Soccer, South Africa and celebrity status:Mark Fish, popular culture and the post-apartheid state

The rise of celebrity culture is a theme that has attracted a significant amount of attention within both mainstream sociology and cultural studies in more recent times. Ensuing debate has identified contemporary sports figures as an important facet of the celebrity‐media nexus and as possible signifiers of cultural change. In this paper we take one particular sports celebrity, South African soccer star Mark Fish, and evaluate his image in relation to debates surrounding sport, politics and the post‐apartheid state. We argue that because Fish appears to enjoy all the benefits of celebrity status (within his home country at least), an analysis of his career and identity provide a useful means by which to think about the changing political and nationalistic values within South African society.

Auctions law and practice

This is the new edition of the leading work on the law and practice of auctions. The book looks at every aspect of auction practice from the economics of auction sales and restrictions on trading to criminal and other liabilities of the auctioneer. There is also a chapter on VAT. There have been important recent developments in the field of consumer protection and the book has been substantially revised to reflect these. In addition to general updating the new edition considers the practice of online auctions for the first time. There is also a section on looted art . The book continues to draw on case law from other common law jurisdictions.

Why critical pedagogy and popular education matter today

Few today doubt that English Higher Education (HE), like the wider world in which it is located, is in crisis. This is, in part, an economic crisis, as the government response to the current recession seems to be that of introducing the kind of neoliberal ‘shock doctrine’ (Klein 2007) or ‘shock therapy’ (Harvey 2005) that previously resulted in swingeing cuts in public services in Southern nations. Our aim in producing this volume is that these contributions help develop a collective response to the seeming limits of these conditions. We view the strength of these contributions in part as providing palpable evidence of how we and our colleagues are acting with critical hope under current conditions so that we might encourage others to work with us to build, together, more progressive formal and informal education systems that address and seek to redress multiple injustices of the world today.

The interaction between the implementation of an occupational health and safety management system and safety culture:a case study in the rubber industry

A prominent theme emerging in Occupational Health and Safety (OSH) is the development of management systems. A range of interventions, according to a prescribed route detailed by one of the management systems, can be introduced into an organisation with some expectation of improved OSH performance. This thesis attempts to identify the key influencing factors that may impact upon the process of introducing interventions, (according to B88800: 1996, Guide to Implementing Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems) into an organisation. To help identify these influencing factors a review of possible models from the sphere of Total Quality Management (TQM) was undertaken and the most suitable TQM model selected for development and use in aSH. By anchoring the aSH model's development in the reviewed literature a range ofeare, medium and low level influencing factors were identified. This model was developed in conjunction with the research data generated within the case study organisation (rubber manufacturer) and applied to the organisation. The key finding was that the implementation of an OSH intervention was dependant upon three broad vectors of influence. These are the Incentive to introduce change within an organisation which refers to the drivers or motivators for OSH. Secondly the Ability within the management team to actually implement the changes refers to aspects, amongst others, such as leadership, commitment and perceptions of OSH. Ability is in turn itself influenced by the environment within which change is being introduced. TItis aspect of Receptivity refers to the history of the plant and characteristics of the workforce. Aspects within Receptivity include workforce profile and organisational policies amongst others. It was found that the TQM model selected and developed for an OSH management system intervention did explain the core influencing factors and their impact upon OSH performance. It was found that within the organisation the results that may have been expected from implementation of BS8800:1996 were not realised. The OSH model highlighted that given the organisation's starting point, a poor appreciation of the human factors of OSH, gave little reward for implementation of an OSH management system. In addition it was found that general organisational culture can effectively suffocate any attempts to generate a proactive safety culture.

Justice and morality:human suffering, natural law and international politics

Bridging the contending theories of natural law and international relations, this book proposes a 'relational ontology' as the basis for rethinking our approach to international politics. The book contains a number of challenging and controversial ideas on the study of international political thought which should provoke constructive debate within international relations theory, political theory, and philosophical ethics. © Amanda Russell Beattie 2010. All rights reserved.

Organisational change and safety culture: the impact of communication

This research examines and explains the links between safety culture and communication. Safety culture is a concept that in recent years has gained prominence but there has been little applied research conducted to investigate the meaning of the concept in 'real life' settings. This research focused on a Train Operating Company undergoing change in a move towards privatisation. These changes were evident in the management of safety, the organisation of the industry and internally in their management. The Train Operating Company's management took steps to improve their safety culture and communications through the development of a cascade communication structure. The research framework employed a qualitative methodology in order to investigate the effect of the new system on safety culture. Findings of the research were that communications in the organisation failed to be effective for a number of reasons, including both cultural and logistical problems. The cultural problems related to a lack of trust in the organisation by the management and the workforce, the perception of communications as management propaganda, and asyntonic communications between those involved, whilst logistical problems related to the inherent difficulties of communicating over a geographically distributed network. An organisational learning framework was used to explain the results. It is postulated that one of the principal reasons why change, either to the safety culture or to communications, did not occur was because of the organisation's inability to learn. The research has also shown the crucial importance of trust between the members of the organisation, as this was one of the fundamental reasons why the safety culture did not change, and why safety management systems were not fully implemented. This is consistent with the notion of mutual trust in the HSC (1993) definition of safety culture. This research has highlighted its relevance to safety culture and its importance for organisational change.

Adjusting to institutional realities: the 2006 NGO law and its effects on civil society in Russia

Key findings: The paper investigates the impact that the legislative changes of 2006 had on civil society in Russia. This legislation has change the regulatory environment in which civil society actors such as Third Sector Organisations operate. Using the past development of civil society organisations as well as insights about how the institutional environment influences this article illustrates: - the undemocratic nature and motivation of the law and how it exploits the structural weaknesses of civil society - how Third Sector Organisations rationalise and translate the legislative changes into their organisational realities and how this changed or did not change their behaviour - the shift in state-civil society relations away from liberal co-existence into more hierarchical arrangements were Third Sector Organisations are subordinated to the state. These trends have far reaching implications for civil society. The empirical evidence shows that state now manages civil society to meet its own political ends. It also shows that organisations in the field welcome the more engage and directive nature of the Russian state. Why is this important? What does it mean for business or other users? Are there policy implications? The research is important as it shows how Third Sector Organisations have reacted to the legislative changes. Further it provides a basis for interpretation of the potential future development of civil society. Additional it highlights how the continuous process of democratisation in transition economies sometimes might come unstuck. In particular donor agencies will need to consider these trends when disturbing funding to Third Sector Organisations.

'Only in the leap from the lion's head will he prove his worth':natural law and international relations

This article argues the benefits of including a theological interpretation of natural law morality within the normative discourses of international politics. It challenges the assumption of a Grotian secular natural law arguing that practical reason, in a Thomist interpretation, is better suited to the demands of international political theory. It engages with themes of agency, practical reason, and community in order to enhance the content of the post-territorial community evidenced in ethical cosmopolitan debates. Likewise, it envisions a simultaneously enhancing a rapprochement among cosmopolitan and communitarian discourses of international politics facilitated through an institutional design guided by the morality of natural law.

The law and finance of share repurchases in Europe

This article analyses the impact of the EU market abuse law on share repurchases. We find that the Member States' previous rules differed considerably, and therefore it can be said that the Regulation on share repurchases has provided uniformity as to the availability of a safe harbour for share repurchases. The picture, however, gets more difficult to assess if we consider our findings on the actual effect of the law. Our results do not confirm a “simple law and finance story“ according to which market participants would have just reacted as expected by the new legal rules. Rather, it seems to be the case that the value of legal certainty and the positive signal of common legal rules have also had an impact on the propensity to repurchase own stock.

Trademark law and theory:a handbook of contemporary research

Publication Review: Trademark Law and Theory: A Handbook of Contemporary Research, Edited by Graeme B. Dinwoodie and Mark D. Janis

The influence of organizational and national culture on new product performance

The authors conduct a meta-analysis on the combined influence of organizational and national culture on new product performance. For this purpose, they refer to the effectiveness of value congruency and develop a conceptual model describing the fit between organizational culture types as suggested by the competing values framework and national culture, as described by Hofstede's cultural dimensions. The meta-analysis is based on 489 effect sizes taken from 123 manuscripts. The findings show that organizations with a market culture show the highest new product performance, while hierarchy-type organizations show the lowest performance. The influence of national culture variables supports the effect of value congruency, and shows that in individualistic cultures the impact of a clan culture decreases, the impact of an adhocracy culture type decreases with uncertainty avoidance, and the influence of a hierarchy culture type increases with power distance. The superior effect of a market culture type can be matched by other organizational orientations, but in particular national cultures only. The combined findings underline the importance for firms that seek to improve the success rate of new products on international markets to consider the fit of a national culture with a firm's organizational culture.