Amelia Manuti, Giuseppe Mininni and Stefania Attanasio
Narrative is believed to be a crucial component of sense-making in organizations, and previous research in the field suggests that multiple levels and forms of narrative are…
Abstract
Purpose
Narrative is believed to be a crucial component of sense-making in organizations, and previous research in the field suggests that multiple levels and forms of narrative are inherent to the definition of professional identities (Clarke et al., 2009; Ybema et al., 2009; Brown and Lewis, 2011). For example, narrative can be found in the stories told by organizational actors as they informally interact in the workplace, in the formalized basic assumptions that support organizational strategy-making, in the accounts people give of their work, and in the artifacts they produced and experienced while engaged in accomplishing tasks. The purpose of this paper is to consider narrative as a way of giving sense to organizational membership, of constituting an overall and possibly shared sense of direction, of focussing one’s professional identity, and of enabling and/or constraining the ongoing activities of actors. The context of the research was given by a group of sport federations enrolled within the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI), which is the national most authoritative network of professional local sport organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
Participants involved in the study were 42 professional referees belonging to this network and active in different sport disciplines and 12 people from the CONI management. In-depth narrative interviews were collected in the aim to investigate the narrative cues revealing the organizational sense-making processes that animate the representation of this professional identity both at a subjective and at an organizational level. Data have been explored adopting the semiotic square and diatextual analysis as to highlight the strict relationship between text, context and interlocutors.
Findings
Data have been explored adopting the semiotic square and diatextual analysis as to highlight the strict relationship between text, context and interlocutors. Results showed that there was an evident gap between what the management formally defined as strategic vision, mission and cultural guidelines that actually shape the organizational identity of the CONI and what was concretely experienced by its actors, in this case the referees.
Originality/value
Most of the studies conducted in sport organizations focussed either on an intra-organizational level investigating the specific features of given professional categories such as athletes and/or coaches, or at an inter-organizational level, paying attention mostly to the marketing and networking strategies oriented toward stakeholders. On the other hand, most studies conducted on referees have devoted attention strictly to performance assessment, that, in line with a positivist approach, considered the latter as an output of situational and psychological variables (e.g. Marie, 1999; MacMahon et al., 2007). Conversely, the findings coming from the present study contributed to support the promotion of an alternative organizational approach, more specifically based on the strategic relevance of horizontal (within the federations) and vertical (between the federations and the center of the network) communication as to enhance the identification process which give sense to the organizational basic assumptions.
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Mohammed Jamal Uddin, Giuseppe Vizzari, Stefania Bandini and Mahmood Osman Imam
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the case-based reasoning (CBR) approach to improve microcredit initiatives by means of providing a borrower risk rating system.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the case-based reasoning (CBR) approach to improve microcredit initiatives by means of providing a borrower risk rating system.
Design/methodology/approach
The CBR approach has been used to consider the Kiva microcredit system, which provides a characterization (rating) of the risk associated with the field partner supporting the loan, but not of the specific borrower which would benefit from it. The authors discuss how the combination of available historical data on loans and their outcomes (structured as a case base) and available knowledge on how to evaluate the risk associated with a loan request can be used to provide the end users with an indication of the risk rating associated with a loan request based on similar past situations.
Findings
The adopted approach is applied and evaluated employing a selection of cases from individual loans. From this perspective, the case base and the codified knowledge about how to evaluate risks associated with a loan represent two examples of knowledge IT artifacts.
Originality/value
The originality of the work lies in borrower risk rating in online indirect peer-to-peer microcredit lending platforms. The case base and the codified knowledge are the two contributions in knowledge IT artifacts.
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Stefania Veltri, Pina Puntillo and Francesca Pierri
The aim of this paper is to provide evidence of the relationship between the governance structure of universities and the universities' knowledge transfer (KT) performance…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to provide evidence of the relationship between the governance structure of universities and the universities' knowledge transfer (KT) performance outcomes measured in terms of university spin-off firms university spin-offs (USOs).
Design/methodology/approach
The universities' board of directors has been analyzed under three profiles: the incidence of internal directors belonging to the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) faculties, the incidence of women directors and the incidence of external directors.
Findings
The findings provide evidence of a significant and positive association, for southern Italian state universities, of the presence of university STEM directors and the establishment of university spin-offs (USOs).
Originality/value
The article is original as, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no study, except for the paper by Meoli et al. (2019), examined the governance of universities in relation to the establishment of academic spin-offs.