This paper traces the origins of the technique of reflective analysis, as supported by CRITIK; and considers its place in relation to different forms of teaching paradigm. It describes the technique in terms of enabling a manager to articulate the paradoxes and dilemmas inherent in his own way of framing his experience. The paper then goes on to discuss the characteristic ways in which managers get ‘stuck’ in their own development in terms of each of the teaching paradigms, and the ways in which teachers can collude with this to serve their own interests. It concludes that the best teaching practice enables managers to find their own authority in relation to their experience, and to live with the issues of timing that this form of authority inevitably gives rise to.

Download the full article

The concept of “niche” is used in much competitive marketing and strategic analysis to imply both a passive model of customer behaviour and also a particular form of relationship betweer the firm and its environment which is not sensltive to variations in individual customers’ contexts: a niche approach. This paper suggests that more emphasis should be given to the active customer and an attendant cluster approach which can support a competltive ability to couple the business’ activities to a wide range of individual customer contexts. In understanding and applying such an approach, the choices made organise the market. The paper concludes by considering the aesthetics of such choices.

Download the full article

The overall Project P3/2 was set up by the Energy Technology Support Unit of the Department of Energy (DEn/ETSU) to develop a model of the marketability of passive solar technology within the private domestic housing sector in the UK. Such a model was to provide a means of understanding how market potential and market penetration depended on immediately quantifiable parameters such as costs and performance, and on qualitative attitudinal factors. It would consider both general issues of the impact of energy cost-in-use for domestic buildings as well as detailed responses to specific passive solar measures. This paper explores the issues raised in seeking to develop such a model and sets out in more detail the methods appropriate for describing such dependence.

Download the full paper

In this paper, we link together some of the analytical approaches adopted by ecological forms of discourse with current evidence and experience in consumer and market segmentation studies. The primary consequence of this work is to refocus our attention away from the concept of the product market, a single or multiple resource to be exploited by producers, towards the concept of the active consumer: the customer who uses the various producer offerings by configuring them in such a way as to support his or her needs as best as s/he is able. Such a refocussing suggests a new view of market organisation in support of such active consumers. In this respect, we echo much of Wroe Alderson’s writing, and are able develop his ideas by looking more closely at the ways in which the organisation and structure of channels of distribution are able to balance with the interests of the other two behaviour systems: those of active consumers, and those which fund channel organisation and structure. Our conclusion is that the word ‘niche’ has been used to support a view of market organisation which has done precisely that which the ecologists would wish us not to do: to encourage a relationship to our environment which does not consider the effect it has on that environment.

Download the full paper

Title: A Project Proposal for the Development of a Computer-Assisted Management Development Package
Author: Philip Boxer
Category: Working
Publication Year: 1974

A learner-controlled system for the integration of specialist knowledge and the development of problem-solving ability in uncertain environments.

Download the full proposal