Outsourcing as a Fad - The Rational Agent versus Structural Imposition

Over recent years there has been a worldwide trend towards smaller government - government departments being under increased pressure to privatise or outsource parts of their operation and to move towards a more independent corporatised model. The corporatised model is seen to involve the organisation moving away from being a direct arm of the government, acting more as a business entity in their own right. In many cases this operation has been preceded by an examination of business processes and subsequent reengineering. This paper examines the change process and presents some of the issues faced by the IT Department of a local governmental organisation as it moves through this difficult and complex process. The paper suggests that consideration of both internal and external social structures needs to play an important part in the examination of the change process

Moving from interpretivism to critical realism in IS research: An exploration and supporting IT outsourcing example

The major contribution of the thesis is to highlight the Importance of philosophical awareness in progressing research. It argues against the use of a priori theory in research and proposes that an understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of particular research approaches can provide the opportunity to be ones own guide and to work out critically one\u27s own conception of the world. It suggests that the adoption of critical realism as the underlying philosophical base can support research in a useful and practical manner. The thesis introduces the philosophy of critical realism and uses its underlabouring role to provide new Insights into the Information systems arena in general and the case example In particular. The thesis specifically concentrates on a comparison between interpretlivism and critical realism, highlighting the differing approaches both have to research. The thesis provides an Illustrative case example examining the development of an organisation\u27s first Information Business Plan and the subsequent outsourcing of the IS Department. The study was originally targeted at describing the Implementation of the organisation\u27s first Information business plan but this changed as the information business plan Implementation was overtaken by events. It is argued that political directives from above were the major reason behind the organizational move to outsource all non-core activities, Including IS. The thesis documents a dissatisfaction with the original interpretivist approach on which the case Investigation was based and uses the case example to highlight the thesis arguments. Critical realism provides a promising analytical and explanatory framework for examining the Interplay between structure and agency within organizations. It Involves both Interpretive and explanatory understanding unified In the analysis of structural relations, and the ways In which these affect, and are affected by, the subjective meanings of human beings (Keat and Urry, 1982, p. 174). This thesis will reflect these understandings and emphases

Examining the popularity trajectory of outsourcing as a management concept

This paper examines the popularity trajectory of outsourcing as a management concept. The paper shows that while outsourcing is an old management practice that has roots that date back centuries, it did not gain widespread popularity as a modern organizational practice until the 1980s. While the initial outsourcing hype and craze of the late 1980s and early 1990s has waned, outsourcing has shown considerable staying power as a management concept, even in the face of counter-movements such as backsourcing and insourcing. Although the experiences with implementation of outsourcing are mixed, outsourcing remains a widely used management concept. However, the current relatively low satisfaction level among users could influence the future popularity trajectory of the outsourcing concept

Public Accountability: Performance Measurement, The Extended State, And The Search For Trust

In an Academy partnership with the Kettering Foundation, National Academy of Pubic Administration Fellows Melvin J. Dubnick and H. George Frederickson have completed a study of accountability. The study, Public Accountability: Performance Measurement, The Extended State, and the Search for Trust, is a treatment of the strengths and weaknesses of contemporary applications of accountability to public affairs. The working title of the study was Public Accountability: From Ambulance Chasing to Accident Prevention, but that title was thought to lack the dignity such an important subject deserves. Dubnick and Frederickson challenge the often assumed relationship between performance measurement and accountability. They give special attention to accountability challenges associated with the outsourcing of government work, what they call the Extended State. And, they provide examples of effective public accountability in the context of high trust public-private partnerships

Dlùth is Inneach: Linguistic and Institutional Foundations for Gaelic Corpus Planning

This report presents the results of a one-year research project, commissioned by Bòrd na Gàidhlig BnG) and carried out by a Soillse Research team, whose goal was to answer the following question: What corpus planning principles are appropriate for the strengthening and promotion of Scottish Gaelic, and what effective coordination would result in their implementation? This report contains the following agreed outcomes: a clear and consistent linguistic foundation for Gaelic corpus planning, according with Bòrd na Gàidhlig’s acquisition, usage and status planning initiatives, and most likely to be supported by Gaelic users. a programme of priorities to be addressed by Gaelic corpus planning. recommendations on a means of coordination that will be effective in terms of cost and management (i.e. an institutional framework

Vital organising : capitalism’s ontological turn and the role of management consulting

This thesis sets out to develop an approach to capitalism that locates its contemporary practice at the level of ontology. It evolves around the argument that contemporary capitalism is itself becoming ontological, that capital has in some sense moved into being. In order to argue thus, the analysis adopts a perspective of process-ontology that is influenced to a great extent by the recent resurgence of vitalism in disciplines such as sociology and cultural studies. Such a vitalist approach can be productively linked to an influential strain of Marxist theory that approaches contemporary capitalism in terms of real subsumption, understood as capital's full penetration of and its becoming operative within the process by which social life (re)creates itself. This thesis develops the notion of vital organising as a concrete strategy enabling capital's displacement into the process of social life. Vital organising conceptualises the widely observed transformations in the field of economic organisation, a) in terms of their ontological significance, and b) in such a way that they can be located within a theory of contemporary capitalism. Moreover, this thesis embeds its abstract conceptual considerations within an empirical exploration of capital's ontological turn in the field of economic organisation. In concrete terms, empirical research into the theory and practice of management consulting identifies trajectories of vital organising in the contemporary practice of economic organisation

Your Ad Here: The Cool Sell of Guerrilla Marketing

This dissertation examines the development of guerrilla marketing strategies and techniques. At the dawn of the 21st century, as the traditional advertising model evolves thanks to changes in technology, markets, commercial clutter, and audience cynicism, marketers are increasingly exploring new and re-imagining old ways of communicating brand messages and managing consumers. By studying the practice of guerrilla marketing – the umbrella term here for an assortment of product placement, outdoor alternative-ambient, word-of-mouth, and consumer-generated approaches – we can better understand an emergent media environment where cultural producers like advertisers strategize and experiment with the dissemination of information and the application of persuasion through covert and outsourced flows. Their creative license is remarkable not only in terms of content but equally that of context: expansively reconfiguring the space typically partitioned for commercial petition. As befitting a public relations mindset, the guerrilla message they seek to seed travels bottom-up, through invisible relay, or from decentralized corners so as to subtly engage audiences in seemingly serendipitous ways. Through a close examination of emblematic campaign examples, trade press coverage, and in-depth interviews with prominent practitioners, this project peels back the curtain on a form of cultural production that reworks the conventional archetype of mass communication and rethinks how consumers might be managed. Drawing upon Foucauldian theory that conceptualizes an active subject rather than a form of domination that has often defined the use of power, I argue that this is a regime of casual, if not “invisible” consumer governance that accommodates yet structures participatory agency; self-effaces its own authority and intent through disinterested spaces and anti-establishment formats; opens up the brand-text as a more flexible form; and democratizes in favor of heterarchical collaboration. It is, in short, advertising that tries not to seem like advertising. By studying the inspirations, machinations, and designs behind these campaigns to uncover and map the institutional discourse and cultural logic at work, I identify and analyze common themes of power and practice that animate otherwise disparate advertising executions and help redefine media industries

Entropy and the Economy of Violence: Anthropophagy and Sacrificial Violence in Late Modernity

In this project, I explore the relationship of biosocial perspectives, specifically the study of energy and entropy, to contemporary work in criminology and social theory. After working through an elaboration of entropy, I explore its relevance to social life through an eclectic but necessary survey of a key set of scholars whose work focuses upon the sacrifice and criminalization of the poor, the intensification of exclusion and genocidal contexts, and finally, the possibility of a politics of change through indigenous knowledges. Bringing these various schools of thought together allows us to see the interdisciplinary linkages that might better reveal the urgency of emergency in our contemporary era

Sustainability and economic governance: Reconfiguring cocoa-chocolate production networks in Indonesia

The concept of sustainability has recently become integrated into mainstream commercial spheres of cocoa-chocolate industries, whilst the concept remains elusive and debateable in the political sphere. The sustainability initiatives attempt to improve both farm management and farmer livelihoods by voluntarily integrating certification schemes (e.g., RA, Utzcertified, and Fairtrade) along with other initiatives. Exploring the implications of the sustainability initiatives beyond vertical industrial governance, this study contributes to the extant literature on GVCS/GPNs and provides an understanding of the extension of sustainability concept into horizontal extrafirm bargaining strategies. This study highlights the increasing industrial-centred power beyond a reorganisation of industrial activities of two case studies, Mars and Nestlé. The initiatives have resulted an increase vertical coordination with the upstream cocoa production networks, as the schemes become an instrument to minimise the supply risks. Also, the horizontal engagement through public private partnerships has created a negotiation space with extrafirm actors, yet the state participation in sustainability (keberlanjutan) discourse appeared to support local industrialists and the transnational firms to secure cocoa supply. Sustainability has strengthened the firm position in the upstream production networks, but the local actors and farmers continue struggle to overcome increasing market barriers and uneven competition. Eventually, the initiatives emphasize the economic interests, but at the expense of the cheaper productive capital supplied by the smallholder farmers and creating new processes of uneven development