Supporting Research in Area Studies: a guide for academic libraries

The study of other countries or regions of the world often crosses traditional disciplinary boundaries in the humanities and social sciences. Supporting Research in Area Studies is a comprehensive guide for academic libraries supporting these communities of researchers. This book explores the specialist requirements of these researchers in information resources, resource discovery tools, and information skills, and the challenges of working with materials in multiple languages. It makes the case that by adapting their systems and procedures to meet these needs, academic libraries find themselves better placed to support their institution's�� international agenda more widely. The first four chapters cover the academic landscape and its history, area studies librarianship and acquisitions. Subsequent chapters discuss collections management, digital products, and the digital humanities, and their role in academic projects. The final chapter explores information skills and the various disciplinary skills that facilitate the needs of researchers during their careers

Strategic Human Resource Management and Employment Relations : An International Perspective

he theoretical roots for the study of human resource management (HRM) in organisations have existed in the Western contexts for over a century when seminal ideas of influential management thinkers such as Taylor, Drucker and McGregor were in prevalence. Earlier conceptualisations of work and employment adopted a different (pluralist) emphases and focused on terms such as labour welfare, labour relations, personnel management and industrial relations to name a few. One could argue, this view reflected contemporary developments in the field of HRM, albeit with different ideological and philosophical focus that have been in operation for several centuries. For example, in India, work practices were influenced by the ancient ideas of Chanakya (also referred to as Kautilya), whose pioneering work on Arthashastra was regarded as a treatise in the field of economics, politics, military strategy and governance. This seminal work had also developed ideas of organisation and administration in the fourth century BC. Indeed, one only needs to turn back and look at the practices of one of the world’s oldest multinational corporation–the erstwhile East India Company, which was founded in the early 1600 in India by the British to pursue trade with the East Indies. Even though it ended up trading, in the main, in the Indian subcontinent, its operations spanned across several borders

Ethics and taxation : a cross-national comparison of UK and Turkish firms

This paper investigates responses to tax related ethical issues facing busines

Reflections on the impact of social technologies on lecturers in a pathway institution

Education has evolved over time from face-to-face teaching to computer-supported learning, and now to even more sophisticated electronic tools. In particular, social technologies are being used to supple- ment the classroom experience and to ensure that students are becoming increasingly engaged in ways that appeal to them. No matter how educationally beneficial, however, new technology is affected by its users. To investigate this, lecturers at the Eynesbury Institute of Business and Technology (EIBT)—a Higher Education pathway provider—were surveyed to determine their perception and application of social technolog(ies) in their personal, but predominantly ‘professional’ lives. Utilising a qualitative and autoethnographic approach, one author provides an insight into their own attitude toward social technologies, coupled with responses to three open-ended questions. Thereafter, the same questions were posed to EIBT academic staff to understand their willingness or reluctance to use social technologies in their practice as part of their first-year pathway course(s)

Data Quality in Organizational Context - A Case Study

This study examines how contextual factors affect data quality by investigating the acquisition operation of a graduate library in a large public university in the southeast. An area-study unit in the library was chosen as the site for this case study. Interviews were conducted with staff and students involved in the acquisition process, including the unit head, the acquisition manager, the acquisition database system administrator and two students responsible for data entry and pre-order search. Except for the system administrator, four of the participants also filled out a brief questionnaire concerning their views to the database system. The results of the study revealed factors both in the system and process that influence data quality in the database. Based on study findings, recommendations were provided to improve the quality of data and to reduce future errors

Directional adposition use in English, Swedish and Finnish

Directional adpositions such as to the left of describe where a Figure is in relation to a Ground. English and Swedish directional adpositions refer to the location of a Figure in relation to a Ground, whether both are static or in motion. In contrast, the Finnish directional adpositions edellä (in front of) and jäljessä (behind) solely describe the location of a moving Figure in relation to a moving Ground (Nikanne, 2003). When using directional adpositions, a frame of reference must be assumed for interpreting the meaning of directional adpositions. For example, the meaning of to the left of in English can be based on a relative (speaker or listener based) reference frame or an intrinsic (object based) reference frame (Levinson, 1996). When a Figure and a Ground are both in motion, it is possible for a Figure to be described as being behind or in front of the Ground, even if neither have intrinsic features. As shown by Walker (in preparation), there are good reasons to assume that in the latter case a motion based reference frame is involved. This means that if Finnish speakers would use edellä (in front of) and jäljessä (behind) more frequently in situations where both the Figure and Ground are in motion, a difference in reference frame use between Finnish on one hand and English and Swedish on the other could be expected. We asked native English, Swedish and Finnish speakers’ to select adpositions from a language specific list to describe the location of a Figure relative to a Ground when both were shown to be moving on a computer screen. We were interested in any differences between Finnish, English and Swedish speakers. All languages showed a predominant use of directional spatial adpositions referring to the lexical concepts TO THE LEFT OF, TO THE RIGHT OF, ABOVE and BELOW. There were no differences between the languages in directional adpositions use or reference frame use, including reference frame use based on motion. We conclude that despite differences in the grammars of the languages involved, and potential differences in reference frame system use, the three languages investigated encode Figure location in relation to Ground location in a similar way when both are in motion. Levinson, S. C. (1996). Frames of reference and Molyneux’s question: Crosslingiuistic evidence. In P. Bloom, M.A. Peterson, L. Nadel & M.F. Garrett (Eds.) Language and Space (pp.109-170). Massachusetts: MIT Press. Nikanne, U. (2003). How Finnish postpositions see the axis system. In E. van der Zee & J. Slack (Eds.), Representing direction in language and space. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Walker, C. (in preparation). Motion encoding in language, the use of spatial locatives in a motion context. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Lincoln, Lincoln. United Kingdo

Economic Trends in Enterprise Search Solutions

Enterprise search technology retrieves information within organizations. This data can be proprietary and public, its access to it may be restricted or not. Enterprise search solutions render business processes more efficient particularly in data-intensive companies. This technology is key to increasing the competitiveness of the digital economy; thus it constitutes a strategic market for the European Union. The Enterprise Search Solution (ESS) market was worth close to one billion USD in 2008 and is expected to grow quicker than the overall market for information and knowledge management systems. Optimistic market forecasts expect market size to exceed 1,200 million USD by the end of 2010. Other market analyses see the growth rate slowing down and stabilizing at around 10% a year in 2010. Even in the least favourable case, enterprise search remains an attractive market, particularly because of the opportunities expected to arise from the convergence of ESS and Information Systems. This report looks at the demand and supply side of ESS and provides data about the market. It presents the evolution of market dynamics over the past decade and describes the current situation. Our main thesis is that ESS is currently placed at the point where two established markets, namely web search and the management of information systems, overlap. The report offers evidence that these two markets are converging and discusses the role of the different stakeholders (providers of web search engines, enterprise resource management tools, pure enterprise search tools, etc.) in this changing context.JRC.DDG.J.4-Information Societ

Managing talent across advanced and emerging economies: HR issues and challenges in a Sino-German strategic collaboration

The human resource (HR) practices involved in global talent management continue to advance and evolve. A majority of talent management commentary is from multinational corporation (MNC) perspectives. However, the less commented small-to-medium-sized enterprise (SME) also confronts challenges grounded in economic (i.e. resources, finance), organisational (i.e. size, scope and structure) and consequent behavioural rationales (i.e. mindsets and stances). This paper establishes and examines a number of propositions which consider how these factors impact on an advanced economy SME’s talent management in emerging economy collaborations. An interpretive qualitative methodology is employed using interviews conducted within two cases – SME and an MNC comparator case. The SME case is used as the driving force of the paper and its theoretical focus and findings. The MNC is used to develop issues as a comparator case. The findings show SME economic and organisational drivers producing behavioural dynamics in relation to mimesis of planned actions yet informal serendipitous responses in reality; a predilection for the proximate and familiar; design configurations of short-term expatriate visits and inpatriates; cumulating in ongoing inpatriate acculturisation and re-acculturation oscillation. Consequently, the implication is that the SME needs a HR practices encompassing resignation to the situation, flexibility and resilience in order to survive and progress