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In this paper, we offer a model of how leaders and managers can create energy for change by influencing patterns of conversation across the organization. We develop the model by linking social constructionist thought with theory from the field of positive psychology. We propose that effective leaders work with others to co-author persuasive narratives of change that generate energy by providing people (including themselves) with a sense of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Energy is expressed in the form of support, time, money, and resources, which contribute to the success of the work. Continuous attention to crafting persuasive narratives in a collaborative way creates upward spirals of energy, and increases the probability of successful change over time. We illustrate these ideas with a case study of a successful IT change initiative in a Fortune 100 insurance company, and conclude by discussing implications for research and practice.

Citizens are substantial stakeholders in every e-government system, thus their willingness to use and ability to access the system are critical. Unequal access and information and communication technology usage, which is known as digital divide, however has been identified as one of the major obstacles to the implementation of e-government system. As digital divide inhibits citizen’s acceptance to e-government, it should be overcome despite the lack of deep theoretical understanding on this issue. This research aimed to investigate the digital divide and its direct impact on e-government system success of local governments in Indonesia as well as indirect impact through the mediation role of trust. In order to get a comprehensive understanding of digital divide, this study introduced a new type of digital divide, the innovativeness divide.

The research problems were approached by applying two-stage sequential mixed method research approach comprising of both qualitative and quantitative studies. In the first phase, an initial research model was proposed based on a literature review. Semi-structured interview with 12 users of e-government systems was then conducted to explore and enhance this initial research model. Data collected in this phase were analyzed with a two-stage content analysis approach and the initial model was then amended based on the findings. As a result, a comprehensive research model with 16 hypotheses was proposed for examination in the second phase.

In the second phase, quantitative method was applied. A questionnaire was developed based on findings in the first phase. A pilot study was conducted to refine the questionnaire, which was then distributed in a national survey resulting in 237 useable responses. Data collected in this phase were analyzed using Partial Least Square based Structural Equation Modeling.

The results of quantitative analysis confirmed 13 hypotheses. All direct influences of the variables of digital divide on e-government system success were supported. The mediating effects of trust in e-government in the relationship between capability divide and e-government system success as well as in the relationship between innovativeness divide and e-government system success were supported, but was rejected in the relationship between access divide and e-government system success. Furthermore, the results supported the moderating effects of demographic variables of age, residential place, and education.

This research has both theoretical and practical contributions. The study contributes to the developments of literature on digital divide and e-government by providing a more comprehensive framework, and also to the implementation of e-government by local governments and the improvement of e-government Readiness Index of Indonesia.

Because teacher training is an important component of high-quality early care and education (ECE), states are employing various efforts to increase the credentials of teachers in private ECE centers. In New Jersey, teachers who serve disadvantaged students in the state’s community-based Abbott preschools are under a court mandate to obtain a Bachelor’s degree and Preschool – Grade 3 certification by September 2004 or lose their jobs. This chapter describes a phenomenological study of five teachers’ experiences in attempting to meet that mandate, and offers implications for policymakers to consider when evaluating the overall success of this reform effort.

Using the perspectives of dramaturgy and symbolic interactionists like George Herbert Mead and Carl Couch this study focuses on paid sex work in the hypermodern, virtual world of Second Life. Using seventeen semi-structured interviews and six months of ethnographic fieldwork, I find that the employment of sexual scripts, carrying off a successful erotic scene, and the creative use of communication and embodiment are highly valued in escorts’ performance of Second Life sex work. Escorts craft an online persona that is a digital representation of the self, which is manifested in the embodiment of their digital body or avatar. In addition to digital representations of the physical self, Second Life allows for multiple methods of computer-mediated communication, and escorts are able to re-embody the first life body through the trading of first life pictures, voice cybersex, and web cam cybersex. The data allow the conclusion that most escorts are unwilling to re-embody the first life body for reasons of personal safety and the desire to restrict access to the first life self. I find, however, that there is a porous boundary between first life and Second Life in which the first life self comes through in the Second Life persona. In the concluding remarks, I explore the implications this study has for the negotiation of privacy for new social media actors who are reluctant to fully disclose their lives yet perform a persistent, archived persona for friends and followers on the Internet. This study contributes to a small, but growing, body of literature on Second Life and expands the existing work on embodiment and privacy in the digital realm.

Purpose: This study seeks to determine the marketplace practices in which consumers engage with regard to masculine and feminine codes employed in product design. Since extant consumer research argues that consumers prefer marketing stimuli that match their sex or gender identity, this study also asks how consumers’ practices inform this understanding of the possession-self link.

Design/methodology/approach: This study used semi-structured interviews with an auto-driving component to answer the research questions. Data from 20 interviews were analyzed using feminist critical discourse analysis and a poststructuralist feminist-informed theoretical framework.

Findings: Four consumer practices identified in the data show that interpretations and evaluations of product gender are sometimes, but not always, a reflection of the gendered self.

Research limitations/implications: This research shares a snapshot of a cohort of individuals that interact with the marketplace, but there are some perspectives missing. Future research must engage with individuals from different socioeconomic backgrounds, as well as non-binary or gender nonconforming individuals, in order to enhance or even challenge these findings.

Practical implications (if applicable): Evidence from the marketplace demonstrates intense criticism of products that have been coded as masculine or feminine based on gender stereotypes or men and women’s perceived aesthetic tastes. Marketers are encouraged to use gender codes to differentiate products catered to men and women based on their ergonomic or biological needs.

Originality/value: This study complicates theory on the possession-self link to show cases in which that link is broken. Engaging critically with the topic of product gender from a poststructuralist feminist perspective also illustrates how marketing practices may help or harm consumers.

This chapter explores the experiences of people with complex conditions before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, their fears for imagined futures when the pandemic first appeared, their reflections on their experiences and present status, as well as plans for a post-pandemic future.

This research is based on semi-structured interviews conducted by phone, Zoom, or in-person with six participants, each interviewed twice – before and during the pandemic – who either have complex medical conditions or are mothers of a child with complex medical conditions, in the United States. Half the interviews were conducted before the pandemic and the other half during the pandemic.

The data illuminate the understanding of our participants of the COVID-19 pandemic as a disability issue, which should be analyzed with the focus of disability as an intersectional social category and that disabled people felt at higher risk due to ableism in health policies and getting their health needs met. The results demonstrated the tremendous impact of the pandemic on the lives of our participants with complex medical conditions, whether in their work, care, physical and mental health, and social relationships.

This study points to the importance of policymakers incorporating strategies to reduce ableism in health care provision, rationing, and other forms of decision-making. Services need to be designed keeping in mind the challenges of disabled people and their need for care. In addition, adequate education, and employment opportunities for disabled people must be ensured, while continuing to expand access options to disabled people that were available throughout the lockdown.

Purpose – Exploring children's perspectives on participation in social research provides sociologists with new insight into how to include children's voices and perspectives effectively in sociological studies of childhood.

Design/methodology/approach – Child-centered interviews were conducted with 20 children between the ages of 5 and 12 as part of a larger research project.

Findings – Findings from interviews, artwork, and researcher field notes suggest that the children interviewed enjoyed the experience of participating in child-centered social research, maintained serious attitudes toward their inclusion in social research and wish to be active participants in future research involving kids.

Practical implications – Suggestions are offered for future research studies of this population and recommendations are made to encourage American sociologists to consider the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in research endeavors.

The aim of this chapter is to argue that charisma is a collective representation, and that charismatic authority is a social status that derives more from the “recognition” of the followers than from the “magnetism” of the leaders. I contend further that a close reading of Max Weber shows that he, too, saw charisma in this light.

I develop my argument by a close reading of many of the most relevant texts on the subject. This includes not only the renowned texts on this subject by Max Weber, but also many books and articles that interpret or criticize Weber’s views.

I pay exceptionally close attention to key arguments and texts, several of which have been overlooked in the past.

Writers for whom charisma is personal magnetism tend to assume that charismatic rule is natural and that the full realization of democratic norms is unlikely. Authority, in this view, emanates from rulers unbound by popular constraint. I argue that, in fact, authority draws both its mandate and its energy from the public, and that rulers depend on the loyalty of their subjects, which is never assured. So charismatic claimants are dependent on popular choice, not vice versa.

I advocate a “culturalist” interpretation of Weber, which runs counter to the dominant “personalist” account. Conventional interpreters, under the sway of theology or mass psychology, misread Weber as a romantic, for whom charisma is primal and undemocratic rule is destiny. This essay offers a counter-reading.