From here to eternity?: The practice of knowledge transfer in dispersed and co-located project organizations

This paper extends theoretical and empirical debates on knowledge transfer practices in geographically dispersed project teams using a range of communications media. It presents quantitative data comparing work interactions between dispersed and co-located teams in five international, project-based firms. It shows that contrary to conventional wisdom, their respective practices are similar for many work activities such as search and routine information exchange. However dispersed team members validate, verify and consult differently to the respective co-located teams. Qualitative data from interviews and observation then illustrates typical interactions using the differing means and media available to the observed project teams, such as task decomposition and emergency corrective work. Due to an unfortunate oversight one of the references in this article is incomplete. It can be found here.     

Consuming Ethics: Articulating the Subjects and Spaces of Ethical Consumption

Geography's debates about how to maintain a sense of morally responsible action often emphasise the problematic nature of caring at a distance, and take for granted particular kinds of moral selfhood in which responsibility is bound into notions of human agency that emphasise knowledge and recognition. Taking commodity consumption as a field in which the ethics, morality, and politics of responsibility has been problematised, we argue that existing research on consumption fails to register the full complexity of the practices, motivations and mechanisms through which the working-up of moral selves is undertaken in relation to consumption practices. Rather than assuming that ethical decision‐making works through the rational calculation of obligations, we conceptualise the emergence of ethical consumption as ways in which everyday practical moral dispositions are re‐articulated by policies, campaigns and practices that enlist ordinary people into broader projects of social change. Ethical consumption, then, involves both a governing of consumption and a governing of the consuming self. Using the example of Traidcraft , we present a detailed examination of one particular context in which self‐consciously ethical consumption is mediated, suggesting that ethical consumption can be understood as opening up ethical and political considerations in new combinations. We therefore argue for the importance of the growth of ethical consumption as a new terrain of political action, while also emphasising the grounds upon which ethical consumption can be opened up to normative critique.     

From 'industrial districts' to 'knowledge clusters': a model of knowledge dissemination and competitive advantage in industrial agglomerations

This paper integrates knowledge-based theories of the firm withgeograph-ical studies of industrial agglomeration to producea model that helps explain the competitive advantages enjoyedby proximate firms located in geographical clusters. We proposea hierarchy of specialized knowledge stocks at both firm andcluster levels and suggest that the comparative advantage conferredby knowledge resources at each level is protected, in part,by asymmetries in knowledge flows from level to level. The paperargues that codified component knowledge is more easily spreadthan firm-specific architectural knowledge. Nevertheless, overtime, agglomerations may develop a cluster-specific form ofarchitectural knowledge that facilitates the rapid disseminationof knowledge throughout the cluster by increasing the learningcapacity of proximate firms and thereby conferring cluster-specificcompetitive advantages.     

Le Grand Abri aux Puces,a Mousterian site from the Last Interglacial: paleogeography,paleoenvironment, and new excavation results

Le Grand Abri aux Puces (GAP), located on the right bank of the Ouvèze River of southern France, has been known to contain well-preserved stone tools and faunal remains, but our work in 2008 was the first professional, controlled excavation at the site and has exposed at least 1 archaeological layer with a very rich and diverse faunal assemblage (23 macrofaunal species, as many for the microfauna, 27 land snail species), abundant charcoals (fragments are large and preserve small twigs with their pith and bark still intact), and stone tools with immaculate surface preservation (retaining their original freshness and preserving microscopic use wear). The information issuing from paleontology, micropaleontology, malacology, and anthracology all place the principle GAP human occupation unambiguously in a temperate climatic phase. Different biometric and biochronological characters of the fauna converge to place the layers found thus far from before the last glacial, and most likely in MIS 5e (127–117 kya). The lithic elements, mainly composed of tools of superior quality, demonstrating particular technical investment, and made from widely distributed raw material sources, lead us to hypothesize brief passages of hunting groups in the cave focused around an anticipated activity. This hypothesis will be refined and tested during further excavations.