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1 – 10 of 758Rod Green, Susan Malcolm, Ken Greenwood, Michael Small and Gregory Murphy
In recent years responsibility for the administration of schools internationally has shifted from education departments towards self‐governing schools. This trend has resulted in…
Abstract
In recent years responsibility for the administration of schools internationally has shifted from education departments towards self‐governing schools. This trend has resulted in major changes to the role of school principals. Such changes in role may impact on the psychological and physical health of principals, but there has been very little research into this population. A survey of the health and wellbeing of a representative sample of 50 principals of State primary schools in Victoria, Australia is reported. Subjects completed questionnaires measuring health‐related behaviour and stress and arousal levels and participated in comprehensive health appraisals. Principals reported better smoking patterns than the population as a whole. Despite a higher socioeconomic status than the population as a whole, the health status of the principals was not apparently better. Principals reported higher stress levels and worse physical health than a group of white‐collar employees of similar socioeconomic status.
– The purpose of this paper is to determine the extent of greening retail taking place in Indian context and identifies its core groups of green retail practices.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to determine the extent of greening retail taking place in Indian context and identifies its core groups of green retail practices.
Design/methodology/approach
A questionnaire was developed and used to collect data from retailers of green products, and caselets were developed.
Findings
Nine core groups of green retail practices are identified – distinctness of green products, promoting sustainable business practices, use of environmental keywords, promotion for awareness, promotional offers for sale, ensuring availability and visibility of green products, approval for environmental claims, environmentally friendly appeal of store and consumer involvement approaches.
Research limitations/implications
Findings of the study should be generalised with its limitations; though are useful in understanding greening retail concept.
Originality/value
This paper is original in terms of its value addition to the green marketing literature and extends the concept of sustainability to retailing.
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Rod Green, Susan Malcolm, Ken Greenwood and Gregory Murphy
The role of a school principal has changed dramatically in the last decade and there has been widespread concern regarding the impact of this change of role on principal health…
Abstract
The role of a school principal has changed dramatically in the last decade and there has been widespread concern regarding the impact of this change of role on principal health and wellbeing. Worksite health promotion programs have been used in many different settings to encourage employee health, but there is very little information on the effectiveness of such programs, particularly in improving principal health. This study evaluated the impact of a 12‐month health promotion program on a group of 50 volunteer principals. Participants in the program reported improvements in their diet and exercise habits and this was reflected in improvements in blood pressure, cholesterol and body fat measures. These results indicate that worksite health promotion can play a significant role in improving the health and wellbeing of school principals.
The notion of a good library lies implicit in much service. It can rest on objective factors, like the speed with which documents are retrieved, and on subjective ones such as how…
Abstract
The notion of a good library lies implicit in much service. It can rest on objective factors, like the speed with which documents are retrieved, and on subjective ones such as how helpful the library staff happen to be. Often our view draws on both. For librarians and library managers, too, there is a need to consider the goodness of the system. It may lie in its rate of satisfaction, in its market penetration, in the subtle integration of user education programmes into the curriculum, the cost‐effectiveness of the aquisition arrangements, or the work elicited from staff each week. Looking at the good library, then, impels both users and staff, clients and managers, to consider — and then test operationally — performance measures.
Guillermo Casasnovas and Marc Ventresca
Recent research develops theory and evidence to understand how organizations come to be seen as “actors” with specified features and properties, a core concern for…
Abstract
Recent research develops theory and evidence to understand how organizations come to be seen as “actors” with specified features and properties, a core concern for phenomenological institutionalism. The authors use evidence from changes in research designs in the organizational study of institutional logics as an empirical strategy to add fresh evidence to the debates about the institutional construction of organizations as actors. The case is the research literature on the institutional logics perspective, a literature in which organizational and institutional theorists grapple with long-time social theory questions about nature and context of action and more contemporary debates about the dynamics of social orders. With rapid growth since the early 1990s, this research program has elaborated and proliferated in ways meant to advance the study of societal orders, frames, and practices in diverse inter- and intra-organizational contexts. The study identifies two substantive trends over the observation period: A shift in research design from field-level studies to organization-specific contexts, where conflicts are prominent in the organization, and a shift in the conception of logic transitions, originally from one dominant logic to another, then more attention to co-existence or blending of logics. Based on this evidence, the authors identify a typology of four available research genres that mark a changed conception of organizations as actors. The case of institutional logics makes visible the link between research designs and research outcomes, and it provides new evidence for the institutional processes that construct organizational actorhood.
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Guillermo Casasnovas and Myrto Chliova
Hybrid organizations face particular challenges and opportunities due to combining different logics within one organizational structure. While research on hybrid organizing has…
Abstract
Hybrid organizations face particular challenges and opportunities due to combining different logics within one organizational structure. While research on hybrid organizing has advanced considerably our understanding of how these organizations can cope with such tensions, institutional theory suggests that organizational legitimacy and success will also depend on processes that take place at the field level. We connect these two perspectives to examine how field hybridity influences organizational legitimacy. Specifically, we consider both a field’s maturity and its degree of hybridity as two important variables that determine the effects that field hybridity has on organizational legitimacy. Drawing from extant research and leveraging our empirical work in the fields of microfinance, social entrepreneurship and impact investing to provide illustrative examples, we propose a framework that considers both positive and negative effects of field hybridity on organizational legitimacy. We contribute to the literature on hybrid organizing in two ways. First, we show that hybrid organizations face different challenges and opportunities depending on the stage of development and degree of hybridity of the field they operate in. Second, we suggest that the effects of field hybridity on organizational legitimacy can be understood as trade-offs that organizations need to understand and approach strategically to leverage opportunities and mitigate challenges.
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Christopher W. J. Steele and Timothy R. Hannigan
Talk of “macrofoundations” helps foreground the constitutive and contextualizing powers of institutions – dynamics that are inadvertently obscured by the imagery of…
Abstract
Talk of “macrofoundations” helps foreground the constitutive and contextualizing powers of institutions – dynamics that are inadvertently obscured by the imagery of microfoundations. Highlighting these aspects of institutions in turn opens intriguing lines of inquiry into institutional reproduction and change, lived experience of institutions, and tectonic shifts in institutional configurations. However, there is a twist: taking these themes seriously ultimately challenges any naïve division of micro and macro, and undermines the claim of either to a genuinely foundational role in social analysis. The authors propose an alternative “optometric” imagery – positioning the micro and the macro as arrays of associated lenses, which bring certain things into focus at the cost of others. The authors argue that this imagery should not only encourage analytic reflexivity (“a more optometric institutionalism”) but also draw attention to the use of such lenses in everyday life, as an underexplored but critical phenomenon for institutional theory and research (“an institutionalist optometry”).
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Niklas Kreander and Ken McPhail
The purpose of this paper is to explore how the Norwegian Government incorporated its responsibility for human rights into the investment practices of its Global Pension Fund and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how the Norwegian Government incorporated its responsibility for human rights into the investment practices of its Global Pension Fund and how human rights issues were negotiated when exclusion was considered.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on a series of interviews the authors analyse the way in which responsibility for human rights has been translated into the practices of the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global.
Findings
The paper documents how a large investment fund used several mechanisms to address human rights risks. The authors demonstrate that different logics among actors sometimes impeded addressing human rights issues. The findings demonstrate that sovereign wealth funds (SWF) can be held accountable for human rights.
Research limitations/implications
The paper illustrates the difficulty of co-operation between actors with different logics. This can result in institutional conflict, but also in positive outcomes for human rights.
Practical implications
Attempts to introduce human rights into state investments may result in increased institutional complexity. The findings indicate that state investors can address human rights issues, but that the ability to do so is diminished where divestment creates political tension.
Social implications
Large investors can influence companies on specific human rights issues.
Originality/value
This is one of the first empirical investigations of the human rights practices of a SWF. The authors contribute to the literatures on accounting and human rights, SWF and institutional theory.
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The concept of institution has been used by scholars from across a number of disciplines to explain a wide variety of phenomena. However, the philosophical roots of this concept…
Abstract
The concept of institution has been used by scholars from across a number of disciplines to explain a wide variety of phenomena. However, the philosophical roots of this concept have not been well examined, nor have implications for contemporary institutional analysis been fully appreciated. Returning to the works of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty reveals a depth of thinking that has otherwise been overlooked by institutional theorists. In particular, the author’s analysis reveals two critical insights. First, whereas organizational scholars have closely linked the concepts of institution and taken-for-grantedness, these two concepts were originally understood to be phenomenologically distinct. Second, a detailed examination of Merleau-Ponty’s later work poses the concept of flesh – the twining of the visible and the invisible – as the basis for the interplay of institutions. In turn, the idea of flesh as the foundation of institution invites a more radical reimagining of the growing bifurcation between microfoundations and macrofoundations.
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