Search results

This study examines the nature of emergent, self‐organizing systems in the context of the history of Herman Miller, Inc. This history informs our understanding of emergent systems on two levels: how the dynamic of emergent self‐organization informs our sense of the past; and how it informs our understanding of an emergent, self‐organizing future. This article also recounts a critical period in the development history of Herman Miller, Inc.

Market entry strategies range from foreign direct investment to licensing with varying levels of commitment, risk and opportunity. Exporting products or services is one of the most common of the intermediate market entry strategies. It is typically accomplished through authorized international channels of distribution. However, when significant price differences exist between markets, alternative, parallel channels of distribution are almost certain to arise. These parallel channels, often referred to as gray marketing, are generally legal but unauthorized distribution channels that create an alternative export market entry. After a review of the literature, a case study highlights these complex issues from the perspective of both manufacturer and parallel marketer. The case study provides a tool for evaluating theory and a basis for discussing this important alternative mode of market entry. The case and the discussion which follows also highlight the role of international trade shows as an important element of the marketing mix for entering many foreign markets.

Interest in supporting the development of teachers’ professional identity in preservice and in-service teacher education programs has increased in recent decades considerably, given that teachers’ sense of their professional identity manifests itself in job satisfaction, occupational commitment, self-efficacy, and changes in their levels of motivation (i.e., Day, 2002). In this chapter, we present different pedagogies that have been enacted in the Estonian context to support the development of preservice and novice teachers’ professional identity. The pedagogies have been divided into three groups: pedagogies that facilitate the professional aspect of teacher identity, pedagogies that address the personal aspect of teacher identity, and pedagogies that support the interaction of the professional and personal aspects of teacher identity.

This paper focuses on the relationships that consumers develop with experiential objects in the context of the Biennale of Contemporary Art Exhibition, viewed from a dialogical and intersubjective approach. The purpose of this paper is to elaborate on the interpersonal relationships that visitors of the Biennale establish with contemporary artworks and to understand the characteristics of these relationships as well as their role in shaping Biennale visitors’ identity narratives.

This research employs an instrumental case study that draws on multiple data sources and examines consumers’ relationships with contemporary artworks.

The case study evidence introduces the relationships that emerged from Biennale visitors’ interactions with contemporary artworks and the identity narratives evolving from these relationships. The findings suggest that Biennale visitors’ relationships with the contemporary artworks take the form of I-thou and I-it relationships. These two modes of interpersonal relationships by entailing different characteristics led investigated visitors to live different types of experiences of contemporary art consumption.

The first limitation of this research is that it focuses on the establishment of interpersonal relationships at the microgenetic level. Further research can provide additional insights by conducting a longitudinal case study. The second limitation is that it provides limited insights into the relationships that are revealed by consumers’ experiences with possessive objects. Future research may examine interpersonal relationships in terms of consumers’ relationships with their brands.

The understanding of visitors’ interactions and relationships with contemporary artworks provides insights into curatorial and marketing practices for such art institutions.

The findings of the current research provide new theoretical insights into the interpersonal relationships that consumers develop with experiential objects and into the distinctive identity narratives that evolve from the establishment of different types of interpersonal relationships.

This paper aims to present an interpretive case study in education for sustainability (EfS) that applies VanWynsberghe and Herman’s (2015, 2016) adaptive education as pedagogy. Dewey’s theory of behaviour change is applied to educative experiences based on habit disruption and real-world learning, leading to creativity in the formation of new habits. The programme presented inverts dominant conceptions of knowledge to design innovative sustainability pedagogy. Instead knowledge resides alongside experience, cases, intuition, advice, experimentation and dialogue in the individual and collective effort to address daily sustainability challenges.

The paper reports on the outcomes of an interpretive case study (Merriam, 1998) of a higher education programme in sustainability pedagogy. It presents a series of reflections by instructors and participants in discussing the programme’s relationship with the core themes of habit, disruption, creative action and dialogue framed within the five features of adaptive education: stakeholders, real-world learning, off campus, transdisciplinarity and non-traditional rewards.

Through this examination, the authors found that adaptive education offered a pedagogy that simultaneously addressed the need for increased sustainability knowledge, whilst inverting its dominance. As a long-term project, the extent of the programme’s impact will be evident beyond the programme’s completion.

This interpretive case study is analysed through high-level conceptual and theoretical aspects of the pedagogy rather than the particularities of the case. By putting the centrality of knowledge into question, the authors are advocating for a more experimental role for higher education in its teaching and learning. These questions are broadly applicable.

There are research, learning and social benefits to this programme. Adaptive education builds capacity for future leaders and educators of sustainability.

The paper concludes with a discussion for further theorizing and research on adaptive education and EfS in higher education. This research will contribute to broader discussions of the evolving role of education in sustainability.

The “change of sovereignty,” the transfer of Puerto Rico to U.S. rule after Spain’s loss in the Spanish-American War of 1898, could not easily erase centuries of Spanish misrule of its island colony. Nor could it reconstruct an economy based on monocultural agricultural crops. For centuries, ranching and subsistence farming had lured settlers from the coast. Highland towns, founded in the eighteenth century under royal auspices but increasingly isolated and removed from imperial control came to define the peasant, the jı́baro, who though generally slight in stature came to loom large as the cultural backbone of Puerto Rico. Run by ministers of the Spanish monarchy and corrupt and sometimes tyrannical military governors, the island during the 1800s ineptly staggered through sequential agricultural monocultures. Sugar crops tended by coastal workers of mixed African and European backgrounds (with slavery and peonage existing side by side) yielded prominence in mid-century to large-scale coffee plantations in the mountainous interior, attracting capital and labor from the coast as well as from the Spanish homeland. By the mid-1800s U.S. interests had begun to pull on this strategically located military outpost – first through trade and then by conquest and new guardianship.

This chapter examines the complexity of global leaders themselves. As global leadership research has begun to move beyond a limiting overemphasis on skills and competencies, we merge one focus on the deep structure of leader cognition with a focus on cultural identity that has matured largely independently. In so doing, we seek to push the field toward answering the broader question of what makes a global leader sufficiently complex to handle the vast complexities of the role. We place the construct of self-concept complexity as central to the performance of global leaders in ways ranging from organizational performance to social and community responsibility. By advancing our understanding of the role of self-concept complexity in driving global leadership outcomes, this research seeks to spur further theoretical development and practical application toward a deeper comprehension of the complexity of truly global leaders.

This study inquires into the ways that three preservice teachers enrolled in one English education program at a state namesake university in the Southeastern part of USA, oriented to uncertainty when interacting with one another as they discussed potentially challenging/uncomfortable topics.

The tools of conversation analysis were used to analyze the three preservice teachers’ talk as they discussed the potential for using President Obama’s (2008) A More Perfect Union speech with their own secondary students.

The findings from this study suggest that when discussing uncomfortable topics like race and politics, preservice teachers tend to work toward consensus, rather than valuing tension and disagreement. Specifically, the preservice teachers in this study engaged in several strategies as they worked toward consensus with one another and also to excuse themselves from having potentially divergent opinions from one another or their potential future students.

Possible explanations for the tendency toward agreement, as well as recommendations for future teaching that could challenge such an inclination for agreement, are delineated.

Previous studies on the role of discussion within educational settings have focused on the possibilities of dialogue to contribute to the construction of individuals’ identities and also to encourage participants to arrive at a singular understanding of the topic being discussed. This study offers a new perspective on the role of discussion, by suggesting that attempts at consensus and the development of singular identities limits potential for dialogue, thus limiting learning and development.

One fundamental need of business executives: to obtain sufficiently reliable estimates of the likely revenues and profits from making a strategic move.

The article explains how to make more reliable estimates of the real targets for the company’s offering.

What often leads to revenue estimates that are way off is to attempt to identify some average willingness-to-pay.

“‘Competitors’ include those that may be unknown to the company and, in the case of a new-to-the-world offering, providers of substitute solutions.

As well-informed customers today have more choices than ever, careful customer analysis is of paramount importance to minimize the risks that can be managed and, as a result, maximize the chances of making successful strategic choices.