Search results

Recently, social innovation (SI) has captured the imagination of a range of actors globally, including in the higher education (HE) sector. This study explores the conceptual domain of SI leadership in HE. Drawing on the insights of 22 experienced practitioners in Canada, it provides a concept map to help guide leadership practice and research.

The study adopted Group Concept Mapping (GCM), a mixed methods approach that provides a structured way to map the “conceptual domain” of a topic from the perspectives of those with close knowledge of it. Using online GCM software, one group of participants generated statements in response to a prompting question about SI leadership. Another group sorted statements into conceptual groups, rating them for importance. The authors then produced a preliminary map using cluster analysis. A third group interpreted that map. The authors analyzed interpretation data to produce a final concept map, which is discussed in light of relevant literature.

GCM methodology resulted in 108 statements about SI leadership, with the vast majority ranked as highly important. The analysis produced a map consisting of nine “clusters” of conceptually related ideas about SI leadership, encapsulated under three interacting areas of focus: individual, relational, institutional/system. Participants confirmed the map reflected key dimensions of practice, noting it indicated important tensions and paradoxes core to their practice. Their interpretations highlighted how the map represented iterative dynamics of leadership over time and across levels; and how different theoretical and practice traditions in SI communities affect conceptualizations of leadership.

The study suggests that an area ripe for study is the navigation of micro-level systems in pursuit of meso-level and macro-level systems change. The map provides an empirically derived set of dimensions for instrument development in future SI leadership studies. The context of conventional academic institutions bounds the results but helps to surface key considerations for researching SI processes in other mature institutions. Comparison of findings with extant leadership theories suggests that, to advance theoretical research on the topic of leadership in SI, bricolage or new theory development will be needed.

The map paints broad themes with concrete, practice-level ideas. It can serve as a touchstone for reflection by experienced practitioners and offers a reference point to orient those new to leading SI.

The scholarly knowledge base about SI has been growing rapidly, but it is still an emerging field of study. There are only a handful of published studies offering perspectives on SI in HE, and none with respect to SI leadership in HE. This study offers original conceptual insights grounded in empirical data gathered through a method aligned with its exploratory purpose.

The purpose of this paper is to revisit the potential of the New Deal as a research context in management and organization studies and, in doing so, forward the role one of its chief architects, Harry Hopkins, played in managing the economic crisis. The exploration takes us to multiple layers that work together to form context around Hopkins including the Great Depression, the Roosevelt Administration, and ultimately, the New Deal. By raising Harry Hopkins as an exemplar of historical-narrative exclusion, the authors can advance the understanding of his role in the New Deal and how his actions produced early insights about management (e.g. modern crisis management).

The paper experiments with the methodological assemblage of ANTi-History and microhistorical analysis that the authors call “ANTi-Microhistory” to examine the life narrative of Harry Hopkins, his early association with President Franklin D. Roosevelt and later, the New Deal. To accomplish this, the authors undertake a programme of archival research (e.g. the digital repository of The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum) and assess various materials (e.g. speeches, biographies and memoirs) from across multiple spaces.

The findings suggest Harry Hopkins to be a much more powerful actor in mobilizing New Deal policies and their effect on early management thought than what was previously accepted. In the process, the authors found that because of durable associations with Roosevelt, key policy architects of the same ilk as Harry Hopkins (e.g. Frances Perkins, Henry Wallace, Lewis Douglas, and others) and their contributions have been marginalized. This finding illustrates the significant potential of little-known historical figures and how they might shed new insight on the development of the field and management practice.

The aim is to demonstrate the potential of engaging historical research in management with the individual – Harry Hopkins – as a unit of analysis. By engaging historical research on the individual – be it well-known or obscure figures of the past – the authors are considering how they contribute to the understanding of phenomena (e.g. New Deal, Progressivism or Keynesian economics). The authors build on research that brings to focus forgotten people, communities and ideas in management studies but go further in advocating for space in the research to consider the scholarly potential of the individual.