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1 – 10 of 10Isabella Krysa, Mariana Ines Paludi, Liela Jamjoom and Marke Kivijärvi
Isabella Krysa, Kien T. Le, Jean Helms Mills and Albert J. Mills
Drawing on a series of RAND interviews with Vietnamese prisoners during the Vietnam War, the paper aims to analyze the role of colonizer–colonized in the production of…
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing on a series of RAND interviews with Vietnamese prisoners during the Vietnam War, the paper aims to analyze the role of colonizer–colonized in the production of postcolonial representations (postcoloniality) and the role of the Western corporation in the processes of postcoloniality.
Design/methodology/approach
Selected RAND interviews are analyzed using a postcolonial lens and explored through the method of critical hermeneutics.
Findings
The analysis supports the contention that Western othering of Third World people is neither completely successful nor one-sided. It is argued that while the Western corporation is an important site for understanding hybridity and postcoloniality, analysis needs to go beyond focusing on the symbolic and the textual to take account of the material conditions in which interactions between colonizer–colonized occur. Finally, there is support for further study of the socio-political character of methods of research in the study of international business.
Research limitations/implications
The case suggests further study of colonizer–colonized interactions outside of the context of an on-going war, which may have heightened some forms of resistance and voice.
Social implications
The paper draws attention to the continuing problem of Western othering of formerly colonized people through military and commercial engagements that are framed by neo-colonial viewpoints embedded in theories of globalization and research methods.
Originality/value
The paper provides rare glimpses into interactions between colonizing and colonized people, and also the under-research study of the role of the Western corporation in the production of postcoloniality.
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Isabella Krysa, Mariana Paludi and Albert J. Mills
This paper aims to investigate the discursive ways in which racialization affects the integration process of immigrants in present-day Canada. By drawing on a historical analysis…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the discursive ways in which racialization affects the integration process of immigrants in present-day Canada. By drawing on a historical analysis, this paper shows how race continues to be impacted by colonial principles implemented throughout the colonization process and during the formation stages of Canada as a nation. This paper contributes to management and organizational studies by shedding light on the taken-for-granted nature of discursive practices in organizations through problematizing contemporary societal and political engagements with “race”.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper draws on critical diversity studies as theoretical framework to problematize a one-dimensional approach to race and diversity. Further, it applies the Foucauldian historical method (Foucault, 1981) to trace the construction of “race” over time and to show its impact on present-day discursive practices.
Findings
Through a discursive review of Canada’s past, this paper shows how seemingly non-discriminatory race-related concepts and policies such as “visible minority” contribute to the marginalization of non-white individuals, racializing them. Multiculturalism and neoliberal globalization are identified as further mechanisms in such a racialization process.
Originality/value
This paper illustrates the importance of a historical contextualization to shed light on present workplace discrimination and challenges unproblematic approaches to workplace diversity.
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Gerard Farias, Nancy E. Landrum, Christine Farias and Isabella Krysa
Since the Brundtland report’s call for sustainability, planetary conditions have deteriorated. This paper suggests that corporate hypocrisy is a major barrier toward the adoption…
Abstract
Purpose
Since the Brundtland report’s call for sustainability, planetary conditions have deteriorated. This paper suggests that corporate hypocrisy is a major barrier toward the adoption of sustainability and offers a typology of business behavior that can move closer toward the adoption of true and strong sustainability.
Design/methodology/approach
This article uses a normative lens to build upon prior literature and anecdotal evidence from the field to present a typology of business archetypes that represent a variety of responses toward sustainability.
Findings
The authors propose five typologies of business behavior that represent responses toward sustainability: business-as-usual, hypocritical pretender, hypocritical co-opter, responsible enterprise and purposeful enterprise. The first three typologies represent existing hypocritical approaches using weak sustainability. The last two typologies decrease corporate hypocrisy; improve alignment of talk, decisions and action; and help an organization adopt true and strong sustainability.
Research limitations/implications
This is a normative paper that critiques existing literature and practices in corporate sustainability and proposes new directions. It necessitates further research in the form of case studies and empirical cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis. It implies assessing firm impact in non-traditional ways and will call for the development of new measures and indicators of firm performance from a social and environmental perspective.
Practical implications
The typology can provide practitioners and researchers with one possible solution to eliminate or decrease corporate hypocrisy in relation to sustainability, reporting and communications.
Social implications
Planetary conditions have worsened, and business activity continues to contribute to deteriorating conditions. This research attempts to help businesses move away from hypocritical and destructive practices and to adopt true and strong sustainability practices for a flourishing planet. Furthermore, the authors articulate policy and practice recommendations in this context.
Originality/value
After decades of failure to make progress in achieving planetary sustainability, this research offers a model for practitioners and researchers to use in defining the actions necessary to achieve the elusive concept of sustainability.
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Mariana I. Paludi, Isabella Krysa and Marke Kivijärvi
This paper explores working mothers’ coping strategies concerning paid and unpaid work in Chile and Argentina during the Covid-19 pandemic. The paper aimed to understand the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper explores working mothers’ coping strategies concerning paid and unpaid work in Chile and Argentina during the Covid-19 pandemic. The paper aimed to understand the influence of cultural norms on motherhood and neoliberal workplace practices on mothers’ sensemaking processes and coping strategies. This study focuses on mothers living in Chile and Argentina where governments established mandatory lockdowns between March and September 2020. Drawing on the notion of neoliberal motherhood, women’s demands were analyzed when paid work and mothering duties collide in time and space.
Design/methodology/approach
Open-ended interviews were conducted with 17 women in Chile and Argentina. All interviewees had at least 1 child below the age of 6 and were working from home during the lockdown.
Findings
Neoliberal workplace demands, and disadvantageous government policies greatly heightened the dual burdens of working mothers. Women were expected to fulfill the discourses of the neoliberal worker and the good mother, while also adopting additional strategies in the wake of the lockdown. The data highlights mothers’ strategies to cope with care and work duties by adjusting to new routines involving their partners, relatives and the wider community.
Research limitations/implications
The generalizability of the results is limited by the small sample of 17 interviewees, all from middle to middle-upper class. The changing scenario due to Covid-19 makes the collected data not sufficient to grasp the impact of the pandemic, as during the interviews (December 2020 and January 2021) the process was still ongoing.
Practical implications
Organizations should assess their role in the management of paid and unpaid work for both genders, as the neoliberal discourse views the worker as masculine, full-time, always available and productive, ignoring women’s additional care duties outside of the workplace.
Originality/value
The Covid-19 pandemic provides a unique opportunity to reflect on care work and gender, collective versus individual responses to care and work demands and the idea of organizing.
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Isabella Krysa and Marke Kivijärvi
This research attempts to make sense of the experiences of two academic women who become mothers.
Abstract
Purpose
This research attempts to make sense of the experiences of two academic women who become mothers.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is an autoethnography. Applying the autoethnographic method allows us to discuss cultural phenomena through personal reflections and experiences. Our autoethnographic reflections illustrate our struggles and attempts of resistance within discursive spaces where motherhood and our identity as academics intersect.
Findings
Our personal experiences combined with theoretical elaborations illuminate how the role of the mother continues to be dominated by such gendered discursive practices that conflict with the work role. Once women become mothers, they are othered through societal and organizational practices because they constitute a visible deviation from the masculine norm in the organizational setting, academia included.
Originality/value
This paper explores how contemporary motherhood discourse(s)within academia and the wider society present competing truth claims, embedded in neoliberal and postfeminist cultural sensibility. Our autoethnographic reflections show our struggles and attempts of resistance within such discursive spaces.
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Isabella M. Krysa, Albert Mills and Salvador Barragan
The purpose of this paper is to critically look at how immigrants to Canada are informed and educated about how to become productive members of society. The authors adopted a…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to critically look at how immigrants to Canada are informed and educated about how to become productive members of society. The authors adopted a postcolonial framework to unveil the underlying assumptions embedded in the messages that are conveyed to “teach” and “prepare” immigrants for the Canadian workplace. In particular, the authors focus on non-white immigrants because they form the majority of immigrants to Canada and at the same time data show that they experience particular socio-economic obstacles in their settlement process that European immigrants did not.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors apply postcolonialism as the theoretical framework. This approach allows the authors to analyze the relationship between the local subject and the encounter with the non-local other, in this case the immigrant who is from a non-European background. The authors conduct a Foucauldian critical discourse analysis on selected texts that serve as information sources for immigrants. These texts include government documents, immigrant information brochures, and workplace information books and booklets.
Findings
The analysis shows ideological positions that reveal discursive messages representing the non-white immigrant in binary terms. Such immigrants are represented in opposing (and inferior) terms to the local (largely white) Canadian citizen. By adopting a postcolonial lens, the analysis shows that the messages to acculturate immigrants reveal assimilationist features.
Research limitations/implications
The authors acknowledge that the authors’ own personal socio-political, intellectual, and ideological locations influence the approach, logic, research process, and the interpretation of the findings. For future research, other textual sources should be analyzed with regard to the messages they convey to immigrants as a form of education to see what kind of acculturation is conveyed.
Practical implications
This paper sheds light on the necessity to develop policies that not only aim to acculturate immigrants using integration strategies but also to carefully communicate and educate newcomers through messages that that do not stem from colonial assumptions.
Originality/value
This research points out the taken-for granted and oftentimes invisible forms of discriminatory practices in the workplace that appear non-discriminatory on the surface but are rooted in colonial thinking. Consequently, the authors challenge “mainstream” management theories concerning diversity in the workplace by questioning the underlying messages portrayed to immigrants.
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