Apple and the human costs of production

Apple is the world’s most valuable company. Based on market capitalisation value, it was worth over US$539 billion in early 2012, which makes it worth more than Google and Microsoft combined1. At the start of 2013, its shares were trading around US$500 per share, having started 2012 at $424. In February 2012 it reported a quarterly profit of$13.06 billion on sales of $46.3 billion, which according to the New York Times was “one of the most lucrative quarters of any corporation in history”2. Its products are ubiquitous – the iPhone, the iPad, the iPod – symbols of coolness and chic. Many of its customers see these products as not just electronic gadgets, but as extensions of their personalities. When new models of the iPhone and iPad are released there are queues outside Apple stores in cities all over the globe. And yet, despite this remarkable success, Apple has been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons, its brand tarnished by growing criticisms over inhumane working conditions in the factories in China that make these products

Developing teamwork at New Zealand cricket

A programme to improve team working in the New Zealand men’s cricket team, the BlackCaps, hit the headlines in 2008 following the resignation of coach John Bracewell. Leading Teams New Zealand was an organisation which aimed to improve team performance through a range of teamwork and leadership programmes. In addition to working with New Zealand Cricket, Leading Teams had worked with Super 14 rugby teams the Hurricanes and Chiefs, as well as the New Zealand Breakers basketball team. Leading Teams was hired by John Bracewell, who stood down in November 2008 and was replaced by Northern Districts coach Andy Moles. Immediately following his appointment, Moles announced that the role of Leading Teams had been placed “under review” and would be “diluted”

Institutionalizing critique: A Problem of Critical Management Studies

This paper has as its starting point calls for critical management studies (CMS) to engage more actively with the public. CMS has been relatively successful in gaining an institutional foothold within university business schools, but is criticised from within for a lack of influence outside the institution. We argue that while closer relationships with the public is assumed to be the next phase in the institutional development of CMS, strengthening its position within university business schools is likely only to exacerbate the present lack of public engagement, since this becomes an end in itself. Bigger and better conferences and a proliferation of journals dedicated to the publishing of CMS research takes us further from the everyday world of workplace politics. As part of creating a space in which we can think differently about CMS and the university, we draw on Foucault’s analysis of parrhesia, or fearless speech, which emphasises critique as a personal quality

Empty talk? University voices on the global financial crisis

The global financial crisis (GFC) which began in 2007 with a liquidity squeeze in the US banking system and which continues to play out today has affected us all, whether through the collapse of the finance company sector, rising unemployment, falling housing prices or the recession which followed the initial market crash. The speed and scope of the crisis surprised most experts – policy makers included. Specialists from a myriad of disciplines, from economics and finance to risk management, corporate governance and property, are trying to make sense of what happened, why it happened and what it means for us now and into the future. Members of the public rely on the news media to keep them informed of the crisis as it unfolds and they rely on experts to translate these complex events into a language which they can understand. The GFC is educating us all, and it is important that we all learn from it to avoid making the same mistakes again

Labour process theory and critical management studies

Labour Process Theory (LPT) is conventionally and rightly listed as one of the analytical resources for Critical Management Studies (CMS). Yet, the relationships between the two have been, in the words of a classic of the former, a contested terrain. This is hardly surprising. Even if we set aside the inevitable multiplicity of perspectives, there is a tension in potential objects of analysis. Before CMS burst on to the scene, LPT was being criticised at its peak of influence in the 1980s for paying too much attention to management and too little to capital(ism) and labour. This was sometimes attributed to the location of many of the protagonists (in the UK at least) in business schools, but was, more likely a reflection of wider theoretical and ideological divides

Precast tile beam floor

The floor system3 described in this publication is the result of an attempt to obtain a floor of masonry materials, at a minimum cost in placing, which will successfully meet the loading requirements placed upon it. Most systems of masonry floor require considerable unproductive labor and materials which add to the cost but which do not contribute to the effectiveness of the ultimate structure. Forms must be built and dismantled. Even. where moveable and reusable forms are employed, the cost of assembling, dissembling and moving add to the charges which must be ultimately placed against the cost of the floor. This overhead becomes proportionally larger if the forms do not find continuous use

Energy Deposition and K-Shell Ionization of Supernovae

We present explicit evaluation of K-shell ionization caused by photoelectric absorption, by Compton scattering, and by electron collisions in supernovae envelopes. Each process derives from the radioactivity that dominates the bolometric luminosity of the model supernovae. We include the ionization by bremsstrahlung. We find that electron-collision ionization with decelerating Compton electrons is the dominant process of K-shell ionization for light elements (lighter than Si) whereas photoelectric K-shell absorption of Comptonized gammas is the dominant process of K-shell ionization for heavy elements (like Fe). The relative importance of the ionization processes also depends upon composition and upon time, as well as upon supernova type. For Type Ia all four ionization sources are of importance. We present fitting formulas for the deposition of radioactive power in each class of models studied. The energy deposition of all mechanisms decreases with time, including the rate of K-shell ionizations of all elements throughout the supernovae model evaluated herein. We compare the relative contributions to the energy deposition and confirm with greater numerical detail results already established

Three Questions on Lorentz Violation

We review the basics of the two most widely used approaches to Lorentz violation - the Stardard Model Extension and Noncommutative Field Theory - and discuss in some detail the example of the modified spectrum of the synchrotron radiation. Motivated by touching upon such a fundamental issue as Lorentz symmetry, we ask three questions: What is behind the search for Lorentz violation? Is String Theory a physical theory? Is there an alternative to Supersymmetry?Comment: 16 pages; invited luecture at DICE2006 - Piombino, Italy - September 200

On the correlation between fragility and stretching in glassforming liquids

We study the pressure and temperature dependences of the dielectric relaxation of two molecular glassforming liquids, dibutyl phtalate and m-toluidine. We focus on two characteristics of the slowing down of relaxation, the fragility associated with the temperature dependence and the stretching characterizing the relaxation function. We combine our data with data from the literature to revisit the proposed correlation between these two quantities. We do this in light of constraints that we suggest to put on the search for empirical correlations among properties of glassformers. In particular, argue that a meaningful correlation is to be looked for between stretching and isochoric fragility, as both seem to be constant under isochronic conditions and thereby reflect the intrinsic effect of temperature