Transforming identities: accounting professionals and the transition to motherhood

This paper investigates the experience of motherhood and employment within the UK accounting profession by examining the oral history narratives of a small group of accountants who have recently become mothers and returned to work, thereby undertaking a process of redefinition and transformation of the self. Drawing from contemporary theories on identity, it considers how individuals make sense of the different social identities, which they take on over their life course, and to what extent social, institutional and cultural factors shape and restrict the ways in which the self is experienced. The paper extends the use of oral history methods in accounting research, arguing for the use of narrative to conceptualise identity formation, and also explores the implications for both the self and the accounting profession of interconnections and juxtapositions between the ostensibly private sphere of the home and the public sphere of employment

State Strategies for Turning Around Low-Performing Schools and Districts

Based on discussions at a March 2009 symposium, offers policy guidance on turnaround strategies that address underlying causes of low performance, provide resources for transformative change, improve mutual accountability, and support collaboration

Mike Kelley and Surrealism: monkeys, frogs, dogs and Mauss

This paper reads the 1980s and 1990s soft toy and sock-monkey installations of multimedia artist Mike Kelley in relation to surrealism. Using Hal Foster’s comments on abject art - of which Kelley is often considered an exponent - I consider the extent to which Kelley’s work desublimates and makes available as ‘affect’ some of the structures of feeling, and structuring feelings, of the capitalist lifeworld. I compare Kelley’s work to its surrealist antecedents and judge the political efficacy of that avant-garde against his postmodern practice. While this essay uses writers like Freud and Marx, alongside Breton, Bataille and Kelley himself, it is Marcel Mauss’s well-known theory of the gift that takes centre stage in reckoning the social and political significance of Kelley and his use of surrealist discourse

The TechniCom Challenge: Low Fidelity Simulation with High Yield Potential

Participants work in teams of two. One member of the team serves as the “communicator”, the other serves as the “surgeon”. The “communicator” is given a picture of the design and instructs the surgeon how to use the materials inside the box trainer to replicate the design. The “communicator” cannot look inside the box trainer nor share with the “surgeon” the picture of the design. Several designs may be incorporated into the exercise. Pairs are given a maximum time of five minutes to complete each design. A debriefing is conducted to discuss the challenges in completing the simulation

Corporate real estate asset management : aligned vision

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the relationship between corporate strategy and corporate real estate (CRE) strategy. Design/methodology/approach – The paper will identify, and evaluate, a number of components that collectively form the CRE strategy. Linkages between the business environment, the aims and objectives of the organisation and the real estate solution will be explored. Findings – The paper will illustrate the alignment of the CRE strategy to the corporate strategy through the development of a CRE alignment model. The model will demonstrate that only when optimum alignment is achieved can the CRE strategy deliver added value and enhanced organisational performance. Practical implications – CRE managers can use the model to evaluate the alignment of their CRE strategy with their corporate strategy. Originality/value – The paper fills a void by proposing a framework that seeks to identify the true impact of real estate to business by examining the benefits of optimal alignment between, planet, position, purpose, place, paradigm, processes and people to produce performance and productivity.</p

Research in Backgrounds in Librarianship

published or submitted for publicatio

Kervaire Invariant One [after M. A. Hill, M. J. Hopkins, and D. C. Ravenel]

The question of when the Kervaire invariant is nontrivial was the only question left unresolved by Kervaire and Milnor in their 1963 study of the relationship between groups of homotopy spheres and stable homotopy groups. In 2009, Mike Hill, Mike Hopkins, and Doug Ravenel resolved this question except in one dimension, by a highly innovative attack using large amounts of equivariant stable homotopy theory and small amounts of computation. The present paper is a Seminaire Bourbaki report on this work.Comment: This is a the submitted Seminaire Bourbaki report. 30 page