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1 – 10 of over 13000The purpose of this paper is to determine whether there is historical support for the proposal of Smith, Montagno and Kuzmenko that the specific cultures associated with…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to determine whether there is historical support for the proposal of Smith, Montagno and Kuzmenko that the specific cultures associated with transformational and/or servant leadership would be more or less applicable, based on context. Moreover, its purpose is also to demonstrate that a historical approach can be used effectively to examine such constructs.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents a historical examination of the military retreats of Xenophon, a transformational leader, and Chief Joseph, a servant leader, during very similar contextual crises.
Findings
Given similar contexts, the historical record offers support for the proposal of Smith et al.
Research limitations/implications
First, the retreats of Xenophon and Chief Joseph were separated by many hundreds of years and miles. Also inherent with this type of methodology is simple disagreement among readers. Although this author finds great similarity in the retreats of Xenophon and Chief Joseph, there are certainly differences that could be scrutinized as well. Moreover, others might be dissatisfied with the selection of Xenophon and Joseph to represent the leadership styles presented, or with the conclusions regarding their effectiveness. Such debate should be encouraged and could provide additional avenues for future research. Further, the current study considered leader effectiveness only as it related to the achievement of the organizational goal(s). It could be that Joseph's cohorts were more satisfied, committed, etc. than were the followers of Xenophon. This line of inquiry should also be pursued.
Practical implications
This research suggests that transformational leader behavior is likely to be more appropriate during times of significant organizational change.
Originality/value
This is the first study that has examined the speculation of Smith et al. and the first to demonstrate that a historical approach can add to one's understanding of such constructs.
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Daniel Trabucchi, Paola Bellis, Tommaso Buganza, Filomena Canterino, Abraham B. (Rami) Shani, Roberto Verganti and Joseph Press
This study investigates the application of collaborative inquiry within innovation management, employing platform thinking to address challenges of generalizability and relevance…
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigates the application of collaborative inquiry within innovation management, employing platform thinking to address challenges of generalizability and relevance. The aim is to integrate Collaborative Inquiry methods, characterized by participatory, diffuse, and reflective practices, to transform research into a tool for impactful change in organizations in the field of innovation management.
Design/methodology/approach
A longitudinal participatory case study approach focuses on the IDeaLs case—a research platform that collaborated with multiple companies over several years. The data gathered and analyzed comes from the research project within the research platforms over the first two editions and from the research platform management and coordination activities.
Findings
The study introduces the Collaborative Research Platform Approach (CRPA), demonstrating its effectiveness in addressing typical constraints of traditional research methodologies through a real-world application within the IDeaLs case. The findings highlight the CRPA's potential in fostering a dynamic, co-creative research environment that bridges theoretical knowledge with practical applications, thus enhancing both scholarly and organizational outcomes while pursuing a future change within the organizations.
Research limitations/implications
There are two main research implications. First, it proposes platform thinking as a theoretical lens to read a multi-stakeholder phenomenon in the research domain, confirming its nature of value-creation mechanisms, using it outside the business model and strategic space. Second, it offers a methodological contribution by presenting the CRPA framework.
Practical implications
The CRPA framework offers organizations a structured approach to managing collaborative research projects that align with both academic rigor and practical relevance. Companies engaged in the study reported enhanced ability to implement actionable insights from research, influencing real-time decision-making processes.
Social implications
By fostering collaborative engagements across multiple stakeholders, the CRPA promotes a research culture that values inclusivity and practical impact, potentially leading to broader societal benefits through improved innovation management practices.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the innovation management field by proposing the CRPA, which integrates principles of Platform Thinking with Collaborative Inquiry. This novel approach is designed to improve the applicability and scope of innovation research, offering a robust framework that enhances engagement and utility across academic and business domains. It uses platforms as a theoretical lens to read a multi-stakeholder environment in the research domain.
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Daniel Trabucchi, Tommaso Buganza, Paola Bellis, Silvia Magnanini, Joseph Press, Roberto Verganti and Federico Paolo Zasa
To overcome change management challenges, organizations often rely on stories as means of communication. Storytelling has emerged as a leading change management tool to influence…
Abstract
Purpose
To overcome change management challenges, organizations often rely on stories as means of communication. Storytelling has emerged as a leading change management tool to influence and bring people on sharing knowledge. Nevertheless, this study aims to suggest stories of change as a more effective tool that helps people in taking action toward transformation processes.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors apply design science research to develop and evaluate how writing a prospective story engages organizational actors in the transformation process. The authors test the story-making artifact in a field study with five companies and 115 employees who participated in 75 workshops.
Findings
Using the findings to discuss the role of story-making in facilitating the emergence of new behaviors in transformation processes, the authors link story-making with the opportunity to make change happen through knowledge dissemination rather than merely understanding it.
Research limitations/implications
The authors illustrate the role of iterations, peers and self-criticism that help story-makers embrace sensemaking, developing a shared knowledge based that influence individual actions.
Practical implications
The authors propose the story-making approach that organizations can follow to nurture change to make transformation happen through knowledge cocreation.
Originality/value
The research explores story-making as an individual act of writing prospective stories to facilitate the emergence of new behaviors through shared knowledge.
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Heritability studies attempt to estimate the contribution of genes (vs. environments) to variation in phenotypes (or outcomes of interest) in a given population at a given time…
Abstract
Purpose
Heritability studies attempt to estimate the contribution of genes (vs. environments) to variation in phenotypes (or outcomes of interest) in a given population at a given time. This chapter scrutinizes heritability studies of adverse health phenotypes, emphasizing flaws that have become more glaring in light of recent advances in the life sciences and manifest most visibly in epigenetics.
Methodology/approach
Drawing on a diverse body of research and critical scholarship, this chapter examines the veracity of methodological and conceptual assumptions of heritability studies.
Findings
The chapter argues that heritability studies are futile for two reasons: (1) heritability studies suffer from serious methodological flaws with the overall effect of making estimates inaccurate and likely biased toward inflated heritability, and, more importantly (2) the conceptual (biological) model on which heritability studies depend – that of identifiably separate effects of genes versus the environment on phenotype variance – is unsound. As discussed, contemporary bioscientific work indicates that genes and environments are enmeshed in a complex (bidirectional, interactional), dynamic relationship that defies any attempt to demarcate separate contributions to phenotype variance. Thus, heritability studies attempt the biologically impossible. The emerging research on the importance of microbiota is also discussed, including how the commensal relationship between microbial and human cells further stymies heritability studies.
Originality/value
Understandably, few sociologists have the time or interest to be informed about the methodological and theoretical underpinnings of heritability studies or to keep pace with the incredible advances in genetics and epigenetics over the last several years. The present chapter aims to provide interested scholars with information about heritability and heritability estimates of adverse health outcomes in light of recent advances in the biosciences.
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Shomon Shamsuddin and Lawrence J. Vale
This chapter addresses the related questions of how to assess housing redevelopment and what constitutes a successful redevelopment project, based on the HOPE VI transformation of…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter addresses the related questions of how to assess housing redevelopment and what constitutes a successful redevelopment project, based on the HOPE VI transformation of Boston’s Orchard Park from one of the city’s most notorious, crime-ridden public housing projects into a mixed-income community that remained overwhelmingly composed of low-income residents.
Methodology/approach
The analysis is based on a unique set of interviews with a sample of residents before and after housing redevelopment occurred. In addition, we draw upon interviews with housing authority staff, official agency file documents, and archival materials.
Findings
We find increased residential satisfaction after redevelopment but lingering concerns about safety and security despite marked declines in crime. Although the redevelopment process displaced some households, residents attributed improvements in living conditions to changes in tenant composition prompted by the housing transformation.
Social implications
The results suggest an alternative model of public housing redevelopment that accommodates a majority of poor, subsidized households with some displacement. Still, loss of housing units, tenant selection, and social problems complicate notions of successful redevelopment.
Originality/value
This chapter contributes to the literature by showing how some low-income families may benefit from housing displacement induced by the redevelopment process. We analyze an overlooked but frequently implemented approach to housing redevelopment under the HOPE VI program to keep the majority of redeveloped units for low-income residents. It is the only study of which we are aware that has collected public housing resident opinions both before and after HOPE VI redevelopment occurred.
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The language of resilience is increasingly used by International organizations that seek to respond to contemporary social, economic, and environmental crises. This paper focuses…
Abstract
The language of resilience is increasingly used by International organizations that seek to respond to contemporary social, economic, and environmental crises. This paper focuses on the World Bank’s World Development Reports, and its uses of resilience. By deploying a quantitative critical discourse analysis, this paper shows how in the recent years resilience has gained traction within the Bank’s discourse. It further analyses the evolution of the genre, the style, and the ideational content of the Bank’s discourse related to resilience. Resilience is now depicted as something that can be built and not just observed. Furthermore, it is increasingly reified in these reports and ascribed to a whole gamut of entities. The ontological indistinction of resilience reinforces its fit with contemporary neoliberal governance.
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John Humphreys, Kendra Ingram, Courtney Kernek and Theresa Sadler
This paper aims to show how industrial thinking has led to a myopic focus on individual leadership styles to the potential detriment of a broader understanding of leadership…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to show how industrial thinking has led to a myopic focus on individual leadership styles to the potential detriment of a broader understanding of leadership. Also, to present the Nez Perce leadership council as an exemplar of post‐industrial leadership. Finally, to demonstrate that a historical approach can be used effectively to elucidate such constructs.
Design/methodology/approach
A historical examination of the popular portrayal versus the actual functioning of the non‐treaty Nez Perce leadership council during the conflict of 1877.
Findings
Although Chief Joseph has often been considered the supreme leader of the Nez Perce during the conflict period (industrial view), the group was actually led by a leadership council, which functioned in the manner described by Rost and Smith as post‐industrial leadership.
Research limitations/implications
Although the paper illuminates Rost and Smith's model, it does not attempt to assess the effectiveness of post‐industrial leadership, as the successes and failures of the Nez Perce during the conflict period could be attributed to other variables beyond the authors' scope. It is to be hoped, however, that future researchers will continue the debate concerning leadership and its peripheral elements.
Practical implications
It is suggested that contemporary organizational leaders should be focused on leadership beyond style and might consider the post‐industrial model for mutually satisfying influence, particularly with the team‐based and flattened structures common to the modern firm.
Originality/value
The use of a historical example and method to exemplify the contemporary model of post‐industrial leadership. Further, to demonstrate how industrial thinking has encouraged many to focus on the periphery of leadership.
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The purpose of this paper is to highlight a selection of poetry titles from the Poets House Showcase of 2006.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to highlight a selection of poetry titles from the Poets House Showcase of 2006.
Design/methodology/approach
This article provides reviews of selected titles from the 2006 Poets House Showcase.
Findings
This review represents a wide‐ranging selection of contemporary poetry collections and anthologies.
Originality/value
This list documents the tremendous range of poetry publishing from commercial, independent and university presses, as well as letterpress chapbooks, art books and CDs.
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