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Reality breakdowns generate reflexivity and awareness of the constructed nature of social reality. These pivotal moments can motivate institutional inhabitants to either modify their social worlds or reaffirm the status quo. Thus, reality breakdowns are the initial points at which actors can conceive of new possibilities for institutional arrangements and initiate change processes to realize them. Studying reality breakdowns enables scholars to understand not just how institutional change occurs, but also why it does or does not do so. In this paper, we investigate how institutional inhabitants responded to a reality breakdown that occurred during our ethnography of collegial governance in a large North American university that was undergoing a strategic change initiative. Our findings suggest that there is a consequential process following reality breakdowns whereby institutional inhabitants construct the severity of these events. In our context, institutional inhabitants first attempted to restore order to their social world by reaffirming the status quo; when their efforts failed, they began to formulate alternative possibilities. Simultaneously, they engaged in a distributed sensemaking process whereby they diminished and reoriented necessary changes, ultimately inhibiting the formulation of these new possibilities. Our findings confirm reality breakdowns and institutional awareness as potential drivers of institutional change and complicate our understanding of antecedent microprocesses that may forestall the initiation of change efforts.

Curiosity is one of the main drivers in reaching out and connecting to colleagues and starting the networking – that is the foundation for establishing an association for Research Managers and Administrators (RMAs). The questions, ‘Why, what, how and when’, with a commitment to drive things forward, together with like-minded people, can transform curiosity into joint actions and movement of a network. While a number of success factors can be identified, alas there is no thorough literature describing how such factors interact or why. Even though all parameters are met, some associations still struggle with moving forward.

Recognising the identity as a research manager and administrator on the individual level enables reaching out to colleagues in the field, in and outside the institution, and nationally as well as abroad. Understanding the institutional environment and the structure of research support is the starting point for reaching out to colleagues.

This chapter will give an overview of the creation process of RMA associations, spanning from the rise of professional networks, as an informal organisation, to the establishment of legal entities, and hence a more formal association. It hopes to provide a meaningful discussion on the process of establishing professional associations despite the scarce literature on the topic (Stolle, 1998).

This paper examines the theoretical issues and research themes of business and management impact. Our empirical setting is the UK Research Excellence Framework 2014 (REF 2014) and the focus is on the nature of research impact. Stakeholders, including Governments, now expect academic outputs to translate to real world benefits beyond the narrow bibliometric type metrics.

Despite decades of academic literature devoted to business and management research impact, current theories cannot explain the apparent disconnect between academic, economic and societal practice. Adopting a UK Business and Management perspective to frame our investigation, we consider the highly contested rhetorical question – What are the current themes and impacts of Business and Management research?

We propose a definition for research impact and consider its measurement. Then, using the 410 Impact Case Studies submitted to REF 2014 #x2013; Unit of Assessment 19, business and management, we examine how high impact unfolds. The implications for business and management research impact from the perspectives of economic, knowledge and responsibility impacts are considered.

The purpose of this study is to explore the support needs surrounding intimate relationships and sexuality of autistic adults accessing funded social care in England.

Semi-structured interviews with 15 autistic adults who were accessing funded social care examined their support needs surrounding intimate relationships and sexuality, with subsequent data analysis using reflexive thematic analysis.

Four themes were generated: Help at hand, but not too close for comfort, No “cookie-cutter rules”: personalised, inclusive approaches, Playing it safe, not leaving it too late, and Autism-informed education and support.

The authors produced an online learning module for social care staff in England on best practice in supporting autistic adults without learning disabilities with relationships and sexuality.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, there has been no other UK-based research published to date on the social care support needs of autistic adults without learning disabilities surrounding relationships, gender and sexuality.

The purpose of this paper is to offer an accessible and interdisciplinary research strategy in organisational ethnography, called action ethnography, that acknowledges key concepts from action research and engaged and immersive ethnography. It aims to encourage methodological innovation and an impact turn in ethnographic practice.

A working definition of “action ethnography” is provided first. Then, to illustrate how an action ethnography can be designed by considering impact from the outset, the author draws on a study she is undertaking with a grassroots human rights monitoring group, based in England, and then discusses advantages and limitations to the approach.

The author suggests three main tenets to action ethnography that embrace synergies between action research and ethnography: researcher immersion, intervention leading to change and knowledge contributions that are useful to both practitioners and researchers.

This paper provides researchers who align with aspects of both action research and ethnography with an accessible research strategy to employ, and a better understanding of the interplay between the two approaches when justifying their research designs. It also offers an example of designing an action ethnography in practice.

Whereas “traditional” ethnography has emphasised a contribution to theoretical knowledge, less attention has been on a contribution to practice and to those who ethnographers engage with in the field. Action ethnography challenges researchers to consider the impact of their research from the outset during the research design, rather upon reflection after a study is completed.

The aim of this chapter is to describe a four-type model of organisational structures and to discuss two cases, Embrapa and the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, as well as additional cases at SAM-Research and the centre for shared medical support services established at the University of Bologna.

These cases should help readers understand the importance of designing distinctive, tailored-made support services while keeping these structures flexible for further adaptation under unforeseen changes.

The chapter concludes by stressing the role of institutions to steadily invest in the design of these tailored support structures and in personalised training for their support staff.

This systematic literature review presents the state of the field of fashion and crisis communication. The quantitative coding offers insight into dominant and emergent themes in one of the most crisis-prone industries. This review also offers a framework for future research.

This study uses a systematic literature review approach. 205 academic articles were gathered in total using the search term “fashion industry crisis”. Subsequently, they were quantitatively coded using the Diers-Lawson (2016) Crisis Communication Code Book.

Findings show an increase in the fashion industry crisis with clear emergent themes such as sustainability, emphasising the truly global and multidisciplinary nature of the industry. Findings also reveal a genuine lack of theoretical grounding, with over 80% of the articles coded using no crisis communication theory. The findings also suggest value co-creation ought to be a priority for this agenda moving forward, as it overlaps with emerging themes and is a practical tool and concept to support crisis prevention and management through an extension of the Stakeholder Relationship Model (SRM) Model.

As a largely under-researched area in crisis communication, the findings present a new opportunity to explore fashion within its context and contribute. At this point, the research field is lacking, and there is room for theory testing and hypothesis building. The findings and themes from the research present a development of the original SRM model, SRM Val-Co.

As well as research implications, the proposed framework provides practical solutions for the future of the fashion industry.

As a largely under-researched area in crisis communication, the findings demonstrate a new opportunity to explore fashion within its context and contribute because there is a dearth of research and a lack of theoretical development. Therefore, the proposed framework provides practical solutions for the fashion industry’s future. The findings and themes from the research present a development of the original SRM model, SRM Val-Co.

This paper aims to investigate the effects of financial access, financial depth, financial efficiency and financial stability pillars on income inequality and poverty among a panel of sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries.

This paper captures cross-sectional dependence among the income groups through the dynamic common correlated effect approach for a data set of 28 selected SSA countries from 2000 to 2017.

This study reveals that the financial development pillars exert positive and significant impacts on income inequality across the income groups. The results show that the effects of the financial development metrics on poverty are different across the income groups. The results also indicate that the pillars improve poverty reduction for low- and lower-middle-income countries. However, there is a minimal effect on poverty reduction in upper-middle-income countries. The differences among these income categories suggest the need for policymakers to account for income levels when prescribing policies that could engender financial development and poverty reduction in the region.

This paper examines the effects of financial development on both income inequality and poverty by using the newly developed World Bank financial development strategic metrics. It captures cross-sectional dependence in the full sample of selected SSA countries and their income categories.