This chapter discusses the opportunities and challenges for academics engaging with civic engagement initiatives within higher education settings. Situating civic engagement as…
Abstract
This chapter discusses the opportunities and challenges for academics engaging with civic engagement initiatives within higher education settings. Situating civic engagement as part of the current academic portfolio and broader demands of the university context, it explores the dynamics involved in these activities by drawing on the case of one rapid response initiative involving students and staff working on the design and delivery of an intergenerational digital mentoring project. In reflecting on four questions that emerged during the initiative, it considers the practicalities of negotiating civic engagement within the context of the university and academic careers more broadly.
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Deirdre Shaw and Kathleen Riach
Literature examining resistant consumer behaviour from an ethical consumption stance has increased over recent years. This paper aims to argue that the conflation between ethical…
Abstract
Purpose
Literature examining resistant consumer behaviour from an ethical consumption stance has increased over recent years. This paper aims to argue that the conflation between ethical consumer behaviour and “anti‐consumption” practices results in a nihilistic reading and fails to uncover the tensions of those who seek to position themselves as ethical while still participating in the general market.
Design/methodology/approach
The study adopts an exploratory approach through semi‐structured in‐depth interviews with a purposive sample of seven ethical consumers.
Findings
The analysis reveals the process through which ethical consumption is constructed and defined in relation to the subject position of the “ethical consumer” and their interactions with the dominant market of consumption.
Research limitations/implications
This research is limited to a single country and location and focused on a specific consumer group. Expansion of the research to a wider group would be valuable.
Practical implications
The impact of ethical consumption on the wider field of consumption can be witnessed in the “mainstreaming” of many ethical ideals. This highlights the potential movements of power between various stakeholders that occupy particular spaces of social action.
Originality/value
Understanding the analysis through Bourdieu's concepts of field and the margins created between spaces of consumption, the paper focuses on the theoretical cross‐section of practice between ethical and market‐driven forms of consumption, advancing discussion by exploring how self‐identified “ethical consumers” defined, legitimatised and negotiated their practices in relation to consumption acts and lifestyles.
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The purpose of this paper is to discuss participant‐led photography as a response to the author's need for an “aesthetic approach” to ethnography during fieldwork, including the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss participant‐led photography as a response to the author's need for an “aesthetic approach” to ethnography during fieldwork, including the importance of an embodied, sensory orientation to ethnography in organizational contexts.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper reviews a range of literature and draws on the author's experiences to support a conceptual argument.
Findings
There is currently scant attention to the sensory dimension of ethnographic practice and the paper puts forward an agenda for future research.
Research limitations/implications
Suggestions are made as to how aesthetic and/or sensory ethnography can support changing landscapes of organizational research.
Originality/value
In drawing together multidisciplinary literature, the paper advances the agenda of ethnographic research in organizational life.
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The purpose of this paper is to put forward an argument for the importance of social and situational dynamics present when groups of organizational members view images. This both…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to put forward an argument for the importance of social and situational dynamics present when groups of organizational members view images. This both enriches psychoanalytic theories of the visual previously brought to bear on this topic and adds a valuable psychoanalytical perspective to visual organization studies.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper extends Burkard Sievers’ concept of the “social photo matrix” (SPM) through an interdisciplinary review of literature in psychoanalysis, audiencing, media studies and social theory.
Findings
A socially nuanced variant of the SPM is put forward as a way to explore organizational members’ experiences of work and employment, as part of a nascent “visual methodological approach” to studying organization(s).
Research limitations/implications
The ideas within this conceptual paper would benefit from empirical investigation. This would be a fruitful and interesting possibility for future research.
Practical implications
The paper concludes with a discussion of the contemporary utility of the SPM as a psychoanalytically‐motivated method through which to understand visually‐mediated effects of organizational action, as collectively experienced by their members and stakeholders.
Originality/value
The paper makes a particular contribution to the poorly‐researched area of the collective reception of organizational images and opens up possibilities to work with the hidden anxieties and defences that arise in the course of organizational action.
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This paper aims to challenge the cisnormative and binary assumptions that underpin the management and gender scholarship. Introducing and contextualising the contributions that…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to challenge the cisnormative and binary assumptions that underpin the management and gender scholarship. Introducing and contextualising the contributions that comprise this special issue, this paper critically reflects on some of the principal developments in management research on trans* and intersex people in the workplace and anticipates what future scholarship in this area might entail.
Design/methodology/approach
A critical approach is adopted to interrogate the prevailing cisnormative and binary approach adopted by management and gender scholars.
Findings
The key finding is the persistence of cisnormativity and normative gender and sex binarism in academic knowledge production and in society more widely, which appear to have hindered how management and gender scholars have routinely failed to conceptualise and foreground the array of diverse genders and sexes.
Originality/value
This paper foregrounds the workplace experiences of trans* and intersex people, which have been neglected by management researchers. By positioning intersexuality as an important topic of management research, this paper breaks the silence that has enwrapped intersex issues in gender and management scholarship. There are still unanswered questions and issues that demand future research from academics who are interested in addressing cisnormativity in the workplace and problematising the sex and gender binaries that sustain it.
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This article illustrates the experiences of employee resource group (ERG) members over a two-year period with the aim of understanding the benefits and risks of membership for…
Abstract
Purpose
This article illustrates the experiences of employee resource group (ERG) members over a two-year period with the aim of understanding the benefits and risks of membership for sexual minority employees.
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative interview data were collected from seven lesbian, gay or bisexual ERG members following an extreme case approach at two points in time separated by two years.
Findings
Three themes of outcomes related to ERG membership emerged from the data. Participants reported both benefits and risks associated with the social and career-related consequences of membership. The role that allies play in providing visibility, legitimacy and support to ERG members also emerged and shifted in importance over the two years between interviews, with ally involvement becoming more important to career outcomes over time.
Practical implications
This study illuminates potential consequences of supporting ERGs for minority employees, as well as insight into the role of allies in these groups.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature by revealing several individual outcomes of a growing form of diversity management practice: ERGs.