This paper argues that polyphony is built on the transaction between voices and experiential truths, where voice and experience constitute each other. From this perspective voice is associated with the plural, transformational character of moment-to-moment experience. This view differs from the prevalent appropriation of polyphony where voice expresses a relatively stable identity (e.g. Hazen 1993) such that many voices (polyphony) may be reduced to many identities. The experiential understanding of polyphony is examined through close inspection of Bakhtin's contextualization of polyphony in carnival, a reading of his work that is largely missing from the organizational literature. This reading is further developed in the context of talk about teamwork in a large healthcare organization. Analysis of this talk reveals three different types of discursive truths that create different kinds of identities and different kinds of possibilities for organizational change: the public, teleological truths of epic discourse; the intimate truths of confession and irony; and the contested truths of the argument and what Bakhtin (1984) calls the microdialogue (or inner conversations with ourselves).

The military potential of nanotechnology was anticipated by its proponents from the early stages of its development, and explicit programmes for this purpose are now well established. However, the impact of nanotechnology on arms control is very unlikely to be merely additive. Instead, it threatens to undermine the arms control paradigm, for reasons explored in this paper. These include the place of nanoscience and nanotechnology as the principal enablers of technological convergence; the extension from dual-use to multiple-use dilemmas arising from new materials and processes, and their integration into economic development and competitiveness; low entry-level infrastructural requirements (already a feature of biotechnology); and a blurring of the distinction between offensive arms and capabilities likely to be viewed as threatening.

Yes / Although their eyes are pointing in different directions, people with long-standing strabismic amblyopia typically do not experience double-vision or indeed any visual symptoms arising from their condition. It is generally believed that the phenomenon of suppression plays a major role in dealing with the consequences of amblyopia and strabismus, by preventing images from the weaker/deviating eye from reaching conscious awareness. Suppression is thus a highly sophisticated coping mechanism. Although suppression has been studied for over 100 years the literature is equivocal in relation to the extent of the retina that is suppressed, though the method used to investigate suppression is crucial to the outcome. There is growing evidence that some measurement methods lead to artefactual claims that suppression exists when it does not. Methodology/Results: Here we present the results of an experiment conducted with a new method to examine the prevalence, depth and extent of suppression in ten individuals with strabismic amblyopia. Seven subjects (70%) showed no evidence whatsoever for suppression and in the three individuals who did (30%), the depth and extent of suppression was small. Conclusions: Suppression may play a much smaller role in dealing with the negative consequences of strabismic amblyopia than previously thought. Whereas recent claims of this nature have been made only in those with micro-strabismus our results show extremely limited evidence for suppression across the central visual field in strabismic amblyopes more generally. Instead of suppressing the image from the weaker/deviating eye, we suggest the visual system of individuals with strabismic amblyopia may act to maximise the possibilities for binocular co-operation. This is consistent with recent evidence from strabismic and amblyopic individuals that their binocular mechanisms are intact, and that, just as in visual normals, performance with two eyes is better than with the better eye alone in these individuals.

No description available.

No / This study examines the changes in return comovement around the listing and delisting of stock option contracts. We show that newly option listed stocks experience an increase in comovement with a portfolio of option listed stocks and a decrease in comovement with the portfolio of non-optioned stocks. Similarly, stocks that undergo option delisting exhibit a decrease in comovement with option listed stocks and an increase in comovement with non-optioned stocks. We verify the reliability of our findings in several ways. A matched sample analysis suggests that our results are not driven by factors other than option listing and we find similar results using a calendar-time approach. Further analysis reveals that commonalities in option trading may induce the comovement in the option listed stocks. Overall, our evidence is consistent with the predictions of the category or habitat view of comovement.

No / This study examines the impact of FTSE 100 index revisions on the informational efficiency of the underlying stocks. Our study spans the 1986–2009 period. We estimate the speed of price adjustment and price inefficiency from the partial adjustment with noise model of Amihud and Mendelson (1987). We report a significant improvement (no change) in the informational efficiency of the stocks added to (deleted from) the FTSE 100 index. The asymmetric effect of additions and deletions on informational efficiency can be attributed, at least partly, to certain aspects of liquidity and other fundamental characteristics, which improve following additions but do not diminish after deletions. Cross-sectional analysis also indicates that stocks with low pre-addition market quality benefit more from joining the index.

No / We suggest in this paper that whilst exploring how to make business schools more critical we must also turn a critical and reflexive lens upon ourselves, critical management thinkers. Our endeavour is outlined here as a ‘reflexive journey’ in which we turn upon ourselves, academics who identify as ‘critical’ thinkers, the theories we use to analyse others. Our focus is upon critical management education. We use three vignettes drawn from our previous research. One is of graduands from the postgraduate programmes on which two of us teach, the second an analysis of knowledge transfer programmes in which we have participated, and the third a study of the construction of academic identities. The first study shows the academic teacher may become an internalized, judgemental gaze, the second that what we see as a critical approach may be construed by our students as another ‘truth’ that fails to encompass the complexities of organizations and management, and the third encourages us to ask some questions about our own positions. This causes us to ask some uncomfortable questions about our own positions as critical management scholars and the ways in which we conceptualize business schools and our colleagues who work in them.

No / Enterprise strategies, governance structure and performance: a comparative study of global integration, Regional Studies. This paper is positioned within a voluminous body of literature exploring the processes of global integration. The research presented here broadens the scope of scholarly inquiry through a process of constructive and critical engagement with the Global Commodity and Value Chain approaches. This is achieved by focusing on the enterprise as a purposive agent that is contextualized in chains and localities; and exploring the broad spectrum of strategies that can result to robust performance. This argument is supported with the findings of a survey of 755 firms in the United Kingdom, Greece, Poland, Estonia, and Bulgaria.

No / Baumol's hypothesis, i.e. that the allocation of entrepreneurial talent in productive, unproductive and destructive activities is determined by the rules of the game, is supported by a growing body of empirical research and underpins new avenues of research in entrepreneurial studies. However, Baumol's paper offers precious few insights, beyond policy action, regarding how change to the rules of the game can be effected, because it views institutions as endogenous. This paper sets out to address this gap through an extension of Schumpeterian–Baumolian construct. The paper argues that changing institutions is a contestable process: its outcome determined by the complex nexus of interests and power endowments of actors. Changing the outcome of this contestation is dependent on the emergence of new entrepreneurial groupings and/or the evolution of the power endowments or interests of existing ones. Two historical illustrations are used to support the hypothesis and of this study.

No / A recent paper in Accounting and Business Research by Lau et al. (2008) offers systematic evidence to explain whether managers’ perceptions on fairness of performance evaluation procedures affect attitudes such as job satisfaction; and if it does, the different behavioural processes involved. Our paper re‐examines Lau et al.’s model and hypotheses to assess the external validity of their findings, based on a very different sample of managers. Drawing on recent organisational justice literature, it further develops the model and examines the potential interaction effects of fairness of performance evaluation procedures and other variables on job satisfaction. Finally, it extends the outcome variable to include manager performance. Using survey responses from 165 managers, supported by 24 interviews, drawn from three major organisations in the manufacturing and financial services sectors, we find that Lau et al.’s results on the indirect effects of fairness of performance evaluation procedures on job satisfaction are generalisable to other organisational settings and managerial levels. However, using their model we do not find support for the outcome‐based effects through distributive fairness. Developing a revised model we observe that the effects of distributive fairness on job satisfaction are indirect via organisational commitment. When the model is further developed to incorporate performance as the outcome variable, we observe similar findings.