LOGISTICS PARTNERSHIPS AND SUPPLY CHAIN RESTRUCTURING: SURVEY RESULTS FROM THE U.S. COMPUTER INDUSTRY

This research investigates the interaction between formation of logistics partnerships and supply chain restructuring in the U.S. computer industry via a survey of 30 ongoing partnerships. Partnerships that have included restructuring are compared to those that have not. Examples of representative partnerships are presented. The survey results indicate that restructurers use partnerships to facilitate restructuring. Restructurers and non-restructurers form partnerships for different reasons and realize different types of benefits. Furthermore, restructurers realize greater benefits than do non-restructurers and view their partnerships as more successful. Restructurers report dramatic improvements in logistics cost (1l-30%) and order cycle time (62%). The research contributes to the existing literature by highlighting restructuring as an important aspect of logistics partnership formation and by presenting empirical data that shows how the two strategies are linked.     

Politicizing Aboriginal Cultural Tourism: The Discourse of Primitivism in the Tourist Encounter*

Le tourisme cultural amérindien est un secteur de L'industrie touristique canadienne potentiellement en forte croissance, qui connaît un vif succès auprès des visiteurs européens, surtout les Allemands. Le présent article recourt à L'analyse du discours pour examiner les rencontres touristiques qui se déroulent dans les différents lieux touristiques amérindiens du sud de L'Alberta. Il analyse la construction de L'«indianite» et de la culture amérindienne par les guides amérindiens et les visiteurs étrangers. Il appert que ces constructions sont façonnées par le discours primitiviste qui, ironiquement, renforce la notion de «noble sauvage» héritée des Lumières. Nous discutons L'idée selon laquelle le discours primitiviste, malgré ses aspects colonialistes et essentialistes, peut représenter une stratégie de résistance envers un système social perçu comme une source d'oppression par plusieurs Premières Nations. Aboriginal cultural tourism is a potentially high‐growth segment of the Canadian tourism industry that is currently enjoying widespread demand among Europeans, especially German visitors. This paper uses a discourse analysis approach to examine the tourist encounter at various Aboriginal tourist sites in southern Alberta. It analyses the negotiation of “Indianness” and Indian culture by both Native interpreters and foreign visitors. These negotiations are shown to be informed by the primitivist discourse that, ironically, reinforces the Enlightenment notion of the “noble savage.” We argue that, despite its colonialist and essentialist aspects, the primitivist discourse can nevertheless function as a strategy of resistance to a social system viewed by many First Nations as politically oppressive.     

Cute Masquerade and the Pimping of Japan

This essay will consider gendered aspects of Cool Japan ideology as found in government‐sponsored texts and imagery, as well as in other international arenas. Although scholars have recently offered critiques of Cool Japan as a form of nationalistic nation branding, uses of an objectified femininity have rarely been included in these analyses. By displacing female innovations and creativity in cultural production to the margins, Cool Japan reifies and officially promotes male geek culture. We find general dematerialization of the producers of Cool Japan ideology, which in turn becomes characterized as creative, quirky, edgy, and benign, thus masking the way Cool Japan has been produced, critiqued, imagined and endorsed primarily by male elites in Japan and internationally. This discussion suggests that Cool Japan's otaku ethos does not include women and girls who fail to conform to a narrow model of cute femininity, thus maintaining and promoting structures of gender stratification. In addition, the global spread and government exploitation of uncomplicated cuteness (kawaii) often confounds a flat understanding of the aesthetic with a gendered perspective and its expressions in girl culture. Women and girls are contained in Cool Japan ideology, and are not usually represented as shaping, resisting, creating or critiquing Japanese popular culture.     

Learning About the Candidates: The 1976 Presidential Debates

In this study of the 1976 televised Carter-Ford debates, theauthors find that the debates produced a heightened politicalawareness in viewers in the critical days just prior to theelection. The information obtained from the debates focusedlargely on candidate competence, performance and personalityattributes rather than on issues, but some increase in informationon issues and policies can be linked to the debates. The majorimpact of the debates may have been to reinforce partisan predispositions.Arthur H. Miller is a Senior Study Director at the Center forPolitical Studies, Institute for Social Research, and AssociateProfessor of Political Science, University of Michigan. MichaelMacKuen is an Assistant Professor of Political Science, WashingtonUniversity in St. Louis, Missouri.     

THE FEMALE/MALE SALARY DIFFERENTIAL IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS: SOME LESSONS FROM SAN FRANCISCO, 1879

This paper develops a theory of sex differences in the earnings of school personnel, with emphasis on the role of labor market segmentation. Several aspects of the theory are then tested using data for the San Francisco school system in 1879. We find that, holding constant human capital variables (experience and education), sex played a significant role in determining the position and type of school of employment among school personnel and that human capital variables were less important than segmentation variables (position and type of school) in explaining the female/male salary differential .