The cotter's kailyard

An examination of the critical reception of the poetry of Robert Burns from his death in 1796 to the end of the nineteenth century. The essay shows how a selective reading of Burns's poems was used to construct and reinforce moral and political arguments, and argues that the identification of the poet as national Bard influenced ideas about Scottish literature generally in the nineteenth century.

Through Jewish eyes: polemical literature and the medieval papacy

Although the medieval papacy's stance towards the Jews is a well-established area of research, Jewish ideas about the papacy remain a surprisingly underdeveloped historical topic. This article explores such ideas through the genre of polemic and disputational literature. Jewish writers were keen to ensure the safety of their communities in western Europe and grateful for statements of papal protection. They fully acknowledged that popes had always played and would continue to play an important role in safeguarding their well-being and determining their future. Yet although contemporary and later writers often valued papal protection more highly than that of monarchs, emperors or clergy, they also knew that it had its carefully circumscribed limits. Furthermore, although they were respectful of the papacy's power, both spiritual and temporal, they were dismissive of the scriptural and theological formulations on which Christian claims for apostolic authority rested and highly critical of Christian beliefs about the papacy, in particular that of apostolic succession. Jewish ideas about both individual popes and the medieval papacy as an institution are therefore nuanced and complex; they deserve rigorous and wide-ranging investigation and it is hoped that this article will contribute to their better understanding.

Key drivers of frontline employee generation of ideas for customer service improvement

Anchored in the service-dominant logic and service innovation literature, this study investigates the drivers of employee generation of ideas for service improvement (GISI). Employee GISI focuses on customer needs and providing the exact service wanted by customers. GISI should enhance competitive advantage and organizational success (cf. Berry et al. 2006; Wang and Netemeyer 2004). Despite its importance, there is little research on the idea generation stage of the service development process (Chai, Zhang, and Tan 2005). This study contributes to the service field by providing the first empirical evaluation of the drivers of GISI. It also investigates a new explanatory determinant of reading of customer needs, namely, perceived organizational support (POS), and an outcome of POS, in the form of emotional exhaustion. Results show that the major driver of GISI is reading of customer needs by employees followed by affective organizational commitment and job satisfaction. This research provides several new and important insights for service management practice by suggesting that special care should be put into selecting and recruiting employees who have the ability to read customer needs. Additionally, organizations should invest in creating work environments that encourage and reward the flow of ideas for service improvement

Rerum cognoscere causas: part I - How do the ideas of system dynamics relate to traditional social theories and the voluntarism/determinism debate?

This is the first half of a two-part paper which deals with the social theoretic assumptions underlying system dynamics. The motivation is that clarification in this area can help mainstream social scientists to understand how our field relates to their literature, methods and concerns. Part I has two main sections. The aim of the first is to answer the question: How do the ideas of system dynamics relate to traditional social theories? The theoretic assumptions of the field are seldom explicit but rather are implicit in its practice. The range of system dynamics practice is therefore considered and related to a framework - widely used in both operational research (OR) and systems science - that organises the assumptions behind traditional social theoretic paradigms. Distinct and surprisingly varied groupings of practice are identified, making it difficult to place system dynamics in any one paradigm with any certainty. The difficulties of establishing a social theoretic home for system dynamics are exemplified in the second main section. This is done by considering the question: Is system dynamics deterministic? An analysis shows that attempts to relate system dynamics to strict notions of voluntarism or determinism quickly indicate that the field does not fit with either pole of this dichotomous, and strictly paradigmatic, view. Part I therefore concludes that definitively placing system dynamics with respect to traditional social theories is highly problematic. The scene is therefore set for Part II of the paper, which proposes an innovative and potentially fruitful resolution to this problem.

All friends now? Critical conversations, West Indian literature and 'The Quarrel with History'

In this essay Alison Donnell returns to the material object of Edward Baugh's essay, published in the pages of the Trinidadian little magazine Tapia in 1977, in order to re-read the force of its arguments in the context of its own politicocultural history and to assess the significance of its publication venue. Donnell attends to Baugh's own standing in the highly charged field of Caribbean literary criticism as a critic of both Walcott and Naipaul, and acknowledges his creative contribution to this field as a poet. She also considers how, in the years between the original publication of Baugh's article and its republication, the questions of historical invisibility have entered newly disputed territories that demand attention to how gender, indigeneity, spirituality, and sexuality shape ideas of historical and literary legitimacy, in addition to those foundational questions around a politics of race and class.

The creation and diffusion of innovation in developing countries: a systematic literature review

In this study, we review the literature on the creation and diffusion of innovation in the private sectors (industry and services) in developing countries. In particular, we collect evidence on what are the barriers to innovation creation and diffusion and the channels of innovation diffusion to and within developing countries. We find that innovation in developing countries is about creation or adoption of new ideas and technologies; but the capacity for innovation is embedded in and constituted by dynamics between geographical, socio-economic, political and legal subsystems. We contextualize the findings from the review in the current theoretical framework of diffusion of innovations, and we emphasize how the institutional context typical of developing countries impacts the diffusion itself.

Linking classroom learning and research to advance ideas about social-ecological resilience

There is an increasing demand in higher education institutions for training in complex environmental problems. Such training requires a careful mix of conventional methods and innovative solutions, a task not always easy to accomplish. In this paper we review literature on this theme, highlight relevant advances in the pedagogical literature, and report on some examples resulting from our recent efforts to teach complex environmental issues. The examples range from full credit courses in sustainable development and research methods to project-based and in-class activity units. A consensus from the literature is that lectures are not sufficient to fully engage students in these issues. A conclusion from the review of examples is that problem-based and project-based, e.g., through case studies, experiential learning opportunities, or real-world applications, learning offers much promise. This could greatly be facilitated by online hubs through which teachers, students, and other members of the practitioner and academic community share experiences in teaching and research, the way that we have done here.