1,118 research outputs found

    Urban Agriculture as a Field: Governance, communication and collective action

    Get PDF
    In this chapter, we argue that Urban Food Networks (UFNs) are a format of collective action that seeks to manage social change within the ‘field’ of urban agriculture (UA). Our intention here is to argue that a field perspective is helpful when studying UA as a facet of social life in the city. This is because fields highlight the relationships between different actors, institutions, ideas and values, and they frame UA as one way of trying to influence social routines in the city. By the same token, UA can be a reflection of dynamism in social routines in the city. City food production is organisationally complex, culturally symbolic, and politically contested. For some years, research on UFNs has been rich and this is linked partly to the wealth of micro case studies that exist. The field framework offers two distinct potentials for UFN scholarship. Firstly, it presents UFNs as an integral part of the varied picture of city food: cities include UFNs because networks of people join together to collectively respond to perceived opportunities or challenges associated with dominant food actors. Secondly, the field concept connects micro-networks with forces of influence at the macro-level suggesting that, in complex social systems such as cities, food activism is one way in which social life is re-created. Such arguments indicate the adaptability of field theory to UA in general, while an examination of UFN social media communications, reveals the empirical potentials of the concept, strengthing the potential for analytical connections between UA in ‘south’ and ‘north’

    Not every public sector is a field: evidence from the recent overhaul of the English NHS

    Get PDF
    A structural interpretation of institutionalism has become dominant in public management research. Yet, studies tend to assume an institutional-level phenomenon without specifying how an organizational field was identified or whether structural characteristics can indeed be found in the organizational population studied. This lacuna is illustrated by exploring the structural interpretation of the field construct in the case of the recent overhaul of English primary care. Findings demonstrate the need for a more robust application of institutionalism in empirical research. Possible research problems for public management and a future research agenda based on a more relational approach to fields are discussed

    Commitment of independent and institutional women directors to corporate social responsibility reporting

    Get PDF
    This paper examines how independent and institutional women directors on boards affect corporate social responsibility (hereafter CSR) reporting. Most of the previous empirical evidence has shown a linear association between female directors and CSR disclosure, but to the best of our knowledge, no research has investigated the individual effect of independent and institutional female directors on CSR reporting. Therefore, the analysis of how the disclosure of CSR information is affected by independent and institutional women directors in a separate way merits our attention. Thus, we posit that there is a nonlinear association, concretely quadratic, between independent and institutional female directors on boards and CSR reporting. Our results demonstrate that, in line with the monitoring hypothesis, as the presence of independent and institutional women directors on boards increases, the CSR disclosure improves, but when their presence on boards reaches a tipping point (20.47% and 13.32%, respectively), CSR reporting decreases, which is consistent with the collusion hypothesis. This research contributes to the existing literature on the relationship between board gender diversity and CSR disclosure by suggesting that board structures formed by institutional and independent female directors have an effect on CSR reporting. Hence, female directors play a relevant role on boards since they may influence the CSR disclosure

    Optimising ‘cash flows’:Converting corporate finance to hard currency

    Get PDF
    Following recent works that have underlined the increasing search for liquidity in economic exchange, this article studies how illiquid forms of money are converted into liquid forms by corporate finance actors. In the name of ‘shareholder value’, the various forms of value generated by companies (such as ‘trade credit’) tend to be increasingly transformed into liquid forms of money that are easily distributable to shareholders (‘cash flows’). Describing this phenomenon as an example of what anthropologists of money call ‘conversion’, this paper highlights how such a conversion process was necessary for the historical development of ‘shareholder value’ policies in corporate finance. Considering documentary sources and interviews with consultants, auditors, and private equity fund managers involved in ‘cash flow’ optimisation practices, this paper details this conversion phenomenon and shows how it has relied on the historical elaboration of specific metrological, technical, legal, and moral norms

    Rethinking the patient: using Burden of Treatment Theory to understand the changing dynamics of illness

    Get PDF
    <b>Background</b> In this article we outline Burden of Treatment Theory, a new model of the relationship between sick people, their social networks, and healthcare services. Health services face the challenge of growing populations with long-term and life-limiting conditions, they have responded to this by delegating to sick people and their networks routine work aimed at managing symptoms, and at retarding - and sometimes preventing - disease progression. This is the new proactive work of patient-hood for which patients are increasingly accountable: founded on ideas about self-care, self-empowerment, and self-actualization, and on new technologies and treatment modalities which can be shifted from the clinic into the community. These place new demands on sick people, which they may experience as burdens of treatment.<p></p> <b>Discussion</b> As the burdens accumulate some patients are overwhelmed, and the consequences are likely to be poor healthcare outcomes for individual patients, increasing strain on caregivers, and rising demand and costs of healthcare services. In the face of these challenges we need to better understand the resources that patients draw upon as they respond to the demands of both burdens of illness and burdens of treatment, and the ways that resources interact with healthcare utilization.<p></p> <b>Summary</b> Burden of Treatment Theory is oriented to understanding how capacity for action interacts with the work that stems from healthcare. Burden of Treatment Theory is a structural model that focuses on the work that patients and their networks do. It thus helps us understand variations in healthcare utilization and adherence in different healthcare settings and clinical contexts
    • 

    corecore