Search

Degree apprenticeships have recently been introduced in the UK, representing a significant shift in approaches to degree-level study: from traditional models of higher education to workplaces as locations for learning. As the model matures it is important to hear the under-researched perspectives of apprentices who hold dual roles: as students and employees. Using Q methodology, the study aims to identify the different apprentices’ viewpoints of the degree apprenticeship, exploring aspects of belonging, support, challenges and views of the learning experience. Thirty-five second-year computing apprentices at a UK university participated in the study. Centroid factor analysis was conducted to identify different perspectives. Three perspectives of apprentices were revealed: aligned student-workers, busy professionals, and the cast adrift. Aligned student-workers were balancing work and study effectively, finding value in both. Busy professionals were already consolidated as professionals, using this degree apprenticeship to upskill. Finally, the cast adrift, reported a lack of support in the workplace that was affecting their view on the apprenticeship. This exploratory study, resulting in a new research instrument and approach, contributes apprentices’ perspectives to research and practice, as apprenticeship models expand in the UK and beyond. Support for individual apprentices is a shared responsibility, between universities and employers. All three parties, including apprentices, benefit from learning more about apprentices’ situated experiences, their sense of belonging and identity, and their views on the apprenticeship. Policymakers also benefit from insight into the shared responsibilities of successful degree apprenticeships, as these apprenticeships evolve.

The traditional interpretation of British foreign policy during the World Disarmament Conference has cast Britain as the honest broker, seeking to bring France and Germany together in a bid to square their respective differences over security and equality. But from the Foreign Office perspective, honest brokerage did not place Britain between Germany and France but between the ex-Allied Powers on one side and Germany on the other. This recasting of honest brokerage had two particular strands, with the Foreign Office desirous, first, to secure French support for any sort of disarmament programme before seeking German adherence and, second with an eye to the post-Treaty of Versailles international order, to circumscribe German military potential where at all possible. While the conference results remain the same, this interpretation alters the traditional role and suggested motivations of the Foreign Office between 1932 and 1934.

To explain inconsistent behaviour that is well documented in green-marketing and consumption, the authors develop the (neo)structuralist model of meaning co-creation that is based on the signifying practices of hybrid car manufacturers and consumers. The model reveals that market agents are recruited into a symbolic order that requires the perpetual reinforcement of self-opposing meanings as a condition for signification. The main problem of green practice is not the issue of market agents' authenticity/hypocrisy. Rather it represents a more interactive phenomenon – the common structure of meaning-creation – which silences important transformative action choices and thus defeats its own purpose.

Even after 40 years of philosophical discussions about whether “customer” terminology is appropriate in the context of education, health care, religion, government, and other social institutions, virtually no research has been conducted to identify actual public attitudes on the subject. Thus, a large-scale, five-country study was conducted to examine the question: Should patients, students, news media readers/viewers/listeners, political constituents, and members of religious organizations be treated as “customers”? In addition to collecting and analyzing quantitative responses, the study explored the reasoning behind respondents' attitudes, provided benchmark data for future research, and highlighted critical implications for both public and private policy.

This paper describes the characteristics and benefits of a visual ethnography method called “video diary.” The authors illustrate the special features of the method based on their experiences in using it to understand consumer acculturation of Pacific Islanders in New Zealand. In brief, research participants benefit from the control and voice that video diaries give them. Researchers benefit from “saturated description” and collaborative analysis. The benefits of video diaries are particularly suited to ethnographic research with people from collectivist or vulnerable groups. Video diaries can be used alone or along with other ethnographic methods and the authors recommend them to consumer researchers, who want to understand routine and private aspects of consumers’ lives or any aspect of culture. Their range of use is limited only by one’s imagination.

SUMMARY Our aim in this article is to challenge relationship marketing's hidden monological assumptions, and as a redress, position dialogical interaction at its core. First, we reflect on the common sense of ‘marketing communication’. Next, we clarify the concept of ‘dialogue’. We then comment on the concept of dialogue in markets, building on Karl Popper's idea of an open society, followed by scrutiny of general marketing practice to show that such dialogue is absent. We then consider the potential for marketing to be dialogical in nature. To do this we will make a necessary distinction between informational interaction, communicational interaction, and dialogical interaction. Finally, we draw the conclusion that dialogue is not so much a method of communication but an orientation to it, and consider some implications for marketing theory and practice.

The authors come not to praise marketing but to helpfully reflect, review, and re-energise. They express disquiet over flaws and limitations in the mainstream popular body of marketing knowledge th...

This article examines the interdepartmental friction caused by Soviet requests for technical naval assistance from Britain between 1936 and 1937. With an eye to the deteriorating global situation, the Admiralry remained wedded to the view that any help leading to the strengthening of the Soviet navy would only wreck Germanys commitment to crucial qualitative and quantitative naval restrictions. Adopting a different tack, the Foreign Office welcomed the opportuniry to accommodate Soviet fleet requirements as a means of forging Anglo-Soviet amiry and a European balance of power. Ultimately however, the fate of Anglo-Soviet technical cooperation was determined by the exigencies of British rearmament.

The authors examine the nature of marketing in the public sector as a response to government-led reforms during the past 15 years. They conclude that the public sector is a context in which marketing management differs in both theory and application from the approaches found in profit-oriented, privately-owned organizations. There are elements of commercial marketing theory and practice that are useful at an operational level in public bodies, but the democratic process is a major complication. The development of a new framework for marketing in the special context of public services is urged and a tentative start is attempted.

Where does expertise and responsibility for strategic business communication lie? Marketing and public relations vie for supremacy since both groups specialize in communication, using managed communications to pursue their respective objectives. Convincing arguments for one being subsumed by the other abound. A clarifying discussion of the often-confused vocabulary is the starting point for a review of the nature and role of marketing and public relations and how they are portrayed in respective textbooks. The emerging total management system of corporate communication and its relationship to marketing and public relations is placed in a framework for the integration of corporate strategy, organizational development, human resource management, public relations and marketing. Corporate communication has a dominant role in achieving organizational growth, by being concerned with learning, showing the corporation to itself and as a mode of organization for both external and internal environments. (The term c...

The similarities and differences in management and communication styles of male and female entrepreneurs are considered because the authors felt that these might interact with recognized entrepreneurial behavior and hence impact on the working life of employees and the performance of business enterprises. This is done through an extensive literature search and a study of empirical research, one a study within archetypal small businesses and one within a small business unit of a large organization.The relationship of gender differences on entrepreneurial characteristics and the resultant impact on the success or otherwise of business enterprises is looked at in great depth. A management process (internal marketing) framework is then discussed in relationship to these gender and entrepreneurial characteristics and the conclusion is drawn that adopting such a management process is more likely to be attractive to female entrepreneurs and less so to the male entrepreneur.

C Avgerou and R La Rovere Published by Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, UK, 2003, 219 pp. ISBN 1-84376-018-5The contributors to this interdisciplinary discourse on innovation studies in informa...

(1978). Popular entertainments in Madrid, 1758–1859: A survey. Renaissance and Modern Studies: Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 26-44.