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1 – 10 of over 2000Robert J. Blomme and Kirsten Bornebroek‐Te Lintelo
This article aims to develop a conception consisting of insights from complexity theory and additional notions from Weick's sense‐making theory and existentialism for examining…
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to develop a conception consisting of insights from complexity theory and additional notions from Weick's sense‐making theory and existentialism for examining organization behaviour.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper carries out a literature review of Karl Weick's theory of sense‐making and some notions from existentialism to discuss the possible contributions to complexity theory and with this a further comprehension of organizational behaviour.
Findings
Four existential conditions, namely death, freedom, existentialism and meaninglessness, give a further comprehension of Weick's concept of equivocality. Equivocality is an important input for organizing processes. The complexity of organizing processes is an object for examining organizational behaviour from a complexity scientific standpoint. The authors argue that the concept of equivocality and with this the states of equilibrium in an organization can be approached with examining the states of the mentioned four existential conditions.
Practical implications
An important point of application for change managers in an organization is equivocality. The increase of equivocality will lead to a shift in the state of equilibrium in which new themes will emerge and corresponding organisational behaviour. The level of equivocality is due to the presence of existential fears. Hence, change managers should focus on existential themes and anxieties in an organization to advance emergent change.
Originality/value
New in this paper is the usage of notions from existentialism to elaborate Weick's conception of sense‐making. Also this paper discusses the possible contribution of this elaboration to research of organisational behaviour from the perspective of complexity theory.
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Torsten Schlesinger, Michael Barth, Matti Bartsch and Werner Pitsch
The comparatively high salaries of professional players during their active athletic career should allow them to accumulate an adequate level of precautionary savings for a…
Abstract
Purpose
The comparatively high salaries of professional players during their active athletic career should allow them to accumulate an adequate level of precautionary savings for a financially autonomous post-sport career. However, not all players succeed in accumulating sustainable financial assets. Therefore, the question arises how professional players' financial precaution within the social setting football is shaped. As no empirical analyses have yet been carried out on this issue, the study study examines football players' precautionary practices and motives.
Design/methodology/approach
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 German (former) professional football players. The authors used qualitative content analysis to analyse the data, expanding the analysis to include reconstructive elements to create different precautionary types.
Findings
The results reveal that players deal with both career-specific as well as precaution-related risks quite heterogeneously. Accordingly, three precautionary types characterised by distinct forms of precautionary saving practices are identified. The authors also find that although the players are aware of the uncertainties and risks related to their professional football careers, it does not say much about the concrete implementation of adequate precautionary practices.
Practical implications
The findings contribute to a better understanding of precautionary saving practices among football players.
Social implications
Moreover, the findings contribute to a better understanding of precautionary saving practices not only specifically among (former) football players, but generally among individuals that face high occupational career risks and earn high salaries to develop preventative concepts and approaches to sustainable financial planning.
Originality/value
This paper is the first empirical study that analyses precautionary savings practices of the specific population of elite athletes in high income sports professional football.
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Christopher Raymond and Paul R. Ward
This chapter explores theory and local context of socially constructed pandemic fears during COVID-19; how material and non-material fear objects are construed, interpreted and…
Abstract
This chapter explores theory and local context of socially constructed pandemic fears during COVID-19; how material and non-material fear objects are construed, interpreted and understood by communities, and how fears disrupt social norms and influence pandemic behavioural responses. We aimed to understand the lived experiences of pandemic-induced fears in socioculturally diverse communities in eastern Indonesia in the context of onto-epistemological disjunctures between biomedically derived public health interventions, local world views and causal-remedial explanations for the crisis. Ethnographic research conducted among several communities in East Nusa Tenggara province in Indonesia provided the data and analyses presented in this chapter, delineating the extent to which fear played a decisive role in both internal, felt experience and social relations. Results illustrate how fear emotions are constructed and acted upon during times of crisis, arising from misinformation, rumour, socioreligious influence, long-standing tradition and community understandings of modernity, power and biomedicine. The chapter outlines several sociological theories on fear and emotion and interrogates a post-pandemic future.
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Laurie Nathan and Joel M. Devonshire
This paper aims to critique the rationalist theoretical framework of international mediation, which ignores emotions in analyzing the decision by conflict parties to pursue a…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to critique the rationalist theoretical framework of international mediation, which ignores emotions in analyzing the decision by conflict parties to pursue a negotiated settlement or continue fighting, and to present an alternative framework that integrates emotions.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws on psychology research on emotions and conflict to develop an emotionally informed framework for analyzing conflict parties’ decision-making regarding a settlement. It demonstrates the framework’s validity and value through a case study of the 2000 Camp David mediation to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
Findings
A rationalist approach to mediation does not have adequate explanatory and predictive power theoretically. In practice, it can reduce the prospect of success.
Research limitations/implications
The paper highlights the necessity for mediation researchers to study the effects of emotion, draw on psychology studies on conflict and explore the emotional implications of different mediation strategies and tactics.
Practical implications
The framework highlights the challenge of designing and conducting mediation in a way that cultivates emotions favorable to a settlement and lessens emotions unfavorable to a settlement.
Originality/value
This is the first study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to critique the rationalist framework of international mediation studies and develop an alternative framework that integrates emotions.
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GEORGIA: Georgian Dream wins 'existential' contest
Details
DOI: 10.1108/OXAN-ES240240
ISSN: 2633-304X
Keywords
Geographic
Topical
Marilena Antoniadou, Peter John Sandiford, Gillian Wright and Linda Patricia Alker
This chapter explores the meanings that human service workers employed in the airline industry and in higher education give to workplace fear, the ways it is expressed, and…
Abstract
This chapter explores the meanings that human service workers employed in the airline industry and in higher education give to workplace fear, the ways it is expressed, and perceptions of its consequences. The findings reveal that fear is not a wholly “negative” emotion, as it can contribute to the achievement of desirable outcomes when openly expressed, suggesting that simplistic evaluations of discrete emotions (i.e. positive or negative) and prescriptive organizational norms of emotional expression may block positive as well as negative outcomes (organizationally and personally). This chapter concludes that permitting a greater range of emotional displays at work could significantly improve workers’ wellbeing and the effectiveness of their organizations.
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Nilufar Allayarova, Djavlonbek Kadirov, Jayne Krisjanous and Micael-Lee Johnstone
The purpose of this paper is to explore the tendencies of liquid consumption in Muslim communities and analyse its impact on Muslims’ consumption practices from the holistic…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the tendencies of liquid consumption in Muslim communities and analyse its impact on Muslims’ consumption practices from the holistic perspective. Liquid consumption refers to a transient and less-materialised mode of consumption that requires both minimal attachment to possessions and hybrid ownership.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a conceptual paper that is based on the distinction between Islam as a holistic perspective and Islamic practice as it is applied in different contexts and situations. The Continual Drift Adjustment (CDA) framework of Muslim consumers’ behaviour is developed to be deployed as an analysis framework.
Findings
The CDA framework maintains that some problematic cases of Muslim consumption behaviours indicate the drift towards disbalance. Depending on their nature, liquid consumption practices can have different impacts on the drift. Liquid consumption practices underscored by instrumental dissemblance, intellectual insecurity and spiritual scepticism intensify the drift, whereas the incorporation of spiritual sincerity, faithful submission and existential gratefulness into practices and behaviour helps to attenuate the drift.
Research limitations/implications
This research contributes to the theory of liquid consumption by incorporating the religious perspective. Liquid consumption in Islam is a complex area of research, specifically considering the ambivalent meanings of liquidity in Islamic thought.
Practical implications
Marketers of liquid consumption solutions must be aware of these offerings’ double-edged impact on the well-being of Muslim communities. Muslim consumers should be guided towards spiritual sincerity, faithful submission and existential gratefulness in the best way possible, although it must be noted that the customary techniques of marketing would lean towards stimulating the disbalance.
Originality/value
This research is unique because it deals with a topic that has not been researched in the Islamic marketing discipline to this date.
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Rosie Blagg and Stephanie Petty
The purpose of this paper is to explore how staff attend to their well-being when working in an inpatient mental health setting with older adults with dementia and complex mental…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how staff attend to their well-being when working in an inpatient mental health setting with older adults with dementia and complex mental health needs; how staff understand the link between their well-being and the well-being of patients.
Design/methodology/approach
A semi-structured group interview was held with 11 members of two multidisciplinary teams. The discussion was audio-recorded and analysed using thematic analysis.
Findings
Staff reported managing their well-being by both connecting with and avoiding the difficult emotions of the work. The team avoided the gravity of the work through humour, a task-focus, an absence of thinking and the displacement of workplace frustrations onto an outgroup. Connecting with emotions was done in tolerable ways: in contained reflective spaces, in the presence of supportive others, through genuine connections with patients as people and when the organisation demonstrated care for the staff.
Practical implications
Avoidant strategies appeared to represent short-term ways of maintaining staff well-being, while connecting with the gravity of the work appeared to represent what we hope is a more sustainable approach to managing well-being. A crucial premise for staff well-being is teams embedded within organisations that care for their employees.
Originality/value
Poor staff well-being can have serious consequences for an organisation, particularly in the existentially challenging environment of dementia care. This study offers a unique opportunity to explore staff well-being in a UK inpatient mental health setting with older adults with dementia and complex mental health needs.
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Nuclear weapons confront us as the challenge of our times. To understand the special psychological and moral issues raised by nuclear arsenals and their use, we must first grasp…
Abstract
Nuclear weapons confront us as the challenge of our times. To understand the special psychological and moral issues raised by nuclear arsenals and their use, we must first grasp the special nature of these weapons. In a recent book on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the authors highlighted a fact which often escapes public attention; namely, nuclear weapons, many times more powerful than the 12.5 kiloton uranium bomb and the 22 kiloton plutonium bomb dropped respectively on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, are qualitatively different from conventional explosives.