Career progress and career barriers: Women MBA graduates in Canada and the UK

This article explores the career progress of female MBA graduates in Canada and the UK and the nature of career barriers experienced in each context. Results suggest that while Canadian women have similar career profiles to men, women in the UK lag behind their male counterparts after graduation from the course. At the same time, UK women encounter more intractable career barriers in the form of negative attitudes and prejudice. A model of the ‘MBA effect’ is proposed in terms of how the qualification may impact on career barriers. This incorporates three different types of barriers which are seen to operate at the individual level (person centred barriers) and at the intermediate/organizational level (organizational culture and attitudes, corporate practices) as well as, at the macro level, the impact of legislative frameworks. Results from the UK and Canadian surveys are discussed in relation to this model and in the context of feminist theory and women in management literature

Cost-Benefit Considerations in Routing Pipelines Through Offshore Fishing Grounds

The purpose of this work is to explore the technology and economics associated with the options which might be used to transport oil from Georges Bank with the least total cost objective in mind. First, we summarize background information on the existing usage of Georges Bank by fishermen and those offshore areas of greatest interest to the oil industry. A consideration of various alternatives of transportation to shore and their relative costs (and benefits) should allow one to get a handle, approximate as it may be, on which might be best for society as a whole in terms of least total cost. Finally, brief mention will be made of the regulatory setting in which the multiple resource use issues raised here would be considered

Forms of capital and career benefits of the MBA in china and the UK

This paper sets out the results of a research project which compares benefits from the MBA in China and the UK. Drawing on and modifying Bourdieu’s forms of capital theory, it highlights areas of commonality and difference. In particular it demonstrates that some forms of capital (e.g. institutional, social) transcend national boundaries and are equally valued in both contexts. Significant differences emerge within categories of cultural capital with Chinese respondents placing a higher value on more technical and UK respondents placing a higher value on personal and interpersonal skill components. Implications for the transferability of Western based management education to China are evaluated and discussed

Corruption, transparency and a role for ICT?

Civil society’s struggle against corruption has as a major element, (alongside the enforcement of the law and structural reform of public institutions), the introduction of transparency in place of the obscurity and secrecy in which corrupt practices thrive. Various levels of corruption can be distinguished from each other. They include the wholesale corruption of politicians, governments, higher administration and the business sector, in which society is made a prey for the personal enrichment of the powerful few. At the other extreme there is the petty corruption of public officials, which may almost be seen as a substitute for proper payment for employment in the public service. This acts as an extra tax or set of fees for services, falling disproportionately on the poorer members of society and disadvantaging them in competition for scarce resources and inadequately funded services. Transparency has many elements: open government, with access to official forums, and institutions that respond to the citizen; freedom of information laws; protection of public interest disclosure (whistleblowing); a free press practising investigative journalism; and a lively civil society sector campaigning for openness of all these kinds. The poor are frequently portrayed as helpless in the face of corruption. Nevertheless, campaigning organisations in developing countries see transparency as an important component of a process of empowering the poor to shake off the burden of illegal financial demands. Various mechanisms including the use of ICTs to introduce greater transparency are being explored. ICTs are democratic media with ease of access, comparative ease of use, great data capacity and the immediacy of swift updating. The poor are, however, also the information poor with limited access to ICT. Means to overcome the difficulties of using ICTs for the benefit of the poor, introduce increased transparency into their dealings with public institutions, and thus weaken the hold of corruption, are being explored in a group of projects in developing countries in a programme managed by OneWorld International

Understanding cultures, and IFLA's freedom of access to information and freedom of expression (FAIFE) core activity

The sheer difficulty of entering into the minds of people from different cultures is frequently undervalued, when it is exactly the differences between modes of perception, belief, communication and behaviour that are significant. The need in information and library services for multicultural communities is often described as if it is solely for members of minority communities to be able to obtain materials in their own languages and cultural traditions. The assumption is that existing services provide all that is necessary for them to begin to understand the host community. A more considered view would stress the need for access to richly informative resources so that all members of a multicultural society can move towards a deeper understanding of each other. IFLA’s FAIFE initiative may seem to be simply a campaign against the suppression and censorship of information and communication. In fact its implications go much deeper and have a close relationship with Kay Raseroka’s IFLA Presidential theme for 2003-5 ‘Libraries for Lifelong Literacy’. True free access to information is skilled and discriminating access that enables the searcher to locate, identify and interpret information. This is access unhindered by prejudices, misconceptions and inadequate competences. FAIFE’s role in facilitating removal of restrictions, combating suppression of information, fostering rights of access and supporting the development of information competences in all communities and in the information professionals who serve them, is potentially a major contributor to the enhancement of fair and harmonious relations in multicultural communities

Social intelligence for developing countries: the role of grey literature

The necessity for social intelligence, broadly defined, to inform decision-making in developing countries is apparent as globalization places increasing demands on governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), parastatals, and business corporations. Yet the existing information systems of developing countries suffer from a range of problems which afflict all three main elements: documentary services (libraries and information centres), statistical services, and management information systems (including records management and computerized systems). Grey literature is vital to each of these three systems, either as the partially-processed product of the internal information generating capacity of the country itself, or in the external scanning process. Information professionals have tended to concentrate on the technical problems of acquiring, listing, indexing, retrieving and alerting potential users to documents. this largely ignores questions about the capacity and propensity of the targeted users to absorb information, however well it might be organized by information systems. An examination of the decision making process in a selected country (Malawi) and a case study of planning for technology transfer (from Kenya) are used to illustrate these problems and the role of intelligence. A range of structural and nonstructural constraints on the absorption of information is identified. The conclusion is that the problems of existing information systems can only be relieved by information professionals further processing and refining the information content of grey literature so as to present it to the decision-makers in the form of intelligence reports

Historical source materials and their use

The collection represents twelve years' preoccupation with the questions of finding sources, understanding them and using them. It takes history in a broad sense to embrace sub-disciplines like history of economics, history of libraries, and the historical approach to economics itself. [Continues.

It's not cricket: laws of the game, or guidance on ethical reflection for information professionals in Western Europe

The game of cricket is played according to a set of laws, but even more important than these is a consciousness of unwritten principles of conduct that is expected to inspire the cricketer. It is argued that the maturity of ethical guidance available to information professionals can be assessed by examining the same two elements. Some examples of codes of ethical conduct for information professionals from Western European countries are examined for suggestions as to whether they either seek to prescribe lines of conduct, or to encourage ethical reflection and well-considered decisions by individual professionals. An approach to developing systems of guidance on professional ethics based on codes of ethics, but incorporating case study material and the codes of other relevant associations, is suggested

Demons, disease and the library in Africa

Demons, disease and the library in Afric

The poverty of librarianship: national library services of anglophone Africa in the post-independence era

The poverty of librarianship: national library services of anglophone Africa in the post-independence er