Crisis management as a critical perspective

Purpose: This paper draws on the authors experience of teaching a crisis management module within a range of MBA programmes in the UK, EU and USA. A key characteristic of the module was its development as a means of critiquing conventional approaches to management education. The paper details that experience. Design/methodology/approach: It reviews the literature on management education that has been critical of prescriptive and ‘toolkit-based’ approaches to MBA education. Findings: An approach to a crisis management course is shown to provide a means of challenging dominant theoretical and practical approaches to management. Practical implications: The paper identifies challenges and personal and academic benefits for educators and students when engaging with critical perspectives and critical pedagogies. Originality/value: Through introducing the notion of crisis management, the paper discusses the importance of challenging theory and practice and creating within students, an appetite to challenge the dominant paradigms of conventional teaching and business practice

Light me up: power and expertise in risk communication and policy-making in the e-cigarette health debates

This paper presents a detailed account of policy-making in a contemporary risk communication arena, where strong power dynamics are at play that have hitherto lacked theoretical analysis and empirical validation. Specifically, it expands on the understanding of how public health policy decisions are made when there is a weak evidential base and where multiple interpretations, power dynamics and values are brought to bear on issues of risk and uncertainty. The aim of the paper is to understand the role that power and expertise play in shaping public health risk communication within policy-related debates. By drawing on insight from a range of literatures, the paper argues that there several interacting factors that shape how a particular narrative gains prominence within a wider set of perspectives and how the arguments and findings associated with that perspective become amplified within the context of policy choices. These findings are conceptualised into a new model – a policy evaluation risk communication (PERC) framework – and are then tested using the Electronic cigarette debate as a case study

Inherent complexities of a multi-stakeholder approach to building community resilience

Enhancing community resilience has increasingly involved national and regional governments adopting a multi-stakeholder approach because of the potential interagency benefits. This has led to questions about how best to involve stakeholder groups in translating community resilience policies into practice. This exploratory study contributes to this discussion by addressing two key areas that are fundamental in the concerted effort to build community resilience to natural hazards: (1) stakeholder understanding of community resilience as a concept; and (2) the difficulties associated with the processes of risk assessment and preparedness that stakeholders face locally in building community resilience. Data were collected through semistructured interviews with 25 practitioners and experts within Scotland’s resilience community, and were analyzed through an inductive approach to thematic analysis. These data show how the interpretation of community resilience differs across stakeholder groups. Analysis of the data reveals challenges around the nature of the risk assessment and its role in shaping risk perception and communication. Significant complications occur in communicating about low probability-high consequence events, perceived territoriality, competing risk prioritizations, and the challenges of managing hazards within a context of limited resources. The implications of these issues for policy and practice are also discussed

Structure and Petrology of the Grandy Ridge-Lake Shannon Area, North Cascades, Washington

The Grandy Ridge-Lake Shannon area contains four major lithologic units: the Chilliwack Group, the Yellow Aster Complex, and the informally named chert/basalt and Triassic dacite units. The units are juxtaposed along anastomosing low angle faults of Late Cretaceous age. Additional deformation took place at a more recent time. Lithologies of the Chilliwack Group predominate in the study area, with fine-grained sedimentary rocks of the lower clastic sequence present at lower elevations in the map area, and relatively mafic volcanic rocks present mostly at higher elevations. Sedimentary rocks in the vicinity of Upper Baker Dam, originally mapped as part of the Nooksack Group, are in this study assigned to the Chilliwack Group, based on lithologic, metamorphic, and structural considerations. The Chilliwack Group contains metamorphic mineral assemblages indicative of high pressure-low temperature metamorphic conditions. Reibeckite and crossite are reported for the first time in this unit. Lithologies of the Chilliwack Group are present at the structurally lowest levels in the map area. A low angle thrust contact separates these rocks from overlying rocks of the Triassic dacite unit in many locations. The chert/basalt unit appears to be the structurally highest unit in the study area. Evidence of two deformations is present in the Chilliwack Group. An early (D1) deformation is manifested by a persistent, low angle, slaty to phyllitic cleavage (S1) in fine-grained rocks, a northwest-trending stretching lineation (L1) in volcanic and coarse clastic rocks, and by infrequent northeast-trending folds. The second deformation (D2) is less extensive, primarily manifested by northwest-trending F2 folds. The L1 lineations consist of stretched clasts and amygdules, and are most common along the top of Grandy ridge and in the vicinity of Upper Baker Dam. They are interpreted to represent the direction of shearing during the first deformation. Study of shear sense indicators suggests that the upper plate moved northwest relative to the lower plate. Strain magnitudes associated with these L1 lineations vary, but average approximately 3.5:1 in the XZ principal plane. This evidence suggests a minimum of several kilometers of northwest displacement of the approximately one kilometer thick section of rock exposed in the study area. The first deformation appears to have post-dated crystallization of the high pressure minerals, as evidenced by the presense of cracked and boudinaged lawsonite grains. Evidence for northwest-southeast directed movement is present elsewhere in the Chilliwack Group, and is also present along segments of the Shuksan Fault. This movement may be related to emplacement of the structural units present in the western North Cascades

Building community resilience to natural hazards: Lessons from Katrina

No abstract available

Humor, unlaughter, and boundary maintenance.

Some joke performances are meant to elicit differential responses—laughter from some, and unlaughter from salient others—and so serve as powerful methods for heightening group boundaries. This article illustrates this thesis by analyzing audience responses to practical jokes and to the Muhammad cartoons that aroused worldwide controversy in 2006. To further make this case, I will delineate a theory of the audience for humor. Such a theory has heretofore been largely missing from both folklore and humor scholarship; instead, the lion’s share of scholarly attention has gone to the performers, with the audience’s role taken for granted. In boundary-heightening humor, the audience response is the subject of special attention, and it is interpreted in terms of contemporary notions about the importance of having a sense of humor and especially of being able to laugh at oneself

Culture Shock: the legacy of the 1960s power generation schemes in Aotearoa New Zealand

In 1960s Aotearoa New Zealand the response to a post war energy shortage was to look to the country's rivers, lakes, and geothermal areas as a source of electric power. The Ministry of Works began a programme of dam building which peaked in the 1960s and made irreversible changes our lakes, rivers, and landscapes. Although New Zealand now produces about 80% of its electricity through renewable energy, the 1960s also saw a rise in environmental activism and a revaluing of the natural "wilderness." Professor John Salmon's influential book, Heritage Destroyed: The Crisis in Scenery Preservation in New Zealand (1960), drew public attention to the environmental degradation caused by large-scale engineering projects, and the decade ended with the "Save Manapōuri" campaign which, in the early 1970s, prevented the raising of lakes Manapōuri and Te Anau to guarantee power to the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter. This paper considers the legacy of the 1960s power generation schemes, including changes to the physical landscape; new legislation for the preservation of the built and natural environments; and alternative ways to consider the cultural and natural landscapes that prioritise Te Mana o te Wai

Laughter: Nature or Culture?

Paper delivered at the 2008 meeting of the International Society for Humor Research, Alcala de Henares, Spain.Research into the acoustics of laughter shows that it is extremely variable (e.g. Chafe 2007; Ruch and Ekman 2001). However, I am aware of no experimental research into laughter that takes a cross-cultural comparative approach. Anthropologists, for their part, have studied humor rarely (Apte 1985) and actual laughter even less. Nevertheless, there are some ethnographic descriptions of laughter from non-Western cultures that support the existence of culturally-influenced laughter styles. I will illustrate this contention with reference to some ethnographic accounts of laughter and to video clips of Samoan laughter. The paucity of evidence for cultural styles of laughter may be due to contemporary beliefs about the universality and spontaneity of laughter. Assuming that laughter is prior to culture, we do not expect cross-cultural variations and so do not look for them. Since culture is not passed on in the genes, the existence of culturally-patterned forms of laughter suggests that laughter is modulated more often than we tend to think. Much effort has gone into attempts to detect “whether laughter is faked or felt” (Ruch and Ekman 2001), much of it assuming that only spontaneous laughter is genuine and that all controlled laughter is fake. Genuine laughter is important to humor research because it appears to be the only non-obtrusive measure we have of the inner state associated with humor. Culturally-patterned laughter draws attention to the middle ground of genuine laughter that is consciously moderated—that is, laughter that lies between nature and culture

Participation in exercise and sport for individuals with minimal disability from multiple sclerosis

Moira Smith developed and tested the feasibility of a novel flexible exercise participation program for individuals with multiple sclerosis. She found that the program was safe, feasible and highly acceptable. Importantly, the program enabled individuals with multiple sclerosis to find the right balance with participation in exercise and sport