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In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of…
Abstract
In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.
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In this paper, I compare Theodore Schatzki’s practice theory, the existential phenomenology of Martin Heidegger upon whom Schatzki drew in its formation, and my own theory of…
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In this paper, I compare Theodore Schatzki’s practice theory, the existential phenomenology of Martin Heidegger upon whom Schatzki drew in its formation, and my own theory of institutional logics which I have sought to develop as a religious sociology of institution. I examine how Schatzki and I both differently locate our thinking at the level of practice. In this essay I also explore the possibility of appropriating Heidegger’s religious ontology of worldhood, which Schatzki rejects, in that project. My institutional logical position is an atheological religious one, poly-onto-teleological. Institutional logics are grounded in ultimate goods which are praiseworthy “objects” of striving and practice, signifieds to which elements of an institutional logic have a non-arbitrary relation, sources of and references for practical norms about how one should have, make, do or be that good, and a basis of knowing the world of practice as ordered around such goods. Institutional logics are constellations co-constituted by substances, not fields animated by values, interests or powers.
Because we are speaking against “values,” people are horrified at a philosophy that ostensibly dares to despise humanity’s best qualities. For what is more “logical” than that a thinking that denies values must necessarily pronounce everything valueless? Martin Heidegger, “Letter on Humanism” (2008a, p. 249).
The death of John F. Kennedy (JFK) was one of the most remarkable facts of the second half of the twentieth century. Not surprisingly, it was reflected numerous times in popular…
Abstract
The death of John F. Kennedy (JFK) was one of the most remarkable facts of the second half of the twentieth century. Not surprisingly, it was reflected numerous times in popular culture, including in popular music. In this chapter, I discuss songs published in the 1963–1968 period in which the image of JFK was represented as an idea, a cultural motif or a political myth created, transformed and maintained by artistic means. In song lyrics, a real person (who was a genuinely influential politician) was portrayed as a person who acquired a certain mythical status, stemming from JFK's charismatic features and augmented by his tragic death. Thus, separate from the real political career as the president, JFK serves as a kind of mythological structure used by several artists to generate meanings and mirror cultural iconography present in American culture.
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Martin Parker, James Brown, Hannah Jusu-Sheriff and John Manley
The project – AskingBristol – uses university students to connect third sector organizations with particular “asks” to organizations which might be able to respond with “offers”…
Abstract
Purpose
The project – AskingBristol – uses university students to connect third sector organizations with particular “asks” to organizations which might be able to respond with “offers”. The authors describe the task of the experiment as being an attempt to embed students and their universities within the cities that they are based in, but are often not really very connected to.
Design/methodology/approach
This reflective report on practice describes an initiative aimed at producing a piece of “social infrastructure”. Written by the four people involved, the authors theorize and evaluate what we have done so far and what we hope to do in future.
Findings
Over two phases, it has had some success, and we think represents a concrete approach to thinking about how “civic” ideas might gain traction within universities. Using ideas about social networks, boundary objects and infrastructure the authors explore the opportunities and problems of such a project, stressing that it allows co-ordination between a wide variety of people and organizations that do not necessarily share common interests.
Research limitations/implications
This is one “experiment”, in one city, but it demonstrates the possibilities of getting “civic” universities engaged with local third sector organizations.
Practical implications
If it became a piece of social infrastructure, such a project could embed ideas about “civic”, “impact”, “engagement” and so on into the routines of the city and the university.
Social implications
Though Asking Bristol cannot solve the problems of the city, it shows that we can transfer resources, time, skills and space to where they are needed.
Originality/value
The authors do not think anything like this has been attempted before, and hope that sharing it will stimulate some comparisons, and perhaps some dissemination of the idea.
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John A. Martin and Frank C. Butler
This paper aims to examine the shareholder versus stakeholder debate. This paper outlines how businesses are starting to move toward a stakeholder model, and also discusses what…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the shareholder versus stakeholder debate. This paper outlines how businesses are starting to move toward a stakeholder model, and also discusses what must be done to sustain the momentum toward the stakeholder model.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses examples from organizations to highlight the momentum toward the stakeholder model.
Findings
This paper suggests that countervailing forces - from financial analysts, institutional investors, and institutionalized practices in many corporations - will need to be overcome if businesses are to succeed in adopting the stakeholder model.
Practical implications
Thus paper discusses the role of educators in the process of changing the mindset of students, executives, and others from a shareholder to stakeholder mindset.
Originality/value
This paper discusses not only the trend toward the stakeholder model of businesses, but also how to sustain the momentum toward this model.
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Purpose – This essay attempts to answer the question, “What distinguishes inter-human influence from other forms of influence?”Design/methodology/approach – Specifying the…
Abstract
Purpose – This essay attempts to answer the question, “What distinguishes inter-human influence from other forms of influence?”
Design/methodology/approach – Specifying the micro-foundations of social structures in terms of communicative inferences necessitates a revision of the concept of social structures (and institutions) as distributed, and hence, uncertain, structures of expectation. Institutional realities are generated in linguistic interaction through the indirect communication of generic references. The generalizing function of language – in particular, abstraction and memory – coupled with its reflexive function, to turn references into things, are sufficient to generate both social structures and institutions as collective inferences.
Findings – Social relations are fundamentally communicative relations. The communicative relation is triadic, implying an enunciator, an audience, and some referential content. Through linguistic communication, humans are capable of communicating locally with others about others nonlocally. Institutions exist only as expectations concerning the expectations of others. These expectations, however, are not only in the mind, and they are not exclusively psychological entities. Linguistically, these expectations appear as the reported statement within the reporting statement, that is, they are constituted through indirect discourse.
Research limitations/implications – An important implication for current sociological theory is that, from the point of view of a sociology defined as communication about communication from within communication, institutional realities should not be reified as existing naturalistically or objectively above or behind the communications through which they are instantiated.
Originality value – This approach, then, is decidedly anti-“realist.” The goal of such research is to examine the inadequacy of nonreflexive models of social order. Accounts of how sets of social relationships emerge will remain inadequate if they do not reflect upon the cognitive and communicative processes which make possible the consideration of such structures.
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The purpose of this paper is to explore and identify the causes of the failure of the Larkin Company (Buffalo, NY), once one of the nation's largest mail‐order houses in the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore and identify the causes of the failure of the Larkin Company (Buffalo, NY), once one of the nation's largest mail‐order houses in the decades surrounding 1900.
Design/methodology/approach
Borrowing conceptual frameworks from both recent management and historical scholarship on organizational failure that integrates exogenous and endogenous factors, this study employs traditional historical methods to explain the causes of Larkin's failure. The main primary sources include the Larkin Company records, government documents, personal papers, trade journals, and other primary sources.
Findings
Begun as a modest soap manufacturer by John D. Larkin, in Buffalo, in 1875, the Larkin Company grew to become one of the largest mail‐order houses in the USA in the decades surrounding 1900 owing to its innovative direct marketing practices, called the “factory‐to‐family” plan, that relied on unpaid women to distribute its products. In 1918, anticipating the chain store boom, Larkin established two grocery store chains (other retail ventures followed). The company regularly lost money in these ventures and, combined with a shrinking mail‐order economy, struggled during the 1920s and 1930s, and eventually liquidated in 1941‐1942. A number of exogenous and endogenous factors, acting alone and in various combinations, proved too challenging to second‐ and third‐generation family members who ran the company after 1926.
Originality/value
This research paper tries to understand the decline of an important progressive firm during the interwar period. Whereas Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward were able to make the transition from mail order to stores, Larkin Company failed to navigate this transition successfully. It also adds to the small but important literature in management and business history on organizational failure and may serve as a cautionary tale for family businesses.
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Frank C. Butler and John A. Martin
This paper aims to examine the automotive industry and how it ripe for disruption. By examining the current state of the industry and how technology will shape the future of the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the automotive industry and how it ripe for disruption. By examining the current state of the industry and how technology will shape the future of the car, this paper outlines why the automotive industry is ready to be disrupted and provides insights as to whom the major players may be in the future and why.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses examples from companies and the media to identify how the automotive industry is ready to be disrupted.
Findings
This paper identifies that the automotive industry is ready to be disrupted. With Tesla having secured over 400,000 pre-orders for its new Model 3 sedan, there is a movement that will pave the way to a new era of the automobile.
Practical implications
This paper demonstrates that a new way of thinking is needed for top managers at traditional automakers. In this paper, a new way of thinking about the future of the car is presented.
Originality/value
This paper takes a new perspective on what the future of the automobile may resemble and the companies that will likely be involved as a result of the disruption in the industry.
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John Martin and John Kensinger
Perhaps there is no area in which the practice of financial management and its academic treatment are more divergent than in the area of corporate strategy or strategic planning…
Abstract
Perhaps there is no area in which the practice of financial management and its academic treatment are more divergent than in the area of corporate strategy or strategic planning. The practice of financial management or financial engineering has for many years been involved in assessing various strategies and analyzing investment alternatives with dominant strategy themes (e.g. investments in research in development). Their academic counterparts, however, have had great difficulty relating the strategy literature to the finance literature. There are a number of reasons for this but perhaps the most important one has been the fact that the strategy and finance literatures have grown up with very different heritages. Financial economists, who provide the theoretical structure for the practice of financial management, have a deeply rooted heritage in the structure of the neoclassical theory of the firm and have traditionally been extremely reluctant to branch out to new areas unless those areas could somehow be incorporated into that particular theoretical structure. This seems to be changing. Part of the reason has been the movement of the strategy literature toward finance as is evidenced in the work of Michael Porter who has adopted the language of the theory of the firm to address the problem of corporate strategy. In addition, part of the movement toward convergence is due to a similar movement of the finance literature toward consideration of strategy issues using contingent claims models as is exemplified in the work of Stewart Myers. In this paper we begin to weave the story of agreement between strategy and finance. Furthermore, we identify some of the issues that must be addressed as this process of convergence continues.
The objective of this paper is to focus on the evolution of development economics, both as an academic discipline and as a subject taught at both undergraduate and postgraduate…
Abstract
The objective of this paper is to focus on the evolution of development economics, both as an academic discipline and as a subject taught at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, at the University of Manchester, from approximately the early‐1950s onwards. It is not a history or survey of development economics per se but concentrates rather on the richness and variety of the contributions made by a number of eminent economists while they were in the Department of Economics (since 1993, the School of Economic Studies), to both the development of theory and to empirical analysis and to policy prescription, and to the teaching of development economics. Only a limited account is given of the work of these economists once they were no longer in Manchester.
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