Beyond the hegemonic narrative – a study of managers

Purpose – The aim is to analyse managerial behaviour using narrative analysis to identify stories that are often ignored, silenced or missed by the hegemonic managerialist narrative. Design/methodology/approach – An ethnographic narrative based on an 18 month period of participant observation where the author was a manager in a business unit acquired by another company for $1 billion. Findings – Strategy can be diverted or altered by managers lower down the organization in a counter strategy process. This is consistent with Dalton where managers lower down the organization adapt and change strategy to make it work in practice. Research limitations/implications – Participant observation and ethnomethodological narrative analysis have the potential to go beyond the hegemonic managerialist literature and identify a much more complex picture. However, such research is always open to criticism as being from the author's “own perspective” and appearing to claim “omnipresence.” Other stories have been given voice but it is never possible to say that all stories have been recovered from the silencing processes of the organization. Practical implications – A clearer understanding of how management operates counter strategies within an organization in practice. This enables organizations to reconsider how they engage managers beyond the hegemonic narrative. Originality/value – This paper aims to provide an insight into management behaviour beyond the usual treatment of managers as an amorphous mass as is common in most of the hegemonic managerialist narrative. When managers are told the narratives in this paper they can recount their own similar stories yet these are rarely told

Chemodynamics of dwarf galaxies under ram-pressure

By implementing a dynamic wind-tunnel model in a smoothed-particle chemodynamic/hydrodynamic simulation suite, we have investigated the effects of ram pressure and tidal forces on dwarf galaxies similar to the Magellanic Clouds, within host galaxies with gas and dark matter halos that are varied, to compare the relative effects of tides and ram pressure. We concentrate on how the distributions of metals are affected by interactions. We find that while ram pressure and tidal forces have some effect on dwarf galaxy outflows, these effects do not produce large differences in the metal distributions of the dwarf disks other than truncation in the outer regions in some cases, and that confinement from the host galaxy gas halo appears to be more significant than ram pressure stripping. We find that stochastic variations in the star formation rate can explain the remaining variations in disk metal properties. This raises questions on the cause of low metallicities in dwarf galaxies.Comment: Submitted to ApJ, under 2nd review (very minor revisions

The critical temperature for the Ising model on planar doubly periodic graphs

We provide a simple characterization of the critical temperature for the Ising model on an arbitrary planar doubly periodic weighted graph. More precisely, the critical inverse temperature \beta for a graph G with coupling constants (J_e)_{e\in E(G)} is obtained as the unique solution of a linear equation in the variables (\tanh(\beta J_e))_{e\in E(G)}. This is achieved by studying the high-temperature expansion of the model using Kac-Ward matrices.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figure

Educating Latin American economists

Graduate economic programmes in Latin America have evolved along the lines of two different traditions: one closely linked to the current economic mainstream (being in that sense ‘global’) and the other more local and heterodox. This paper provides an overview of perceptions, interests, concerns and opinions of global Latin American graduate economic programmes, comparing them with similar programmes in Europe and the US. It reports the findings of a survey of Latin American global economics programmes and discusses the debate between global economics and traditional economics, arguing that there is a role for both, with global economics concentrating on the science of economics and traditional economics concentrating on the applied policy ‘political economy’ branch of economics – which is much broader than the applied policy training that graduate students get in global economics.

Boundary feedback stabilization of a flexible wing model under unsteady aerodynamic loads

This paper addresses the boundary stabilization of a flexible wing model, both in bending and twisting displacements, under unsteady aerodynamic loads, and in presence of a store. The wing dynamics is captured by a distributed parameter system as a coupled Euler-Bernoulli and Timoshenko beam model. The problem is tackled in the framework of semigroup theory, and a Lyapunov-based stability analysis is carried out to assess that the system energy, as well as the bending and twisting displacements, decay exponentially to zero. The effectiveness of the proposed boundary control scheme is evaluated based on simulations.Comment: Published in Automatica as a brief pape

Boundary Control of a Nonhomogeneous Flexible Wing with Bounded Input Disturbances

This note deals with the boundary control problem of a nonhomogeneous flexible wing evolving under unsteady aerodynamic loads. The wing is actuated at its tip by flaps and is modeled by a distributed parameter system consisting of two coupled partial differential equations. Based on the proposed boundary control law, the well-posedness of the underlying Cauchy problem is first investigated by resorting to the semigroup theory. Then, a Lyapunov-based approach is employed to assess the stability of the closed-loop system in the presence of bounded input disturbances.Comment: Published in IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control as a Technical Not

Chemodynamic evolution of dwarf galaxies in tidal fields

The mass-metallicity relation shows that the galaxies with the lowest mass have the lowest metallicities. As most dwarf galaxies are in group environments, interaction effects such as tides could contribute to this trend. We perform a series of smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) simulations of dwarf galaxies in external tidal fields to examine the effects of tides on their metallicities and metallicity gradients. In our simulated galaxies, gravitational instabilities drive gas inwards and produce centralized star formation and a significant metallicity gradient. Strong tides can contribute to these instabilities, but their primary effect is to strip the outer low-metallicity gas, producing a truncated gas disk with a large metallicity. This suggests that the role of tides on the mass-metallicity relation is to move dwarf galaxies to higher metallicities.Comment: Accepted to Ap