White paper

About: White paper is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 3852 publications have been published within this topic receiving 51169 citations. The topic is also known as: White paper & White papers.

Dominant Paradigms Overturned or ‘Business as Usual’? Development Discourse and the White Paper on International Development

Abstract: Using the Department for International Development’s recent White Paper on Development as a case study, this article critically reassesses Escobar’s notion of development discourse. Rather than being monolithic and static, as Escobar and others have implied, the writers argue that changes can and do take place within development organizations. Not only does the White Paper clearly signal a new direction in policy; it also results both from changes within DFID – in personnel and in the balance of power between interest groups – and between DFID and civil society.

To what extent are regional tourism organisations (RTOs) in Australia leveraging the benefits of web technology for destination marketing and eCommerce

Abstract: The information-intensive nature of the tourism and travel industry suggests an important role for Web technology in the promotion and marketing of tourist destinations. The rapid development of the Internet and WWW is having profound impacts on the industry. In fact, according to Tourism Australia, travel and tourism has become the single largest category of products sold over the Internet (Tourism White Paper, Destinations online: approaches for regional tourism organisations, Centre for Regional Tourism Research, Southern Cross University, 2007). With reports of travel purchases being one of the fastest growing segments of the Internet community it is no surprise that the number of tourism operators on the Web has increased considerably over the past few years. This paper presents the results of a longitudinal study that seeks to determine if and to what extent, Regional Tourism Organisations (RTOs) in Australia are leveraging the benefits of Web technology for destination marketing and eCommerce. The study was undertaken over an eight year period from 2000 to 2008, using the Extended Model of Internet Commerce Adoption (eMICA) (Burgess and Cooper, International conference on telecommunications and electronic commerce, Dallas, November, 2000). A significant finding of this study is that despite assertions that the Tourism industry is leading the field in terms of eCommerce adoption (Buhalis and Law, Information and communication technologies in tourism, Ljubljana, Springer, Berlin, 2007), and this may hold true with some providers in the sector (for example, hotels and airlines) it does not appear to be the case with Australian RTOs who have been slow to embrace eCommerce. The results of the study also add support to the premise of eMICA, that is, in developing commercial websites, businesses (particularly, SMEs) in this industry sector typically start simply by establishing a presence on the Web and build on functionality over time, as their experience with and expertise in the use of Internet and Web technologies increases and they become more aware of the benefits the Web has to offer.

Closing the Gender Gap in Retirement Income: What Difference Will Recent UK Pension Reforms Make?

Abstract: The second report of the Pensions Commission sought to establish a framework for a sustainable pension system for future generations of pensioners in the UK. The framework has been largely accepted by government in their recent White Paper, Security in Retirement: Towards a New Pension System (2006). Legislation will follow. The Commission and the government have made a number of claims about how their proposals will benefit women. Reforms have been welcomed by women's lobby groups. This article presents a gendered analysis of the Pensions Commission proposals using unpublished data generated by Pensim2, a pensions' simulator developed by the Department for Work and Pensions. Substantial improvements for women will be in the long term only, and will depend heavily on the extent to which gendered patterns of work and family life change in future. For women who follow traditional paths of combining part-time work with looking after children and kin, outcomes will depend on partnering arrangements. If they are married or cohabiting, they will be better off; but if they live alone in later life, the principal advantage of the proposals will be a reduction in means testing rather than an improvement in levels of income.

Present-Day Dillemas And Challenges Of The South African Tertiary System

Abstract: The Education White Paper 3 on Higher Education aimed to transform the higher education system. Change within tertiary education included adjusting the size and shape of institutions, the meaning of autonomy and accountability, the nature of higher education, the character of student demographic distribution, management and governance, roles of student politics, models of delivery, the notion of higher education in terms of the relationship between free trade and public good, programme changes and the nature of the academic workplace. At this stage, transformation in higher education is leaping outwards to fulfil the criteria set by international competitiveness and related efficiency criteria that can be attributed to globalisation pressures and to deeper factors inherent in the nature of higher education, especially in terms of its resistance to change and modernization. In this regard, the tertiary higher education system in South Africa is faced with many multi-dimensional challenges that need to be addressed in this article. This includes stating whether Grade 12 results as the outcome of this exit point at school level are, internationally speaking, a reasonable predictor of first-year academic success at university. In South Africa, there is no benchmarking of the National Senior Certificate (NSC) examination; therefore, first-year students have difficulty in adapting to the university environment as they find themselves devoid of indispensable bases for the pursuit of their studies and the weakness of the level of education given at school level in a large number of instances. Furthermore, five universities were placed under administration in the 2011-2012 period because of appallingly poor levels of management, which adds extra layers of suspicion to the notion of the impact of higher education in South Africa. Many other challenges are facing the South African tertiary education system, which will be analysed and recommendations arrived at that will attempt to contribute to an enhancement of tertiary education in South Africa.