Natural and social order at Walt Disney World; the functions and contradictions of civilising nature

Elias’ theory of the civilising process is used to show how the Walt Disney World Theme Parks construct social control over visitors without calling into question the official presentation of these visitors as free, choice‐making, experience seeking individuals. Particular attention is drawn to the manipulation of images of nature as either ‘wild’ or ‘civilised’ to code, respectively, forbidden and legitimate places for visitors. In doing so, WDW is able to maintain civilised, non‐coercive, discourse with its ‘guests’ who are, thus presented to themselves as responsible and self‐regulating persons. Attention is drawn to the contradiction that this strategy creates between ‘authentic’ and ‘civilised’ spectacle particularly in the presentation of animals. It is noted how this creates an imperative to show only civilised animal behaviour but which, in turn, limits the means that the Disney Corporation can adopt in order to create a space that is free from the intrusion of uncivilised nature.     

Trends in online media relations: Web-based corporate press rooms in leading international companies

An analysis of 120 corporate websites from Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, Singapore, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States reveals, for the first time, international results about the implementation and use of virtual press rooms. This article shows the importance that large international companies attribute to Web-based media centers to achieve organizational objectives and to meet journalists’ demands for information and audiovisual resources. The study also shows, however, that most press rooms are far from being complete, efficient, easy-to-use, reliable and updated on a daily basis. In fact, there is not a single country from those analyzed that consistently stands out from the rest. In most of them, good results in certain areas coexist with significant shortcomings in others, resulting in some cases in poor press rooms that may not achieve the desired public relations objectives.     

试论苏轼认同陶渊明却终未归隐之原因

苏轼一生无论居庙堂之高 ,或处江湖之远 ,皆追求心灵自由 ,达到了物我同一、高凡绝尘的理想境界。该文认为苏轼慕陶、学陶 ,作《和陶诗》12 0余首以明志 ,却始终未能像陶渊明那样挂冠而去 ,归隐田园。究其原因 ,不外乎生活时代、出身背景、思想体系、入仕经历等方面的差异     

Role of informal sector recycling in waste management in developing countries

Many thousands of people in developing country cities depend on recycling materials from waste for their livelihoods. With the focus of the Millennium Development Goals on poverty reduction, and of waste strategies on improving recycling rates, one of the major challenges in solid waste management in developing countries is how best to work with this informal sector to improve their livelihoods, working conditions and efficiency in recycling.The general characteristics of informal recycling are reviewed, highlighting both positive and negative aspects. Despite the health and social problems associated with informal recycling, it provides significant economic benefits that need to be retained. Experience shows that it can be highly counterproductive to establish new formal waste recycling systems without taking into account informal systems that already exist. The preferred option is to integrate the informal sector into waste management planning, building on their practices and experience, while working to improve efficiency and the living and working conditions of those involved. Issues associated with integrating informal recycling into the formal waste management sector are discussed.     

Beggars can be choosers: Resource scarcity,dynamism, search activities,and their joint impact on performance

Research on firm search stresses the need for firms to adapt and align concurrently with their environment to optimize the ability to sense and seize opportunities for sustained performance. We postulate resource scarcity as an important contingency factor for the search-performance relationship, and assess its joint influence with high and low dynamism. Using a dataset spanning 23 years, we examine the performance implications of combinations of internal and external exploratory and exploitative search in resource-scarce environments, under conditions of high and low dynamism. We find that resource scarcity is an important condition for performance stemming from exploratory and exploitative search: even under conditions that involve low dynamism, but joined with resource scarcity, firms may benefit from pursuing exploratory and exploitative knowledge simultaneously.