Michela Floris, Angela Dettori, Camilla Melis and Cinzia Dessì
The paper aims to analyse the case of “Sa Panada srl”, a tiny Sardinian family firm, to provide intriguing insights for the study of entrepreneurial orientation in a context that…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to analyse the case of “Sa Panada srl”, a tiny Sardinian family firm, to provide intriguing insights for the study of entrepreneurial orientation in a context that is anchored in an apparent and hostile past.
Design/methodology/approach
An exploratory approach is used to analyse a single-case study through a narrative approach. Data were analysed through the hermeneutic trio consisting of three phases: (1) explication – contextualisation, reconstruction and synthesis of the history; (2) explanation – identification, description and understanding of the meaning of the narrative; and (3) exploration – discussion and identification of theoretical and practical implications.
Findings
The study introduces novel best practices that help enhance entrepreneurial orientation in a difficult setting based on change reluctance and past anchored culture.
Research limitations/implications
Theoretically, the study contributes to the literature on entrepreneurial orientation, internationalisation and innovativeness of family firms embedded in a hostile context. The main drawback of the study is its explorative analysis of a single case.
Practical implications
For practitioners, the research proposes the case study as a best practice able to inspire successful resilient behaviour and decisions for other firms that experience daily challenges.
Originality/value
The study elucidates the relevance of individual factors of family owners as endogenous elements that can balance contextual obstacles with ambitions of growth and development.
Details
Keywords
G. Argiolas, S. Cabras, C. Dessì and M. Floris
The purpose of this paper is to examine public‐private partnerships with a particular focus on the impact that such partnerships have on territorial governance. These…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine public‐private partnerships with a particular focus on the impact that such partnerships have on territorial governance. These organizations are spread all over the world with the goal of promoting community participation and sustainable development, and engaging citizens and organizations in the decision making of local governance. This situation underlines important changes in governance and territorial governance models.
Design/methodology/approach
A mix of qualitative and quantitative approaches are used. Analysing the existing literature, the paper focuses on specific type of public‐private partnership: the Local Action Group (LAG). Specifically, this study focuses on 63 Italian LAGs, in order to highlight their role in the challenges that local governance has to face.
Findings
Findings suggest that public‐private partnerships can represent a new model of governance – the Partnership Governance – with features that differentiate this form from other models.
Originality/value
Through a relatively novel statistical technique, combined with interviews, document analysis and direct observations, on the one hand the public‐private partnership phenomenon is observed, and on the other hand, a new mode of governance that is affecting the worldwide scenario in a current era and that is introducing ethical principles in governance systems is conceived.
Details
Keywords
Professor Slawomir Magala is a full professor of Cross-Management at the Department of Organization and Personnel Management in Rotterdam School of Management (RSM), Erasmus…
Abstract
Purpose
Professor Slawomir Magala is a full professor of Cross-Management at the Department of Organization and Personnel Management in Rotterdam School of Management (RSM), Erasmus University (RSM, 2015). His education stems from Poland, Germany and the USA, and has taught and conducted research in China, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Croatia, Estonia, the United Kingdom and Namibia. He is a former Chair for Cross-Cultural Management at RSM and has achieved many things, from being editor-in-chief of the Journal of Organizational Change Management (JOCM), to receiving the Erasmus Research Institute in Management (ERIM) Book Award (2010), for The Management of Meaning in Organizations (Routledge, 2009). It has received honors for being the best book in one of the domains of management research. It was selected by an academic committee, consisting of the Scientific Directors of CentER (Tilburg University), METEOR (University of Maastricht) and SOM (University of Groningen). All these research schools are accredited by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). The paper aims to discuss this issue.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a review of Professor Slawomir Magala’s contributions as editor of Journal of Organizational Change Management.
Findings
Slawomir (Slawek) Magala will be known for many contributions to social, organizational, managerial research, and it will be remembered that he has created a great legacy in the field of cross-cultural competence and communication on processes of sense making in professional bureaucracies. He has authored and co-authored many publications including articles, books, professional publications, book contributions and other outputs, and is an established professor of cross-cultural management at the Department of Organization and Personnel Management in RSM, Erasmus University. He will be known for his work as editor of Qualitative Sociology Review, and one of the founding members of the Association for Cross-Cultural Competence in Management, not to mention the Journal of Organizational Change Management. Many of his articles have appeared regularly in leading refereed journals, such as the European Journal of International Management, Public Policy, Critical Perspectives on International Business and Human Resources Development International. His greatest legacy is in the field of cross-cultural management, but branches out to many other management studies.
Research limitations/implications
The research is limited to his work in capacity of editor of Journal of Organizational Change Management.
Practical implications
This review provides a guide for positive role model of an excellent editorship of a journal.
Social implications
Magala’s legacy acknowledges this research and its power to create numerous papers and attract a lot of attention (Flory and Magala, 2014). Because of these conferences, these empirical findings have led to disseminating the conference findings with JOCM (Flory and Magala, 2014). According to them, narrative research has become a respectable research method, but they also feel that it is still burdened with a lot of controversies on with difficulties linked to applying it across different disciplines (Flory and Magala, 2014).
Originality/value
The review covers the creative accomplishment of Professor Magala as editor.
Details
Keywords
Angela Dettori and Michela Floris
As women are still promoted to C-level roles at far lower rates than men, this paper examines whether there is a clear and direct relationship between women's formal roles and the…
Abstract
Purpose
As women are still promoted to C-level roles at far lower rates than men, this paper examines whether there is a clear and direct relationship between women's formal roles and the effect of the socio-cultural context on their participation in strategic decisions in family businesses.
Design/methodology/approach
This study adopts a quantitative research design and logistic regression to analyze empirical data from a randomly selected sample of 800 firms in Sardinia.
Findings
In general, the results show that women's formal roles and participation in the decision-making process are not related, except in a specific sector (agriculture and farming), and that the local context plays an unquestionable role in terms of replicating local customs and traditions in the workplace.
Research limitations/implications
Although limited by the sample of firms in the same territory, this study shows that women participate in strategic decision-making both when tasked to by virtue of their leadership role and when playing a minor role by way of implicit decision-making power. However, the sector can hinder women's participation, especially when strongly rooted in local culture.
Originality/value
The study shows that the socio-cultural context has a strong influence on women's involvement in strategic decision-making, highlighting the “silent” way women make the most relevant decisions. Therefore, this study questions whether it is still relevant to discuss the formal role of women or whether it is more pertinent to investigate their explicit or implicit power in making strategic decisions in family businesses.
Details
Keywords
Using experimental scenarios, the current study suggest that the management accountants’ professional attributes social obligation, professional autonomy, professional…
Abstract
Using experimental scenarios, the current study suggest that the management accountants’ professional attributes social obligation, professional autonomy, professional affiliation, and professional dedication are associated with three ethical rationales that have been identified as playing important roles in ethical judgment, the perception of the ethicality of an action; moral equity, contractualism, and relativism. Understanding these issues will assist in determining the management accounting professional attributes that should be fostered in encouraging the ethical judgments of management accountants since research indicates that the moral equity and contractualism rationales are consistent with individuals at the post-conventional stage of ethical development and more ethical judgments while the relativism rationale is consistent with the conventional stage of moral development and less ethical judgments.
Details
Keywords
Maurizio Floris, David Grant and Cliff Oswick
This chapter outlines a discursive epistemology of knowledge production through an analysis of the role of time and context in the social construction of organizational insights…
Abstract
This chapter outlines a discursive epistemology of knowledge production through an analysis of the role of time and context in the social construction of organizational insights, outcomes and theories. While the role of time and context has been widely acknowledged in organizational discourse analysis, it has remained unclear what is specific to knowledge generation. Drawing upon a case study of an attempted company acquisition, the authors illustrate how knowledge is discursively produced and consumed during a process of strategizing. The analysis of this study shows how knowledge producing processes (e.g., strategizing, theorizing, conceptualizing and hypothesizing) extend both the time horizon of discourses that relate to the future, and the context horizon for discourse(s) that relate to the broader context. This reconstructs the tapestry of interwoven discourses that make up a local discourse and enable new managerial knowledge to be produced.
Details
Keywords
Rita A. Durant, Alexis Downs and Marja Flory
The purpose of this chapter is to uplevel the two-by-two binary matrix of differences to a three-by-three cross-referential one, in order to inquire into the nature and movement…
Abstract
The purpose of this chapter is to uplevel the two-by-two binary matrix of differences to a three-by-three cross-referential one, in order to inquire into the nature and movement of Spirit within us at different levels of analysis. Our design is a non-liner, post-structural inquiry. The implications of our findings include an invitation to co-explore the muddled middle area of relationship, such as Synthesis − between Thesis and Antithesis − and Breath − between Mind and Body, individually and collectively as a metaphorical set to explore Spirit as the relationship between Self and Other. The social implications reveal more possible interpretations than currently assumed, beyond the label of enemy and the erection of lines of containment, in the relational space between concepts and among people. Our essay is original, in its playful and post-modern interface of fact and fiction, mind and body, self and other, and spirit and breath.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this article is to present and revisit the role of rhetoric and narratives in management research and practice.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to present and revisit the role of rhetoric and narratives in management research and practice.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors revisit the insights from previous work on the role of rhetoric and narratives in management research and introduce new perspectives based on the original contributions included in this special issue.
Findings
There is an ongoing need to stress the importance of narrative and rhetorical perspectives in management research, specifically for exploring the managing of meanings, the coaching of virtues and the mediating of rhetoric.
Originality/value
The paper revisits and provides new insights on the role of rhetoric and narratives in management research and emphasizes the interrelationship between both, specifically by focusing on the conceptual framework of Kenneth Burke, whose work can be situated at the intersection of rhetoric and narrative.
Details
Keywords
Matthew A. Hawkins and Fathima Z. Saleem
Stories draw meaning from narratives. The resulting narrative component in a story is entirely personal or contains fragments of organizational and/or societal narratives…
Abstract
Purpose
Stories draw meaning from narratives. The resulting narrative component in a story is entirely personal or contains fragments of organizational and/or societal narratives. Therefore, understanding how stories obtain these narrative fragments is critical to offering valid interpretations of narratives based on stories. In an effort to advance narrative research, the purpose of this paper is to address this fundamental question: How do stories obtain their reflected narrative fragments? Without a firm understanding of how stories draw meaning from narratives, the critical role of disentangling compound narratives from stories – interpretation – remains suspect.
Design/methodology/approach
The findings are drawn from extant research and prior conceptualizations, and the story formulation model is introduced.
Findings
Through the introduction of the story formulation model, it is shown that personal narratives are omnipresent within collective narratives. Additionally, the analysis indicates there are two stages in which narrative interaction occurs, during the formulation of stories and during the formulation of narratives.
Originality/value
The findings have significant impact on the interpretation of stories, as well as furthering the understanding of how stories draw their meaning from narratives. In particular, the omnipresence of personal narratives within stories is particularly relevant for interpreting stories and narratives. Therefore, this paper offers a framework in which to conceptualize the story formulation process and contributes to story and narrative analysis research methodologies.