Administrative Managers – A Critical Link

Institutional responses to changes in the higher education environment have caused movements in the roles and identities of administrative managers in UK universities. These shifts have highlighted the problem for individuals of balancing traditional public service considerations of administration with institutional innovation and development. Administrative managers find themselves not only acting as independent arbiters, giving impartial advice on the basis of professional expertise, but also becoming involved in political judgements about institutional futures. They increasingly undertake an interpretive function between the various communities of the university and its external partners. As the boundaries of the university have become more permeable, administrative and academic management have inter-digitated, and hybrid roles have developed. In undertaking increasingly complex functions, therefore, administrative managers play a critical role in linking the academic and executive arms of governance in the university

Process evaluation of the Bridging the Age Gap in Breast Cancer decision support intervention cluster randomised trial

Background The Bridging the Age Gap in Breast Cancer research programme sought to improve treatment decision-making for older women with breast cancer by developing and testing, in a cluster randomised trial (n = 1339 patients), two decision support interventions (DESIs). Both DESIs were used in the intervention arm and each comprised an online risk prediction model, brief decision aid and information booklet. One DESI supported the decision to have either primary endocrine therapy (PET) or surgery with adjuvant therapies and the second supported the decision to have adjuvant chemotherapy after surgery or not. Methods Sixteen sites were randomly selected to take part in the process evaluation. Multiple methods of data collection were used. Medical Research Council (MRC) guidelines for the evaluation of complex interventions were used. Results Eighty-two patients, mean age 75.5 (range 70–93), provided data for the process evaluation. Seventy-three interviews were completed with patients. Ten clinicians from six intervention sites took part in telephone interviews. Dose: Ninety-one members of staff in the intervention arm received intervention training. Reach: The online tool was accessed on 324 occasions by 27 clinicians. Reasons for non-use of the online tool were commonly that the patient had already made a decision or that there was no online access in the clinic. Of the 32 women for whom there were data available, fifteen from the intervention arm and six from the usual care arm were offered a choice of treatment. Fidelity: Clinicians used the online tool in different ways, with some using it during the consultation and others checking the online survival estimates before the consultation. Adaptation: There was evidence of adaptation when using the DESIs. A lack of infrastructure, e.g. internet access, was a barrier to the use of the online tool. The brief decision aid was rarely used. Mediators: Shared decision-making: Most patients felt able to contribute to decision-making and expressed high levels of satisfaction with the process. Participants’ responses to intervention: Six patients reported the DESIs to be very useful, one somewhat useful and two moderately useful. Conclusions Clinicians who participated were mainly supportive of the interventions and had attempted some adaptations to make the interventions applicable, but there were practical and engagement barriers that led to sub-optimal adoption in routine practice

Pratos e mais pratos: louças domésticas, divisões culturais e limites sociais no Rio de Janeiro, século XIX

Reply to ten comments on a paper published in the last issue of this journal. The discussion follows along six main lines: History museums, identity, ideology and the category of nation; the need of material collections and their modalities: patrimonial, operational, virtual; theater versus laboratory; visitors and their ambiguities; Public History: the museum and the academy.Resposta aos comentários de dez especialistas que contribuíram no debate de texto publicado no último número desta revista. A discussão orientou-se segundo seis tópicos principais: museus históricos, identidade, ideologia e a categoria de nação; a necessidade de acervos materiais e suas modalidades: acervo patrimonial, operacional, virtual; teatro versus laboratório; o público e suas ambigüidades; História Pública: o museu e a Academia

Monstrous Words, Monstrous Bodies: Irony and the Walking Dead in Walter Map's De Nugis Curialium

This article analyses the function of the tales of the walking dead found in Distinction II of Walter Map's De Nugis Curialium (c.1182). Map's sole surviving work, the “Courtiers’ Trifles” is a collection of historical narratives, wonder stories, witty asides and anecdotes collated during his employment at Henry II's court. The satirical nature of the De Nugis has been noted by previous scholars; however, this has yet to be discussed specifically with regard to the tales of the undead. Following a discussion of the twelfth-century traditions of satirical literature and the ways in which medieval authors approached the trope of irony, the second part of the narrative will examine how Map, a master of the “art of lying”, deconstructed the conventions of wonder stories. It will be argued that as well as using these tales to satirise the historiographical function of mirabilia, they were also used to critique the reality of court life and, on a deeper level, the literary function of ambiguity itself. The inherent irony of the walking dead, the dissonance between physical form and metaphysical intent, meant that they could be inscribed with multiple, parallel meanings

Stakeholder management in construction : an empirical study to address research gaps in previous studies

This paper concentrates on identifying gaps in the scope of previous studies on stakeholder management, and starting to address those gaps by conducting an empirical study. To complete these research objectives, literature review, interviews, questionnaire survey, and a case study were used in this study. Four gaps regarding critical success factors, stakeholder management process, methods for stakeholder management and stakeholder relationship management were identified. Based on an empirical study, a framework for effective stakeholder management is proposed, and the application of a Social Network Analysis technique, as a means of determining the influence of stakeholders on decision making, is illustrated and validated by a case study. These findings can serve as initial references towards a more systematic approach for stakeholder management. Since the empirical study was conducted only in Hong Kong and Australia, further studies should be conducted in other regions to validate and compare with the finding in this paper