Search results

1 – 10 of over 1000
Article
Publication date: 6 September 2011

Per Skålén

Service marketing research has developed practices for managing and controlling the human resources. However, the role of these control practices in organizations has neither been…

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Abstract

Purpose

Service marketing research has developed practices for managing and controlling the human resources. However, the role of these control practices in organizations has neither been empirically studied in a systematic way nor been analyzed in relation to control theory. This paper seeks to address these gaps in previous research.

Design/methodology/approach

Single case study of a Swedish financial service firm referred to as the Financial Institute which has drawn on service marketing practices to manage the organization and control the employees.

Findings

The empirical findings suggest that control practices are associated with service marketing discourse controls for the customer orientation of the human resources.

Originality/value

In order to analyze the empirical findings the paper draws on the control theory of organization studies. More particularly labor process theory and Foucauldian organization theory (FOT) are invoked. The analysis suggests that mainly FOT explains how service marketing practices control the customer orientation of the human resources.

Details

Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, vol. 14 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1352-2752

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 22 November 2012

Dee Duffy

Purpose – To explore how young men negotiate the matriarchal domain of fashion consumption and self-presentation, observing techniques adopted by these men to navigate this…

Abstract

Purpose – To explore how young men negotiate the matriarchal domain of fashion consumption and self-presentation, observing techniques adopted by these men to navigate this feminized space and construct their identity project.

Methodology/approach – Engaging Foucauldian theory, a constructionist approach is followed to analyze qualitative interview data with the understanding that a consumer's narrated experience is embedded in a social web of possible interpretation. Rather than seeking to discover a respondents “essential self” within interview data, this research takes a narrative analysis approach, considering individuals storytelling within the context of circulating discourses and power relations.

Findings – As young, fashion-forward men navigate new configurations of power relationships and adopt new modes of performing masculinity, they come to legitimate themselves by forging new categories of existence. They engage various techniques to include the arts and the art of irony in an effort to constitute their masculine subjectivity within discourses of fashionable self-presentation practices.

Social implications – By exploring the social context wherein consumer choices are made, we see consumer identity projects are in fact constricted and influenced by a myriad of sociocultural forces.

Originality/value of paper – Within consumer culture theory, there is much focus on the agency of consumers and their identity projects. However, there is a dearth of work that considers the social and cultural context wherein these identity constructions take place. This study makes a contribution toward addressing this gap.

Details

Research in Consumer Behavior
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78190-022-2

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 8 February 2008

Steve Fleetwood and Anthony Hesketh

The purpose of this paper is to identify the conceptual underpinnings of the theoretical weaknesses of extant research investigating the HRM‐Organizational Performance Link…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to identify the conceptual underpinnings of the theoretical weaknesses of extant research investigating the HRM‐Organizational Performance Link (hereafter HRM‐P Link).

Design/methodology/approach

The paper reviews a number of different empirical approaches to the HRM‐P Link and reflects upon, and defines, theory, focusing upon two important dimensions: prediction and explanation. The paper also discusses why the field in its current guise cannot sustain a commitment to explanation, so that under‐theorisation and lack of explanatory power go hand‐in‐hand. It then tackles the possibility that theoretical underpinnings for empirical research on the HRM‐P Link might come from other disciplines such as economics. The paper also begins to set out a meta‐theoretical alternative.

Findings

The paper finds that: theoretical underpinnings will not emerge and develop simply by doing more, and/or better, empirical work; meta‐theoretical problems besetting the paradigm are actually far worse than is usually recognised; and attempts to borrow theories from other disciplines have not been successful.

Research limitations/implications

The paper shows that this is a broad and complex field and it has been necessarily selective in its evaluation. It does, however, signpost additional writing in this area to complement the word limit it faces here.

Practical implications

The paper shows that both organizations and researchers need to think more robustly about the meta‐theoretical underpinnings of the relationship between HRM practices and their capacity to enable people to perform. It is hoped that renewed meta‐theoretical debate will be triggered in this direction.

Originality/value

This paper is the only critical review of the meta‐theoretical underpinnings of the HRM‐P field.

Details

Personnel Review, vol. 37 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0048-3486

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 10 August 2015

Lee Parker

This paper aims to contextualise and critically evaluate the state of accounting historiography, its past and future agenda as a foundation for future scholars’ design and pursuit…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to contextualise and critically evaluate the state of accounting historiography, its past and future agenda as a foundation for future scholars’ design and pursuit of accounting history research.

Design/methodology/approach

Focussing on the historiographic accounting history literature, the paper draws on prior state-of-the-art reviews as well as a range of contemporary accounting history research studies to provide an overview of the accounting history community internationally, its emergence, institutions, theories and methodologies.

Findings

Accounting history researchers are identified now as an established and growing international community of scholars, increasingly diverse in national origins and focus, yet still on the threshold of moving beyond its specialist literature into general accounting and history research literatures. Nonetheless, their historiography exhibits a vibrant theoretical and methodological discourse that has laid the foundations for expanding opportunities in both research subjects and approaches available for study.

Research limitations/implications

Theoretical and methodological proliferation offers a wealth of options for further research in this field, in terms of subject matter focus and in terms of innovative and insightful approaches to their investigation.

Practical implications

Findings already available in the accounting history literature offer useful foundational understandings that have the potential to better inform contemporary policy and practice decision-makers.

Originality/value

The paper provides a reference point for emerging and established scholars in accounting history, presenting a summary of their underlying historical institutional and historiographic development contexts and offering a research agenda based on theoretical and methodological diversity.

Details

Meditari Accountancy Research, vol. 23 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2049-372X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 4 February 2014

Edward Kasabov and Anna C.C.C. da Cunha

The role of call-centres during service recovery has attracted much attention in research. However, marketers know less about controlling customers during recovery interactions…

Abstract

Purpose

The role of call-centres during service recovery has attracted much attention in research. However, marketers know less about controlling customers during recovery interactions and consequences of such control. In order to address this gap and empirically ascertain whether service interactions are marked by customer centricity or by employees exerting control over customers, the aim of the authors was to organise an empirical research in two Brazilian call-centres.

Design/methodology/approach

The research consisted of direct, open observation and 33 semi-structured interviews with insiders (call-centre managers, supervisors and operatives).

Findings

Four key findings emerged during interviews with insiders. First, control over customers may be more widely practiced than assumed in certain sections of marketing academe. Second, such control is viewed positively by call-centre insiders and is sanctioned by management. Third, control does not disempower and demoralise call-centre staff but protects operatives. Finally, control does not seem to unavoidably generate lasting customer dissatisfaction. These findings are incorporated in a framework of call-centre management which incorporates control through scripting.

Research limitations/implications

The discussion calls for the revisit of certain marketing concepts and philosophies, including customer orientation, by demonstrating that control over customers is practised and should not be viewed negatively or avoided altogether in practice and as a topic of analysis. A re-conceptualisation of call-centres as sites of control over customers is proposed.

Originality/value

Control and power are rarely analysed in services marketing. This is one of a few studies that makes sense of providers' (insiders') viewpoints and argues that control may play a constructive role and should be seen as a legitimate topic of services and call-centre analysis. As such it addresses a question of intellectual and practical importance which is rarely discussed and may be viewed as incongruous with an age when customers are assumed to have rights.

Details

European Journal of Marketing, vol. 48 no. 1/2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0309-0566

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 March 2006

Stefano Harney and Cliff Oswick

This paper seeks to confront the orthodoxy of global business education with some insights from postcolonial theory in order to develop a new critical pedagogy adequate for a…

1642

Abstract

Purpose

This paper seeks to confront the orthodoxy of global business education with some insights from postcolonial theory in order to develop a new critical pedagogy adequate for a global sociology of management and accounting.

Design/methodology/approach

Reviewing the state of play in postcolonial theory and noting the new politicisation in that field, the paper asks what relevance this politicisation might have for an alternative to orthodox global business education.

Findings

The paper finds that the texts available to postcolonial theory present a wealth beyond the regulation of colonial and neo‐colonial regimes and in contrast critical management studies do not have texts that express such wealth or reveal global business as the regulator of such a wealth. Instead critique and indeed the anti‐globalization movements risk, appearing as regulators of wealth and business, threaten to emerge as the true carnival of wealth and path to freedom.

Research limitations/implications

To dissociate critique from regulation and business from wealth, business and management education must seek out these texts in the fantasies among students and in the differences that obtain, as Dipesh Chakrabarty has argued, at the heart of capital.

Originality/value

This article embraces the fantasies of the fetish of the commodity as part of an immanent politics, claiming both an excess of wealth and an access to wealth, based on a new fetish adequate for the globalized limits that students and teachers encounter.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 26 no. 3/4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 March 2006

Tim Owen and Jason L. Powell

This paper sets out to examine the relationship between trust and professional power in the context of post‐Foucauldian social theory. Understood in its micro‐political terms and…

2222

Abstract

Purpose

This paper sets out to examine the relationship between trust and professional power in the context of post‐Foucauldian social theory. Understood in its micro‐political terms and conceived as impacting on individual identity and agency at a number of levels: intrapersonal, interpersonal, organisational and macro levels.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a conceptual and theoretical approach.

Findings

The findings illustrate that the concept of “trust” and relationship to health services can be understood through a post‐Foucauldian lens.

Research limitations/implications

This is a very theoretical paper with implications for epistemological development grounded in understanding “trust” and ethics of self.

Originality/value

This is an original paper on post‐Foucauldian analysis of trust and relationship to health policy and professional autonomy.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 26 no. 3/4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 27 February 2019

Nik Rushdi Hassan and Alexander Serenko

The purpose of this paper is to sensitize researchers to qualitative citation patterns that characterize original research, contribute toward the growth of knowledge and…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to sensitize researchers to qualitative citation patterns that characterize original research, contribute toward the growth of knowledge and, ultimately, promote scientific progress.

Design/methodology/approach

This study describes how ideas are intertextually inserted into citing works to create new concepts and theories, thereby contributing to the growth of knowledge. By combining existing perspectives and dimensions of citations with Foucauldian theory, this study develops a typology of qualitative citation patterns for the growth of knowledge and uses examples from two classic works to illustrate how these citation patterns can be identified and applied.

Findings

A clearer understanding of the motivations behind citations becomes possible by focusing on the qualitative patterns of citations rather than on their quantitative features. The proposed typology includes the following patterns: original, conceptual, organic, juxtapositional, peripheral, persuasive, acknowledgment, perfunctory, inconsistent and plagiaristic.

Originality/value

In contrast to quantitative evaluations of the role and value of citations, this study focuses on the qualitative characteristics of citations, in the form of specific patterns of citations that engender original and novel research and those that may not. By integrating Foucauldian analysis of discourse with existing theories of citations, this study offers a more nuanced and refined typology of citations that can be used by researchers to gain a deeper semantic understanding of citations.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 75 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 12 September 2017

Azrini Wahidin and Jason Powell

The purpose of this paper is to critically explore the importance of the experiences of female former combatants during the Irish Conflict, colloquially known as “The Troubles”…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to critically explore the importance of the experiences of female former combatants during the Irish Conflict, colloquially known as “The Troubles” and outline key moments of resistance for female political prisoners during their time at Armagh jail. The paper will situate the analysis within a Foucauldian framework drawing on theoretical tools for understanding power, resistance and subjectivity to contextualise and capture rich narratives and experiences. What makes a Foucauldian analysis of former female combatants of the Conflict so inspiring is how the animation and location of problems of knowledge as “pieces” of the larger contest between The State, institutions of power and its penal subjects (ex-female combatants as prisoners). The paper has demonstrated that the body exists through and in culture, the product of signs and meanings, of discourse and practices.

Design/methodology/approach

This is primarily qualitative methodology underpinned by Foucauldian theory. There were 28 women and 20 men interviewed in the course of this research came from across Ireland, some came from cities and others came from rural areas. Some had spent time in prisons in the UK and others served time in the Republic of Ireland or in the North of Ireland. Many prisoners experienced being on the run and all experienced levels of brutality at the hands of the State. Ethical approval was granted from the Queens University Research Committee.

Findings

This paper only examines the experiences of female ex-combatants and their narratives of imprisonment. What this paper clearly shows through the narratives of the women is the gendered nature of imprisonment and the role of power, resilience and resistance whilst in prison in Northern Ireland. The voices in this paper disturb and interrupt the silence surrounding the experiences of women political prisoners, who are a hidden population, whilst in prison.

Research limitations/implications

In terms of research impact, this qualitative research is on the first of its kind to explore both the experiential and discursive narratives of female ex-combatants of the Irish Conflict. The impact and reach of the research illustrates how confinement revealed rich theoretical insights, drawing from Foucauldian theory, to examine the dialectical interplay between power and the subjective mobilisation of resistance practices of ex-combatants in prison in Northern Ireland. The wider point of prison policy and practice not meeting basic human rights or enhancing the quality of life of such prisoners reveals some of the dystopian features of current prison policy and lack of gender sensitivity to female combatants.

Practical implications

It is by prioritising the voices of the women combatants in this paper that it not only enables their re-positioning at the centre of the struggle, but also moves away methodologically from the more typical sole emphasis on structural conditions and political processes. Instead, prioritising the voices of the women combatants places the production of subjectivities and agencies at the centre, and explores their dialectical relationship to objective conditions and practical constraints.

Social implications

It is clear from the voices of the female combatants and in their social engagement in the research that the prison experience was marked specifically by assaults on their femininity, to which they were the more vulnerable due to the emphasis on sexual modesty within their socialisation and within the ethno-nationalist iconography of femininity. The aggression directed against them seems, in part, to have been a form of gender-based sexual violence in direct retaliation for the threat posed to gender norms by their assumption of the (ostensibly more powerful) role as combatants. They countered this by methods which foregrounded their collective identity as soldiers and their identification with their male comrades in “the same struggle”.

Originality/value

This paper is one of the first to explore the importance of the experiences of female former combatants during the Northern Irish Conflict with specific reference to their experience of imprisonment. The aim of this significant paper is to situate the critical analysis grounded in Foucauldian theory drawing on theoretical tools of power, resistance and subjectivity in order to make sense of women’s experiences of conflict and imprisonment in Ireland. It is suggested that power and resistance need to be re-appropriated in order to examine such unique gendered experiences that have been hidden in mainstream criminological accounts of the Irish Conflict.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 37 no. 9/10
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 December 2000

Richard K. Fleischman

Taylorism and scientific management, as significant components of productive relations in the USA during the early twentieth century, have been examined by accounting historians…

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Abstract

Taylorism and scientific management, as significant components of productive relations in the USA during the early twentieth century, have been examined by accounting historians representing the major paradigms that hold sway in contemporary historiography – the Foucauldian, the Marxist (labour process), and the economic rationalist (Neoclassical). The great bulk of this work has assumed that the major tenets of scientific management, such as time study, incentive wage schemes, standard costing, and variance analysis, were in common usage during the first two decades of the current century. This paper intends to set the record straight by demonstrating that theory was running far ahead of practice in that the number of actual adoptions of the new methods were not concomitant with the prevalence of scientific management literature. Subsequently, the paper will endeavour to show how the three major paradigms combine to enhance our understanding of Taylorism. Much of what Taylor wrote can be interpreted within a Foucauldian framework; the negative reaction of organised labour was much in the Marxist tradition; and, finally, the lack of applications in practice reflected economically rational action on the part of entrepreneurs (thereby completing the triangle).

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 13 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

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