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This article explores how recognizing politics may help change agents have better success enacting change.

A conceptual paper using systems and practical domains to define a more sophisticated and useful definition of politics for change agents' use.

The article argues that there is an innate correlation between organizational change and organizational politics.

This article is a call to action for future empirical study on political skill.

This paper is a practical invitation for change agents to recognize and adopt the positive aspects of political skill to aid in their efforts.

Though organizational politics traditionally receives a negative connotation, there is growing research supporting the positive use of politics. This connection has yet to be fully discovered when one reads the literature. This concept paper is an invitation to begin further study.

In the contemporary US, pregnant women must navigate competing ideas about their bodies, including expectations for weight gain. Given that there are few social spaces where women may gain weight without disapproval, pregnancy represents a period when women are allowed to put on weight. However, gaining weight means doing so within the context of the obesity “epidemic” and increased medical surveillance of the body. To explore how women navigate the medicalization of pregnancy weight, I draw on data from in-depth interviews with 40 pregnant and recently pregnant women. Findings indicate that women reframe the meaning of pregnancy weight as “baby weight,” rather than body weight. This allows them to view it as a temporary condition that is “for the baby,” while holding two concurrent body images – a pregnant and a non-pregnant version of themselves. Women also resist the quantification of their maternity weight, either by not keeping track or not looking at scales in the doctor’s office. Doing so prevented baby weight from turning back into body weight – a concrete and meaningful number on the scale. Such resistance to quantification is often accomplished with the help of doctors and healthcare professionals who do not explicitly discuss weight gain with their patients. These findings suggest that women rely on a variety of strategies to navigate the medicalization of pregnancy weight, and provides another lens through which to understand how and why women may make similar choices about other medicalized aspects of their pregnancy (or pregnancy experiences).

This paper aims to approach the issue of premium offers in Italy by discussing the case study of Fabbri, a firm operating since 1905 in the business of liqueurs, syrups and semi-manufactured products for ice cream.

The research takes into analysis three marketing schemes, all related to direct premium promotions, adopted by Fabbri at various times during the twentieth century. The evolution of the company’s marketing strategy is outlined drawing on several types of sources: archive documents, posters and labels and audiovisual material. It is analysed in the socio-economic and legal context of twentieth century Italy, and in comparison with premium offers in the USA and Europe.

The study argues that direct premium may represent a long-lasting and efficient marketing strategy when a firm is able to adapt it to a context that changes over time. Fabbri not only used premium offers to launch its products but also to consolidate its brand image.

By showing that innovative promotions are not necessarily connected to large firms, Fabbri’s case suggests that further research should be carried out to outline marketing policies carried out by small to medium enterprises.

Much has been written on premium offers in the USA and in Europe, but very little on such types of promotions in Italy, especially with reference to direct premiums. This study fills this gap and documents that a small family-owned firm was able to carry out innovative marketing policies as far as in the 1920s.

What is the rhetoric that higher education institutions use when they develop and publish policies to improve student retention? Using the organization literature on institutional environments, this study examines the nature and evolution of institutional rhetoric used by three public universities in a single state over a 20‐year period. Consistent with the intent of the larger volume, this study provides an example of how the frameworks and concepts provided by organization theory can be used to complicate thinking about educational organizations.

Stinchcombe's definition of institutions as “communities of fate” and key concepts from the organizational ecology and institutional literatures provide the framework for this study. Using a qualitative methodology, over 2,800 retention‐oriented statements were used as study data. These were analyzed using codes generated from the institutional theory and student‐retention literatures.

Study data suggest that, while each institution developed a unique, defining identity over time, an institutional isomorphism emerged around student‐retention in these same institutions. This ideology centered on the creation of a “caring and student‐friendly” campus environment and played an important role in the development of student‐retention policies on each campus.

Research in student retention theory and policy has almost exclusively studied retention practice and student persistence. The research for this paper was deliberately designed to operationalize theoretical concepts in organizational ecology literature and to examine their manifestation in universities over time.

The “Colleague Review of Teaching” programme (CRT) aimed to enhance reviewees’ confidence to teach. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Case studies using mixed-method, interview and questionnaire, repeated measures intervention were employed whereby academics in an Australian university science faculty volunteered to participate in a multi-faceted teaching review programme. Underpinned by confidence and self-determination theory, the CRT included peer coach training, reviewee choice, and a strengths-based approach to peer reviewing and coaching colleagues.

The reviewees declared an enhanced confidence to teach, teaching skills and unit design knowledge in an environment that was supportive of psychological needs. The peer coaches reported the CRT to be a positive experience that should continue. The strengths-based approach to peer observation of teaching and peer coaching facilitated department collegiality and was positively received by all participants who completed the programme.

The indifferent response to the CRT protocol completion reconfirms that peer review is a complex science and needs careful negotiation.

Review, peer coach and mentor training, review practice, choice protocols and the multi-faceted approach (pre-observation meeting, observations, written report and post-observation meeting) were positively received.

This paper provides rich insight into the experiences of a teaching review process.

Social marketing theories have habituated to a theoretical and methodological focus that is criticised for being myopic and stigmatising. Following recommendations to redirect focus theoretically, the purpose of this paper is to apply an observational methodology to understanding how project stakeholders interact to examine whether consideration of stakeholders can identify factors facilitating or impeding farming practice change.

More than 48 events involving as many as 150 people including project stakeholder meetings, one-on-one consultations and annual events were observed over more than 100 h by between one and five researchers. Field notes were gathered, and thematic coding focussed on understanding how stakeholders facilitated or impeded practice change.

Observations identified limited provision of information about the project by on ground project stakeholders to targeted individuals (farmers). On the rare occasions where information sharing was observed, communication was delayed making it difficult for individuals to connect actions with outcomes observed. Participating stakeholders did not freely support delivery of activities needed for individual practice change.

This study indicates the value of wider process and outcome assessment encompassing stakeholders to identify factors impeding and facilitating farming practice change.

Approaches that centre attention on individuals fail to acknowledge the inputs, activities and outputs delivered by project stakeholders within a system of change. By redirecting evaluation focus, shared responsibility is gained and stigmatisation of one stakeholder group can be avoided.

This study demonstrates how observations can be used to redirect focus to consider actions and interactions occurring between on ground project stakeholders. A stakeholder evaluation approach extends monitoring and evaluation focus beyond individuals targeted for behaviour change. Implications, limitations and future research directions are outlined.