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Article
Publication date: 17 September 2024

Lynn McAlpine, Andrew Gibson and Søren Smedegaard Bengtsen

Increasingly governmental policy around PhD education has resulted in greater university oversight of programs and student experience – often through creating central PhD Schools…

Abstract

Purpose

Increasingly governmental policy around PhD education has resulted in greater university oversight of programs and student experience – often through creating central PhD Schools. While student experience is well researched, the experiences of Heads of these units, who are responsible for creating student experience, have been invisible. This exploratory Danish case study begins such a conversation: its purpose to examine the perceptions of five Heads of PhD Humanities Schools, each responsible for steering institutional decisions within Danish PhD policy landscapes.

Design/methodology/approach

A qualitative approach integrated three distinct analyses: a review of Danish PhD education policies and university procedures, each university’s job specifications for the Heads of the Schools and the Heads’ views on their responsibilities.

Findings

The Heads differentiated between their own and today’s PhD student experience. They had held prior leadership roles and fully supported institutional regulations. They cared deeply for the students under their charge and were working to achieve personal goals to enhance PhD experience. Their leadership perspective was relational: enhancing individual student learning through engaging with multiple PhD actors (e.g. program leaders) – when possible at a personal level – to improve PhD practices.

Originality/value

This study contributes an expanded perspective on how PhD School Heads constitute their roles by empirically linking: macro-national policies and institutional regulations and individuals’ biographies to their support of the PhD regimes – with implications for academic leadership generally. The authors argue research into PhD School leadership is essential, as it is such individuals who create the organisational settings that students experience.

Details

Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2398-4686

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 7 October 2024

Zhanbing Ren

In the past 10 years, the scale of running events in China has increased dramatically, and the forms of running events have also become rich and diverse. Running is not only a…

Abstract

In the past 10 years, the scale of running events in China has increased dramatically, and the forms of running events have also become rich and diverse. Running is not only a social phenomenon but also a historical and cultural phenomenon as an organic part of human culture with its own sociological values in China. This chapter offers insight into the development of Chinese running culture and how this has emerged from ancient and modern Chinese running cultures based on Foucault's disciplinary power theory, biopower and the technologies of the self. This chapter argues that running culture in China constructs the subjectivity of the Chinese runners under the joint action of the technologies of power and the technologies of the self. The findings acknowledge how Chinese Runners present and express themselves by showing a ‘sense of presence’. Runners illustrate the implicit or explicit meaning and value of a particular way of life through running. Runners regard running as the technology of the self for self-expression and self-creation so that individuals can control their bodies and soul, thoughts, behaviours and ways of existence. Emerging technologies of power provide possibilities for the production of running culture in China, and the current policy under the technologies of power meets the needs of runners. In Chinese running culture, power was not oppressive but productive.

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 21 March 2024

Alessandra Sossini and Mats Heide

This study problematizes the prevailing normative and managerial-dominated view of self-initiated employee ambassadorship on social media from a power perspective. The aim is to…

Abstract

Purpose

This study problematizes the prevailing normative and managerial-dominated view of self-initiated employee ambassadorship on social media from a power perspective. The aim is to provide a more nuanced and critical understanding of the negative aspects of this phenomenon.

Design/methodology/approach

The empirical material encompasses qualitative interviews with employees from 14 organizations and Foucault’s concept of disciplinary discursive power to analyze which and how discourses exert power over employee communication on social media and what role visibility plays in it.

Findings

This study indicates that employee ambassadors’ social media communication is governed by two discourses that create complex tensions, where ambassadors constantly must negotiate between self-branding requirements and an authenticity paradox. These tensions intensify through visibility on social media, where employees strategize and situationally silence their communication through self-monitoring and self-surveillance practices. Conclusively, the findings also outline the need for further critical research to offer a deeper understanding of power relations that influence the communication practices of organizational members.

Research limitations/implications

The paper contributes to a more nuanced understanding of self-initiated employee ambassadorship on social media and highlights disciplinary power relations that go beyond organizational borders.

Practical implications

The findings underscore that organizations need to address the critical aspects of self-initiated employee ambassadorship and act as facilitators to support employees in their navigation process.

Originality/value

This paper contributes a new critical power perspective on employee ambassadorship on social media.

Details

Corporate Communications: An International Journal, vol. 29 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1356-3289

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 27 May 2024

Bonnie J. Tulloch, Michelle Kaczmarek, Saguna Shankar and Lisa P. Nathan

This project set out to explore information scholars’ perceptions of the influence of their keyword selections and the implications of their linguistic choices on possibilities…

Abstract

Purpose

This project set out to explore information scholars’ perceptions of the influence of their keyword selections and the implications of their linguistic choices on possibilities for and perceptions of the field of Information Science. We trialed a narrative methodological approach to investigate the multiple stories told with specific keywords, how they relate to larger discourses within the field and the impact they have on the lives of information researchers.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper draws on Arthur Frank’s narrative analysis to consider keywords as stories, which shape one’s sense of professional identity and belonging. The analysis, which is informed by insights from multi-disciplinary scholars of keywords, employs data from a keywords-oriented workshop with Information School faculty and students, as well as an online questionnaire sent to heads of Information Schools.

Findings

We did not find a singular definitive story of information science scholars’ experiences with keywords. Rather we identify tensions surrounding common and contested understandings of discipline, canon and information, engaging the complexity of interdisciplinary, international, intellectual and moral claims of the field. This research offers insight into the experiential factors that shape scholars’ engagement with keywords and the tensions they can create.

Originality/value

A wealth of bibliometric analyses of keywords focuses on finding the “right” words to describe the scholarship you seek or the work you want others to discover. However, this study offers information researchers a novel approach, creating space to acknowledge the generative tensions of keywords, beyond the extractive logic of search and retrieval.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 80 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 7 October 2024

Nicholas Wise and Enqing Tian

This first chapter is the introduction to the book. The purpose of this book is to address and better understand why China tightly embraces modern sport in contemporary times…

Abstract

This first chapter is the introduction to the book. The purpose of this book is to address and better understand why China tightly embraces modern sport in contemporary times. Some view this as an indicator of glocalisation and a result of Western industrial civilization putting pressure on China to showcase their strengths as a nation. Some important considerations to explore are China's mediated ability to play and compete with the west. Sport is also seen as a channel of observing global political and economic challenges, especially those in the current context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the intense tensions between communities, which certainly inspires further academic development. Given China's recently remarkable achievements in sport, it is high time to show the world more inside stories of sport development across the nation. The contributors of this collection bring foundational Chinese context to each chapter as they examine changing sport cultures at different scales.

Book part
Publication date: 30 September 2024

Amritha Mohan

The body has been one of the central tools in analysing connections between sport and postcolonialism in India, given how sport was an essential part of the colonial ‘civilising’…

Abstract

The body has been one of the central tools in analysing connections between sport and postcolonialism in India, given how sport was an essential part of the colonial ‘civilising’ mission, which involved disciplining and controlling Indian bodies. Any discursive understanding of sport and postcolonialism in India must consider how it relates to existing concepts of the body and shapes the experiences of the people involved in it – acknowledging not just the power of colonialism in moulding sporting experiences but also the force of internal hierarchies that exist in Indian society. This chapter explores the experiences of students who studied in higher educational institutions in Kerala under the ‘sports quota’, a system that reserves seats in colleges/universities for high-performing sportspersons in India. Through their interviews, the sustained exclusion of the sporting body in contemporary Indian pedagogy is illustrated here. Specifically, the continuing prevalence of the colonial emphasis on the sporting body, as one whose strength and instrumentality are paramount, as well as its corollary postcolonial position, which treats this sporting body as inferior to the ‘refined mind’ of studious pupils, can be observed. Approaching the sports quota with a decolonising lens would require re-examining the disembodied nature of pedagogy in India’s higher educational institutions, acknowledging sporting students’ lived experiences, and a seamless integration – as opposed to separation/exclusion – of the sportsperson into higher education.

Details

The Postcolonial Sporting Body: Contemporary Indian Investigations
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80455-782-2

Keywords

Open Access
Book part
Publication date: 23 September 2024

Leopold Ringel

Organizational sociology and organization studies have a long history together, while also sharing a proclivity to self-diagnose crises. Instead of taking these assessments at…

Abstract

Organizational sociology and organization studies have a long history together, while also sharing a proclivity to self-diagnose crises. Instead of taking these assessments at face value, this paper treats them as an object of study, asking what conditions have fueled them. In the case of organizational sociology, there are indications of a connection between rising levels of discontent and community building: self-identified organizational sociologists have progressively withdrawn from general debates in the discipline and turned their attention to organization studies, which, they suspect, has seen dramatic levels of growth at their expense. Organization studies, on the other hand, are still haunted by “a Faustian bargain”: leaning heavily on the authority of the social sciences, business school faculty were able to facilitate the emergence of a scholarly field of practice dedicated to the study of organizations, which they control. However, in doing so, they also set organization studies on a path of continued dependence on knowledge produced elsewhere: notably, by university disciplines such as sociology.

Details

Sociological Thinking in Contemporary Organizational Scholarship
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83549-588-9

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 15 May 2024

Anil K. Narayan and Marianne Oru

This study aims to investigate accounting practices within a non-Western (Indigenous) context and provide insights into alternative accounting approaches and perspectives.

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to investigate accounting practices within a non-Western (Indigenous) context and provide insights into alternative accounting approaches and perspectives.

Design/methodology/approach

This study adopts an interpretive research approach to gain an in-depth insight into the functioning of accounting in Solomon Islands’ unique cultural and social-political context. In-depth interviews were conducted to gain insights into the perceptions and meanings held by participants concerning Western accounting practices and their limitations.

Findings

The findings provide unique insights into different interpretations of accounting and accountability through two distinct cultural lenses – Western and non-Western. The complementary and rival explanations on what accounting and accountability are doing and what accounting and accountability should be doing will help close the gap in knowledge and contribute to shaping a better world for Indigenous people.

Practical implications

Implications for practice involve fostering collaborative efforts among individuals, communities, leaders and institutions to harness cultural strengths through accounting. Additionally, continuous capacity building and education are essential to develop accounting skills, enhance financial literacy, promote professional expertise and build a pool of skilled accountants with local knowledge to support Indigenous communities.

Originality/value

This study is original and provides novel insights supporting the need for accounting to recognise the importance of Indigenous perspectives, adapt to cultural sensitivity and integrate cultural norms and values into accounting practices to make an impact and achieve greater social and moral accountability.

Article
Publication date: 8 July 2024

Zilong He and Wei Fang

This study investigates the multifaceted barriers and facilitators affecting research data sharing across the research data lifecycle. It aims to broaden the understanding of data…

Abstract

Purpose

This study investigates the multifaceted barriers and facilitators affecting research data sharing across the research data lifecycle. It aims to broaden the understanding of data sharing beyond the publication phase, emphasizing the continuous nature of data sharing from generation to reuse.

Design/methodology/approach

Employing a mixed-methods approach, the study integrates the Theory of Planned Behavior, the Technology Acceptance Model, and the Institutional Theory to hypothesize the influence of various factors on data sharing behaviors across the lifecycle. A questionnaire survey and structural equation modeling are utilized to empirically test these hypotheses.

Findings

This study identifies critical factors influencing data sharing at different lifecycle stages, including perceived behavioral control, perceived effort, journal and funding agency pressures, subjective norms, perceived risks, resource availability, and perceived benefits. The findings highlight the complex interplay of these factors and their varying impacts at different stages of data sharing.

Research limitations/implications

This study illuminates the dynamics of research data sharing, offering insights while recognizing its scope might not capture all disciplinary and cultural nuances. It highlights pathways for stakeholders to bolster data sharing, suggesting a collaborative push towards open science, reflecting on how strategic interventions can bridge existing gaps in practice.

Practical implications

This study offers actionable recommendations for policymakers, journals, and institutions to foster a more conducive environment for data sharing, emphasizing the need for support mechanisms at various lifecycle stages.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the literature by offering a comprehensive model of the research data lifecycle, providing empirical evidence on the factors influencing data sharing across this continuum.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 80 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 25 September 2024

Lois Fearon

The importance of developing and implementing sustainable business practices has never been greater. Business schools are increasingly tasked with preparing students to contribute…

Abstract

The importance of developing and implementing sustainable business practices has never been greater. Business schools are increasingly tasked with preparing students to contribute to this imperative and although progress is being made, the impact of integrating sustainability into business school curriculum has remained uncertain as studies exploring the impact have been lacking. The purpose of this multi-case study was to examine the impact of integration efforts in two distinct undergraduate business programs at Royal Roads University. The research focused on how students' understanding of sustainability and their associated attitudes and behaviors changed as they progressed throughout their programs. In addition to considering the impact of a sustainability-infused curriculum, other factors affecting sustainability orientations were also explored. The study was unique in both its comparative nature and in its investigation of the various contextual factors shaping sustainability orientations. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and through document analysis. Findings suggest a combination of approaches to integration is most effective in impacting sustainability perspectives. While sustainability was generally understood in a multidimensional manner, there was a noticeable environmental bias and a tendency to view it within the business framework. A need for stronger and more comprehensive conceptualizations was identified. Recommendations include: (a) embed sustainability in a comprehensive manner across the curriculum, (b) move beyond a disciplinary conceptualization of sustainability and introduce stronger sustainability discourse, (c) utilize powerful experiential and place-based pedagogies, (d) pay attention to context and ensure both the formal and the informal curriculum mutually reinforce a pro-sustainability agenda.

1 – 10 of 146