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1 – 9 of 9Linda Du Plessis and Hong T.M. Bui
This paper conceptualises how managers psychologically experience and respond to crises via metaphor analysis.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper conceptualises how managers psychologically experience and respond to crises via metaphor analysis.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses a discourse dynamics approach to metaphor analysis. Conceptual metaphors were analysed and developed into concept maps through 37 semi-structured interviews with senior managers from different portfolios within 16 public universities in South Africa after #FeesMustFall protests.
Findings
Five domains emerged, including (1) looming crisis, (2) crisis onset, (3) crisis triage and containment, (4) (not) taking action and (5) post-crisis reflection. These domains shape a framework for the crisis adaptation cycle.
Practical implications
This study suggests that organisations should pay more attention to understanding emotions in crises and can use the adaptation model to develop their managers. It shows how metaphors can help explain affective and cognitive experiences and how emotions shift and evolve during a crisis. Managers should be aware of early signs of the crisis and its potential impact on their business operation in the looming and recognition stages, analyse the situation and work collectively on possible actions to minimise losses and maximise gains.
Originality/value
This is a rare investigation into the emotions of senior managers in the public sector in a social movement and national crisis via unconventional research methods to advance cognitive appraisal theory in crisis management.
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Linda du Plessis and Hong T.M. Bui
Underpinned by institutional legitimacy, this study explores how South African public university senior managers struggled to maintain legitimacy during an unplanned radical…
Abstract
Purpose
Underpinned by institutional legitimacy, this study explores how South African public university senior managers struggled to maintain legitimacy during an unplanned radical change process.
Design/methodology/approach
Gioia's grounded theory analysis approach is employed to analyse interviews with 37 senior managers of public-funded universities in South Africa.
Findings
This study's findings show that a change without proper planning severely damages institutions in all aspects of leadership's normative, empirical, moral and pragmatic legitimacy.
Research limitations/implications
This study contributes to the literature on legitimacy by illustrating the importance of institutional legitimacy during unplanned social change and the factors that negate legitimacy.
Originality/value
Though other legitimacy models have been well developed, they do not apply to such unplanned social change in organisations. This study shows a different angle of the legitimacy crisis under unplanned social change conditions.
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Thora H. Christiansen and Erla Sólveig Kristjánsdóttir
This study aims to explore the lived experiences of skilled racial minority migrant (SRMM) women who hold management positions in the White Icelandic labor market and to…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the lived experiences of skilled racial minority migrant (SRMM) women who hold management positions in the White Icelandic labor market and to understand how gender, race, ethnicity and migrant status intersect to shape experiences of privilege and disadvantage.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper phenomenological methodology was applied to analyze in-depth interviews with twelve SRMM women. Iceland provides rich context of high gender and social equality, but limited recognition of ethnic and racial differences.
Findings
SRMM women's self-efficacy and agency allowed them to source strength from their background and experiences of challenges. Through reframing they adopted a mindset of resilience and determination, proactively redefined the context, turned negatively stereotyped identities into positive assets and engaged strategically with barriers based on gender, language or migrant status. In contrast, the subtle and covert nature of racial prejudice in the context of the invisible norm of Whiteness felt impossible to address.
Originality/value
The study provides insight into the experiences of SRMM women who have attained upper- and middle-management positions. The findings illuminate the overt and covert barriers that the women experience on their career journey in the context of a White labor market that emphasizes egalitarianism and gender equality but does not engage with ethnic or racial prejudice. They highlight the role of self-efficacy and agency in deploying strategies to negotiate intersecting barriers and how that agency is disadvantaged by the invisible norm of Whiteness.
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This paper draws on research which began in 2006 with students in a graduate course on rural education. Its purpose was to find out what graduate students saw as current issues of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper draws on research which began in 2006 with students in a graduate course on rural education. Its purpose was to find out what graduate students saw as current issues of rural education, how that compared to the literature, and what they thought supporting agencies such as government and universities needed to be doing to advance rural education. This paper focuses on presenting the findings and initiating a dialogue that leads to further conceptual understanding of ruralness.
Design/methodology/approach
The inquiry design and implementation is grounded in theories of constructivism and personal practical knowledge.
Findings
Some of the more common issues for participants in the study such as, curriculum delivery; bussing; teacher training; insecurity in teacher allocations; and threats of consolidation, are synonymous with the literature. The data also points to the need for research in rural schools and rural communities which is set within a rural‐based theoretical framework.
Research limitations/implications
The study is conducted within the context of one Canadian province using participants from one specific setting. Therefore, the findings represent a localized instance of both curriculum research and literature review.
Practical implications
The study may serve to illuminate issues which can be expanded and become more global in its practicality.
Originality/value
The paper provides an example of curriculum research that is founded on the work and learning experiences of students and their instructor. This knowledge can play a significant role in determining future curriculum design; curriculum implementation; teacher training, recruitment, and retention while enhancing community development in rural areas.
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Instructional leadership is a major part of the responsibility of principals who achieve promising results in school improvement. This paper aims to explore the inhibiting factors…
Abstract
Purpose
Instructional leadership is a major part of the responsibility of principals who achieve promising results in school improvement. This paper aims to explore the inhibiting factors for instituting instructional leadership in elementary schools located in rural areas in Israel.
Design/methodology/approach
The participants of this qualitative study were a diverse sample of 64 rural school principals. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. Data analysis proceeded in a three-stage process that involved condensing, coding and categorizing.
Findings
This study revealed that rural principals refrain from practicing instructional leadership because of two specific inhibiting factors: relationships within the community, which make it difficult for them to implement a school leadership policy that includes monitoring and control and characteristics of parents, who disagree with the instructional leadership's emphasis on learning and achievement.
Originality/value
The findings of this reinforce argument that propose context as an under-used theoretical lens for understanding differences in principals' practices across different contexts.
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The learning objectives to be drawn from the case are to evaluate the various biases that women face in organisational life, understand the challenges facing women at all…
Abstract
Learning outcomes
The learning objectives to be drawn from the case are to evaluate the various biases that women face in organisational life, understand the challenges facing women at all organisational levels, understand the importance of adopting a proactive approach to change perceptions and discriminatory behaviours and processes and appreciate the role that an inclusive culture within an organisation can play in advancing and championing women’s progression to senior management roles.
Case overview/synopsis
The case highlights the challenges facing women in leadership positions in emerging economies and societies in transition like South Africa and explores the role that gender plays in the world of work. It focuses on the dilemmas faced by Alison Bourne, newly promoted to the CEO role at Bergmann Engineering Works (SA).The case shows that, despite the positive contribution resulting from the inclusion of women in organisations, women experience a multitude of obstacles. Some of the limitations highlight that women must work even harder to be perceived as legitimate leaders. These challenges come about despite research showing that the inclusion of women in the workforce improves company performance, enriches the knowledge base and improves the decision-making quality of company boards.
Complexity academic level
Postgraduate business students at the master’s level.
Supplementary materials
Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.
Subject code
CSS 6: Human Resource Management
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We are currently experiencing what is often called the sixth period of mass extinction on planet Earth, caused undoubtedly by the impact of human activities and businesses on…
Abstract
Purpose
We are currently experiencing what is often called the sixth period of mass extinction on planet Earth, caused undoubtedly by the impact of human activities and businesses on nature. The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential for accounting and corporate accountability to contribute to extinction prevention. The paper adopts an interdisciplinary approach, weaving scientific evidence and theory into organisational disclosure and reporting in order to demonstrate linkages between extinction, business behaviour, accounting and accountability as well as to provide a basis for developing a framework for narrative disclosure on extinction prevention.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is theoretical and interdisciplinary in approach, seeking to bring together scientific theories of extinction with a need for corporate and organisational accountability whilst recognising philosophical concerns in the extant environmental accounting literature about accepting any business role and capitalist mechanisms in ecological matters. The overarching framework derives from the concept of emancipatory accounting.
Findings
The outcome of the writing is to: present an emancipatory “extinction accounting” framework which can be embedded within integrated reports, and a diagrammatic representation, in the form of an “ark”, of accounting and accountability mechanisms which, combined, can assist, the authors argue, in preventing extinction. The authors suggest that the emancipatory framework may also be applied to engagement meetings between the responsible investor community (and non-governmental organisations (NGOs)) and organisations on biodiversity and species protection.
Research limitations/implications
The exploratory extinction accounting and accountability frameworks within this paper should provide a basis for further research into the emancipatory potential for organisational disclosures and mechanisms of governance and accountability to prevent species extinction.
Practical implications
The next steps for researchers and practitioners involve development and implementation of the extinction accounting and engagement frameworks presented in this paper within integrated reporting and responsible investor practice.
Social implications
As outlined in this paper, extinction of any species of flora and fauna can affect significantly the functioning of local and global ecosystems, the destruction of which can have, and is having, severe and dangerous consequences for human life. Extinction prevention is critically important to the survival of the human race.
Originality/value
This paper represents a comprehensive attempt to explore the emancipatory role of accounting in extinction prevention and to bring together the linkages in accounting and accountability mechanisms which, working together, can prevent species extinction.
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David Alastair Lindsay Coldwell and Tasneem Joosub
Strategies and policies aimed at alleviating poverty in Sub-Saharan African countries usually depend on capitalistically driven economic growth. However, the view that capitalism…
Abstract
Purpose
Strategies and policies aimed at alleviating poverty in Sub-Saharan African countries usually depend on capitalistically driven economic growth. However, the view that capitalism needs to reinvent itself to survive the crisis of confidence brought about by the recent global financial collapse depends on the extent to which such a shared value oriented, sustainable capitalist reinvention is embraced by emergent business leaders. A sustainable system of capitalism driven by business and community shared value can only take root if the hearts and minds of future business leaders are convinced of their cogency and appropriateness. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper reports the findings of an empirical study utilizing a Likert-type scale designed to measure corporate shared value (CSV) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) among a sample of fourth year accountancy students at a leading South African university.
Findings
Preliminary findings suggest that perceptions of this group of emergent leaders generally regard CSR rather than CSV as the “correct” business model for companies to follow. Although the sample is limited to one South African university and is relatively small, it contributes to the literature by offering insight into emergent business leaders’ perceptions and their view of the direction of CSR in South Africa should take.
Research limitations/implications
Implications of the paper are that by offering insight into emergent business leaders’ perceptions of South African society and specifically their view of the direction South African CSR should take, the paper suggests prescriptive remedial steps in policy that educational and other learning institutions could take to engender appropriate social values in learners.
Originality/value
The study contributes to the literature by offering devised and tested measuring instruments for CSR and CSV in the South African context and gives insight into emergent business leaders’ perceptions and their view of the direction of CSR in South Africa should take.
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