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1 – 10 of 69Christie L. Nordhielm and Gretchen Hall
The hot breakfast cereal division of Quaker Oats was in serious decline, and the increasing American preference for speed and convenience at breakfast did not bode well for the…
Abstract
The hot breakfast cereal division of Quaker Oats was in serious decline, and the increasing American preference for speed and convenience at breakfast did not bode well for the category. The senior VP overseeing the hot breakfast division has been given an ultimatum by the CEO to turn the company's namesake product line around. She develops a marketing plan, but will it work?
To analyze a mature product category within the context of its competition and consumer trends, and apply several aspects of brand management and marketing strategy to maintain market share in the face of changing consumer preferences and intense competition.
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To build a reference collection of electronics literature, any librarian must sooner or later consult Gretchen Randle's Electronic Industries Information Sources. Published in…
Abstract
To build a reference collection of electronics literature, any librarian must sooner or later consult Gretchen Randle's Electronic Industries Information Sources. Published in 1968, it is the only such work available. Times change, however, especially in electronics, and so this article is offered as a supplement to Randle's book.
Daragh O’Reilly, Kathy Doherty, Elizabeth Carnegie and Gretchen Larsen
The purpose of this paper is to explore how music consumption communities remember their past. Specifically, the paper reports on the role of heritage in constructing the cultural…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how music consumption communities remember their past. Specifically, the paper reports on the role of heritage in constructing the cultural memory of a consumption community and on the implications for its identity and membership.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing upon insights from theories of cultural memory, heritage, and collective consumption, this interpretive inquiry makes use of interview, documentary, and artefactual analysis, as well as visual and observational data, to analyse an exhibition of the community’s popular music heritage entitled One Family – One Tribe: The Art & Artefacts of New Model Army.
Findings
The analysis shows how the community creates a sense of its own past and reflects this in memories, imagination, and the creative work of the band.
Research limitations/implications
This is a single case study, but one whose exploratory character provides fruitful insights into the relationship between cultural memory, imagination, heritage, and consumption communities.
Practical implications
The paper shows how consumption communities can do the work of social remembering and re-imagining of their own past, thus strengthening their identity through time.
Social implications
The study shows clearly how a consumption community can engage, through memory and imagination, with its own past, and indeed the past in general, and can draw upon material and other resources to heritagise its own particular sense of community and help to strengthen its identity and membership.
Originality/value
The paper offers a theoretical framework for the process by which music consumption communities construct their own past, and shows how theories of cultural memory and heritage can help to understand this important process. It also illustrates the importance of imagination, as well as memory, in this process.
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This study frames the international disability movement – NGOs, foreign donors, and transnational networks focused on promoting the 2006 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons…
Abstract
Purpose
This study frames the international disability movement – NGOs, foreign donors, and transnational networks focused on promoting the 2006 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities – as an organizational environment. As the movement expands into the Global South, it actively pressures local grassroots associations to adopt a new organizational model in order to become membership-based advocacy organizations. Many groups, however, are embedded in local civic environments that expect them to act as self-help and social support organizations. As such, grassroots associations are caught between two organizational environments, each promoting different models and practices.
Design/methodology/approach
This analysis draws upon 18 months of participant observation and 69 interviews gathered from a local coalition of seven grassroots disability associations in Nicaragua. This ethnographic approach is combined with sociological institutionalism, an analysis that emphasizes the way organizations conform to organizational models that spread across a field.
Findings
The local associations responded in a variety of ways to the advocacy model promoted by the international movement. Organizations either conformed, resisted, or developed hybrid organizational models on the basis of internal characteristics that determined how they straddled the two organizational environments.
Originality/value
This paper highlights the way international models may be ineffective in local environments that have civic traditions and lower levels of governmental capacity than found in the West. Some disability associations, however, will creatively combine local and international models to create new initiatives that make a positive impact in the lives of persons with disabilities at the grassroots.
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Gretchen Vogelgesang Lester, Meghna Virick and Rachel Clapp-Smith
One of the biggest challenges facing global organizations is the ability of leadership and International Human Resource Management (IHRM) professionals to capture the positive…
Abstract
One of the biggest challenges facing global organizations is the ability of leadership and International Human Resource Management (IHRM) professionals to capture the positive outcomes of a diverse workforce while fostering inclusion amongst its workers. New theory based upon optimal distinctiveness theory has challenged researchers to approach inclusion in a holistic manner, transcending political boundaries and cultural meanings of diversity to instead promote the uniqueness of individuals within-group belongingness. This chapter proposes a theoretical model that suggests leader capabilities such as global mindset can foster inclusiveness while reaping the benefits of unique backgrounds and diverse ideas. Two important individual-level outcomes of inclusiveness are presented: creativity and psychological safety. Also discussed are implications for strategic IHRM through recruitment, selection, talent management, and performance management activities.
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Michael E. Palanski, Gretchen Vogelgesang Lester, Rachel Clapp-Smith and Michelle M. Hammond
We propose a model of multidomain leadership and explain how it drives leader and follower well-being and stress. Multidomain leadership engagement, or the application of leader…
Abstract
We propose a model of multidomain leadership and explain how it drives leader and follower well-being and stress. Multidomain leadership engagement, or the application of leader knowledge, skills, and abilities across domains, results in either an enriching or impairing experience for the leader. The result is influenced by the leader’s self-regulatory strength and self-awareness, as well as the amount of social support and domain similarity. An enriching experience leads to increased self-efficacy, self-regulatory strength, and self-awareness, which in turn leads to increased leader (and subsequently follower) well-being and reduced leader (and subsequently follower) stress. Enriching experiences also tend to drive further engagement and enriching experiences, while impairing experiences do the opposite. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.
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Evaluation of public library makerspaces traditionally examines achievement of library goals, which reflect leaders’ and funders’ values. Understanding makers’ experiences and…
Abstract
Purpose
Evaluation of public library makerspaces traditionally examines achievement of library goals, which reflect leaders’ and funders’ values. Understanding makers’ experiences and perspectives may help evaluators frame their inquiry to reflect community values, test assumptions about makers and support democratic and equity-focused aims. This paper aims to inform how evaluations of public library makerspaces are framed to address the experiences, values and visions for success of adult women, a group that is often marginalized in making and makerspaces.
Design/methodology/approach
Informed by democratic approaches to evaluation and activity theory, this paper draws on semi-structured interviews with women makers engaged with digital fabrication in public library makerspaces.
Findings
The women in the sample leveraged digital fabrication to deepen existing creative practices, challenging gendered distinctions between crafting and technology. They directed making toward economic survival and thriving, including creative-sector entrepreneurship. Making was also directed toward strengthening families and communities, centering relationships beyond the makerspace. Learning emerged as a byproduct of engagement, organized to produce specific artifacts. Library resources, arrangements and rules supported women with varying technology skills and also constrained some making activities.
Practical implications
Findings suggest evaluators should resist deficit framing of women and making; broaden science, technology, engineering and mathematics-focused definitions of making; focus on the personally meaningful ends to which making is directed; expand conceptualizations of community; examine arrangements and resources that mediate making and learning; and center the perspectives of local women makers.
Originality/value
This paper presents an empirical account of makers who are often marginalized and identifies six implications for evaluations of public library makerspaces.
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Simon Andrew Moss, Gretchen Ennis, Kerstin Z. Zander, Timothy Bartram and Darren Hedley
To enhance their innovation and reputation, many organizations introduce programs that are intended to attract, retain and support diverse communities. Yet, these programs are…
Abstract
Purpose
To enhance their innovation and reputation, many organizations introduce programs that are intended to attract, retain and support diverse communities. Yet, these programs are often unsuccessful, partly because explicit references to diversity tend to evoke defensive reactions in employees from the dominant culture. To circumvent this problem, the purpose of this paper is to explore the hypothesis that individuals tend to be more receptive to diversity whenever they experience meaning in life. Furthermore, four workplace characteristics – informational justice, a manageable workload, equality in status and a compelling vision of the future – should foster this meaning in life.
Design/methodology/approach
To assess these possibilities, 177 employees completed a survey that assessed workplace practices, meaning in life and openness to diversity.
Findings
The results showed that informational justice, a manageable workload and a compelling vision were positively associated with openness to other cultures, constituencies and perspectives, and these relationships were partly or wholly mediated by meaning in life.
Originality/value
These findings imply that leaders might be able to foster an openness to diversity, but without explicit references to this diversity, circumventing the likelihood of defensive reactions. Specifically, a program that simultaneously encourages transparent communication, diminishes workload and clarifies the vision or aspirations of the future may represent an inexpensive but powerful means to foster an openness to diversity.
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A growing body of literature suggests that creating a just sustainable society will require reorganizing economic arrangements and, in particular, rethinking work. Previous…
Abstract
A growing body of literature suggests that creating a just sustainable society will require reorganizing economic arrangements and, in particular, rethinking work. Previous studies have recognized alternative organizations, such as cooperatives and intentional communities, as sites for building more democratic, sustainable models of work. This study contributes a description and analysis of work and sustainability at Twin Oaks Intentional Community, an 80-person income- and resource-sharing commune in Louisa, Virginia. Some measures show that Twin Oaks members live more sustainably in terms of energy consumption than the average US resident. In this article, I investigate the relationship between sustainability and work at Twin Oaks. I find that sustainable work is linked to the following key principles: broadening definitions of work, prioritizing community well-being, and democratizing decision making. In doing so, I contribute to previous literature on work, sustainability, and alternative organizations by suggesting that (1) sustainability in intentional communities is deeply intertwined with systems of work; (2) broadening definitions of work to include social reproductive labour contributes to sustainability; and (3) the democratization of work can further goals of sustainability.
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