Search results

Accounting for organizational history is essential to any change process. We argue, however, that the intentional revision of that history also can be important. We treat history as malleable, because events and actions from the past are susceptible to reinterpretation as organizations try to align with the way they see themselves in the present and want to see themselves in the future. Because change is a prospective, future‐oriented process, whereas sensemaking is a retrospective, past‐oriented process, making sense of the future requires an ability to envision the future as having already occurred, i.e. to think in the future perfect tense. We offer an initial conceptual exploration of organizational change from a revisionist history perspective that turns on future perfect thinking, a view that enlarges our conceptualization of the ways in which history affects organizational adaptation and change.

Although the organizational identity (OI) construct (Albert & Whetten, 1985) is now in its fourth decade, research in the field has been somewhat uneven, particularly with respect to an essentialist view and hypothetico-deductive type of studies. Believing that this stems in large part from insufficient construct clarity (Suddaby, 2010), this theory-development initiative presents an expanded conceptual framework. The authors exploit several key elements of individual identity and make the case for using these as the basis for conceptualizing an organizational-level equivalent. Starting with the premise that an individual’s identity is the product of comparisons, two dimensions are identified: the type of comparison (similarity, difference), referred to as the “identity conundrum,” and the object of comparison (self–other, self–self), referred to as the “identity perspective.” The authors then propose a four-cell distinctive conceptual domain for OI and explore its implications for scholarship.

Purpose – This chapter presents four different approaches to doing and writing qualitative research in strategy and management based on different epistemological foundations. It describes two well-established “templates” for doing such work, and introduces two more recent “turns” that merit greater attention.

Design/Methodology/Approach – The chapter draws on methodological texts and a detailed analysis of successful empirical exemplars from the strategy and organization literature to show how qualitative research on strategy processes can be effectively carried out and written up.

Findings – The two “templates” are based on different logics and modes of writing. The first is based on a positivist epistemology and aims to develop nomothetic theoretical propositions, while the second is interpretive and more concerned to capture and gain insight from the meanings given to organizational phenomena. The two “turns” (the practice turn and the discursive turn) are not as well defined but are generating innovative contributions based on new ways of considering the social world.

Originality/Value – The chapter should be helpful to researchers considering qualitative methods for the study of strategy processes. It contributes by comparing different approaches and by recognizing that part of the challenge of doing qualitative research lies in writing it up to communicate its insights in a credible way. Thus while describing the different methods, the chapter also draws attention to effective forms of writing. In addition, it introduces and assesses two more recent “turns” that offer promising routes to novel insight as well as having particular ontological and epistemological affinities with qualitative research methods.

Outsourcing is the strategic use of outside resources to perform activities that are usually handled by internal staff and resources. By using a well‐managed outsourcing agreement, companies can gain in markets that would otherwise be uneconomical. This study was designed to explore why companies are undertaking outsourcing projects and identifies factors that may facilitate or impede outsourcing projects. In addition, this article examines the relationships between outsourcing strategies and organizational performance. The results show that organizations generally considered themselves successful at outsourcing. However, while they achieved significant improvement in organizational performance, they have not reached the magnitude of improvements ascribed to outsourcing.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the dynamics of marketing practice and theory in arguing that much of the dislocation between strategy and practice is due to the inheritance and internalisation of often impractical but persistently dominant, tacit Cartesian assumptions.

This paper uses case methodology to examine the marketing theory into practice/marketing practice into theory conundrum and explores: their separation (marketing theory and marketing practice); their flows (context to text to context: theory into practice/practice into theory); their symbiosis (the praxis of marketing); and the dynamic and static (in situ/in aspic) nature of their duality. This work is an exploratory empirical study undertaken in what is a very under-researched area.

In this paper, marketing theory and marketing practice are recognised as occupying different epistemes. The lifeworld of marketing theorising appears as characterised by a relatively homogenous and mostly cognitive world dominated by rationality and empirical rigour. By contrast, the embodied practitioner inhabits a more highly segmented, fragmented, heterogeneous and frequently improvised landscape.

The authors propose that the all-consuming clamour for reliance and relevance of theory to practice dictates that the form, function and philosophy of marketing must be co-created in the practical pragmatism of praxis. Praxis is practice informed by theory and theory informed by practice, a cyclical process of experiential, contextual learning.

The paper appears to be the first to bring together Cartesian thought and the practice-theory divide in B2B marketing theory.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the state of French medium sized business schools in the Grandes Ecole sector of education and how networks and alliances help business schools survive in an ever-changing and global environment.

The material for empirical research for this paper was gathered by using a case study method of four small to medium sized provincial Institutions of Management Education in France.

The paper demonstrates that all of the business schools studied rely on networks and alliances to face globalisation and internationalise their strategy and seems to follow the three typologies of mergers and acquisitions set down by Napier (1989): extension mergers, collaborative mergers and redesign mergers. At present, the networks and alliances are used on a marginal or peripheral way by networking only a part of the institution at one time.

Further research at a later date needs to be carried out in order to observe if the pattern will remain or if there may be networks which will start from the core of the institution since the organisations will in the future have more of an international or global culture.

The value of this paper is to demonstrate that medium-sized business schools can compensate their limited resources and compete in the global education market. Alliances and networks appear as key ways in achieving goals of sustainability and survival.

In the current digital era where online content is riddled with fabricated metrics and rankings, this research aims to investigate the underpinning mechanisms of the calculative practices which actors engage with to evaluate digital platform content in the absence of well-defined performance measures.

The paper focuses on the online, photo-sharing platform Instagram which is devoid of common performance measures such as rankings, ratings and reviews. The authors applied netnographic methods to capture users' actions and interactions at the Greek Instagram community. The authors adopt a practice lens as informed by Schatzki's ‘site ontology’ to capture actors' calculative practices as organised by rules, teleoaffective structures and general and practical understandings.

Platform actors engage in aesthetic and palpable evaluations of other user profiles and their posted content. They employ permissible (e.g., using third-party apps) and illicit (e.g., lobbying and procuring engagement) tactics to measure and manage digital platform performance, fabricate metrics and blur others' evaluations, in pursuit of prestige and material teleologies. Their calculative practices are conditioned by an implicit social etiquette, which permeates the platform both horizontally and vertically.

First, the paper captures and theorises the mechanisms which underpin actors' calculative practices for performance measurement in the absence of robust judgement devices. Second, it demonstrates how ambiguous assemblages of material and prestige teleologies, aesthetic and palpable evaluative regimes and implicit rules and practical expertise collectively invoke platform actors' calculative practices and the construction of performance measures. In doing so, it contributes to performance measurement literature via demonstrating how management accounting is implicated in the evaluation of digital platform outputs.

The paper provides insight on how platform actors fabricate performance metrics, what they perceive as ‘good’ online content and what constitutes an ‘impactful’ user account or a ‘successful’ social media campaign. Such findings are valuable to management accountants, entrepreneurs and practitioners who seek to evaluate digital platform performance.

This paper aims to examine the role of individual action in addressing challenges of sustainability, and to help marketing scholars and practitioners better understand what motivates sustainable living.

Semistructured interviews with 35 individuals self-identifying as sustainable shed light on motivations and identity expression in sustainable living. Four Drive Theory, and Personal and Social Identity Theory (operationalized through the Dynamic Model of Identity Development), provide this study’s guiding theoretical framework. Data analysis was informed by the Gioia methodology.

Individuals differently express their personal and social identities through sustainable living, and are differently motivated to live sustainably. Those expressing personal identity salience through sustainable living draw on a broader set of motivations than those expressing social identity salience. This results in varying levels of commitment to sustainable living, with differences also found in individuals’ personal satisfaction derived from their sustainable living efforts. Based on these findings, a novel typology of sustainable individuals is developed.

This study is limited by its focus on one geographic area and relatively small sample size. A key implication is the need to consider both personal and social identity when studying behavior in other marketing contexts.

The research provides important insights for marketing practitioners, policymakers and others seeking to better categorize sustainable individuals and target marketing messages to encourage sustainable behaviors.

This paper contributes to marketing scholarship by providing new insights on the role of identity and motivations in sustainable living. It introduces a novel typology of sustainable individuals, founded on differences in identity expression and motivational drives, which are also associated with the range of sustainable behaviors people engage with and how individuals make sense of these behaviors.

Central to the celebrity creation process is mass media communication and impression management (IM) behaviors of social actors. The emergence of social network sites (SNSs) such as Twitter offers a platform for social actors to engage both of these means in efforts to manage their celebrity. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of how celebrity athletes manage their celebrity status by investigating IM tactics employed by National Basketball Association (NBA) celebrities on Twitter.

A content analytic design was employed to examine the Twitter posts of the top ten most popular and influential NBA celebrity athletes (past and present) at the time of tweet acquisition.

The findings revealed the celebrity athletes used a variety of IM tactics to manage their celebrity. Defensive IM tactics (i.e. reactive measures taken) were used sparingly when compared to offensive IM tactics (i.e. proactive measures taken). Also, consistent with extant IM literature, the celebrity athletes utilized IM tactics in isolation as well as in combination.

The extant literature suggests that celebrities cultivate their relationships with the various media outlets with the potential to create (or even damage) one’s celebrity. This study offers celebrity athletes and their managers with useful insight on celebrity management.

This study is the first to examine IM in a sport business context, particularly the use of IM of athletes on SNSs.