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This paper aims to address the methodological and conceptual challenges arising from the use of activity theory as a theoretical framework in empirical studies of work.

To grasp the relationship between situated action and activity development, the authors build upon the concept of perspective and suggest that perspectives are grounded on salient configurations, which are both emergent in situ and collectively elaborated cultural resources. Empirical evidence for these theoretical considerations is provided through a two-year ethnographic study of the organizational change and collective activity at an inbound call centre for a number of mutual health insurance companies. This research used several data collection techniques such as ethnographic observation, video recordings and interviews.

The presented results highlight that seemingly unskilled routine practices such as opening and sorting the mail rely upon a complex set of informational resources that only have “value” and meaning in a broader relational context, that of the activity.

The originality of this paper is the use of salient configurations as a basis for the operationalization of the notion of perspective and open new avenues of thought (and action) on situated work practices as embedded within activities.

Given recent prominent ethical scandals (e.g. Tesla, Uber) and the increasing demand for ethical management, the importance of business ethics has recently surged. One area that needs further research regards how ethical leaders can foster followers’ organizational commitment. Drawing upon social exchange theory, the current research proposes that ethical leadership relates to follower affective and normative commitment through perceived organizational support (POS). Moreover, based on self-determination theory, we expected follower psychological empowerment to positively moderate the relationship between ethical leadership and commitment components.

Data were collected using a three-wave study among employees from multiple organizations (N = 297) in Canada. Structural equations modeling and bootstrapping analyses were applied to test the hypotheses.

The results showed that ethical leadership was positively related to follower affective and normative commitment through POS. Furthermore, the relationship between ethical leadership and POS was stronger at high levels of empowerment. This moderating effect extended to the indirect relationship between ethical leadership and commitment components.

This study counts among the few investigations that have examined the mechanisms linking ethical leadership to followers’ organizational commitment and boundary conditions associated with this relationship. Moreover, our findings were obtained while controlling for transformational leadership, which highlights the incremental validity of ethical leadership.

Rice is the main cereal in Senegal. Despite efforts to improve the sector, consumers still prefer imported rice. Only one previous study conducted by the authors analyzed these preferences using a sensory analysis approach (Mané et al., 2021). This initial study showed that local rice can compete with imported rice if processing is improved. Based on these results, this study aims to identify the physicochemical parameters responsible for the sensory quality identified in Senegalese consumers.

In this context, the physicochemical and cooking properties of 12 rice samples were analyzed and the correlations between these physicochemical and sensory properties were studied.

The results showed that imported rice had a higher 1000-kernel weight, grain length and transparency values, whereas local rice had higher water uptake, swelling ratios, gelatinization temperature and iron and magnesium contents. Correlations have shown that positive descriptors such as “beautiful,” “white color,” “good taste,” “fragrant,” “fine grains,” “typical rice odor,” well-cooked” and “scattered” were correlated with varietal and technological criteria such as high 1000-grain weight, grain length, whiteness, transparency and absence of impurities in rice. In contrast, negative sensory descriptors such as “pasty” and “sticky texture” were associated with water uptake ratio, gelatinization temperature, rice breakage and cooking time.

These results show how to improve the quality of new rice varieties in the country based on the physicochemical parameters associated with the positive sensory properties cited above by consumers.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the literature regarding work intensification that is being experienced by nurses, to examine the effects this is having on their capacity to complete care. The authors contend that nurses’ inability to provide all the care patients require, has negative implications on their professional responsibility.

The authors used institutional ethnography to review the discourse in the literature. This approach supports inquiry through the review of text in order to uncover activities that remain institutionally accepted but unquestioned and hidden.

What the authors found was that the quality and risk management forms an important part of lean thinking, with the organisational culture influencing outcomes; however, the professional cost to nurses has not been fully explored.

The text uncovered inconsistency between what organisations accepted as successful cost savings, and what nurses were experiencing in their attempts to achieve the care in the face of reduced time and human resources. Nurses’ attempts at completing care were done at the risk of their own professional accountability.

Nurses are working in lean and stressful environments and are struggling to complete care within reduced resource allocations. This leads to care rationing, which negatively impacts on nurses’ professional practice, and quality of care provision.

This approach is a departure from the standard qualitative review because the focus is on the textual relationships between what is being advocated by organisations directing cost reduction and what is actioned by the nurses working at the coalface. The discordant standpoints between these two juxtapositions are identified.

This study aims to propose a new design value, based on experimental and numerical studies, for surface emissivity of zinc hot-dip galvanized members exposed to fire.

The paper sums up experiments, used specimens and also shows results. Four experiments were performed in a horizontal furnace and one test in a fire compartment of the experimental building. Several tests were carried out for determination of the surface emissivity of galvanized steel structures in fire. The experimental and numerical studies were used for preparation of new generation of the structural steel fire standard Eurocode EN 1993-1-2:2025.

Hot-dip galvanizing is one of the most widely used processes for corrosion protection of steel products. The new design value for surface emissivity of zinc hot-dip galvanized members exposed to fire is determined using experimental results as 0.35. The value is proposed for next generation of EN 1993-1-2:2025. If hot-dip galvanization additionally can contribute beneficially to the fire resistance of unprotected steel members, it would be a huge economic advantage.

Experimental studies in the past years have indicated the influence of hot-dip galvanizing on the heating of steel members. This study suggests 50% reduction of the surface emissivity of a carbon steel member. This amendment will be incorporated in future versions of Eurocodes 3 and 4 and has already been implemented in some fire design tools for steel members in order to consider the beneficial contribution of hot-dip galvanized for fire-resistance requirements of less than 60 min.

The popular uprising (Aragalaya) combined a protest movement with a movement towards commons or a solidarity economy. The popular uprising from March to August 2022 was a reaction to the authoritarian heteropatriarchal Rajapaksa regime, which drained public revenues instigating an economic crisis. The Aragalaya was based on non-violence, independence from political parties, participatory democracy, collective leadership, politico-aesthetic strategies (art activism) and collective learning. While there were multiple contradictions, along with state repression, the Aragalaya expressed new forms of solidarity, strengthening struggles for democracy and citizenship.

Referring to the sociology of conventions, the purpose of this paper is to examine how various conventions of work coordination and employee relations affect how recruiters in the domestic labour industry use ethnic categories to match jobs to applicants in the domestic services sector and how institutional gatekeepers relegate immigrant women to jobs with poor career opportunities.

Case studies of a public job centre, a domestic service provider and an occupational integration service show the core conventions structuring job placement in Marseille's domestic service industry. Based on nine semi‐structured interviews with representatives of the three respective intermediaries, the authors reconstructed conventions and compromises between them related to the use of ethnic categories as significant criteria in recruitment.

Characteristic compromises of work conventions frame the organisational use of ethnic categories in the job placement process. Market and domestic conventions are particularly crucial for ethnic criteria to become meaningful in the recruitment process as indicators of cheap and readily available labour. Intersecting with gender, they signal competence in the “domestic world” of beneficiaries’ private homes. Ethnic categories are less meaningful, however, when coordination between intermediary, clients and workers is based on the civic and industrial work conventions.

The paper contributes to better understanding ethnic labelling processes in the placement of immigrant job seekers in the domestic service industry. It points to the problematic fact that denying the recognition of foreign certificates in the industry works to the economic benefit of domestic service providers, while it impedes the careers of female immigrant workers.

Research has recognized the importance of middle management in the strategy process. Nonetheless, two questions raised by the involvement of middle management remain largely unexplored; they are central to this study. The first question concerns the conditions of this involvement. Before the 1970s, middle managers were subjected to operational processes. During the 1980s and 1990s they often embodied bureaucratic unwieldiness. How, then, has an actor in an organization migrated from a position excluded from the strategy process to a key position in this process? The second question concerns the functioning of the strategy process itself: what are the conditions of strategic creativity in this type of expanded process? This paper aims to address these issues.

The approach taken is that of a longitudinal case study.

On the basis of a seven‐year longitudinal case study of strategy practices in a firm facing radical change, this article pinpoints two research results. The first result shows that becoming a strategist is not the simple result of training in strategy techniques. Involvement in the strategy process goes beyond the cognitive dimension; it entails the construction of new systems of roles and identities, along with development of appropriate dialogue modes. The second result is more interesting, and was largely unpredicted. The observations indicate that to achieve the necessary strategic creativity, the strategizing process itself must be transformed. If strategy is envisioned as an emerging social reality made up of strong situations and interactions between strategists, in a dynamic context structured by role systems, spatial and temporal conditions and discourse, developing a new strategy necessitates transformation of its social fabric.

Understanding the microprocesses at play in the inclusion of middle managers in the strategy process is important to help companies better conceive and apply their policy of including middle managers in the strategy process. This entails the definition of activity content and new skills required, along with career and loyalty building, and of the forms of organization in which middle managers evolve and develop. In this sense, the approach we proposed can be practical for companies and their stakeholders facing these challenges.

The longitudinal and very detailed case study over a long period of middle managers doing strategy during a radical change situation.

The purpose of this monograph is to present the first English translation of a unique French colonial report on women living under colonial rule in West Africa.

The issue begins with a discussion of the contribution this report makes to the history of social development policy in Africa, and how it serves the on‐going critique of colonisation. This is followed by the English translation of the original report held in the National Archives of Senegal. The translation is accompanied by explanatory notes, translator’s comments, a glossary of African and technical terms, and a bibliography.

The discussion highlights contemporary social development policies and practices which featured in identical or similar forms in French colonial social policy.

As the report demonstrates, access to basic education and improving maternal/infant health care have dominated the social development agenda for women in sub‐Saharan Africa for over a century, and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future in the Millennium Development Goals which define the international community’s agenda for social development to 2015. The parallels between colonial and post‐colonial social policies in Africa raise questions about the philosophical and cultural foundations of contemporary social development policy in Africa and the direction policy is following in the 21st century.

Though the discussion adopts a consciously postcolonial perspective, the report that follows presents a consciously colonial view of the “Other”. Given the parallels identified here between contemporary and colonial policy‐making, this can only add to the value of the document in exploring the values that underpin contemporary social development practice.