It has been assumed that there are disagreements as to the role of the office manager in different types and sizes of organizations in the U.S.A. and Bangladesh. It has also been assumed that there are deficiencies in the techniques of office management in the Bangladesh Sugar mills corporation. This thesis has been undertaken to determine those deficiencies in the techniques of office management used in Bangladesh sugar mills as compared to those used in the U.S.A.In addition, the thesis discussed the extent of variation in the use of organization charts, the extent of central lines of promotion, and the extent of unionization of the clerical force between these two countries. Explanation of the variations have also been given.

The question for this thesis is whether the static and the dynamic theory of international trade stability holds in reality in Bangladesh.

No description available.

Bangladesh is often perceived as disordered, characterised by the absence of law abiding systems of governance, and with the poor left to rely on corrupt and dysfunctional relationships. This thesis tells a different story. Examining the lives of people living in the open and most basic slums ethnographically in Dhaka city reveals that people have complex dependencies on ‘intermediaries’ or ‘brokers’ to access resources. Rather than see these relationships as dysfunctional, the core argument developed is that they are inherently part of how social order is maintained in Bangladeshi society. If order is understood as contingent on actors throughout society establishing a dominant capability for violence and accruing resources on this basis, then intermediation can be seen as a prominent means by which both of these ends are achieved. These relationships are thus intertwined with how violence is organised and controlled. A young man who grew up at a bazar described how people need to live in the shade of others, and this metaphor is used to portray this phenomenon. This thesis argues that intermediation in Dhaka has changed significantly over the past decade, with the mastan gangs once identified as powerful in radical decline, replaced by wings of the ruling political party. At the lowest levels of urban society, a complex web of intermediaries exists, including labour leaders, political leaders, their followers and informers. Some people attempt to rise in this order by mobilising as factions and demonstrating their capability for violence, but more generally people employ tactics and strategies for avoiding, negotiating and even exiting these relationships. Negotiating these relationships and one’s place in this order is conceptualised here as the politics of intermediation.

Islam Md. Saiful. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 175-181). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract / Abstract in Chinese --- p.ii / Acknowledgements --- p.iii / Note --- p.iv / List of Figures --- p.ix / List of Plates --- p.x / Chapter Chapter One --- Introduction --- p.1 / Statement of the Problem / Literature Review / Chapter - --- "Minority Groups, NGOs and Development Issues" / Chapter - --- Education Among Minority Groups / Chapter - --- Minority Groups as Discriminated and Stigmatized / Chapter - --- Fighting Against Discrimination: The Art of Resistance / Methodology / Chapter - --- Selecting the NGOs / Chapter - --- Finding the Field Site / Chapter - --- Settling / Chapter - --- From Padri through Sir to Dada: Rapport Buildup / Chapter - --- How I Collected Data / Chapter - --- Pains and Pleasures of Fieldwork / Chapter - --- Limitations of the Study / Structure of the Thesis / Chapter Chapter Two --- "Barind Tract of Northwest Bangladesh: The Villages Studied, Ecology and Cultural Mosaic" --- p.37 / The Study Villages: A Brief Profile / Chapter - --- Ruposhi: A Santal Village / Chapter - --- Fulpur: An Oraon Village / Northwest Bangladesh: Ecology and Implications / People of Barind Tract: The Cultural Mosaic / The Santal and the Oraon: From Historical Context to the Present Situation / Chapter Chapter Three --- "NGOs in Bangladesh: Growth, Rhetoric and Realities" --- p.56 / The Growth of NGOs in Bangladesh: A Brief Overview / Chapter - --- NGOs and Their Achievements / Chapter - --- The Rhetoric Behind the Reality: Challenges and problems of the NGOs / Prochesta: A Minority-run NGO / Chapter - --- "Goals, Objectives and Programmes of Prochesta" / Chapter - --- Organizational Structure of Prochesta / Unnoyan: A Bengali-run NGO / Chapter - --- "Vision, Mission and Programmes of Unnoyan" / Chapter - --- Unnoyan: Organizational Structure / Chapter Chapter Four --- "Minority Groups, Economic Livelihood and NGOs" --- p.79 / Agrarian Economy with Single Crop Cultivation / Land Ownership and Patterns of Tenancy / Agriculture and Food Sufficiency: A General Calculation / Supplementing Household Income / Economic Support: The Santal and Prochesta / The Oraon and Unnoyan in Promoting Economic Livelihood / "Minority Groups, Economic Livelihood and the Role of NGOs" / Chapter Chapter Five --- "Education Among Minority Groups: The Santal, The Oraon and The NGOs" --- p.114 / The General Situation of Education Among Minority People in the Study Villages / Dropout From the School: Minority Point of View / Medium of Instruction for Minority Students: The Dilemmas of Monolingualism / The Santal and Prochesta in Promoting Education / "The Oraon, Unnoyan and Education" / Chapter - --- Primary Education for the Oraon Children / Chapter - --- Lahanti: The Adult Education Programme / Chapter - --- Preparing Curriculum in Oraon Language: The Action Research Project / "Minority Groups, Education and the NGOs" / Chapter Chapter Six --- Minority Groups and Fighting Against Discrimination: The Art of Resistance and the Involvement of NGOs --- p.144 / Everyday Discrimination Encountered by Minority People: Nature and Pervasiveness / Fighting Against Discrimination and the Involvement of NGOs / Chapter - --- The Santal and Prochesta in Fighting Against Discrimination / Chapter - --- The Oraon and Unnoyan in Fighting Against Discrimination / Minority Groups and the Role NGOs in Fighting Against Discrimination / Chapter Chapter Seven --- Conclusion --- p.164 / Bibliography --- p.175

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This thesis considers women’s representation in television commercials in Australia and Bangladesh. It is an empirical study. A total of 780 advertisements were recorded from various television channels of Australia and Bangladesh. Among them 280 and 500 advertisements were taken from Bangladeshi and Australian television channels respectively. This thesis is about women’s representation in television commercials in Australia and Bangladesh. Bringing an interdisciplinary but empirical approach to a broad range of recently screened advertisements, the thesis examines how femininities are stereotypically represented in these two countries’ television commercials. The study suggests that women are produced and reproduced as sexual objects and/or objects to be looked at, and that representations of women’s bodies circulate around the binary of purity and pollution in heavily gendered and racialised ways. The interesting finding of this study is the extension of the ‘male-gaze’ concept where women come under the gaze from (hetero) sexual perspectives. The study suggests that images of femininity and racialisation are produced and reproduced. This constructs women’s secondary position and creates racial instability in societies.

Bangladesh introduced open and distance learning as a means of providing education for people in isolated and remote locations through the establishment of the Bangladesh Open University (BOU). The broad aim of the BOU is to provide flexible and needs-based education to those unable or not wishing to enter conventional educational institutions. The BOU is presently the only university in Bangladesh to provide mass education and also to provide continuing education and professional and technical education to support the existing educational system. The BOU has a mission that encompasses secondary and higher levels of education. BOU operates its programs through a centralised academic and administrative staff, and regional and local offices throughout Bangladesh that organise local tutorials and distribute information and materials. BOU has adult students in all parts of the country, and most of the students live in rural areas. They need support that is appropriate to their local circumstances. Using an interpretive approach, this research examines the support needs of students studying for the Secondary School Certificate and the Bachelor of Education, assesses the effectiveness of current support services and explores alternatives to the current system. The underlying assumption is that support needs to be appropriate to the country’s culture and circumstances, and useful and feasible from the perspectives of students, staff, administrators and senior university officials. To investigate the appropriate support for distance education students, this research was conducted in four sample regions. Two were selected from areas of sparse population where the terrain makes transport difficult and two from areas that are more densely populated and where transport is easier. A questionnaire survey and focus groups were conducted with students, focus groups with local staff and interviews with Regional Directors within the four sample regions. Interviews were also undertaken with central University senior staff to get their perspectives on current and future policies for student support.

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This research consists of a broad study in three parts of the social and environmental reporting practices of organisations operating in or sourcing products from a developing country, in this case Bangladesh. The first part of this study explores the social and environmental disclosure practices of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), the body responsible for organising the activities of 4,200 entities involved in the export of garments from Bangladesh. By way of interview, this part documents the opinions of numerous senior executives from the BGMEA with regard to any changes in the degree of social and environmental pressures since 1985. Utilising a complementary theoretical perspective that includes legitimacy theory, stakeholder theory and institutional theory this part then performs an analysis of the BGMEA's annual reports (1987-2005), to explore the link between the perceived pressures and changes entailed therein and th e social and environmental disclosure practices of the BGMEA across the period of analysis. The results show that the disclosure practices of BGMEA appear to be directly driven by the changing expectations of multinational buying companies- the group deemed to be the most powerful stakeholder group. This section is the first known study to interview managers from a large organisation in a developing country about shifting stakeholder expectations and then to link these changing expectations to annual report disclosures across an extended period of analysis. The findings then directly lead to the second major part of this thesis which investigates the social and environmental disclosure practices of two major multinational buying companies: Nike and H&M. Adopting a joint consideration of legitimacy theory and media agenda setting theory, this second part investigates the linkage between negative media attention and positive corporate social and environmental disclosures over a 19 year period. The results supp ort the view that for those industry-related social and environmental issues that attract the greatest amount of negative media attention, these companies react by providing positive social and environmental disclosures. The results were particularly significant in relation to labour practices in developing countries-the issue that attracts the greatest amount of negative media attention for the companies in question. While the second part demonstrates that the media influences particular disclosure practices, the third part of the thesis shows what drives the media. Based on the speculation provided in the second part, the third part tests the proposition that the media is an important ally of NGOs in their quest to influence change in corporate accountabilities. Through the use of interviews, the results of this part of the study provide evidence to support previously untested perspectives about NGOs' utilisation of the media. The results reveal that NGOs use the media because the media is responsible for creating real changes in the operations and disclosure policies of organisations sourcing products from Bangladesh. The various pressures impacting the activities of organisations operating in or sourcing products from developing countries constitutes a fascinating area of investigation, and it is hoped that this study will motivate further research in this area.