Fads and fashions in management: the case of ERP

This article discusses the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) rage. ERP represents immense investments for companies around the globe and has been promoted as a management panacea. Not surprisingly, many implementations fail to match expectations. In this study, we propose a broader perspective to comprehend the substantive, institutional, and political factors involved in the ERP phenomenon, as an alternative to the "techno-reductionism" that has characterized the prevailing approach on the subject, and present an exploratory survey of 28 implementation experiences, concentrating on the process of adoption, chosen implementation approaches and outcome assessment.

Fashions and fads in finance: contingent emulation and the political economy of sovereign wealth fund creation. IHS Political Science Series No. 131, July 2012

Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), government-owned or managed investment vehicles, have proliferated at a remarkable rate over the past decade, even as political controversy has surrounded them. Why? The extant literature depicts the process of SWF creation as driven by functional imperatives associated with “excess” revenue and reserves accumulated from commodity booms and large current account surpluses. I argue that SWF creation also reflects in large part a process of contingent emulation in which first this policy has been constructed as appropriate for countries with given characteristics, and then when countries took on these characteristics, they followed their peers. Put simply, fashions and fads in finance matter for policy diffusion. I assess this argument using a new dataset on SWF creation that covers nearly 80 countries from 1984 to 2007. The results suggest peer-based contingent emulation has been a crucial factor shaping the decision of many countries to create a SWF, especially among fuel exporters. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, 2 – 5 September 2010. The author would like to thank Eric Neumayer for his many suggestions and comments on previous versions of the manuscript. The author would also like to thank Zachary Elkins for sharing data. Finally, the author would like to acknowledge the research assistance of Natali Bulamacioglu and Christopher Gandrud.

Edinburgh life in the eighteenth century. With an account of the fashions and amusements of society. Selected and arranged from "Captain Topham's Letters."

Abridgment of Letters from Edinburgh, written in the years 1774 and 1775

A cyclopaedia of costume or dictionary of dress, including notices of contemporaneous fashions on the continent; a general chronological history of the costumes of the principal countries of Europe, from the commencement of the Christian era to the accession of George the Third.

v. 1. The dictionary.--v. 2. A general history of costume in Europe.

The Kaleidoscope; or, Literary and scientific mirror, containing a variety of original and select articles, literature, men and manners, amusement, criticism, elegant extracts, poetry, anecdotes, biography, meteorology, the drama, arts and sciences, voyages and travels, natural history, diary of the months, fashions, &c. ...

Mode of access: Internet.

Social New York under the Georges, 1714-1776 : houses, streets, and country homes, with chapters on fashions, furniture, china, plate, and manners /

Includes index.

Hair-Cutting "Fresh Fashions"

No pg number. Found within last pages before ads.

And then came Complex Project Management

The subject of management is renowned for its addiction to fads and fashions. Project Management is no exception. The issue of interest for this paper is the establishment of the 'College of Complex Project Managers' and their 'competency standard for complex project managers.' Both have generated significant interest in the Project Management community, and like any other human endeavour they should be subject to critical evaluation. The results of this evaluation show significant flaws in the definition of complex in this case, the process by which the College and its standard have emerged, and the content of the standard. However, there is a significant case for a portfolio of research that extends the existing bodies of knowledge into large-scale complicated (or major) projects that would be owned by the relevant practitioner communities, rather than focused on one organization. Research questions are proposed that would commence this stream of activity towards an intelligent synthesis of what is required to manage in both complicated and truly complex environments.

António Ferro:o traje e a moda

António Ferro foi uma personalidade fulcral para a cultura do século XX em Portugal, sendo as suas obras reflexo do tempo que viveu e das ideias que defendeu, estando quer estas, quer as de sua mulher, Fernanda de Castro, recheadas de referências à indumentária e as modas que se iam sucedendo e que muitas vezes descreveu. ABSTRACT - António Ferro was a main personality of the cultural scene of the twentieth century in Portugal. His works reflect the time he lived and ideas that defended, being either it, or those written by his wife, Fernanda de Castro, filled with references to clothing and the fashions that were succeeding and that he often described.

Arte e moda

Análise da moda no vestuário enquanto Arte, passível de análise estética respectivos critérios e ligação às artes plásticas. É ainda analisado, no âmbito desta problemática, a evolução do estatuto social do criador de Moda e a Moda na actualidade. ABSTRACT: The aim is the study of fashion in clothing as Art, the aesthetic criteria of its analysis and its connection with other arts. It is further analyzed, in the context of this problem, the evolution of status of fashions creators and Fashion today.

A moda e o traje militar

RESUMO - A introdução do Uniforme nas forças armadas em Portugal deu-se no século XVII e este é claramente influenciado e por vezes mesmo condicionado pelo vestuário civil e pelas modas em voga.

Os azulejos do Palácio dos Biscaínhos

RESUMO: É analisada a pintura azulejar do século XVIII que decora o salão nobre do Palácio dos Biscaínhos em Braga, sob a óptica da representação da indumentária e das modas coevas.

Eça de Queiroz e a moda

RESUMO: Eça de Queiroz foi uma personalidade impar da literatura portuguesa, sendo as suas obras reflexo do tempo que viveu e da sociedade em que se integrou, verificando-se que estas, estão recheadas de referências à indumentária e às modas que se iam sucedendo e que muitas vezes descreveu. Dos indícios documentais biográficos, releva uma relação com a indumentária pessoal muito atenta e cuidada quase podendo ser considerado um dandy.

InfoAPP: um novo agregador de conteúdos informativos

Trabalho de projeto apresentado à Escola Superior de Comunicação Social como parte dos requisitos para obtenção de grau de mestre em Publicidade e Marketing.

Humor impresso: cultura e política em O Espreitador do Mundo Novo

The aim of this paper is to identify, analyse and question the expressions of humour in O Espreitador do Mundo Novo, a monthly periodical published by José Daniel Rodrigues da Costa throughout 1802. It is a chapter of a PhD thesis in History and Theory of Ideas with the title “Correcting by laughter. Humour in Portuguese periodical press 1797-1834”. Positing humour as a social and cultural phenomenon, it is regarded here in a broad sense, comprehending wit, joke, ridicule, satire, jest, mockery, facetiousness or irony, displayed with recourse to various figures of speech. This interdisciplinary work intends listing and researching the themes and issues of the periodical and its targets, namely the social, age or gender stereotypes and to acknowledge its political stances. Another main purpose of this paper is to assess the role of humour as expressed in the printed periodical as a political and social weapon, criticizing ways (and which ways) and/or fashions, often ridiculing novelty just for being new in order to maintain the statu quo, and to establish in which senses humour was used in the context of late Ancien Régime and early liberalism culture. The humour of O Espreitador has also played a part in framing a public sphere in early nineteenth-century Portugal, as can be seen by the different “stages” and backgrounds where the monthly installments of the periodical take place: squares, coffee houses, fairgrounds, private houses, jailhouses, churches, public promenades, pilgrimages, bullfights, parties, the opera house – each of them a space of sociability and socialization. In this one, as in other periodicals of the time, printed humour stands at the crossroads of politics and culture, in spaces boldly widening before the reader. Albeit, there are quite a few loud silences in O Espreitador: not even the slightest remark to the church, the clergy or the Inquisition, only reverential references to the established order and the powers that be. The periodical criticizes the criticizers; it is against those who are against. The repeated disclaimers are intended not only to protect the author from libel suits or other litigation. They belong to a centuries-old tradition which, as early as the Middle Ages, has set apart escárnio (scorn) from maldizer (slander): José Daniel Rodrigues da Costa distinguishes satire from rebuking vice – a “cheerful criticism” forerunner of the ironic humour which was to become a trademark of Portuguese literature in the second half of the nineteenth century. Targeting those who deviate from the social norm (for example social climbers and older women who marry young men) or the followers of fashion (sometimes specifically “French fashion”), O Espreitador charges at liberal and progressive ideas. It ridicules the ways of the “New World” in order to perpetuate an idealized version of the “Old World”. Notwithstanding two exceptions – it condemns racism and bullfighting –, the humour of O Espreitador is conservative and conformist from a social and political standpoint.