The four Visegrad states — Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia (until 1993 Czechoslovakia) and Hungary — form a compact area between Germany and Austria in the west and the states of the former USSR in the east. They are bounded by the Baltic in the north and the Danube river in the south. They are cut by the Sudeten and Carpathian mountain ranges, which divide Poland off from the other states. Poland is an extension of the North European plain and like the latter is drained by rivers that flow from south to north west — the Oder, the Vlatava and the Elbe, the Vistula and the Bug. The Danube is the great exception, flowing from its source eastward, turning through two 90-degree turns to end up in the Black Sea, forming the barrier and often the political frontier between central Europe and the Balkans. Hungary to the east of the Danube is also an open plain. The region is historically and culturally part of western Europe, but its eastern Marches now represents a vital strategic zone between Germany and the core of the European Union to the west and the Russian zone to the east.

Economy and Society

Series Editor's Preface. Introduction by John Breuilly. Acknowledgements. 1. Definitions. State and nation. The nation. 2. Culture in Agrarian Society. Power and culture in the agro-literature society. The varieties of agrarian rulers. 3. Industrial Society. The society of perpetual growth. Social genetics. The age of universal high culture. 4. The Transition to an Age of Nationalism. A note on the weakness of nationalism. Wild and garden culture. 5. What is a Nation. The course of true nationalism never did run smooth. 6. Social Entropy and Equality in Industrial Society. Obstacles to entropy. Fissures and barriers. A diversity of focus. 7. A Typology of Nationalisms. The varieties of nationalist experience. Diaspora nationalism. 8. The Future of Nationalism. Industrial culture - one or many?. 9. Nationalism and Ideology. Who is for Nuremberg?. One nation, one state. 10. Conclusion. What is not being said. Summary. Select bibliography. Bilbliography of Ernest Gellner's writing: Ian Jarvie. Index

Nations and Nationalism

This article presents a theoretical examination of the digital divide, tracing its origins in the centre–Left social inclusion policy agenda of the 1980s and 1990s to its current status of political ‘hot topic’. It then moves on to outline four conceptual limitations to conventional dichotomous notions of the digital divide and individuals’ ‘access’ to information and communications technology (ICT): what is meant by ICT; what is meant by ‘access’; the relationship between ‘access to ICT’ and ‘use of ICT’; and a lack of consideration of the consequences of engagement with ICT. The article outlines a more sophisticated, hierarchical model of the digital divide based around these conceptual ‘stages’ while recognizing the mediating role of economic, cultural and social forms of capital in shaping individuals’ engagements with ICT. It concludes by developing a set of research themes and questions for future examination of inequalities in individuals’ use of ICT.

Reconsidering Political and Popular Understandings of the Digital Divide

Over the past 20 years, there has been a considerable expansion in theory and research about human resource management and performance. This paper reviews progress by identifying a series of phases in the development of relevant theory and research. It then sets out a number of challenges for the future on issues of theory, management processes and research methodology. The main conclusion from the review is that after over two decades of extensive research, we are still unable to answer core questions about the relationship between human resource management and performance. This is largely attributed to the limited amount of research that is longitudinal and has been able to address the linkages between HRM and performance and to study the management of HR implementation.

Human resource management and performance: still searching for some answers

he revised English edition of this book tlie T original Swcdisli cdition. without tlie subtitle. is froni 1997 should be considered :is i111 important contribution to sociology and social science in general to tlie extent tliat it is a clear and wcll-structured introduction to critical i-disrri, one of the most rccent and vigorous theoretical streams in the field of thc social scicnces. if we take into coiisidcration tlic influential work of hlargaret t\\rclier (1995: Realist Socinl Tlicory: Tlic I\\loriJlio!gciicti(’

Explaining Society, Critical Realism in the Social Sciences:

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the conceptual underpinnings of the theoretical weaknesses of extant research investigating the HRM‐Organizational Performance Link (hereafter HRM‐P Link)Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews a number of different empirical approaches to the HRM‐P Link and reflects upon, and defines, theory, focusing upon two important dimensions: prediction and explanation The paper also discusses why the field in its current guise cannot sustain a commitment to explanation, so that under‐theorisation and lack of explanatory power go hand‐in‐hand It then tackles the possibility that theoretical underpinnings for empirical research on the HRM‐P Link might come from other disciplines such as economics The paper also begins to set out a meta‐theoretical alternativeFindings – The paper finds that: theoretical underpinnings will not emerge and develop simply by doing more, and/or better, empirical work; meta‐theoretical problems besetting the paradigm are actua

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Theorising under-theorisation in research on the HRM - performance link

Since the 1992 Further and Higher Education Act, the new further education (FE) marketplace created in England and Wales has demanded that schools and colleges compete in a bid to secure larger shares of funded post‐16 provision. Little attention has been devoted to establishing how 15 and 16 year‐olds interpret this new competitive culture, or how individual institutions perceive and respond to their marketplaces. This paper reports some of the key findings of the ‘Post‐16 Markets Project’, a national survey of the decision‐making of pupils as they approach the end of compulsory schooling at 16, and of the influence of FE institutions’ marketing practice on that decision‐making. Particular attention is focused on the different educational pathways or ‘trajectories’ young people choose in an increasingly diverse FE sector, and on the timing of decisions and the factors that influence them. The balance between course and institution in decisions is explored, establishing the market‐value placed up...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/1050958

Constructing Choice in Contiguous and Parallel Markets: institutional and school leavers’ responses to the new post‐16 marketplace

Educational use of the Internet forms one of the cornerstones of Labour government policy, primarily via the construction of the 'National Grid for Learning' which aims to connect every school in the UK to the Internet by 2002. In this paper we report on the extent to which schools are already buying into information and communi- cations technology (ICT) and in particular the Internet, effectively examining the foundations upon which the Learning Grid is being constructed. Via an empirical study of 150 current school websites we will argue that schools adopt a variety of approaches to the Internet and Worldwide Web depending upon the technological and institutional capital of the school, and that far from being utilised solely for educational purposes, the Internet provides an additional tool through which schools seek to reaffirm or reconstruct their existing institutional identities with varying levels of success. The paper concludes by adopting a semiotic framework for analysing the differential use of the Internet by

Surfing to School: the electronic reconstruction of institutional identities

Human resource departments increasingly use the statistical analysis of performance indicators as a way of demonstrating their contribution to organizational performance. In this book, Steve Fleetwood and Anthony Hesketh take issue with this 'scientific' approach by arguing that its preoccupation with statistical analysis is misplaced because it fails to take account of the complexities of organizations and the full range of issues that influence individual performance. The book is split into three parts. Part I deconstructs research into the alleged link between people and business performance by showing that it cannot explain the associations it alleges. Part II attributes these shortcomings to the importation of spurious 'scientific' methods, before going on to suggest more appropriate methods that might be used in future. Finally, Part III explores how HR executives and professionals understand their work and shows how a critical realist stance adds value to this understanding through enhanced explanation.

/pdf/explaining-the-performance-of-human-resource-management-4q67xdtmgg.pdf

Explaining the Performance of Human Resource Management

> This study examines the 1996 prospectuses of 59 of the 100 secondary schools whose 1991 prospectuses were reviewed in a previous paper (Knight, 1992). The intention is to consider the ways in which schools present themselves in the educational market‐place. It is shown that they take the business of marketing through prospectuses seriously, evidence being the more professional appearance that these brochures now have. While other changes are also noticed, the argument is that prospectuses tend to depict schools of all types in similar ways. An explanation for this is offered, drawing upon marketing and on game theories. On this analysis, beliefs that changes in educational policy will lead to increasing differentiation of provision is, at least in terms of image‐making, exaggerated. More striking than the evidence of diversity is the evidence that schools are busily managing their images in much the same ways.

Anthony Hesketh

Papers

Theorising under-theorisation in research on the HRM - performance link

Constructing Choice in Contiguous and Parallel Markets: institutional and school leavers’ responses to the new post‐16 marketplace

Surfing to School: the electronic reconstruction of institutional identities

Explaining the Performance of Human Resource Management

Secondary school prospectuses and educational markets