This paper is an exploratory qualitative study into how tribunals of inquiry act as instruments of legitimacy and hegemony for the State. Focusing on a case study of two consecutive tribunals of inquiry into the biggest health scandal in the history of the Irish State, the paper draws on ritual theory to offer a view of the tribunal as a process of ritualization, a strategic way of acting by the State in times of crisis. Through this process of ritualization, an authoritative, structured and structuring ritualized environment is created with schemes of ritualization imposed on participants directed toward creating ritualized bodies, hoped-for acceptance of the tribunal's projection of reality and the re-legitimation of the role of the State in undertaking its core functions.

This article explores the role that technology plays in creating and fostering transparency in global supply chains. Transparency is deemed vital in the creation of sustainable and resilient supply chains and overall effective corporate governance. There are two distinct orientations toward the use of technology by multinational corporations (MNCs) in creating sustainability transparency within their global supply chains: control and relational. A control orientation views technology as a tool to gather the ever-increasing levels of sustainability data on supplier practices in an efficient, secure, and progressively automated manner. A relational orientation adopts a view where technology is a tool to help build social relations and improve dialogue and collaboration on sustainability throughout the supply chain. A key difference in the two orientations lies in the mindset of the MNC manager toward the development of supply chain sustainability transparency. The article illustrates the effective application of both approaches and offers advice to managers on the design choices they need to consider in choosing technologies.

Companies are faced with a choice of which type of power to use in their efforts to persuade their first-tier suppliers to adopt socially responsible procurement practices with key second-tier suppliers. However, we know little about how first-tier suppliers will react to different types of power and which are most effective in encouraging the adoption of socially responsible procurement practices. We are also ignorant of the impact of these practices on first-tier suppliers’ performance. This paper uses bases of power theory to examine the impact of buyer companies’ power usage (non-mediated and mediated) on first-tier suppliers’ adoption of socially responsible procurement practices (process-based and market-based) with their own (second-tier) suppliers. We surveyed managers responsible for sustainable supply chain management in 156 firms and analyzed the results using structural equation modeling. Our findings show that non-mediated power use (expert and referent) influences the adoption of process-based and market-based practices, while mediated power use (coercion, legitimacy, and reward) has no significant impact on the adoption of either type of practice. Additionally, we find that the adoption of market-based socially responsible procurement practices leads to enhanced performance for first-tier suppliers who adopt these practices with their second-tier suppliers.

Many companies have limited visibility of their supply chain information, have a poor understanding of their capabilities for capturing and reporting this information, and have not overtly considered their supply chain information disclosure strategy. In this article, the authors discuss the pressures on companies to disclose supply chain information, the drivers and impediments to supply chain disclosure, and the types of supply chain information. Companies should anticipate the information demands of external stakeholders. The adoption of new information and communication technologies, particularly in the areas of tracking and tracing, such as radio frequency identification, has facilitated tremendous transparency potential. Steps companies should take include: 1. Analyze the pressures for increased supply chain transparency. 2. Assess current capabilities and resource base. 3. Identify current levels and quality of critical information in the supply chain. 4. Clarify strategic thinking around the supply chain information disclosure. 5. Decide on the type and level of information disclosure. 6. Ensure strategic alignment between supply chain information and company strategy.

This paper is an exploratory qualitative study of the complex organizational and inter-organizational-level change outcomes associated with the holding of two consecutive tribunals of inquiry into the contamination of the Irish blood supply. Drawing on ideas of negotiated order (Strauss, 1978, 1993) and extending it to include a Foucaudian view on power (Foucault, 1975) we present tribunals as a partially open, temporal setting where the various parties adopt negotiating positions, both cooperative and antagonistic, to produce multiple, unpredictable and emergent outcomes. In so doing the paper extends the study of tribunals of inquiry beyond the current preoccupation with the analysis of the content of tribunal reports and with implementation concerns during the post-event period to provide a more temporally sensitive emic or insider view of the lived experience of the tribunal context itself and change emerging therefrom.

Our research uses a social exchange theory lens to examine the impact of customer dependence and power usage on their supplier’s adoption of environmental supply chain sustainability practices and performance. Although, customers pressure their suppliers to adopt green supply chain behaviors no one, to our knowledge, has examined which persuasion techniques influence the adoption of these practices, which practices are affected and if this leads to positive performance outcomes for suppliers. We conducted a survey of managers responsible for environmental supply chain management across a sample of firms and analyzed the results using structural equation modeling to understand how non-mediated and mediated sources of power impact the adoption of monitoring and collaborative environmental supply chain practices and performance. Our findings show that customer dependence leads to the use of non-mediated and mediated power use. Non-mediated power use influences the adoption of monitoring and collaborative practices (with more impact on collaborative practices), while mediated power use has no significant impact on adoption. Also monitoring and collaborative practices lead to enhanced performance for suppliers, although the impact of collaborative practices is much stronger.

Purpose– This paper aims to examine what drives the adoption of different social sustainability supply chain practices. Research has shown that certain factors drive the adoption of environmental sustainability practices but few focus on social supply chain practices, delineate which practices are adopted or what drives their adoption.Design/methodology/approach– The authors examine the facilitative role of sustainability culture to explain the adoption of social sustainability supply chain practices: basic practices, consisting of monitoring and management systems and advanced practices, which are new product and process development and strategic redefinition. The authors then explore the role played by a firm’s entrepreneurial orientation in shaping and reinforcing the adoption of social sustainability supply chain practices. A survey of 156 supply chain managers in multiple industries in Ireland was conducted to test the relationship between the variables.Findings– The findings show that sustainability culture is positively related to all the practices, and entrepreneurial orientation impacts and moderates social sustainability culture in advanced social sustainability supply chain adoption.Research limitations/implications– As with any survey, this is a single point in time with a single respondent. Implications for managers include finding the right culture in the organisation to implement social sustainability supply chain management practices that go beyond monitoring to behavioural changes in the supply chain with implications beyond the dyad of buyer and supplier to lower tier suppliers and the community surrounding the supply chain.Practical implications– The implications for managers include developing and fostering cultural attributes in the organisation to implement social sustainability supply chain management practices that go beyond monitoring suppliers to behavioural changes in the supply chain with implications beyond the dyad of buyer and supplier to lower tier suppliers and the community surrounding the supply chain.Originality/value– This is the first time, to the authors’ knowledge, that cultural and entrepreneurial variables have been tested for social sustainability supply chain practices, giving them new insights into how and why social sustainability supply chain practices are adopted.

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualise and operationalise the concept of supply chain management sustainability practices. Based on a multi-stage procedure involving a literature review, expert Q-sort and pre-test process, pilot test and survey of 156 supply chain directors and managers in Ireland, we develop a multidimensional conceptualisation and measure of social and environmental supply chain management sustainability practices. The research findings show theoretically sound constructs based on four underlying sustainable supply chain management practices: monitoring, implementing systems, new product and process development and strategy redefinition. A two-factor model is then identified as the most reliable: comprising process-based and market-based practices.

In this paper we empirically investigate whether interest rate changes by the European Central Bank and the U.S. Federal Reserve influence the bid-ask currency spread between the U.S. dollar and the euro for the period January 3, 2006 through November 30, 2007. Evidence is presented that indicates that changes in the Federal Funds target rate may cause an increase in the spread and, therefore transactions costs, through recent increased volatility in the underlying spot exchange rate. However, rate changes announced by the European Central Bank dampens volatility in the spread through the same mechanism.

PurposeThis paper aims to use the case of early medieval Irish monasticism to highlight the implicit a historicism of the knowledge management (KM) literature and to show how such a historical study can be used to increase the level of discourse and reflection within the contested and increasingly fragmented field of KM.Design/methodology/approachThe author uses secondary source analysis from a diversity of academic fields to examine the relatively sophisticated processes through which the monks gathered, codified, created, interpreted, disseminated and used religious and secular knowledge. The author then draws out a number of insights from this literature to aid current thinking on and debates within the field of KM.FindingsThe paper presents a church metaphor of KM operating at two levels. Internally the metaphor highlights the deliberate but politically contentious nature of knowledge creation, a process of developing both explicit and tacit knowledge among the monks, revolving around ideologies and cults, and primarily concerned with the avoidance, constraining and settling of controversies and debates. Externally, the metaphor highlights the political use of and the mediation of access to knowledge for the purposes of social position and influence.Originality/valueThis paper is original in providing a detailed consideration of KM activities within a specific early medieval historical context and in drawing from the study to contribute to current thinking within the field of KM.

This paper sets out to explore the organization and management practices within early medieval Irish monastic communities. Focusing on the inter-related themes of monastic structures, strategy, control, identity and community, the paper examines the peculiar parallels between these ancient religious communities and contemporary knowledge-intensive firms. The paper then goes on to highlight the key contributions of this medieval monastic perspective for the understanding and study of contemporary knowledge-intensive firms.

This paper is a contribution to the emerging focus on premodern concerns in organisational studies. It provides an historical account of early medieval Irish monastic communities highlighting the unusual fusion of structure, community and spirituality as a way of explaining the considerable success and longevity of this unusual organisation form. Key insights arising from this study are then applied to contemporary debates on post-modern organisational forms.

Originally developed for military application, the Global Positioning System (GPS) is a worldwide satellite based navigation system. This paper investigates the recent adoption of GPS by a Dublin taxi firm National Radio Cabs (NRC). It explores the outcomes for both drivers and organisation when the social properties of knowledge are replaced by a technological system. Working as sole traders, drivers contract their services to a taxi firm that manages the system and distributes centrally received ‘jobs’. Firms traditionally rely on multi-way radio communication for work distribution and knowledge sharing. GPS provides monitoring and information management capacity that fundamentally transforms these two activities. From one perspective, the properties of GPS promise greater organisational self-knowledge, increased operational efficiency and thus increased ‘informating’ activity (Zuboff, 1988). In the case of NRC, GPS technology fundamentally redefines the organisation’s knowledge system. Prior to GPS, knowledge sharing was deeply linked to ongoing radio interaction, which served to create a ‘virtual’ network whereby all members directly participated in and ‘heard’ the organisation doing its work. Further, informal gatherings at taxi ranks and coffee stops were opportunities for community engagement. In these ways, members of the organisation constituted, negotiated and enacted the organisation’s knowledge system though effective communities of practice (Orr, 1990). GPS replaces the previous network with regulated and formalised means of interaction that do not integrate existing deeper structures. A primary outcome is the removal of multi-directional radio communications between driver, base and driver-network and its replacement with a highly sophisticated automated job allocation system. As such, GPS is rendered the single source of the organisation’s knowledge and knowledge is rendered ‘static’ rather than social. The organisation is reconstructed as the owner, holder and distributor of that knowledge. These developments have their roots in the management’s rationale for introducing GPS. Driven by pressures to increase efficiency and customer service, GPS technology offered an opportunity, explicitly, to reduce high dependency on the discretion of drivers and ‘time-consuming’ contact. Those goals are reflected in the technology’s focus: the improvement of operational efficiency is interpreted to mean externalised ‘expert’ knowledge. GPS represents a scientific ‘solution’ to location, navigation and tracking management. Evident here is the classic interpretation of knowledge as ‘thing’ rather than ‘process’ (Blackler, 1995). Whilst we do not make claims for the universal determinism of technology, nor for GPS, we seek to explore the underlying nuances and implications of this case. NRC drivers embrace the new system, perceiving it to offer them more efficient and equitable work allocation and potentially increased revenue per hour. They are also attracted to the safety benefits of being tracked, and the protection of textualised data-capture. Yet a directly observable consequence of GPS introduction is a turn-around in the power relationships within the organisation. The driver’s role is shifting from a selfdetermined one, to something new. While in the past drivers defined their work activities, GPS now dictates the majority of their movements, taking many choices ‘out of their hands’. Changes in the operational processes result in a further isolation of drivers from each other. From the organisational perspective, the knowledge configuration is also changing. Currently members retain past knowledge, which reduces the impact of shortcomings in the system. However, we suggest that GPS suppresses the exercising of knowledge, fundamentally changing the way that knowledge is acquired and shared. In particular, it sets a very different context for the socialisation of new drivers. What will be the impact of these dynamics for future operations?

The asymmetric synthesis of enantiomerically pure a-substituted tertiary homoallylic ethers 4a, 11 and 12a-c by the allylation of ethyl methyl ketone (la) with gamma-substituted allylsilanes 9a-h is described. The allylsilanes were obtained by a nickel-catalysed Grignard cross-coupling reaction of (E)- and (Z)-(3-iodoallyl)trimethylsilane with various Grignard reagents. The reaction of the allylsilanes with la in the presence of the trimethylsilyl ether of N-trifluoroacetylnorpseudoephedrine (3), and catalytic amounts of a mixture of trimethylsilyl triflate and trifluoromethanesulfonic acid led to the homoallylic ethers 4a, 11 and 12a-c with two new stereogenic centres, with a selectivity of 1:9 to >20:1 for the homoallylic and of 1:99 to >60:1 for the allylic centre. The facial selectivity does not depend on the configuration of the allylsilane, and in all reactions the anti product is preferentially formed. Interestingly, a pronounced switch of facial selectivity takes place with increasing length of the alkyl group of the allylsilane.

The kinetics of the reactions of the nitrogen-sulfur(VI) esters 4-nitrophenyl N-methylsulfamate (NPMS) with a series of pyridines and a series of alicyclic amines and of 4-nitrophenyl N-benzylsulfamate (NPBS) with pyridines, alicyclic amines, and a series of quinuclidines have been investigated in acetonitrile (ACN) in the presence of excess amine at various temperatures. Pseudo-first-order rate constants (k(obsd)) have been obtained by monitoring the release of 4-nitrophenol/4-nitrophenoxide. From the slope of a plot of k(obsd) vs [amine], second-order rate constants (k'(2)) have been obtained for the pyridinolysis of NPMS, and a Brønsted plot of log k'(2) vs pK(a) of pyridine gave a straight line with beta = 0.45. However, aminolysis with alicyclic amines of NPMS gave a biphasic Brønsted plot (beta(1) = 0.6, beta(2) approximately equal to 0). Pyridinolysis and aminolysis with alicyclic amines and quinuclidines of NPBS also gave similar biphasic Brønsted plots. This biphasic behavior has been explained in terms of a mechanistic change within the E1cB mechanism from an (E1cB)(irrev) (less basic amines) to an (E1cB)(rev) (more basic amines), and the change occurs at approximately the pK(a)'s (in ACN) of NPMS (17.94) and NPBS (17.68). The straight line Brønsted plot for NPMS with pyridines occurs because the later bases are not strong enough to substantially remove the substrate proton and initiate the mechanistic change observed in the reaction of NPMS with the strong alicyclic amines and quinuclidines. An entropy study supports the change from a bimolecular to a unimolecular mechanism. This is the first clear demonstration of this E1cB mechanistic changeover involving a nitrogen acid substrate.