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There is a paucity of studies on the complex longitudinal dynamics of innovation incorporation within family‐based small‐ to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in response to market and technological change. Attempts at innovation implementation are likely to be influenced by the dynamic effects of critical incidents or crisis points in small family‐based firms. The aim of this EU‐funded study is to explore the effects of critical incidents on innovation implementation within a regional cluster of family‐based SMEs over a two‐year period.

The research methodology involves the longitudinal study of a regional cluster of five family‐based businesses in relation to innovation implementation at firm level. A participant observation and critical action learning methodology was used to study the firms over the two‐year period of the study.

The findings, as summarised using a conceptual model, show that the critical incidents acted interactively with the firm's lifecycle stage and its approach to family versus business, to either act as a catalyst for developing more radical innovation or in maintaining the status quo or continuous improvement.

The findings can act as a guide for how family‐based firms can evaluate and maximise their responses to critical incidents and leverage them to encourage more radical approaches to innovation implementation.

There is a paucity of longitudinal studies on the effect of critical incidents on approaches to innovation implementation in family businesses.

The critical incident technique (CIT) is widely used in many disciplines; however, scholars have acknowledged challenges associated with analyzing qualitative data when using this technique. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to address the data analysis issues that have been raised by introducing some different contemporary ways of analyzing qualitative critical incident data drawn from recent dissertations conducted in the human resource development (HRD) field.

This article describes and illustrates different contemporary qualitative re-storying and cross-incident analysis approaches with examples drawn from previously and recently conducted qualitative HRD dissertations that have used the CIT.

Qualitative CIT analysis comprises two processes: re-storying and cross-incident analysis. The narrative inquiry–based re-storying approaches the authors illustrate include poetic narrative and dramatic emplotting. The analytical approaches we illustrate for cross-incident analysis include thematic assertion, grounded theory, and post-structural analysis/assemblages. The use of the aforementioned approaches offers researchers contemporary tools that can deepen meaning and understanding of qualitative CIT data, which address challenges that have been acknowledged regarding the difficulty of analyzing CIT data.

The different contemporary qualitative approaches that we have introduced and illustrated in this study provide researchers using the CIT with additional tools to address the challenges of analyzing qualitative CIT data, specifically with regard to data reduction of lengthy narrative transcripts through re-storying as well as cross-incident analyses that can substantially deepen meaning, as well as build new theory and problematize the data through existing theory.

A strength of the CIT is its focus on actual events that have occurred from which reasoning, behaviors, and decision-making can be examined to develop more informed practices.

The CIT is a very popular and flexible method for collecting data that is widely used in many disciplines. However, data analysis can be especially difficult given the volume of narrative qualitative data that can result from data collection. This paper describes and illustrates different contemporary approaches analyzing qualitative CIT data, specifically the processes of re-storying and cross-incident analysis, to address these concerns in the literature as well as to enhance and further evolve the use of the CIT method.

Service guarantees have been attributed the benefit of improving the overall service of a service provider. However, little research has been carried out within the area. This article focuses on one aspect of the service guarantee, the effects that service guarantees may have on service recovery. Critical incident data were collected using the critical incident interview technique with customers of RadissonSAS, a worldwide hotel chain using a service guarantee. One contribution of this article is that the interviews convey that the implicit guarantee may serve as a risk reducer, which contradicts and adds to previous research. Previous research states that only the explicit guarantee has these benefits. In this case, the guarantee does not reduce risk in the purchase or consumption stage, but after the consumption when the service has failed, as the customer finds out about the guarantee in the recovery situation. Another contribution of this article is that service guarantees are found to influence the outcome of service recovery as they affect how employees behave to recover the customer.

Presents the current state of the methodological discussion on the measurement of perceived service quality. Describes two approaches ‐ attribute‐based methods and the sequential incident technique (SIT). Outlines the concept and basic assumptions of SIT describes an empirical SIT study applied to measure the quality of perception of guests in club resort. Suggests that the SIT is a valuable complement to the traditional mix of quality measurement methods. Discusses a number of limitations of this method and sets out some managerial implications.

This qualitative study explores the barriers and dilemmas faced by beginning and novice mentors in post-compulsory education in the Southeast of England. It analyses critical incidents (Tripp, 2012) taken from the everyday practice of mentors who were supporting new teachers and lecturers in the Southeast of England. It categorises different types of critical incidents that mentors encountered and describes the strategies and rationales mentors used to support mentees and (indirectly) their learners and colleagues. The purpose of this paper is to explore ways in which mentors’ own values, beliefs and life experiences affected their mentoring practice.

As part of a specialist master’s-level professional development module, 21 mentors wrote about two critical incidents (Tripp, 2012) taken from their own professional experiences, which aimed to demonstrate their support for their mentee’s range of complex needs. These critical incidents were written up as short case studies, which justified the rationale for their interventions and demonstrated the mentors’ own professional development in mentoring. Critical incidents were used as units of analysis and categorised thematically by topic, sector and mentoring strategies used.

The research demonstrated the complex nature of decision making and the potential for professional learning within a mentoring dyad. The study of these critical incidents found that mentors most frequently cited the controversial nature of teaching observations, the mentor’s role in mediating professional relationships, the importance of inculcating professional dispositions in education and the need to support new teachers so that they can use effective behaviour management strategies.

This study contributes to the understanding of the central importance of mentoring for professional growth within teacher education. It identifies common dilemmas that novice mentors face in post-compulsory education, justifies the rationale for their interventions and mentoring strategies and helps to identify ways in which mentors’ professional development needs can be met. It demonstrates that mentoring is complex, non-linear and mediated by mentors’ motivation and values.

This paper seeks to address how major companies adjust their behaviour and definitions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) when exposed to “critical incidents”.

This is a qualitative explorative study including two cases from the Norwegian oil and gas industry, both reflecting critical incidents that are included in the present study: the Utkal case of Norsk Hydro and the Iran corruption case of Statoil.

The critical incidents reported here resulted in changes in decision making and the reformulation of corporate strategies. The findings reported also reveal how the construction of CSR policy and the construction of the reality of the different stakeholders were transferred between companies, NGOs and civil society.

Only a small sample of events and companies is investigated in the study. Accordingly, future research is needed on how legislation and government regulations affect a broader scale of different companies and how complex organisations manage individual and organisational challenges concerning all aspects of CSR.

Assuming that critical incidents influence organisational attention, interpretation and actions, the study indicates that the incidents can be seen as catalysts for the emergence of new CSR policy. New CSR policy is expressed in the patterns of social behaviour. This implies participating in diverse social networks, partnerships and learning forums and that CSR behaviour is constructed in the interaction between company, NGOs, media and business networks.

Similar studies have not previously been undertaken in Norwegian oil companies.

Teacher education and professional development have long been criticized for failing to induct and engage teachers in discourses of classroom deliberation. Lesson studies have contributed to an emerging discourse in which teachers come together to study classroom teaching to improve student learning. The purpose of this paper is to share knowledge about developing video resources to support this emerging discourse.

The authors showcase a digital hypermedia video case developed from research lessons on a third‐grade topic on division with remainder, conducted by teachers and researchers in a lesson study cycle in Singapore. Drawing on anchored instruction and knowledge points of the mathematics education discourse in China, the authors used embedded contexts, case‐based reasoning, critical incidents and facilitation as major design features.

A video documentary traces the research problem and how teachers learned to use the concrete‐pictorial‐abstract (CPA) model to improve teaching for student learning. Critical incidences are created to engage teachers in analyzing the research lessons by describing, interpreting and probing into the object of learning, student difficulties in learning, and how the teacher mediated the subject matter of teaching. A full range of lesson study data and related reading and web resources are provided in the video case to support training and self study.

The paper demonstrates the promise to capitalize on the curricular and pedagogical values of the rich video archives of lesson studies to support continued inquiry of teachers. It has important implications for addressing the issues of depth of implementation and sustainability arising from rapid spread of lesson studies in countries like Singapore.

The aim of this paper is to analyse how critical incidents or organisational crises can be used to check and legitimise quality management change efforts in relation to the fundamental principles of quality.

Multiple case studies analyse critical incidents that demonstrate the importance of legitimisation, normative evaluation and conflict constructs in this process. A theoretical framework composed of these constructs is used to guide the analysis.

The cases show that the critical incidents leading to the legitimisation of continuous improvement (CI) were diverse. However all resulted in the need for significant ongoing cost reduction to achieve or retain competitiveness. In addition, attempts at legitimising CI were coupled with attempts at destabilising the existing normative practice. This destabilisation process, in some cases, advocated supplementing the existing approaches and in others replacing them. In all cases, significant conflict arose in these legitimising and normative evaluation processes.

It is suggested that further research could involve a critical analysis of existing quality models, tools and techniques in relation to how they incorporate, and are built upon, fundamental quality management principles. Furthermore, such studies could probe the dangers of quality curriculum becoming divorced from business and market reality and thus creating a parallel existence.

As demonstrated by the case studies, models, tools and techniques are not valued for their intrinsic value but rather for what they will contribute to addressing the business needs. Thus, in addition to being an opportunity for quality management, critical incidents present a challenge to the field. Quality management must be shown to make a contribution in these circumstances.

This paper is of value to both academics and practitioners.

The study aims to describe the interactive gaps between service receiver learning curves and service provider adaptive curves, as well as the cause-effect-outcome in processes and interfaces of service encounters, through the perspective of teleological actions.

This paper includes a qualitative study based on non-probability sampling of informants (air passengers).

The empirical findings indicate interactive gaps in teleological service encounters and a cause-effect-outcome sequence in the associated processes and interfaces.

The study provides knowledge on how to manage the interactive interface between a service provider and a service receiver and a foundation for enhancing complaint handling in service encounters after critical incidents have occurred.

Service providers need to balance their teleological actions in relation to the service receivers’ teleological actions when critical incidents occur.

The paper takes into account service receiver teleological learning curves in relation to service provider teleological adaptive curves in an interactive transformative service encounter (TSE)-model that provides multiple opportunities for further research.

To explore the use of asynchronous and synchronous text‐based communication using the internet as a means of promoting discussion among a knowledge‐building community of school students carrying out a science investigation.

Activity theory is used to bring together the various theories associated with the study, both those framing the context and those concerned with data analysis. Logfiles from both asynchronous and synchronous discussion forums were analysed to identify critical incidents – sequences of interactions between students indicating significant discussions concerned with knowledge‐building – which were then the subject of critical incident recall through group interviews with the students involved. This method of data analysis allows the subjects of the research to engage in the construction of meaning, giving access to aspects of the discussions that are otherwise not available from the transcripts of online discussions.

Although it was not expected that synchronous interactions would yield significantly rich interactions between students, logfile analysis shows this is not the case. Critical incidents from synchronous interactions can lead to a large amount of information about the social processes of knowledge‐construction.

The significance of synchronous text‐based interactions in this study suggests that an appropriate pedagogy may prove valuable for teachers employing this strategy, providing a way to reveal students' tacit understandings as they engage in knowledge construction.

There is little comparable work involving school students undertaking knowledge‐building in a synchronous, text‐based environment.