Book reviews

Abstract

This article examines the cultural field of fitness as a network of producers, consumers, products and practices that has developed around the care of the body through physical exercise. Drawing on a thematic text analysis of US exercise manuals, the paper focuses on how the commercial fitness field naturalizes associations between physical exercise and leisure, and between leisure and self‐work. In particular, the analysis examines three themes and their relevance to our broader understanding of leisure in contemporary consumer society: the management of leisure time; the use of leisure for self‐investment strategies; and the promotion of consumption as the framework for leisure and an accompanying notion of pleasure. The fitness field casts light on how leisure more generally is constructed as a sphere of obligations to make productive use of one’s time, to improve one’s body and self, and to do so through the wares of the consumer marketplace. The cultural imaginary of leisure as a time of freedom from work and responsibility is thus recast, in an age of individualization, as a time of freedom to accomplish the work of self‐production.     

Safeguarding Children: Ofsted and Regulatory Failure

This article analyses two aspects of the regulatory conduct of Ofsted in protecting children from abuse by strangers. The first concerns the problems associated with child protection and safeguarding in the context of facilitating multicultural norms whereby certain social behaviours which would be unacceptable in one culture can be tolerated or condoned in another. The second aspect arises because, following Ofsted's failure to protect thousands of children from child abuse in many UK cities, children's social services' departments may have adopted strategic behaviour which may protect them rather than the children.     

Deterrence—A strategy that pays

Military strategy is directly relevant to current business conditions. While business always has used attack strategies to acquire market share and defense strategies to protect market territory, deterrence—the indirect approach—has been largely ignored. But deterrence is the ultimate business strategy. It offers companies the opportunity to win conflicts in the marketplace without resorting to fratricidal battles with competitors.     

THE EFFECTS OF FORMALIZATION ON DEPARTMENTS OF A MULTI-HOSPITAL SYSTEM*

This study tests five propositions concerning the relationships between formalization, technological complexity and organizational performance. Propositions are based on Hage's axiomatic theory, but reinterpreted in terms of Lawrence and Dyer's readaptation hypothesis. Data were collected by questionnaire from 348 respondents from 92 units of an eight-member government-operated multi-hospital system. Measures were of formalization, complexity, co-ordination, climate for change, quality of care and morale. In general, more support was found for the readaptation hypothesis than for the traditional hypotheses of the Hage theory. In nursing units, formalization tended to have small, negative effects, and management decision-making should probably aim to loosen up structures. In non-nursing (clinical services) units, effects were greater and largely positive, suggesting the need for tightening up structures in order to promote readaptation.     

ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF SMOKING BANS ON RESTAURANTS AND PUBS

The United Kingdom has recently enacted smoking bans in public places such as restaurants and pubs. Public health advocates argue that bans are necessary because non‐smokers need protection from second‐hand smoke. Advocates also claim that bans do not exert harm on owners because of a vast empirical literature showing that restaurants and bars in the United States never suffer harm following bans. This paper examines whether these claims are true by developing a model within the Coasian framework whereby owners of businesses have incentives to deal with smoking disputes between smokers and non‐smokers. Our model demonstrates that it is incorrect to argue that smoking bans are necessary because the private market has no method of attempting to solve smoking problems. It also predicts that bans exert different effects on different businesses: some will be unaffected while others will experience losses or gains. Our literature review reveals that predictions of differential effects are consistent with the empirical evidence.     

The zero-sum management disease and the von Thünen prescription

As early as the mid-nineteenth century, the German farmer and economic theorist, Johann von Thünen, knew that the economic pie could be made larger by the common man's ability to work more creatively and productively. Von Thünen's contributions to management thought may well be what we need today.