Coming to grips with organisational values

Every organisation has certain core convictions about its endeavours and about the ways to go about its work. When these convictions are translated into relatively enduring practices they can be called organisational values. Managing an organisation's value system is an important strategic task in itself, and the concepts and methods for undertaking this task are examined in this paper.     

Debt and vulnerability: indebtedness,institutions and smallholder agriculture in South India

ABSTRACT

Expanding access to credit remains a key central government strategy for promoting agricultural development and livelihood diversification in south India and more widely. Smallholders borrowing from multiple credit sources are faced with obligations in addition to financial repayment. Available evidence on the consequences of indebtedness extending beyond monetary debt and its influence on vulnerability is incomplete in important ways. This paper presents an integrated vulnerability framework and illustrates the framework through case studies of three pairs of smallholder clients and credit sources. Using process-tracing and progressive contextualization methods, this paper shows the diversity of feedbacks that shape indebtedness and provides examples of social-ecological consequences. Unpacking these consequences in individual cases demonstrates indebtedness as an important root cause of vulnerability, which is in contrast to an examination of proximate causes, such as credit policy or temperature, that is the focus of a large share of scholarship. The paper shows that different credit sources are associated with different sets of obligations, leading to varied livelihood and agricultural consequences. Suggesting ‘credit stacking’ as an important adaptation strategy and research agenda item, the paper makes a plea for careful analysis of the conditions when credit is a factor in adaptive capacity and indebtedness of vulnerability.     

Institutional development in practice: A case-study from the Tibetan refugee community

There is growing interest in organisational and institutional development, or capacity-building, but little understanding of what these involve in practice. This article provides a case-study of a successful long-term programme of institutional development, which built the capacities of the Tibetan refugee community in development planning. The primary focus is on key features for adaptation by development practitioners. The authors also clarify some of the confusions in the debate on organisational and institutional development.     

Situational factors and police use of force across micro-time intervals: A video systematic social observation and panel regression analysis

The current study analyzes police use of force as a series of time-bound transactions between officers, civilians, and bystanders. The research begins with a systematic social observation of use-of-force events recorded on police body-worn cameras in Newark, New Jersey. Researchers measure the occurrence and time stamps for numerous participant physical and verbal behaviors. Data are converted into a longitudinal panel format measuring all observed behaviors in 5-second intervals. Panel logistic regression models estimate the effect of each behavior on use of force in immediate and subsequent temporal periods. Findings indicate certain variables influence use of force at a distinct point in time, whereas others exert influence on use of force across multiple time periods. The most influential variables relate to authority maintenance theoretical constructs. This finding supports prior perspectives arguing that police use of force largely results from officer attempts to maintain constant authority over civilians during face-to-face encounters. Nonetheless, a range of additional variables reflecting procedural justice, civilian resistance, and bystander presence significantly affect when police use force during civilian encounters. Results provide nuance to theoretical frameworks considering use of force as resulting from the interplay between officer and civilian actions and reactions.     

Questioning Fundamentals: Leyland Daf and the 'Ownership' of Charged Property

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Retraction . Modern Law Review 67: 6, 1046‐1046 .
Online publication date: 1‐Oct‐2004. Although the House of Lords decision in Leyland Daf was primarily concerned with the order for distribution of assets in a winding‐up, it has several other far‐reaching ramifications and repercussions. The reasoning of their Lordships in the case alters our understanding of the very nature and operation of a charge over a company's assets. This reasoning strikes at the heart of the law of security interests, bringing into question the fundamental distinction between a charge and a mortgage. Furthermore the decision has given a whole new complexion to the concept of a floating charge which will have tremendous consequences for its application in commercial practice. This paper analyses the decision firstly on the basis of its legal principle and then on the basis of its policy considerations and concludes that its reasoning is neither sound nor justifiable on either ground.     

Allele frequency distribution of D8S592 (STR) and PDGFA (VNTR) among five endogamous population groups of India

Allele frequency distribution have been analyzed at D8S592 (short tandem repeat) and PDGFA (variable number of tandem repeat) among five distinct endogamous groups of India namely Ezhavas, Nayers, Arayas, Vishwakarma and Muslims. Muslims are religio-ethnic group while other populations mentioned above belong to distinct section of Hindu religion. All these populations are from Kollam district of Kerala in Southern India and speak Malayalam, an Indo-Dravidian language. A total of 228 for D8S592 and 212 for PDGFA loci, random, healthy individuals were analyzed.     

STR polymorphism among two tribal populations of India

Two tribal populations of India, Bison Horn Maria and Muria from Bastar district of Madhya Pradesh in Central India were studied for DNA polymorphisms at tetranucleotide short tandem repeat (STR) loci (F13A01 and HUMvWA). A total of 63 random adult individuals for F13A01 locus and 53 samples for HUMvWA were analyzed in the present study.     

Osteometric analysis of sexual dimorphism in the sternal end of the rib in a west African population.

This study, and others, are being carried out in order to establish a Forensic Anthropology databank on age estimation and sex determination of skeletonized remains in Ghana. An osteometric study of sexual dimorphism in the sternal end of the right fourth rib on 346 consecutive coroner's autopsy cases (221 males, 125 females) of known age, sex, and race was conducted. The height and width of the sternal end of the rib were measured in each case. The sample was analyzed in three groups: young (< 30 years), old (> or = 30 years), and total sample (total group). Stepwise discriminant function analysis showed that the accuracy of sex determination varied from 80% in the young and 74% in the old groups to 78% for the total group. Statistical analysis of the results obtained when the functions derived from the study were tested using another batch of ribs showed the functions to be effective and reliable in determining sex. When functions derived from a previous study of American Whites were used to determine sex in our study sample, the vast majority of males were misclassified as females. This is the first time, to our knowledge, that a Black African population has been studied osteometrically to evaluate sexual dimorphism in the sternal end of the fourth rib.