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Article
Publication date: 13 April 2015

Sid Lowe, Astrid Kainzbauer, Slawomir Jan Magala and Maria Daskalaki

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the interactive processes linking lived embodied experiences, language and cognition (body-talk-mind) and their implications for…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the interactive processes linking lived embodied experiences, language and cognition (body-talk-mind) and their implications for organizational change.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors use an “embodied realism” approach to examine how people feel/perceive/act (embodied experiences), how they make sense of their experiences (cognition) and how they use language and communication to “talk sense” into their social reality. To exemplify the framework, the authors use a cooking metaphor. In this metaphor, language is the “sauce”, the catalyst, which blends raw, embodied, “lived” experience with consequent rationalizations (“cooking up”) of experience. To demonstrate the approach, the authors employ the study of a Chinese multinational subsidiary in Bangkok, Thailand, where participants were encouraged to build embodied models and tell their stories through them.

Findings

The authors found that participants used embodied metaphors in a number of ways (positive and negative connotations) in different contexts (single or multicultural groups) for different purposes. Participants could be said to be “cooking up” realities according to the situated context. The methodology stimulated an uncovering of ineffable, tacit or sensitive issues that were problematic or potentially problematic within the organization.

Originality/value

The authors bring back the importance of lived embodied experiences, language and cognition into IB research. The authors suggest that embodied metaphors capture descriptions of reality that stimulate reflexivity, uncover suppressed organizational problems and promote the contestation of received wisdoms when organizational change is pressing and urgent. The authors see the approach as offering the potential to give voice to embodied cultures throughout the world and thereby make IB research more practically relevant.

Details

Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 28 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0953-4814

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 10 December 2019

Sid Lowe, Astrid Kainzbauer and Ki-Soon Hwang

The purpose of this paper is to present the proposition that culture in international management has been dominated by a “Western dualism to measuring culture” (Caprar et al.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present the proposition that culture in international management has been dominated by a “Western dualism to measuring culture” (Caprar et al., 2015, p. 1024), which has resulted in severe problems and persistent limitations. The suggestion is that cultural research can be more productively conceived as a paradox involving a duality between two contrasting yet co-determined spheres or domains.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper provides an outline of culture as a paradox and an outline of a research approach to address the dualities of culture.

Findings

A cultural duality is described, which involves a paradoxical “yin-yang” relationship between two contrasting yet mutually constituted aspects of the collective mind. One domain, which involves conscious cognitive elements has dominated research characterized by positivism and empirical cross-cultural explorations of phenomenological cultural values. The second, more recondite domain, involves unconscious and embodied cultural phenomena, which are more tacit and hidden in indirect expression through communicative interaction, exchanges of symbolic representations and embodied behaviour in context.

Research limitations/implications

A methodological duality of qualitative and quantitative mixing in order to provide a bi-focal understanding of both tacit and explicit aspects of culture is proposed as a research agenda.

Originality/value

The suggestion is that these cultural shadows have been relatively neglected thus far in cross-cultural management research. This means that in order to better comprehend culture as paradox, an equalization of approaches sensitive to both sides of the duality is prescient. In pursuit of this idea, a complementary qualitative analysis directed at more nebulous cultural phenomena is proposed in order to provide a balanced analysis of culture as paradox.

Details

Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 33 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0953-4814

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 17 March 2022

Sihem Ben Saad and Fatma Choura

The rapid progress of information and communication technologies enables business creators to access a wide variety of tools. These tools facilitate electronic exchanges and…

Abstract

Purpose

The rapid progress of information and communication technologies enables business creators to access a wide variety of tools. These tools facilitate electronic exchanges and interactions with customers and companies. The purpose of this study is to test and compare the effectiveness of two virtual reality technologies, the avatar and anthropomorphic virtual agents, on consumers’ psychological states and perceived realism.

Design/methodology/approach

An experimental survey was conducted to measure the potential superiority of the anthropomorphic virtual agent over the avatar and to identify the determining characteristics of the anthropomorphic virtual agent’s effectiveness. An experimental website was designed for the purpose of the study. A total of 1,262 internet users participated in the experiment.

Findings

Results confirm the superiority of the anthropomorphic virtual agent over the avatar in affecting consumers’ flow state, telepresence experience and perceived realism. These findings can be explained by the humanized characteristics of this type of agent (i.e. verbal and nonverbal language).

Originality/value

The originality of this research lies in the study of different forms of social interactivity. This latter has been little studied and essentially treated with a dichotomous perspective (presence/absence of a virtual agent). New trends in digital marketing challenge entrepreneurs to be proactive and to anticipate customers’ behavior on their online stores. That is why, virtual reality technologies, namely, anthropomorphic agents, can be considered as a relevant tool to engage in efficient inbound marketing strategies. Today, the development of intelligent technologies encourages entrepreneurs operating online to design more interactive, realistic and humanized virtual merchant environments that are more adapted to the realities of the new consumption trends and environment.

Details

Journal of Research in Marketing and Entrepreneurship, vol. 24 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1471-5201

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 November 2016

Louise Gwenneth Phillips

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how being led by a young child to unknown destinations without shared language offers an experience of indeterminacy that opens up…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how being led by a young child to unknown destinations without shared language offers an experience of indeterminacy that opens up (re)thinking of political co-existence.

Design/methodology/approach

The relational arts project The Walking Neighbourhood hosted by children challenges the social practice of adults chaperoning children through public streets by inviting children to curate and lead unknown adults on walks of local neighbourhoods. This paper focusses on sensory ethnographic research of one encounter of a child-curated walk when this project took place in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The experience is relayed through multilayered sensorial storytelling inter-woven with diffractive analysis informed from a post-humanist agential realist position (Barad, 2007, 2012).

Findings

Perceptions, knowings, imaginings, memories and connections are read as explanations of intra-actions in the child-led walk to produce new meaning in the phenomena of political co-existence. Emergent, embodied, sensorial listening produces new awareness and understandings of intra-acting beings in an urban space regardless of age or form.

Social implications

Application of ethical ontological epistemological practice through emergent, embodied, sensorial listening to others opens affectual ethical ways of being and knowing for justice-to-come in political co-existence.

Originality/value

The concept of child-led walks is innovative as a political act by shifting from vertical adult-child relations to horizontal relations. Post-humanist agential realism is a new and emerging theory that offers possibilities to reconceptualise co-existence with others in public spaces.

Details

Qualitative Research Journal, vol. 16 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1443-9883

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 16 July 2019

Sid Lowe, Astrid Kainzbauer and Piya Ngamcharoenmongkol

This paper aims to explore the topic of embodiment as a gap in meaning-making within the literature on business relationships in IMP and business marketing academic discourse…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to explore the topic of embodiment as a gap in meaning-making within the literature on business relationships in IMP and business marketing academic discourse. Referring to the theories of embodiment, the authors question the dominant worldview of Cartesian dualism which marginalizes the influence of the body in meaning-making and explore relevant implications of an embodiment agenda for research and practice. The aim is to demonstrate that embodiment has a vitally important influence in the construction of meanings.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper provides a review of theoretical and empirical literature on embodied cognition and theories of embodiment to construct a cooking metaphor as an analogical vehicle for exploring meanings within business relationships.

Findings

The authors use a cooking metaphor to explore how meaning is created in human interaction. Body and mind blended together produce meaning through the catalyst of discourse and semiotics. Cognition is described as a mixture of rational and non-rational processes involving blended elements of embodied perceptions and psychological ideas stirred and heated in a semiotic “sauce” of discourse (language, communication, information, power/knowledge).

Originality/value

The contribution of the paper is in proposing that both body and mind influence the creation of meanings in business relationships blended through the mediation of language and discourse. The authors aim to advance a “practice” and “linguistic” turn in the business marketing discourse by proposing that embodied, discursive and cognitive processes are more effectively conceived as blended influences.

Details

Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, vol. 34 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0885-8624

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 11 December 2006

Bart Nooteboom

In this paper I employ the perspective of embodied cognition to develop a ‘cognitive’ theory of the firm and organisations more in general. An organisation is any form of…

Abstract

In this paper I employ the perspective of embodied cognition to develop a ‘cognitive’ theory of the firm and organisations more in general. An organisation is any form of coordinated behavior, while a firm is a special form of organisation, with a legal identity concerning property rights, liability and employment. A possible misunderstanding of terminology should be eliminated from the start. In this paper, the terms ‘knowledge’ and ‘cognition’ have a wide meaning, going beyond rational calculation. They denote a broad range of mental activity, including proprioception, perception, sense making, categorisation, inference, value judgments, and emotions. Following others, and in line with the perspective of embodied cognition, I see cognition and emotion (such as fear, suspicion), and body and mind, as closely linked (Merleau-Ponty, 1942, 1964; Simon, 1983; Damasio, 1995, 2003; Nussbaum, 2001).

Details

Cognition and Economics
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-465-2

Article
Publication date: 17 May 2013

Wendelin M. Küpers

The purpose of this paper is to describe how a phenomenological approach can help to understand embodied dimensions and compare different and shared qualities, functions and…

2100

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to describe how a phenomenological approach can help to understand embodied dimensions and compare different and shared qualities, functions and potential, as well as ambivalences and limitations of metaphors and stories in organisations.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on a phenomenological understanding and use of multiple discourses, the specific expressive and communicative nature, linkages to meaning, mediation and integration, as well as transformational, innovating and generating potentials of metaphors respectively, narratives are analysed conceptually and discussed. Accordingly similarities and differences, overlapping and conflicting patterns, thus correspondences and rapprochements of both metaphors and narratives are shown and illustrated.

Findings

The critical comparison of various, especially transformative functions, ambivalences and ambiguous uses of metaphorical and narrative sides and practices reveals their inherently dynamic inter‐relational nexus. The analysis shows how metaphors and stories/narratives can serve each other, as well as how they work together and contribute for transformation in organizations. In turn, this also offers new potential for understanding the practical opportunities and obstacles to the management of change.

Originality/value

The originality of this paper lies in that besides using multiple discourse, it follows an advanced Merleau‐Pontyian phenomenological approach and thus considers embodied dimensions of metaphors and stories/narratives and its implication for organizations critically. Working out the intriguing relationship between metaphor and narrative offers significant new insight and avenues for the research of organizational inertia and change.

Details

Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 26 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0953-4814

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 8 August 2016

Sid Lowe, Michel Rod, Astrid Kainzbauer and Ki-Soon Hwang

Drawing on sociological theories of Giddens, Bourdieu and Goffman, the purpose of this paper is to explore how different relationships are characterized between actors in…

Abstract

Purpose

Drawing on sociological theories of Giddens, Bourdieu and Goffman, the purpose of this paper is to explore how different relationships are characterized between actors in interaction and determine whether social theories of practice resonate as being practical to managers.

Design/methodology/approach

In the empirical investigations, the authors employ the Delphi method whereby the authors “elevate” six highly experienced marketing practitioners in Dubai and Bangkok, each in different industries and from different cultural backgrounds, to designated “expert” positions in exploring the practical relevance of the practice-based theories of Bourdieu, the dramaturgy of Goffman and the structuration theory of Giddens in understanding practical experiences of managing in business-to-business networks.

Findings

The results show that aspects of these theories are consistent with practitioners’ experiences in many ways but the theories themselves do not appear to resonate with the modernist practical consciousness of the participants as being particularly pragmatic or practically useful except as resources they could selectively borrow from as bricoleurs of changing action.

Originality/value

Social practice theories appear rather too abstract and complex to practical actors. It is therefore paradoxical that social practice theories do not appear as sufficiently “handy” or “ready to hand” in Heidegger’s (1962) terms; being in need of translation into practical usefulness. It would appear that social practice theories can be a useful analytical vehicle for the academic analyst but cannot resonate with the modernist consciousness of the practical actor.

Details

Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 29 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0953-4814

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 16 August 2022

John W. Cadogan and Nick Lee

This study aims to correct errors in, and comment on the claims made in the comment papers of Rigdon (2022) and Henseler and Schuberth (2022), and to tidy up any substantive…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to correct errors in, and comment on the claims made in the comment papers of Rigdon (2022) and Henseler and Schuberth (2022), and to tidy up any substantive oversights made in Cadogan and Lee (2022).

Design/methodology/approach

The study discusses and clarifies the gap between Rigdon’s notion of scientific realism and the metaphysical, semantic and epistemological commitments that are broadly agreed to be key principles of scientific realism. The study also examines the ontological status of the variables that Henseler and Schuberth claim are emergent using emergence logic grounded in the notion that variables are only truly emergent if they demonstrate a failure of generative atomism.

Findings

In scientific realism, hypothetical causal contact between the unobserved and the observed is a key foundational stance, and as such, Rigdon’s concept proxy framework (CPF) is inherently anti-realist in nature. Furthermore, Henseler and Schuberth’s suggestion that composite-creating statistical packages [such as partial least squares (PLS)] can model emergent variables should be treated with skepticism by realists.

Research limitations/implications

Claims made by Rigdon regarding the realism of CPF are unfounded, and claims by Henseler and Schuberth regarding the universal suitability of partial least squares (PLS) as a tool for use by researchers of all ontological stripes (see their Table 5) do not appear to be well-grounded.

Practical implications

Those aspiring to do science according to the precepts of scientific realism need to be careful in assessing claims in the literature. For instance, despite Rigdon’s assertion that CPF is a realist framework, we show that it is not. Consequently, some of Rigdon’s core criticisms of the common factor logic make no sense for the realist. Likewise, if the variables resulting from composite creating statistical packages (like PLS) are not really emergent (contrary to Henseler and Schuberth) and so are not real, their utility as tools for scientific realist inquiry are called into question.

Originality/value

This study assesses PLS using the Eleatic Principle and examines H&S’s version of emergent variables from an ontological perspective.

Article
Publication date: 24 August 2012

Sid Lowe, Slawek Magala and Ki‐Soon Hwang

The aim of this paper is to focus on methodological development of research into the influence of culture: the use of cross‐cultural, multidisciplinary and multi‐method techniques.

1094

Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this paper is to focus on methodological development of research into the influence of culture: the use of cross‐cultural, multidisciplinary and multi‐method techniques.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper begins with a review of the interdisciplinary debate in business research, general management, IB and cross‐cultural management. It then explores the identities of paradigmatic combatants and possible “strategic peace initiatives”. It finally outlines some tactical and strategic complexities of such a “peace campaign” and identifies examples where multiple‐lens research offers good potentials for “post‐war” new theory development.

Findings

Ambitious calls for the advancement of interdisciplinary research in business research have appeared regularly and often feel like déjà vu. Cultural research appears to have been locked into paradigmatic “cold” warfare between methodologically distinct research “tribes”.

Originality/value

The authors' view is that culture can be likened to a holograph. It is not a real entity but a projection, which looks very different from different positions. The concern is that views of culture have been rather “monocled” and limited in relevance.

Details

Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 25 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0953-4814

Keywords

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