Mastering internal communication: Knowledge foundations and postgraduate education

Despite its importance to employee engagement and organisational effectiveness, little scholarly attention has been paid to internal communication education. Consequently there is a vacuum in guidance on particular knowledge required for effective internal communication practice. To tackle this gap, this empirical article analyses data collected in an online survey of communication professionals. The article contributes an empirically based specialist framework for internal communication knowledge, with components beyond those found in generalist frameworks

Potential economic implications for regional tourism of a Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak in North Queensland

International and domestic tourism are sensitive to disastrous events which make areas inaccessible to visitors, less attractive or more dangerous. One form of tourism disaster is the outbreak of an exotic disease, of which Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) is a prime case. It is now well documented that the 2001 FMD outbreak in the UK had a greater impact on tourism than on agriculture. It has been estimated than an FMD outbreak in Australia would impose a cost of about $13 million. The impact on tourism would be highly dependent on the extent and duration of an FMD outbreak, as well as on any management and containment restrictions imposed by the authorities in their attempt to control and eventually eradicate the disease. Public perception and thus the provision of accurate information and the way in which the media report disasters will also play an important role in determining the impact on the tourism industry. The economy of Tropical North Queensland relies heavily on international visitors, and an FMD outbreak in the region would impose a large cost to the regional economy, conservatively estimated here to be of the order of$200 million per year

Towards an ‘alternative’ geography of innovation:Alternative milieu, socio-cognitive protection and sustainability experimentation

This paper highlights the hitherto unrecognised role of ‘alternative’ places in protecting different forms of sustainability innovation. The paper uses the concept of an alternative milieu to illustrate how a geographically localised concentration of countercultural practices, institutions and networks can create socio-cognitive ‘niche’ protection for sustainability experiments. An alternative milieu creates protection for the emergence of novelties by (i) creating ontological and epistemological multiplicity; (ii) sustain- ing productive spatial imaginaries; and (iii) supporting ontological security. These different dimensions of protection are explored with reference to an in-depth, empirical case study of Totnes in the United Kingdom. The paper concludes with some reflections on the theoretical implications of this research for the theorising of niche protection and for the geographies of innovation more generally, along with some recommendations for future areas of enquiry

Moss valley – collaboration on and in the edgeland

Edgelands are those spaces that are neither urban nor rural, that seem to be unplanned or unmanaged, and that exist in a patchy between. This article argues that collaborative artistic responses to these spaces are particularly appropriate using a collaboration between the author and visual artist Abi Goodman as an example. This collaboration aims to respond to the tensions that the term edgeland sometimes allows writers to ignore by exploring the term’s history as it morphs from rurban fringe, to rural, urban interface, to postindustrial land, to unmanaged space. It aims to allow the recognition of edgeland as a paradoxical space based upon the writer’s experience in one place, Moss Valley

The financialisation of housing land supply in England

The aim of this article is to identify the calculative practices that turn urban development planning into the supply-side of land financialisation. My focus is on the statutory planning of housing supply and the accounting procedures, or market devices, that normalise the practices of land speculation in the earliest stage of the urban development process. I provide an analysis of the accountancy regime used by planning authorities in England to evidence a 5-year supply of housing land. Drawing on the work of Michel Callon on market framing, I assess the activities of economic agents in performing or ‘formatting’ this supply, its boundaries, externalities and rules of operation. I evidence the effect of this formatting in normalising the treatment of land as a financial asset and in orienting the statutory regulation of land supply to the provision of opportunities for the capture of increased ground rent at a cost to the delivery of new homes

Public support for Green Belt: common rights in countryside access and recreation

Public support for Green Belt in England is legendary but is often dismissed as sentimental attachment. The aim of this paper is to situate public support for Green Belt within a history of common rights and access campaigns and a specific cultural landscape of outdoor recreation. This paper contends that Green Belt in England carries notions of common rights established in struggles against the enclosure and privatisation of open spaces from the early nineteenth century and predicated on an understanding that the policy conveys a communal interest in land and landscape. It argues that contemporary public affection for Green Belts is expressed through practices of ‘commoning’ or the performance of claimed common rights of property. Drawing on field research with a popular campaign in North West England, the paper evidences the deployment of a history of access struggles to preserve Green Belt as recreational amenity and accessible countryside. In the perception of Green Belt as a collective resource the paper posits the continuing relevance of common rights to planning policy. It concludes that a clearer understanding of popular support for Green Belt may provide planning scholarship with new perspectives on notions of public good and the use rights of property

The changing regulatory environment for speculative housebuilding and the construction of core competencies for brownfleld development

Speculative housebuilding in the United Kingdom faces an ever tighter regulatory environment owing to the increasing impact of the sustainable development agenda. For example, 60% of all new homes in England are now expected to be constructed on previously developed land or provided through the conversion of existing buildings. As speculative housebuilders are responsible for about 80% of all new dwellings built in the United Kingdom, the achievement of this important government target is critically dependent on the ability and willingness of the private sector to respond to public policy. By exploring the main components of the residential development process, the author investigates how far speculative housebuilding will need to change to ensure the successful implementation of the government's brownfield housing target. He suggests that those speculative housebuilders that are enthusiastically building up core competencies in brownfield housing are likely to emerge as the market leaders of the future whereas those companies that continue to rely on past practices and technologies will face an uncertain future as greenfield development opportunities begin to reduce

Housing supply and brownfield regeneration in a post-Barker review world: A comparison of policy and practice in England and Scotland

The findings of the Barker review, which examined the reasons for the undersupply of UK housing, have important implications for the devolved constituents of the UK, including Scotland. This paper traces the emergence of the brownfield regeneration policy agenda across the UK and examines how the Barker review connects with this brownfield policy focus. The paper compares housing and brownfield policies and practices in England and Scotland, places them in an international context and elicits wider lessons for devolved governance in relation to housing policy, in terms of `centrist—local' tensions. Estimates based on published data suggest that Barker's emphasis on increased housing supply cannot easily be reconciled with the current emphasis on brownfield development and is likely to require a return to greenfield development in both countries