Volume 7 (2011)
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10222/13383
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Item Open Access “Don’t be evil”: Uncovering the implications of Google search(Dalhousie Journal of Interdisciplinary Management, 2011-03-31) Winston, StephanieGoogle has taken the world by storm, and, with its fast and seemingly accurate search results, internet users are increasingly using this search engine to obtain the majority of their information. This paper studies the implications of internet users’ increasing reliance on Google for retrieving information. It specifically examines Google search because it is the world’s most prominent search engine, and studies the potential flaws in its algorithm, such as search engine bias and the rich-gets-richer phenomenon, as well as issues in the overall website retrieval process. It concludes that due to the sheer number of users relying on the first page of Google results for information, the seemingly indiscernible flaws in the system have a significant effect on the formation of knowledge.Item Open Access And That’s the Way It Is: The Media’s Role in Ending the Vietnam War(Dalhousie Journal of Interdisciplinary Management, 2011-03-31) Phinney, JackieThe Vietnam War, also known as “The Living Room War,” was the first major American conflict to be so honestly documented by the media, as previous war correspondence focused mainly on the positive aspects of the war, to keep morale up on home soil. However, with the advent of television and the American citizen’s growing need for the truth, the media developed into an entity that no longer delivered second-hand messages, but instead sought their own information, thereby leading to the American people’s loss of faith in their government and the war it so strongly believed in.Item Open Access No Magic Solution: An examination of the arguments in favour of contracting out government services(Dalhousie Journal of Interdisciplinary Management, 2011-03-31) O'Brien, JoeyThis paper examines the arguments commonly used to support contracting out service delivery to the private sector and attempts to demonstrate that these arguments overestimate the benefits of contracting out. First, the economic savings attributed to contracting out service delivery are considered and shown to omit important supplementary costs associated with the contracting process. Next empirical evidence is used to test the common argument that private sector service delivery is always superior to that of the public sector. Finally, the assertion that contracting out service delivery will lead to innovative solutions to government’s problems is explored. The paper attempts to demonstrate that internal reforms of government structures should be considered as a strong alternative option to contracting out.Item Open Access Application of Knowledge Management for Sustainable Development in Institutions of Higher Education(Dalhousie Journal of Interdisciplinary Management, 2011-03-31) McNeil, RebeccaCampus sustainability is an increasingly popular notion for universities around the world in light of increasingly serious global environmental problems. Yet the very concept of “sustainability” itself is a complex, or “wicked”, problem that makes managing this transition complex and difficult. The scope of a sustainable campus could include anything from greening facilities, increasing environmental education, integrating sustainability priorities into purchasing policies, and an endless list of other considerations. Given the breadth that sustainability could have on a university campus, employing tools to help manage this goal will create more effective and immediate change. One possible tool is Knowledge Management (KM), the practice of “capturing, organizing and storing information” (“Imperial College London,” 2010, para. 25). Specifically, a framework by Allen et al is applied to the sustainability in higher education (SHE) problem to help universities take steps towards creating sustainable campus.Item Open Access The Effect of Respect, Trust, and Fear in Adversarial Stakeholder Relationships: A Case Study on Water Commodification and Stakeholder Engagement(Dalhousie Journal of Interdisciplinary Management, 2011-03-31) McGinley, MarkAcademic discussion around stakeholder engagement has been focused on the attributes of the various stakeholders rather than on the relationship between the stakeholders. This paper examines the role that intangible variables - respect, fear, and trust - play in stakeholder relationships that are characterized by intractable conflict. That role is explored through a case study of stakeholder groups with adversarial positions on the commodification and export of Canada’s freshwater. Through discussion of the relationship between two sets of stakeholders with conflicting interests on Canada’s freshwater commodification respect, fear, and trust are advanced as the key intangible variables that create the underlying conflict. With these root causes identified the paper explores methods to build respect, reduce fear, and establish trust among stakeholders in an effort to shift their relationship from primarily adversarial to collaborative in the hopes of facilitating constructive dialogue.Item Open Access The Reader’s Devices: The Affordances of Ebook Readers(Dalhousie Journal of Interdisciplinary Management, 2011-03-31) MacFadyen, HeatherPrint books and ebook devices now co-exist in a reading eco-system. The ways in which readers understand and describe their experience of reading on ebook devices is shaped by long-established cultural expectations about the abstract as well as the physical affordances of the print book. Ebook devices cannot help but challenge those expectations. A review of readers’ reactions to the emergence of ebook devices offers a glimpse into the complex cultural position of both the idea and the experience of reading.Item Open Access Subsidies and their Implications on Fisheries Management in St. Lucia(Dalhousie Journal of Interdisciplinary Management, 2011-03-31) Lay, KaitlanWorldwide, fisheries subsidies contribute to fleet overcapacity, to overfishing, and to the decimation of the marine environment. Despite the fact that small-scale fisheries catch roughly the same amount of edible fish while causing less overall environmental damage, government preference for subsidy allotment continues to be in favour of industrial fisheries. St. Lucia is a Caribbean island which is recognized as a small vulnerable economy that relies heavily on its small-scale fisheries for economic and social development. The island nation has become largely dependent on foreign subsidies towards its fishery sector, with the majority of the subsidies designated to capacity enhancing programs, which lead to resource overexploitation. This report discusses the importance of directing subsidies away from programs that negatively impact the fishery and moving subsidies towards beneficial programs, with a focus on the development and implementation of effective fisheries management systems for St. Lucia.Item Open Access Cinema during the first two decades of the Soviet Union: how censorship of the arts inhibits the dissemination of information(Dalhousie Journal of Interdisciplinary Management, 2011-03-31) Hamilton, LoraThis paper examines the increased censorship that film experienced during the inaugural decades of the Soviet Union. Through an overview of the different genres and trends of Soviet cinema during this time, I draw parallels to the political climate and the role of film as an information medium. Censorship remains a persistent, if evolving, feature of the Party’s relationship with cinema throughout this time, and I conclude that censorship of art, in this case film, is akin to inhibiting the dissemination of information.