Gendering the careers of young professionals: some early findings from a longitudinal study. in Organizing/theorizing: developments in organization theory and practice

Wonders whether companies actually have employees best interests at heart across physical, mental and spiritual spheres. Posits that most organizations ignore their workforce – not even, in many cases, describing workers as assets! Describes many studies to back up this claim in theis work based on the 2002 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference, in Cardiff, Wales

Wood pellets, what else? : Greenhouse gas parity times of European electricity from wood pellets produced in the south-eastern United States using different softwood feedstocks

Several EU countries import wood pellets from the south-eastern United States. The imported wood pellets are (co-)fired in power plants with the aim of reducing overall greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from electricity and meeting EU renewable energy targets. To assess whether GHG emissions are reduced and on what timescale, we construct the GHG balance of wood-pellet electricity. This GHG balance consists of supply chain and combustion GHG emissions, carbon sequestration during biomass growth and avoided GHG emissions through replacing fossil electricity. We investigate wood pellets from four softwood feedstock types: small roundwood, commercial thinnings, harvest residues and mill residues. Per feedstock, the GHG balance of wood-pellet electricity is compared against those of alternative scenarios. Alternative scenarios are combinations of alternative fates of the feedstock materials, such as in-forest decomposition, or the production of paper or wood panels like oriented strand board (OSB). Alternative scenario composition depends on feedstock type and local demand for this feedstock. Results indicate that the GHG balance of wood-pellet electricity equals that of alternative scenarios within 0–21 years (the GHG parity time), after which wood-pellet electricity has sustained climate benefits. Parity times increase by a maximum of 12 years when varying key variables (emissions associated with paper and panels, soil carbon increase via feedstock decomposition, wood-pellet electricity supply chain emissions) within maximum plausible ranges. Using commercial thinnings, harvest residues or mill residues as feedstock leads to the shortest GHG parity times (0–6 years) and fastest GHG benefits from wood-pellet electricity. We find shorter GHG parity times than previous studies, for we use a novel approach that differentiates feedstocks and considers alternative scenarios based on (combinations of) alternative feedstock fates, rather than on alternative land uses. This novel approach is relevant for bioenergy derived from low-value feedstocks

Pragmatic competence and communication governance in Singapore

This chapter offers a contemporary analysis of communication governance—or the way in which communication is managed or controlled—and electoral outcomes in Singapore. The chapter begins with a brief introduction to Singapore’s media environment and its media economics, and considers how the much-vaunted ideology of pragmatism has been used to shape the way Singaporeans understand the role of the media and their communicative engagement with the government. The chapter applies the linguistic discourse of ‘pragmatic competence’, understood quite simply as the mastery of social language skills we use to cut thought or make sense in our daily interactions and conversations with others, to explain how the People’s Action Party (PAP) was able to experience voters’ backlash at the general election in 2011 (and at the 2012 and 2013 by-elections in Hougang SMC and Punggol East SMC) and claw back strong popular support less than five years later in 2015. As much as elections are typically won (or lost) on policy rationales and responsiveness, the 2011 and 2015 general elections also demonstrated the growing significance of assiduous communication governance and the ability of the PAP government leaders to communicate competently, despite the authoritarian construct of Singapore’s national media system. The chapter then considers the ways in which the regaining of political power can lead to a gradual loss of pragmatic competence, particularly in an authoritarian context like Singapore. Indeed, it looks at how the government has again moved to tighten its media and communitive space by seeking to rein in alternative viewpoints and to regulate ‘fake news’. In this regard, it considers the impact of a well-publicised family dispute between Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his siblings, Lee Wei Ling and Lee Hsien Yang, over the last will of their father, Lee Kuan Yew, in relation to the demolition of the late Lee’s family home that lasted for several weeks from June to July 2017. The exchanges between the siblings—and with a number of senior ministers in the Cabinet—which took place initially on the social media platform of Facebook before the mainstream media reported on it are highly instructive to our understanding of communication governance, not least because the siblings expressly referred to the national press in Singapore as timid and cowed. The media, communication and political landscapes in Singapore point to the ever-growing role of pragmatic competence in communication governance. In fact, it is an aspect of politics that can no longer be ignored as Singapore will continue to face up to urgent social, technological and economic challenges as well as generational leadership changes over the future electoral cycles. The truly competent solution would be to liberalise media and communication spaces and to allow genuine political discourse to be conducted, but the ideological impetus of the PAP is to continue on its trajectory of control—this is considered as the pragmatic thing to do, at least for now