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Purpose This paper draws on the literature of cybernetics to argue that the resilience of organizations can be diminished by an unconsidered maximization of transparency and accountability. In doing so, it critically examines the concept of resilience and the relationship of resilience to neoliberalism. Design/methodology/approach A conceptual analysis of resilience is carried out at two levels. First, the use of the concepts of resilience, viability, transparency, accountability and neoliberalism is considered, together with the relationship between them. Second, the management interventions that result from the application of these related ideas are critiqued from the perspective of cybernetics and particularly of variety and black boxes. Findings It is shown that within complex social environments, the unconsidered imposition of transparency and accountability as a management strategy may constrain the resilience of the organizations and individuals rather than enhance it. The use of data analytics enhances this tendency. Research limitations/implications The theoretical analysis of the relationship between transparency and resilience offers a basis for carrying out empirical studies. Practical implications There are practical implications for organizational managers, employees and stakeholders, offering them a means of understanding the systemic threat posed by organizational design decisions which enhance transparency and accountability without taking into consideration the full range of interactions which act to maintain organizational viability. Social implications The analysis provides a rationale for resisting the imposition of social policies inspired by neoliberalism. Originality/value The bringing together of the concepts of resilience, neoliberalism, transparency and accountability, and their exposure to cybernetic analysis, provides a novel perspective on resilience, and new insights into way that organizations maintain their viability.

Learners who learn from OER often cannot have their learning assessed or receive a credential. Open credentials offer a potential solution to this problem, combining badges or micro-credentials with competence frameworks and digital seals. This study identified the current situation of open credentials in post-secondary education in Europe, the main themes of the discourse, and the points of agreement and divergence surrounding them. The data comprised a corpus of transcriptions from 12 expert interviews and a focus group. Qualitative text analysis identified the principal themes. Findings included the following: (a) few assessments are available as open content; (b) linking OER and credentials requires detailed and expensive work on learning outcomes and assessment; (c) the aggregation of open credentials to create higher-level qualifications is a widely accepted ambition; (d) the European Union’s infrastructure to support open credentials is appropriate and effective and can foster trust; (e) the outstanding challenges are organisational and practical, not technological; (f) assessment and content provisions should belong to separate organisational functions; and finally, (g) funding and support for open credentials in professional accreditation are essential for further progress.

This special issue follows from the 2017 conference of the American Society for Cybernetics (ASC), which took place during 7-12 August in Salem, Massachusetts. The conference theme was “Resilience and Ethics: Implications”, and its goal was:

The device known as, among other terms, truck-driver modulation, arranger's modulation and pump-up modulation is an important procedure for popular music, and one that merits a place in the harmony textbook. Emerging from a discussion of nomenclature, this paper proposes the terms of its title, which distinguishes between modulation as part of the overall form of a track, and modulation as a technical device. Four models are presented for the modulation, with a final discussion of different models used in the one track.

How do we know music? We perform it, we compose it, we sing it in the shower, we cook, sleep and dance to it. Eventually we think and write about it. This book represents the culmination of such shared processes. Each of these essays, written by leading writers on popular music, is analytical in some sense, but none of them treats analysis as an end in itself. The books presents a wide range of genres (rock, dance, TV soundtracks, country, pop, soul, easy listening, Turkish Arabesk) and deals with issues as broad as methodology, modernism, postmodernism, Marxism and communication. It aims to encourage listeners to think more seriously about the 'social' consequences of the music they spend time with and is the first collection of such essays to incorporate contextualisation in this way.

‘The Boy with a Moon and Star on His Head’ was written and recorded by Cat Stevens in 1972. This paper briefly examines the song's subject matter, before analysing its musical structure and that of the words to the song. As well as the standard pattern of end rhyme, a pattern of internal rhyme is also analysed, using tools derived from literary analysis. The words to the song are transcribed by a method which mediates between transcription of the words that make it look like a poem and the words as they appear in sheet music. Finally, the song's pattern of internal rhyme is placed into a context that includes songs as well as poems, suggesting that the song is an exception that suggests a rule for words in the singer-song at the time of the song's appearance.