Optical carrier wave shocking: detection and dispersion

Carrier wave shocking is studied using the Pseudo-Spectral Spatial Domain (PSSD) technique. We describe the shock detection diagnostics necessary for this numerical study, and verify them against theoretical shocking predictions for the dispersionless case. These predictions show Carrier Envelope Phase (CEP) and pulse bandwidth sensitivity in the single-cycle regime. The flexible dispersion management offered by PSSD enables us to independently control the linear and nonlinear dispersion. Customized dispersion profiles allow us to analyze the development of both carrier self-steepening and shocks. The results exhibit a marked asymmetry between normal and anomalous dispersion, both in the limits of the shocking regime and in the (near) shocked pulse waveforms. Combining these insights, we offer some suggestions on how carrier shocking (or at least extreme self-steepening) might be realised experimentally.Comment: 9 page

Teamworking and Lean revisited: a reply to Carter et al

This paper is a reply to Carter et al.’s response to an earlier paper of ours in this journal on the subject of teamworking under Lean in the UK public services . Our reply covers the following issues which Carter et al. have raised: the literature we used to structure our findings; the way in which we used concepts such as autonomy and teamworking; our research methods and approach; how Carter et al.’s newly available data on teamworking might be interpreted; and how data drawn from an official employee attitude survey might best be understood. On the basis of this, we conclude that Carter et al.’s paper fails to meet its objectives. On some things, the authors are simply wrong; on others, they grossly misrepresent our position; on still others, their interpretations are, at best, highly questionable

Fresh perspectives on customer experience

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide directions for future research on: broadening the role of customers in customer experience; taking a practice-based approach to customer experience; and recognizing the holistic, dynamic nature of customer experience across all touch points and over time. Design/methodology/approach – The approach is conceptual identifying current gaps in research on customer experience. Findings – The findings include a set of research questions and research agenda for future research on customer experience. Originality/value – This research suggests fresh perspectives for understanding the customer experience which can inspire future research and advance theory and managerial practice

Uncomfortable truths - teamworking under lean in the UK

A recent contribution in this journal – Procter, S. and Radnor, Z. (2014) ‘Teamworking under Lean in UK public services: lean teams and team targets in Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC)’ International Journal of Human Resource Management, 25:21, 2978–2995 – provides an account of teamworking in the UK Civil Service, specifically Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), focused on the relationship between recently implemented lean work organisation and teams and teamworking. Procter and Radnor claim in this work that it delivers a ‘more nuanced’ analysis of lean in this government department and, it follows, of the lean phenomenon more generally. Our riposte critiques their article on several grounds. It suffers from problems of logic and construction, conceptual confusion and definitional imprecision. Methodological difficulties and inconsistent evidence contribute additionally to analytical weakness. Included in our response are empirical findings on teamworking at HMRC that challenge Procter and Radnor’s evidential basis and further reveal the shortcomings of their interpretation

Beyond the ostensible: an exploration of barriers to lean implementation and sustainability in healthcare

The barriers to implement lean have been well researched and have generated consistent results; this study identifies these as ostensible barriers. There is a dearth of research that focus on understanding the causes of these ostensible barriers. Thus, this study aims to empirically investigate the deeper causes that produce ostensible barriers to implement lean in emergency areas of the healthcare. To achieve this aim, the paper draws on rich, qualitative data from four different sources of data, using exploratory case studies as the main approach. Undertaking thematic analysis, six main underlying barriers emerge as the root cause of ostensible barriers. The results suggest that addressing each of the underlying barriers in healthcare is likely to support lean implementation and sustainability, by reducing the impact of restraining forces that come from stakeholders and the public healthcare system

On publicness theory and its implications for supply chain integration:The case of criminal justice supply chains

The literature has extensively discussed whether and how public organizations differ from private ones. Publicness theory argues that the degree of publicness is determined by ownership, funding, goal setting, and control structure of an organization. However, these theoretical ideas have not yet been extended to the interorganizational level. The need for further research is reflected in the sustained debate on the applicability of for-profit management approaches in public contexts and supply chains. Starting from the premise of the dimensional publicness theory, this study focuses on theory elaboration. We focus our empirical study on the criminal justice supply chain, which encompasses the process of bringing a criminal case to court. This chain provides an interesting public case to explore how specific dimensions of publicness affect or limit supply chain integration mechanisms. The results of our series of embedded cases focusing on Dutch criminal justice supply chains show that control structures, embodied in laws and regulations, define the governance of relationships between supply chain partners. In addition to these formalized ties, extensive known for-profit information and operational integration mechanisms can be observed, along with limited relational integration. Surprisingly, although similar integration mechanisms are used as in for-profit contexts, integration serves a different role in several of the relationships investigated: dealing with tensions stemming from the specific goal setting and stakeholders of criminal justice chains. Although our findings specifically relate to criminal justice supply chains, they have important implications for other supply chains using contracts and laws and those being selective in applying supply chain integration in cases of contrasting objectives. Moreover, we provide a stepping-stone for the extension of publicness theory to the interorganizational level

Performativity and primary teacher relations

A performativity discourse currently pervades teachers' work. It is a discourse that relies on teachers and schools instituting self-disciplinary measures to satisfy newly transparent public accountability and it operates alongside a market discourse. The introduction of the performativity discourse has affected teacher relations at three levels of professional work: with students, colleagues and local advisor/inspectors. Ethnographic research with primary teachers - which focused on their experience of Ofsted inspections in six schools over periods of up to four years - is the source of this paper. The paper argues that a humanist discourse prevalent in teacher relations with students, colleagues and advisor/inspectors has been challenged by a performativity discourse that: distances teachers from students and creates a dependency culture in opposition to previous mutual and intimate relations; creates self disciplining teams that marginalize individuality and stratifies collegial relations in opposition to previous relations where primary teachers sought consensus; and creates subjugatory, contrived and de-personalized relations between local advisors/inspectors in preference to previous partnership relations. The paper concludes that the change in relations is an indicator of fundamental change to social relations but that primary teachers are in a good position to influence the performativity discourse, albeit it a struggle, by reconstituting it through the maintenance of humanist relations

'They can't be the buffer any longer': front-line managers and class relations under white-collar lean production

This article reasserts the value of the examination of class relations. It does so via a case study of tax-processing sites within HM Revenue and Customs, focusing on the changes wrought by the alterations to labour and supervisory processes implemented under the banner of ‘lean production’. It concentrates on the transformation of front-line managers, as their tasks moved from those that required tax knowledge and team support to those that narrowed their work towards output monitoring and employee supervision. Following Carchedi, these changes are conceptualised as strengthening the function of capital performed by managers, and weakening their role within the labour process

Towards an ethical ecology of international service learning

International Service-Learning (ISL) is a pedagogical activity that seeks to blend student learning with community engagement overseas and the development of a more just society. ISL programmes have grown as educational institutions and non-governmental organisations have sought to achieve the goal of developing ‘global citizens’. However, Service Learning (SL) in general and International Service-Learning (ISL) in particular remain deeply under theorised. These educational initiatives provide policy makers with a practical response to their quest for a ‘Big Society’and present alluring pedagogical approaches for Universities as they react to reforms in Higher Education and seek to enhance both the student learning experience and graduate employability. After outlining the development of ISL in policy and practice, this paper draws on the rich tradition of ISL at one British university to argue that ISL is a form of engagement that has the potential to be ethical in character although we identify a number of factors that militate against this. Our contention is that ISL which promotes rationaland instrumental learning represents a deficit model and we therefore conceptualise ISL here as a transformative learning experience that evinces distinctly aesthetic and even spiritual dimensions. Upon this theoretical groundwork we lay the foundations for conceptualizing ISL in ways that ensure its ethical integrity