Managing Television Commercial Time

With a limited supply of just one marketable resource, that of time, television commercial rates have to be set with a high degree of care. Under constantly changing conditions of demand and competitive intensity a station's profits can be impaired by under pricing as well as by overpricing its inventory of available time. This article, as the first in a two part series, describes the process that stations follow to set the most profitable of rates with a minimum of risk. In a sequel article to be published in the next issue of the Journal of Advertising suggestions are made to advertisers for creating time purchase strategies under different demand and competitive situations.     

Using participatory rural appraisal and participatory research and extension in a post-independence environment: a case from East Timor

A participatory rural appraisal (PRA) conducted in East Timor in 2004 as part of an agricultural development project provided the basis for a number of community-based participatory extension initiatives. The PRA involved several communities throughout a watershed and also served as a training exercise for local agriculture ministry staff. Despite the poverty of many of the communities involved, and in contrast to published literature on the local agricultural situation, farmers clearly expressed their need for more marketable crops and alternative sources of livelihoods. Their desires contrasted with the project's initial assumption that the major need was for increased production of staple crops to alleviate food scarcity. The project consequently branched out from concentrating on basic agronomy of staple crops into developing marketable crops, improving livestock production and facilitating development of a local business. Farmers' groups were set up to allow farmers to develop their own agricultural enterprises. Some ministry staff who participated in the project welcomed the opportunity to move from the traditional authoritarian extension system set up under Indonesian colonial rule to a more collegial and educational system. The breakdown of institutions and lines of authority following independence may create new opportunities for participatory development in newly independent states.     

Management “flavours of the month”: their role in managers' lives

Existing analyses and critiques of the succession of management fads and fashions entering managerial discourse and activities are complemented and developed by drawing on participant observation research carried out in an organization utilizing a variety of “packaged innovations”. It is shown that what are sometimes mocked as “flavours of the month” (FOMs) play a role in the double-controlproblem faced by all managers: the problem of managing their personal identities, careers and understandings at the same time as contributing to the overall control of the organization in which they are managers. Managers in the organization studied are shown generally to be critical of the “flavour of the month effect” but there is nevertheless an equivocality about how such ideas and practices can function.     

Editorial

The essay attempts to provide a theoretical framework for leisure research by concentrating on the conception of adventure as a form of leisure. Adventure is presented as a multidimensional field of experience and investigation. Six dimensions of adventurous activity and experience are introduced: territoriality; duration; transcendence; risk; coping; and routinization. Routinization is a critical dimension which, in contrast to the romantic idealization of adventure, makes it impossible to see adventure as a sphere independent of society.