The impact of organizational culture and reshaping capabilities on change implementation success: The mediating role of readiness for change

It was hypothesized that employees' perceptions of an organizational culture strong in human relations values and open systems values would be associated with heightened levels of readiness for change which, in turn, would be predictive of change implementation success. Similarly, it was predicted that reshaping capabilities would lead to change implementation success, via its effects on employees' perceptions of readiness for change. Using a temporal research design, these propositions were tested for 67 employees working in a state government department who were about to undergo the implementation of a new end-user computing system in their workplace. Change implementation success was operationalized as user satisfaction and system usage. There was evidence to suggest that employees who perceived strong human relations values in their division at Time 1 reported higher levels of readiness for change at pre-implementation which, in turn, predicted system usage at Time 2. In addition, readiness for change mediated the relationship between reshaping capabilities and system usage. Analyses also revealed that pre-implementation levels of readiness for change exerted a positive main effect on employees' satisfaction with the system's accuracy, user friendliness, and formatting functions at post-implementation. These findings are discussed in terms of their theoretical contribution to the readiness for change literature, and in relation to the practical importance of developing positive change attitudes among employees if change initiatives are to be successful.

Diversity of polyketide synthase genes from bacteria associated with the marine sponge Pseudoceratina clavata: culture-dependent and culture-independent approaches

Diverse ketosynthase (KS) genes were retrieved from the microbial community associated with the Great Barrier Reef sponge Pseudoceratina clavata. Bacterial isolation and metagenomic approaches were employed. Phylogenetic analysis of 16S rRNA of culturable sponge-associated bacterial communities comprised eight groups over four phyla. Ten KS domains were amplified from four genera of isolates and phylogenetics demonstrated that these KS domains were located in three clusters (actinobacterial, cyanobacterial and trans-AT type). Metagenomic DNA of the sponge microbial community was extracted to explore community KS genes by two approaches: direct amplification of KS domains and construction of fosmid libraries for KS domain screening. Five KS domains were retrieved from polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification using sponge metagenome DNA as template and five fosmid clones containing KS domains found using multiplex PCR screening. Analysis of selected polyketide synthase (PKS) from one fosmid showed that the PKS consists of two modules. Open reading frames located up- and downstream of the PKS displayed similarity with membrane synthesis-related proteins such as cardiolipin synthase. Metagenome approaches did not detect KS domains found in sponge isolates. All KS domains from both metagenome approaches formed a single cluster with KS domains originating from metagenomes derived from other sponge species from other geographical regions.

The open secret: Hiding and revealing sexuality in the roman de moeurs (1880-1905)

Beginning with the sole literary text that does figure at any length in the first volume of Foucault's history--Diderot's Les Bijoux indiscrets, which dates from 1748--Cryle examines some semiotic routines involved in that telling of secrets, and to understand more about scientia sexualis through its literary development. He tries to show that narratives of the time tended to gather the mysterious, the unknown, and the generally inscrutable in the same functional place, holding them close to a thematics of the sexual. And returns to eighteenth-century texts from time to time in order to mark this as a fundamental shift in the literary constitution of sexual knowledge.