bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
What Do Ethnographers Believe?
Authors: Weeks John R.
Published: April 2009

Jones overstates his case when he labels ethnographic belief ascription as `inherently risky' and `fraught with fundamental epistemological difficulties'. The logical problem he identifies is this: ethnographic techniques of observation and interrogation cannot determine with certainty whether particular beliefs actually exist in the form of mental objects of psychological structures in the minds of subjects. But there is no evidence that ethnographers believe themselves to be describing mental objects or psychological structures in their work. The problems of accurately ascribing beliefs to others are real enough, but they are practical, not logical, and ethnography remains the best method for overcoming them.
Perceptions of Organizational Readiness for Change: Factors Related to Employees' Reactions to the Implementation of Team-Based Selling
Authors: Eby Lillian T. , Adams Danielle M. , Russell Joyce E.A. , Gaby Stephen H.
Published: April 2009

Employees' perception of their organization's readiness for large-scale change was examined in two divisions of a national sales organization transitioning to work teams. Results indicated that individual attitudes and preferences, work group and job attitudes, and contextual variables were all important in understanding readiness for change. Study findings are discussed in terms of strategies for implementing the transition to team-based work and large-scale organizational initiatives. Implications for research and theory-building are also discussed.
Employee Demography, Organizational Commitment, and Turnover Intentions in China: Do Cultural Differences Matter?
Authors: Chen Zhen Xiong , Francesco Anne Marie
Published: April 2009

This study investigates the main effect of demographic variables on organizational commitment (OC) and the moderating effect of gender and education on the relationship between OC and turnover intentions (TI) based on a survey of 333 employees in the People's Republic of China (PRC). Only position positively influenced employees' OC while other demographic variables had no main effects on OC. Gender was found to moderate the relationship between OC and TI but education did not. The results demonstrated that, under the influence of traditional Chinese culture, Chinese employees behave differently from their western counterparts. These differences were explained in terms of cultural variables, particularly, personalism and guanxi (personal relationship network).
Resisting the Discourse of Modernity: Rationality Versus Emotion in Hazardous Waste Siting
Authors: Welcomer Stephanie A. , Gioia Dennis A. , Kilduff Martin
Published: April 2009

One community's resistance to the projected siting of a hazardous waste facility provides a case study of clashing discourse between modernity's champions and its sceptics. The events and outcomes of this case raise questions about the widespread assumption that science, reason and rationality are necessarily the bases for good decisions in society. This study highlights the contemporary citizen, deeply sceptical of the rational state and modern business practice, and fearful that personal and communal identity will be threatened by forces over which local residents have no control. In this case, site developers and community members engaged in numerous rhetorical exchanges. The developers conducted their side of the discourse according to the tenets of reason and rationality. The community, however, imposed emotional interpretations on the situation, thus radically undermining the possibilities of communicative rationality and challenging the tacit `rules' of modern discourse. The public debate between the protagonists revealed emergent themes of identity disruption, mistrust and polarization.
Reactions to Organizational Politics: A Cross-Cultural Examination in Israel and Britain
Authors: Vigoda Eran
Published: April 2009

This article reports a comparative analysis of reactions to organizational politics (OP) in two substantially different cultures, Israel and Britain. Two resembling samples of public personnel ( n1 = 303 and n2 = 149 in Israel and Britain, respectively) were used to examine employees’ perceptions of organizational politics as well as several possible work outcomes (e.g. intentions of exit, voice, loyalty, neglect, job satisfaction, met expectations, and absenteeism). No differences were found between employees’ levels of politics perception in the two samples. However, a between-sample analysis supported the hypotheses of differences in reactions to OP across cultures. Generally, perceptions of organizational politics affected British employees more strongly than Israeli. The former responded with higher intentions of exit and neglect and lower levels of loyalty, job satisfaction, and met expectations. From these results, our main speculation is that reactions to OP may depend on cultural variants relevant to the organizational environment. Our findings are interpreted mainly in light of the idea of cultural differences in perceptions of conflict and politics. Accordingly, this study’s chief merit is its indication that culture-oriented constructs may be useful determinants of reactions to OP. Other implications of the study are also discussed, as well as suggestions for further inquiry into the cultural investigation of OP.
Organizational Technologies and Human Resource Management
Authors: Spell Chester S.
Published: April 2009

This article develops a model that integrates organizational level technology research with human resource management strategies. The model relates dimensions of technical processes to human resource practices, focusing on practices used to develop employees. These relationships are mediated by the type of skills employees use. An empirical study of 139 employees found support for two hypotheses developed from the model. Results suggested that technology and HRM activities are connected through the level of cognitive skill complexity and the amount of support employees receive in developing new skills. Due to changes in the way decisions are made in organizations today (for example, making more decisions at lower levels) the connection between the work process, the skills employees need, and the emphasis on developing employees will become increasingly important.
The Paradox of Autonomy: A Case of Academic Research Scientists
Authors: Trevelyan Rose
Published: April 2009

This paper considers the paradoxical effects of an autonomous leadership style. The well-documented empowering effect of autonomy on work attitudes is shown to be counterbalanced by the negative effects of isolation and a deprivation of valued inputs when a leader is uninvolved. The paradox of autonomy lies in these dual positive and negative influences. The diverse effects of autonomy are explained by the dynamic processes by which autonomy is granted to group members, using an interactionist perspective. The core dimensions of the autonomy process are direction and involvement. The interactions between leader and group member along these dimensions influence satisfaction differently, and motivation very little. It is suggested that there are substitutes for leadership that more directly affect motivation. Data were collected from an academic scientific research institute, using both qualitative and quantitative methods, from which these propositions emerged.
Asserting Property Rights: Knowledge Codification in the Professional Service Firm
Authors: Morris Timothy
Published: April 2009

Despite the frequent assertion that knowledge management is an important strategic activity, there have been relatively few empirical studies of the processes involved in this, particularly in knowledge intensive firms. The paradox inherent to codification projects is that they are dependent on professional staff willingly transferring the knowledge that often underpins their status. My purpose in this article is to examine whether and how this paradox is resolved by presenting a case study of a knowledge codification project under- taken by a professional service firm (PSF). I argue that the successful assertion of property rights relates, ironically, to its limitation. Codification takes place in a way that does not nullify the consultants’ expert role in front of the client. That there appear to be limits to how far such a reductive exercise can capture the activities of the consultants has implications for grammatical models that aim to describe and theorize about organizational processes or sequences of actions. I discuss these in the latter part of the article.
Knowing the Risks: Theory and Practice in Financial Market Trading
Authors: Willman Paul , O’Creevy Mark P. Fenton , Nicholson Nigel , Soane Emma
Published: April 2009

Theories about trading in financial markets are well developed and practically influential. However, traders’ behaviour within these markets appears to deviate substantially from that predicted by theory. Using data from a study of traders within financial markets in London, this article seeks to document this apparent paradox and assess its implications. General theories about how the financial world works are distinct from, but compatible with, more instrumental behavioural rules about how to work in the financial world. The latter may be seen as internally consistent recipes for action which require concurrent belief in both the validity of the general theories - for example about the relationship between risk and return - and in the ability of individual agency to secure outcomes which, in terms of the general theory, have low probability.
Knowledge and Value Creation in Professional Service Firms: A Framework for Analysis
Authors: Løwendahl Bente R. , Revang Øivind , Fosstenløkken Siw M.
Published: April 2009

This article presents a comprehensive framework for the analysis of value creation and knowledge development in general and, in particular, for professional service firms (PSFs). The framework integrates the relationship between the domain choice and the resource (or knowledge) base, and argues that the bridge between the two is best explained as value creation processes (VCPs) with two interrelated dimensions: direct value creation for the clients, and indirect value creation in terms of enhancing the knowledge base.
Colonizing Knowledge: Commodification as a Dynamic of Jurisdictional Expansion in Professional Service Firms
Authors: Suddaby Roy , Greenwood Royston
Published: April 2009

This paper provides a field level analysis of the process by which management knowledge is produced. Two linked dynamics are identified as important components of this process. The first is the commodification of management knowledge, or the tendency to reduce knowledge to a routinized and codified product. We argue that the commodification of management knowledge is a cyclical process that has been institutionalized by the interests of distinct categories of social actors. The second dynamic, termed colonization, refers to the migration of Big Five professional service firms into adjacent professional jurisdictions. Colonization is the result of intensification of commodification and has produced intense conflict and change in the organizational field of management knowledge production.
Reflections on Knowledge and Knowledgeintensive Firms
Authors: Donaldson Lex
Published: April 2009

Knowledge in organizations and, more particularly, in knowledgeintensive firms is an important topic. However, some contemporary approaches tend to over-use the concept of tacit knowledge leading to mystification and magification. Knowledge creation, storage and transmission in organizations may be rationalized and foster bureaucratization, consonant with the Weberian tendency towards formal rationality. The ideationalist nature of certain theorizing may lead to unrealistic accounts of knowledge in organizations. Antithetic positivist theory can offer illumination on some aspects of organizations and so analysts should not confine themselves to ideationalist theories. Arguments for the importance of knowledge in organizations can become enmeshed in claims that society is post-capitalist, which are best avoided. Future researchers would do better to follow the lead of the articles in this special edition and analyse knowledge in organizations in a careful empirical and skeptical fashion.
Job-Seeking in a Turbulent Economy: Social Networks and the Importance of Cross-Industry Ties to an Industry Change
Authors: Brown Deborah Wright , Konrad Alison M.
Published: April 2009

This study extends previous research on the micro-level processes of job-seeking and demonstrates that job-seeking behaviors are affected by macro-level factors. Using a longitudinal research design, we monitored the job-seeking strategies of a diverse sample of recently unemployed labor market participants. Specifically, we examined the impact of shrinking or growing industry sectors on the use of personal contacts. Overall, results indicated that growth or decline in employment levels of the job-seeker’s pre-displaced industry subsequently affected the likelihood of using cross-industry contacts during a job search. In addition, the use of cross-industry contacts significantly increased the likelihood of making an industry change. Limitations of the study and practical implications for conducting a job search in a contemporary environment are also discussed.
Employee Involvement Management Practices, Work Stress, and Depression in Employees of a Human Services Residential Care Facility
Authors: Mackie Kathleen S. , Holahan Carole K. , Gottlieb Nell H.
Published: April 2009

This article tests a theoretically driven model of the relationship between work environment, specifically, management practices, and employee mental health, specifically depression. It draws on theoretical perspectives connecting work environment and stress, and on others linking stress and depression. It also examines sense of coherence as a possible mediator of the relationships among work environment, work stress, and depression. Results showed that perceived exposure to employee involvement management practices was related to perceived work stress, sense of coherence, and depression. A model was specified to assess potential causal relationships using LISREL. Results suggested that increased exposure to employee involvement practices was indirectly associated with lower levels of depression through both perceived work stress and sense of coherence. The implications of these findings for management practice are discussed.
Intrapersonal Dilemmas
Authors: Read Daniel
Published: April 2009

Intrapersonal dilemmas arise when people face choices between something that is good right now but bad for them in the long run ( vice), and something that is not so good now but better in the long run ( virtue). This article develops the idea that these dilemmas have many similarities to social dilemmas, in which options that are best for society are not best for the individual who gets to choose them. Intrapersonal dilemmas are like social dilemmas because: (i) hyperbolic discounting means that individuals are divisible into a society of selves with competing interests, with the currently active self wanting vice for him or herself, but virtue for future selves; and (ii) the effect of choosing vice is to impose a cost on future selves, analogous to the social concept of externality. Using concepts from game theory, I model intrapersonal dilemmas as sequential games, in which choices made by one self can influence the utility of later selves, but not that of earlier selves. The analysis is applied to two prototypical intrapersonal dilemmas, addiction and procrastination. The article concludes with a survey of the ways in which intrapersonal dilemmas can be overcome by preventing the current self from making short-sighted choices of vice.
The Metamorphosis of Workplace Conflict
Authors: Fortado Bruce
Published: April 2009

The indirect and informal ways subordinates use to ‘get even’ are explored based on a literature review and fieldwork. The multiple causal factors at work and the interactive nature of these scenarios make chaos theory applicable. The metaphor of ‘metamorphosis’ is used to describe how unresolved conflicts twist and change form over time. Five case examples from the USA are included as illustrations. The transformations conflicts undergo are categorized into four forms: namely, the restatement of an issue, pressure tactics, acts of retribution and compensatory acts. The tactics and meanings that are commonly associated with each category are described. Previously, conflicts have been framed narrowly in short-term, individualistic, rational and substantive terms. Much can be learned by viewing these situations in long-term, social, interactive, emotional and symbolic terms. Elements of subordinate subcultures often come into conflict with the dominant organization culture. These clashes produce unique and unpredictable relational shifts. One must strive to accurately interpret these chaotic transformations in the parties’ day-to-day interactions to determine if and when course corrections are necessary.
Hofstede’s Model of National Cultural Differences and their Consequences: A Triumph of Faith - a Failure of Analysis
Authors: McSweeney Brendan
Published: April 2009

Geert Hofstede’s legendary national culture research is critiqued. Crucial assumptions which underlie his claim to have uncovered the secrets of entire national cultures are described and challenged. The plausibility of systematically causal national cultures is questioned.
Management Paradoxes: A Relational View
Authors: Clegg Stewart R. , da Cunha João Vieira , e Cunha Miguel Pina
Published: April 2009

Paradox is gaining more and more pervasiveness in and around organizations, thus increasing the need for an approach to management that allows both researchers and practitioners to address these paradoxes. We attempt to contribute to this project by suggesting a relational approach to paradoxes. To this aim, we first present the state of the art of research on management paradoxes and then explain four regularities surfaced in the literature on this topic. We conclude by arguing that taking these regularities as a whole allows us to suggest a new perspective on paradoxes - one with a positive regard for the co-presence of opposites but that takes seriously the potential relationship between these.
Preparation and Characterization of Expandable St/MMA Copolymers Produced by Suspension Polymerization
Authors: Jalili K. , Abbasi F. , Nasiri M. , Ghasemi M. , Haddadi E.
Published: April 2009

Free radical suspension copolymerization of styrene (St) with methyl methacrylate (MMA) in the presence of n-pentane was investigated. The batch polymerization was performed in a stirred reactor via a two-stage process. First, free radical suspension polymerization of St and MMA in aqueous media was carried out at about 80—90°C with the aid of a monofunctional initiator to the monomer conversions up to about 70%. Second process, called impregnation stage, consisted of a high temperature—high pressure cycle (110—120°C and 10 bars) in which the blowing agent was charged in the reactor and polymerization was carried out with the aid of a high temperature initiator. Fine particles of micron sizes of St/MMA copolymer were synthesized by manipulation of some experimental parameters governing the copolymerization system. Polymerization was carried out at different agitation rates, suspending agent and aqueous phase initiator concentrations as well as emulsifier amounts, while keeping constant the MMA/St ratio. To reach a desired bead size, the above parameters were optimized using the Taguchi method for experimental design and the relative importance of the mentioned parameters was analyzed. Particles with a spherical shape of 250—350 μm were formed. The obtained copolymers were also characterized in terms of molecular weight, polydispersity index, copolymer composition, morphology of the polymer beads, thermal behavior, and particle size and particle size distribution.
The Inflation Forecast
Authors: Goodhart C. A. E.
Published: April 2009

Given the long and variable time lags between interest rate changes and responses in output and inflation, an inflation forecast must lie at the heart of monetary policy. In the UK the Bank's inflation forecast and Report were developed when the interest rate decision still lay with the Chancellor. Its, largely unchanged, continuation has led to certain tensions once that decision was delegated to a Monetary Policy Committee of independently responsible experts. In this paper the question is raised whether such a Committee should be jointly and individually responsible for the inflation forecast, and what might be considered as alternative procedures.
Understanding ‘The Essential Fact about Capitalism’: Markets, Competition and Creative Destruction
Authors: Carlin Wendy , Haskel Jonathan , Seabright Paul
Published: April 2009

This paper examines two ways in which competition works in modern capitalist economies to improve productivity. The first is through incentives: encouraging improvements in technology, organisation and effort on the part of existing establishments and firms. The second is through selection: replacing less-productive with more productive establishments and firms, whether smoothly via the transfer of market shares from less to more productive firms, or roughly through the exit of some firms and the entry of others. We report evidence from the UK suggesting that selection is responsible for a large proportion of aggregate productivity growth in manufacturing, and that much of this is due in turn to selection between plants belonging to multi-plant firms. We also investigate whether the nature of the selection process varies across the business cycle and report evidence suggesting that it is less effective in booms and recessions. Finally, although in principle productivity catch-up by low-income countries ought to be easier than innovation at the frontier, in the absence of a well functioning competitive infrastructure (a predicament that characterises many poor countries), selection may be associated with much more turbulence and a lower rate of productivity growth than in relatively prosperous societies. We report results of a survey of firms in transition economies suggesting that, particularly in the former Soviet states (excluding the Baltic states), poor output and productivity performance has not been due to an unwillingness on the part of firms to change and adapt. On the contrary, there has been a great deal of restructuring, much new entry and large reallocations of output between firms; but such activity has been much more weakly associated with improved performance than we would expect in established market economies.
Ethnic Minorities and Equal Treatment: The Impact of Gender, Equal Opportunities Policies and Trade Unions
Authors: Noon Mike , Hoque Kim
Published: April 2009

The article examines whether ethnic minority employees report poorer treatment at work than white employees, and evaluates the impact of three key features — gender differences, formal equal opportunities policies and trade union recognition. The analysis reveals that ethnic minority men and women receive poorer treatment than their white counterparts. In addition, there is evidence to suggest that ethnic minority women receive poorer treatment than ethnic minority men. Equal opportunities policies are effective in ensuring equal treatment, but the presence of a recognised trade union is not. White men and women in unionised workplaces enjoy better treatment than their white counterparts in non-union workplaces, but the same is not true for ethnic minorities. By contrast, there is very little evidence of unequal treatment in non-union workplaces.
The New British Economy
Authors: Kneller Richard , Young Garry
Published: April 2009

The British economy has performed well since the recession of the early 1990s. How much of this is due to the revolution in information and communications technology (ICT)? We find that the stock of computing equipment has grown at a similar rate to that seen in the US, but there appears to have been no similar ICT-induced pick-up in productivity growth. We suggest that any underlying improvement in productivity growth has been obscured by a slowdown in manufacturing and by the need for the unemployed to be absorbed into employment. We find no evidence yet of any clear effect of ICT on pricing and suggest that any benefit of greater competition is likely to come about by encouraging productivity growth rather than by reducing margins. We argue that the main cause of Britain's improved performance lies in the labour market. Looking forward, we are optimistic that the benefits of ICT will become more apparent as the factors that have obscured it become less important.
Developments in Education and Vocational Training in Britain: Background Note on Recent Research
Authors: Prais S. J.
Published: April 2009

The past decade has seen fundamental policy initiatives at a national level intended to improve vocational skills and to raise school-leaving standards — particularly in mathematics. These initiatives centred on:

(i)

the formation of a National Council for Vocational Qualifications with the object of re-designing, and imposing fundamentally greater coherence into, our previous ‘jungle’ of vocational qualifications, thereby raising their level of recognition both by employers and by potential trainees, and consequently encouraging a greater volume and higher levels of training to accredited standards of qualification;

(ii)

the specification of a National Curriculum for schools, stipulating the main subjects to be taught, the standards which teachers need to aim for in respect of the majority of each age-group, and associated nationwide attainment-tests to be taken by all pupils at several stages in their schooling. A detailed teaching scheme, the National Numeracy Strategy, was laid down nationally for teaching primary-school mathematics (based on the Improving Primary Mathematics scheme developed in Barking and Dagenham together with NIESR using a Continental model) together with a similarly detailed scheme for teaching basic literacy.
Apprenticeship in the British ‘Training Market’
Authors: Ryan Paul , Unwin Lorna
Published: April 2009

British apprenticeship, now dependent on the Modern Apprenticeship programme, is compared in this paper to both German apprenticeship and its national predecessor, Youth Training. Modern Apprenticeship shares many of the attributes of Youth Training, and shows some improvement in terms of skills produced. However, British apprenticeship performs poorly, in terms of rates of qualification and completion, as well as in breadth and depth of training, relative to its German counterpart, despite the provision by Modern Apprenticeship of substantial government financial support. The fact that MA resembles YT more than German apprenticeship reflects continuing institutional differences between the two countries, notably the limitations of the training quasi-market in which both YT and MA have operated. The prospects for MA to flourish, let alone perform the educational role that the government envisages for it, are bleak in the absence of institutional development along different lines.
The Macroeconomic Effects of Higher Oil Prices
Authors: Hunt Benjamin , Isard Peter , Laxton Douglas
Published: April 2009

The paper uses MULTIMOD to analyse the macroeconomic effects of oil price shocks, distinguishing between temporary, more persistent, and permanent shocks. It provides perspectives on several findings in the literature and the key role of monetary policy in influencing macroeconomic outcomes. Specific attention is paid to the channels through which oil price increases can pass through into core inflation, the implications of delayed policy responses, and the relative merits of leaning in different directions when the correct policy response is uncertain.
Macroeconomics and History
Authors: Britton Andrew
Published: April 2009

Macroeconomic behaviour varies according to the character of the policy regime. There is therefore no truly ‘general’ theory which will apply at all times and in all places. Over the past hundred years, one model may be appropriate to the period of the gold standard, another to the interwar years, another to the so-called ‘Golden Age’ after the Second World War, and so on. Expectations, which depend on confidence in the regime, determine the stability of both prices and output. Institutions also adapt in ways that may support, or ultimately undermine, the foundations of the policy regime.
The UK Economy
Authors: Pain Nigel , Riley Rebecca , Weale Martin
Published: April 2009

Ahead of the official data, we anticipate only slow growth in the first quarter of this year. GDP stagnated in the fourth quarter of 2001, with continued growth in the service sector being offset by a sharp contraction of 2.2 per cent in industrial production. It appears increasingly likely that this was just a temporary pause. Whilst growth is expected to be faster later in the year, as shown in chart 1, the relatively poor performance at the turn of the year and lower projections for government spending growth this year mean that we now expect only a 1.8 per cent rise in GDP in the year as a whole, below the bottom end of the range projected by the Treasury in the recent Budget forecast. The risk of the green shoots of recovery failing to consolidate remains as a downside risk to our central forecast.
Sterling, the Euro and the Dollar
Authors: Blake Andrew P. , Byrne Joseph P.
Published: April 2009

In the period of floating exchange rates a distinct dollar—D-mark polarisation was noted, whereby periods of weakness for some European currencies relative to the dollar coincided with periods of strength relative to the Deutsche mark and vice versa. The relationship continued to be observed for those currencies such as sterling which remained outside the Exchange Rate Mechanism for most of the period. The observation, although more ‘an empirical regularity in search of a theory’ than a model (Buiter et al., 1998) seems reasonably robust; recently the dollar has fallen sharply against sterling while the euro has risen. An analysis of this relationship and its stability is important because it provides a guide as to how the euro might be expected to move against sterling as a part of any adjustment against the US dollar. In turn it sheds some light on the degree to which a dollar depreciation might affect Britain inside the Euro Area.
The UK Economy
Authors: Pain Nigel , Riley Rebecca , Weale Martin
Published: April 2009

The pattern of growth in the real economy is in some sense a mirror image of what was happening a year ago. Then there was considerable concern that stagnating international trade was depressing the performance of manufacturing at home and, through this, having a damaging effect on economic growth overall. Now there are the first signs that output growth is being led by a revival of manufacturing which, in turn, is probably linked to a revival of world trade. A year ago the US$ was close to record highs against the euro and sterling had been dragged up in its wake. Now a weakening US$ is taking sterling with it, so the exchange rate against the euro, although still high, is well below the values of last year. At the same time share prices have fallen from levels of last year which, although below their peaks, were still grossly inflated. At current levels they will once again encourage businesses to make sensible use of shareholders' capital and come to sensible decisions about appropriate forms of financing. On the other hand the recent growth rate of house prices is likely to prove unsustainable.
UK Real National Income, 1950-1998: Some Grounds for Optimism
Authors: Crafts Nicholas
Published: April 2009

It has been claimed using the concept of the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW) that there has been an absolute decline in sustainable living standards in the UK since the mid-1970s. Revisions to ISEW are proposed to make it more nearly a measure of utility-based real national income. In particular, ISEW should be revised to take account of much-improved life expectancy. Implementing any of the suggested revisions reverses the finding of absolute decline while implementing all of them results in a growth rate higher than that of real GDP per head in the national accounts.
The Exchange Rate as a Source of Disturbances: The UK 1979-2000
Authors: Cobham David
Published: April 2009

Evidence is presented on the extent to which the possibility for the exchange rate to vary has been useful or unhelpful for UK monetary policy over the last two decades. ‘Large’ exchange rate changes and ‘large’ misalignments are identified, and the thinking and actions of the monetary authorities in response to the level of and changes in the exchange rate in successive monetary regimes are examined. It is argued that the exchange rate has not generally functioned as a useful automatic equilibrating mechanism or as a useful policy instrument; and that in nearly every phase there were movements of the exchange rate, or pressures on it, which for the authorities were unexpected and unwelcome. Thus the exchange rate has typically been a source of extraneous shocks.
The Prediction of Business Cycle Phases: Financial Variables and International Linkages
Authors: Osborn Denise R. , Sensier Marianne
Published: April 2009

This paper discusses recent research at the Centre for Growth and Business Cycle Research on the prediction of the expansion and recession phases of the business cycle for the UK, US, Germany, France and Italy. Financial variables are important predictors in these models, with the stock market playing a key role in the US but not the European countries, including the UK. In contrast, international linkages are important for the European countries. Our models suggest that the US and German economies have now emerged from the recession of 2001, and that all five countries will be in expansion during the third quarter of this year.
Evaluation Using Random Assignment Experiments: Demonstrating the Effectiveness of Earnings Supplements
Authors: Tattrie Doug , Ford Reuben
Published: April 2009

The UK is preparing to start one of the largest random assignment evaluations of a new social policy that has ever been undertaken in Europe or North America. This juncture is a useful time to examine the merits of random assignment evaluation using new results from one-of the most widely cited experimental evaluations the Self-Sufficiency Project in Canada. Random assignment experiments are the most reliable approach to measure the impacts of changes in social policy. However, they are often expensive and cannot answer all relevant research questions. The Canadian Self-Sufficiency Project demonstrates these qualities. It showed that the provision of earnings supplements to lone parents who leave welfare for full-time work can increase employment and earnings and decrease welfare receipt. The high quality of research provides credible evidence that the large, initial programme expenditure can mostly be recovered through reduced welfare payments and higher taxes.
Economic Evaluation of Complex Health and Social Care Interventions
Authors: Byford Sarah , Sefton Tom
Published: April 2009

The use of economic evaluation in relatively complex areas of health and social care has been limited. The level of complexity is influenced by the nature of the problems and interventions under evaluation, being dependent upon the degree of user involvement and the complexity of the inputs and outcomes. Complexity does not preclude the achievement of a good quality economic evaluation, but it can add significant difficulties. Efforts must be made to ensure scientific validity of evaluations, whilst recognising that the complexity inherent in many health and social care interventions may require deviations from and additions to traditional evaluation models. Fundamentally, the net effect will be the need for more time and money than would perhaps be required for the evaluation of a simpler intervention.
The national balance sheet
Authors: Weale Martin
Published: April 2009

Discussion around the time of the budget focuses on the state of the Government's finances, both in terms of the balance of income and expenditure, and also on their implications for the government balance sheet. Despite the wide-ranging nature of some of the budget commentary, the issue of the national balance sheet received no discussion there and attracts little attention generally.
Type, Source, and Patterns of Physical Victimization
Authors: Wolff Nancy , Shi Jing
Published: April 2009

Remarkably little is known about the type, source, and patterns of physical victimization inside prison and less is known about whether differences in victimization exist between male and female inmates. This article explores the type, source, and patterns of physical victimization as reported by approximately 7,000 male and 560 female inmates. Respondents completed survey questions about seven types of physical victimization and two perpetrator sources (inmate and staff). These data show similarities and differences in patterns of victimization between male and female inmates and provide a rich description of victimization inside prison and its relationship to feeling safe there.
Fragile Democracy and the Militarization of Public Safety in Brazil
Authors: Zaverucha Jorge
Published: April 2009

The literature on democratic consolidation has devoted considerable attention to civil-military relations at the elite level and such matters as the preservation of military coup attempts and the reduction of military autonomy. In general, however, there is insufficient attention in the literature to the issue of the demo cratic control of everyday forms of state coercion. By "everyday forms of state coercion" I mean routine policing, intelligence work, and military operations that do not involve the seizure of the executive or the shutting down of other branches of government. Over time, changes in practice in these realms have the potential for the "hollowing out" of the democratic regimes from within, through the gradual expansion of the budgets, functions, and autonomy of the coercive institutions that engage in them.
Gays and the Cuban Revolution
Authors: Ocasio Rafael
Published: April 2009

Persecution of homosexuals has been, to a great extent, a war waged by the Castro government in efforts to destroy the most resistant kind of social bond in the nation: resistant, because for centuries it has been accustomed to survive under repressive circumstances, because its natural environment has been secrecy.

—Ana María Simó and Reinaldo García Ramos

Literature is queer stuff, and I am truly a queer.

-Virgilio Piñera
The Guatemalan Politico-Military Project
Authors: Schirmer Jennifer
Published: April 2009

Our strategic goal has been to reverse Clausewitz's philosophy of war to state that in Guatemala, politics must be the continuation of war. But that does not mean that we are abandoning war; we are fighting it from a much broader hori zon within a democratic framework. We may be renovating our methods of warfare, but we are not abandoning them.... We are continuing our [counterin surgency] operations [against] international subversion because the Constitu tion demands it.

—General Hector Alejandro Gramajo (1987)
Gender Disparities in Physician-Patient Communication Among African American Patients in Primary Care
Authors: DiMatteo M. Robin , Murray Carolyn B. , Williams Summer L.
Published: April 2009

This study investigates the role of gender in physician-patient communication among African American patients in primary care. Patients (N = 137) aged 33 to 67 were nested within 79 southern California primary care physicians' practices. In 48 interactions (35%), the physician was female and/or a member of a minority group. The study directly assessed gender differences through audiotaped physician-patient interactions as well as by measuring patients' and physicians' perceptions of their visit. This study employed a multi-informant design, in which independent raters assessed both physician and patient in audiotaped interactions, and both physician and patient self-reported on aspects of their visit. Discussions of prevention and health promotion were found to be significantly more common with male patients than with female patients but only when the physician was a nonminority male; these disparities disappeared when the physician was female and/or minority. Findings are discussed in terms of physician training, particularly for men and nonminorities.
Made for each other
Authors: Feldman Stephen M.
Published: April 2009

Critics of Hans-Georg Gadamer maintain that his philosophical hermeneutics is unduly conservative: supposedly, Gadamer too readily accepts tradition and too quickly assumes that a text has a unified and understandable meaning. Critics of Jacques Derrida, meanwhile, declare that deconstruction leads to nihilism: if the meaning of every text is undecidable, then a text can mean anything at all - no one meaning is better or worse than any other. And if there is no ground to stand upon, these critics add, then how can we normatively evaluate others (or ourselves)? In this essay, I respond to the critics of both Gadamer and Derrida by arguing that philosophical hermeneutics and deconstruction should be understood as complementary postmodern philosophies, as mutually supportive descriptions of the hermeneutic situation. As such, deconstruction counters the charge that philosophical hermeneutics is conservative: instead, a Derridean view uncovers the radical political potential that resides within Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics. Meanwhile, philosophical hermeneutics counters the charge that deconstruction is nihilistic and cannot support ethical or political critique. A Gadamerian view explains how deconstruction assumes the possibility of understanding meaning and maintaining values that can engender critique.
Character and well-being
Authors: Mangini Michele
Published: April 2009

The debate between liberals and communitarians has still left liberalism without a plausible ethics. The ethics of character wants to offer a solid connection between political theory and personal identity, stressing the ethical role of the invariables of character against modern subjectivist competitors, such as authenticity. At a political level the ethics of character leads us beyond resourcist conceptions of justice.
Feminism and Habermas’ discourse ethics
Authors: Meehan Johanna
Published: April 2009

Habermas’ account of the radically intersubjective constitution of subjectivity is of great use to feminist theorists, as is his defense of the rational character of normative claims. Feminists must however, reject his reductive identification of subjectivity with language and rationality. Some feminists’ concerns insist on continuing to distinguish morality from legality, something that Habermas, despite his own better intuitions and arguments, is sometimes disinclined to do.
The cultural foundations of public policy
Authors: Chambers Simone
Published: April 2009

This article argues that the equality versus difference dispute in feminism is not essentially a dispute about the basis of public policy as Georgia Warnke implies. Furthermore, rarely can public policy issues concerning women be resolved by direct appeal to interpretation. Interpretation should be understood as offering a model of cultural transformation rather than public policy adjudication.
Reorienting critique
Authors: Kompridis Nikolas
Published: April 2009

In this paper I examine problems besetting forms of philosophical and social critique that are motivated by the ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’ and normatively oriented to the goal of ‘unmasking’. I argue that there is an urgent need to correct the one-sided emphasis on ‘unmasking’, and we can do this by reorienting critique to the practice of individual and social transformation.

The argument goes like this. The practice of unmasking critique has split off from utopian projects in whose service it was originally placed, and has become the vehicle of a self-consuming, practice-crippling skepticism that – from Friedrich von Schlegel to Paul de Man and Richard Rorty – goes by the name of ironyor ironist theory. Postmodernism, in one of its aspects, is the latest form of this skepticism. I interpret postmodernism as the manifestation of a crisis of confidence (in our ideals and in our agency) and as an ironization of critique. Drawing upon Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Foucault, I reformulate the normative demands of critique such that its practice avoids the problem of self-reference while responding to the problem of self-reassurance.
The possibility of an ethical politics
Authors: Drabinski John
Published: April 2009

This essay examines the possibility of developing an ethical politicsout of the work of Emmanuel Levinas. Levinas’ own work does not accomplish this kind of politics. He opts instead for a politics of peace, which, as this essay argues, falls short of the demands of the ethical. Thus, this essay both provides an account of Levinas’ own politics and develops resources from within Levinas’ own work for thinking beyond that politics. An alternative, liturgical politics is sketched out. In a liturgical politics, law must be thought on a redistributive model. Redistribution, it is argued, responds more adequately to the extravagant generosity of ethics than the neutral ‘ droits de l’homme’ developed in Levinas’ political philosophy.
Responsiveness as responsibility
Authors: Sparti Davide
Published: April 2009

In this article I want to explore some questions that arise from the work of Stanley Cavell. My purpose is to examine lines of connections between Cavell's readings of Wittgenstein (specifically his notions of ‘criteria’, ‘aspect blindness’ and ‘primitive reaction’, with special reference to the philosophical problem of ‘other minds’) and Shakespeare, on the one side, and a certain dimension of the ethical, on the other. Although Cavell has rarely offered explicit remarks on the issue of morality, and is normally not considered a moral philosopher, it is my contention that it is possible to elicit what we could call an implied ethics from his philosophical view. This ethical outlook is not to be confused with a theory, but is rather a turn or bent that emerges especially by understanding the place of acknowledgment and ethical responsiveness in our practical life.
Towards an ethics of love
Authors: Barthold Lauren Swayne
Published: April 2009

In The Life of the Mind, Hannah Arendt explores the relationship between thinking, willing and judging. She poses the question of whether these may be among those conditions that prevent a person from doing evil. While many consider her account of thinking and willing (she died before writing the third volume on judging) insufficient for treating this question, I argue that in order fully to understand Arendt's notion of the will, particularly as it relates to our ability to avoid doing evil, one must consider the way in which she attempts to overcome the Augustinian dilemma of how one can love both God and one's neighbor at the same time. Drawing on her Love and Saint Augustine, I seek to show that her ‘Augustinian’ notion of the will is extremely fruitful for helping us understand what she meant by the two movements of withdrawal from, and activity within, the world.