Trading Discipline for Agility? Questioning the Unfaithful Appropriation of Agile Software Development Practices

Agile software development practices are rapidly replacing traditional and apparently more disciplined methodologies. However, empirical evidence suggests that organizations experience varying levels of success as more structured processes are traded for more agile ones. Using an autoethnographic approach, we reflect on how the various practices of XP discipline time-space relations amongst developer, customer and code. In this new form of disciplining, we contend that each actor is located in time and space in disciplined or controlled ways. We conclude that the faithful appropriation of the entire complement of agile development practices seems to be critical to the novel disciplinary positioning that they together collectively promote.

Occasioning Dialogic Spaces of Innovation: The pan-Canadian EHR, Infoway and the Re-Scripting of Healthcare

The Canadian public healthcare system appears to currently be under considerable strain. Escalating costs, dwindling budgets and growing patient dissatisfaction are just a few of the systemic pressures that have called into question our current ways of delivering healthcare. As a consequence, there is a growing recognition that renewal is needed, and that this renewal, to be successful, should meet the needs of a wide array of stakeholders, hence calling for unprecedented levels of collaboration among increasingly fragmented interests. In order to bring about this renewal, the federal government seems to be intent on implementing a pan-Canadian electronic health record (EHR) system. To that end, in 2001, Canada Health Infoway was born out of a novel collaboration between federal and jurisdictional health ministries with the specific mandate to accelerate the implementation of EHRs across Canada. In this thesis, I use material-semiotic and dialogic approaches to gain a more nuanced understanding of how the pan-Canadian EHR system is unfolding and in what ways Infoway is trying to accelerate that unfolding. I conclude by suggesting that a more dialogic approach to innovating, in which the innovator focuses on finding various ways to occasion dialogic spaces, may better foster the creation of new meanings of the innovation and therefore result in a more, and not less, harmonious change process. Furthermore, through these dialogic spaces, it is not just multiple meanings of the innovation that are being occasioned, but the innovation itself seems to become more meaningful

Iran’s poultry meat export status in the Middle East region

Agriculture is literally a matter of life and death in the developing world. Ninety-six per cent of the world’s farmers – approximately 1.3 billion people – live in developing countries. In the rural areas of the developing world, close to 900 million people live on less than $1 a day.The Doha mandate encouraged the hope that dumping of subsidised exports from rich countries would finally be brought to an end, that market access for developing countries would be improved,and that developing countries would continue to be permitted to use tariffs and other border measures as part of their rural development strategies. In the Middle East,agriculture is the largest contributor to the Gross Domestic Product and foreign exchange,and is the second largest employer.Yet despite its economic importance it is largely overlooked in the development of new technologies and in the allocation of trained human resources. Agriculture in the Middle East focuses on new ways to improve food production, the challenges of a largely arid land, and managing limited agricultural resources.Agriculture is one of the oldest income sources in Iran. Close to one-third of the working population are engaged in agriculture and related industries such as poultry farming.Agriculture plays a significant role in the Iranian economy. At now agriculture account for an average of 27.8 percent of the GDP, and employ 26.1 percent of the labor force.Also agricultural products account for 47 percent of non-oil exports.Poultry species play important roles in the livelihood of human beings throughout the world both in ways that are quantifiable economically and in others that cannot and are therefore not captured in economic indices such as national GDP estimates.Poultry meat contribute directly to food security because there are no taboos against their consumption.With regard to F.A.O annual reports(2004) ,Iran has been rated 1st producer and also 1st exporter of poultry meat in the Middle East region. Capital stock in this industry consists of Breeding Farms (lines) ,Grand Parents(GP), Parent stock (PS), Broilers, Slaughter-Houses and dependant industries of governmental and private sectors is 4000 Billions Rials (5 Billions$). The current production is related to 70% of production units potential ,so with regard to remained considerable potential,it is necessary to make of them in an optimum rate. Therefore poultry products exports particularly poultry meat can be used for increasing of income and development for poultry industry. The objective of this paper was to study the dynamics on comparative advantage of Iran’s poultry meat export in the Middle East market.Poultry meat,export,Revealed comparative advantage,iran,middle east

A detail analysis on the relationship between Group’s diversification into the financial services industry and its impact on their financial performance

Diversification has become a common strategy of corporate risk management along with availing other potential benefits. The intent of this study is to identify and analyze the relationship between diversification and its positive impact on financial performance of the Group. For this purpose we use the 12 years (1985 to 1996) data of Nishat Group of Companies, to test the relationship before and after diversification into financial services industry.  We find that the diversification into financial services industry proved to be more profitable for the Group, while the overall risk has been increased. Using independent variable in terms of profitability, operational efficiency and Growth we used EBITDA Margin, Total Assets Turnover and Growth, respectively, and for measurement of return we used Dependent Variables ROE & ROA, and the risk is measured with Coefficient of Variation, the results show that there is a strong relationship between dependent and independent variables and we reject Null Hypothesis that diversification does not have positive impact on financial performance of the Group. The other major finding of the research is that because of unrelated diversification the overall risk of the Group increased after diversification, whereas related diversification reduces risk. Key Terms: Diversification, Financial Services, ROA, ROE, TATO, EBID

Impact of international financial reporting standards on the profit and equity of AIM listed companies in the UK

© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. This study examines the extent to which the change from UK GAAP to IFRS has affected companies listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in the UK. The results suggest that, on average, profit reported under IFRS is higher than that reported under UK GAAP; however, the difference is much smaller for AIM listed companies as compared to what existing literature suggests for firms listed on main stock markets. The Gray's partial analysis results indicate that despite the extensive programmes for improving convergence over time there is still a considerable discrepancy between IFRS and UK GAAP

A study on relationship between communication models and crisis management in Tehran’s firefighting department

This research presents an empirical investigation to study the relationship between communication models and crisis management in city of Tehran municipal firefighting department. The study develops a questionnaire with 21 questions, distributes it among 400 people who worked for firefighting department associated with municipality of Tehran, Iran. Crobnach alphas for all components of the survey were well above the minimum acceptable level of 0.7. Kolmogorov–Smirnov test has indicated that all components of the survey were normally distributed. Using a t-student test, the study determined that there were meaningful relationships between communication models and crisis management (sig: 0.000), between vertical model and crisis management (sig: 0.000), between ring model and crisis management (sig: 0.000), between star model and crisis management (sig: 0.000) and between Y model and crisis management (sig: 0.000) in Tehran municipal fire department

Assessing the adherence to the current guidelines in the management of syncope patients

  Background: There exist gaps in the implementation of guideline-recommended treatments and interventions to manage syncope. The present study aimed to investigate the adherence to the current guideline for the diagnosis and management of syncope patients referred to a tertiary center.  Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out with the study group consisting of 324 consecutive patients, who were diagnosed with unexplained syncope with one or more attacks and were referred for head-up tilt table test (HUTT) between September 2009 and September 2011 to Tehran Heart Center. All the patients underwent a thorough evaluation, including a careful medical history and physical examination as well as a thorough history of all procedures performed before referral. The data collected was compared between patients with positive and negative HUTT results and also based on the referring physician, in order to assess the deviation from syncope guideline in their management. We compared the selected groups using a chi-square test for categorical variables and student t-test or analysis of variance (ANOVA) for continuous variables where appropriate.   Results: A total of 324 patients with a Mean (SD) age of 41.04 (17.74) years were enrolled in the study (158 patients, i.e. 48.8%, were male). HUTT was positive in 181 (55.8%) patients. Brain computed tomography scan and coronary angiography were performed more in the initial assessment of the patients with a negative HUTT compared with patients with negative HUTT (P=0.001 and P=0.01, respectively). Significantly higher rates of brain MRI (P=0.01), brain imaging (P=0.03), and electroencephalography (P=0.002) were observed among the neurologists' referrals while echocardiography (P<0.001), exercise tolerance test (P=0.001), electrocardiogram Holter monitoring (P<0.001), and coronary angiography (P=0.02) were significantly more performed in patients referred by a cardiologist.   Conclusion: We observed a noticeable deviation from the current guideline for the management of syncope although the patients underwent expensive tests with little benefit