Search results

The purpose of this paper is to characterize commonalities between activists and corporate communicators, who are often perceived as natural antagonists within the context of managing public and community issues.

The focus is on exploring the innovative “rules” developed three decades ago by the Activist Pioneer Saul Alinksy and how his work has close parallels both with modern activism and corporate issue management. The paper cites modern sets of “rules” on both sides of the debate, highlighting common themes, and examines three recent developments which have impacted the nature of the relationship between contending parties.

While communication technology including the internet has helped level the power imbalance between the “haves” and the “have nots,” change within activism – such as growing professionalism, the emergence of formalized stakeholder participation, and a growing acceptance of constructive engagement – has further drawn both parties increasingly onto common ground.

Convergence between the tools and techniques of activism and business disciplines such as issue management has gone largely unrecognized. This paper characterizes that convergence and suggests that increasing understanding of the trend will enhance opportunities for a mutual gains approach.

This chapter reviews critically the policy developments in the United Kingdom since 2010 with the adoption by the coalition of ‘community organising’ as both a concept and practice.

The chapter is an extensive literature review informed by critical thinking and reflection.

The chapter argues that the model adopted in the United Kingdom is unlikely to address the power imbalances between civil society organisations and the state and that there needs to be a more critical and reflective assessment of the potential of civil society agencies to influence public policy in a progressive way.

The chapter is intentionally speculative.

This chapter is about quantum storytelling and improvisation and how to use quantum storytelling as an improv theater for social change. Quantum storytelling, in its fore-caring, is about producing an ethics of care where none exists. In the quantum storytelling theater for change, we envision a stage with human and non-human actors (animals, plants, quantum wave/particles) and ways to collapse waves of quantum potentiality into new possibilities for human survival, for posthumanist survival.

We will assert that this happens through improvisation: something called “quantum storytelling with improv.” Our example for this chapter is a theater company we created in Las Cruces, NM, called “Veterans Theater” in which improv is the performance approach. Boje teaches in the belly of the beast (the Business College) at New Mexico State University, a course called “Leadership Is Theater in Society” that uses improv. It is not only about improv but it is also based on Theater of the Oppressed (Boal, 1979, 2002) and Improvisation for the Theater (Spolin, 1983); it also draws from Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Freire, 1970) and Rules for Radicals (Alinsky, 1971), both of which call on improv as a process for social change. Improv is a vital leadership skill in complex polycultural systems, which is the future of business. Leadership theory is dead. Get over it! Or, resurrect it with improv!

This article examines the recent decline in Organisation Development (OD) in the UK. Its aim is to offer a modest contribution to the now urgent task of rehabilitating OD as a coherent and credible strategy for social change. My basic contention is that such a programme for the renewal of contemporary practice must rest on systematic and determined efforts to reassert the radical potential which I believe lies at the heart of the OD enterprise. By recovering and reaffirming a commitment to its original humanistic ideals, OD may avoid obsolescence and retain professional viability. In short, to survive, OD must rededicate itself as a radical agency for organisational renewal.

One explanation for why people wear masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 focuses on political party affiliation. This study explores the role of values in attempts by five South Dakota cities to pass local mask mandates.

A nonrandom convenience sample used search engines to find documents on mask mandates in South Dakota. The working hypotheses are: (1) the debate over mask mandates is a form of value conflict over freedom of choice and the role of government that reflect those held by Emerson, Thoreau, and Spencer and (2) the mandates themselves prescribe Value-Rational rather than Instrumental-Rational action to control the pandemic.

Antimaskers valued freedom of choice, and were willing to defy authority while promasker health professionals valued science and were willing to sacrifice themselves for the health of their patients. South Dakota cities encouraged mask wearing but did not include penalties for noncompliance. The vociferous opposition to the mask mandates resembles the opposition cities encountered when deciding to fluoridate drinking water in the 1950s and 1960s.

A case study cannot be generalized and may reflect sampling and researcher bias. Future research could include a content analysis of documents and videos presenting both sides of the debate.

This case study may provide the first in-depth analysis of values in the masking debate.

Questions whether, in the USA, faith‐based communities can have an important effect on politics. Contends that other areas, where there are poorer communities, are more likely to be influenced politically in civil society although does not preclude other income sectors from being similarly affected just that deprived areas are more likely to listen to faith‐based organizers.

Correspondence and other materials pertaining to Selig Perlman may be found especially in Archival Volume 8 but also in Volumes 4 and 18B. Perlman was the author of a major history and a psychologically rich interpretation of labor and trade unionism in the United States (A History of Trade Unionism in the United States, New York: Macmillan, 1922 and Theory of the Labor Movement, New York: Macmillan, 1928). Published below, thanks again to the generous cooperation and permission of his son, Mark Perlman, is further correspondence, principally from Selig Perlman to his former student, Ben Solomon Stephansky.

This study examines the transformation of labour non-governmental organisations (NGOs) operating in Mainland China since the enactment of the 2017 Overseas NGO Management Law, which aims to regulate foreign concerns functioning outside the direct control of the state. It focuses on the extent to which these organisations have responded to the rapidly changing political and social environment by altering their goals and strategies in support of migrant workers. It also considers the relevance of Western social movement theories (SMTs) to China's grassroots labour movement in the 2020s. 

The research is based on case studies of ten labour NGOs operating in Beijing, Tianjin and Yunnan. It draws upon fifteen semi-structured interviews with the founders, leaders and activists affiliated with those organisations, as well as records and documented information of each of those organisations.

While the power and influence of labour NGOs markedly diminished, most have been able to adapt their goals and the strategies remain sustainable amidst both China's changing political and social climates and the global pandemic. It suggests that conventional SMTs can still offer valuable insights into understanding the development of labour NGOs in China, although they might not fully interpret the specific conditions and challenges faced by these organisations.

This study stands out as one of very few to offer empirical evidence on the inner workings of China's labour NGOs over the last six years. It also contributes to our understanding of social movements in a non-Western context.