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The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the often complex and contradictory argumentation of a spectrum of different Finnish public sector actors interviewed on the topical issue of Free/Libre Open Source (FLOSS) adoption.

The science and technology‐inspired critical discourse‐analytical approach combines insights from Billig et al. and Fairclough, with a special focus on dilemmatic aspects of socially embedded discourses. The vocabularies used to justify FLOSS implementation highlight power struggles on the level of speech.

The identified dilemmatic discourses express the continuing tension between the freedom to choose, use and develop one's desktop in the spirit of FLOSS on the one hand, and the striving for better desktop control and maintenance by it staff and user advocates on the other.

The research acts as an opening for reframing common and axiomatic knowledge on FLOSS tools.

The asymmetry between the layperson (the ordinary user) and the expert (IT staff) manifests itself in discourse in a way that calls for critical re‐evaluation of the language used in information communication technology (ICT) implementation and support. It also questions the role of pilots in ICT implementation.

The paper critically examines the often taken‐for‐granted ideals of open source software and elaborates a methodological tool for spotting power struggles on the level of speech.

Terminologies such as “integrated marketing” and “market segmentation” may be common parlance in contemporary marketing literature, but, in post-war America, they had distinct racial orientations mediated by a history of segregation. This paper aims to examine the resonant discourses in the construction of the Negro market in post-war America and observes that the field of marketing provides a historiography, where Negro marketing was constructed as dilemmatic and through a duality of the black market impacting the well-established white market. A survey of marketing literature from the 1950s to the 1970s reflects a discursive turn from scepticism and caution in approaching the Negro market to evoking the ethical discourse and advocating equal rights for the black consumer.

A review of articles on the topic reveals that research occurred in other academic fields beyond the remit of marketing, and these different disciplines approached the issue of the Negro market from different research orientations and fields of enquiry. This paper focuses on academic literature that was published in marketing and business journals which were concerned with marketing to the black community. The journals reviewed in this paper include Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing/Communications, The Journal of Business, The Journal of Marketing and Journal of Advertising Research published from the 1950s to the 1960s. In reviewing the marketing literature from these journals, it highlights the recurrent and resonant themes and shifts in discourse in the period mentioned.

Despite the scepticism, there was a recognition among market researchers that they were in a unique position to influence significantly the future relationships between blacks and whites in America (Gould et al., 1970, p. 26; Kassarjian, 1971; Hair et al., 1977; Solomon et al., 1976). The marketing discourses also showed reluctance in supporting black media, as advertising agencies did not have a preference for it. Black advertising organizations, while providing access to the Negro market, were seen as having high preparation costs and high costs per thousand in terms of reaching the population. There was also dissatisfaction expressed with the results of the copy (Alexis, 1959).

The moral turn in advertising is evident in the late 1960s and early 1970s, where marketers spoke of intervention beyond market strategies. Cohen (1970, p. 3) argued fervently that there exists an opportunity for advertising to improve its social image by giving more attention to the black community. The moral discourse of social responsibility as marketers and advertisers sought to go beyond advocating consumer rights to recognising that structural changes and attitudinal shifts was required to reform the industry through recruitment and training of black staff in creative and consultative roles. Wall (1970, p. 48), in commenting on integrated advertising, observed that beyond producing advertisements which create a sense of equality in life style and values, black employment is vitally important in creative levels in the advertising industry to improve credibility and acceptance.

This chapter takes its point of departure in the vision of educating public leaders and managers with the ability to create public value in a networked governance structure. The purpose of the chapter is to revise this vision by unpacking the notion of public value in contemporary governance and discuss the implications for public leadership and for public leadership and management programs.

The chapter explores the notion of public value as a conceptual framework for emergent forms of networked governance. Drawing on insights from sociology of law and governmentality studies, a set of key tensions inherent in the public value discourse are identified as the diagnostic impetus to consider the somewhat excessive leadership figure put forward in the literature. The chapter shows that the discourse of networked governance and public value thinking is rather contested and imply a certain kind of hybridisation of public administration and public purpose into opposite identity spheres. Instead of forming a ‘whole system’ as suggested in the literature, the hybridisation implicates an ongoing suspension that allows the governance structure to become tense and unresolved. The hybridisation forms new dilemmatic spaces in contemporary governance, it is argued.

The author suggests that public leadership should be considered as hybrid practices, formed around an ongoing search of ‘publics’ and images of ‘wholeness’ by way of oscillating between varying values and identities. This form of hybrid leadership calls for new explorative learning formats in public leadership programs, it is argued.

The chapter undertakes a careful critical reading and conceptual examination of the current paradigm of public value management. By drawing on sociology of law and Foucault’s genealogy of rationalities of government the examination brings new insight into the doubled identities and dilemmatic spaces of contemporary governance and elaborates the concept of public leadership theorized as distributed and hybrid practices.

This in-depth case study examined the mentor's role in mediating a culturally diverse community of student teachers-as-learners in the context of practice teaching in university teacher education in Israel. Specifically, it explored how the mentor's response to cultural aspects of learning to teach shaped the group's learning environment.

Data collection included 23 video-recorded meetings of the learning community and semi-structured interviews with all four participants.

Findings proposed six actions of the mentor that aimed at promoting an empathetic and supportive learning environment that encouraged collaborative talk around culturally diverse issues that surfaced during practice teaching. Implications for teacher education programs are presented and discussed.

The study offers a practical framework of tools (or mentor actions) that can help mentors to promote social interactions in culturally diverse mentoring conversational settings.

The study identified six actions that can serve as tools in mediating sensitive discourse to issues of diversity in communities of culturally diverse learners.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new methodological framework for the identification and analysis of different types of discursive manifestations of contradictions.

The paper is based on the dialectical tradition of cultural‐historical activity theory. The methodological framework is developed by means of analyzing the entire transcribed corpus of the discourse conducted in a change laboratory intervention consisting of eight sessions and altogether 189,398 words.

Four types of discursive manifestations, namely dilemmas, conflicts, critical conflicts, and double binds, could be effectively identified in the data. Specific linguistic cues were a useful first level of approaching the different types of manifestations. Critical conflicts and double binds were found to be particularly effective lenses on systemic contradictions.

The paper points to the need for theoretical and conceptual rigor in studies using the notion of contradiction. Further empirical testing of the framework is needed and may lead to more refined or alternative categories.

Dynamics of different organizational change interventions may be effectively analyzed and compared with the help of the framework.

The paper presents an original, empirically‐tested methodological framework that may be a valuable resource for analyzes of contradictions driving organizational change.

This research explores the perceptions and practice of principals in schools integrating migrant and refugee children into the Israeli formal education system. The aim is to offer theoretical and methodological insights to the discourse on educational leadership.

This qualitative (phenomenological) study used semi-structured interviews to attain a deeper understanding of the experiences of school principals as culturally relevant educational leaders.

The study corroborates previous findings regarding: the need for a holistic multidimensional approach; the focus on language and communication; and the complexities and dilemmas involved in the practice of educational leadership. The study analysis revealed three central dilemmas: applying equal-opportunity and cultural diversity policies; schools as protected spaces and serving the social reality beyond the school; and full assimilation and recognition of specific cultural identity.

The research was conducted in a small number of schools and only with principals. A follow-up study could also include teachers, officials and representatives of the various organizations working with the migrants and refugees.

Beyond financial resources, school leaders need professional (culturally responsive) guidance to support the multifaceted and complex needs of students, in part by being adaptable and flexible, and aware of the aims and practice of education for an unknown future.

The originality-value of the present study is threefold: it explores school principals in a relatively unexplored context (the Israeli formal education system); it applies two models for organizing and analyzing research findings; and it contributes new insights on the dilemmatic nature of educational leadership.

Despite the ongoing increase of women in the top positions, they are still underrepresented in politics. The studies that primarily focus on women’s underrepresentation in politics neglect the role of gender as a category that structures and makes sense of social practices. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mechanisms that regulate the contemporary gender order in politics through discourse analysis and the contribution of the critical feminist perspective.

The study is based on 30 biographical interviews with Italian politicians and focuses on the account of their political experiences and on the meanings attributed to these.

The results of this paper underline the tendency to either absolve or blame women for gender inequality in politics through different interpretative repertoires: “Women’s disinterest toward politics,” “Politics as masculine context” and “Politics–family unbalance.” The analysis allowed to unravel the way in which the discursive practices create and reproduce the hegemonic gender order in politics.

The research is limited to 30 qualitative interviews, and so results cannot be generalized.

The findings of this paper highlight the importance of exploring issues relating to the gender gap in politics and stress the need to implement actions to promote gender equality in politics.

The paper contributes to an understanding of women’s underrepresentation in politics and offers causes for reflection on a phenomenon that has profound implications for our society.

This chapter considers the political controversy in Britain over the lifting of restrictions of freedom of movement on European Union (EU) citizens from Bulgaria and Romania in January 2014. The response of the then Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition Government centred on altering the rules on the payment of welfare benefits to potential new EU immigrants such that they would not be entitled to claim these benefits for 3 months after entry to the United Kingdom. This policy led to a split in the coalition, with the Liberal Democrat leadership claiming that it was a panicked move by the majority Conservative coalition partner, and moreover that it was a blatant attempt to appeal the electorate in an effort to be seen to be doing something to stop the welfare benefit system from being abused by ‘foreigners’. The backdrop to this political fracas centred on the economic contribution of East European immigrants to Britain and the claim and counterclaim over the issues jobs, welfare benefits and services such as English language support in schools. These contentious issues are examined in terms of an analysis of online comments to posted in reaction to a political interview with Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat business secretary, who claimed that the Conservatives were attempting to placate public disquiet over immigration as a response to the rising popularity of the United Kingdom Independence Party.

Mid-level executives are confronted with many dilemma situations, in which they are forced to decide between conflicting options, none of them leading to the desired result. If they fail to cope with them constructively, their individual risk for mental strains increases (Gerlmaier and Latniak, 2013). Initial findings focusing on executives in industry (Bossmann, 2020) show that fostering effective dilemma management in executives is a preventive factor against stress-related diseases. Yet, there is little empirical research that evaluates the contribution of dilemma management training on leadership’s mental health prevention in hospitals. This study aims to examine whether such a training program, adapted to current working conditions in German hospitals, promotes mid-level executives’ mental health.

A 10-month training program was administered to N = 69 senior physicians, senior nurses and senior service and administrative staff in four hospitals. To evaluate training effects on perceived stress reactivity, on cognitive and emotional irritation over time as well as the effects of the training dose on these results, participants’ self-reported measures were collected at four points in time: before (t0), during (t1), immediately after (t2) and three months after the intervention (t3).

Overall, participants showed less cognitive irritation and perceived stress reactivity over time. However, their emotional irritation did not change significantly. The dose of training participation did not moderate these results.

This paper contributes to the prevention of stress-related diseases and the promotion of sensemaking in mid-level executives’ dilemma management routine in the face of increasingly aggravating working conditions due to financial restrictions in the German health-care system. Findings of this study are explained in greater depth using previously reported qualitative data from the same research project.

This conceptual article aims to contribute to the design of a theory of family-influenced firms by a framework for the management of business-family dilemmas.

It combines systemic principles with the tetralemma, a tool from ancient Indian logic that families and businesses can use to manage and reframe dilemmas without dissolving the dilemmatic tensions or blurring their boundaries.

In applying the tetralemma, the article offers a range of suggestions, such as observing business and family as two discrete, yet codependent, social systems and envisioning conceptual and methodological imports from codependency research and therapy into family business research and practice.

The article proposes a framework for the selective and flexible navigation of family-business tensions without dissolving them or blurring their boundaries.