The dynamics of lateral relations in changing organizational worlds

This paper sets out to chart ways in which a number of linked but independent changes in the organizational contexts clients are bringing with them into consultancy are both drawing attention to and forcing us to reconsider ways in which we have hitherto thought about the dynamics of leadership, accountability, and authority. It proposes that one way of characterizing this direction of movement is that it is focusing around the experiences, challenges and dilemmas, both conscious and unconscious, being presented by lateral relations. The paper offers a provisional definition of ‘lateral relations’ and seeks to explore and test this against experiences in two consultancy assignments, in the private and public sectors, respectively. Both touch on themes of anxiety and vulnerability: in the dismantling of prior expectations and assumptions, and in the face of what might be termed the nakedness of being on one's own, with colleagues. The concluding section of the paper speculates on ways in which these developments may both challenge and affect our more familiar organizational and group relations paradigms

Bion's work group revisited

The treatment manual is intended to serve more than one purpose. It is designed to be a research tool, making possible the standardization and validation of a treatment method. It is also a highly condensed primer and a practicum, offering a description of psychoanalytic group therapy which will act as a handbook for the beginner and as an aide-memoirefor the more experienced therapist. Many therapists will have had some experience with individual patients but wonder how they are to convert that knowledge into the practicalities of running a group, in which seven or eight patients are seen simultaneously. For young practitioners in a National Health Service setting, this can be a daunting prospect. It is difficult to do group therapy well, yet when it is done well it provides an invaluable therapeutic medium for a collection of patients it might be neither possible nor wise nor even necessary to see in individual treatment. In other words, there are many patients for whom a group is the treatment of choice

Regulation, Competition and Liberalization

In many countries throughout the world, regulators are struggling to determine whether and how to introduce competition into regulated industries. This essay examines the complexities involved in the liberalization process. While stressing the importance of case-specific analyses, this essay distinguishes liberalization policies that generally are pro-competitive from corresponding anti-competitive liberalization policiesCompetition, Regulation, Liberalization

Evidence on the Value of Strategic Planning in Marketing: How Much Planning Should a Marketing Planner Plan?

What evidence exists on the value of formal planning for strategic decision-making in marketing? This paper reviews the evidence. This includes two tests of face validity. First, we use the market test: Are formal procedures used for marketing planning? Next, we examine expert prescriptions: What do they say is the best way to plan? More important than face validity, however, are tests of construct or predictive validity: What empirical evidence exists on the relative value of formal and informal approaches to marketing planning? The paper concludes with suggestions on the types of research that would be most useful for measuring the value of formal marketing planning. Before reviewing the evidence, we present a framework for the formal planning process.strategic planning, marketing

A new model for procuring e-books

This paper draws on a recent ground-breaking tender for e-books for higher education libraries in the UK. The strategy for the tender was informed by standard procurement practice and by the experience of acquiring other e-resources, particularly journals under the so-called big deal. Both are examined as background to the discussion of e-books in general and the tender in particular

Truthmakers and modality

This paper attempts to locate, within an actualist ontology, truthmakers for modal truths: truths of the form or . In section 1 I motivate the demand for substantial truthmakers for modal truths. In section 2 I criticise Armstrong’s account of truthmakers for modal truths. In section 3 I examine essentialism and defend an account of what makes essentialist attributions true, but I argue that this does not solve the problem of modal truth in general. In section 4 I discuss, and dismiss, a theistic account of the source of modal truth proposed by Alexander Pruss. In section 5 I offer a means of (dis)solving the problem

Combinatorialism revisited

The object of this paper is to argue once again for the combinatorial account of possibility defended in earlier work (Armstrong, 1989, 1997). But there I failed fully to realise the dialectical advantages that accrue once one begins by assuming the hypothesis of logical atomism, the hypothesis that postulates simple particulars and simple universals (properties and relations) at the bottom of the world. Logical atomism is, I incline to think, no better than ‘speculative cosmology’ as opposed to ‘analytic ontology’, to use Donald Williams’ terminology (Williams, 1966, p.74). It is, however, not an implausible hypothesis given the current state of quantum physics. More important for our purposes here, the strictly combinatorial theory that flows rather naturally from the atomist metaphysics shows some promise of continuing to hold (perhaps with a little mutatis mutandis) in a world that is not an atomist world