The pathfinder process in Northern Ireland

Government has many customers — not just the individual citizen, but also corporate customers from the private sector. Getting close to those customers will require changes in the nature of public sector culture. Below are two examples — the first from Northern Ireland and the second from Whitehall — of government departments which have tried to change the way in which they do things.     

飞向2000年

不列颠航空公司飞入新的千年,标志着不列颠航空进入自１２年前从国有企业转为私营企业后的第四个发展阶段。第一阶段,我们着重塑造作为一个服务型企业的形象,鼓励员工向旅客提供世界一流的服务,以确保公司的长久收益并逐步提高利润率。９０年代初期,海湾战争使得本来就由于世界经济低潮而不景气的航空市场雪上加霜,我们只得在这样不景气的市场中努力抗争。面对困境,我们发扬不列颠航空的最佳传统,紧紧抓住公司的世界形象,并致力于内部结构重组。第三个阶段是明确我们是成本竞争。１９９６年制定的公司效益计划明确,为了确保长久竞争力,必要…     

Cultural effects in East Asian strategic decision-making

This article asks whether Asian businesses take strategic decisions in distinctively Asian ways. It develops hypotheses about Asian decisionmaking from a consideration of theoretical cultural dimensions and empirical data in the literature. Contrary to expectations, an analysis of data from a survey of top Asian managers indicates that East Asian managers take decisions in a more rational manner relative to their Western counterparts. A distinction between social and cognitive dimensions of decision-making processes is suggested to explain some of these findings. Important unresolved questions are raised about the interpretation of cultural dimensions and about potential biases in empirical reports of East Asian decision-making characteristics. Implications for cultural differences research are discussed.     

The effects of pleasure and arousal on recall of advertisements during the Super Bowl

This study investigates whether pleasure and arousal levels of viewers watching a sports program affect advertisement recall. The results suggest that programs that evoke strong emotional reactions, such as the Super Bowl, may inhibit the recall of advertisements and brands. Specifically, these findings seem to support the Intensity (arousal) theory and may have important implications for advertisers who promote their products or services on sports‐related event programming. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The development,implementation and operation of an undergraduate distance learning module in auditing: a teaching note

The development of a distance learning module, to be undertaken by students whilst out on work experience in a thick sandwich degree programme, was driven by the motive to maximize the students' time on placement, rather than the belief that the module could be more effectively taught in this manner. However, with many institutions offering work placement as an optional extension within a degree programme, our experiences may pave the way for introducing some academic input into the work placement. This paper outlines the development and operation of an auditing distance learning module, which is undertaken by students during their placement year in an Accounting and Finance degree in Scotland. The pitfalls of distance learning have been well documented and the profile of the cohort which would undertake the course exacerbated concerns. However, the Course Team have produced a model that has been implemented and is currently operating in a manner that has largely satisfied all respective stakeholders, (namely students, educators, employers, professional bodies, and external examiners). The data for the review was generated through informal discussions with the Course Team and a selection of employers. Focus groups with students were also conducted. These were deliberately unstructured in nature to facilitate the use of dialogue with which the participants were familiar. The rationale for this was to allow participants to identify and highlight salient issues as perceived by them, rather than to answer specific questions on topics that the authors believed to be of relevance.