Researching (with) Major Food Retailers

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 33-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Evans
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Major Food ◽  
Food Retailers ◽  
Food Retailer ◽  
The One ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Opening Up

This paper considers the relationship between social science and the food industry, and it suggests that collaboration can be intellectually productive and morally rewarding. It explores the middle ground that exists between paid consultancy models of collaboration on the one hand and a principled stance of nonengagement on the other. Drawing on recent experiences of researching with a major food retailer in the UK, I discuss the ways in which collaborating with retailers can open up opportunities for accessing data that might not otherwise be available to social scientists. Additionally, I put forward the argument that researchers with an interest in the sustainability—ecological or otherwise—of food systems, especially those of a critical persuasion, ought to be empirically engaging with food businesses. I suggest that this is important in terms of generating better understandings of the objectionable arrangements that they seek to critique, and in terms of opening up conduits through which to affect positive changes. Cutting across these points is the claim that while resistance to commercial engagement might be misguided, it is nevertheless important to acknowledge the power-geometries of collaboration and to find ways of leveling and/or leveraging them. To conclude, I suggest that universities have an important institutional role to play in defining the terms of engagement as well as maintaining the boundaries between scholarship and consultancy—a line that can otherwise become quite fuzzy when the worlds of commerce and academic research collide.

Controlling for Pongoland

2020 ◽  
pp. 145-193
Author(s):  
Nicolas Langlitz
Keyword(s):  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Comparative Psychology ◽  
Kindergarten Children ◽  
The Social ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Truth Claims ◽  
Cultural Primatology ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Opening Up

This chapter investigates how Christophe Boesch's colleague and codirector Michael Tomasello derived truth claims about the anthropological difference between Homo sapiens and Pan troglodytes from controlled experiments comparing the social cognition of human children with that of grown chimpanzees. Tomasello's claim that humans were the only primates capable of culture and cooperation received an enthusiastic reception by German philosophers. Yet Boesch called into question the validity of Tomasello's findings by pointing out that the social behavior of both humans and apes was too contingent on local circumstances for Leipzig kindergarten children and zoo chimpanzees rescued from a Dutch pharmaceutical company to represent all of humanity and chimpanzeehood. He accused Tomasello of not controlling for the different conditions under which Tomasello tested humans and apes. The ensuing controversy over the relationship between laboratory work and fieldwork happened at a time when new statistical methods were opening up vast new possibilities for chimpanzee ethnography, even fostering hopes that experimentation with captive animals would become superfluous because uncontrolled observations in the wild would allow the establishment of causal relations. The chapter then assesses whether Boesch's cultural primatology could inform a different philosophical anthropology than the one drawing from Tomasello's comparative psychology.

The changing landscape of local authority commissioning

2020 ◽  
pp. 177-196
Author(s):  
Dave Ayre
Keyword(s):  
Academic Research ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Health And Social Care ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter assesses the history of the relationship between public and private sectors and the extent to which the political and regulatory environment of governments and institutions such as the European Union (EU) can help or hinder the efforts of public bodies in seeking to deliver services that determine the health and quality of life for communities. The relationship of public and private sectors in the United Kingdom (UK) and the commissioning, procurement, and development of public–private partnerships is driven by the prevailing political and economic environment. However, rigorous academic research on the benefits of partnering to organisations, societies and between countries is limited. Evidence is needed to fill the policy vacuum. A bolder approach is necessary to work with public and private sectors to develop and implement successful partnering alternatives to the outsourcing of public services. The growing catalogue of outsourcing failures in construction, probation, rail franchising, health, and social care is creating an appetite for change, and the exit of the UK from the EU provides the opportunity.

scholarly journals The ‘one man company’ after Patel v Mirza: attribution and illegality in Singularis Holdings v Daiwa Capital Markets

2020 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. OA35-OA48
Author(s):  
James C Fisher
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Capital Markets ◽  
High Water ◽  
Legal Principles ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The One ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Relationship

This note discusses the UK Supreme Court’s decision in Singularis Holdings v Daiwa Capital Markets in the context of other recent decisions on corporate attribution and the illegality principle in English law. It particularly considers Daiwa’s implications for the relationship between the illegality doctrine and other legal principles in the wake of Patel v Mirza. The court employed a context-sensitive, teleological approach to attribution, one consequence of which was the conclusive consignment of the House of Lords’ decision in Stone & Rolls Ltd v Moore Stephens to irrelevance. It nonetheless privileges orthodox, pre-Patelian authority in the disposal of the case. The court’s approach suggests that Patel is perceived as the high-water mark for expansive, policy-sensitive understanding of the illegality principle, and that its disruptive potential is likely to be carefully constrained in future decisions of the Supreme Court.

scholarly journals Co-producing research with academics and industry to create a more resilient UK water sector

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-168
Author(s):  
Kate C. Baker ◽  
Sarah Ward ◽  
Briony Turner ◽  
James S. Webber ◽  
Chris Sweetapple ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Academic Research ◽  
Working Relationships ◽  
Publicly Funded ◽  
Water Sector ◽  
Steering Group ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Group 2 ◽  
The One ◽  
The Uk ◽  
New Research

Societal, economic and environmental impact generated by academic research is a key focus of publicly funded research in the UK. Drawing on experiences from the Safe & SuRe project, a five-year research project that was co-produced with industry, this paper explores the challenges, learnings and benefits of co-producing research with academics and practitioners to create a more resilient UK water sector. Three aspects of the project are explored in detail: the use of a steering group, co-developing research intensively with a water company, and co-dissemination industry-facing events. Emerging themes include: (1) benefits of the industry steering group to develop working relationships and trust among the group; (2) increased dialogue and sharing of information between industry and academics going beyond the one-way communication more commonly reported by STEM academics; and (3) the value of co-disseminating research to maintain and engage new connections and spark new research questions.

Regulatory relationships and incentives: from Riggs Bank to HSBC

2017 ◽  
Vol 59 (5) ◽  
pp. 729-739 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick John O’Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Financial Institutions ◽  
Banking Sector ◽  
Financial Institution ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Regulatory Relationship ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose The aim of the paper is to examine what type of relationship existed between the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and Riggs Bank in respect of anti-money laundering (AML) compliance. Different commentators have established certain trends in the interaction between a regulator and a regulated entity, and this paper seeks to apply these findings to the relationship between the OCC and Riggs Bank and ascertain where this example lies in the wider domain of regulatory relationships. The paper then examines whether the relationship between the OCC and HSBC United States was similar to the one between the OCC and Riggs Bank or did the regulator adopt a more aggressive supervisory stance. Throughout this work, there is also a focus on the underlying incentives which may adversely affect how a financial institution interacts with a financial regulator and possible solutions to this problem proposed. Design/methodology/approach Research undertaken by commentators was assessed and their findings as the different regulatory relationships that may develop between a regulator and a regulated entity were applied to the interactions between the OCC and two different financial institutions, namely, Riggs Bank and HSBC United States. Examples from the Senate Subcommittee Reports into the AML failings into these financial institutions were examined through the prism of pre-existing regulatory relationship categories. Findings The paper ultimately concludes that the OCC was far too passive in its interactions with both Riggs Bank and HSBC United States and that the primary underlying motivations for both institutions were profit- rather than compliance-led. Research limitations/implications One of the main limitations to this research was the absence of direct input from either personnel from the banking sector in the USA or of regulators from the same jurisdiction. Practical implications This paper proposes a number of practical solutions to recast the relationship between financial regulators and regulated institutions away from the former deferring to the latter to one where the former dictates to the latter. Originality/value This paper seeks to examine an actual regulatory relationship between a financial regulator and two different institutions that is reported in the public domain by applying pre-existing academic research on question of regulatory relationships and see how the practice differs or corresponds with the theory.

scholarly journals How social democrats may become reluctant radicals: Thomas Piketty's Capital and Wolfgang Streeck's Buying Time

2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miriam Ronzoni
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Wealth Inequality ◽  
Review Article ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

The continuing ramifications of the financial crisis of 2007–2008 have forced social scientists to raise fundamental questions about the relationship between capitalism, democracy and inequality. In particular, Thomas Piketty’s Capital and Wolfgang Streeck’s Buying Time focus on, respectively, the economic and the political contradictions of capitalistic societies. Piketty argues that capitalism naturally tends towards the exacerbation of rent-based wealth inequality, whereas Streeck suggests that capitalism and democracy are ultimately incompatible. A striking feature of these two contributions is that their authors are social democrats, not Marxists or radical anti-capitalist thinkers. In this review article, I illustrate how the combination of social democratic convictions and the acknowledgment that capitalism cannot be tamed generates interesting tensions between the diagnosis offered by the two monographs and the solutions that are proposed. I end the piece by raising two remarks on the implications that this tension might have for normative political theory. On the one hand, it is time for theory to do more work on political action and agency. On the other, liberal egalitarian theorists might have to acknowledge that they are in the same predicament as Piketty and Streeck: social democracy is their ideal, yet it is perhaps unattainable. If this is the case, liberal egalitarians might be committed to adopt a more confrontational attitude towards capitalism: they might have to become reluctant radicals.

scholarly journals Environment or Economy? Food Concerns and Sustainable Food Transitions in the UK

Sociology ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 003803852110436
Author(s):  
Mike Foden ◽  
Emma Head ◽  
Tally Katz-Gerro ◽  
Lydia Martens
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Survey Questionnaire ◽  
Food Provisioning ◽  
Domestic Life ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Environmental Access ◽  
The Eu

Recent years have seen the emergence of calls for the transformation of food systems to make these more responsive to environmental, access and health challenges. Addressing how the UK food system may best meet these challenges, this article develops understanding of the multiple food concerns that guide practices of food provisioning at the intersection between markets and domestic life. Combining insights from a survey questionnaire and qualitative fieldwork from research that was part of the EU Horizon2020 SafeConsume project, we depict how practices of food provisioning are guided by concerns driven by economic and environmental logics. The findings suggest economy is prevalent while environmental food ethics are marginalised. The conclusion discusses how the adopted practice theoretical approach, which combines an analysis of the socio-material arrangements of provisioning and the relationship between food concerns and higher order considerations, advances understanding of the nature of food concerns and the challenges of sustainable food transitioning.

Morbid Vitalism

2021 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-190
Author(s):  
Tim Clarke
Keyword(s):  
Interwar Period ◽  
Generative Models ◽  
The Other ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Single Force ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Decadent Aesthetics ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Opening Up

This essay frames Djuna Barnes’s 1936 novel Nightwood as an attempt to overcome an impasse between the discourses of hope and the discourses of despair in an interwar period in many ways preoccupied with questions of mortality. Synthesizing Decadent aesthetics and elements of Spinoza’s vitalist philosophy, Barnes produces a “morbid vitalism,” exemplified by Dr. Matthew O’Connor, by which life and death are conceived as variant expressions of a single force, and the subject is modeled as an assemblage of affects, impersonal but inherently social, that can be understood primarily through its pursuit of what Jack Halberstam has called “generative models of failure.” In exploring this mode of subjectivity, Barnes seeks to undermine a host of ostensible oppositions (hope and fear, ascendence and decadence, success and failure, morbidity and vitality), opening up a conceptual and affective space for thinking through—if not necessarily beyond—the ubiquity of despair in twentieth-century modernity. Ultimately, morbid vitalism points a way toward a broader conversation between life-oriented modernist scholarship on vitalism and affect, on the one hand, and ongoing inquiries into the relationship among death, Decadence, and modernism, on the other.

scholarly journals South African accounting academics’ conceptualisations of the teaching-research nexus

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilse Lubbe ◽  
Angus Duff
Keyword(s):  
Academic Research ◽  
Teaching And Research ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Scarce Resources ◽  
Primary Responsibility ◽  
Teaching Research ◽  
Potential Benefits ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose Accounting academics in South Africa (SA) have been criticised for their lack of focus on research, stating that their primary responsibility is the teaching of prospective professional accountants. The purpose of this paper is to empirically evaluate the relationship between research and teaching and to consider why accounting academics in SA prioritise teaching over research. Design/methodology/approach The paper uses a questionnaire developed in the UK to assess SA accounting academics’ views of the teaching-research nexus. Cluster analysis is undertaken to identify and describe the patterns of responses of respondents. Findings The findings identify three clusters. The largest subgroup indicates an equal awareness of both the potential benefits and pitfalls of integrating teaching and research. A second subgroup views teaching and research as symbiotic, while the third subgroup sees the two activities as working against each other and competing for scarce resources. This study finds that conflict exists between professional membership and academic research, and a focus on teaching a professionally orientated accounting curriculum remains dominant in SA. Research limitations/implications The attitudes to teaching and research within SA are likely to be dynamic and subject to change. The findings have implications for the development of accounting academics and potentially, for addressing the gap between accounting research, practice and education. Originality/value This research contributes to a significant corpus of work considering the teaching-research nexus and a nascent body of work considering the relationship of research to teaching in accounting. The findings may be of interest to policymakers, practitioners and academics.

The Scotland—England Divide: Politics and Locality in Britain

1993 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
David McCrone ◽  
Frank Bechhofer
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Models ◽  
Political Support ◽  
The Political ◽  
Common Currency ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Electoral Behaviour ◽  
The Common ◽  
Political Differences ◽  
The One ◽  
The Uk

Growing territorial cleavages within Britain have attracted considerable interest from social scientists in recent years. New spatial models of voting, accounting for the declining homogeneity of electoral behaviour,1 have drawn attention to localised patterns of political support, as well as the emergence of regional cleavages across Britain as a whole.2 Talk of a North–South split has become the common currency of political commentators to account for regional disparities between Conservative and Labour support.3 Alongside these local and regional divisions in voting patterns, there is a new interest in broader aspects of the political differences between the nations of the UK, notably between England on the one hand, and Scotland and Wales on the other.4

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document