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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to discuss the use of a critical research perspective in the development of research in the field of intellectual capital (IC) practice.Design/methodology/approachThe paper initiates a reflective discourse about the relevance of contemporary approaches to research and practice in the field of IC and explores the way forward with a view to improving the relevance of IC to academics, practitioners and their organisations.FindingsIt is not the intention of this paper to prescribe specific formulae for the measurement, management and reporting of IC, nor further develop theory. It is the intention of the paper to lay the foundations for further discourse on the thinking behind contemporary IC theory and practice.Research limitations/implicationsThe limitation of the paper is that it represents the informed opinion of the author and these views may not be shared by other researchers and practitioners. The implications are first that it aligns IC to the current general and economic environment as there is a perceived increase in awareness among stakeholders to manage scarce and intangible resources. Second, by taking a critical approach to IC research it advocates how to develop insights and processes that can help build the recognition and benefits of IC practices.Originality/valueThis paper openly questions the need to develop further IC theory and advocates a way forward by outlining a critical approach to researching and implementing IC in practice.

In recent years, there has been considerable political and public interest in the "sport, development and peace" (SDP) sector. SDP agencies employ sport as an interventionist tool to promote peace, reconciliation, and development in different locations across the world. This article examines how SDP officials view their work and the sector in general. The analysis situates the SDP sector in relation to contemporary transnational processes and the global civil society. The article draws heavily on wide-ranging primary qualitative research (interviews and fieldwork) with SDP officials who operate at different levels (from very local projects through to transnational SDP agencies) and in different settings, notably in Europe, the Middle East, the Balkans, and South Asia. Four key sociological themes were identified within the discourses of SDP officials, such as, the transnational ethics of SDP work, the anthropolitics of practice (notably in relation to user groups), the national and transnational 'interrelationships of SDP officials, and SDP officials' wider, transnational sector relationships. Various issues within each theme are identified and explored. The article concludes by reflecting on how analysis of these discourses serves to enhance understanding of transnational processes and the global civil society and, by suggesting some ways in which the SDP sector may be positively transformed.

In recent years, there has been considerable political and public interest in the "sport, development and peace" (SDP) sector. SDP agencies employ sport as an interventionist tool to promote peace, reconciliation, and development in different locations across the world. This article examines how SDP officials view their work and the sector in general. The analysis situates the SDP sector in relation to contemporary transnational processes and the global civil society. The article draws heavily on wide-ranging primary qualitative research (interviews and fieldwork) with SDP officials who operate at different levels (from very local projects through to transnational SDP agencies) and in different settings, notably in Europe, the Middle East, the Balkans, and South Asia. Four key sociological themes were identified within the discourses of SDP officials, such as, the transnational ethics of SDP work, the anthropolitics of practice (notably in relation to user groups), the national and transnational 'interrelationships of SDP officials, and SDP officials' wider, transnational sector relationships. Various issues within each theme are identified and explored. The article concludes by reflecting on how analysis of these discourses serves to enhance understanding of transnational processes and the global civil society and, by suggesting some ways in which the SDP sector may be positively transformed.

Aim: This paper is a report of a study analysing reflection as discourse and a technology of confession which produces a certain desirable subjectivity within nursing practice. Background: Reflection and reflective practice are common themes in nursing practices and in the literature on nursing. These practices are often construed as positive and empowering, and more critical analyses of them are needed. Method: A Foucauldian-inspired discourse analysis based on the concepts of governmentality and technologies of the self was conducted. Interview transcripts from 42 managers, supervisors, teachers and participants in an in-service programme to prepare health care assistants to become Licensed Practice Nurses in the elder care sector were analysed. Findings: Reflection as confession operates as a governing technology within the nursing practice analysed. Programme participants are encouraged to reflect and scrutinize themselves about their work as a way to improve their competencies and practice. Through appraisals, they are invited to reflect about themselves as way to achieve their desires. In this way, active, responsible, problem-solving, self-governing practitioners are constructed. Conclusion: Through a Foucauldian reading of reflective practices it is possible to illustrate that reflection is not a neutral or apolitical practice. Instead, it is a governing practice that does something, in discursive terms, to nursing subjectivity - something that can create a space for reflection about what reflection discursively does to subjectivity. ; The definitive version is available at onlinelibrary.wiley.com: Andreas Fejes, Governing Nursing Through Reflection: A Discourse Analysis of Reflective Practices, 2008, Journal of Advanced Nursing, (64), 3, 243-250.http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2648.2008.04800.x. Copyright: Blackwell Publishing onlinelibrary.wiley.com

"Die historisch wechselnde Konstellierung der Begriffe Autorität, Autorschaft, Wahrheit etc. bildet ein wesentliches Moment des medien- und kommunikationswissenschaftlichen Diskurses über die Beziehungen zwischen Wirklichkeit, Kunst, Produktion und Rezeption. War die ältere ästhetischen Theorie noch bis zur Aufklärung von den Parametern Nachahmung und Illusion her bestimmt, indem die Referenzebene der Kunst in einer ihrer Produktion vorangehenden Realität verortet wurde, so fokussieren moderne Theorien auf die Figur des werkbegründenden Subjekts, das Autorität im eigenen Namen reklamiert. Im postmodernen Diskurs eines referenzlosen, universalen Gewebes der Zeichen treten schließlich der Text selbst und seine vielgestaltige Rezipierbarkeit aus dem Schatten der 'Realität' und des 'Werkes' hervor. Die diesen verschiedenen Modellen jeweils eigenen Normierungstendenzen werden im Vortrag reflektiert. Insbesondere Konzeptionen, die zentral mit der Figur des Werkes argumentieren (etwa die Unterscheidung von Hoch- und Populärkultur in der Kulturindustriethese der kritischen Theorie), sowie solche, die sich dezidiert vom Werkbegriff distanziert haben, werden befragt. Dabei wird sich erweisen, daß entgegen den strikten Unterscheidungen normierender medien- und kommunikationswissenschaftlicher Theorien in der Gegenwart eher kulturelle Gemengelagen und Entgrenzungen zu beobachten sind, die als Konsequenz gesellschafts- und mediengeschichtlicher Differenzierungsprozesse rekonstruiert werden können. In einem forschungspolitischen Exkurs werden aktuelle Gutachten zur medienwissenschaftlichen Forschungslandschaft daraufhin untersucht, ob sie dieser Komplexität medialer Kommunikationsprozesse gerecht werden. Daran anschließend werden aktuelle Ansätze im Bereich der interdisziplinären Rezeptionsforschung betrachtet. Medienhandeln im Spannungsfeld von Übereignung und Aneignung wird hier als zentrales Element der sozialen Konstruktion von Medienästhetik und Kommunikationskultur gedeutet." (Autorenreferat)

This volume recreates the received notion of reflective equilibrium. It reconfigures reflective equilibrium as both a cognitive ideal and a method for approximating this ideal. The ideal of reflective equilibrium is restructured using the concept of discursive strata, which are formed by sentences and differentiated by function. Sentences that perform the same kind of linguistic function constitute a stratum. The book shows how moral discourse can be analyzed into phenomenal, instrumental, and teleological strata, and the ideal of reflective equilibrium reworked in these terms. In addition, the work strengthens the method of reflective equilibrium by harnessing the resources of decision theory and inductive logic. It launches a comparative version of decision theory and employs this framework as a guide to moral theory choice. It also recruits quantitative inductive logic to inform a standard of inductive cogency. When used in tandem with comparative decision theory, this standard can aid in the effort to turn the undesirable condition of reflective disequilibrium into reflective equilibrium.

2.2 Family discourse and social power2.3 Competing discourses -- 2.4 Discourse, power, negotiation and the patterning of meaning -- 3 Family practices -- 3.1 Why family practices? -- 3.2 Families are what families do: the example of family leisure -- 4 Conclusions -- Chapter 6. Intimacy and personal life -- 1 Introduction -- 2 From �family� to �intimacy� and �personal life� -- 3 Intimacies -- 3.1 Alternative views of the �transformation of intimacy� -- 3.2 Diverse intimacies -- 4 Personal life -- 5 Conclusions -- Part 3: Contexts

This chapter consists of a comparative analysis of emerging debates on synthetic biology in the European Union, China and India. After briefly introducing synthetic biology as a new and emerging science, it maps and compares the emerging debates on synthetic biology in the three regions, focusing on a number of different discourses respectively relating to innovation, risk, and power and control. In addition, the chapter discusses and analyses the role of public and ethics debates as crosscutting and reflective discourses. It considers how these discourses have evolved, what the dominant themes and issues are, which actors are involved and how the discourses have been informed by the value systems and socioeconomic development in the three regions. In conclusion the governance challenges resulting from these discourses are considered.

Introduction -- Discourse in the context of precariousness -- Reflective social work practice: the social and the self -- Reflective practice as a form of consciousness -- Social work classroom as a play of dynamic elements -- The dispossessed self -- Arts based reflection -- Conclusion.

This essay analyzes the ways in which official memory discourses in Kuwait promote willful forgetting of certain aspects of the country's past through acts of repressive erasure. By looking at how it has shaped narratives about the pre-oil era, the post-1950 advent of oil-fueled modernization, and the period since the 1990 Iraqi invasion and occupation, we can assess both the functions and the consequences of the Kuwaiti state's tendencies toward erasing aspects of the past. The essay also provides examples of how Kuwaiti artists and writers have challenged these official histories.