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In this chapter, we examine the interplay between external legitimacy judgments, internal identity beliefs, and conceptions of sustainability. Based on observation at industry events and interviews with key stakeholders, we examine how organizational actors interpret the concept of sustainability in civil aviation, an industry subject to intense legitimacy threat for its environmental impact. We find that the concept of sustainability is interpreted through a process of naturalization, by which conceptual ties to past practices are forged, and the concept becomes corrupted. We describe three mechanisms (relabeling, bundling, and zooming out) through which concept naturalization occurs, and we show how this process creates resonance between sustainability and an industry ethos, which captures the aspirations, ideals and values of the industry.

Entrepreneurial approaches to public mass education are not easily developed or managed by public sector institutions. Instead, private sector entities are often responsible for the development and implementation of innovative and entrepreneurial education. Part of the reason may be the resistance to change that isomorphism in mass education engenders, but the involvement of privately-funded, organized, and managed organizations plays a significant role as well. Private sector-driven educational change has become the dominant mode of entrepreneurship in 21st century national educational systems, but there are challenges and obstacles to privately managing public sector institutions such as education and the activities or curricula that comprise its core. To understand this phenomena the promises and challenges for innovation and entrepreneurship are discussed through an institutional framework.

Despite the extensive research on the determinants and consequences of firm growth, research focusing on how the actual process unfolds is still evolving. An important part of firm growth process research is entrepreneurial cognition. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the relationship between entrepreneurial cognition and firm growth intentions. Specifically, we propose a theoretical model of entrepreneurial cognitive interpretation and categorization of market information as it relates to firm growth intentions. Drawing from the strategic cognition literature in general and strategic issue interpretation literature in particular, we propose that entrepreneurs’ interpretation of market information as opportunity or threat, gain or loss, and controllable or uncontrollable influences their firm growth intentions. Furthermore, our theoretical model discusses the condition under which favorable interpretation of market information leads to higher growth intentions by incorporating insights from the Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) construct. This chapter extends our understanding of firm growth processes by highlighting the important role cognitive interpretation and categorization play in facilitating or hindering entrepreneurial firm growth.

Chapter 1 is entitled “Normative Scripture – Christian and American.” Here Pelikan considers the normative status of the two documents. Though their texts were “originally composed under very specific circumstances,” illumined by later scholarship, they have been “adopted by a community as its normative Great Code…occupying a position that in some profound sense stands beyond its own history” (pp. 4–5).That normative status is based on the assumption that it can be applied to any and all of the radically changed situations of later times, many of which the writers who originally framed it could not themselves conceivable have foreseen…. Therefore its words and phrases have for centuries called forth meticulous and sophisticated – and sometimes painfully convoluted – interpretation, as well as continual reinterpretation.…a massive corpus of authoritative, if often controversial, commentary. (p. 5)

Although there is growing acknowledgment of the business case for diversity, efforts to recognize diversity as a strategic issue and to implement diversity initiatives have often been thwarted. We note that diversity is a “hot” issue not only because of the increasing attention being paid by both academics and practitioners, but also because of its potential to evoke strong emotions. We argue that “diversity” makes salient different identities (organizational, group, and individual) leading to different interpretations that can evoke specific emotional and behavioral reactions. This may help to explain whether top management teams identify and invest in diversity as a strategic issue, and whether diversity initiatives are supported or resisted by different groups and individuals throughout the organization. Thus it is important for global leaders to understand the role of identities in how diversity as a strategic issue may be interpreted and responded to by key decision-makers as well as those concerned with the implementation of diversity initiatives.

In this chapter, the author offers a horizontal comparison of interpretation standards contained in international legal instruments of different origin. These legal instruments range from international treaties to model laws. They also originate from different law makers such as the United Nations or individual states as well as trade or academic organisations, mainly regulating civil and commercial matters. The author argues that this comparison can provide the basis for the development of a uniform standard in the application of such law, which is often referred to as uniform law because it provides a single source of law to regulate a multitude of situations spanning across national boundaries. The main point of reference is the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, also known as the VCLT. This UN treaty specifically provides a general interpretation standard. From there newer standards occurring in subsequent uniform laws can be integrated using the lex specialis doctrine. This, in turn, provides opportunities for comprehensive usable methods to be developed for uniform law both in a public and private law settings. These then facilitate transparency, fairness and reasonableness. The correct identification of object and purposes of any given instrument is crucial for the successful interpretation of its content. It is this point that needs further research, and this chapter offers a starting point by providing some detailed examples from a range of uniform laws of varying nature including international sales laws, arbitration laws and Double Taxation Conventions.

The upper-echelons model of Hambrick and Mason ((1984). Academy of Management Review, 9, 193–206) launched a new area of research and provided the first overall theoretical framework for use in understanding how the experiences, backgrounds, and values of senior executives in organizations can influence the decisions that they make. The model is typically assumed to be what Rousseau ((1985). In: B. M. Staw, & L. L. Cumming (Eds), Research in organizational behavior (Vol. 7, pp. 1–37). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press) calls “multi-level,” as it describes how both individuals and top management teams (TMTs) make decisions in line with their preferences, biases, and values; the same model is applicable to both individuals and groups. However, the levels issues in the model have never been subjected to rigorous analysis. This chapter juxtaposes levels concepts and theories on the upper-echelons model, in an effort to highlight its strengths as well as its weaknesses. While the majority of researchers use the model to describe team-level decision making, the analysis presented here reveals that the model is inherently individual-level in focus, and several important limitations must be overcome before the model will provide a full explanation of team-level decision making.

This paper seeks to develop a mid-range theory of how change recipient sensemaking processes affect the realization of strategic flexibility during simultaneous change in professional service firms.

The research presented is based on an exploratory embedded case study adopting a qualitative interpretive methodology, conducted at a professional service organization. A sensemaking lens was adopted in order to study organizational change processes. Data was collected through semi-structured open-ended in-depth interviews, and analyzed using first and second order analysis, inspired by the methodology used by Corley and Gioia (2004).

We identified four determinants of change recipient sensemaking: professional identification, dominant organizational discourse, equivocality of expectations, and cross-understanding between thought worlds. Case findings indicate that cognitive and affective dimensions of change recipient sensemaking are strongly interwoven in their effect on realizing strategic flexibility.

We contribute to the competence-based strategic management literature by introducing the concept of change recipient sensemaking in understanding the realization of strategic flexibility; by identifying four major determinants in a context of simultaneous change in a professional service organization; and by highlighting the interwoven and mutually reinforcing cognitive and affective dimensions of professional’s process of constructing meaning.