1.1 A note about terminology We begin with a ‘health warning’ about terminology, this time about the use of the word ‘risk’ in finance. The difference between the everyday and the specialised meanings of ‘risk’ is less technical and more radical than in the case of ‘return’. In everyday usage, ‘risk’ is negative – the risk of having a car accident or the risk of losing one's job. If we use ‘risk’ in a positive sense at all, it is only as a result of adopting a consciously ironic tone: ‘T
5.5 Social bookmarks If you find you have a long unmanageable list of favourites/bookmarks you might like to try social bookmarks as an alternative. Read 7 things you should know about socia 3.10 Summary There is a lot of information available on business and management via the internet. Try the activity below to start exploring what is available. Use the Author(s): Acknowledgements The unit has been adapted for OpenLearn by The Open University Business School from The Open University course B713: Fundamentals of Senior Management Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlik 2.2 Effective communication Whilst effective communication is an essential skill for the project manager, most people tend to be over-optimistic about the accuracy and efficacy of the communication process. Achieving understanding can be difficult, especially in the atmosphere of change and uncertainty generated by a major project. Verma (1996) identifies the following barriers to good communication. Introduction Many managers find that they are required to manage projects. In this unit we aim to help you to take an overview of the features of a project and the issues that arise in managing a project. Once you have identified a piece of work as a project, you are able to use a number of management approaches that have proven effective in managing projects. A project is a one-off, non-repeated activity or set of tasks that achieves clearly stated objectives within a time limit. Most projects are goal-o 1.6.3 Summary High culture tends to unite Europeans. Education plays a key role in the construction of national identity. A common curriculum shared by all European peoples will be crucial in fostering the development of a European identity. 1.6.2 Education Education is obviously one of the crucial dimensions in any attempt to develop a future European identity or at least more understanding and convergence among Europeans. If the school made the nation, it should also be a key factor in promoting Europeanness. Observers of the school scene in Europe acknowledge the existence of a growing sentiment of interest for European themes (institutions, politics, peoples, languages). Furthermore, the EU-based exchange programmes have recognised the impor 1.6.1 High culture It has been said that high culture unites Europeans, while low culture separates them. Another way of putting it is to say that the European elites share a considerable amount of culture, while the masses do not. For Mike Featherstone it is legitimate to talk about European culture in the sense of a ‘symbolic representation, a historic idea which has developed above that of the nation state, yet does not entail the elimination of national cultural affiliations’ (Featherstone, 1996, 1.5.2 Summary The development of a European identity will be the outcome of a long process in which bottom-up as well as top-down initiatives are likely to be employed. 1.4.1 Historical background European unification was begun by the social democratic and Christian democratic leaders of the Western European states who had fought each other during the Second World War. The idea was to create a community of states that would guarantee peace and prosperity. The process turned out to be long and arduous, particularly after the federalist failures of the Congress of the Hague (1949) and the European Defence Community (1953). The main emphasis was on economic co-operation, and the project w 1 1 Who are Europeans? When I went to Loughborough for the first time I was pleasantly surprised as a social scientist to see that the town was twinned with Épinal, the French town where the founder of modern sociology, Émile Durkheim, was born. In fact, as you enter any major English town you are likely to see sooner or later a plaque indicating that the town is twinned with another European town. But what is the meaning of this practice? After the Second World War, which pitched European state against Eur Acknowledgements The content acknowledged below is Proprietary (see terms and conditions) and is used under licence.
I would like to thank Liz Stokoe and Jackie Abell for giving me access to their transcript of the Panorama interview and along with Peter Bull generously sharing their unpublished work and knowledge of Diana lit 1.12 The politics of representation We turn now to consider Diana as an icon, as the subject of discourse. It could be said that Diana and the many words written about her form a discursive space (Gilbert et al., 1999; Silverstone, 1998). She is the rather enigmatic centre of many competing representations of royalty, femininity, democracy, the family, morality, celebrity, fashion, private versus public life which jostle with each other. Such a discursive space is a place of argument. To use another metaphor, it i 6.2 Introduction to the law in Scotland This unit will introduce you to law making in Scotland. It is taken from W150 An introduction to law in contemporary Scotland, a new 15-point course from The Open University's Centre for Law. The unit begins by developing your general and legal study skills such as reading unfamiliar information, note taking and critical thinking. It then asks you to think about what law is and introduces you to the legal history of Scotland. The unit then moves to look at the Scottish Parliament by gi 4.1.4 Summary Identity is based on being the same as some people and different from others. Identities are constructed in relation to place. Difference is unequally weighted and can create categories of outsiders. Individuals and groups have to negotiate both the uncertainties of social change and the constraints of inequality. 2.2.1 Summary Children's developing understanding of gender can be described as a search for certainty. Young children make mistakes about gender illustrating their rigidity and their naive certainty regarding gender. As children's knowledge of gender grows in complexity, basic biological knowledge is added to their social-cultural understanding. Research by Francis illustrating girls' ‘sensible-selfless’ and boys' â 2 Note taking from an audio visual text The first important point to make is that note taking is more than a process of summarising everything that you see; it must be an active process of engaging with the material and thinking it through for yourself. In the videos, the multidimensional nature of the visual images and the stories they convey means that you will not be able to take in everything on first viewing. The videos allow us to present visual as well as audio information and in a form that makes it easier for you to revisi 4.5 Structural explanations III: cultures An early and influential body of research by the Chicago School of sociology explained criminal behaviour in terms of cultural structures. The school studied American male juvenile delinquents – or young offenders – in inter-war American cities (Shaw and McKay, 1969). Here we use the term culture to describe the web of meanings and values that individuals live their life within. (Recall from Section 1.1 how important every-day norms and conventions were in defining the meaning of c 2.2 A society frightened by crime? We do not have to look too far to find someone saying that the UK is a society gripped by rising levels of crime, anti-social behaviour and incivility; or that disorder threatens social stability. The criminologist Robert Reiner suggests that ‘in the last 40 years, we have got used to thinking of crime, like the weather and pop music, as something that is always getting worse’ (Reiner, 1996, p. 3). So who is telling this story? Most of us will have heard older family members and fri
Activity – what you need to know about social bookmarks
Activity
