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In 2015, Idris Elba declared ‘I’m probably the most famous Bond actor in the world … and I’ve not even played the role’. Speculation about Elba taking on the role of the world’s most famous spy has circulated for over a decade, fuelled by current Bond Daniel Craig’s assertion that the role has ruined his life. This chapter will examine the role of fans in driving hype about the future of Bond, focusing on the case study of alt-right outrage at the potential casting of Elba. The anti-Elba camp have framed their outrage as informed by authorial intent, and the desire to maintain canon, with claims that Ian Fleming’s Bond was, and should always be white and Scottish. Bond’s expansive narrative universe has remained constant since its inception, enabling fans of the series to form an emotional connection and sense of ownership over the text as a cohesive brand, a form of ‘affective economics’ (Hills, 2015; Jenkins, 2006a). By situating the debate over Elba’s suitability within the timeline of the Bond franchise, the author will posit that the rigid casting and structure of the film series to date enables feelings of fan ownership to flourish. Whilst the influence of vocal fan groups has altered the future direction of numerous popular texts, this chapter will suggest that the sameness of Bond-as-brand provides the justification for fan backlash towards potential change. In sum, this chapter will highlight the Elba-as-Bond rumours as a reflection of the contemporary political moment which seeks to flatten out difference under the auspice of protecting the canon and tradition of ‘brand Bond’.

This article attempts to bridge and contribute to three related lines of inquiry: the effect of economic organization on cultural diversity; the origins of career specialism; and the contrast between market and firm as alternative modes of governance. In particular, I use the natural experiment engendered by the transformation of Hollywood from the firm-based studio system to the contemporary market system to test the claim that typecasting-driven restrictions on generalist identities in an internal labor market are comparable in their significance to those found in the external labor market (Faulkner, 1983; Zuckerman, Kim, Ukanwa, & von Rittmann, 2003). Results support this claim and thereby suggest that incentives for experimentation by employers in internal labor markets counterbalance the greater control over work assignments enjoyed by independent contractors in the external labor market.

Work has historically been an important basis of identity, but the sharp decline in the availability of stable attachments to jobs, organizations, or occupations jeopardizes paid work’s capacity to sustain identity. If available work opportunities are increasingly precarious and short-term, can the same be said for identities? Analysis of the efforts of members of an unusual occupational group – stage actors – to support an identity based on unstable work provides insights into the variability and indeterminacy of responses to structural employment uncertainty. Despite manifold identity threats, actors struggle to maintain identity as actors both in others’ eyes and in their own.

This chapter proposes an institutional framework for analysis of strategy in project-based organizations. The chapter argues that an analysis of the strategy of project-based organizations must take into account the interaction between deliberate and emergent strategic processes in this type of organizations. The chapter then goes on to argue that achieving this goal depends on addressing the ‘multicontextuality’ of project-based organizations – the fact that deliberate strategic processes respond to external environment, while emergent strategic processes are rooted in the organization's project portfolio. Based on this analysis, the chapter advances an institutional framework for analyzing project-based organizations which couples the institutional logic of the external environment, with the institutional logic which emerges from the internal ‘project field’. To explore this framework the chapter analyzes the emergence of the central-producer system in the Hollywood motion picture industry during the first quarter of the 20th century, and the role that Irving Thalberg played in creating this system.

Learner-centered interactions determine the look and feel of online courses, influencing the way learners experience them. In this chapter we investigate considerations related to three types of interactions: learner–content, learner–instructor, and learner–learner. Learners interact with content through the course structure and layout. They also interact with peers who may be cast in the role of community members, there to provide social support, or they may be more prominently cast as information providers and/or collaborators. The learner is at the center of both content and peer interactions. Instructor interactions set expectations for learners and facilitate learner interactions with content and peers. Instructors are instrumental forces in bringing about connections between learners, enabling the social presence necessary for collaboration. Instructor interaction may also be relational, enabling individualized connections between learners and the instructor. Redesign decisions center on creating a course structure that fits the learner and content and results in a satisfying course experience. We use the power of metaphor to bring into focus the most relevant considerations. In the end, we illustrate the redesign of a single course through the lens of three separate metaphors to demonstrate how metaphor shapes the process, bringing together design and interaction decisions to create unique and elegant course designs.

Opportunities for professional development in online teaching are abundant. However, when the online teacher is geographically and professionally isolated from others with an interest in online teaching, use of insider research to identify areas of good online teaching practice, and those areas that require further development, affords an opportunity for self-directed professional development. Despite a plethora of methodological interpretations of autoethnography, autonetnography has until now remained no more than a methodological ideal. With my background as a registered nurse and teacher of health and social care, shifting from face-to-face teaching towards teaching online, I claim value in developing autonetnography as an insider researcher self-study, to inform my online teacher professional development needs. This chapter has two main aims: (1) to share my theoretical development of analytic autonetnography as an emerging e-research methodology and (2) to evaluate my experience of employing analytic autonetnography to research my recent online teaching practice. I will claim that whilst I have found analytic autonetnography methodologically beneficial to research my online teaching practice, I was also the author who laid the foundations, constructed and evaluated an analytic autonetnography model to test its value. Therefore, the relevance of my findings in the context of the value of analytic autonetnography as an emerging e-research methodology will remain open to debate until other researchers in the digitally mediated field experience, critique, challenge and enhance analytic autonetnography theoretically.