The Samaritan Concept of Befriending

Summary This paper considers the view that the Samaritan concept ofbefriending constitutes a debasement of our traditional notionof friendship. An analysis of the main features of friendshipis attempted and this analysis is then used as a framework forassessing the nature of befriending     

A NEW LEARNING APPROACH TO PROCESS IMPROVEMENT IN A TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMPANY

Redesigning and improving business processes to better serve customer needs has become a priority in service industries as they scramble to become more competitive. We describe an approach to process improvement that is being developed collaboratively by applied researchers at US WEST, a major telecommunications company, and the University of Colorado. Motivated by the need to streamline and to add more quantitative power to traditional quality improvement processes, the new approach uses an artificial intelligence (AI) statistical tree growing method using customer survey data to identify operations areas where improvements are expected to affect customers most. This AI/statistical method also identifies realistic quantitative targets for improvement and suggests specific strategies predicted to have high impart. This research, funded in part by the Colorado Advanced Software Institute (CASI) to stimulate profitable innovations, has resulted in a practical methodology used successfully at US WEST to help set process improvement priorities and guide resource allocation decisions throughout the company.     

Doing sociological research: the genre of ‘owning up’

This paper presents an account of an access encounter, and uses this case to reinforce the potential for access meetings to provide a rich source of ethnographic data. The paper originates from one of the authors' experience of negotiating research access in a UK local authority social services department. In response to a summary research proposal sent in advance that expressed interest in social work with men, a gatekeeper expressed his concern during an initial meeting that the author might be a ‘paedophile’ wanting to make contact with others of a similar persuasion. This encounter, and the issue of sexual abuse that it introduced, highlights a number of ethical, epistemological and gendered tensions for ethnographic work, which this paper attempts to negotiate. Some of the potential implications of this specific access meeting are discussed, and set within broader methodological and empirical contexts.