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There is, in the literature on administration, a general implication that resource levels are to be largely taken as givens, operating as constraints within which the administrator must work. A contrary view may be taken, namely that the level of resources made available to a specific operating unit may be increased by the insightful administrator. Careful analysis of the situation coupled with a reasoned strategy which utilizes an expanded definition of resources, a definition which rejects superficial categorization in favor of intensive examination of its finer nuances, are necessary to the achievement of this end.

Resource allocation is a problem common to all levels and types of administrative positions. Existing resources are expanded (allocated) both to perform an organizational task and to acquire additional resources. If the leader successfully expends available resources to acquire still more resources in terms of people, materials and space, then a subsequent and equally important task is the allocation of these acquisitions to the various sectors of the organization. It is through the judicious distribution of essential resources to achieve acquisition of still more, in the one instance, and to the furthering of organizational aims in the other that the leader attempts to move the organization towards goals. His accountability as leader is fixed in how efficiently and effectively resources are deployed in the goal attainment efforts.

Despite the importance of brokers in creative projects, limited attention has been devoted to the micro-interactions by which brokers induce others’ collaboration while simultaneously retaining some control over creative production. Building on an interactionist perspective, we develop the concept of brokerage style – i.e., a recognizable pattern in the ways in which a broker interacts with others. By using different brokerage styles in different phases of a creative project, brokers can orient the social interactions among project participants, “charging” those interactions with different types of emotional energy and mutual attention, eventually inducing collective collaboration and limiting participants’ expectations of control. We illustrate our interactionist model of brokerage styles with examples from the music and TV industries.

In small group settings, is it the position in social networks or the content of communication that constitutes a leader? Studies focussing on the content suggest that leadership consists in creating and promoting meanings, whereas studies focussing on the connections stress that it is the network position that ‘makes a leader’. These two dimensions of leadership communication style have not been compared yet. To fill this gap, this chapter applies an emerging approach – socio-semantic network analysis – to jointly consider the content of, and the connections, in leaders' communication. Using a multisource dataset, we empirically study the social network positions (social network analysis) and the content of communication (semantic network analysis) of three leaders in a creative collective. Our findings reveal that different styles of leadership make diverse use of the content and the connections in a small group. The academic and practical implications are outlined.

School districts are ongoing organizations which have staffs and organizational structures committed to stabilizing and maintaining their present activities and programs. The authors have attempted to draw together the kinds of information needed to help school district administrators view their organization in a way which examines the consequences of decisions for all of the goals and objectives of the district. This view, which has been labeled comprehensive, is designed to move the administration of the district from solving problems one‐at‐a‐time to an assessment of the complete goal‐activity picture. Implications of a comprehensive approach to school district administration for staff development as well as university and college preparation of administrators are, in the judgment of the authors, substantial.

In this paper the sometimes confusing concepts of structural centralization and decentralization and administrative centralization and decentralization are classified. Brief contrast Is made between the Latin American and North American models. It is hypothesized that there is a positive relationship between administrative decentralization and (I) leadership development at lower hierarchical levels, (II) greater participation in the decision‐making process by people at lower hierarchical levels, (III) an increased sense of responsibility, for the final output, by those at lower hierarchical levels, (IV) implementation of innovative changes which are proposed by individuals at lower hierarchical levels, (V) the development of different approaches to solving problems in the various subsystems at lower hier‐archical levels, (VI) the rapidity at which decisions can be made concerning local issues.

Because we lack a usable definition of the concept of style to inform research on the creative industries, this chapter takes a first step toward developing a style-based perspective on them. The use of style in disciplines where the study of creative industries occupies a notable position (sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, and management) is compared and contrasted with a series of related concepts (status, fashion, trend, genre, movement, and category). Style is defined as a durable, recognizable pattern of aesthetic choices. Propositions that relate style to an organization’s creative performance are formulated for two types of audience: insiders and outsiders.

Mauritius is a Small Island Development State (SIDS) with limited resources, and it has been witnessed that many containers used for storing household and industrial products are made from plastic. When discarded as waste, those plastic containers pose a serious environmental and economic challenge for Mauritius. Moreover, landfill space is getting increasingly scarce, and plastic waste is contaminating both land and water. Therefore, it is of the utmost necessity to develop solutions for Mauritius' plastic wastes. Due to its abundance and accessibility, plastic waste is a promising material for recycling and energy production. One potential solution is the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to predict household plastic consumption, allowing policymakers to design effective strategies and initiatives to reduce plastic waste. Such information is a critical component to be able to efficiently plan for the collection and routing of trucks when collecting recyclable plastics. The development of new strategies for the recycling of plastic waste and development of new industry can address the import and export potential of the country to achieve self-sustainability as well as contribute to reduction in plastic pollution and amount of waste landfilled. These plastics can thereafter be used effectively for recycling and for the making of 3D printing filaments which fall under the SDGs 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure) and 12 (Responsible consumption and production).

This chapter examines key drivers of variation in adaptive capacity of project network organizations (PNOs). PNOs are defined as strategically coordinated sets of longer-term, yet project-based relationships, which provide for both stability and change in volatile project businesses. While prior research has emphasized the adaptive role of flexible structures and agency, the author focuses on the role of project variety and contextual embedding and disembedding in building adaptive capacity. Comparing two PNOs in TV movie production, the author argues that differences in adaptive capacity are a function of inter-context connectivity, that is, the level of task and team linkages among diverse project contexts, and the degree to which network ties and relational practices have “dual quality” in being valuable both within and beyond specific project contexts. Findings have important implications for project, network, and organization research.

The increasing availability of eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) financial statements motivates additional investigation of whether XBRL’s search-facilitating technology (SFT) and enhanced viewing capabilities facilitate information search and improve financial analysis decision quality and efficiency. This experiment investigates how using XBRL technology to view financial statements influences novice investors’ decision quality by affecting decision processes such as search strategy and effort, as well as decision efficiency (accuracy/effort) in a financial statement analysis task. In the experiment, randomly assigned student participants (n = 102) invested in companies using either static PDF-formatted or XBRL-enabled financial statements. No differences in decision quality (i.e., accuracy) due to technology use were observed. However, participants in the XBRL condition examined less information, used more directed search processes, and evidenced greater efficiency than did participants assigned to the PDF condition. Hence, the results suggest that XBRL SFT affects the use of differing decision processes relative to PDF technology.