Projektmanagement mit virtuellen Teams?

Globalisation and internationalisation of organisations as well as fast-paced development of modern electronic communication technologies require and support the implementation of globally distributed project teams. Members are working together in different locations and in different time zones. These facts have an impact on project work. This article tries to critically reflect the work of virtual project teams and it tries to answer the question, if we can speak about teamwork under such circumstances.     

Social engineering of community building: Examination of policy process and characteristics of community construction in China

This article briefly introduces the history and major policiesof a massive community construction project launched by thePeople's Republic of China in the mid-1980s. Based on a literaturereview and field observations, the authors highlight four characteristicsof this project: muddling through chaos, top-down control, regulatedparticipation, and community as functional establishment. Itis argued that the goal of the project is not to recreate, inChina, a Western model of civil society, but to restructurethe existing urban administrative structure so that it can adaptto new social demands. By transforming the grassroots neighbourhoodorganization – the residents' committee – into awelfare provider, this project is expected to ease the state'swelfare burden while maintaining its political control.     

中国与阿尔及利亚的能源合作

阿尔及利亚素有“北非油库”之称,中国与之开展能源合作虽起步较晚,却已取得较大成就,主要包括中石化的扎尔扎亭(zarzaitine)油田提高采收率工程,中石油的阿德拉尔(Adrar)上下游一体化项目、谢里夫(Cheliff)盆地112／102A区块和乌埃德姆亚(Oued Mya)盆地350区块的油气勘探项目、438B区块油气勘探项目、Octouat油田设计服务项目和斯基克达(Skikda)凝析油炼油厂建设项目等。随着中阿两国政治关系和经贸合作的日益加强,两国能源合作的互补性亦趋强,且阿国内政治经济形势的持续改善以及阿《新油气法》的出台均为双方的能源合作带来了有利条件,但由于阿产业结构单一,经济发展存在不稳定性,且阿政府对投资本国油气产业的外国公司设限增税,双方的能源合作面临严峻的挑战。     

On the definition of public relations: a European view

The article confronts a U.S.-based definition of public relations as relationship management with a European view that besides a relational, argues also for a reflective paradigm that is concerned with publics and the public sphere; not only with relational (which can in principle be private), but also with public consequences of organizational behavior. The article is based on a three year research project on the European Public Relations Body of Knowledge and it reflects on the consequence of that project for definitional activities in the US practitioner and academic communities.     

Making mammograms mobile: Suggestions for a sociology of data mobility

Although academic interest in the study of mobilities is on the increase, exactly what it takes and what it means for data to become mobile is seldom asked. This paper addresses that question for the case of digital medical images, more precisely mammograms (X-ray images of the breasts). It is argued that the kind of reasoning which treats mobility as a fixed asset of such images is problematic, because it obscures the particular perceptions, circumstances and practices that play a part in the accomplishment of medical images as mobile. The argument is based on ethnographic involvement with an e-Science/telemedicine research project aimed at demonstrating the benefits of a digital mammography database for breast cancer screening services, epidemiological research and radiology teaching in the UK. By focusing on the ways in which mammograms are re-presented as 'mobile data', and on how their movement is practically organized in the context of this project, the paper indicates a new direction for the sociological study of data mobility: one that understands the relationship between 'data' and 'mobility' as accomplished and emerging rather than fixed and inherent.     

Odyssean and Rubicon Refugees: Toward a Typology of Refugees in the Land of Exile

With a focus on refugees in Western Europe, this paper seeks to establish refugees in their country of exile/settlement as social types distinct from labour migrants. It looks at the notion of ethnic groups and their strategies as a theoretical tool for better understanding refugees. The refugees' positioning within the structure of conflict of their country of origin is posited as a determining factor of their modes of settlement. It is possible to find two large categories:
1. Odyssean refugees: refugees who nurtured a collective project in the land of origin and took it with them in the land of exile.
2. Rubicon refugees: refugees who did not partake in a collective project oriented toward the homeland or who have forsaken it.     

Quality self-control and co-supervision mechanism of construction agent in public investment project in China

Public investment project (PIP) plays an important role in the China economy. In order to improve the project management performance of public projects, the government is searching for a scientific system to build a construction management supervision mode. This paper introduces the policy background and connotation of Agent Construction System (ACS). As a public investment construction management model, ACS, is gradually being incorporated into the legal framework, it is necessary to improve the construction agent supervision mechanism. This article analyzes the supervision mechanism of construction agent quality management under the principle of two-stage agent mode and establishes an agent quality self-control system and a government co-supervision system. These systems take the contract management as the core and the project quality objective as the guidance. These systems also consist of a two-dimensional framework of vertical self-control and horizontal supervision, which form a quality supervision mechanism. Based on Rough Set theory, the article proposes the idea of building an agent quality self-control and government co-supervision model, and illustrates it with a flow chart for building the model, which paves the way of quantitative research for the future.     

项目化高职文秘职业英语口语课程开发研究

目前高职大量课程不能完全适应社会的需要、学生技能下降、就业困难等问题层出不穷。按项目流程改革课程体系,从课程开发、课程模式、课程内容与手段、课程评估多方面入手,建立起以项目带动、工作流程、系统化的课程,构建项目化教学体系是高职课改的关键。文章以《文秘职业实用口语》为例进行研究。     

Transnational families: The experiences of Polish stayers from a lifelong perspective

In migration research, the voice is usually given to those who move, but in this article, those who stay are at the centre of attention. The study aims to present the stayers’ practices of everyday life in transnational families in an attempt to highlight the experience of staying and understand the stayers’ role in the migration project. The study is based on semi-structured life story interviews conducted in 2020 with people who in the 1980s stayed in the northeastern part of Poland when their relatives migrated internationally. In the almost four-decade perspective, staying appears as a powerful condition and an active process, closely interrelated with migration. Also, the migration project does not appear dependent so much on the range and availability of communication technologies – limited in the 1980s – but on transnational families’ engagement in that project and desire to accomplish it.     

Negotiated Project Engagements: Learning from Experience

How far is it possible to capture the lessons tobe drawn from successive projects that involveintervention by social scientists within or betweenorganizations, whether acting as researchers, asconsultants, as agents of change, or in some combination ofthese roles? This paper outlines the way in which aframework was developed, by staff and associates of TheTavistock Institute, for examining the varied and often subtle influences of successive“negotiated project engagements” on thedevelopment of wider personal, institutional, anddisciplinary programs. This framework is designed totake into account the contrasting perspectives of the investigatorsthemselves, of their organizational hosts, and of anyexternal sponsors whose primary concern will normally bewith project outcomes at a more generalized level. As an illustration, particular reference ismade to the experience of a pioneering project concernedwith policy-making in city government. This project wasundertaken to advance the understanding and practice of public planning, while also exploring thepotential for synergy between the perspectives ofoperational research and applied social science. Thepaper concludes with some speculations about thepotential for further developing this kind of frameworkin supporting experiential learning.     

The institutional project of neo-liberal globalism: The case of the WTO

This article examines the impact of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on domestic trade policies and practices. It shows that protectionist measures, including those practiced by the United States, have been effectively challenged, and consequently restricted, due to the WTO strengthened dispute settlement procedures. I show that the new procedures affected the substantive policy outcomes by changing the political influence of competing actors. Specifically, I identify four transformations affecting the political influence of participants: the re-scaling of political authority, the judicialization of inter-state relations, the institutionalization of the international organization, and the structural internationalization of the state. Based on this case, the article offers a view of globalization as an institutional project. This view emphasizes the political dimension of the process of globalization; it suggests that this project was facilitated by transforming the institutional arrangements in place; and it identifies the contradictions inherent in it both to U.S. hegemony and to the globalization project itself.     

The family as project

Based on data gathered in settings where the family side of personal troubles is a regular concern, it is argued that the family enters into social relations as a collective representation. Adaptmg Durkheim's usage to everyday life, the family is analyzed as a ‘public’ project of those whose domestic affairs are challenged for consideration of family order. Three features of the family project are considered: (1) the awareness of the social form, (2) family conduct in the large, (3) family usage. As an object of experience, the family presents itself in a category separate and distinct from its members, while at the same time being a practical, discursive construct built out of, as well as reflecting concrete domestic affairs.     

The Gendered Machine: Concept Car Development at Volvo Car Corporation

This article examines the treatment in the media of the first concept car development project managed by female engineers and designers. The study is based on a critical discourse analysis methodology in which the production of social institutions and beliefs are conceived of as being based on written and spoken statements and utterances. The discursive production of statements not only has intangible effects but also implies material consequences. The study shows that although the project aimed at highlighting and using competencies among the female co‐workers and to position Volvo as a progressive company, the media coverage in many cases draws on gendered stereotypes and commonsense beliefs. As a consequence, it demonstrates that stepping outside gendered forms of expression is a complicated matter and therefore a more elaborated vocabulary remains to be developed in both the media and industry.     

An eco-social approach to tackling social exclusion in European cities: A new comparative research project in progress

In this article we would like to introduce a three-year Research Project called 'New Local Policies against Social Exclusion in European Cities', financed by the Targeted Socio-Economic Research Program (TSER) of the European Union. We will briefly highlight the entire research project that aims to make a contribution to European debate about social exclusion within social work (see also Washington and Paylor 1998), as well as social work's theoretical knowledge and field projects. The specific emphasis is on analysing the significance of the eco-social environment and citizen participation in disadvantaged residential areas, but related work aims to develop new kinds of action models and research methods. The project started in January 1998 in Finland, Germany, and Great Britain, and it will be completed by the end of 2000. Our research is a unique kind of cross-national comparative case-context research, based on classic ideas of action research and comparative research. Overall, the project aims through a European exchange to develop innovative models of local policies, particularly within community-based social work.     

The relationship between fishermen's health and sleeping habits

This article describes research on fishermen's health and sleeping habits in Iceland. It presents the first findings of the project that were presented in October 2002 at a conference that was organized during Seamen Safety Week in Iceland. It covers physical and mental stress symptoms, sleep disturbance, and obesity, as well as fishermen's own reaction to their health and well-being. Take notice that the findings that are presented in this article can be found in a report presented in August, when the whole study will be finished. Finally, it is concluded how successful the response has been and how the project can be used positively with other studies. It is also noted that, in fact, these findings will be used for further studies linked to safety on board.     

Shoplifters of the World Unite! Law and Culture in Financialized Times

The last two decades have seen significant growth and change in the character of the interactions between working-class households and financial markets. Individuals and households are bearing more and more of the risks that were once managed by governments and employers, and financial markets have developed a vast range of products to facilitate that risk transfer. This has put households at the centre of financial innovation, requiring the extension of regulation and consumer protection into a whole new suite of financial products and a project of financial literacy and advice. Along with this financial development and its associated regulatory demands has come a new cultural project of capital seeking to normalize the expanded integration of individuals and households into capital's frontiers of accumulation. The project invites and invokes new forms of subjectivity (and subjugation) on the part of households. The developmental project required of state regulatory regimes is increasingly articulating not just a discourse of financial literacy but subordination to the individualism and discipline implicit in financial calculation. Contrary to its conception as spontaneous and individualist, this is an intentional and universalizing project of producing and managing labour's financial risks. In the collective self-management of these risks, the household is now not just a site of risk absorption; it is a major source of investment products (and, therefore, at the frontier of accumulation). Increasingly also, in the name of financial stability, households – not just those reliant on state support – are becoming subjects of surveillance and administration in their internal financial functioning. It is these dual aspects of households as both consumers and producers of financial claims that give materiality to conceptual and historical claims about the financialization of everyday life.     

Enacting third-party certification: A case study of science and politics in organic shrimp certification

As third-party certification has become a prominent governance mechanism, conflicting understandings of it have emerged. Proponents advance third-party certification as a technical and objective governance mechanism, while critics argue that politics and relations of power characterize it. We reject this dichotomization both in terms of how TPC is understood, as well as understandings of science and politics. Drawing on science and technology studies, we argue that third-party certification is simultaneously science-based and political, and that both science and politics entail social and technical practices. Using a case study of an organic shrimp project in Indonesia, we examine the development and enforcement of standards. Three important findings emerge from our analysis. First, the development and enforcement of standards in a third-party certified project is partially dependent on the extent to which the interests and realities of all stakeholders are successfully translated and enrolled. Second, differences between actors in a third-party certified project are not just epistemological, but also ontological. Thus, overcoming differences in TPC entails reconciling not only interests and knowledge, but also material realities. Third, TPC is performative in that if the standards are to be adhered to, enrollment and translation have to be continuous practices. In concluding, we argue that a science and technology analysis points to the need not only to democratize TPC, but also diversify the epistemological basis of standards, and that efforts to ensure compliance need to go beyond audits.     

Political Economy,Social Movements and State Power: A Marxian Perspective on Two Decades of Resistance to the Narmada Dam Projects*

Abstract In this article, I put forward a Marxian analysis of the conflict over dam-building on the Narmada River in central and western India, which seeks to bring out how in this specific conflict it is possible to discern the workings of the master change processes that have moulded the Indian trajectory of postcolonial capitalist development. I start by showing how the concrete case of dispossession in the Narmada Valley is expressive of how the development strategies that defined the postcolonial nation-building project have been moulded in such a way as to create a de facto transfer of productive resources to the country's dominant proprietary classes. I then move on to argue that these features of the political economy of India's postcolonial development project can be understood as the sediment of struggles between social movements from above and below in the decades immediately prior to Independence. Arguing that the postcolonial development project has unravelled, I outline the fundamentals of an analysis of the characteristics of social movements from below in the conflictual field of force which is emerging in its wake. Finally, I draw on the trajectory of resistance to dam-building on the Narmada to articulate a series of reflections on the nature of state power in India and the possibilities that might exist for the state to function as an enabling space for the struggles of subaltern social groups.     

Combining key elements in training and research: Developing social work assessment theory and practice in partnership

This paper is based on a joint project between staff from a university department of social work and a local social services department and is jointly written by the four people involved. It reports on the development of a package of training and research over the past 5 years designed to improve standards of assessment in the work of child and family social workers employed by the authority. It analyses the positive reception given to the project both from practising social workers and from management. It contends that this model of combining theory, training, research and practice can and should be used more widely as a basis for supporting and developing professional social work. It discusses the introduction of a theoretical framework which anticipated the new national framework for assessment, but which has been used to critically assess it (as well as other models of assessment), and has involved experienced workers in their evaluation.