Northampton College

Sustainability has become a cornerstone for resilient and competitive business practices, especially within the tourism and hospitality industry. This paper examines the adoption of Sustainable Strategies among Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in the Greek Hospitality Sector. Drawing on research findings, the study identifies motivations, critical barriers such as high investment costs, insufficient government support, and a lack of understanding about sustainability certifications. Despite these challenges, the findings reveal that sustainability initiatives, including energy conservation and local sourcing, positively impact profitability. To address the gaps, this paper recommends targeted financial incentives, region-specific training programs, and the establishment of sustainability networks to foster collaboration. These measures aim to empower SMEs to integrate advanced sustainability practices, ensuring long-term benefits for businesses and the environment.

This work applies a cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) framework to understand how the outcome of a high school laboratory task may be positively influenced without making changes to the hands-on practical task itself. Informed by cognitivism, novel practical instruction videos that were based on the same video but had different audio content (“one video two voice overs”) have been developed to provide opportunities to prepare for the practical task procedure and then to reflect upon the task's underlying concepts. We use the CHAT framework as a guide to change pupils’ lab roles and rules of engagement were made to structure student interaction and facilitate an equitable and cooperative learning environment. We demonstrate that students benefit from these interventions and achieve significantly higher attainment scores in GCSE chemistry examination practical-themed questions than those students who prepared for the practical task by watching either the novel videos or standard instructional videos during the lesson. In, addition the students working in the scaffolded cooperative learning environment also perceived their confidence in relation to practical-related tasks at higher levels than those in other groups. This work contributes a novel approach to laboratory teaching by placing greater emphasis on dialogic processes as a tool accomplish a practical-based activity.

The present paper reports upon the design and implementation of a novel practical work pedagogy that is shown to increase students’ retention of practical procedures. The chemistry exams, for 15 to 16-year olds in England, will be assessed entirely through terminal examination questions from 2018. Longer term retention of learning is critical if these students are to minimise any discrepancy in attainment that may arise from following curricula with a coursework component. The novel design, underpinned by Cognitive Load Theory and Social Constructivism, involves pre-laboratory preparation and employs oracy to promote thinking during practical work. Three equivalent chemistry groups within the same school undertook neutralisation and crystallisation practical tasks and their practical work exam question attainment data is analysed. The novel pedagogy is trialled as a neutralisation task with one group and affective outcomes are determined through Likert scale activity feedback questionnaire. Attainment data shows a statistically significant higher mark in practical exam question attainment for the intervention compared to the control group when tested ten weeks after the teaching episode.

Female forensic mental health patients are a highly selected group who present exceptional clinical and behavioral challenges along with highly complex treatment needs. St. Andrew's Healthcare Women's Service offers a ‘best practice’ psychosocial treatment program in conditions of medium security. The outcomes of 60 women residents between 2003 to 2008 are described in terms of risk, behavior, symptomatology, and social functioning using HoNOS-secure. The instrument was sensitive to change in this population, including the security scale, which captured highly significant clinical improvements. Some of the challenges associated with measuring outcomes for this group are discussed. The needs of women in secure services can be effectively addressed, enabling movement to less secure settings and further improvement.

This chapter contains section titled: Previous Literature on After-Images The Binocular Matching Technique for the Measurement of the Apparxnt Brightness of Positive After-Images Experimental Results Discussion Conclusion References Discussion

Can new technology provided by a company to boost productivity cause workers to become addicted? If yes, who's responsible: workers or management?Nada Kakabadse, Gayle Porter and David Vance see an uncharted legal frontier emerging. Is any company prepared?

Abstract This paper explores how the grand strategies of a Slovenian firm, LEK, evolved during the period 1992–2002. Using a unique methodological framework, data was collected qualitatively from published sources in order to identify and explore the strategic actions that LEK realized. The findings showed that LEK realized organic growth and external finance‐raising strategies together with a number of incremental strategic actions such as those relating to mergers and acquisitions and organic concentric diversification. By focusing upon how the strategies and strategic actions realized by LEK evolved over an 11‐year period, this paper has contributed to a gap in the existing literature about strategy development by pharmaceutical firms based in transitional economies. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

PurposeTo examine the leadership requirements and challenges that need to be considered for future organizational sustainability.Design/methodology/approachThe approach adopted focuses on the pool of talent available and required within the organization and how a philosophy of shared responsibility and commitment can be engendered on behalf of the organization.FindingsA model is provided outlining how multiple conversations, namely a practice of polylogue, can be effectively pursued.Practical implicationsThe benefits of polylogue are outlined in terms of future leader development and staff retention through accommodating a co‐operative working environment.Originality/valuePursuing multiple “fierce conversations”; through polylogue, but in a constructive manner, is positioned to effectively realize competitive advantage.

In 1819, Benjamin Constant gave a speech at the Athenee Royal in Paris on how conceptions of liberty changed from the time of the Athenian polis to 1819. After a period of revolutionary upheaval in the United States and France, observed that in the ancient world citizens defined liberty in terms of their positive participation in the affairs of government, while in the modern world, citizens define liberty in terms of the freedom to secure the desires of their private lives. Constant (1988, p. 325) argued that “in the kind of liberty of which we are capable, the more the exercise of political rights leaves us time for our private interests, the more precious will liberty be to us.” The additional point that can be inferred from Constant (1988) is that democracy is an unfinished and on-going project that needs constant and continuous attention (Habermas, 1996). Others challenge Constant’s (1988) positive outlook and argue that the legitimacy of modern governments is in critical decline, citing falling public confidence and flagging interest in the democratic process (indices which include the low percentage of the electorate that votes; mistrust of politicians; cynicism about the political process and public scandals). Certainly one modern day determinant that will influence the shape and identity of democracy is the regeneration of information and communication technologies (ICT). The information era is based on the pivotal role of ICT, which now pervades all sectors of society—the public sector as well as the commercial and voluntary sectors (van Dijk, 2001). ICT-based applications provide a new way for citizens to participate in the democratic process through improved • Interactivity: Two-way communication/debate between citizen and government • Speed of Communication: Offering the possibility for politicians to rapidly obtain impressions of citizen’s opinions • Reach of Scope: Providing links from politicians to groups with which they were not previously in contact On the positive side, ICT enthusiasts foresaw the Internet creating a public space free of interference, both from government control and commercialism. They proposed that new “information highways” facilitated by ICT will open alternate pathways to democratic participation, namely electronic democracy comparable with Jefferson’s (1984) vision of 1834, involving a network of highways which would open new lines of communication between the American States cementing their union by “new and indestructible ties.” The Jeffersonian vision is captured by today’s “amplification theory” of technology, holding that ICT enables citizen participation, inducing qualitative changes in society (Agre, 2002). However, ICT also poses threat, a new form of control. Electronic surveillance of the work place is particularly effective because it is reflexive—“management” monitors workers as well as itself (Whitaker, 1999, p. 40). At the societal level, it creates and re-creates new structures and new futures. These newly emerging structures, although variously named as “Virtual Feudalism” (Mowshowitz, 1997); “Post-National State” (Whitaker, 1999); “New Serfdom”; “IT-Harems” (Korac-Kakabadse, Korac-Kakabadse, & Kouzmin, 2000) or “New Shoguns,” all depict increasingly invisible, all-seeing, all powerful control mechanisms, first envisaged by Bentham’s 1 Eighteenth-Century (1787/1995) “Panopticon,” depicting citizens loss of freedom. The Panopticon vision of totalitarian, electronic control, is a compelling metaphor because it represents the architecture of modern power (Whitaker, 1999, p. 28). In the information age, the global political economy (globalizing markets) and its major tenants—corporate business and its representatives and lobby groups, exert unprecedented power on sovereign states to introduce “business-friendly policies” which, in turn, lead to (Korac-Kakabadse et al, 2000; Mowshowitz, 1997): • A retreat of the State (via privatization, outsourcing, and the hollowing out of public functions) and an increase delivery of public services by private parties which exercise authority in their own name rather than in the name of the law which transcends their own power • A blurring of lines between public and private sectors • Growing disparities between wealth and poverty and between and within regions and communities (e.g., fortress and affluent suburbia versus desolated quarters) • A growth of private security and “private justice” These increasingly business-friendly policies lead to corporate control over impoverished, sovereign governments and the transformation of “citizens” into “customers.” The process of being rendered a “client,” diminishes the value of citizen rights and equity, as clients with higher disposable incomes can afford to procure higher levels of rights and opportunities. A growing literature highlights that ICT-mediated democratic relationships are not challenging the fundamental ordering of democratic processes but, rather, traditional bureaucracies are being replaced by “infocracies” as explained by technology “reinforcement” or “enactment” theory emphasising how ICT further reinforces existing power and social control structures (Agre, 2002; Fountain, 2001; Korac-Kakabadse, 2000). New ICT reproduces and strengthens institutionalised socio-structural mechanisms, “even when such enactments lead to seemingly irrational and ostensibly sub-optimal use of technology” (Fountain, 2001, p. 5).