Tales of the expected: investigating the rhetorical strategies of innovation champions

Innovation continues to be high on the agenda in construction. It is widely considered to be an essential prerequisite of improved performance both for the sector at large and for individual firms. Success stories dominate the parts of the academic literature that rely heavily on the recollections of key individuals. A complementary interpretation focuses on the way innovation champions in hindsight interpret, justify and legitimize the diffusion of innovations. Emphasis is put on the temporal dimension of interpretation and how this links to rhetorical strategies and impression management tactics. Rhetorical theories are drawn upon to analyse the accounts given by innovation champions in seven facilities management organizations. In particular, the three persuasive appeals in classic rhetoric are used to highlight the rhetorical justifications mobilized in the descriptions of what took place. The findings demonstrate the usefulness of rhetorical theories in complementing studies of innovation.

Contractor key competitiveness indicators: A China study

A proper method to assess contractor competitiveness is important both for assisting clients in the selection of proper contractors and for assisting contractors in the development of more competitive bidding strategies. Previous studies have identified various indicators for assessing contractor competitiveness, and several assessment methods have been introduced. Nevertheless, these studies are limited because they are unable to tell which indicators are more important in different market environments. This paper identifies the key competitiveness indicators �KCIs� for assessing contractor competitiveness in the Chinese construction market. An index value is used to indicate the relative significance of various competitiveness indicators based on which KCIs are identified. The data applied in this study are from a survey of the construction industry in mainland China. The research findings provide valuable information for both existing businesses and the construction professionals who plan to compete for construction works in the Chinese market. The study provides useful references for further studies that compare the KCIs used in the Chinese construction industry and those used in other construction industries.

Assessing reading at Key Stage 2: SATs as measures of children's inferential abilities

This article describes two studies. The first study was designed to investigate the ways in which the statutory assessments of reading for 11-year-old children in England assess inferential abilities. The second study was designed to investigate the levels of performance achieved in these tests in 2001 and 2002 by 11-year-old children attending state-funded local authority schools in one London borough. In the first study, content and questions used in the reading papers for the Standard Assessment Tasks (SATs) in the years 2001 and 2002 were analysed to see what types of inference were being assessed. This analysis suggested that the complexity involved in inference making and the variety of inference types that are made during the reading process are not adequately sampled in the SATs. Similar inadequacies are evident in the ways in which the programmes of study for literacy recommended by central government deal with inference. In the second study, scripts of completed SATs reading papers for 2001 and 2002 were analysed to investigate the levels of inferential ability evident in scripts of children achieving different SATs levels. The analysis in this article suggests that children who only just achieve the 'target' Level 4 do so with minimal use of inference skills. They are particularly weak in making inferences that require the application of background knowledge. Thus, many children who achieve the reading level (Level 4) expected of 11-year-olds are entering secondary education with insecure inference-making skills that have not been recognised.

The Namib Sand Sea digital database of aeolian dunes and key forcing variables

A new digital atlas of the geomorphology of the Namib Sand Sea in southern Africa has been developed. This atlas incorporates a number of databases including a digital elevation model (ASTER and SRTM) and other remote sensing databases that cover climate (ERA-40) and vegetation (PAL and GIMMS). A map of dune types in the Namib Sand Sea has been derived from Landsat and CNES/SPOT imagery. The atlas also includes a collation of geochronometric dates, largely derived from luminescence techniques, and a bibliographic survey of the research literature on the geomorphology of the Namib dune system. Together these databases provide valuable information that can be used as a starting point for tackling important questions about the development of the Namib and other sand seas in the past, present and future.

Position paper on the future of social networking

Social networking mediated by web sites is a relatively new phenomenon and as with all technological innovations there continues to be a period of both technical and social adjustment to fit the services in with people’s behaviours, and for people to adjust their practices in the light of the affordances provided by the technology. Social networking benefits strongly from large scale availability. Users gain greater benefit from social networking services when more of their friends are using them.This applies in social terms, but also in eLearning and professional networks. The network effect provides one explanation for the popularity of internet based social networking sites (SNS) because the number of connections between people which can be maintained by using them is greatly increased in comparison to the networks available before the internet. The ability of users to determine how much they trust information available to them from contacts within their social network is important in almost all modes of use. As sources of information on a range of topics from academic to shopping advice, the level of trust which a user can put in other nodes is a key aspect of the utility of the system.