Search results

This article argues the value of integrating pragmatism in applying behavioural science to complex challenges. We describe a behaviour change-led knowledge co-production process in the specific context of climate change in Australia. This process was led by an interdisciplinary research team who struggled with the limitations of the prevailing deterministic behaviour change paradigms, such as the “test, learn, adapt” model, which often focuses narrowly on individual behaviours and fails to integrate multiple interpretations from diverse stakeholders into their knowledge co-production process.

This article uses collaborative reflection as a method of inquiry. We document the team’s experience of a recent challenge-led, programatic research initiative that applied behaviour change strategies to reduce climate vulnerabilities. We demonstrate the necessity of critical reflection and abductive reasoning in the face of the complexities inherent in knowledge co-production addressing complex problems. It underscores the importance of accommodating diverse perspectives and contextual nuances over a one-size-fits-all method.

The article shares lessons learnt about integrating collaborative and critical reflection throughout a project cycle and demonstrates the capacity of abductive reasoning to ease the challenges arising from the tension between behaviour change paradigms and knowledge co-production principles. This approach allows for a more adaptable and context-sensitive application, acknowledging the multiplicity of understandings and the dynamic nature of behavioural change in relation to climate adaptation.

This reflection contributes original insights into the fusion of pragmatism with behaviour change strategies, proposing a novel framework that prioritises flexibility, context-specificity and the recognition of various stakeholder perspectives in the co-production of knowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to verify the proposition by the University of Illinois, Urbana‐Champaign (UIUC), that their return on investment (ROI) formula developed for academic libraries and based on hard facts is broad enough to be used throughout the world for ROI studies in academic institutions/libraries. It further aims to verify that UIUC's methodology is adaptable enough to work in other academic environments as well.

The methodology developed by UIUC (an ROI formula developed for academic libraries based on grant proposal applications and citations) has been “copied” and thereby adapted to enable it to be used in an academic environment in Europe/Germany.

The methodology developed by UIUC was adaptable enough to be used in a German academic environment for calculating the ROI of a University library. However, the methodology was sometimes complicated and therefore simplified for this and possible further studies. Likewise, the ROI formula was very complex and this study found that it was possible to simplify it as well for further use.

There was difficulty in gathering all the information necessary for conducting such a study in Germany as grant proposals contain sensitive data that people are unwilling to display. Further, it was noticeable that German statistics on funding were unable to provide the necessary data without further enquiries, despite the German law that public institutions are obliged to disclose funding information.

Previously no one else has tried to verify the methodology for an ROI study developed by UIUC. This study gives evidence that UIUC was right in claiming that their ROI formula developed for academic institutions/libraries may be used for any academic library in the world. Further, this study shows how the formula and the methodology may be adapted to fit individual academic environments.

Purpose: This chapter explores the strategic role of human resource development (HRD) as a function of talent management (TM) and discusses how HRD activities can help to facilitate more creative behaviours, in the international hospitality industry.

Approach: We focus on TM and HRD research exploring how these lenses are conceptually positioned given our current knowledge on creativity. We draw on the system-based approach to creativity and reconceptualise the creativity components by levels of flexibility/plasticity and outline how such approaches can help creative practice development.

Findings: We rationalise the existing conceptual approaches to creativity and propose a simplified model considering the developmental aspects of creativity. First, we theorise the TM/HRD strategies, such as training and development via learning, as a mechanism to connect TM/HRD to creativity in the organisational setting. We inform the current literature on whether and how creative processes emerge at work and affect creative flow in the bottom-top and top-bottom directions. Second, we advance the development of creativity theory by reconceptualising the established creativity components by degrees of flexibility/plasticity. Such re-conceptualisation allows for more nuanced examinations of organisational stimuli (i.e. training and development) on developmental conceptions of creativity.

Originality: This is the first piece of work that has investigated the fit between TM/HRD and creativity research. Our conceptual model illustrates that creativity can be promoted and developed at work by incorporating developmental initiatives such as TM/HRD.

This paper aims to help workplace ethnographers navigate and reflect on primary access negotiations by scrutinising two of the concepts mentioned in the call for papers on this special issue: workplace relations and tensions. We introduce the frames of reference (FoRs) concept as used in the field of employment relations to the ethnographic community. We propose that the implicit frames of gatekeeper and researcher influence what they deem interesting for research, thus influencing the content of access negotiations. Moreover, we propose that tensions typically emerge when gatekeepers and ethnographers do not share the same frame of the employment relationship (ER).

We explore the ER through Fox’s (1966, 1974) framework, taking inspiration from Budd et al. (2022), who applied FoRs to employer–employee relations. We adapt the framework to the relationships between workplace ethnographers and gatekeepers by theorising the characteristics of ideal types of gatekeepers and workplace ethnographers and exploring possible implications for when they meet in access negotiations. We distil lessons learnt from previous research by drawing on illustrative examples from the literature to suggest strategies for interacting with gatekeepers when tensions emerge, providing a pragmatic application of our contribution.

Assuming that their FoR of the ER contributes to what they find to be of practical relevance/academic interest, we suggest that a (mis)match of gatekeepers’ and workplace ethnographers’ FoRs can lead to tensions between workplace ethnographers and gatekeepers, either remaining latent or becoming salient. We propose three possible strategies as to how to navigate these tensions during primary access negotiations.

Whilst previous research has mainly focused on the ethnographer as an individual who needs to give gatekeepers a reassuring and enticing impression, we discuss how an important structural factor, an organisation’s ER setup, may influence access. We thus bring an important yet hitherto neglected aspect of organisational life into the debate on the pragmatic realities of ethnography, contributing to the discussion of how to navigate the tension between the “practical” need to convince gatekeepers and the need to fulfil one’s own standards of rigorous research and ethics.

The combined roles of strategic planning and decentralized strategy-making remain an essential issue in strategy research and its resolution has implications for management practice. To this end the current study considers the added effects of adopted leadership style and use of interactive controls and thereby uncovers new interesting insights about the combined strategy-making process. The authors use structural equation analyses to investigate these more fine-grained relationships based on an updated cross-sectional dataset from among the largest companies in Denmark. The analyses find that a participative leadership style drives the application of interactive controls, which in turn has a positive interaction effect on the relationship between strategic planning and corporate performance. A participative leadership style also exerts positive influence on autonomous strategic actions, which in turn has a negative direct relationship to performance, but a positive interaction effect on performance together with use of interactive controls. The authors discuss the theoretical foundation for these intricate relationships and consider opportunities to extract further research insights.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a controller for damping of oscillations of a synchronous generator connected to the electric network. The goal is to determine the configuration of the controller and to set up the procedure for determination of the controller parameters.

On the basis of the analytical and numerical analysis of the so‐far proposed stabilizers, the new directions towards improved and efficient stabilizer have been established. The advantage of the proposed approach has been confirmed with simulations and experimental results.

Three main contributions can be highlighted: on the basis of the synchronous generator analysis, it is shown that the conventional power system stabilizer is inappropriate for optimal oscillation damping through the entire operating range; the possibility of application of the model reference adaptive control theory for stabilizer design is confirmed; and the rules have been set up for selection of the stabilizer parameters.

The power system control is rather conservative and does not allow new approaches to the control concepts.

The paper's originality lies in the fact that the proposed adaptive approach for realizing the control system for damping of oscillations is presented completely. The configuration of the controller is presented, as well as the method for determining the adaptation mechanism parameters.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the role of management gurus in a contemporary society.

To further understanding about the specific atmosphere favorable to the production and consumption of the guruesque ideas the paper draws on the work of Goffman and MacIntyre about the performance‐like quality of organizational life.

It is argued that the management guru is well at home in a social world in which presentation is a central theme. Hence, we portray the guru not as the messenger who brings indisputable truths to the managerial masses, but as a person who succeeds in presenting him or herself as a “tastemaker”.

The concept of tastemaker is still in need of more development and therefore this paper suggests three lines of further research.

This paper may help managers, as important consumers of guruesque ideas, to better understand the management guru phenomenon and to reflect on their value in daily praxis.

The paper provides more insight into the, albeit contested, role of (dis)taste, an issue that received scant attention in discussions about management fashion and guruism.

Global and interconnected supply chains are increasingly exposed to systemic risks, whereby individual failures propagate across firms, sectors and borders. Systemic risks have emerged from the decisions of individual firms, e.g., outsourcing and buffer reduction, and are now beyond their control. This paper aims to identify appropriate approaches to mitigating those risks.

Systemic risks require analyzing supply chains beyond a dyadic perspective. This study approaches the problem through the lenses of complex systems and network theories. Drawing on the lessons learned from other systemic-risk-prone systems, e.g. energy and financial networks, both in research and practice, this study analyzes the adequate level of governance to monitor and manage systemic risks in supply chains.

The authors argue that governance institutions should be mandated to overview and reduce systemic risks in supply chains from the top down, as central bankers do for the financial system. Using firm-level data and tools from network analysis and system dynamics, they could quantify systemic risks, identify risk-prone interconnections in supply chains and design mitigating measures. This top-down approach would complement the bottom-up supply chain management approach and could help insurers design policies for contingent business interruptions.

Instead of looking at supply chains purely from the firms’ angle, the perspective of insurers and governments is brought in to reflect on the governance of risks.

The purpose of this article is to introduce the theme of this special issue. In doing so, the paper argues that marketing historical research is in need of a paradigmatic shift. Rather than privilege primary and secondary sources that preserve the perspectives and actions of corporate managers and of marketing academics, marketing historians need to open the historical narratives they construct much more than before to the experiences and voices of ordinary consumers, i.e. of those who actually shop and buy and choose. They also need to do more to incorporate into their narratives examples of the value-creation that consumers themselves enact, both inside and outside the sphere of the market.

By reviewing the state of the marketing historical literature, this paper introduces the “History from Below” school of historical thought into marketing historical research. It also tests to what extent a stronger consumer focus might be able to enrich historical research in marketing.

Although contemporary marketing historiography is characterized by a richness of themes and methodological approaches, there is still a marked difference between the way marketing academics and historians write the history of marketing and consumption. While, surprisingly, the former often tend to ignore the voices of ordinary consumers, the latter often lack the marketing-related “technical” knowledge to fully understand the significance of specific archival sources they discuss. This means that a genuine “People’s History of Marketing” has yet to be written.

Findings from the paper will be of value to marketing historians who wish to expand the scope and agenda of their research and help historical research move away from narrow managerial perspectives and other “privileged” accounts of marketing.

This paper makes two original contributions. First, it introduces historiographical innovations associated with “History from Below” (social history) into marketing historical scholarship. Second, it attempts to help marketing historians identify alternative sets of primary and secondary sources, e.g. oral history archives, which would allow them to be much more optimistic about their own ability to reconstruct the perspectives of those whose voices are all too often ignored.

David Peace’s Red Riding quartet ( 1974; 1977; 1980; 1983 ) was published in the UK between 1999 and 2002. The novels are an excoriating portrayal of the violences of men, focusing on paedophilia and child murder, the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper and, predominantly, the blurring of boundaries between the activities of police officers, criminals and entrepreneurs. This chapter aims to examine the way in which the criminal entrepreneur draws on socially constructed ideas of masculinity and the capitalist ideal in order to establish identity. This will be achieved through an examination of John Dawson, a character central to the UK Channel Four/Screen Yorkshire’s Red Riding Trilogy, the filmed version of the novels, first screened in 2009. The central role of networks of powerful men in creating space for the criminal entrepreneur and the cultural similarities between police officers and criminal entrepreneur will be explored.

Using the research approach of bricolage, the chapter provides a reflexive commentary on the films, drawing on a number of other texts and sources, including news accounts of featured events and interviews with the author David Peace and the series co-producer Jamie Nuttgens – an analysis of the texts, using a framework suggested by van Dijk (1993) and McKee (2003) features.

The centrality of the idea of hegemonic masculinity to the activities of both police officers, and criminals and businessmen and Hearn’s (2004) assertion that the cultural ideal and institutional power are inextricably linked are examined through an analysis of the role of Dawson (and his three linked characters in the novels) in the Red Riding Trilogy.

The chapter provides an analysis of one film series but could provide a template to apply to other texts in relation to topic.

The social implications of the findings of the research are discussed in relation to work on the impact of media representations (Dyer, 1993; Hall, 1997).

It is intended that the chapter will add to the growing body of academic work on the criminal entrepreneur and the ways in which media representation of particular groups may impact on public perception and construction of social policy.