Tradition versus technology:careers fairs in the 21st Century

The traditional methods of graduate recruitment do not adequately meet the needs of the changing profile of students and graduates. As industry becomes internationalized, the needs of employers are also changing. Graduate recruitment is in response to short term needs and varying levels of experience are required. A case study method was used in Dublin Institute of Technology to evaluate effectiveness of a virtual careers fair in providing greater access to job opportunities for students and graduates. Access by employers to potential employees was also measured. Findings showed that while access improved, other issues requiring attention emerged.

Degree of vertical integration and its buffering effects on political uncertainty

The focus of this study is on the governance decisions in a concurrent channels context, in the case of uncertainty. The study examines how a firm chooses to deploy its sales force in times of uncertainty, and the subsequent performance outcome of those deployment choices. The theoretical framework is based on multiple theories of governance, including transaction cost analysis (TCA), agency theory, and institutional economics. Three uncertainty variables are investigated in this study. The first two are demand and competitive uncertainty which are considered to be industry-level market uncertainty forms. The third uncertainty, political uncertainty, is chosen as it is an important dimension of institutional environments, capturing non-economic circumstances such as regulations and political systemic issues. The study employs longitudinal secondary data from a Thai hotel chain, comprising monthly observations from January 2007 – December 2012. This hotel chain has its operations in 4 countries, Thailand, the Philippines, United Arab Emirates – Dubai, and Egypt, all of which experienced substantial demand, competitive, and political uncertainty during the study period. This makes them ideal contexts for this study. Two econometric models, both deploying Newey-West estimations, are employed to test 13 hypotheses. The first model considers the relationship between uncertainty and governance. The second model is a version of Newey-West, using an Instrumental Variables (IV) estimator and a Two-Stage Least Squares model (2SLS), to test the direct effect of uncertainty on performance and the moderating effect of governance on the relationship between uncertainty and performance. The observed relationship between uncertainty and governance observed follows a core prediction of TCA; that vertical integration is the preferred choice of governance when uncertainty rises. As for the subsequent performance outcomes, the results corroborate that uncertainty has a negative effect on performance. Importantly, the findings show that becoming more vertically integrated cannot help moderate the effect of demand and competitive uncertainty, but can significantly moderate the effect of political uncertainty. These findings have significant theoretical and practical implications, and extend our knowledge of the impact on uncertainty significantly, as well as bringing an institutional perspective to TCA. Further, they offer managers novel insight into the nature of different types of uncertainty, their impact on performance, and how channel decisions can mitigate these impacts.

Milyen is hát a tőke a 21. században? Megjegyzések Piketty könyvéhez (So what is capital in the 21st century? Notes on Piketty's book)

Ezt az írást Piketty kiváló és fontos könyve inspirálta. A könyvnek nemcsak a címe, hanem számos megfogalmazása is azt a várakozást keltheti, hogy a kapitalista rendszer átfogó elemzése kerül az olvasó kezébe. Ehhez képest a tanulmány szerzőjében hiányérzet támadt. A kapitalista rendszernek számos immanens tulajdonsága, veleszületett hajlama van. Közülük hárommal foglakozik a tanulmány. 1. A kapitalizmus egyik alapvonása a dinamizmus, az innováció, a teremtő rombolás. Nem adhat teljes képet a kapitalizmusról az, aki ezt az alapvetően fontos jelenséget ignorálja. 2. A kapitalizmus óhatatlanul nagyfokú egyenlőtlenséget hoz létre; ezt reformokkal kell enyhíteni, de teljesen nem küszöbölhető ki. 3. A kapitalizmus alapvető jellegzetességei, a magántulajdon és a piaci koordináció dominanciája nagy hatású ösztönzési mechanizmusokat hoznak létre, amelyek mind a tulajdonosokat, mind a vállalatok vezetőit innovációra és hatékony működésre serkentik. Az egyik legfontosabb ösztönző a verseny, különösen az oligopolisztikus verseny. A kapitalista rendszernek e három fontos tendenciája között szoros kölcsönhatás érvényesül. Piketty fő témáját, a jövedelem és a vagyon eloszlását nem lehet jól megérteni, ha a másik két tendenciától elszakítva vizsgáljuk. A tanulmány befejezésül ismerteti a szerző saját értékítéleteit a kapitalista rendszer kedvező és káros, igazságtalan vonásairól. _____ This study was inspired by Piketty s excellent and important book. Its title and numerous statements in it arouse in readers expectations of a comprehensive analysis of capitalism. By comparison the author of this paper felt things were lacking. The capitalist system has numerous immanent traits and innate tendencies, of which the study properties three: 1. One basic feature is dynamism, innovation, and creative destruction. No picture of capitalism can be full if this basic aspect is ignored. 2. Capitalism inevitably brings about a high degree of inequality; this must be eased by reforms, but cannot be entirely overcome. 3. The basic characteristics of capitalism - private ownership and the dominance of market coordination - give rise to strong incentive mechanisms that encourage but owners and enterprise executives to innovate and to cooperate effectively. One of the main incentives is competition, especially oligopolistic competition. There are strong mutual effects among these three important tendencies. It is impossible to understand well Piketty s main subject, the distribution of income and wealth, if it is divorced from the other two tendencies. The study ends with its author s own value judgements on the favourable and harmful, unjust attributes of the capitalist system.

Globalization and the Marginalization of Educational Purpose: Preparation of Workers and Citizens for the 21st Century and the Vision of Sustainable Futures

Human capital development remains a primary goal of modern schooling. This paper raises questions concerning the link between global economic needs and school-based human capital development. The primary mission of preparing students for the workplace may weaken other educational missions vital in achieving a more sustainable future for humanity.

Party rules, party resources and the politics of parliamentary democracies How parties organize in the 21st century

This article introduces the first findings of the Political Party Database Project, a major survey of party organizations in parliamentary and semi-presidential democracies. The project’s first round of data covers 122 parties in 19 countries. In this article, we describe the scope of the database, then investigate what it tells us about contemporary party organization in these countries, focusing on parties’ resources, structures and internal decision-making. We examine organizational patterns by country and party family, and where possible we make temporal comparisons with older data sets. Our analyses suggest a remarkable coexistence of uniformity and diversity. In terms of the major organizational resources on which parties can draw, such as members, staff and finance, the new evidence largely confirms the continuation of trends identified in previous research: that is, declining membership, but enhanced financial resources and more paid staff. We also find remarkable uniformity regarding the core architecture of party organizations. At the same time, however, we find substantial variation between countries and party families in terms of their internal processes, with particular regard to how internally democratic they are, and the forms that this democratization takes.

Can IT Security be improved with better IT Leadership in the 21st Century University?

Organizations generally are not responding effectively to rising IT security threats because people issues receive inadequate attention. The stark example of IT security is just the latest strategic IT priority demonstrating deficient IT leadership attention to the social dimension of IT. Universities in particular, with their devolved people organization, diverse adoption of IT, and split central/local federated approach to governance and leadership of IT, demand higher levels of interpersonal sophistication and strategic engagement from their IT leaders. An idealized model for IT leaders for the 21st century university is proposed to be developed as a framework for further investigation. The testing of this model in an action research study is proposed.

Problem solving for the 21st century

Mathematical problem solving has been the subject of substantial and often controversial research for several decades. We use the term, problem solving, here in a broad sense to cover a range of activities that challenge and extend one’s thinking. In this chapter, we initially present a sketch of past decades of research on mathematical problem solving and its impact on the mathematics curriculum. We then consider some of the factors that have limited previous research on problem solving. In the remainder of the chapter we address some ways in which we might advance the fields of problem-solving research and curriculum development.

Trends in Australian contact lens prescribing during the first decade of the 21st Century (2000–2009)

Purpose: The aim was to document contact lens prescribing trends in Australia between 2000 and 2009. ---------- Methods: A survey of contact lens prescribing trends was conducted each year between 2000 and 2009. Australian optometrists were asked to provide information relating to 10 consecutive contact lens fittings between January and March each year. ---------- Results: Over the 10-year survey period, 1,462 practitioners returned survey forms representing a total of 13,721 contact lens fittings. The mean age (± SD) of lens wearers was 33.2 ± 13.6 years and 65 per cent were female. Between 2006 and 2009, rigid lens new fittings decreased from 18 to one per cent. Low water content lenses reduced from 11.5 to 3.2 per cent of soft lens fittings between 2000 and 2008. Between 2005 and 2009, toric lenses and multifocal lenses represented 26 and eight per cent, respectively, of all soft lenses fitted. Daily disposable, one- to two-week replacement and monthly replacement lenses accounted for 11.6, 30.0 and 46.5 per cent of all soft lens fittings over the survey period, respectively. The proportion of new soft fittings and refittings prescribed as extended wear has generally declined throughout the past decade. Multi-purpose lens care solutions dominate the market. Rigid lenses and monthly replacement soft lenses are predominantly worn on a full-time basis, whereas daily disposable soft lenses are mainly worn part-time.---------- Conclusions: This survey indicates that technological advances, such as the development of new lens materials, manufacturing methods and lens designs, and the availability of various lens replacement options, have had a significant impact on the contact lens market during the first decade of the 21st Century.

Supporting informed learners in the 21st century

This paper elaborates the concept of informed learning and locates it in educational, workplace and community settings. Drawing from existing research into people's experience of information literacy, it identifies critical experiences of informed learners in each of these three settings. It also explores the support required in educational, community and workplace contexts which makes informed learning possible. Recognising strong implications for policy makers in different sectors, the paper presents a set of guiding principles for developing informed learning and learners. The idea of informed learning represents and advances understandings of information literacy that incorporate the broader concept of using information to learn: those understandings that go beyond the functional or generic information literacy paradigm and draw attention to the transformational, situated and critical aspects of information literacy. Using information to learn is a natural, but often implicit part of all formal and informal learning environments, and is a vital component of the lifelong learning agendas of many nations worldwide. Supporting informed learning requires conscious attention to the use of information in the learning process, by educators, managers, trainers, and policy makers in all sectors. It requires a far reaching response to policy directions involving a wide range of stakeholders.