Search results
1 – 10 of 54Harry J. Van Buren and Judith Schrempf-Stirling
Stakeholder capitalism has been proposed as an alternative way of thinking about business purpose and value creation. However, stakeholder capitalism can only work as an…
Abstract
Purpose
Stakeholder capitalism has been proposed as an alternative way of thinking about business purpose and value creation. However, stakeholder capitalism can only work as an alternative model of business if all stakeholders and their interests are visible to and taken seriously by managers. The purpose of this paper is to untangle the challenges that invisible, marginalized and powerless stakeholders pose for theorizing about stakeholder capitalism.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is conceptual. The authors first briefly outline the promise of stakeholder capitalism for addressing pressing questions about value creation and stakeholder welfare. The authors then conceptualize stakeholder invisibility as the outcome of a particular stakeholder being both powerless and marginal through the prism of moral intensity theory and one of its elements: proximity. This study discusses the ways in which managers can make invisible stakeholders more visible in their decision-making.
Findings
For managers truly to manage for stakeholders, as anticipated by stakeholder capitalism, all stakeholders and stakeholder interests must be visible to them. This study analyzes why sometimes they are not, how they can be made more visible and why stakeholder visibility matters for stakeholder capitalism. This study proffers three principles for business practice: ethical commitments to reduce stakeholder invisibility, analyses of business strategies to surface the contributions of marginalized and invisible stakeholders and taking rights seriously.
Originality/value
This study provides a new perspective on stakeholder capitalism by linking the challenge in operationalizing it to the problems of stakeholder invisibility and marginality.
Details
Keywords
Angélica S. Gutiérrez and Jean Lee Cole
Given the lack of research on the lived experiences of racially minoritized women in academia, this paper provides primary accounts of their experience with impostorization…
Abstract
Purpose
Given the lack of research on the lived experiences of racially minoritized women in academia, this paper provides primary accounts of their experience with impostorization. Impostorization refers to the policies, practices and seemingly innocuous interactions that make or intend to make individuals (i.e. women of color) question their intelligence, competence and sense of belonging.
Design/methodology/approach
To explore experiences with impostorization and identify effective coping strategies to counter the debilitating effects of impostorization, 17 semi-structured interviews were conducted with women of color PhD students and faculty at universities throughout the USA and across disciplines.
Findings
While impostor syndrome, which refers to feelings of inadequacy that individuals experience and a fear that they will be discovered as fraud, has garnered much attention, the present accounts suggest that the more vexing issue in academia is impostorization, not impostor syndrome. Forms of impostorization include microaggressions, grateful guest syndrome, invisibility and inclusion taxation.
Originality/value
The interviews reveal the implicit and explicit ways in which academia impostorizes racially minoritized women scholars and the coping strategies that they use to navigate and survive within academia. The accounts demonstrate the pernicious effects of labeling feelings of inadequacy and unbelonging as impostor syndrome rather than recognizing that the problem is impostorization. This is a call to change the narrative and go from a fix-the-individual to a fix-the-institution approach.
Details
Keywords
Early childhood and early elementary are key times when children develop internal and external antifat attitudes; thus, it is necessary to better understand the available…
Abstract
Purpose
Early childhood and early elementary are key times when children develop internal and external antifat attitudes; thus, it is necessary to better understand the available children’s literature around fatness.This paper aims to examine children's picture books with fat protagonists to better understand the current landscape of children's literature. Drawing on relevant literature around fat characters and the fat studies movement, this critical content analysis considers five children’s books featuring fat protagonists.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses critical content analysis to analyze texts featuring fat protagonists, including two rounds of initial reading and analysis. Using lenses of critical literacy and critical multicultural analysis, the author looks for common themes, silences and absences in the texts, images and peritext.
Findings
This paper identifies themes of characters initially internalizing antifatness, then pushing back against antifat bias toward existing with joy and without stigma. Several of these texts even draw on the history of fat activism, highlighting societal critique and a potential activist component of children’s literature with fat protagonists.
Research limitations/implications
The study has a small number of books, due to the limited number of texts that fit the study parameters.
Practical implications
The paper concludes with examples of scaffolding for teachers and parents to have conversations with young children about antifat bias while also acknowledging notable absences, particularly boy protagonists.
Social implications
These themes illustrate the power of young children to push back against antifat bias and critique oppressive social structures.
Originality/value
There have been very few studies looking at antifatness in children’s picture books. With more books with fat protagonists coming out in the 2020s, this study offers an understanding of the themes present, while also emphasizing the need for an intersectional approach to literature with fat protagonists.
Details
Keywords
This paper aims to present the case for critical realism (CR) as a framework in steering the anticipatory and participatory activities an appropriate analysis of complex problems…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present the case for critical realism (CR) as a framework in steering the anticipatory and participatory activities an appropriate analysis of complex problems, aiming toward a transformative change.
Design/methodology/approach
Through observation, interview and facilitation for Circular Design Lab and Thai Clean Air Network, this paper unpacks their foresight activities, their key findings and subsequently connects to the Morphogenesis analysis based on an alternative foresight epistemology of CR.
Findings
Foresight based on CR philosophy provides a deeper understanding of the complexity and invisibility of air pollution issues in Thailand. Acknowledging the transitive reality beyond this study’s perception, the activity design applies the iceberg models to investigate problem framing and illustrate the stratified reality in three domains: the empirical based on emission reports and legislative regulations; the actual based on patterns of farmers practice and industrial development, activated by causal mechanisms; the real based on structural and mental models, driven by cultural and belief systems in Thailand. At the bottom layer of the iceberg, the real lies the generative mechanisms of pre-existing structural and cultures that constrain Thai citizen from acting on social change.
Research limitations/implications
CR’s emancipatory theory provides an immanent critique towards social improvement by illustrating comprehensive causal explanations of complex problems such as air pollution; while morphogenesis theory elaborates on the unconscious domination of the existing social structures, agencies, and cultures. Thus, the ethical inquiry of CR research is committed to the emancipation of false beliefs and creating conditions for “human prosperity”. However, this non-neutral value commitment is debated in the futures studies field.
Practical implications
The anticipatory activities on air pollution in Thailand bring to light the reality of power and oppression beyond human perception and illustrate the connection to the belief systems and its consequential action or lack thereof in dealing with the issues. The insight to power relationship provides an unconventional way to empower citizens in creating transformative change.
Originality/value
Modern foresight practice has developed under western cultures and societies. Recent efforts are made to investigate the epistemology underlying this field, for the future issues are ever more complex and interrelated across multiple sectors. This requires this study’s consideration of the meaning of knowledge and knowing, influencing the research paradigm. This paper proposes CR as a suitable foresight approach to emancipate this study from the widely accepted epistemologies and examine this study’s presupposition about social reality by a philosophical explanation based on the elements of ontology, causation, structure and persons.
Details
Keywords
This article tackles the intersection of mothering and labor through the author's own experience as a feminist mother/manager from Istanbul, Turkey. It aims to revisit the first…
Abstract
Purpose
This article tackles the intersection of mothering and labor through the author's own experience as a feminist mother/manager from Istanbul, Turkey. It aims to revisit the first years of motherhood, exploring the struggle to invent a peculiar maternal subjectivity in opposition and negotiation with the patriarchal institution of motherhood, the new definition of maternal labor in a highly digital, neoliberal context and the issue of marital fairness in a dual-income heterosexual marriage.
Design/methodology/approach
The article presents an autoethnographic, retrospective and introspective inquiry into the first seven years of the author's mothering experience in order to offer an in-depth exploration of the various aspects of contemporary maternal labor.
Findings
The article shows how maternal labor has shifted in nature and expanded in scope in a contemporary non-Western context. It investigates the dissolution of the spatial, temporal and sensorial boundaries between the managerial labor dedicated to the workplace, and to the family. Highlighting the similarities of the two forms of labor, the article manifests the materiality, tangibility and visibility of maternal labor.
Research limitations/implications
Further intersectional studies shall be beneficial to redefine maternal labor in different contexts.
Practical implications
Departing and diverting from the terms “invisible labor” and “mental load”, the article suggests a shift in terminology to stress the multifaceted medley of managerial tasks mothers undertake today.
Originality/value
The article provides an original take on maternal labor through the first-hand experience of a middle-class, professional mother from Istanbul, Turkey.
Details
Keywords
Sneh Bhardwaj, Damian Morgan and Natalie Elms
Situated in the context of India, where women’s representation on corporate boards remains low, this study aims to explore whether and how tokenism impacts the behaviours of…
Abstract
Purpose
Situated in the context of India, where women’s representation on corporate boards remains low, this study aims to explore whether and how tokenism impacts the behaviours of female directors.
Design/methodology/approach
The boardroom experiences and perceptions of 14 women directors are explored through semi-structured interviews and analysed using an inductive and interpretive process. Also, to get a counter perspective and avoid the social desirability bias from the women participants’ responses, 16 men directors are interviewed.
Findings
The study finds that, as gender minorities, women directors' visibility on boards can create performance pressures on these women. To counter gender-based prejudices, women directors consciously alter their behaviours and project both male and female traits consistent with the director role. By doing so, women directors overcome tokenistic stereotypes and are accepted as part of the director in-group, irrespective of their numeric representation on the board.
Practical implications
The research has implications for governments attempting to increase women’s board presence through affirmative actions and for firms aiming to improve the gender diversity of their board composition.
Originality/value
These findings present an alternative perspective on women directors’ board behaviour by exploring the applicability of Western trends on tokenism and critical mass in the context of India, adding to the vast body of literature concerned with minorities on corporate boards.
Details
Keywords
Cristina Alvarado-Alvarez and Martin C. Euwema
Through this exploration, this article seeks to contribute to facilitate a greater female participation in power and leadership positions in the context of succession by…
Abstract
Purpose
Through this exploration, this article seeks to contribute to facilitate a greater female participation in power and leadership positions in the context of succession by presenting perspectives in research and practical implications for both family firms and business families.
Design/methodology/approach
Literature review of seminal work on women’s involvement in the leadership succession of family firms and systematic reviews related to the topic published in the last 15 years.
Findings
Past research shows that the landscape of gender inclusion in the context of succession has evolved, offering women more access to leadership positions in family firms. Perceptions of women as invisible in business or playing emotional roles in the family, shifted to leaders, managing family business. However, access to leadership positions is not equitable to all regions and women leaders still face significant challenges to achieve legitimacy and recognition inside and outside the organisation. Future research should contribute to the enhancement of gender inclusion in leadership of family firms. Action research and interventions in both family firms and business families are ways to achieve this.
Originality/value
This paper elaborates on new research avenues and provides practical insights into how to enhance gender inclusion in the context of succession at both business family and family firm’s realms.
Details
Keywords
Recent research has captured the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in widening gender inequalities, by highlighting that academic women have been disproportionately affected. During…
Abstract
Purpose
Recent research has captured the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in widening gender inequalities, by highlighting that academic women have been disproportionately affected. During the COVID-19 pandemic, women assumed most of the care labour at home, whilst working at normal patterns, leaving them unable to perform as normal. This is very concerning because of the short and long-term detrimental consequences this will have on women’s well-being and their academic careers. This article aims to stimulate a change in the current understandings of academic work by pointing towards alternative – and more inclusive – ways of working in academia.
Design/methodology/approach
The two authors engage with autoethnography and draw on their own personal experience of becoming breastfeeding academic mothers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
Findings
To understand the positioning of contemporary academic mothers, this study draws on insights from both cultural studies and organisation studies on the emergence of discursive formations about gender, that is “postfeminist sensibility”. Guided by autoethnographic accounts of academic motherhood, this study reveals that today academia creates an individualised, neutral (disembodied), output-focused and control-oriented understanding of academic work.
Originality/value
This paper adds to the conversation of academic motherhood and the impact of the pandemic on working mothers. The study theoretically contributes with the lens of “motherhood” in grasping what academic work can become. It shows the power of motherhood in opening up an alternative way of conceptualising academic work, centred on embodied care and appreciative of the non-linearity and messiness of life.
Details
Keywords
Matthew Gold and Laura L. Greenhaw
This article focuses on how the film, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Columbus, 2001; Rowling, 1998), can be used to teach the concepts related to team leadership. In…
Abstract
Purpose
This article focuses on how the film, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Columbus, 2001; Rowling, 1998), can be used to teach the concepts related to team leadership. In addition, the article offers a discussion of the student and professor perspectives on using film in the classroom and provides recommendations for implementation.
Design/methodology/approach
We applied Tuckman and Jensen’s (1977) stages of small group development to frame a vicarious learning experience utilizing the movie, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. This approach is grounded in experiential learning, guiding learners through a shared experience, reflection, conceptualization, and experimentation.
Findings
Popular culture artifacts (PCA) can be used to transport learners to a context within which they can vicariously experience leadership concepts that might otherwise be abstract.
Originality/value
Intentional preparation and facilitation can result in engaged, effective leadership learning through film.
Details
Keywords
An attribute common throughout Lor’s distinguished career has been a passion for learning and continuous improvement in an approach that sets high standards, both for himself and…
Abstract
Purpose
An attribute common throughout Lor’s distinguished career has been a passion for learning and continuous improvement in an approach that sets high standards, both for himself and others. Taking on the informal mantle of both mentor and mentee, these contributions have blended with no clear boundaries or timelines.
Design/methodology/approach
Lor has been active in the library and information sector (LIS) landscape since the 1960s. A stalwart of the library and information profession, the author is being honoured by International Federation of Library Associations and Institution (IFLA) with a prestigious festschrift in recognition of a librarian who has made a sustained contribution to the library and information profession over decades with significant impact on academia, scholarship, praxis, communities and individual librarians.
Findings
Lor is recognized as a lifelong mentee as evidenced by his unbounded forays into discovery driven by a natural curiosity that, in turn, shaped his approach to mentoring through teaching, instilling best practices in research methodology and significant contributions to international librarianship. Today this continues in a regular column for South African librarians, drawing from the international literature of books, libraries and information, his role as a key figure in the establishment of Library and Information Association of South Africa (LIASA) in the 1990s, as well as experience from close involvement in developing LIS policies for post-apartheid South Africa, drafting guidelines for national library legislation and serving as IFLA Secretary-General in The Hague.
Originality/value
This viewpoint has been an attempt to share reflections on one individual’s lifetime of influence without borders or timelines. Without doubt, Lor’s global mentorship reach remains unbounded in his approach to critical thinking and desire for continuous improvement for himself and others.
Details