The role, organisation and contribution of community enterprise to urban regeneration policy in the UK

This monograph investigates the organisation, constitution and delivery of community-based organisations which are normally called community enterprises in the UK. These are organisations which emerge from local communities at the neighbourhood level, work in partnership with the public and private sectors, and provide a range of services to meet social, economic and environmental needs. The main focus of the paper is to explore how these organisations contribute to local regeneration strategies, generate social capital and contribute towards the promotion of civil society in general. The main emphasis is on organisations in England and Wales but comparisons are made with the USA and other countries where relevant literature is available. The key questions to be answered relate to the organisation and management of these bodies; the extent to which they engage with and contribute to local regeneration strategies; and the impact they have particularly in acquiring and managing assets. The diversity of the sector, and the range, scale and level of benefits it can deliver is illustrated through five detailed case studies of community enterprises established at different times, in different geographical locations and with different objectives and funding regimes. But, whilst the UK political economy is moving towards less state intervention and more community self-help, the community development corporations in the USA provide an indication of the future direction community enterprises might take in the UK as part of a broad trend towards civic capacity building.

What is universal and what differs in language development?

Goldin-Meadow (2015) presents an exceptional synthesis of work from studies of children acquiring language under variable circumstances of input or processing abilities. Deaf children who acquire homesign without any well- formed model from which to learn language represent a powerful example. Goldin-Meadow argues that the resilient properties of language that nevertheless emerge include simple syntactic structures, hierarchical organisa- tion, markers modulating the meaning of sentences, and social-communicative functions. Among the fragile or input-dependent properties are the orders that the language follows, the parts into which words are decomposed, and the features that distinguish nominals from predicates. Separation of these two types of properties poses questions concerning the innate constraints on language acquisition (perhaps these equate to the resilient properties) and con‐ cerning the specificity of processes to language (e.g., whether properties such as hierarchical organisation are specific to language or originate in the structure of thought). The study of the resilient properties of human language in the face of adversity and the relation of these properties to the information that is encoded in the human genome represent a research strategy that draws inferences about species universals (properties that all humans share) from data about individual differences (IDs; factors that make humans different from one another). In the following, we suggest three reasons to be cautious about this approach.

A Social Institutionalist Perspective on HR Diffusion: Histrorical and Cultural Receptivity to HRM in a Post-Comminist Context

This research considers cross-national diffusion of international human resource management (IHRM) ideas and practices by applying an emergent frame of sociological conceptualisation – ‘social institutionalism’ (SI). We look at cultural filters to patterns of diffusion, assimilation and adoption of IHRM, using Romania as a case study. The paper considers the former Communist system of employment relations, suggesting that through institutionalisation former ways of thinking continued to influence definitions and practice of people management in post-Communist Eastern Europe. The paper provides a new perspective on HRM by discussing the value of SI as a general model for understanding cross-cultural receptivity to HR ideas, sensitising the HR practitioner and academic to institutionalised culture as a historical legacy influencing receptivity to international management ideas.