Historical and conceptual perspectives on urban regeneration: a prolog to a special issue

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Balsas

Purpose This paper aims to review multiple historical perspectives on urban regeneration interventions while also serving as a prologue to and the rationale for a special issue of the Journal of Place Management and Development (JPMD) on Placemaking and Sustainable Urban Regeneration in Japan. Design/methodology/approach The paper reviews the literature on city center regeneration, with particular attention to the USA and the UK contexts. The emphasis is on comparing and contrasting what have become known as the North American and European regeneration models. This background is helpful to place the Special Issue in a broad international context. Findings The key finding is that the history of planning city centers appears to be largely a response to urbanization and the problems it has brought forward. The papers in this JPMD’s special issue exemplify this finding with cases from Toyama, Kanazawa and Tokyo. Originality Cities are transformed as their centers grow and develop. City centers represent important anchor points in every community. However, evolving functional decentralization has occurred mostly due to changes in flows of capital, people, materials and other socio-economic transformations. The review shows how urban regeneration programs tend to be implemented to correct and or improve physical, socio-economic and environmental problems associated with functional and programmatic decentralization.

2014 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-10
Author(s):  
John Kendall

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the American National Biography including a brief history of the book and details on its electronic format. Design/methodology/approach - An historical account of the forerunner publications is provided, followed by consideration of the printed and the electronic versions. Illustrative examples are used throughout. It is briefly compared with a similar work from the UK. The advantages of the electronic format are assessed. Findings - The American National Biography provides a comprehensive coverage of notable Americans and offers detailed portraits focusing mainly on the public and professional lives of its subjects. It is easy to navigate and use in its electronic version. This is a useful biographical resource for libraries, especially in the USA. Originality/value - There have been many reviews of the American National Biography, but this one provides an overview of the electronic version and a comparative assessment of it against similar books in the field. For information professionals it offers a useful summary of the main features of this resource and a reminder of its value as a biographical information tool.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 473-502
Author(s):  
Leighann Neilson ◽  
Erin Barkel

Purpose This paper aims to present a history of the marketing of hope chests in the USA, focusing in particular on one very successful sales promotion, the Lane Company’s Girl Graduate Plan. The Girl Graduate Plan is placed within its historical context to better understand the socioeconomic forces that contributed to its success for a considerable period but ultimately led to decreased demand for the product. Design/methodology/approach The history of the marketing of hope or marriage chests draws upon primary sources located in the Lane Company Collection at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture. Secondary sources and images of advertising culled from Google image searches provided additional insight into the operation of the company’s Girl Graduate Plan. Findings While the Lane Company benefitted in the form of increased sales, profit and brand awareness and loyalty from prevailing socio-economic trends, which supported the success of its Girl Graduate Plan, including targeting the youth market, this promotion ultimately fell victim to the company’s failure to stay abreast of social changes related to the role of women in society. Research limitations/implications Like all historical research, this research is dependent upon the historical sources that are accessible. The authors combined documents available from the Virginia Historical Society archives with online searches, but other data sources may well exist. Practical implications This history investigates how one manufacturer, a leader in the North American industry, collaborated with furniture dealers to promote their products to young women who were about to become the primary decision makers for the purchase of home furnishings. As such, it provides an historical example of the power of successful collaboration with channel partners. It also provides an example of innovation within an already crowded market. Social implications The hope chest as an object of material culture can be found in many cultures worldwide. It has variously represented a woman’s coming of age, the love relationship between a couple and a family’s social status. It has also served as a woman’s store of wealth. This history details how changing social values influenced the popularity of the hope chest tradition in the USA. Originality/value The history of the marketing of hope chests is an area that has not been seriously considered in consumption histories or in histories of marketing practices to date, in spite of the continuing sentimental appeal for many consumers.


2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pepijn Brandon ◽  
Aditya Sarkar

AbstractThe controversy around Bruce Gilley's article “The Case for Colonialism” has drawn global attention to a stream of revisionist claims and visions on the history of colonialism that has emerged in academia and in the media in recent years. Authors such as Nigel Biggar in the UK, Niall Ferguson in the USA, and Pieter Emmer in the Netherlands, have all published similarly revisionist claims about colonialism, arguing that postcolonial guilt and political correctness blind the majority of their colleagues to the positive side of the colonial project. Their argument chimes with wider societal trends, transforming the revisionist defenders of empire into heroes of a reinvigorated nationalist right within and beyond academia. The public influence attained by these approaches to colonialism requires historians to expose the deep methodological flaws, misreading of historical facts, and misrepresentations of prior scholarship that characterize the writings of this emerging revisionist trend. It is for this reason that the Editorial Committee of theInternational Review of Social History(IRSH) has decided to devote its first ever Virtual Special Issue to labour history's case against colonialism. This article, also an introduction to the Virtual Special Issue, sifts through the logical implications of the claims made by Gilley and like-minded scholars, providing both a contextualization and a rebuttal of their arguments. After assessing the long absence of colonial labour relations from the field of interest of labour historians and the pages of theIRSHitself, this article shows the centrality of a critique of colonialism to labour history's global turn in the 1990s. Using a selection of articles on colonial labour history from theIRSH's own archive, the article not only reconstructs “labour history's case against colonialism”, but also shows why labour history's critical insights into the nature of colonialism should be deepened and extended, not discarded.


2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 760-780 ◽  
Author(s):  
Satish Kumar ◽  
Sachin Kamble ◽  
Matthew H. Roy

Purpose This year, Benchmarking: An International Journal (BIJ) is celebrating its 25th anniversary. The purpose of this paper is to show the historical connections and professional impact of the journal over the years. This is accomplished through a detailed bibliometric analysis (BA) of its content from 1994 to 2018. This paper also identifies leading trends that have affected BIJ during this time frame. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, the authors employ BA on data retrieved from the Scopus database. The authors used various indicators such as the most productive authors, institutions and countries, as well as the most cited papers, citing journals and articles most cited by BIJ between 1994 and 2018. Additionally, the authors have used the Gephi, VOSviewer software to map journals, keywords and institutions with bibliographic coupling and co-citation analysis. Findings The journal has improved its impact, productivity and reputation in the period under review. Articles published in BIJ have been cited in other journals more than 15,000 times. The most prominent themes among the articles published in BIJ are benchmarking, supply chain management and performance improvement. Significant contributions have come from authors and institutions around the globe. Co-authorships, though global, have centered around India, the USA and the UK. There is also a thematic similarity between articles from India and Thailand, and the USA and Germany, indicating high academic collaboration or prevalence of similar issues. Practical implications This paper provides evidence of the impact of BIJ, and in so doing, it helps authors to decide on the appropriateness of this publication for their research. The reader will also understand leading trends occurring in BIJ over the history of the journal. Originality/value This is the first paper that traces the progress of BIJ covering a time span of 25 years.


2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theodore T.Y. Chen

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to determine whether Hong Kong is ready for accounting education reform. Design/methodology/approach – The approach for this study is using a Likert-scale questionnaire for the academic institutions, the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the big four accounting firms, followed by detailed follow-up interviews with each. Findings – There is general agreement among accounting academics and the profession that the Accounting Education Change Commission initiatives should be adopted in Hong Kong. Hong Kong accounting academics in public institutions do not oppose to a balance between teaching and research, but would oppose to an emphasis of teaching over research. This is important as an overemphasis on research could mean less time for teaching and curriculum development. The big four accounting firms are either happy with the way Hong Kong universities have been educating the accounting graduates or have no complaints against them. This is also important as an urge for accounting education reform usually comes from the practitioners as in the USA. Originality/value – The USA was the first country that saw the need for accounting education reform as accounting practitioners felt that curriculum and pedagogical considerations placed heavy emphasis on the technical aspects of accounting at the expense of a general, broad-based education. Similar needs for change were also found in the UK and Australia. As Hong Kong is one of the world’s major financial centres with a large securities exchange, there is a great deal of emphasis on accounting standards, financial reporting, corporate governance, etc., and hence the importance of accounting education. Is Hong Kong ready for the change?


2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 149-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorna Montgomery ◽  
Janet Anand ◽  
Kathryn Mackay ◽  
Brian Taylor ◽  
Katherine C. Pearson ◽  
...  

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the similarities and differences of legal responses to older adults who may be at risk of harm or abuse in the UK, Ireland, Australia and the USA. Design/methodology/approach – The authors draw upon a review of elder abuse and adult protection undertaken on behalf of the commissioner for older people in Northern Ireland. This paper focusses on the desk top mapping of the different legal approaches and draws upon wider literature to frame the discussion of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the different legal responses. Findings – Arguments exist both for and against each legal approach. Differences in defining the scope and powers of adult protection legislation in the UK and internationally are highlighted. Research limitations/implications – This review was undertaken in late 2013; while the authors have updated the mapping to take account of subsequent changes, some statutory guidance is not yet available. While the expertise of a group of experienced professionals in the field of adult safeguarding was utilized, it was not feasible to employ a formal survey or consensus model. Practical implications – Some countries have already introduced APL and others are considering doing so. The potential advantages and challenges of introducing APL are highlighted. Social implications – The introduction of legislation may give professionals increased powers to prevent and reduce abuse of adults, but this would also change the dynamic of relationships within families and between families and professionals. Originality/value – This paper provides an accessible discussion of APL across the UK and internationally which to date has been lacking from the literature.


2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 142-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maureen Maloney ◽  
Alma McCarthy

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse how firm size impacts pension workforce coverage with a particular focus on automatic enrolment (AE) to pension plans in small organisations.Design/methodology/approachThe paper examines the alignment of government AE interests with those of small employers, their employees and pension providers to better understand how firm size impacts pension workforce coverage.FindingsThe alignment of interests between stakeholders (government, pension providers, employers and employees) differs between large and small organisations, and empirical findings from large organisations cannot be assumed to apply in small organisations.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper calls attention to the need for future empirical research and identifies a number of research questions for further analysis to examine how AE impacts pension participation in small organisations and advance the field.Originality/valueThe policy of automatically enroling employees into occupational pension plans, recently legislated for all eligible workers in the UK and under consideration in the USA and Ireland, was developed from research conducted in a small number of large organisations. Pension coverage is particularly inadequate for the large number of employees working in small organisations (1–49 employees). However, little research attention has been focussed on pensions in small organisations with pension policy makers assuming that legislated AE will work as effectively in small organisations as it did in large organisations. This paper addresses this gap in the field.


2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Peacock

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the relationship between childhood, consumption and the Cold War in 1950s America and the Soviet Union. The author argues that Soviet and American leaders, businessmen, and politicians worked hard to convince parents that buying things for their children offered the easiest way to raise good American and Soviet kids and to do their part in waging the economic battles of the Cold War. The author explores how consumption became a Cold War battleground in the late 1950s and suggests that the history of childhood and Cold War consumption alters the way we understand the conflict itself. Design/Methodology/Approach – Archival research in the USA and the Russian Federation along with close readings of Soviet and American advertisements offer sources for understanding the global discourse of consumption in the 1950s and 1960s. Findings – Leaders, advertisers, and propagandists in the Soviet Union and the USA used the same images in the same ways to sell the ethos of consumption to their populations. They did this to sell the Cold War, to bolster the status quo, and to make profits. Originality/Value – This paper offers a previously unexplored, transnational perspective on the role that consumption and the image of the child played in shaping the Cold War both domestically and abroad.


2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (8) ◽  
pp. 1270-1293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Mark Linsley ◽  
Alexander Linsley ◽  
Matthias Beck ◽  
Simon Mollan

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to propose Neo-Durkheimian institutional theory, developed by the Durkheimian institutional theory, as developed by anthropologist Mary Douglas, as a suitable theory base for undertaking cross-cultural accounting research. The social theory provides a structure for examining within-country and cross-country actions and behaviours of different groups and communities. It avoids associating nations and cultures, instead contending any nation will comprise four different solidarities engaging in constant dialogues. Further, it is a dynamic theory able to take account of cultural change. Design/methodology/approach The paper establishes a case for using neo-Durkheimian institutional theory in cross-cultural accounting research by specifying the key components of the theory and addressing common criticisms. To illustrate how the theory might be utilised in the domain of accounting and finance research, a comparative interpretation of the different experiences of financialization in Germany and the UK is provided drawing on Douglas’s grid-group schema. Findings Neo-Durkheimian institutional theory is deemed sufficiently capable of interpreting the behaviours of different social groups and is not open to the same criticisms as Hofstede’s work. Differences in Douglasian cultural dialogues in the post-1945 history of Germany and the UK provide an explanation of the variations in the comparative experiences of financialization. Originality/value Neo-Durkheimian institutional theory has been used in a wide range of contexts; however, it has been little used in the context of accounting research. The adoption of the theory in future accounting research can redress a Hofstedian-bias in accounting research.


2018 ◽  
Vol 74 (6) ◽  
pp. 1318-1338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Higgins

Purpose Digital curation addresses the technical, administrative and financial ecology required to ensure that digital information remains accessible and usable over the long term. The purpose of this paper is to trace digital curation’s disciplinary emergence and examine its position within the information sciences domain in terms of theoretical principles, using a case study of developments in the UK and the USA. Design/methodology/approach Theoretical principles regarding disciplinary development and the identity of information science as a discipline are applied to a case study of the development of digital curation in the UK and the USA to identify the maturity of digital curation and its position in the information science gamut. Findings Digital curation is identified as a mature discipline which is a sub-meta-discipline of information science. As such digital curation has reach across all disciplines and sub-disciplines of information science and has the potential to become the overarching paradigm. Practical implications These findings could influence digital curation’s development from applied discipline to profession within both its educational and professional domains. Originality/value The disciplinary development of digital curation within dominant theoretical models has not hitherto been articulated.


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