Search results

The purpose of this article is to investigate the communicative constitution of organizational inclusion and/or exclusion through humorous acts at the expense of members of minorities and/or historically disadvantaged groups.

Semistructured interviews with 84 employees in Austria and Germany dealing with their experiences regarding diversity and inclusion (D&I) at work were conducted and analyzed in two steps. First, a thematic text analysis was performed to structure the content and identify relevant themes and anecdotes for further analysis. Second, a ventriloquial analysis sought to identify the physically absent yet present voices in these anecdotes.

The interviews revealed that jokes and quips mostly target colleagues of observable foreign origin. The analysis further identified three themes that show that disparaging humor can simultaneously reinforce inclusion/exclusion across hierarchies and create boundaries within teams – but in different ways. The findings also indicate that above all prejudices “participate” in such events and that in most cases the collective is invoked to increase the joke's “authority”.

This research is the first one that investigates humor in the context of D&I through a communicative constitution of organization (CCO) lens, which facilitates studying the constitutive character of humorous communication in terms of inclusion and exclusion. Moreover, this is one of the first empirical humor studies to draw on established theory-driven concepts of inclusion-exclusion in its analysis.

This study aims to determine whether engagement in a football programme can positively impact the recovery journey of the mental health service users involved from the perspective of the “Kickstart 2 Recovery” (K2R) programme stakeholders. There are many challenges faced by the people with mental health problems, a significant one being social exclusion. Football is a socially valued occupation in Ireland (Moran, 2019) and the K2R programme is an initiative run to combat experiences of isolation and exclusion that those with mental health difficulties may experience.

A descriptive phenomenological approach was taken to the study with the use of semi-structured interviews as the research method. In total, twenty one interviews were carried out and Braun and Clarke’s (2006) thematic analysis was used to analyse the data.

Two themes represent the findings of this paper: the need for pathways and social inclusion, connection and flexibility. These reveal that facilitators are focused on supporting recovery but are unsure of how to overcome barriers to social inclusion. Sports partnerships and programme facilitators have a role to play in accessing community resources, challenging social stigma and creating exit pathways from the group.

This study reveals the challenges footballers with mental health difficulties experience when attempting to become more included in their communities and suggestions on how football programmes, such as K2R, could support their inclusion. These findings add to the body of research analysing the issue of social inclusion for people with mental health difficulties.

This paper is one of the first studies to examine specificities, including limits of mindfulness at work in an African organisational context, whilst dealing with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. It specifically addresses the role of organisational and managerial support systems in restoring employee wellbeing, social connectedness and attachment to their organisations, in order to overcome the exclusion caused by the ongoing pandemic.

The study uses a qualitative research methodology that includes interviews as the main data source. The sample comprises of 20 entrepreneurs (organisational leaders) from Ghana and Nigeria.

The authors found that COVID-19-induced worries restricted the practice of mindfulness, and this was prevalent at the peak of the pandemic, particularly due to very tough economic conditions caused by reduction in salaries, and intensified by pre-existing general economic and social insecurities, and institutional voids in Africa. This aspect further resulted in lack of engagement and lack of commitment, which affected overall team performance and restricted employees’ mindfulness at work. Hence, quietness by employees even though can be linked to mindfulness was linked to larger psychological stress that they were facing. The authors also found leaders/manager’s emotional intelligence, social skills and organisational support systems to be helpful in such circumstances. However, their effectiveness varied among the cases.

This paper is one of the first studies to establish a link between the COVID-19 pandemic and mindfulness limitations. Moreover, it is a pioneering study specifically highlighting the damaging impact of COVID-19-induced concerns on leader–member exchange (LMX) and team–member exchange (TMX) relationships, particularly in the African context. It further brings in a unique discussion on the mitigating mechanisms of such COVID-19-induced concerns in organisations and highlights the roles of manager’s/leader’s emotional intelligence, social skills and supportive intervention patterns. Finally, the authors offer an in-depth assessment of the effectiveness of organisational interventions and supportive relational systems in restoring social connectedness following a social exclusion caused by COVID-19-induced worries.

Little is known about the overall meaning of the Chernobyl exclusion zone (CEZ) from the visitors’ point of view. Conceptualizing the zone as a storyscape and its narratives as intangible heritage resources, this study aims to investigate the visitors’ engagement with these resources and the resulting articulations from the engagements as translated into verbal and visual storytelling.

Participant observation and participant generated images in combination with in-depth interviews with different types of tourists were conducted. This paper uses the photographs chosen by the interviewees themselves as a photo essay to explore the evocation of stories through narrative engagement.

Through participant-oriented research, this study identified three dominant storytelling themes through which visitors focus their understanding of the CEZ. Visitors’ narrative engagements and visual storytelling co-produce the site and entail fluid and even conflicting narrative articulations about the CEZ and its cultural significance.

The discoveries of this study stem from a unique developing heritage site. This study provided a more nuanced understanding of the different visitor categories in the CEZ and their group-specific ways to articulate, imagine and co-produce the storyscape of Chernobyl.

Gaining insight into the verbal and visual storytelling of tourists will contribute to the discussion of narrative consumption of different consumption profiles in tourism sites in addition to the mediation and construction of entangled memory spaces.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the identity work undertaken by female next generation to navigate (in)visibility in family businesses with male successors. To enhance understanding of gendered identity work in family businesses, the authors offer important insights into how female next generation use (in)visibility to establish legitimacy and exercise power and humility in partnership with male next generation in their family business.

This empirical qualitative paper draws upon in-depth interviews with 14 next generation female leaders.

This study offers a model to show how female next generation establish their legitimacy amongst male next generation in power via a careful balancing act between vying for visibility (trouble) and forgoing visibility (exclusion). These female next generation gained acceptance by endorsing their own leadership identity and exercising humility in partnership or by endorsing their brother's leadership identity and exercising power in partnership.

This study highlights the need for the incumbent generation to prepare successors, regardless of gender, via equal opportunities for business exposure and leadership preparation. This study also shows that vocalizing female-centric issues and highlighting hidden power imbalances should be led by the entire management team and not simply delegated to a “family woman” in the management team to spearhead.

This study advances understanding of gender dynamics and identity in the family business literature by identifying specific strategies utilized by female next generation to navigate (in)visibility in family businesses with male successors.

Despite the longstanding male dominance in the socio-politico-economic spheres, recent decades have witnessed remarkable improvements in gender inclusion. Although the issue of gender inclusion has been widely documented, answers to the question of whether institutional arrangements and information technology shape gender inclusion remain contentious. This study, therefore, empirically examines the effects of institutional quality and ICT penetration on gender inclusion on a global scale.

To control for the endogeneity of modeled variables and cross-sectional dependence inherent with large panel datasets, the study employs the Driscoll-Kraay Fixed Effects (DKFE) and the system Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) estimators for a panel of 142 countries from 1996 to 2020.

The empirical findings from the DKFE and system GMM estimators reveal that strong institutions significantly enhance gender inclusion. Moreover, by disaggregating institutional quality into various governance indicators, we show that besides corruption control, which has a positive but insignificant effect on women’s empowerment, other governance indicators significantly enhance gender inclusion. Furthermore, there is evidence that various ICT measures promote gender inclusion.

The study results suggest that policymakers in developing countries should implement stringent measures to curb corruption. Moreover, policymakers in low-income countries should create avenues to facilitate women’s access to ICTs. Hence, policymakers in low-income countries should create and equip ICT training centers and render them accessible to all categories of women. Furthermore, developed countries with high-tech knowledge could help developing countries by organizing free training workshops and sensitization campaigns concerning the use of ICTs vis-à-vis women empowerment in various fields of life.

The present study fills a significant research gap by comprehensively exploring the nexuses between governance, ICT penetration, and the socio-politico-economic dimensions of gender inclusion from a global perspective. Besides the paucity of studies in this regard, the few existing studies have either been focused on region and country-specific case studies in developed or developing economies. Moreover, this study is timely, given the importance placed on gender inclusion (SDG5), quality of institutions (SDG16), and ICT penetration (SDG9) in the 2015–2030 global development agenda.

This paper aims to examine the influence of big data (BD) on human resource management (HRM). It defines how these data can be a useful tool in the decision-making process of companies’ human resources to obtain a sustainable competitive advantage.

This paper emphasizes the need to develop a holistic approach to emphasize these relations. Starting from these observations, the document proposes empirical research employing Eurostat data to test the benefits of BD in HRM decisions that optimize the relationship between training, productivity, and well-being.

The findings estimate HRM decisions and their impact in a broader macroeconomic and microeconomic perspective.

BD research is emerging as a crucial discipline in human resources. To overcome this problem, the paper develops an analysis of the literature on cleaner production and sustainability context; it creates a conceptual framework to clarify whether the existing studies consider the growing intensity of BD on human resources.

The purpose of this paper is to explore two financial inclusion measures adopted within the local welfare context of the city of Milan, Italy, examining their functioning and underpinning representations. The aim is also to understand how such representations take concrete shape in the practices of local actors, and their implications for the opportunities and constraints regarding individuals' effective inclusion. To this end, this paper takes a wide-ranging look at the interplay between the rise of financial inclusion and the individualisation and responsibilisation models informing welfare policies, within the broader context of financialisation processes overall.

This paper draws on the sociology of public action approach and provides a qualitative analysis of two case studies, a social microcredit service and a financial education programme, based on direct observation and semi-structured interviews conducted with key policy actors.

This paper sheds light on the rationale behind two financial inclusion services and illustrates how the instruments involved incorporate and tend to reproduce, individualising logics that reduce the problem of financial exclusion, and the social and economic vulnerability which underlies it, to a matter of personal responsibility, thus fuelling depoliticising tendencies in public action. It also discusses the contradictions underlying financial inclusion instruments, showing how local actors negotiate views and strategies on the problems to be addressed.

The paper makes an original contribution to the field of sociology and social policy by focusing on two under-researched instruments of financial inclusion and improving understanding of the finance-welfare state nexus and of the contradictions underpinning attempts at financial inclusion of the most vulnerable.

The paper aims is to see why social conflict caused by class segregation did not occur in Gading Serpong? What factors prevent conflict from occurring? This research seeks to find the causes of the nonoccurrence of social conflict due to class segregation in the Gading Serpong cluster area and explore the factors that restrain conflict there.

This research is qualitative research with data collection techniques through in-depth interviews with several parties identified as brokerages in the research object area. In this context, one of the media and analytical tools is to recognize agents or brokers who connect two groups of people. Brokerage occurs in sectors, patterns or forms of informal, personal relationships; to understand it, one must pay close attention to micro-level relationships and social psychological processes. However, brokerage can have a significant impact on macro-level social relations, as it is generally associated with social integration processes.

The lack of involvement of developers in overcoming social conflicts that occur between Gading Serpong natives and migrants in Gading Serpong housing has given rise to new actors. These new actors are what we can call brokers, where they have a role as brokers who are able to connect between migrants and natives in the Gading Serpong area. The broker phenomenon is actually familiar in academia, where in practice the broker acts as someone who is able to find solutions to problems. The broker is the reason even social segregation is created between migrant citizens and native citizens in Gading Serpong but never becomes a conflict between them.

Even if the brokerage phenomenon is the reason why there is no conflict over social segregation brokerage is not the only factor in this nonconflict segregation. Therefore, to cover the larger area of these suburban segregation problems, there must be further research on this topic.

The practical implication of this research is to encourage the housing developers that create urban housing, such as clusters or other gated communities, to evaluate the social factors, such as potential segregation and conflict management. Also to encourage the developers to get involved and create some social engineering systems, like brokerage, market and other social agents, to create some nonconflict segregation or even more inclusive communities.

This research is uncovering the main reason why social segregation between migrant and native people in Gading Serpong, which could potentially lead to conflict, is never a conflict. The main reason is social actors like brokerage.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a critical framework to analyse how “smart” plays out in tourism places. Moving from a recognition of the strategies, expected impacts and imageries of Smart City, the authors engage with the mobilities literature to identify pitfalls in the quest of “smartening up” cities for hypermobile populations.

The study adopted a set of geoanalytical techniques to establish the potential relationship between the territorial upgrade of mobility and the socio-economic change processes the city of Barcelona is experiencing.

The paper suggests the effect of “smart” in cities could indeed be one of economic recovery; however, one triggering fundamental transformation of the social fabric of the city, whose most evident facet is the creation of globalised functional enclaves that may be forcefields of exclusion for the most vulnerable populations.

This paper contributes to a new stream of critical research on “smart” with a strong focus on the power of mobilities and mobility systems, whose digital enhancement plays out as a leveraging agent of new place connections and negotiations for short-term populations, but at the same time, may exclude disadvantaged subjects in their capacity to access and afford the system network.