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

This paper investigates responses to tax related ethical issues facing busines

Work Activation Regimes and Well-being of Unemployed People: Rhetoric, Risk and Reality of Quasi-Marketization in the UK Work Programme

Well-being and employment activation have become central and intertwined policy priorities across advanced economies, with the mandation of unemployed claimants towards employability interventions (e.g. curriculum vitae preparation and interview skills). Compelled job search and job transitions are in part justified by the well-being gains that resulting employment is said to deliver. However, this dominant focus within the activation field on outcome well-being - the well-being improvement triggered by a transition to paid work - neglects how participation in activation schemes can itself affect well-being levels for unemployed people - what we term 'process well-being' effects. Combining theoretical literature with empirical work on the UK's large-scale quasi-marketized Work Programme activation scheme, we develop the limited existing academic discussion of process well-being effects, considering whether and how activation participation mediates the negative well-being effects of unemployment, irrespective of any employment outcomes. We further relate variation in such process well-being effects to the literature on activation typologies, in which 'thinner' work-first activation interventions are linked to weaker process well-being effects for participants compared to 'thicker' human capital development interventions. Confirming these expectations, our empirical work shows that Work Programme participants have, to date, experienced a largely 'thin' activation regime in which participants are both expected to, and empirically demonstrate, similar if not lower levels of process well-being than those who are openly unemployed. These concerning findings speak to all nations seeking to promote the well-being of unemployed people and particularly those perusing 'black box' activation schemes based around quasi-marketization, devolution and New Public Management

Ways of healing: exploring more-than-biomedical cures as emancipatory and biopolitical knowledges-practices

Healing is loosely defined as the process(es) of becoming well. Despite its all-embracing multispecies quality, social and scientific significance(s) across spaces, times and cultures, there is a lacuna concerning critical ontological and epistemological frameworks of healing, particularly in the areas of Science and Technology Studies (STS), feminist theory and body studies. As an initial attempt to approach these questions and limitations, we organised the open panel Ways of healing as part of the Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S) 2021 Annual Meeting. The panel engaged with local, traditional, and profane healing knowledge-practices as relational and sustainable healthcare approaches as well as biopolitical tools of neoliberal (individual) responsibilisation. By focusing on how to analyse, establish and build on ‘good relations’ between (1) traditional health cultures and biomedicine, and (2) lay and professional expertise, this conference report addresses pluralistic ways of healing in unequal and uncertain worlds

Rhiz|comics: The Structure, Sign, and Play of Image and Text

This dissertation combines Gregory Ulmer\u27s post-criticism with multimodal composition resulting in a work that critiques the medium of comics in comics format. Six traditional text chapters forge a theoretical and practical foundation; punctuated within and without by occasional visual interludes and three comic sections. I advocate teaching multimodal composition through comics\u27 interplay of image and text

Transparency and the performance of outsourced government services

The Office of the Information Commission Queensland / ANZSOG Occasional Paper series aims to objectively evaluate the available evidence about whether openness can be a far more powerful tool than secrecy in serving the public interest. Where transparency can be used as a tool, the series also identifies the practical application and the lessons learnt so far. Importantly, it seeks to articulate the case for transparency by showing how transparency can be used as a means to the end: effective policy implementation while minimising costs to the taxpayer.  The latest paper in the series is by Richard Mulgan of ANU, and examines transparency and the performance of outsourced government services. It discusses three aspects of outsourcing: value-for-money efficiency, effectiveness of performance, and publicity of performance information, and explores a number of lessons for both government and public sector managers on how to increase the extent of transparency, and thus the quality, of outsourced services

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

Programmed \u27Treasuries of Eloquence’: A Rhetorical Take on Productivity Aids in Audio Engineering Software

This project examines the influence of productivity aids in digital audio production software on matters of professional expertise, user experience, and workflow. The research is based on both the public reflections of 25 leading audio engineers about the state of the craft and the field as well as close content analyses of the most widely used software solutions for music mixing. Using the practical tenets of the fourth canon of rhetoric, memory, as a heuristic lens and emphasizing its role as an arbiter of professional expertise, this study contextualizes memory as both recollection strategy and programmed practice. It examines the extent to which embedded productivity aids take over the work of audio engineers and what effects this has on the craft and its community of practitioners. The study culminates in a larger argument about the potentially detrimental effects of automation on creative practice and promotes an appreciation of memory and recollection strategies that inform a pedagogy of critical reflection and active engagement— especially in view of higher education where students prepare for their careers post-graduation