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Article
Publication date: 19 August 2009

Ian Wilson

The new concept ‘iconic biography’ (IB) is explained. Its impact on managers who aspire to lead their organisations to outstanding performance is described using contrasting…

Abstract

The new concept ‘iconic biography’ (IB) is explained. Its impact on managers who aspire to lead their organisations to outstanding performance is described using contrasting examples from the public sector. The relationship between a leader's IB and their ability to influence organisational ethos and culture is also described with survey evidence as to the impact on staff attitudes and morale.

Details

International Journal of Leadership in Public Services, vol. 5 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1747-9886

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 August 2009

Mark Davison and Steve Onyett

Abstract

Details

International Journal of Leadership in Public Services, vol. 5 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1747-9886

Article
Publication date: 21 May 2010

Miryam Clough

This paper proposes that shame is a powerful, underlying force in organisational dynamics; that it affects individual motivation and performance as well as organisational…

Abstract

This paper proposes that shame is a powerful, underlying force in organisational dynamics; that it affects individual motivation and performance as well as organisational cohesiveness, and impacts strongly on interpersonal relationships and the way that organisations are perceived both internally and in the public arena. Shame is highlighted as a cause of bullying and scapegoating in organisations. The paper concludes by exploring the implications of shame theory for leadership, suggesting that an awareness of shame transactions at all levels of organisational life may help leaders to manage these interpersonal spaces more effectively.

Details

International Journal of Leadership in Public Services, vol. 6 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1747-9886

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 September 2015

Daniel Martínez-Ávila, Richard Smiraglia, Hur-Li Lee and Melodie Fox

The purpose of this paper is to discuss and shed light on the following questions: What is an author? Is it a person who writes? Or, is it, in information, an iconic taxonomic…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to discuss and shed light on the following questions: What is an author? Is it a person who writes? Or, is it, in information, an iconic taxonomic designation (some might say a “classification”) for a group of writings that are recognized by the public in some particular way? What does it mean when a search engine, or catalog, asks a user to enter the name of an author? And how does that accord with the manner in which the data have been entered in association with the names of the entities identified with the concept of authorship?

Design/methodology/approach

The authors use several cases as bases of phenomenological discourse analysis, combining as best the authors can components of eidetic bracketing (a Husserlian technique for isolating noetic reduction) with Foucauldian discourse analysis. The two approaches are not sympathetic or together cogent, so the authors present them instead as alternative explanations alongside empirical evidence. In this way the authors are able to isolate components of iconic “authorship” and then subsequently engage them in discourse.

Findings

An “author” is an iconic name associated with a class of works. An “author” is a role in public discourse between a set of works and the culture that consumes them. An “author” is a role in cultural sublimation, or a power broker in deabstemiation. An “author” is last, if ever, a person responsible for the intellectual content of a published work. The library catalog’s attribution of “author” is at odds with the Foucauldian discursive comprehension of the role of an “author.”

Originality/value

One of the main assets of this paper is the combination of Foucauldian discourse analysis with phenomenological analysis for the study of the “author.” The authors turned to Foucauldian discourse analysis to discover the loci of power in the interactions of the public with the named authorial entities. The authors also looked to phenomenological analysis to consider the lived experience of users who encounter the same named authorial entities. The study of the “author” in this combined way facilitated the revelation of new aspects of the role of authorship in search engines and library catalogs.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 71 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 4 February 2014

Albert M. Muñiz Jr, Toby Norris and Gary Alan Fine

In recent years, scholars have begun suggesting that marketing can learn a lot from art and art history. This paper aims to build on that work by developing the proposition that…

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Abstract

Purpose

In recent years, scholars have begun suggesting that marketing can learn a lot from art and art history. This paper aims to build on that work by developing the proposition that successful artists are powerful brands.

Design/methodology/approach

Using archival data and biographies, this paper explores the branding acumen of Pablo Picasso.

Findings

Picasso maneuvered with consummate skill to assure his position in the art world. By mid-career, he had established his brand so successfully that he had the upper hand over the dealers who represented him, and his work was so sought-after that he could count on selling whatever proportion of it he chose to allow to leave his studio. In order to achieve this level of success, Picasso had to read the culture in which he operated and manage the efforts of a complex system of different intermediaries and stakeholders that was not unlike an organization. Based on an analysis of Picasso's career, the authors assert that in their management of these powerful brands, artists generate a complex, multifaceted public identity that is distinct from a product brand but shares important characteristics with corporate brands, luxury brands and cultural/iconic brands.

Originality/value

This research extends prior work by demonstrating that having an implicit understanding of the precepts of branding is not limited to contemporary artists and by connecting the artist to emerging conceptualizations of brands, particularly the nascent literatures on cultural, complex and corporate brands.

Details

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

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 24 May 2018

Terrence H. Witkowski

This paper aims to present a visually documented brand history of Winchester Repeating Arms through a cultural analysis of iconic Western images featuring its lever action rifles.

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to present a visually documented brand history of Winchester Repeating Arms through a cultural analysis of iconic Western images featuring its lever action rifles.

Design/methodology/approach

The study applies visual culture perspectives and methods to the research and writing of brand history. Iconic Western images featuring Winchester rifles have been selected, examined, and used as points of departure for gathering and interpreting additional data about the brand. The primary sources consist chiefly of photographs from the nineteenth century and films and television shows from the twentieth century. Most visual source materials were obtained from the US Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West and the Internet Movie Firearms Database. These have been augmented by written sources.

Findings

Within a few years of the launch of the Winchester brand in 1866, visual images outside company control associated its repeating rifles with the settlement of the American West and with the colorful people involved. Some of these images were reproduced in books and others sold to consumers in the form of cartes de visite, cabinet cards and stereographs made from albumen prints. Starting in the 1880s, the live Wild West shows of William F. Cody and his stars entertained audiences with a heroic narrative of the period that included numerous Winchesters. During the twentieth century and into the present, Winchesters have been featured in motion pictures and television series with Western themes.

Research limitations/implications

Historical research is an ongoing process. The discovery of new primary data, both written and visual, may lead to a revised interpretation of the selected images.

Originality/value

Based largely on images as primary data sources, this study approaches brand history from the perspective of visual culture theory and data. The research shows how brands acquire meaning not just from the companies that own them but also from consumers, the media and other producers of popular culture.

Details

Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, vol. 10 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1755-750X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 15 August 2016

Susie Khamis

This study aims to examine and contextualize the growing salience of nostalgic motifs in the promotion of Bushells Tea from the early 1980s to the early 1990s. It aims to analyze…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to examine and contextualize the growing salience of nostalgic motifs in the promotion of Bushells Tea from the early 1980s to the early 1990s. It aims to analyze the ironic foregrounding of a rural aesthetic as a strategic evasion of growing concerns in popular media about the globalization of the Australian economy and the concomitant “takeover” of iconic Australian brands, including Bushells, by multinational corporations.

Design/methodology/approach

This article draws on three main materials: a collection of Bushells advertisements (from newspapers, magazines and television), promotional materials, rare press clippings and company memos/briefs, which were loaned to the author for the purposes of this research by Unilever Australasia (Sydney, Australia); contemporary press reports that document popular reactions to the rapid globalization of the Australian economy in the early 1990s; and biographies of key personnel and organizations.

Findings

Despite its gradual takeover by a multinational corporation, the Bushells brand was marketed in ways that evoked an “authentic” and nostalgic nationalism through imagery that drew on the nation’s rural past, reproduced a rustic aesthetic and sentimentalized a pre-globalized era.

Originality/value

This article constitutes original interdisciplinary analysis of how one of Australia’s most iconic and historically dominant brands (Bushells Tea) was marketed during one of the most tumultuous periods in its history. Through examination of rare archival material and contemporary press reports, the analysis makes a valuable contribution to the understanding of brand marketing history in Australia.

Details

Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, vol. 8 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1755-750X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 26 June 2009

Robert Smith

Many “Divas” despite possessing destructive character traits ironically become successful entrepreneurs thus illustrating an alternative “storied” social construction of…

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Abstract

Purpose

Many “Divas” despite possessing destructive character traits ironically become successful entrepreneurs thus illustrating an alternative “storied” social construction of entrepreneurship. This influences how female entrepreneurs are perceived in the popular press and can be manipulated as an alternative entrepreneurial reality. The purpose of this paper is to build upon research into entrepreneurial identity introducing the “Diva” concept.

Design/methodology/approach

The qualitative methodological approach involves an analysis of biographies of famous Diva's to identify common themes; and an internet trawl to identify supplementary micro‐biographies and newspaper articles on “Divas”. This tripartite approach allows rich data to be collected permitting a comparative analysis.

Findings

This empirical paper presents the socially constructed nature of entrepreneurial narrative and the “Diva storyline” demonstrating the influence of journalistic licence upon how successful women are portrayed. The paper adds incremental credence to power of male‐dominated journalistic practices to vilify enterprising behaviour to sell newspapers.

Research limitations/implications

An obvious limitation to the work is that the sample of articles and biographies selected were chosen via search parameters which mention the word “Diva”. Nevertheless, there is scope for further “more detailed” research into the phenomenon to flesh out the model built in this preliminary paper.

Practical implications

An important implication for scholars and journalists is the need to reconsider how we tell and decode entrepreneur stories. As researchers, we need to recognise that there are other avenues for women to become entrepreneurs than to become businesswomen and that it is alright for women to reject the “entrepreneur” label.

Originality/value

This paper informs our understanding of the socially constructed nature of how we tell, understand and appreciate entrepreneur stories. It thus makes a unique contribution by illustrating that the storylines which constitute the “Diva cycle” are constructed from the same storylines that we associate with entrepreneur stories but narrated in a different order. It provides another heuristic device for understanding the social construction of gendered entrepreneurial identities making it of interest to feminist scholars of entrepreneurship and to social constructionists alike.

Details

International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship, vol. 1 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1756-6266

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 December 2020

John H. Bickford and Toluwalase V. Solomon

This paper explores the representation of consequential women in history within children's and young adult biographies.

Abstract

Purpose

This paper explores the representation of consequential women in history within children's and young adult biographies.

Design/methodology/approach

The data pool was established by developing a list of women's names extracted from common textbooks and state social studies curricula. Early-grade (K-4th) and middle-grade (5th-8th) in-print books were selected for juxtaposition because these students have the least prior knowledge and are perhaps most dependent on the text. Two researchers independently engaged in qualitative content analysis research methods, which included open and axial coding.

Findings

Early- and middle-grade biographies aptly established the historical significance of, but largely failed to contextualize, each figure's experiences, accomplishments and contemporaneous tensions. The women were presented as consequential, though their advocacies were not situated within the larger context.

Research limitations/implications

Limitations included a dearth of women featured in both state standards and biographies, limited audience (early and middle grades) and exclusion of out-of-print books. Comparable inquiries into narrative nonfiction, expository texts and historical fiction, which have different emphases than biographies, are areas for future research.

Practical implications

Discussion focused on the significance of findings for teachers and researchers. Early- and middle-grade teachers are guided to contextualize the selected historical figures using primary and secondary source supplements.

Originality/value

No previous scholarship exists on this particular topic. Comparable inquiries examine trade books' depiction of historical significance, not contextualization of continuity and change.

Details

Social Studies Research and Practice, vol. 16 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1933-5415

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 November 2018

KayLaura Miller and Janie Hubbard

Martin’s Big Words: The Life of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr is a timeless book well-known among K-6 teachers, students, librarians and book-lovers throughout the USA. This…

Abstract

Purpose

Martin’s Big Words: The Life of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr is a timeless book well-known among K-6 teachers, students, librarians and book-lovers throughout the USA. This multi-award winning picture book provides readers with insight into Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s life and the oppression and progress of African Americans before and during an era known as the modern US Civil Rights Movement (CRM). The biography outlines the period’s equity issues, and serves as a springboard for this upper elementary lesson. While Dr King played an iconic role, there were many other individuals involved in the CRM, most of whom students do not know. The purpose of this paper is to offer varying perspectives related to lesser known CRM leaders, protesters, advocates, perpetrators and bystanders.

Design/methodology/approach

Technology is incorporated through online research, videos and productions; thus, students actively engage in making connections to various individuals’ points of view, those both supportive and oppositional. Students conduct research while responding to higher-order, critical-thinking questions regarding groups and forces of the CRM. Then, they expand knowledge through jigsaw research activities by collecting information, responding to inquiry questions and presenting relevant evidence-based information about CRM contributors, perpetrators and bystanders.

Findings

This is a National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) Notable Tradebook Lesson Plan.

Originality/value

This is a NCSS Notable Tradebook Lesson Plan.

Details

Social Studies Research and Practice, vol. 13 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1933-5415

Keywords

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