Visual Culture and Arctic Voyages

Uncovering a wealth of neglected archival information, this book examines both visual and textual material from the mid-nineteenth century Franklin Search Expeditions to the Arctic, painstakingly tracing their influence on popular imagination. Its surprising findings present a compelling challenge to the still-dominant 'man-versus-nature' trope

The Rules of Hijacking: Coercion and Legitimacy in the "Urban Statelets" of the IRA

Much of the political violence literature emphasizes the importance of coercive capacity in securing both local control and local support in times of conflict. But armed groups sometimes enjoy extensive support even in areas where the state has high penetrative capacity and high levels of control. To retain this support armed groups need to maintain a certain degree of local legitimacy. This paper examines the way in which the Provisional Irish Republican Army balanced coercion and legitimacy in its interactions with civilians in the Catholic urban neighbourhoods of Northern Ireland, the "urban statelets of Belfast and Derry" as one British civil servant referred to them in 1976. Drawing on memoirs by former IRA volunteers, on other published accounts of car hijackings and on state archives it argues that the need to maintain popular support, local legitimacy and an identification with the local community severely inhibited IRA actions, narrowing their strategic and tactical options, limiting their operational capacity and shaping their actions at the micro-level. It points to the delicacy of the balance between coercive power and legitimation in the securing of local control by armed insurgents

Sustainability accounting and reporting at a sector level: mapping the terrain

The aim of this paper is to develop our understanding of accounting and reporting for sustainability at a sector level, an area where there is a significant deficit of literature. As sustainability is a system-based concept, there is a growing recognition that sustainability reporting needs to move beyond single-entity reports towards multiple organisation reporting, such as industry, supply chain and sector-level reports. However, few studies have explored the challenges and possibilities of multiple organisation reporting, and no established sector-level reporting guidelines exist. This study advances the sustainability accounting literature by mapping the field of multiple organisation sustainability reporting, drawing together any existing literature and reviewing emerging voluntary reporting mechanisms. We identify different levels of sustainability parameters and reporting: global, national, sectoral, organisational and product. We then evaluate emerging reporting frameworks at a sectoral level, with reference to the agri-food sector, an industry with significant ecological impacts. We review these frameworks, along with a practitioner example of sustainability reporting at a sectoral level in the form of Bord Bia’s Origin Green programme, in the context of global sustainability parameters, namely planetary boundaries and the Sustainable Development Goals. In doing so we identify a lack of coherent linkages among these global parameters of sustainability and emerging reporting frameworks and reporting. We suggest directions for future research by which these gaps may be addressed

Reporting controversial issues in controversial industries

Purpose: This article explores how companies in multiple controversial industries report their controversial issues. For the first time, the authors use a new conceptualization of controversial industries, focused on harm and solutions, to investigate the reports of 28 companies in seven controversial industries: Agricultural Chemicals, Alcohol, Armaments, Coal, Gambling, Oil and Tobacco.Design/methodology/approach: The authors thematically analyzed company reports to determine if companies in controversial industries discuss their controversial issues in their reporting, if and how they communicate the harm caused by their products or services, and what solutions they provide.Findings: From this study data the authors introduce a new legitimacy reporting method in the controversial industries literature: the solutions companies offer for the harm caused by their products and services. The authors find three solution reporting methods: no solution, misleading solution and less-harmful solution. The authors also develop a new typology of reporting strategies used by companies in controversial industries based on how they report their key controversial issue and the harm caused by their products or services, and the solutions they offer. The authors identify seven reporting strategies: Ignore, Deny, Decoy, Dazzle, Distort, Deflect and Adapt.Research limitations/implications: Further research can test the typology and identify strategies used by companies in different institutional or regulatory settings, across different controversial industries or in larger populations.Practical implications: Investors, consumers, managers, activists and other stakeholders of controversial companies can use this typology to identify the strategies that companies use to report controversial issues. They can assess if reports admit to the controversial issue and the harm caused by a company's products and services and if they provide solutions to that harm.Originality/value: This paper develops a new typology of reporting strategies by companies in controversial industries and adds to the theory and discourse on social and environmental reporting (SER) as well as the literature on controversial industries

Why businesses need to embrace the bioeconomy

Developing and using planet-friendly materials can yield new, more sustainable business models — and contribute to building a robust infrastructure for renewable biological resources

Reporting Controversial Issues in Controversial Industries

Purpose: This article explores how companies in multiple controversial industries report their controversial issues. For the first time, we use a new conceptualization of controversial industries, focused on harm and solutions, to investigate the reports of 28 companies in seven controversial industries: Agricultural Chemicals, Alcohol, Armaments, Coal, Gambling, Oil and Tobacco.Methodology: We thematically analyzed company reports to determine if companies in controversial industries discuss their controversial issues in their reporting, if and how they communicate the harm caused by their products or services, and what solutions they provide.Findings: From our data we introduce a new legitimacy reporting method in the controversial industries literature: the solutions companies offer for the harm caused by their products and services. We find three solution reporting methods: no solution, misleading solution and less harmful solution. We also develop a new typology of reporting strategies used by companies in controversial industries based on how they report their key controversial issue and the harm caused by their products or services, and the solutions they offer. We identify seven reporting strategies:Ignore, Deny, Decoy, Dazzle, Distort, Deflect and Adapt.Originality: This paper develops a new typology of reporting strategies by companies in controversial industries and adds to the theory and discourse on social and environmental reporting (SER) as well as the literature on controversial industries.Research implications: Further research can test the typology and identify strategies used by companies in different institutional or regulatory settings, across different controversial industriesor in larger populations.Practical implications: Investors, consumers, managers, activists and other stakeholders of controversial companies can use this typology to identify the strategies that companies use to report controversial issues. They can assess if reports admit to the controversial issue and the harm caused by a company’s products and services and if they provide solutions to that harm

Mapping lexical dialect variation in British English using Twitter

There is a growing trend in sociolinguistics and dialectology to analyse large corpora of social media data, but it is unclear if the results of these studies can be generalised to language as a whole. To assess the generalisability of Twitter dialect maps, this paper presents the first systematic comparison regional lexical variation in Twitter corpora and traditional survey data. We compare the regional patterns found in 139 lexical dialect maps based on a 1.8 billion word corpus of geolocated UK Twitter data and the BBC Voices dialect survey. A spatial analysis of these 139 map pairs finds a strong alignment between these two data sources, offering evidence that both approaches to data collection allow for the same basic underlying regional patterns to be identified. We conclude that these results license the use of Twitter corpora for general inquiries into regional linguistic variation and change

Diagnostic accuracy of a clinical diagnosis of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: An international case-cohort study

We conducted an international study of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) diagnosis among a large group of physicians and compared their diagnostic performance to a panel of IPF experts. A total of 1141 respiratory physicians and 34 IPF experts participated. Participants evaluated 60 cases of interstitial lung disease (ILD) without interdisciplinary consultation. Diagnostic agreement was measured using the weighted kappa coefficient (\u3baw). Prognostic discrimination between IPF and other ILDs was used to validate diagnostic accuracy for first-choice diagnoses of IPF and were compared using the Cindex. A total of 404 physicians completed the study. Agreement for IPF diagnosis was higher among expert physicians (\u3baw=0.65, IQR 0.53-0.72, p20 years of experience (C-index=0.72, IQR 0.0-0.73, p=0.229) and non-university hospital physicians with more than 20 years of experience, attending weekly MDT meetings (C-index=0.72, IQR 0.70-0.72, p=0.052), did not differ significantly (p=0.229 and p=0.052 respectively) from the expert panel (C-index=0.74 IQR 0.72-0.75). Experienced respiratory physicians at university-based institutions diagnose IPF with similar prognostic accuracy to IPF experts. Regular MDT meeting attendance improves the prognostic accuracy of experienced non-university practitioners to levels achieved by IPF experts

The possible role of business organisations in sustainable development: approaches, boundaries, future directions

It is increasingly evident that human development is proceeding in an unsustainable manner, and that large business organisations are significantly complicit in this process. In this context, the purpose of this study is to explore the possibilities by which business organisations could come to support sustainable development, with a particular focus on related barriers and how they may be overcome. Literature on business and sustainable development is dominated by managerialist, organisation-centric perspectives, where the focus is on business profitability rather than planetary sustainability. This study seeks to challenge this mainstream literature, engaging with more critical perspectives and exploring the subtleties of the contradictory arguments presented by these two literatures. Empirical investigation involved two major steps. First the thesis employs a) a content analysis and b) a “close reading” of corporate public utterances on sustainability. Secondly, and more substantively, the thesis comprises a series of semi-structured interviews with individuals in organisations. To obtain a range of perspectives on the sustainable development-business relationship, a number of “different types” of organisation are sampled, in the form of social enterprises, large PLCs, SMEs and co-owned businesses. Based on the research findings, it is argued that the most significant barriers within the business-sustainable development relationship in fact concern the nature of modern international financial capitalism, and the nature of business itself. Certain characteristics, such as growth, competition and self-interest, essential to both the nature of the “system” and the nature of business, are fundamentally incompatible with sustainable development. In recognising this dissonance, a blank canvas is created where new imaginings of “sustainable business” can begin to take place. Through detailed engagement with the critical and managerialist literatures, and drawing insight from the different types of organisations sampled, the thesis identifies a number of characteristics, such as collaboration, compromise and consideration of the common good, which may have the potential to enable an alternative, more “human”, and ultimately more “sustainable” form of business organisation

The Rules of Hijacking: Coercion and Legitimacy in the "Urban Statelets" of the IRA

Much of the political violence literature emphasizes the importance of coercive capacity in securing both local control and local support in times of conflict. But armed groups sometimes enjoy extensive support even in areas where the state has high penetrative capacity and high levels of control. To retain this support armed groups need to maintain a certain degree of local legitimacy. This paper examines the way in which the Provisional Irish Republican Army balanced coercion and legitimacy in its interactions with civilians in the Catholic urban neighbourhoods of Northern Ireland, the "urban statelets of Belfast and Derry" as one British civil servant referred to them in 1976. Drawing on memoirs by former IRA volunteers, on other published accounts of car hijackings and on state archives it argues that the need to maintain popular support, local legitimacy and an identification with the local community severely inhibited IRA actions, narrowing their strategic and tactical options, limiting their operational capacity and shaping their actions at the micro-level. It points to the delicacy of the balance between coercive power and legitimation in the securing of local control by armed insurgents.<br /