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To explore the discursive construction of disordered eating and athlete identity meanings within elite female athlete’s stories. Published athlete autobiographies were interrogated as cultural sites of analysis to accomplish this aim.

A critical social constructionist perspective on disordered eating is outlined along with narrative research findings on female athletes and disordered eating. A discursive psychological approach and critical discourse analysis (CDA) is then discussed to theorize and study meanings of disordered eating and athlete identities/subject positions. Next, the utility of studying two elite female athlete’s autobiographies is outlined followed by examples from a CDA of two athlete stories.

Two discourses and two identity/subject positions within each are outlined: discourse of performance and the “committed, controlled athlete” and a discourse of personal growth and the “empowered athlete in transition.” The features of each discourse and subject position are outlined and examples from each athlete’s story. The intention is to show the ways in which discursive resources construct the body, food and identities in sport and the implications.

The chapter is concluded with why studying “disordered eating and body talk” within discourses is useful to expand understanding of constraining and emancipative aspects of athlete identities, struggle and recovery.

While considerable critical energy has been devoted to unmasking the figure of the heroic entrepreneur, the idea that entrepreneurs are unique individuals with special abilities continues to be widespread in scholarly research, social media and popular culture. The purpose of this paper is to traverse the fantasy of the heroic entrepreneur by offering a reading of Richard Branson’s autobiography, Losing My Virginity.

The theoretical approach of this paper is informed by Slavoj Žižek’s concept of fantasy and his critical analytical strategy of “traversing the fantasy”. Žižek offers a theoretical framework that allows us to understand how narratives of famous entrepreneurs create paradoxical fantasies that produce desire.

By offering a reading of Richard Branson’s autobiography, Losing My Virginity, this paper serves to illustrate how the fantasy of the heroic entrepreneur creates the injunction to overcome oneself and become true to oneself, but also how this figure is ridden with contradictions and impossibilities. Branson’s book will eventually be shown to be a religious narrative, where the entrepreneur is responsible for redeeming the crises not only of the economy, but of being as such.

Rather than striving towards a processual approach that lays emphasis on the collective effort involved in entrepreneurship, this paper critically engages directly with the heroic entrepreneur by exploring how this figure is a fantasy that structures desire. This paper shows how critical entrepreneurship studies could benefit from an approach that analyses how the cultural representation of business celebrates the heroic entrepreneur as a source of value creation. The authors further argue that it is the contradictions and impossibilities embodied in the figure of the heroic entrepreneur that carry its far-reaching appeal.

Life studies are a rich source for further research on the role of the Afro‐American woman in society. They are especially useful to gain a better understanding of the Afro‐American experience and to show the joys, sorrows, needs, and ideals of the Afro‐American woman as she struggles from day to day.

Since the beginning of human existence, humankind has sought, organized and used information as it evolved patterns and practices of human information behaviors. However, the field of human information behavior (HIB) has not heretofore pursued an evolutionary understanding of information behavior. The goal of this exploratory study is to provide insight about the information behavior of various individuals from the past to begin the development of an evolutionary perspective for our understanding of HIB.

This paper presents findings from a qualitative analysis of the autobiographies and personal writings of several historical figures, including Napoleon Bonaparte, Charles Darwin, Giacomo Casanova and others.

Analysis of their writings shows that these persons of the past articulated aspects of their HIB's, including information seeking, information organization and information use, providing tangible insights into their information‐related thoughts and actions.

This paper has implications for expanding the nature of our evolutionary understanding of information behavior and provides a broader context for the HIB research field.

This the first paper in the information science field of HIB to study the information behavior of historical figures and begin to develop an evolutionary framework for HIB research.

This review is based on “Gender, authentic leadership and identity: analysis of women leaders’ autobiographies” by Kapasi et al. (2016). Given the under-representation of women in leadership positions, attempts to uncover reasons why remain of interest.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context. This paper uses the autobiographies of four high-profile women leaders to understand how they construct a gendered leadership identity, with particular reference to authentic leadership.

The paper reviewed found that analyses reveal that these women construct gender and leadership along familiar normative lines; for example, the emphasis on personal and familial values. However, their stories differ in that the normative extends to include close examination of the body and a sense of responsibility to other women. Overall, media representations of these “authentic” leaders conform to social constructions of gender. Thus, in the case of authentic leadership, a theory presented as gender neutral, the authenticity of leadership has to some extent been crafted by the media rather than the leader.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

This paper aims to provide a framework for career counselling designed particularly to support the career development of mid‐career women managers. This approach is referred to as an autobiographical approach to career counselling. The practical application of the approach is described.

The autobiographical approach draws upon social constructionism and narrativity. It was developed and applied together with 22 women managers. Various methods were used as narration tools.

At mid‐career, women managers are often in a transition process in their career. They can be expected to benefit from counselling that focuses on their long work experience and from their willingness to make new career moves, and contributes to their own understanding of their strengths and motivation in their search for more meaning into their careers – and into life in general. The career autobiographies of women do not reflect the continuous, uninterrupted upward mobility that is traditionally considered typical of a “normal” managerial career. The study suggests that there is a need to change the dominant understanding of a “normal” career in management.

The contribution of this study lies particularly in bridging the gap between theory and practice by applying an action‐oriented approach.

An increasingly dominant theme of recent M&A research has been the issue of cultural compatibility and the notion of “culture fit” and its contribution to post-combination performance and integration (Cartwright, 2005). Hence, various methodologies, both qualitative and quantitative, have been applied to the M&A context to analyze the cultures of combining employee groups and the extent to which they share the same reality.

In the last few decades, narratives and stories have attracted the interest of organizational researchers and practitioners both as analytic tools and as a subject for study. This chapter explores the value of stories as a means of understanding culture, communicating values and ideals, promoting adaptive change, and developing cooperation and identification with the new merged organization. It illustrates the application of narrative methodologies within the context of a recent merger within the banking industry.

What does the Supreme Court talk about when it talks about itself? In addition to the debates over interpretive method and doctrine that fill their opinions, Supreme Court justices often discuss what it means to be “a Court” and how such an institution must function. Our chapter explores this specific form of judicial self-representation, examining the ways in which members of the Court define their own “Court-ness” in their decisions. We argue that the Court’s acts of autobiography simultaneously generate images of impartiality and partiality. The result is the public projection of a contradictory judicial persona.

It may be true, as Quetelet declared, that the study of the individual does not conduce to a comprehensive appreciation of psychological laws. It is arguable that individual man must be regarded only as a member of a species, and any personal idiosyncracies must be ruled out if general results are to be obtained. But every aspect of the human creature has its special interest; and in so far as autobiography mirrors the self it has a peculiar fascination and value. Of all forms of literature it is, if we except poetry, the most difficult. The mind and the emotions are at once the vehicle and the subject of the expression, and both are complex and variable. It is the one art in which detachment is essential and yet so near to impossibility. Past and present events become bound up with emotions; the emotions themselves may be artificially acquired; and the man who gazes into himself is likely to see nothing more fundamental than shifting and fracturing reflections. “I am a stranger in my own region”: every autobiographer, every person who has sought to understand his own personality by introspective methods, knows the truth of Thompson's words.

The purpose of this study is to describe the use of an intersectionality framework to analyze and incorporate teachers’ lived experiences into critical professional development.

Researchers used qualitative coding based on the matrix of oppression and privilege (Ferber and O’Reilly Herrera, 2013) to analyze teachers’ multicultural autobiographies. Connections between multicultural autobiographies were then made between other course reflections and lesson plans that were developed throughout the 150 h of professional development.

Findings evidence the multiple sites of oppression and privilege, the importance of spaces and relationships in locating ourselves and others on the matrix and the possibilities for transferring knowledge to professional practice.

The authors do recognize the limitations of their study. Although the participants were from differing educational contexts and backgrounds, the sample size was small. Additional studies of this nature can expand our understanding of privilege, oppression and the impact of critical professional development for educators. Our society, and therefore the education system, continues to become more culturally and linguistically diverse, and it is incumbent upon us as educators and researchers to identify effective approaches for preparing both teachers and students for a changing world.

The power of the matrix framework in pedagogical settings is that it facilitates the recognition and analysis of individual social locations and their relationships to various systems of inequality. Most importantly, analyzing both privilege and oppression allows individuals and instructors to reflect on their own experiences and initiate conversations that reduce the animosity toward those who have different experiences.

This study is significant, in that it offers a framework that addresses the perceived disconnect between teachers and their increasingly culturally and linguistically diverse student population (Banks and Banks, 2013; Darling-Hammond and Bransford, 2005).