Dissertation com jan 1999 (3 résultats)

Taschenbuch. Etat : Neu. Neuware - This research seeks to examine the issue of lack of staff resources within the office of the Auditor-General of NSW, with reference to the Australian Audit Office (AAO). In particular, the lack of staff resources and the implications given the changes which have occurred sine the 1970Ís, when efficiency audit responsibilities were introduced into the public accounting sector auditing, are examined.The present responsibilities to conduct not only regularity/compliance audits but also efficiency audits, coupled with the increasing complexities within the public sector, have placed significant pressure upon the staff resources within the offices of the Auditor's-General. The intention of the research is to provide empirical evidence of these changes on the utilization of staff resources.The Auditor General now, has responsibility for the conduct of firstly, regularity/compliance audits, which are required by mandate and, secondly, efficiency audits, which are left to the discretion of the Auditor-General. The latter are expected because these audits result in more achievements in the process of accountability via special reports to the Parliament.With these changes many problems have been identified. These include: - increased workloads due to the wider charter accompanied by less relative resources, - loss of staff resources to the private sector and other government departments, - the ambiguous relationship between the Auditor-General and the executive government. The executive government is a client of the Auditor-General's, but also determines funding levels, - lack of public awareness of the importance of government auditing, - little agreement with what efficiency auditing actually means, as this is not defined by the Act. Restraints placed upon the Auditor-General by the government, by way of budgets, are not designed to restrain the independence of the Auditor-General, but do so in reality.…

Taschenbuch. Etat : Neu. Neuware - This study claims that scholars need to examine all twenty-seven English illustrated editions of Wilde's and Beardsley's Salomë to understand whether Beardsley's compositions do, or do not, illustrate Wilde's words. For the last one hundred years scholars have addressed the aesthetic function of Beardsley's compositions (whether or not Beardsley's compositions illustrate Wilde's words), and each scholar sees something different: Beardsley's compositions are 'irrelevant' to Wilde's words; Beardsley's compositions are 'relevant' to Wilde's words; Beardsley's compositions are both 'irrelevant' and 'relevant.' What is at issue here is that this traditional dance of signification (scholars' interpretations of the aesthetic function of Beardsley's compositions) relies upon an interpretive strategy that disavows the history of textual transmissions. To put this another way, what scholars 'see' depends upon the particular English illustrated edition(s) they read. Beardsley's compositions are physical objects conditioned by a physical setting--i.e., the components of total book design. Yet, for many, the visible appears invisible. The motivation for this study arises from previously unexamined phenomena--the genesis and textual transmission of Beardsley's compositions for Salomë (1894-1994). As historical textual scholarship, this study uses the methodologies central to descriptive bibliography: the English illustrated editions of Wilde's and Beardsley's Salomë are treated as socially constructed physical objects. Binding, format, and paper are a few of the signifying systems described. Specifically, this investigation draws upon the model presented by Philip Gaskell in A New Introduction to Bibliography. The necessary tasks include: transcribing the title-page; analyzing the format; examining the appearance of the binding; detailing the kind of paper used; and noting other information, such as titles.As the centenary of Wilde's and Beardsley's Salomë commences, this is the opportune time to trace the publishing history of Beardsley's compositions, to update existing descriptive bibliographies, and to turn to an empirical method for a socialized model of literary production.…

Taschenbuch. Etat : Neu. Neuware - The theory and data of environmental science suggest that growth in rates of population, consumption and environmental degradation, as a result of the activities of industrialized societies, has created an ecological crisis to which modern societies must adapt. However, adaptation is problematic.Max Weber studied adaptive social change during the industrial revolution. The evolution of this new way of life was initially problematic because individuals who established industrialism were socialized under feudalism. In this dissertation, I consider The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism as a theoretical treatise framed by modern human ecology in order to study social change in the context of the ecological crisis of industrialism.The Protestant Ethic is known for describing how religious ideas influenced the unfolding of modern capitalism in the West. However, there is nothing inherent in Protestantism that requires linkage to industrialism. I argue that Protestantism has evolved, and that it need not necessarily promote environmental exploitation, although under industrialism it has. I identify a 'green' subculture within Protestantism, and consider how Protestantism's weakness may also be its strength. The very sociological structure that, in the absence of ecologically realistic norms, permits widespread ecosystem degradation by industrial capitalism may also generate ecologically realistic norms for a natural capitalism.Weber contended that rationality was problematic because it paradoxically results in a dual crisis of management and meaning where human agency becomes 'imprisoned' as if in an 'iron cage.' The irrational continuation of environmentally degrading social practices eventually contributes to a legitimation crisis. People turn to religion as an alternative authority. If science and religion converge on environmental values, they might catalyze social change, unless they are too distorted by ideological bias. Adaptive social change only occurs if ethical and ecological values are in accordance with the sustainability of ecosystems. Hence, to adapt to the ecological crisis, sociocultural systems require socialization into ecological realism, because ecologically rational societies may still be maladaptively organized around environmentally unsustainable trajectories. …