Hunger games: or how the Allied blockade in the First World War deprived German children of nutrition,and Allied food aid subsequently saved them

At the onset of the First World War, Germany was subject to a shipping embargo by the Allied forces. Ostensibly military in nature, the blockade prevented not only armaments but also food and fertilizers from entering Germany. The impact of that blockade on civilian populations has been debated ever since. Germans protested that the Allies had wielded hunger as a weapon against women and children with devastating results, a claim that was hotly denied by the Allies. The impact of what the Germans termed the Hungerblockade on childhood nutrition can now be assessed using a newly discovered dataset based on heights and weights of nearly 600,000 German schoolchildren measured between 1914 and 1924. Statistical analysis reveals a grim truth: German children suffered severe malnutrition due to the blockade. Social class impacted risk of deprivation, with working‐class children suffering the most. Surprisingly, they were the quickest to recover after the war. Their rescue was fuelled by massive food aid organized by the former enemies of Germany, and delivered cooperatively with both government and civil society. The ability of former belligerents to work together after an exceptionally bitter war to feed impoverished children may hold hope for the future.     

An appropriate model for joint regional action in southern Africa after apartheid

Market‐based integration is not appropriate to the joint development of the southern African region; the region's political, technical and institutional immaturity requires instead loose, function‐based economic cooperation. This will also facilitate intraregional trade. Subregions in the meantime could progress to higher levels of integration: international experience has shown that successful integration is most likely when it takes place on the basis of ‘regions within regions’. Cooperative development of the subcontinent is likely to be best achieved through the ‘concentric circles’ approach to regional cooperation, in which a revised Southern African Customs Union‐Common Monetary Area forms the highly integrated core of a loose, function‐based cooperative arrangement covering the whole of southern Africa.     

Why Are Themed Brandstores So Powerful? Retail Brand Ideology at American Girl Place

Although there is growing interest in themed brandstores, we still know very little about the source of these retail environments’ power to affect consumers profoundly. Utilizing an ethnographic study of American Girl Place, a culturally rich and highly successful retail environment, we find that effective retailing in these contexts is an intensely ideological affair. In our participant-observation of, and on-site interviews with, consumers at American Girl Place we find that the ideology of the brand manifests powerfully through a variety of different and distinct areas within the store: the Museum, the Library, the Café, the Salon, the Theater, and the Photo Studio. Ideological expression is central to each of these places. Tracking the influence of brand ideology through consumers’ retail experiences, we theorize about the centrality of retail place in ideological branding. Although the confluence of ideology and retailing has been referenced in prior research, this paper focuses on and systematically develops the theoretical interconnection between the two. The physical immediacy of themed brandstore experience acts as a quilting point that links together related cultural concepts into a strong retail brand ideology. The implications of this theory draw our attention to ideological and morally-bound retail brand expressions, emphasize the importance of a variety of retail formats within a single store, and provide practical guidelines for retailers eager to build successful brands of their own.     

Decomposing China–Japan–U.S. trade: Vertical specialization,ownership, and organizational form

We use the US International Trade Commission's uniquely detailed 1995–2007 Chinese Customs data to better understand the pattern of trade between China and its two largest trading partners, Japan and the United States. Our review finds that only a small share of these flows can be characterized as arm's length, one-way trade in final goods. Instead, we find extensive two-way trade, deep vertical specialization, concentration of trade in computer and communication devices, and a prominent role for foreign-invested enterprises. While these characteristics define both bilateral relationships, important differences between the two pairs do emerge, suggesting that trade costs influence the method by which multinationals choose to integrate their production with China. Consequently, we argue that dialogue on East Asian trade liberalization should include the possibility of significant production gains for the US from its inclusion in any regional agreements.     

历史的教训：逆向思维者胜

经济动荡期的管理是一种至关重要的商业能力。在经济低迷期，良好的企业管理不仅能够使企业的经营业绩优异于竞争对手，而且，在经济低迷期建立起来的竞争优势更具有可持续性。     

Mavericks and Mavens of Business History: Miriam Beard and Henrietta Larson

This is the story of two women with differing visions aboutbusiness who have largely been forgotten. Miriam Beard, themaverick daughter of Progressive reformers Charles and MaryBeard, wrote the first international cultural history of thebusinessman in 1938. Henrietta M. Larson was Harvard BusinessSchool's first lady, the first female faculty member and thefirst woman to be tenured there. The two women never met orinteracted. Yet their lives and histories were entangled whenone woman, Henrietta, wrote a critical review about the contributionsof the other. This article uses their untold story to tracethe contentious process of professionalization that sidelinedone maverick outsider and kept a maven insider on the marginsof a fledgling discipline she had helped to create. Its significanceis to make gender central to the reintegration of business andculture and of women's roles in the historiography of business.     

Managers’ psychological diversity climate and fairness: The utility and importance of diversity management in the hospitality industry

ABSTRACT

Despite corporate investments in diversity management programs, there is a dearth in the literature that examines managers' attitudes toward diversity management practices. This is a glaring gap in the literature because the success of diversity management programs is highly depend on managers. A survey was distributed to hotel managers from properties in the southern United States. The results showed that psychological diversity climate predicted the perceived utility and importance of diversity management, and these relationships were mediated by the fairness of diversity management. These results suggest that psychological diversity climate has an impact on attitudes toward diversity management practices.     

Narratives of Negotiation and Transformation: Women's Experiences within a Mixed-Gendered Gym

ABSTRACT

Those within the fitness industry claim that gyms provide accessible space for women (of certain economic status) to engage in activities that will increase their health. As such, gyms are marketed as safe, inclusive, and empowering spaces. Yet when viewing gym spaces through a feminist-informed lens, it becomes clear that gyms are not always innocuous spaces. They often reflect and perpetuate gendered power relations and highly prescribed cultural expectations for femininity around women's bodies, appearances, strength, and abilities. This narrative inquiry sought to illuminate women's gendered experiences within a for-profit mixed-gendered gym space. Through the use of unstructured life story interviews, this research highlights the dominant gendered expectations that women perceived within the gym and how these expectations influence women's gym use. The narratives also exposed several ways that gyms can be changed in order to facilitate more positive gym experiences for women.