Mark A. Stubbs’s research while affiliated with Manchester Metropolitan University and other places

Full-text of this article is not available in this e-prints service. This article was originally published following peer-review in Journal of e-government, published by and copyright Routledge. This paper illuminates the recent stages of e-Government facilitation in the UK local authorities and shows how British local authorities are improving their public service delivery and governing in the digital environment on the other side of the Atlantic. It explores congruence between user and provider perspectives on e-Government. Giddens's (1984) dimensions of the “duality of structure” are used as a “sensitising device” to analyse findings from an extensive literature survey, document analysis and semi-structured interviews with e-Government managers, Heads of IS and IS Project Managers. A rich picture is presented of differences between user and provider views. This paper argues for a greater understanding between the views of the providers and the users of technology in e-Government facilitation in local authorities.

M. A. Stubbs, I. Martin & L. Endlar. The structuration of blended learning: putting holistic design principles into practice. British journal of educational technology, 2006, vol. 37, no. 2, pp. 163-175. Published by and copyright Wiley-Blackwell Publishing. The definitive version of this article is available from http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/ This paper considers the challenges faced by those seeking to design effective blended learning. Using a 2-year case study involving cohorts of approximately 200 students, it demonstrates how Anthony Giddens' structuration theory can provide a metaframework for assisting educational designers in creating coherent blended learning experiences that reinforce intended learning outcomes. It calls for educational designers to be sensitive to both their audience and the unintended and unanticipated consequences of their actions and shows how a holistic annual review framework can reinforce or suppress emergent behaviour through unit development.

John W. Pal, Mark Stubbs and Anna Lee (c) Westburn Publishers Ltd, 2005. This metadata relates to the electronic version of an article which has been published in its definitive form in the Journal of Marketing Management, and has been posted by permission of Westburn Publishers Ltd for personal use, not for redistribution. The article was published in Journal of Marketing Management, Vol. 21, Date No. 7/8, pp. 835-858, doi: 10.1362/026725705774538435 This paper examines the benefits of adopting an experiential and integrated approach to marketing education on a first year undergraduate programme through the development of a simulation. It is demonstrated that embedding the simulation in the learning process and encouraging students to reflect on a series of assessment activities has enabled them to gain better insights into the skills and knowledge required to plan the opening of a new retail outlet. The skills and knowledge expected of new marketers, as outlined by the Chartered Institute of Marketing, were used in the design of the learning activities and it is shown how a blended approach has enriched the student experience and enabled the teaching team to meet all of the CIM's 'asset requirements'.

M. A. Stubbs and J. Pal. The development, design and delivery of a retail simulation. British journal of educational technology, 2003, vol. 34, no. 5, pp. 651-661. Published by and copyright Wiley-Blackwell Publishing. The definitive version of this article is available from http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/ theRetailGame.com is a web-based package of e-learning materials designed to support students on retailing courses. It uses the focal point of a 'store opening' to draw attention to key operational variables. The web-based package allows students to explore the impacts of variable combinations in a risk-free environment. This paper outlines the rationale for developing this new package; explains the design principles underlying its construction; and describes the delivery and assessment mechanisms in which it has been embedded. The case history of the project is reviewed, and actor-network theory is used to characterise the alignment of requisite time and expertise as a feat of engineering, facilitated by top-down support but dependent upon the creative manoeuvrings of the bottom-up enthusiast.

Full-text of this article is not available in this e-prints service. This article was originally published following peer-review in Risk Management, published by and copyright Palgrave Macmillan. In recent years public confidence in the UK agro-food industry has suffered a very serious decline. The health and safety issues that arise from industrialised food production in the UK are well publicised. However, intensive farming also poses great risks to the natural environment. To address public concern regarding food safety, animal welfare and environmental risks, the agro-food industry has developed sector-based assurance schemes to demonstrate due diligence and ensure the minimisation of risks. This paper, based on a comprehensive analysis of scheme documentation, evaluates the potential of 'quality assurance schemes' (QASs) to reduce environmental risk. A range of environmental commitments are identified that allow QAS to be classified into 'compliance-only', 'compliance-plus' and 'leading-edge' categories. This spectrum of environmental risk assessment and management assurances suggests that QASs do provide an opportunity for the sector to engage with, and limit, environmental liabilities.

Paper presented at the BSE Conference, 2005, September 4-6, 2005, Leeds. Full-text is available at http://www.crrconference.org/downloads/millard.pdf There is considerable debate about ways to stimulate and enable environmental improvement in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). In recent years, part of the solution has been to engage firms by making the case that pollution prevention or waste minimization makes good business sense since it produces cost savings with relatively little effort. This has been the approach followed by waste minimization clubs in the UK. However, it is unclear whether firms, particularly SMEs, move from small ad hoc changes towards more significant and systemic change. As yet little evaluation of waste minimization clubs has taken place, which seeks to understand the extent to which participation in a waste minimisation initiatives leads to a broader programme of change. Organizational learning concepts of lower and higher level learning have to some extent been employed to understand the nature of environmental improvement in firms, but so far such concepts have not been used to evaluate waste minimization clubs. This research considers the nature of organizational learning based on a study of a number of SMEs participating in waste minimization clubs in the UK. The paper develops a preliminary model to assess the extent and nature of organizational learning which occurs within the context of these waste minimization clubs.

Full-text of this article is available at http://www.celt.mmu.ac.uk/ltia/issue2/pal_stubbs.shtml Faced with increasing student numbers and the need to provide flexible modes of delivery in a cost-efficient manner there has been a move towards testing out the Internet as a means of reconciling these pressures. This article reports on the processes and outcomes of the development of a web-driven game (theRetailGame) as part of the assessment package to be used on a number of retail courses run in the Business School. The article is in three main parts. The first part by John Pal reflects on the ideas behind the game, and the actions and experiences of trying to develop the game on his own. This is a non-technical section. The second part of the article outlines some of the technicalities associated with the development of the various interactions that were developed, and is reported upon by Mark Stubbs. The third part of the article by both authors outlines the key learning points from the development of the game and the associated collaborative work.

Paper presented at the BSE Conference, 2005, September 4-6, 2005, Leeds. Full-text is available at http://www.crrconference.org/downloads/mills.pdf There is wide agreement that business should play a significant role in moving towards sustainable development. By operating in a responsible way, business is following the broad principles of corporate social responsibility (CSR) or corporate responsibility (CR). The business case, or 'why', of CR has been discussed in great detail within both academic and industry literature. However, there has been much less written about 'how' CR can be implemented into an organisation and thus, put into practice. This paper outlines the findings of research in progress. The study is based on action research within a large UK-based Plc operating in the aviation sector. A range of barriers and drivers are identified and these allow the suggestion of a number of critical success factors (CSFs) that may exist in the implementation of a CR programme across an organisation. The organisational change required for a company to genuinely embed CR in their mindset and actions means that barriers and drivers include practical, cultural and political factors. Drawing on structuration theory these factors have been organised into a framework that consists of three areas, 'emphasised agenda items', 'patterns of resource allocation' and 'dominant norms'. By placing current findings into this framework and considering the extent to which agenda items and resource allocation do, or can, challenge dominant norms and sanctions, a framework for illustrating processes of change as well as a framework for facilitating change, are simultaneously created.

Full-text of this article is available at http://www.celt.mmu.ac.uk/ltia/issue6/stubbsmartin.shtml This article describes a blended learning project delivered over 9 weeks to 230 full-time first year undergraduates studying a unit about emerging information technologies. The unit was originally planned on a weekly 1+1 model of 1 hour lecture reinforced by 1 hour tutorial, running for 9 weeks. Summative assessment was designed as individual, face-to-face demonstrations of web pages produced by the students. Holistic redesign of the unit, using web-based learning materials and computer-supported assessment, enabled leaner delivery and assessment, better reinforcing the intended learning outcomes and saving 85 hours of staff time. Principles and assumptions underpinning redesign, delivery and assessment are presented and reviewed from three perspectives: a behavioural perspective, an IT perspective and a resource perspective.

The rise of sustainable development on the national and international policy agendas has presented the business community with a fundamental challenge: how to deliver continued economic growth whilst at least containing detrimental environmental and social impacts. In the drive to achieve this goal voluntary approaches to the management of environmental and social responsibilities have come to the fore in the business-environment debate. However, researchers have questioned the willingness of companies to adopt generic EMS and, where implementation has occurred, have criticised the levels of environmental improvement that have been achieved. Researchers have called for a greater sensitivity to the capability of the organisation adopting a more systematic approach to environmental management to ensure that the potential of the EMS tool is more fully exploited and thus the environmental and commercial benefits maximised. This demands a more focused and tailored approach to the design and implementation of EMS. The emergence of Quality Assurance Schemes in the Agro-food industry may represent one way of addressing this need for more integrated, flexible and bespoke approaches to environmental management. This paper aims to examine the extensive participation in QAS and among the schemes that introduce environmental commitments establish the extent to which environmental management is a condition of participation. Research into scheme standards revealed a range of compliance and dynamic commitments, which suggest that QAS offer an opportunity for more widespread adoption of proactive approaches to environmental improvement.