bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Moving from TV broadcasting to e‐learning
Authors: Gao Ping , Zhang Ruling 
Published: March 2009

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is threefold. First, it provides an overview of the demand, capacity and challenges of teacher education in China. Second, it highlights the significant contributions of China Central Radio and TV University (CCRTVU) to teacher education in the last three decades. Finally, it discusses challenges and issues for e‐learning as a new form of distance education for upgrading qualifications and promoting professional development of teachers and principals in remote, rural schools.Design/methodology/approachAs a case study, this paper analyses CCRTVU's infrastructure and operational structure, and its unique position to bridge teacher education institutions and integrate educational resources.FindingsWhen CCRTVU moves from TV broadcasting to e‐learning, it offers new and innovative forms of professional development for millions of school teachers and principals, and accompanying new challenges.Originality/valueThe paper suggests that rigorous research should be conducted to address what works and how to reach teachers and school principals in remote, rural areas.
The development of the Distance Education College of East China Normal University: a case study
Authors: Ye Lixin , Su Xiaobing , Yan Hanbing 
Published: March 2009

PurposeThis paper aims to present a picture of the past and the present status of the Distance Education College (DEC) of East China Normal University (ECNU). It describes what the DEC has achieved in each phase, and probes into some essential problems that the DEC has attempted to solve.Design/methodology/approachThis article provides a comprehensive description of the development of the DEC by following a case study method.FindingsThe DEC goes through three stages. In the first phase, a teacher‐focused policy and disciplined management are formed. In the second phase, a quality‐first policy is emphasized, and two training modes are developed: the human‐centered management mode and the trainee‐oriented training mode. In the third phase, the DEC initiates further innovation and uses a new platform.Practical implicationsECNU has witnessed and participated in the development of modern distance education in China. It remains successful in developing distance education. The effort made by the DEC well showcases the overall development and growth of modern distance education in China.Originality/valueThis article presents the development of the DEC and will help readers understand the developmental process of distance education colleges in China.
The design of a web‐based course for self‐directed learning
Authors: Liu Mingzhuo 
Published: March 2009

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore how to design a web‐based course in the context of China for self‐directed learning from four perspectives – i.e. pedagogical, psychological, social and technological – and also to summarize the design principles for the web‐based course.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reviews literature related to: self‐directed learning, with a view to bringing out its capabilities and capacities for use in a web‐based environment; theories and pedagogies of learning with a view to imbuing them for the design of web‐based courses; and challenges of the design of web‐based courses with a view to gauging its acceptability.FindingsThe development of a successful web‐based course needs to focus on multiple perspectives — pedagogical, psychological, social and technological – in order to contextualize it for learner‐centeredness. The results show that the course designed based on these dimensions was flexible, useful and welcomed.Originality/valueThis paper describes a conceptual framework for designing a web‐based course from four perspectives and also presents a series of design principles for a web‐based course.
The use of e‐learning in pre‐service teacher education
Authors: Li Baomin 
Published: March 2009

PurposeE‐learning has been applied in pre‐service teacher training for many years. The purpose of this paper is to present the use of e‐learning in a pre‐service teacher training course and discuss the relevant issues involved.Design/methodology/approachThe article reviews literature related to instruction design, and e‐learning concepts and practice. A survey is conducted, the course having been offered for two years.FindingsThe use of e‐learning in this pre‐service teacher training course is successful because it achieves the expected goal. The self‐study ability of pre‐service teachers is improved. Learners also participate actively. However, further improvement needs to be done in curriculum design teacher support.Originality/valueThis paper integrates theories and practice. It shows a sample of applying e‐learning into a course for pre‐service teacher education. This blended approach is new in the context of China.
Beyond the control‐resistance debate
Authors: Bolton Sharon C. , Houlihan Maeve 
Published: March 2009

PurposeThe purpose of this short paper is to introduce the special issue and outline its major themes.Design/methodology/approachThe control‐resistance literatures are described, and the necessity for field‐led empirical accounts is amplified, as a precursor to introducing the contributions to this special issue.FindingsForms of control co‐mingle and the old imprints the new. Theories of control, resistance, agency and consent can most usefully be expanded by engaging with empirical accounts, resisting duality, and embracing multidimensionality.Originality/valueThis paper offers a review of the state of debate about control and resistance within organisation studies, and calls for field‐informed accounts and fresh perspectives.
“Worky tickets”: exploring dissent at work
Authors: Smith Andrew 
Published: March 2009

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to chart the process of culture change within Durham National Savings, both before and after the public‐private partnership (PPP) of the organisation, and to examine dissent – in its many forms – as a dimension of employee resistance.Design/methodology/approachIn‐depth semi‐structured interviews were conducted with trade union representatives and shop‐floor employees. Senior management declined all offers to participate in the research.FindingsDespite managerial attempts to generate a homogenous culture, the organisation consisted of an array of subcultures. Yet dissent became more pointed and political after the PPP of the organisation. In combination with trade union resistance, workplace dissent challenges and destabilises managerial efforts at usurping organisational cultures.Originality/valueThe theoretical contribution of the paper is important as it moves beyond traditional forms of resistance to examine opaque and emergent forms of dissent at the subterranean level. The changing nature of such actions and attitudes are examined in the context of managerial attempts to transform the culture of the organisation. Whilst there are overlaps around the notions of misbehaviour, dissent and resistance, a fresh and extended definition of workplace dissent is offered.
Welfare wars: public service frontline absenteeism as collective resistance
Authors: Junor Anne , O'Brien John , O'Donnell Michael 
Published: March 2009

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop a model to explain frontline employee absence as a form of concerted resistance in a public service welfare environment.Design/methodology/approachConflicts over absenteeism can be interpreted as a mix of formal and informal struggles over the effort bargain. Centrelink workers' use of “unplanned leave” between 2005 and 2007 involved the quasi‐collective use of a formal entitlement in a form of misbehaviour that defied management control.FindingsWhereas absenteeism is normally assumed to be a form of unorganised individual time‐theft, in this study it became a tacitly‐agreed form of collective resistance and a way of affirming collectively negotiated rights.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper explores how the toll of cost cutting and implementation of tighter welfare eligibility rules elicited collective resistance through leave taking and highlights how absenteeism can be more than an individual response of passive disengagement.Originality/valueUsing theories of resistance, the authors highlight how the case study both conforms to and departs from the received wisdom about absenteeism as an individual oppositional strategy.
When complexity meets culture: new public management and the Swedish police
Authors: Andersson Thomas , Tengblad Stefan 
Published: March 2009

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how new public management (NPM) reform from the national level is implemented as practice in a local unit within the police sector in Sweden.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative case‐study approach is applied using semi‐structured interviews, participant observations and analysis of documents.FindingsThe paper illustrates different kinds of resistance at the organizational level. The dominant form of resistance was found to be cultural distancing. The paper demonstrates a tendency among police officers to deal with a changing and more complex work context by embracing a traditional work role.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper shows that reforms that add complexity may fail because of potential contradictions and the limited capacity and motivation of employees to deal with the complexity in the manner prescribed by NPM.Practical implicationsThe paper shows that the popular trend to adopt multi‐dimensional forms of control (for instance the balanced‐scorecard approach) may fail if there is a lack of consensus about what goals and measurement are important and/or there is a lack of dialogue about how the new goals should be implemented in practice.Originality/valueResearch about NPM‐reforms in the police sector is rare. The original contribution of this paper is to study NPM‐reforms with a focus on the role of complexity in relation to resistance.
Miners' identity and the changing face of the labour process within the UK coal mining industry
Authors: Allsop David , Calveley Moira 
Published: March 2009

PurposeMuch current academic writing focuses on the changing nature of work in the services sector, particularly with regard to the implementation of new technological processes. Bringing attention back to a traditional industry, coal mining, the paper aims to consider the impact of technology upon the labour process and identity of coal miners.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on qualitative research undertaken by an ex‐coal miner and draws upon interviews with workers in five of the UK's remaining deep coal mines.FindingsThe paper demonstrates how the introduction of new technology in the mining industry has intensified workplace monitoring and surveillance. Despite this, we identify how complete management control over the labour process has not been possible. As the paper will show, miners draw upon their identity as autonomous workers in order to mediate the impact of technology on their working practices. The underlying belief of miners is that the capabilities of new technological working practices do not extend to replacing them at the coal face and that their unique identity as coal miners, combined with the unusual nature of the job, provides them with a force for mediating management control.Originality/valueThe paper offers a unique insight into the impact of technology upon the identity and labour process of a group of workers from a traditional heavy industry.
Restaurant servers, tipping, and resistance
Authors: Gatta Mary 
Published: March 2009

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present a next step in Greta Foff Paules' groundbreaking analysis of control‐resistance in service work by exploring the work practices of restaurant servers in regard to ways they resist and reshape the tipping system that structures their work life. Specifically, the author explores how workers will attempt to manipulate the system to elicit higher tips from customers and when servers forgo an economic tip, so that they can exercise dignity and self‐respect. Central to this analysis is to highlight the space in between Paules' notions of “getting” and “making” a tip. In this space, servers can exercise resistance and still acknowledge the humanness of the customer.Design/methodology/approachThe research methodology is participant observation and interviews.FindingsRestaurant servers see their ability to manipulate the tipping system as routes to exercising agency and resistance in work interactions. Moreover, servers see their ability to earn tips (and even forgo tips) by both capitalizing on the organizational structures and capitalizing on the customers' human nature.Research limitations/implicationsThe research focuses on servers broadly, and not on distinctions within groups of servers (i.e. sex differences, age differences or restaurant types).Originality/valueThis paper furthers the understanding of the tipping practice, which is historically viewed in terms of status inequality and control. In contrast, the author highlight how workers in practice, are able to use the tipping system to resist customer and manager demands, assert their creativity, agency, and self‐dignity, and still treat the customer as a social being.
Coping with control? Retail employee responses to flexibilisation
Authors: Carls Kristin 
Published: March 2009

PurposeThis paper deals with flexibilisation of work and employment in large‐scale retailing. Its aim is two‐fold: first, to highlight how an authoritarian workplace regime and normative forms of control interact, in the attempt to achieve workforce alignment to flexibility. Second, to explore how employees make sense of experienced workplace conflicts, and to what extent they are able to develop capacities to act and to influence their working conditions.Design/methodology/approachThe paper draws on a qualitative study undertaken in four large‐scale retailing companies in the Italian city of Milan. It is based on 45 semi‐structured, problem‐centred interviews with employees, shop stewards and union officers.FindingsAnalysis reveals how control manifests in “forced availability” based on individualised, informal daily flexibilisation, and sustained by resulting precarisation. Employees are active participants, as the functioning of the work organization depends on their capacity to balance in‐built contradictions. Yet, their capacity to act remains limited. They are trapped by individualised concepts of labour relations: a merit‐oriented understanding of work as a “fair exchange” and a personalised perception of social relations and interactions at the work place.Research limitations/implicationsThe research encountered challenges in accessing temporary employees due to their fear of negative repercussions. This makes the sample slightly biased towards permanent, part time and fulltime, employment. Yet, it is also an opportunity, as it makes it possible to map experiences of precarisation across different employee groups.Originality/valueUsing the concepts of “coping practices”, “common sense” and “capacity to act”, the paper proposes to go beyond the dualisms of the resistance‐control debate. It points at the contradictory and interlinked character of employees' coping practices of adaptation, appropriation, conflictive negotiation and resistance.
Branding employees
Authors: Cushen Jean 
Published: March 2009

PurposeFrom the optimistic to the critical, the post‐structural to the market rational there are varied perspectives on normative control at work. The purpose of this paper is to describe a tactical evolution in normative control practices and explore how this development sits with each perspective.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on a six month participant ethnography incorporating 75 interviews and document analysis. Data are presented from human resources, executives, managers and employees.FindingsThis paper presents an account of a leading, listed, global firm's attempt to align employees to the organisation's goals through fashioning an ideal employee identity based on the organisation brand. Perspectives are provided on the desired role and ultimate failure of this employee branding initiative. Indeed, branding may be a normative step too far. The paper demonstrates how the workplace comprises of a variety of experiential forces and employees are capable of deciding which are the most substantive. However, the existence of varied perspectives on normative control within the workplace can account for both its failure and perpetuation.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings highlight the variety of forces that interact to shape perspectives of normative control within a workplace. Consequently, future research may benefit from adopting a more holistic analytical approach to avoid over or under estimating the role of normative control.Originality/valueThe novelty of this paper comes firstly from the account of a tactical normative development and secondly from the demonstration of the value of considering the role and impact of normative control from a variety of theoretical perspectives.
Aqueous‐based freeze‐form extrusion fabrication of alumina components
Authors: Huang Tieshu , Mason Michael S. , Zhao Xiyue , Hilmas Gregory E. , Leu Ming C. 
Published: March 2009

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop an inexpensive and environmentally friendly solid freeform fabrication technique, called the freeze‐form extrusion fabrication (FEF), and use this technique in advanced ceramic fabrication.Design/methodology/approachFEF uses a highly loaded aqueous ceramic paste (≥50 vol.% solids loading) with a small quantity (∼2 vol.%) of organic binder to fabricate a ceramic green part layer by layer with a computer‐controlled 3D gantry machine at a temperature below the freezing point of the paste. Further, a freeze‐drying technique is used for preventing deformation and the formation of cracks during the green part drying process. Following the freeze‐drying, the ceramic green part undergoes binder removal and is sintered to near full density.FindingsExtrudable, alumina pastes of high solids loading and process parameters for FEF processing of these pastes have been developed. Paste rheological properties and stability, extrusion rate, 3D gantry motion speed and other process parameters strongly affect the quality of the final ceramic parts. The minimum deposition angle, which reflects the maximum amount of extrusion offset to produce components with overhanging features without using support materials, is strongly related to the fabrication (environment) temperature. The lower the fabrication temperature, the lower the minimum deposition angle that could be achieved. Four point bending flexure strengths of the FEF processed Al2O3 test samples were 219 and 198 MPa for longitudinally deposited and transversely deposited samples, respectively. Major defects, which limited the strength of the materials, were due to under‐filling during the extrusion.Originality/valueSuccessful development of the FEF technique will introduce a new approach to manufacturing ceramic materials into useful, complex shapes and components. The significant advantages of this technique include the use of environmentally friendly processing medium (water), inexpensive method of medium removal (freeze‐drying), and a much smaller quantity of organic binder to remove by pyrolysis techniques. The products can be sintered to near full density.
Top surface and side roughness of Inconel 625 parts processed using selective laser melting
Authors: Mumtaz Kamran , Hopkinson Neil 
Published: March 2009

PurposeObtaining the required part top surface roughness and side roughness is critical in some applications. Each of these part properties can often be improved to the detriment of the other during selective laser melting (SLM). The purpose of this paper is to investigate the selective laser melting of Inconel 625 using an Nd:YAG pulsed laser to produce thin wall parts with an emphasis on attaining parts with minimum top surface and side surface roughness.Design/methodology/approachA full factorial approach was used to vary process parameters and identify a usable Inconel 625 processing region. The effects laser process parameters had on the formation of part surface roughness for multi‐layer parts were examined. Processing parameters that specifically affected top surface and side roughness were identified.FindingsHigher peak powers tended to reduce top surface roughness and reduce side roughness as recoil pressures flatten out the melt pool and reduce balling formation by increasing wettability of the melt. Increased repetition rate and reduced scan speed reduced top surface roughness but increased side roughness. A compromise between attaining a relatively low surface roughness and side roughness can be attained by comparing part surface roughness values and understanding the factors that affect them. A sample with 9 μm top surface roughness and 10 μm side roughness was produced.Originality/valueThe research is the first of its kind directly processing Inconel 625 using SLM and investigating processing parameters that affect top surface and side roughness simultaneously. It is a useful aid in unveiling a relationship between process parameters and top/side roughness of thin walled parts.
A study of degradation of laser‐sintered moulds using wear tests
Authors: Kumar S. , Kruth J.‐P. , Van Humbeeck J. , Voet A. 
Published: March 2009

PurposeSurface changes like wear or local plastic deformation occurring during service of a mould make it unsuitable for further use and determine its life‐time. The performance of the mould and its design are important aspects that influence its longevity. The purpose of this paper is to study the behaviour of mould materials manufactured by laser sintering, a type of rapid manufacturing process, and to explain their relative in‐service performance.Design/methodology/approachMould specimens were made by two laser‐sintering machines (a DTM Sinterstation and an EOSint M250 Xtended equipped with CO2 lasers) using two iron‐based commercial powders, i.e. LaserForm ST‐100 and DirectSteel 20 V1, respectively. They have been subjected to two types of wear tests, i.e. bidirectional fretting and unidirectional pin‐on‐disc tests, under loading conditions leading to wear and/or plastic deformation of the specimens. The results obtained show similar trends to that obtained from the real‐life performance of polymer injection moulds manufactured using such materials and processes.FindingsLaserForm is a better material for injection moulds material than DirectSteel; however, and its performance will deteriorate under impact injection moulding conditions where plastic surface deformation will occur in addition to abrasive wear. Both materials show high coefficient of friction, their performance will be enhanced by redesigning the composition of the powders by incorporating hard and low friction components. The methodology adopted here for investigating the surface degradation behaviours of materials is able to give sufficient and reliable information about the wear behaviour of mould materials for practical applications.Originality/valueIt is concluded that the wear tests used here are suited to characterize the in‐service mould wear strength, and such tests could be preferably used to shorten the mould development/validation time.