Gender,power and office politics

Abstract

This interpretative study explores the experiences of Taiwanese female clerical workers as they deal with office politics. A hermeneutical phenomenology is used to describe and interpret the participants' experiences. The study shows that powerlessness and frustration result from: (1) structural barriers; (2) behavioral barriers; and (3) accommodation and rationalization. This study has implications for research and practice in international area of women's studies and for the field of international career development education.     

How business associations use interorganizational networks to achieve workforce development goals: Implications for Human Resource Development

Abstract

This study uses data from a series of comparative case studies to analyse the interorganizational networks of business associations providing workforce development services in the United States. Three aspects of the networks were of particular interest, including (a) the form the partnerships took, (b) the trade-off to involving educational or community vs. business partners in providing workforce development services and (c) the strengths of associations in brokering services to adults or youth. The findings demonstrate that business associations work in intermediary networks or provide their services directly. The conclusions suggest that human resource development professionals should work more actively with local business associations to recruit, train and provide supports for workers in US firms.     

Planning in Ireland

Ireland's First Economic Programme was initiated and devised by Dr. T. K. Whitaker, then Secretary of the Department of Finance, and Head of the Civil Service during 1957 and 1958. He produced a planning system suited to the needs of the country, simple and unsophisticated. The First Programme restored confidence in the viability of the Irish Economy and its potential for growth. This article charts the course of planning in Ireland during the sixties. Dr. Garret FitzGerald is at present the Irish Shadow Minister of Education. He was Alternate Member of the General Purposes Committee of the National Industrial Economic Council from 1963–1969, and he is author of the book: “Planning in Ireland” published by P.E.P. and the Institute of Public Administration in 1969.     

The foundations of econometrics-are there any

The conclusions of alogically consistent economic theory which strictly adheres to Aristotle's axioms of logic are factually true if its sufficient conditions are all factually true. Alternatively, if a conclusion of such a theory is false, then at- least one of its assumptions is false. Unfortunately, the factual truth of sufficient conditions cannot be established because the problem of induction i s impossible t o solve. It is algo true that the falsity of a conclusion cannot be established in the presence of uncertainty. While the philosophy of instrumentalism applied to sufficient and logically consistent explanations may provide useful solutions to immediate practical problems, the principles of simplicity, parsimony and profligacy--all of them requiring conditional deductive arguments--are useless as criteria for model choice.     

Auftragsklärung: Interventionen auf dem Wege zur Konstituierung eines Beratungssystems*

The author demonstrates basing on a case study, that the development of a consultation system is a process that requires time and patience of everyone involved. Not a fast decided definition of a consultation method with the corresponding setting is the first step but a clarification of the request. That is what the author is pleading for a phase of detailed analysis with the potential client.     

Keines für alle!

The article is an answer to Hartmut Esser’s “One for All? The Weber Paradigm, the Moderate Methodological Holism Concept and the Sociological Explanation Model”, published earlier in this journal (KZfSS 58: 352–363). It explicates the differences between Essers sociological explanation model and the alternative model of moderate methodological holism. It analyses Esser’s misunderstandings and shows that his model — contrary to Esser’s “official” announcement — doesn’t entail the concept of macrodetermination, which is rightly so, because it doesn’t fit with Essers reductionist approach. The ontological and anthropological conceptions underlying the two explanation models are very different and lead to different methodologies.