Performance and narrative, bodies and movement in the construction of places and objects, spaces and knowledges: The case of the Maltese megaliths

The article explores the ways knowledge and space are co-produced performatively through bodily movement in an examination of the Maltese megaliths the first complex stone structures in the world. It is argued that knowledge is best seen as spatialized narratives of human actions and objects as materialized forms of those spatial narratives. Rewriting our social and historical narratives so that the performativity of place, space and knowledge is restored opens new possibilities for rethinking the social and material order.

‘Inspired and assisted’, or ‘berated and destroyed’? Research leadership, management and performativity in troubled times

Research leadership in Australian universities takes place against a backdrop of policy reforms concerned with measurement and comparison of institutional research performance. In particular, the Excellence in Research in Australian initiative undertaken by the Australian Research Council sets out to evaluate research quality in Australian universities, using a combination of expert review process, and assessment of performance against ‘quality indicators’. Benchmarking exercises of this sort continue to shape institutional policy and practice, with inevitable effects on the ways in which research leadership, mentoring and practice are played out within university faculties and departments. In an exploratory study that interviewed 32 Australian academics in universities in four Australian states, we asked participants, occupying formal or informal research leadership roles, to comment on their perceptions of research leadership as envisioned and enacted in their particular workplaces. We found a pervasive concern amongst participants that coalesced around binaries characterized in metaphoric terms of ‘carrots and whips’. Research leadership was seen by many as managerial in nature, and as such, largely tethered to instrumentalist notions of productivity and performativity, while research cultures were seen as languishing under the demoralizing weight of reward and punishment systems. Here, we consider what is at stake for the future of the academic workforce under such conditions, arguing that new models of visionary research leadership are urgently needed in the ‘troubled times’ of techno-bureaucratic university reforms.

Imagination, performance and affect: a critical pedagogy of the Holocaust?

Based on video testimony interviews held in the Shoah FoundationInstitute’s Visual History archive and the Melbourne JewishHolocaust Centre’s archive, this paper examines Holocaust survivortestimony as it relates to their return to the sites of atrocity,particularly Auschwitz-Birkenau. It analyses how survivor’s (re)encounters with material and imaginative landscapes revealsconceptions of, inter alia, agency, community, absence andbelonging in the performance of self. It uses these tensionsbetween landscapes of the past and present to develop thetheoretical relationship between performativity and ideas ofaffect. In doing so, it explores how these ideas can be used toengage students in a critical pedagogy of the Holocaust throughanalysis of survivor video-testimony and in visiting landscapes ofthe Holocaust.

Physical performance and self-efficacy under happy and sad moods

Two experiments involving 87 undergraduates examined whether happiness produces increased performance on a physical task and tested whether self-efficacy mediated the results. When mood inductions covered the full range from happy to sad, mood influenced physical performance; however, evidence regarding self-efficacy was equivocal. Efficacy for the performed task was unaffected by mood, although it remained a good predictor of performance. Since mood altered efficacy for a nonperformed but more familiar task, inconsistent efficacy results could reflect task differences. Findings offer prospects for the use of mood inductions in practical sporting situations.

Construction performance and organisational culture

The purpose of this paper is to summarize the outcomes of a detailed research study carried out as part of the fulfilment of a doctoral programme which examined the relationships between, and impacts of organisational culture on construction performance within a Hong Kong context. The research used a mixed methodology approach consisting of an organisational culture survey using an adapted validated and reliable measurement instrument (the Denison Organisational Culture Survey), mini-case studies in four Hong Kong construction companies and correlated the derived culture scores against performance scores measured by the Hong Kong Housing Department Performance Assessment Scoring System (PASS). The significance of the research was to advance knowledge of the importance of organisational culture strength as a performance driver in the construction industry and the further proof of the culture performance links using a set of measures of the latter which were not financially-based. The findings of the research make a contribution to theory by further validating the work by Denison (1990) and others, not only in that a successful link between organisational culture and performance was demonstrated, but it also identifies particular cultural factors in organisations that appear to be significantly responsible for achieving successful outcomes and reveals opportunities for further research into the organisational culture of construction companies Keywords: organisational culture, construction performance, business success.

Piezoelectric PVDF materials performance and operation limits in space environments

Piezoelectric polymers based on polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) are of interest for large aperture space-based telescopes. Dimensional adjustments of adaptive polymer films are achieved via charge deposition and require a detailed understanding of the piezoelectric material responses which are expected to suffer due to strong vacuum UV, gamma, X-ray, energetic particles and atomic oxygen under low earth orbit exposure conditions. The degradation of PVDF and its copolymers under various stress environments has been investigated. Initial radiation aging studies using gamma- and e-beam irradiation have shown complex material changes with significant crosslinking, lowered melting and Curie points (where observable), effects on crystallinity, but little influence on overall piezoelectric properties. Surprisingly, complex aging processes have also been observed in elevated temperature environments with annealing phenomena and cyclic stresses resulting in thermal depoling of domains. Overall materials performance appears to be governed by a combination of chemical and physical degradation processes. Molecular changes are primarily induced via radiative damage, and physical damage from temperature and AO exposure is evident as depoling and surface erosion. Major differences between individual copolymers have been observed providing feedback on material selection strategies.

Boxing Ears: Performance and Out of the Box 2010

A review of the musical element of QPAC's 2010 Out of the Box Festival of Early Childhood

For the better or the worse? The impact of business idea changes on new venture performance and novelty

Should new ventures stick to their knitting once they start commercialising or should they engage in frequent changes of their business idea? In this paper we argue that new ventures still need to learn their way in the early phases of commercialisation and that changes are good, but subject to two important contingencies. First is that changes should be aimed at enhancing uniqueness, which in turn enhances new venture performance. Second is that our results show that changes have limited affect on uniqueness and performance for entrepreneurs aiming at maximising opportunities, but that changing the business idea has a significant positive impact for entrepreneurs focusing on minimising losses. Our findings indicate that entrepreneurs aiming at minimising losses may offset their initial disadvantages by engaging in a series of adaptations of the business idea to gain higher performance and a more unique product offering.