Corporate social responsibility in Sri Lanka: The impact of government influence, societal expectations and the 2004 tsunami

This study examines government influence, changes in societal expectations and the 2004 tsunami on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Sri Lanka, a developing country. Hypotheses are formulated based on legitimacy theory to examine the annual changes in total quantity and categories of CSR disclosures between 2004 and 2007. Four directional hypotheses are used to test the increase in CSR disclosures and the increase in category-specific CSR disclosures based on a disclosure classification system. A null hypothesis is used to test whether the change in CSR disclosures from 2004 to 2005 and from 2005 to 2006 remained relatively constant after 2006. The directional hypotheses and the null hypothesis on the extent of disclosure are supported but the category-specific hypotheses are rejcted. This result provides support for legitimacy theory

The Orbit of the L dwarf + T dwarf Spectral Binary SDSS J080531.84+481233.0

[abridged] We report four years of radial velocity monitoring observations of SDSS J080531.84+481233.0 that reveal significant and periodic variability, confirming the binary nature of the source. We infer an orbital period of 2.02$\pm$0.03 yr, a semi-major axis of 0.76$^{+0.05}_{-0.06}$ AU, and an eccentricity of 0.46$\pm$0.05, consistent with the amplitude of astrometric variability and prior attempts to resolve the system. Folding in constraints based on the spectral types of the components (L4$\pm$0.7 and T5.5$\pm$1.1), corresponding effective temperatures, and brown dwarf evolutionary models, we further constrain the orbital inclination of this system to be nearly edge-on (90$^o\pm$19$^o$), and deduce a large system mass ratio (M$_2$/M$_1$ = 0.86$^{+0.10}_{-0.12}$), substellar components (M$_1$ = 0.057$^{+0.016}_{-0.014}$ M$_{\odot}$, M$_2$ = 0.048$^{+0.008}_{-0.010}$ M$_{\odot}$), and a relatively old system age (minimum age = 4.0$^{+1.9}_{-1.2}$ Gyr). The measured projected rotational velocity of the primary ($v\sin{i}$ = 34.1$\pm$0.7 km/s) implies that this inactive source is a rapid rotator (period $\lesssim$ 3 hr) and a viable system for testing spin-orbit alignment in very-low-mass multiples. The combination of well-determined component atmospheric properties and masses near and/or below the hydrogen minimum mass make SDSS J0805+4812AB an important system for future tests of brown dwarf evolutionary models.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication to Ap

An investigation into the lived experience of project leaders in a loosely-coupled transient project context

The leadership of projects is an important area within project management domain, but the project management literature itself still tends to focus mainly on the technical aspects of project management, including planning tools and methodologies (PERT, PMBOK, Prince II etc.). For experienced project leaders, these technical capabilities are the minimum needed to be effective and the greater challenges are often presented by the socio-behavioural demands of the role. Recently, several prominent researchers with a particular interest in generating more insight into the relationship between the social and technical aspects of the project leadership challenge have been calling for more in-depth studies on the lived experience of project leaders, along the lines of the classic studies of Mintzberg (1971) and Kotter (1982) on the nature of managerial work. This research enquiry aims to investigate the lived experience of the project leader with a special focus on a particular type of project that is prevalent in practice but still largely overlooked in mainstream literature. It is referred to here as a "Loosely-Coupled Transient" (LCT) project, and it is typically characterised by multiple layers of loosely associated stakeholders, coming together for once-off projects driven by project teams comprised of diverse experts and advisors, most of whom are working together for the first and only time (such as is typically the case for many development projects in the developing world, for example). Using an exploratory, inductive approach, the research investigates the lived experience of 30 project management practitioners with substantial LCT experience, to try to deepen our empirical and conceptual insight into the nature of the leadership challenge and what it takes to be successful in this kind of project setting. The empirical findings highlight the importance of three socio-behavioural roles; context building, culture-bridging and political brokering, in addition to the more traditional technical co-ordinating role, and examines their implications for future research and practice. A novel feature of the research design is the inclusion of extra data-collection phase to allow the initial findings and their interpretation to be further validated and refined in the field

My farewell to <i>Science and Civilisation in China</i>

The author served as General Editor of the Science and Civilisation in China series from 1992 to 2014. He reviews the history of this scholarly project since its inception by Joseph Needham in 1943, and discusses some of the problems that had to be solved in the production of such a complex and far-ranging publication. He illustrates the discussion with reference to three of the books in the series that appeared under his editorship – those dealing with the topics of ceramics, ferrous metallurgy and ethnobotany. </jats:p