Liberal Chiefs or Illiberal Development? The Challenge of Engaging Chiefs in DFID's Security Sector Reform Programme in Sierra Leone

It is increasingly recognised that informal actors, including chiefs, are dominant providers of services and need to be factored into overwhelmingly state‐focused programmes. This article looks at the ability of the UK's Department for International Development to engage with the chieftaincy system in Sierra Leone through its security sector reform programme – a relationship which poses important political challenges.     

A framework for understanding how nonprofits shape our physical environment: Identifying allies in making spaces

Research exists on the role of nonprofits directly shaping open spaces and preserving elements of the built environment, but the larger landscape of nonprofits that directly and indirectly shape the larger physical environment is less well understood. Although legislation exists to help protect and preserve natural spaces, nonprofits play a crucial role in carrying out work to protect and shape the natural and built components of the physical environment. Furthermore, nonprofit work that shapes public spaces is, by default, an attempt to reshape social environments and values through interventions in the physical environment. This is particularly important as the relationship between the physical environment and societal outcomes related to public health, human behavior, and sustainability is clear. Using past research by the authors, a review of related literature, and a localized case study, we refine a theoretical framework to better describe and understand the breadth of nonprofits that are shaping the physical environment. In doing so, we create a tool to help nonprofit managers identify and better engage allied stakeholders.     

House Haunting: The Domestic Novel Of The Inter-War Years

In this article we attempt to historicize and address the literary manifestations of the meaning and idea of home culture in the English domestic novel of the inter-war years. During this period, the cult of domesticity was avidly promoted by the government and popular magazines. We discuss how both houses and novels furnish a dwelling place that invites the exploration of private and social relations. In their turn to domestic space and the domestic interior, domestic novelists of the inter-war years inaugurated a turn to interiority, feminine subjectivity and the everyday.     

Hyper-Segmentation and Exclusion in Financial Services in the U.S.

Abstract

The last twenty years has been a period of major structural change for the financial services sector in the United States. Some of this restructuring has been prompted by technological change, but public policy has actively facilitated the increased mobility of capital to places where it brings the highest short-term private return but not necessarily the greatest long-term social return. While deregulation and technology have combined to provide a wider choice of services and increased price pressure in the lucrative segments of different financial markets, the pursuit of affluent customers has left lower-income consumers and very small firms at a disadvantage. The sector overall has moved toward a hyper-segmentation of customer bases by income and race, leaving many communities served primarily by higher-cost and sometimes abusive financial services firms.     

The Nonprofit Sector and the Informal Sector: A Theoretical Perspective

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - How do and why might different nations demarcate socioeconomic activity into distinct societal sectors? In this review and...     

Cost-Time Performance of Public Sector Housing Projects in Nigeria

The performance of the construction industry in Nigeria has consistently been a source of concern to both public and private sector clients. Previous studies have identified cost and time overruns amongst others as key performance indicators. This is particularly significant for public sector clients in Nigeria, where due to poor budgetary control, many projects have been abandoned at various stages of completion. This paper is set to evaluate the magnitude of this problem at key stages in the process, from budgetary planning to completion, using the public sector client as exploratory model.     

Cost–time performance of public sector housing projects in Nigeria

The performance of the construction industry in Nigeria has consistently been a source of concern to both public and private sector clients. Previous studies have identified cost and time overruns amongst others as key performance indicators. This is particularly significant for public sector clients in Nigeria, where due to poor budgetary control, many projects have been abandoned at various stages of completion. This paper is set to evaluate the magnitude of this problem at key stages in the process, from budgetary planning to completion, using the public sector client as exploratory model.     

Chinese–African encounters in high‐tech sectors: Comparative investigation of Chinese workplace regimes in Ethiopia

Studies on China–Africa co‐operation have revealed increasing diversification of China's on‐the‐ground practices in Africa. However, engaged research has yet to examine the situated experiences of Chinese and African individuals whose activities shape and are shaped by Chinese multinationals, especially those in the growing yet underexplored high‐tech sectors. To address this gap, this article investigates the workplace regimes of two Chinese companies in Ethiopia. Using a mixed‐method approach, it articulates the contradictory nature of Chinese investment and its diverse manifestations in work relations between Chinese expatriates and local Ethiopians. Our findings suggest that Chinese and Ethiopian employees are proactive yet constrained agents in exploiting work opportunities for their own economic interests and professional development.     

Dichotomy of development aid’s ambition and neoliberal imperatives: A case‐study of private‐sector development in Bangladesh

Development in the twenty‐first century (“neo‐liberalism”) is a tool and its success and sustainability depend on how this tool is applied on a specific grounded reality. This article investigates how this modernization process continually co‐creates globalized Bangladesh through private sector development. While this field report highlights the challenges development aid donors can face in Bangladesh’s post‐colonial culture, it also unveils the dichotomous traction between globalization and inequality as well as the friction poverty reduction, through private sector development, can generate in impoverished countries. Finally, this report attempts to reconsider the ways in which the aid development ambitions of equality and liberty can find a workable balance with the neo‐liberal Imperative for private sector development. This article calls for improving quality control to generate greater impact of development aid resources in developing private sectors.     

猪肉行业供应链效率研究——以江苏省为例

从供应链组织化与运作能力两个方面设计供应链效率综合评价指标体系,并构建供应链效率矩阵,在运用层次分析法计算指标权重的基础上,将经过处理的样本企业数据置入供应链效率矩阵之中加以分析,得知目前猪肉行业供应链的成员之间缺乏稳固的合作关系,且供应链内部信息交流很不充分,为此,加工企业应对上游农户进行垂直整合并与之结成战略联盟,并加强信息交流。