2.4 Image In the city of Rome the emperor glorified his relationship with the provinces. Here you will consider how the emperor was exalted in the provinces. It was impossible for the emperor to be seen personally by all his subjects and so methods were employed to publicise his face and name – to overcome geographic distance by making the emperor familiar to his people. Standardised images of the emperor – on statues, busts and coins – were widely copied and placed in prominent public locations.
2.7.3 Mosaics The question of the mosaics can be considered at various levels. As a flooring technique its origin lies in the Hellenistic east, but in the Punic world plaster floors inset with small squared stones, sometimes in geometric patterns, are also known, as you have seen in the video of the houses at Carthage. So it's not possible simply to see mosaic floors as a part of Roman culture which came to be dominant in Africa, because mosaics themselves are not a purely Roman tradition. Nevertheless, it
2.2 Modelling cultural interaction To study this mixing of cultures in a systematic way I would like to propose four models of cultural interaction which might provide a framework for scenarios of what could have happened when the Roman met the African. First, it is worth briefly explaining what is meant by ‘model’ here. ‘Model’ is used to mean an explanation of a process of change. Once a model has been suggested, it can be held up for examination. If it is found not to fit the evidence or to explain observations, it
1.8 Religion and spirituality A good example of polysemy can be found in the different ways in which people regard the terms ‘religion’ and ‘spirituality’, and this is the subject of the first exercise below. Give some thought for a moment to Learning outcomes By the end of this unit you should: be able to discuss different perspectives on the creation of music, in particular, composition and improvisation; have an understanding of the basic principles underlying North Indian art music; have an understanding of the basic principles underlying Sundanese gamelan music. 4.18.2 Information visualisation We read increasingly of the problem of information overload. Earlier, we emphasised the importance of designing appropriate information representations to assist human interpretation in order to create actionable knowledge. Information visualisation is concerned explicitly with designing representations using intuitive visual metaphors and graphics to highlight the most important aspects of information structures and processes. Information visualisation is a rapidly emerg 4.17.1 Software agents A software agent is a program that displays a certain minimum level of autonomy – it acts as a surrogate for a human user. An agent does something for the user automatically, when given instructions. The more sophisticated the agent is, the fewer instructions it needs, and the more capable it is of making decisions on its own – the more ‘agent-like’ it is. An agent can be run on a client (the user's machine) or on a server (for example, a web server). It can also be anchored (stationa 3.5.1 Planning a group memory system: a framework Nothing can be stored in a computer-supported organisational memory unless it is encoded in some form. Who is going to invest the effort to encode information within an organisation? Creating a dedicated team of information librarians and knowledge managers is certainly one route, perhaps necessary for long-term maintenance of a large repository, just as librarians are needed to manage traditional libraries. But such a team cannot be experts in all aspects of the organisation's activiti 2.5 Design implications The difficulties just described have very practical implications when it comes to designing technologies. Consider the following quotations: in selecting any representation we are in the very same act unavoidably making a set of decisions about how and what to see in the world … a knowledge representation is a set of ontological commitments. It is unavoidably so because of the inevitable imperfections of Learning outcomes After studying this unit you should be able to demonstrate an understanding of the following issues, explaining in your own words, with appropriate examples: the importance of representation, interpretation and formalisation in relation to ICT and managing knowledge; the concept of a ‘community of practice’ in relation to ICT; the main functions that ICT can play in helping to manage knowledge; the potential, and pro 1.2 The machinery of government: policy as rational planning Much of the policy literature is imbued with a rather mechanical conception of change: ideas about ‘pulling levers’ to make things happen, or about applying different ‘tools’ or ‘instruments’, all conceive the policy system as something like a machine itself. Component parts – the government departments, regulatory bodies, delivery organisations, and even the people who staff them – are viewed as connected though static and predictable mechanisms. The system is seen as non-ada Introduction Most of the literature on the policy process focuses on how policy is made: the processes of negotiation and bargaining that take place, the struggle between rationality and politics, and the tension between ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ approaches. This unit is concerned with a rather different set of dynamics: the relationship between policy and what actually happens in the process of delivery. Formal, sequential descriptions of the policy process relegate this phase to the idea of imp 5.1 Decision making Decision making is understood as management's main task. Usually, the model of decision making is described as a perfectly well-organised, rational and logical process. First, the problem is defined. Second, all the relevant information that leads to an optimal solution is collected. Third, reviewing the data, management (perhaps with the help of technocratic ‘experts’) develops several possible solutions. Fourth, evaluating the possible solutions carefully, management makes a decision re 4.2.1 Three sources of authority According to Weber, there were three major bases to authority.
Charismatic authority means that deference and obedience will be given because of the extraordinary attractiveness and power of the person. The person is owed homage because of their capacity to project personal magnetism, grace and bearing. For instance, management gurus such as Jack Welch, politicians such as Nelson Mandela, or popular characters such as Princess Diana are charis 4.2 Bureaucracy Bureaucracy as a concept has had an interesting career: it begins in France in the eighteenth century. By the nineteenth century, the German state constructed by its first Chancellor, Bismarck, was a model bureaucracy in both its armed forces and civil administration. Weber (1978) realised that the creation of the modern state of Germany had only been possible because of the development of a disciplined state bureaucracy and a bureaucratised standing army – innovations pioneered in Prussia 3.3.1 Japan After the Second World War, the commander of the allied occupation of Japan (1945–52), General Douglas MacArthur, proclaimed in a September 1945 interview with the New York Times that ‘Japan will never again become a world power'; and, five years later, his economic experts advised that ‘the Japanese economy's best course in the postwar era would be to make “knickknacks” – their word – for underdeveloped countries’ (Fingleton, 1997, pp. 1–2). Today, Japan is a technol 3.1.1 Global convergence? The Nobel Laureate, Douglass North (1990, p. 46), has argued that progress, from a less to a more complex society, is characterised by a lengthy and uneven but unidirectional move from informal institutional rules of practice to formal constraints. Thus, informal sanctions, taboos, customs, traditions and codes of conduct are superseded by formal rules embodied in constitutions, laws and legally enforceable property rights, including intellectual property and copyrights. North argues that the 3.1 Interconnectedness In making sense of the stretch from the here-and-now to the wider context, social science has often seized on distinct levels: the micro – dealing with things that happen in organisations, for instance – and the macro or national level. Explanations are often generated at either the micro or the macro level and critical connections between the two are ignored (Flyvbjerg, 2001, p. 138). Arguably, increased talk about globalisation provides a convenient label for things that g 4.4 Marks and Spencer: a case study The following case study examines a company coming to terms with market orientation. Marks & Spencer is the latest UK retailer to turn to the web to revive its fortunes. In the week that the company announced a halving in its pre-tax p 4.1 Choosing customers Think about your own organisation – or your own experiences as a customer. I'm sure you'll agree that, over the last few years, customers have become very sophisticated. They expect higher standards, lower costs, and a wide range of goods and services that are provided at their convenience. If an organisation does not provide what they want, they find one that can. Most companies have experienced changes in their markets, such as new customer demands and expectations, and new competit
Exercise
Case study 1 M&S goes online to reverse crisis
