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1 – 10 of 885This paper aims to explore how varsity football athletes and coaches negotiate meanings when faced with the unmet expectations of a new head coach brought into lead a turnaround…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore how varsity football athletes and coaches negotiate meanings when faced with the unmet expectations of a new head coach brought into lead a turnaround process. It also aims to pay particular attention to the role of history in this meaning making process.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper draws on semi‐structured interviews with players and coaches at two points in time. To preserve the richness of their experiences and illuminate the historical aspects of change, it focuses on the stories of three players and one supporting coach.
Findings
Numerous symbols of change emerge that have multiple and contradictory meanings. The meanings around success and failure are renegotiated over time as individuals struggle with the unmet expectations of change. Moreover, individuals are unable to shed the failures of the past and move forward.
Practical implications
Change is a complex and messy process of managing multiple meanings. Understanding change entails more than a snapshot picture of an organization. New leaders have no control over the past, yet they need to be aware of how individuals experienced the past in order to increase the likelihood of success in the present.
Originality/value
Success and failure are experienced as an ongoing process as athletes and coaches experience, reflect on and interact with others. In illuminating the role of history in how change is experienced in the present, the paper demonstrates that the past can serve as both an immobilizing force, as well as a comparative point enabling individuals to rationalize their emotions.
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Integrating services does not necessarily lead to improved outcomes for people with care and support needs and fails to address the need for workforce integration. Workforce…
Abstract
Purpose
Integrating services does not necessarily lead to improved outcomes for people with care and support needs and fails to address the need for workforce integration. Workforce integration requires different professional groups to give up personal power, put the people they are supporting ahead of entrenched professional rivalries and be versatile not flexible in how they work. Integration is not important to people with care and support needs, unless it makes a difference to their ability to lead an independent life. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
A personal opinion piece based on learning from the development of principles for workforce integration with social care and health employers.
Findings
Integration takes time and there is no quick fix or magic solution, but it can happen. People's behaviour and motivations are complex, confusing and often inconsistent, and mandating service integration will not change the way workers behave. Perhaps it is now time to stop using service integration as a way of avoiding making tough decisions about the more challenging issue of workforce integration and what this means for those with power and control over people's lives.
Originality/value
The paper separates integration into service and workforce integration and argues that too much focus is given to the former rather the latter.
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In spite of required state curriculum objectives, American history textbooks often become the de facto curriculum defining history. Self-imposed censorship by textbook publishers…
Abstract
In spite of required state curriculum objectives, American history textbooks often become the de facto curriculum defining history. Self-imposed censorship by textbook publishers defines how individuals, groups, and events are portrayed. A 2004 Thomas B. Fordham Institute report concluded that today’s history textbooks are bland with no voice or storyline and have been sanitized and filled with history rewritten to meet the demands of special interest groups. The report also concluded that while American history textbooks now contain more pages, they include less content. Paradoxically, when a well-crafted textbook is created, students may never have access to it. Efforts by special interest groups to censor such books are not uncommon. A case study of one author’s efforts to have her award-winning history textbook adopted for classroom use and the ensuing censorship efforts by special interest groups are described.
Thomas Lawton, Sydney Finkelstein and Charles Harvey
The purpose of this paper is to focus on “breakout” – a forceful emergence from a restrictive form or position – pursued through a structured and purposeful course of strategic…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to focus on “breakout” – a forceful emergence from a restrictive form or position – pursued through a structured and purposeful course of strategic action. The objective is to secure and retain business routes to double‐digit growth and market prominence.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper addresses a key question foremost in the minds of all start‐up business leaders: how do I manage and consolidate what I have achieved and simultaneously continue to grow the business and expand my market? The paper is based on more than five years of research into over 100 companies around the world. This involved in‐depth interviews with strategic leaders, company observations and case analysis.
Findings
Findings indicate that breakouts are led, from beginning to end, by dynamic strategic leaders and typically are accompanied by sudden and dramatic increases in output and levels of activity. For business entrepreneurs who want to raise a company from a subordinate to a more dominant market position, through meeting the challenge of double‐digit growth, it is crucial both to pursue the optimal strategy and excel in its execution.
Originality/value
The value of this paper is in the advancement of a step‐by‐step action framework for the delivery of accelerated growth, founded on strategic excellence from beginning to end, and providing a systematic route to market success.
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Abstract
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Increasing the ethicality of a project and the usefulness of the data enhances the probability that social good will result from the research; a combination of ethical and…
Abstract
Increasing the ethicality of a project and the usefulness of the data enhances the probability that social good will result from the research; a combination of ethical and methodological soundness is therefore crucial. From 1999‐2002 I conducted a qualitative study of women’s, men’s, and mixed Internet chat room conversations. In this article, I discuss the particular ethical issues that arose, outlining my ethical decision‐making process within the context of current debates. I also describe the methodological concerns, demonstrating why a synthesized method responsive to the advantages and disadvantages of cyberspace was necessary, and how the data were enhanced by this choice of method and by certain characteristics of cyberspace. In discussing the details of my study, my overall goal is to provide an assessment of the social good of the project with a view to increasing the probability of more ethical and useful Internet‐based research outcomes more generally.
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This paper examines four underlying trends in the changing business environment relating to information technology and geographic, functional and sectorial integration. It…
Abstract
This paper examines four underlying trends in the changing business environment relating to information technology and geographic, functional and sectorial integration. It discusses three required changes in management focus needed to reach global profitability from product inception to promotion. The skills required for this change are listed by functional area, although the techniques are predominantly cross‐cultural. This paper explains the steps needed to move from a traditional firm to a globally competitive network and the cultural barriers to building consumer‐focused extended‐value chains. Finally it discusses ways in which business school education can promote strategic thinking about profitability and heighten awareness of the potential gains from cooperative inter‐firm partnerships.