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The failure of the Royal Bank of Scotland
No full textUsing newspaper articles and other secondary material, this case tells the story of how an apparently successful acquisition, coinciding with the 2008–2009 global financial crisis, brought about the near bankruptcy of the Royal Bank of Scotland. It considers how subprime mortgages were securitised and sold throughout the global financial industry, creating systemic risk and leading to large losses when the American housing market went into recession, and how an ill-conceived major acquisition came about because of ‘over-reaching’, with catastrophic consequences. It can be used in teaching about the global financial crisis, business strategy (mergers and acquisitions), leadership, governance and business ethics
For simplicity’s sake: no context, no China
No full textGenerations of China anthropologists have complained about the marginality of Chinese research in general debates in anthropology. One reason for this malaise may be that anthropologists of China did not get the balance of context and substance right. Either they adopted context created by other disciplines (for instance, to describe the setting of a village ethnography), or they focused merely on context (when providing commentaries on social change). Both approaches typically fail to capture social complexity. To approach social complexity, we need to bracket the problem of ‘context’, and instead follow actors in their own practices of attention, through the resonances that background and foreground action. Such an approach is not necessarily related to ‘China’ and never exhaustively given in ‘texts’, but it requires the analyst to attend to the forces of simplification in action and in analysis, against which it is possible to measure complexity
Is contract law liberal? On autonomy and exchange
No full textAutonomy theories of contract are influential and have many attractions, not least their compatibility with liberal ideals. However, such theories cannot account for basic features of the common law of contract, in particular: the role of established transaction types, the doctrine of consideration, and the phenomenon of contractual obligation. An exchange theory of contract can account for those features of the law. This theory’s liberal credentials can be established by connecting it to an alternative intellectual strand in the liberal tradition, sometimes known as commercial liberalism
Intra-African food trade
No full textThis chapter, on the intra-African food trade, builds upon the synopsis presented in Chapter 2 that situated Africa’s agriculture and food trade in Africa’s overall trade. Intra-African exports are second only to those to the European Union (EU) in importance as a market for exports of food and agricultural commodities and are dominated by trade in food products, while involving less trade in agricultural commodities. In contrast, agricultural commodities comprise a large share of Africa’s agricultural exports to countries in Asia, the Americas and elsewhere in the world. Intra-African trade also includes a large informal component in which trade in food products is correspondingly dominant
MSR17 A comparative assessment of LLM agreement for clinical data extraction tasks
No full textAI tools are showing promise in data extraction tasks for SLRs, meta-analyses, and more. However, LLMs are known to “hallucinate” and different models have their own strengths and weaknesses. In this study we evaluate the comparative output of different LLM models when extracting clinical data from HTA reports
Kant as methodology: race, white ignorance, and intellectual responsibility
No full textThis article situates Kant’s theories and epistemologies of race within a wider architecture of knowledge production and coloniality, and from there considers how his approach can illuminate our understandings about methodology and scholarly praxis. In doing so, this article seeks to move the conversation beyond Kant’s raciology, which by and large has been “outed,” and to instead draw attention to his methodology and praxis. It argues that by recognizing and articulating Kant’s philosophical and practical incrementalism, dualism, and erasures in knowledge production and dissemination as a methodology, we can better identify, make sense of, and critique those methodologies when they are employed in contemporary scholarship and political action. Additionally, this article attempts to answer the question of what comes next for a racially aware Kantian studies (or at least point toward possibilities) by drawing upon decolonial and postcolonial theories and a necessarily interdisciplinary approach. It then proposes a three-step approach of historicity, citational politics, and contrapuntality to address Kant’s raciology and “white ignorance” as a reflexive method with which Kantian scholars and students may be able to move forward both ethically and intellectually
Embracing complexity to challenge stigma: a qualitative analysis of representations of abortion in a Polish storytelling initiative
No full textTestimonies of abortion experiences are largely silenced in many contexts around the world, including Poland, and stigma affects how abortion is represented. Pro-choice initiatives, which support abortion rights, aim to challenge stigma through the sharing of personal abortion experiences (i.e. abortion storytelling). However, these initiatives may simultaneously construct normative hierarchies of abortion and stigmatise abortion stories which do not fit context-specific, politicised norms. This study draws on data purposefully sampled from a pro-choice abortion storytelling initiative in Poland, conducted between 2020 and 2021, and organised by the Abortion Dream Team (ADT; Aborcyjny Dream Team), an influential Polish organisation campaigning for abortion access and rights. By conducting a qualitative document analysis of 73 first-person abortion stories shared in this initiative, I explored how abortion was represented, and whether, and how, these representations challenged abortion stigma and its manifestation in normative hierarchies of abortion. Using reflexive thematic analysis, I identified four main themes. My findings show that abortion is represented as a valid decision, both a positive and challenging experience, and an embodied process. The stories shared in the ADT storytelling initiative challenge stigma and deconstruct normative hierarchies of abortion by representing abortion as a complex experience imbued with multiple, and often contradictory, meanings. This study highlights the existence of positive and non-stigmatising representations of abortion in Poland and shows that abortion storytelling can challenge dominant narratives around abortion. These findings therefore have broader significance, as they suggest that abortion storytelling may serve as an effective tool to destigmatise abortion and advance abortion rights. DOI:10.1080/26410397.2025.2535835
Perfectionism and work performance: a meta‐analysis
No full textPerfectionism is often considered important for performance because it promotes extraordinary levels of motivation and engagement. However, existing research is inconclusive regarding the relationship between perfectionism and work performance, with some studies finding a positive correlation and others a negative correlation. This study attempted to reconcile these mixed findings by using meta-analysis to test whether: (a) perfectionism is correlated with hours worked and (b) perfectionism is correlated with work performance. Analyses are based on 28 samples, 77 effect sizes, and a total of 9560 participants across all included studies (57.62% female; Mage = 35.26). Results showed that perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns are positively correlated with the number of hours worked. However, only perfectionistic strivings had a positive relationship with performance at work. The total unique effects of strivings and concerns revealed that perfectionism was positively correlated with both hours worked and performance. Results are discussed in terms of their theoretical and applied implications
Rights and support: a conversation with Fatima Ahdash, Emily Jackson, Dafni Lima, Daniel Monk, Julie McCandless, Beth Tarleton, Rachel Taylor, and Sarah Trotter
No full textCholesterol and cardio-vascular disease: degenerating research programmes in current medical science
No full textThis paper argues that, when examined from a Lakatosian perspective, the (mini-) research programmes that have been built to defend two important theories in modern medicine show all the marks of consistent empirical degeneration. Yet those two theories remain enormously influential—underpinning, as they continue to do, advice and treatment given to millions of people worldwide. As Lakatos and others have shown, theories in successful sciences, such as physics and chemistry, whose associated research programmes have degenerated have invariably been rejected. This is an area, then, in which Lakatosian ideas might have enormous impact—if the verdict of degeneration is correct and if it were accepted by the medical community, it could lead to change of medical treatment for millions of people. The final part of the paper looks at reasons why recommended treatment has so far not changed despite the apparent degeneration of the supporting research programmes. It therefore takes us into another area of Lakatosian scholarship—his much-discussed distinction between ‘internal’ and ‘external history of science’