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This article brings a new, broad conceptual framework to the quest for understanding dynamic capability in organizations (i.e., “managing on the edge of chaos”). This approach rests on two major ideas: (i) a duality–paradox perspective and (ii) new typologies of organizational learning (OL) and individual action/thinking. A case of radical innovation at Microsoft provides a multilevel stimulus. Understanding it requires a focus on two dualistic challenges. For use in future ODC research and practical assessment, this broad new conceptual framework includes: (i) collaboration as a central concept; (ii) duality–paradox as a key source of conflicts that can threaten collaboration; (iii) five types of OL, (iv) four types of individual action/thinking, including paradoxical thinking, and (v) the proposition that “golden dualities” can be created from once-troubling duality situations (where critical collaboration was in danger) which have been transformed from the metaphorical “odd (contentious) couple” into a “productive (collaborative) partnership.”

Strategy Question: How do we successfully manage our product/service improvement projects?

Summary: The executive has a defined improvement need, and a well thought out specification toward a project to address it. Now the project needs to be done on time. The Milestone Project Management Tool is a structured project management format. It is formatted after classic “stage gate” approaches, with some clever additions that allow it to also serve as an overarching management tool. Each stage gate represents a major element of the development process. Individual tasks supporting the major stage gate item are listed within that heading. By defining these line item tasks, the executive can shape the management tool to fit the particular situation. Color coding completed, ongoing, and incomplete tasks provides a great visual management technique for multiple ongoing projects. The user will be given examples of stage gate milestones (such as Milestone 1 — Project Charter, Milestone 2 — Specification Development, Milestone 3 — Prototype Development, Milestone 4 — Proof of Concept, Milestone 5 — Development, Milestone 6 — Commercialization, etc.) as well as numerous task line suggestions for each stage gate. The user will be encouraged to construct the milestone headings and task line items that make the most sense for their individual situation.

This chapter asks: How do Internet users react to COVID-19 conspiracy theories spread on social media? It presents the findings of a content analysis and critical discourse analysis of user comments collected from social media postings that advance COVID-19 conspiracy theories. A total of 2,847 comments made to seven social media postings whose authors support COVID-19 conspiracy theories were collected, coded and analysed.

The analysis shows the contested character of the communication of COVID-19 conspiracy theories and the role of the friend/enemy scheme, verbal attacks, violent threats, satire and humour in such communication processes.

Global Skills for College Completion (GSCC) offers transformative use of social media – a Guided Digital Environment – a unique set of online tools and processes to capture, consolidate, and advance the effective faculty classroom work. The ambition of GSCC is to achieve a quantum increase in the historically low pass rates of basic skills students in American community colleges. The goal is to produce a rate increase so dramatic, consistently 80%, that it is “visible to the naked eye.” This increased success rate in basic skills would have the effect of accelerating remediation and increasing the probability of college completion. We believe community college basic skills faculty possess all the wisdom necessary to figure out how to improve these rates, given the right tools. In this chapter we describe the GSCC project, the Guided Digital Environment and the Tools and Routines provided to faculty to allow them to be research-practitioners in the project, and the research we drew on to build it. We include early information and observations on the essential design elements for identifying effective basic skills pedagogy. We also describe the innovative technological tools used to create an engaged community and leave a digital trail for analysis. GSCC is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation through a grant to the League for Innovation as part of its goal to double the number of young adults in the United States with a postsecondary credential by 2020.

Researcher Highlight: Dr. Carter G. Woodson (1875–1950)

This paper illuminates the distinction between individual and organizational actors in business-to-business markets as well as the coexistence of formal and informal mechanisms of coordination in multinational corporations. The main questions addressed include the following. (1) What factors influence the occurrence of personal contacts of foreign subsidiary managers in industrial multinational corporations? (2) How such personal contacts enable coordination in industrial markets and within multinational firms? The theoretical context of the paper is based on: (1) the interaction approach to industrial markets, (2) the network approach to industrial markets, and (3) the process approach to multinational management. The unit of analysis is the foreign subsidiary manager as the focal actor of a contact network. The paper is empirically focused on Portuguese sales subsidiaries of Finnish multinational corporations, which are managed by either a parent country national (Finnish), a host country national (Portuguese) or a third country national. The paper suggests eight scenarios of individual dependence and uncertainty, which are determined by individual, organizational, and/or market factors. Such scenarios are, in turn, thought to require personal contacts with specific functions. The paper suggests eight interpersonal roles of foreign subsidiary managers, by which the functions of their personal contacts enable inter-firm coordination in industrial markets. In addition, the paper suggests eight propositions on how the functions of their personal contacts enable centralization, formalization, socialization and horizontal communication in multinational corporations.

The education system in Kenya is continually challenged to adapt and improve, in part because its mission has become far more ambitious than it once was due to the massive investment in education by successive governments over the last two decades. Today, most Kenyans expect schools to prepare all students to succeed in postsecondary education and to prosper in a complex, fast-changing global economy. To identify the most important measures for education and other issues and provide quality data on them to the country, there is a need for the ministry of education to establish a National Education Indicators framework. This criterion is hoped to enable policy makers and the public better assess the position and progress of the country across the education sector. The key task in developing education indicators will be to identify a clear and parsimonious set of measures and data that will be easy for non-specialists to understand but which will also do justice to the complexities of the ailing education system. These indicators will amplify the existing situation and will be drawn from a large, and sometimes conflicting, body of information about students, teachers and schools. The purpose of this study is to propose and urge the government to develop a national framework of indicators that will inform stakeholders on the performance of the education system, both at school and national level.