaction of customer demands at the lowest possible cost. To validate the feasibility of this approach, a test has been conducted based on the proposed fuzzy neural approach with the objective of suggesting the appropriate selection of suppliers and the optimal quantity allocated to them to meet the required quality standards. This paper describes the methodology for the deployment of this proposed hybrid approach to enhance the machine intelligence of a supply chain network with the description of a case study to exemplify its underlying principles.
An Interpretive Inquiry of Accounting Practices in Religious Organisations
Authors: Abdul‐Rahman Abdul Rahim , Goddard Andrew
Published: March 2003

This paper reports the study of accounting practices as embedded in two religious organisations in Malaysia. The research is an attempt to study accounting practices in a cultural setting that has not been the subject of previous interpretive accounting research. The study also makes a contribution towards the need for accounting research to become more explanatory of accounting as social practice wherein theory is both informed, and is developed by observation. This is achieved by developing grounded theory from the data and is in accordance with recent calls for case studies in accounting research to be more concerned with producing social theories of accounting practice.
Purchaser Provider Relationships and Innovation: A Case Study of GP Purchasing in Glasgow
Authors: Fischbacher Moira , Francis Arthur
Published: March 2003

NHS reforms have been the subject of much debate in recent years. Evidence from the purchaser provider arrangements is fragmented and limited in its conclusions. This paper presents research focusing on the relationship which has developed, demonstrating how GP fundholders and NHS Trusts have been engaged in mutual education, partnerships, purchasing, and designing services. It identifies considerable scope for innovation and learning at the interface between primary and secondary care and concludes that policy developments need to recognize and build on the achievements which have been made during recent years so as to optimize future collaborative potential.
Constituent Participation in the Australian Public Sector Accounting Standard‐Setting Process: The Case of ED 55
Authors: Ryan Chrisine , Dunstan Keitha , Stanley Trevor
Published: March 2003

The Australian public sector has recently undergone a period of intense reform including a comprehensive reform of financial reporting policies. A major aspect of this reform is the involvement of the Australian accounting profession in the formulation of financial reporting standards through the Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (PSASB). Despite this extensive change, scant research has examined constituent participation in the Australian public sector accounting standard‐setting ‘due process’. This paper considers the regulatory model adopted for accounting standard‐setting in the public sector in Australia and identifies the implications of this model for constituent access to the ‘due process’. In particular, the co‐operation between the PSASB and the various regulatory bodies in each Australian jurisdiction suggests that these bodies may have more direct influence over the standard‐setters than other constituents. The submissions made on ED 55 Financial Reporting by Government Departments are examined as a case study of the ‘due process’ as it operates in the public sector. Different constituent groups were found to respond in varying proportions, to hold conflicting positions on some issues contained in ED 55 and to use different strategies to present these positions. The research identifies a lack of input by the major group affected by the proposed standard, the account preparers (government departments). In addition, account preparers which did respond to ED 55 were found to use less sophisticated lobbying strategies than other respondents who weighted their responses by commenting on a greater number of issues and by supporting their position with conceptual arguments. These results support the contention that some constituents have favourable access to the ‘due process’ and that standard‐setters may not have received all pertinent information from affected and/or knowledgeable constituents.
Use of CCA in the Public Sector: Lessons From Australia’s Experience With Public Utilities
Authors: Walker R. G. , Clarke F. L. , Dean G. W.
Published: March 2003

The background to the widespread adoption by Australian public trading enterprises of a deprival value variant of current cost accounting reflects successive efforts to establish demanding rate of return targets, or to legitimise price increases, or to monitor the financial performance of PTEs on a national basis. The experience of three public utilities in implementing CCA is reviewed. This experience suggests that CCA valuation of infrastructure (using deprival or optimized deprival values) is unable to deliver financial data to permit valid cross‐sectional and longitudinal comparisons of performance. Issues raised during the 1970s and 1980s debates about CCA were either ignored or overlooked.
Is Financial Stress an Incentive for the Adoption of Businesslike Planning and Control in Local Government? A Comparative Study of Eight Dutch Municipalities
Authors: Van Helden G. Jan
Published: March 2003

Hood has formulated the hypothesis that financial stress is a motive for the adoption of New Public Management (NPM), and particularly of businesslike instruments and styles in government. He has illustrated this hypothesis on a macro‐level by comparing different OECD countries. The aim of this paper is to make a start with a micro‐level test of this hypothesis by studying individual governmental organization, i.e. eight municipalities in the Netherlands. The financial stress hypothesis has been operationalised by assuming a negative relationship between the financial position of a municipality and the existence of businesslike planning and control instruments. The research shows that there is no evidence for the existence of this relationship. However, a conclusive judgement about the financial stress hypothesis seems to be impossible due to the fact that non‐technical aspects of NPM were not taken into account, and also because of an – on average – upward bias in the financial position of the municipalities in the empirical investigation.
Macro‐accounting and Micro‐accounting Relationships in France
Authors: Lande Evelyne
Published: March 2003

This paper discusses the interaction between national accounting and micro‐accounting processes and highlights a very specific French characteristic in terms of accounting standardisation: the predominant role played by the State in the standardisation process. This may be explained by the French State's tradition of centralisation, dating back to the Napoleonic period and still very much present. Nonetheless, this high degree of centralisation and co‐ordination of the accounting standardisation processes has not resulted in a uniform accounting procedure for all sectors of activity. However, these differences may become gradually less marked, as the main short‐term objective of a newly‐reorganised body responsible for co‐ordinating accounting standards is to provide for a coherent body of doctrine that takes into account the specific characteristics of all the different sectors.
‘Between Business and Community’: A Rural Co‐op and Its Accounting Practice
Authors: Westerdahl Stig
Published: March 2003

A rural co‐op in the north of Sweden has grown from a tiny development‐group to a small business venture with houses, a shop and an old‐age home. This progress is here described focusing on the accounting practice. Field‐studies, including participatory methods and interviews, depict a co‐op torn between their founding ideas on shaping a good life in the area, and an increasing focus on business. This tension is also reflected in their usage of accounting. The conclusion of the study is that identity and accounting are shown to be mutually inter‐linked. It is further argued, drawing on ethnomethodological concepts, that the main asset in the development, a community based on trust, cannot be mirrored in the formal accounts. The alternative is approaches more akin to narratives.
Influence of Value for Money Audit on Public Administrations: Looking Beyond Appearances
Authors: Morin Danielle
Published: March 2003

Value for money (VFM) auditing will soon have been part of the control environment in European and North American public administrations for thirty years, yet, despite its many interesting features, it has received very little attention from researchers. Chief among the VFM audit'sstill unexplored features, would doubtless be the value of its performance as an instrument to control and improve the management of public affairs. In order to partially fill this research gap, I am proposing 14 indicators to measure the effectiveness of VFM audits. But I don't stop there, for pointing out the successes or failures of VFM audits would finally be futile unless one also pointed to their causes. So, turning my attention to causes, I also propose 11 factors which can be used to explain the successes of Auditors General in carrying out VFM audits of public organizations as well as their inevitable failures.
New Labour and the Modernisation of British Local Government: A Critique
Authors: Midwinter Arthur
Published: March 2003

The modernisation agenda for local government is based on questionable political assumptions. It has the attributes of a theological concept. This paper examines the concept of modernisation of local government by focusing on three dimensions (1) governance, (2) management and (3) finance. This analysis suggests the modernisation agenda is limited in scope and vision.
The Best Value Agenda for Auditing
Authors: Percy Ian
Published: March 2003

The developments in the public sector auditing can be seen against a backcloth of adverse publicity for private sector audits. This focus on the private sector has meant public sector developments have gone largely unnoticed. The advocacy of Best Value is a logical and useful development in addressing the needs of the citizen with an active interest in the public sector.
Muscular Catholicism: Nationalism, Masculinity and Gaelic Team Sports, 1884–1916
Authors: McDevitt Patrick F.
Published: March 2003

This article examines the highly gendered nature of the games of hurling and Gaelic football as propagated by the Gaelic Athletic Association from 1884 to 1916 and the relationship of these games to conceptions of nationalism, the body, anti‐colonialism, and memories of the Great Famine. Through the discourses surrounding these games, and other facets of the Irish renaissance, a nationalist conception of Irish masculinity emerged which distinguished Irish men from English men, Irish boys and Irish women. In this moment of self‐definition, nationalist goals were sought not in parliament or on the battlefield but on the playing fields.
The Ideology of the Eunuch Priest
Authors: Roller Lynn E.
Published: March 2003

Roller explores the evidence for eunuch priests who castrated themselves to honour the Great Mother Goddess Cybele. While the custom of sacred eunuchism originated in Phrygia (in central Turkey), such priests are best attested in Greek and Roman society, where they were viewed with disgust and loathing because of their asexual condition and because they adopted the dress, hairstyles and mannerisms of women. The negative reactions to the eunuch priest rest on an unspoken assumption of the superiority of masculine appearance and of the inviolability of appropriate gender roles for men and women.
Re(ge)ndering Gender(ed) Studies
Authors: Sharrock Alison
Published: March 2003

McAuslan, Ian and Walcot, Peter (eds) Women in Antiquity

Archer, Leonie J., Fischler, Susan and Wyke, Maria (eds) Women in Ancient Societies: ‘An Illusion of the Night’

Hawley, Richard and Levick, Barbara (eds) Women in Antiquity: New Assessments

Richlin, Amy (ed.) Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome

Sorkin Rabinowitz, Nancy and Richlin, Amy (eds) Feminist Theory and the Classics

Reeder, Ellen D. Pandora: Women in Classical Greece
Rereading Rape and Sexual Violence in Early Modern England
Authors: Walker Garthine
Published: March 2003

In the early modern period, the inapplicability of certain discourses of sex and violence impeded allegations of rape whilst facilitating denials of rape. Women who asserted rape (and men who spoke out in support) engendered those same discourses which incriminated them with their own semantic and expressive intent. Male violence was stressed and feminine agency discursively denied in these accounts. Sex was largely occluded, except when it appeared in particular forms: when rape was conceptualised as the tragic antithesis of healthy, procreational sex; through metaphors which implied the violation of a woman's most private boundaries; and as a brutal expression of unrelenting, and often obsessive, masculine love. Rape narratives produced in legal contexts cannot provide evidence of repressed memory. But they can demonstrate how, from a position of weakness, women nevertheless attempted to negotiate their way through a web of cultural restrictions.
The Difficulties of Gender in France: Reflections on a Concept
Authors: Riot‐Sarcey Michèle
Published: March 2003

This article examines the cultural and institutional resistance to the use of gender as a category in French historiography. In France, history, and, more specifically, women's history, has not really assimilated the openings offered by the problematics of the construction of differences, nor the logical consequences of the use of gender. Cultural differences are partly responsible for this, and the polysemic nature of the word genre may add to the confusion. With a few exceptions, women's history in France is reluctant to engage in a historical analysis which would take into account the founding role of hierarchy and of relations of power and difference which are central to gender.
Close Relations? Bringing Together Gender and Family in English History
Authors: Doolittle Megan
Published: March 2003

There have been surprisingly few historical interpretations of English history which knit together both family and gender. Family history remains dominated by empirical, local or comparative approaches, rooted in paradigms of modernisation, struggling to respond to longstanding feminist critiques. Gender history, while deeply concerned with questioning history's grand narratives and methodological assumptions, seems to have avoided much exploration of family life. It is this gulf and the ways it is being bridged which are explored in this article, in the context of English historiography of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, firstly by seeking explanations for each approach's reluctance to engage with the other, and secondly by tracing their points of convergence and cross‐fertilisation.
Did Women Have a Transformation of the Roman World?
Authors: Smith Julia M. H.
Published: March 2003

Despite intense and interdisciplinary interest in the transition from antiquity to the middle ages, work on women and gender generally remains marginal to the dominant paradigms for understanding political and social change in the period from c. 300 to c. 800 ce. This article critiques these interpretations from a gendered perspective and also reviews recent work on women and gender in late antiquity, Byzantium and the early medieval Europe. By outlining similarities and contrasts between women's lives in early medieval western and Byzantine cultures, it emphasises the diversity of women's experience. Suggestions about how to envisage a fully gendered history of this period conclude with a call for radically new approaches to the study of the transformation of the Roman world.
Eugenics, Sterilisation and Modern Marriage in the USA: The Strange Career of Paul Popenoe
Authors: Ladd‐Taylor Molly
Published: March 2003

This article uses the fifty‐year career of Paul Popenoe as a lens through which to examine the North American eugenics movement. Popenoe, a leading advocate of compulsory sterilisation in the 1930s, became a celebrated marriage counsellor in the 1950s, famous for the Ladies' Home Journal feature ‘Can This Marriage Be Saved?’ The ease with which Popenoe metamorphosed from a champion of sterilisation to an expert on marriage was made possible by, and helps to reveal, deep ideological affinities and organisational connections between eugenics and marriage counselling in the United States.
Constructing Women and Smoking as a Public Health Problem in Britain 1950–1990s
Authors: Berridge Virginia
Published: March 2003

Historical analysis of the topic of women and smoking has concentrated on the early part of the twentieth century and on the challenge which smoking by ‘new women’ or ‘flappers’ offered to dominant notions of womanly behaviour. This paper considers, rather, the dominant constructions of women and smoking in the UK offered through the prism of changing versions of public health in the last fifty years. The construction of women and smoking, it is argued, has been emblematic of those policy agendas within public health and has borne a reciprocal relationship to them. The traditional view of women as mothers has been renegotiated and redefined through the new scientific alliances of late twentieth‐century public health. These constructions have helped to set the parameters of discussion within which policy has been made.
Citizens and Scientists: Toward a Gendered History of Scientific Practice in Post‐revolutionary France
Authors: Harrison Carol E.
Published: March 2003

Because the French Revolution failed to produce a widely acceptable definition of citizenship, the limits of manhood suffrage in the early nineteenth century were uncertain. Social practices, in particular scientific activity, served as claims to the status of citizen. By engaging in scientific pastimes, bourgeois Frenchmen asserted that they possessed the rationality and autonomy that liberal theorists associated both with manliness and with civic capacity. However, bourgeois science was never a stable signifier of masculinity or of competence. As professional science emerged, the bourgeois amateur increasingly became the feminised object of satire rather than the sober and meritorious citizen‐scientist.
Fashion, the Politics of Style and National Identity in Pre–Fascist and Fascist Italy
Authors: Paulicelli Eugenia
Published: March 2003

The essay offers an analysis of fashion and its bearing on the construction of national identity and politics of style during fascism in Italy. No recent work on fascism has analysed the role of fashion in the complex and contradictory phases of the cultural politics of Mussolini’s regime. The essay aims to illustrate the two sides of fashion and their relevance to the period in question. It shows, on the one hand, how the regime used fashion to discipline the social body, especially women’s, and to create a national style recognisable as such; and, on the other, how fashion is also an individual act through which was expressed the creativity both of the people working in the fashion industry and of ordinary people who used fashion and style to demonstrate their non–conformity with the diktats of the regime. Pointing out that it was as a result of the debate on nationalism of the pre–fascist liberal period that premises for fascist policy were set, the essay argues that the history of fascist fashion policy is one of continuities rather than ruptures.
Changing Equality Cultures to Move Beyond ‘Women’s Problems’
Authors: Liff Sonia , Cameron Ivy
Published: March 2003

Conventional equality measures have made a limited impact on women’s position in the workforce. This is not simply the result of measures being inadequately pursued. Instead, this paper argues, there is a more fundamental difficulty with the policy approach: that it focuses on women as having problems which need to be redressed rather than on changing organizations. As a result women are seen as inadequate and men become resentful of the ‘special treatment’ that follows. Changing these perceptions requires cultural change which cannot be achieved via conventional personnel‐based equality initiatives. Many organizations are looking for new ways to present and pursue equality programmes such as a stress on providing a ‘business case’ or through a consideration of the value of workforce diversity. The paper assesses the ability of these initiatives to change the culture for equality. It argues that many organizations are merely pursuing a defensive approach which centres on language change and modified initiatives rather than new approaches to winning consent. In contrast it argues that culture change will only be achieved through a more pro‐active approach. Various initiatives such as skills audits and training for men are discussed which indicate what can be done in practice.
How Women Socially Construct Leadership in Organizations: A Study Using Memory Work
Authors: Boucher Carlene
Published: March 2003

In this study, a group of Australian female leaders (including the author), collaboratively explored their early memories of leadership using the memory work method (Haug 1987, 1992; Crawford et al. 1992). From this exploration, they developed theories about how they socially construct leadership in organizations.

They explored their early memories of leadership, and from these, identified how their social constructions are located within the dominant construction of white male Australian leadership. They also examined how their constructions are based in the family, and are dominated by notions of services and sacrifice, and the absence of men. They also identified the ways they resist these constructions, such as holding strong values and remaining connected to themselves and to others. The costs of this resistance include self‐doubt and a reluctance to describe themselves as leaders.

Research like this threatens traditional models and theories of leadership (Burrell and Morgan 1987) and opens up the possibility that research, of itself, can change the ways leadership is experienced, acted out and talked about.
The Politics of Equal Opportunity
Authors: Webb Janette
Published: March 2003

This paper reviews changes in the concept of ‘equal opportunities’ over the last twenty years and discusses the implications for women’s experiences in the workplace. The shift to notions of diversity and difference as the motif for equality initiatives reflects the right‐wing critique of bureaucratic control and regulation of labour markets, embodied in 1970s' EO policies. ‘Diversity’ symbolizes the employer’s freedom from constraint in selecting and deploying the best ‘talent’ regardless of sex, ethnicity or disability. Ironically the radical feminist agenda, which asserts women’s differences from men and their potential for creating a better world, had been adapted to the concerns of liberal feminism with providing a rationale for the promotion of women into management, on the grounds that women’s nurturing capacities contribute to the diversity needed by post‐modern organizations. A case study of a transnational computer and measurement systems manufacturer is used to illustrate the limited capacity of a market‐driven version of diversity to dismantle the hierarchical gender order and its tendency to reinforce the ideology of competitive individualism with its white, male norms. In conclusion it is argued that we need to move beyond the ultimately limiting debate about whether women are the same as or different from men to a renewed concern with the material conditions of women’s lives and with the construction of equality initiatives which address the continuing exclusion of many women from adequate standards of living.
Occupational Stress, Burnout and Job Status in Female Academics
Authors: Doyle Christine , Hind Patricia
Published: March 2003

The study investigated perceived occupational stress in a sample of 582 academic staff members working in institutions of higher education in the UK. Data was collected using the Maslach Burnout Inventory (Maslach and Jackson 1986), The Job Diagnostic Survey (Hackman and Oldham 1974) and the Faculty Stress Index (Gmelch et al. 1986). The results indicate that women academics perceive the structure and content of their jobs similarly to men. However, women generally experience higher overall levels of stress in their jobs and results indicate that they may cope better with the demands placed upon them than their male counterparts. There is some evidence of the presence of a ‘glass ceiling’ in the institutions studied, with women holding more junior positions, and remaining in them longer, than men. A difference in effect size was found between those women who do achieve senior positions and men in similar posts. Higher grades predict greater job strain for women but not for men. The results from this study suggest fruitful avenues for future research.
Appraising a Dichotomy: A Review of ‘Part‐time/Full‐time’ in the Study of Women's Employment in Britain
Authors: Warren Tracey , Walters Pat
Published: March 2003

A key theme in women's studies is the move away from an over‐reliance on treating the sexes as two separate groups onto theorizing diversity amongst women. The limitations of a ‘sexual dichotomism’ in the face of diversity is well‐recognized, yet in mainstream research into women's experiences diversity is far from being a popular area of study. The tendency in the literature on women's employment is still to oversimplify any divisions into broad groupings, and in particular into dichotomies. Focusing on the popular dichotomy of part‐time/full‐time employment, the paper highlights two roles that the dichotomy has been expected to perform. The success it has achieved and the problems it has faced in performing these two roles are examined. The conclusion is that whilst the part‐time/full‐time dichotomy is particularly valuable in depicting two differentiated labour market positions, a move beyond the dichotomy would facilitate a greater understanding of the variations in women's employment experiences over the life‐course. The theoretical progression from dichotomizing to disaggregation is ready to happen in the field of women's employment.
Women's Employment in Transition, 1992–4: the Case of Poland
Authors: Gregory Abigail , Ingham Mike , Ingham Hilary
Published: March 2003

Since the early 1990s the Polish economy has, in the move towards a market economy, undergone substantial economic reforms which resulted initially in a severe recession and notably in widespread unemployment. In a country where women have traditionally played a major role in the workforce it is pertinent to ask how their role has been affected during the early years of transition to a market economy, what factors explain this, and what their employment prospects are likely to be in a free market economy. After sketching the key features of women's employment in Poland pre‐transition the article then addresses these questions using data drawn mainly from the Labour Force Surveys of 1992 and 1994. It finds that women's labour market position has been changing and in 1994 could be said to be mixed: while on the one hand it seems to be deteriorating (rising rates of inactivity and unemployment, the feminization of part‐time work), on the other women seem to have been relatively protected from the worst effects of marketization and are in a better position than men according to some unemployment indicators. Prospects for women's employment under a free market economy also appear to be mixed, with much depending on whether the Polish government introduces a framework of national measures to support and encourage women who enter into paid employment.
Gendering the Management of Change in Higher Education: A Case Study
Authors: Goode Jackie , Bagilhole Barbara
Published: March 2003

This article reports an investigation into the influence of gender at a pre‐1992 UK university. Interviews with Heads of Departments and others defined as occupying ‘middle management’ positions reveal three distinct stances to the new higher education, of ‘collaboration’, ‘resistance’ and ‘transformation’ and the article explores how gender influences these stances. It attempts to move beyond a simple focus on gender differences, towards answering Bacchi's (1990) call for ‘a more useful political analysis (which) would draw attention to the way in which the current economic system encourages certain behaviours and discourages others’. It shows that women academics are taking a transformational stance, but that the stances are not gender‐specific. Gender is institutionally embedded with other organizational characteristics, such as academic discipline, departmental size, compatibility with external commercial activity, and the ability or otherwise to generate funds. Questions are raised about the contribution of such stances to the future of the new educational order.
Work and Health: A Study of the Occupational and Domestic Roles of Women Registered Nurses and Registered Practical Nurses in Ontario, Canada
Authors: Walters Vivienne , Eyles John , Lenton Rhonda , French Susan , Beardwood Barbara
Published: March 2003

Links between work and health are explored in this study of a proportional random sample of 1190 women Registered Nurses (RNs) and 643 women Registered Practical Nurses (RPNs) in the province of Ontario, Canada. First, features of the paid and unpaid work of the RNs and RPNs are outlined. The professional status of RNs is reflected in their greater control, responsibility, accountability and tensions embedded in their relationships with physicians. In contrast, RPNs are frontline workers with fewer career opportunities, less control in their work and lower pay. There are also common elements in their nursing work: heavy workloads, exposure to hazards, and the stress of dealing with death and dying and with violent patients. The main difference with respect to the domestic sphere is the substantially higher mean household income of RNs.

Multivariate analysis is then used to explore the combined effects of paid and unpaid work on nurses' health. Exposure to hazards in nursing, time pressures with respect to home responsibilities and overall stress in life were associated with increased health problems. There is also evidence that workload issues are linked with poorer health. Social support in the form of a confiding relationship with a friend is associated with better health. One of the main differences between RNs and RPNs in the variables associated with health is in relation to children; contrary to our expectations, having one to four children is linked with better health for RNs. It is suggested that the higher household incomes of RNs may alter the nature of their home responsibilities and the interaction between the two spheres of work may differ. In conclusion, the findings are set in the context of restructuring in the healthcare sector.
Gendered Meanings of Commitment from High Technology Engineering Managers in the United Kingdom and Sweden
Authors: Singh Val , Vinnicombe Susan
Published: March 2003

This article considers why women managers are often perceived to be ‘less committed’ at work than men, through an exploration of male and female managers' meanings of ‘commitment’, to see whether their meanings are shared. Despite a large body of literature on the concept of commitment, managers' own meanings of commitment have not been reported. In general, engineers reported that they used the term ‘committed’ without defining what it meant. Their meanings were a broad composite of organizational and career commitment, focused on very strong affective commitment with almost no emphasis on continuance commitment, in contrast to the traditional (1979) definitions of commitment (Mowday et al. 1979). Results from this interview study of engineering managers and senior technologists (20 males, 17 females, 17 British, and 20 Swedish graduate engineers, from vice‐president to senior technologist) show that there are differences in male and female engineers' unprompted meanings of commitment at work, as well as differences in meaning between the three levels of management sampled. Females responded more often with less visible ‘commitment’ meanings such as involvement, being people‐concerned, and availability. More males (and top managers) used the term commitment to mean task delivery, being proactive, being innovative, adding value, and being ready for challenge. The gender differences identified in reported meanings could impact on the assessment of women's commitment, when evaluated for promotion, career development and professional chartered status by the mostly male engineering managers.
Women and Work in the Information Age
Authors: Stanworth Celia
Published: March 2003

Widespread social transformation and new class structures are predicted with the coming of the ‘information age’, but there is disagreement about the likely outcomes for work and em‐ployment patterns. Mainstream writing on the information age, both from the functionalist and Marxist traditions, tends not to consider likely consequences for women, but recent feminist research on gender and technology, treating technology as masculine culture, offers a useful framework for further research. This article argues that the information age may lead to some areas of convergence between the sexes in their experience of future work, but men may continue to defend areas of competence and to dominate the high status and powerful occupational positions of the future.
The Suffering Mother and the Miserable Son: Organizing Women and Organizing Women's Writing
Authors: Höpfl Heather
Published: March 2003

This paper examines the contribution of the writing of Julia Kristeva (1941– ) to post‐structuralist ideas about gender in organizations. In particular, it deals with the relationship between her writing and the disciplining of text and, by a parallel movement, with her writings about the body and the regulation of the body. However, it must be said that her writings are ‘extremely difficult and complex, and certainly intimidating and inaccessible to the non‐specialist’ (Lechte 1990, p. 2) but, despite this, Kristeva has come to be considered one of the foremost contemporary French thinkers and her writings have exerted a significant influence on both feminism and postmodernist ideas. Ironically, Kristeva is neither French by birth nor a feminist in the sense that the term is generally understood. Indeed, she has been highly critical of those feminists whom she regards as seeking ‘phallic power’ (Kristeva 1980, p. 208).
‘Doing Life’: Gender Relations in a Night Nursing Sub‐Culture
Authors: Brooks Ian , MacDonald Sandra
Published: March 2003

This paper explores a night nursing sub‐culture which is struggling to survive. The context is the NHS in the UK. This exclusively female group within an organization numerically dominated by women evokes hostile reactions from other cultural groups within the NHS, based on its perceived espousal of ‘female’ ways of being. Increasingly threatened by the new managerialism of the NHS, the permanent night shift faces extinction as a group. This paper describes the night nurse culture as it exists in a general hospital and offers some insights into the way that gender relations evolve to sustain male power in an organization where women are numerically dominant.
The Swedish Welfare State and the Emergence of Female Welfare State Occupations
Authors: Evertsson Lars
Published: March 2003

The Swedish welfare state has, during the twentieth century, developed into the primary guarantor of health and social services as well as economic security. As the welfare state has developed, a new group of professions has emerged which can be described as welfare state professions. In this paper I will point out a few central aspects of how female‐dominated welfare state professions have emerged and developed within the framework of the Swedish welfare state's expansion. These ideas will then be demonstrated on two female‐dominated occupations, nurses and occupational therapists, which have developed in close association with the expansion of the welfare state.

The results indicate that the emergence of a centrally planned welfare state and the occupational groups' organizational resources have been of crucial importance for the professional development of female‐dominated health and care occupations in Sweden. The welfare state has opened up new professional fields and created a stable labour market, which has provided good conditions for professional organizing. The state has also been quick to establish relationships with occupational groups whose professional competence has been deemed to be suited to the welfare political context. However, the state's interests in professional matters have often been in conflict with those of the professions themselves, regarding, for example, education, sub‐specialization and certification. One conclusion that can be drawn is that the Swedish welfare state has acted both as an engine and a brake regarding professional development and status.
The Division of Labour and Inequalities Between the Sexes: An Ideological Dilemma
Authors: Benschop Yvonne , Halsema Lilian , Schreurs Petra
Published: March 2003

This article is concerned with the different assumptions and strategies that respondents in the banking sector and the police force use to account for the existence of inequalities between men and women. We search for a perspective that can theorize the different ways in which these employees deal with the existence of inequalities. We examine conceptualizations of the division of labour and of inequalities between the sexes in mainstream organization studies and in liberal, socialist and postmodernist feminist perspectives to organization studies. While these different perspectives highlight different types and causes of inequalities, no perspective can make sense of all the organizational practices in the banks and the police force. We are of the opinion that Billig's concept of ideological dilemmas offers a fruitful starting point to reflect upon the simultaneous existence of the different concepts and provides a valuable framework for our research. It sheds light on the ideological nature of theories, analyses how people think and argue with ideology by bringing in contrary and conflicting notions and opens the possibility of engaging in open dialogue about strategies for change.