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The chapter pays specific attention to the organizing and reorganizing process of the embedding of new technology. The aim is to increase the understanding of how a focal technology is incrementally aligned into a customer’s different business settings. Embedding becomes subject to intense organizing efforts. It becomes a struggle with activating different features of the focal technology by forging and modifying the resource interfaces between the focal technology and customer resources.

The organizing efforts are about seeking, in an explorative mood, for resource interfaces between the focal technology and the customer resources. This organizing process enables the identification of new adaptation opportunities for technology embedding processes, whereby the focal technology obtains certain feature and values.

A systematically developed knowledge of resource interfaces is a key for activating different features of the focal technology and thereby facilitating its embedding into the customer’s various business settings. This is described in a single case study in the chapter. This case and the analysis show how a supplier and a customer struggle with developing resource interface knowledge to activate the different features of the focal technology, thereby facilitating its embedding process. The first part of the chapter establishes a theoretical framework, followed in the second part by the case study and analysis. The concluding discussion emphasizes the importance of understanding and managing various interfaces as part of the organizing processes.

Extended research efforts have been dedicated to understanding how different aspects of online surveys impact the response rate and quality of collected data. With the hope to yield higher response rates, leading survey software solutions (e.g., SurveyMonkey, Qualtrics, QuestionPro) introduced a new technique of embedding a question from an online survey into invitation emails sent to the respondents. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the impact of embedded questions on survey response rate and quality. The results of two experimental studies show that respondents are more likely to respond to a survey with an embedded question compared to an email without one. No statistically significant differences were discovered regarding data quality that was assessed via survey completion rate, respondent bias, and attention check questions. The chapter provides suggestions and guidelines for increasing online surveys' response rate and quality.

Ongoing discussions of the paradox of embedded agency may benefit from considering embedded agency from the perspective of the actors themselves. Drawing upon opinions of school principals who are encouraged to take initiative in their spheres of authority and yet still are subject to centralized performance assessments, the author redefines embedded agency as a matter of orientation. Secondly, the author presents a new typology for the notion of embedded agency and the way it is practiced in daily life. Finally, the author considers the tension that is inherent to the modern workplace, which is agentic and yet highly structured. From the perspective of school principals, the author shows how the professional role identity of mid-level managers is scripted and thus dictates the domains in which they can present a sense of agency.

Weak organizational actors can overcome the consequences of their dependence by securing the control of valuable resources or by embedding dependence relationships into social networks. While these strategies may not eliminate the underlying dependence, they can curtail the ability or the willingness of the stronger party to use power. Embedding strategies, however, can also have unintended consequences. Because the network structures that confer power to the weak are inherently more stable, they can persist beyond the point of being beneficial, trapping weak actors into unsuitable network structures. The power of the weak can thus become the weakness of the strong.

We propose that off-the-job embeddedness (OTJE) be reconceptualized as a separate and distinct, albeit related, construct from job embeddedness. We conceptualize OTJE as the totality of outside-work forces which keep an individual bound to his/her current geographical area and argue that this construct includes important factors which do not fall under the umbrella of “community embeddedness.” Moreover, we propose that these outside-work forces may embed individuals in their jobs either directly or indirectly (through the perceived or expressed preferences of spouses, children, and extended family). This paper identifies the key components of OJTE, addresses the measurement of OTJE, explains the relationships between job embeddedness and OTJE (and their respective components), highlights how OTJE can either amplify or counteract the effects of job embeddedness, and illustrates the direct and indirect effects of OTJE on both work-related and personal outcomes.

This chapter discusses the pilot study of an Education for Sustainable Development Self-Evaluation Tool (ESD-SET), created by the Quality Enhancement Directorate (formerly the Learning and Teaching Development Unit) at Cardiff Metropolitan University, as both a means of auditing the extent to which academic programs embed ESD and a catalyst for curriculum development.

The chapter evaluates the effectiveness and usefulness of the self-evaluation for both auditing ESD and curriculum development. Responses to the self-evaluation questions by Programme Directors were analyzed and follow-up interviews carried out with the Programme Directors to explore their experiences of the tool.

Results indicate that the self-evaluation tool is fit-for-purpose as a means of auditing the integration of ESD within academic programs. The self-evaluation exercise promoted team discussion around sustainability issues and raised staff awareness and understanding of the concept of ESD and how to effectively embed sustainability-related themes within their discipline. The exercise had a transformative impact on the way some program teams approached curriculum design and delivery. There was evidence that engagement with the tool contributed to further embedding of sustainability within curricula across all disciplines involved in the pilot study.

Much of the lesson study research in initial teacher education (ITE) is focussed on single cases and pilot projects. As a result, there is very little consideration of the wider cultural and organisational issues which need to be considered if lesson study is to become embedded within ITE partnerships in the longer term. The move from novelty to sustainability is not an easy one but is rarely considered within the LS literature. Here, the authors argue that Normalisation Process Theory, a framework first developed in the medical, health and social care sphere can be used to offer a wider, organisation-level perspective on successfully embedding lesson study in ITE partnerships.

In the United States, the mandate to provide access to general education curriculum standards for all learners is clear. This chapter provides an overview and a framework for making individualized and curriculum choices for learners with low-incidence disabilities and cognitive deficits. Topics covered include reconciling an ecological curriculum model with a standards-based framework and an expanded discussion on embedding individualized learning targets within the ongoing lessons, routines, and activities of inclusive classrooms. Carefully planned and implemented embedded instruction can provide a match between a student’s need for individualized instruction and the everyday practices of inclusive classrooms.

This paper explored the relationship between the embeddedness of a firm’s managerial values and corporate financial performance in Swiss small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by developing a conceptual maturity model of managerial values (MM-MV). The MM-MV articulates the extent to which managerial values are embedded within organizations, allowing the analysis of the interrelationship between the degree of values-embeddedness and financial performance in SMEs. The findings suggested that as managerial values become more embedded, financial performance increases; therefore, SMEs exhibiting highly embedded managerial values such as customer-minded, team spirit, innovation-driven reliability, persistency, competency, and engagement tend to financially outperform SMEs that have not fully embedded managerial values throughout the firm.

The purpose of this chapter is to study the mathematisation of finance – excessive use of mathematical models in finance – which has been widely blamed for the recent financial and economic crisis. We argue that the problem might actually be the financialisation of mathematics, as evidenced by the gradual embedding of branches of mathematics into financial economics. The concept of embeddedness, originally proposed by Polanyi, is relevant to describe the sociological relationship between fields of knowledge. After exploring the relationship between mathematics, finance and economics since antiquity, we find that theoretical developments in the 1950s and 1970s lead directly to this embedding. The key implication of our findings is the realization that it has become necessary to disembed mathematics from finance and economics, and proposes a number of partial steps to facilitate this process. This chapter contributes to the debate on the mathematisation of finance by uniquely combining a historical approach, which chronicles the evolution of the relation between mathematics and finance, with a sociological approach from the perspective of Polyani’s concept of embedding.