Isabelle Bourdon, Chris Kimble and Nathalie Tessier
The purpose of this paper was to gain a better understanding of the nature of online communities, the relationships within them and the relationship between such communities and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper was to gain a better understanding of the nature of online communities, the relationships within them and the relationship between such communities and the host organization. Knowledge sharing via participation in online communities is a central part of many multinational organizations’ business strategies; however, the task is not always straightforward.
Design/methodology/approach
The research focused on power relationships in online communities. The approach was inductive and consisted of an exploratory case study using semi-structured interviews, augmented with direct observation and documentary sources, within a framework provided by the French sociologists Crozier and Friedberg.
Findings
The findings identify the various reasons for participating in the community and aspects of both the relationships within the community and between the community and the host company.
Practical implications
The research shows that online communities are not easy to categorize and that attempting to use a single solution for the management of such communities risks oversimplifying a complex situation. It also shows that Crozier and Friedberg’s framework is useful in highlighting issues that otherwise might not have been noticed.
Originality/value
Issues of power are often neglected in studies of online communities. The use of Crozier and Friedberg’s framework offers a novel way to examine power relationships, which can offer new insights into how such communities function.
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Kai DeMott, Nathalie Repenning, Fanny Almersson, Gianluca Chimenti, Gianluca F. Delfino, Nelson Duenas, Cecilia Fredriksson, Zhengqi Guo, Thomas Holde Skinnerup, Leonid Sokolovskyy and Xiaoyu Xu
The purpose of this paper revolves around the informal coming together of various doctoral students in the area of qualitative accounting and management research and the attempt…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper revolves around the informal coming together of various doctoral students in the area of qualitative accounting and management research and the attempt to learn from their respective experiences. Together, the authors share personal reflections and valuable insights in revealing their vulnerabilities, aspirations and how they make sense of the PhD journey and their becoming as academics.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper builds on an open discussion and written reflections among the authors, who represent a diverse set of both doctoral students at various levels and recent graduates from different countries, schools and backgrounds.
Findings
The discussion highlights the struggles the authors experience as doctoral students, how they learn to cope with them as well as how they are socialized throughout their PhD journey. This allows them to take a critical stance towards increased productivity demands in academia and to embrace doctoral students as a powerful collective, whose aspirations may inspire a change of academic reality for the better.
Originality/value
While guidance on how to succeed as doctoral students is common, we seldom hear about doctoral students as particularly “fragile selves” (Knights and Clarke, 2014) who, as opposed to more established scholars, are more actively experiencing difficulties with finding their ways in academia. The authors are thus motivated to create a rare common voice of a group of doctoral students here by providing a more intimate account of the PhD journey.
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Marthe Deschesnes, Nathalie Drouin, Caroline Tessier and Yves Couturier
The purpose of this paper is to understand how a Canadian intervention based on a professional development (PD) model did or did not influence schools’ capacities to absorb a…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to understand how a Canadian intervention based on a professional development (PD) model did or did not influence schools’ capacities to absorb a Healthy School (HS) approach into their operations. This study is the second part of a research project: previously published results regarding this research provided a detailed description of the PD model and highlighted the relevance and effectiveness of PD in improving actors’ HS-related knowledge and practices. The present paper focuses on the organizational impact of such PD intervention.
Design/methodology/approach
The design was based on a realist evaluation approach, which helps to elicit a theory explaining how an intervention leads to particular outcomes. A multi-site case study of three schools with pre- (T 0) and post- (T 1) intervention comparison was adopted. Multiple qualitative methods were used to capture how the changes were achieved by collecting data from various stakeholders involved in the intervention.
Findings
The PD model tested reinforced the schools’ capacities to absorb this type of initiative. For one of the capacities examined, “exploitation”, i.e., the ability to incorporate and maintain the initiative into schools operation, the evidence was less apparent. In congruence with the realist evaluation, the results are rendered in the form of a contextualized intervention theory identifying the links between the PD and the mechanisms that were likely necessary to explain what led to the changes in “absorptive” capacities (which refers to the capabilities of schools to acquire and assimilate HS knowledge, and also to transform and exploit them, in the context).
Originality/value
The refined theory, based on empirical findings, can enable facilitators and practitioners to gain a deeper understanding of the action mechanisms shown to be determining in the success of HS implementation.
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Nathalie Crutzen and Christian Herzig
This chapter reviews empirical studies into the relationship between management control, strategy and sustainability.
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter reviews empirical studies into the relationship between management control, strategy and sustainability.
Approach
The review explores the theoretical frameworks and models used in previous empirical research as well as the research questions and methods applied to empirically explore this emerging research area.
Findings
Even if a growing body of empirical research has emerged over the last decade, our knowledge of how companies design or use management control to support sustainability strategy appears to be limited, providing considerable scope for further research.
Originality of the chapter
This review structures the state of our empirical knowledge in the area of management control, strategy and sustainability and makes suggestions for future research paths.
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Keywords
The regional elections are the last electoral test before the 2017 presidential and parliamentary polls. The apparent switchback in results reflects the fact that the FN is on the…
Details
DOI: 10.1108/OXAN-DB207315
ISSN: 2633-304X
Keywords
Geographic
Topical
Jérémie Mosser, Robert Pellerin, Mario Bourgault, Christophe Danjou and Nathalie Perrier
The purpose of this paper is to propose a new business process representation adapted to the needs of Industry 4.0 to facilitate the implementation of technological solutions in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to propose a new business process representation adapted to the needs of Industry 4.0 to facilitate the implementation of technological solutions in the construction sector.
Design/methodology/approach
This work is based on the Design Research Methodology approach and includes four phases: (1) a literature review on the main business process modeling standards and their ability to take into account the specificities of Industry 4.0; (2) the identification of the attributes to be considered to model Industry 4.0 processes; (3) the development of a mapping model for Industry 4.0; and (4) the validation of the model using a case study from the construction sector.
Findings
To the authors’ knowledge, current business process modeling standards do not effectively represent business processes in the context of Industry 4.0.
Originality/value
The proposed model can represent not only the 4.0 solutions that can be implemented in the construction sector, particularly from a technology and data perspective but also measures, with the help of performance indicators, the impacts of successive process changes in terms of skills, cost and time for a true 4.0 transformation.