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The purpose of this paper is to develop the concept of managerial controversy. This concept focusses on organizational disagreements in order to understand the emergence of organization, and also postulates that researchers can better understand organizational phenomena through the ruptures that occur in an organization's everyday activities.

While the concept of controversy was initially developed to understand the emergence of outputs, this paper develops the concept of managerial controversy in order to understand the emergence of ways of working.

The concept of managerial controversy demonstrates that the authors can improve the understanding of organization by focussing on the disagreements, the associations of heterogeneous elements, the mediators, and the traces left by actors, as well as by considering the viewpoints of these actors.

The concept of managerial controversy can be used as a framework for describing the development of organization over time. This concept is suitable for management and organization scholars interested by issues related to organization and organizing.

This paper offers an analytical framework for analyzing the emergence of organizational features from ruptures. Furthermore, the concept of managerial controversy extends to not only the literature of actor-network theory, but also to the literature related to organizing.

Research has recognized the importance of middle management in the strategy process. Nonetheless, two questions raised by the involvement of middle management remain largely unexplored; they are central to this study. The first question concerns the conditions of this involvement. Before the 1970s, middle managers were subjected to operational processes. During the 1980s and 1990s they often embodied bureaucratic unwieldiness. How, then, has an actor in an organization migrated from a position excluded from the strategy process to a key position in this process? The second question concerns the functioning of the strategy process itself: what are the conditions of strategic creativity in this type of expanded process? This paper aims to address these issues.

The approach taken is that of a longitudinal case study.

On the basis of a seven‐year longitudinal case study of strategy practices in a firm facing radical change, this article pinpoints two research results. The first result shows that becoming a strategist is not the simple result of training in strategy techniques. Involvement in the strategy process goes beyond the cognitive dimension; it entails the construction of new systems of roles and identities, along with development of appropriate dialogue modes. The second result is more interesting, and was largely unpredicted. The observations indicate that to achieve the necessary strategic creativity, the strategizing process itself must be transformed. If strategy is envisioned as an emerging social reality made up of strong situations and interactions between strategists, in a dynamic context structured by role systems, spatial and temporal conditions and discourse, developing a new strategy necessitates transformation of its social fabric.

Understanding the microprocesses at play in the inclusion of middle managers in the strategy process is important to help companies better conceive and apply their policy of including middle managers in the strategy process. This entails the definition of activity content and new skills required, along with career and loyalty building, and of the forms of organization in which middle managers evolve and develop. In this sense, the approach we proposed can be practical for companies and their stakeholders facing these challenges.

The longitudinal and very detailed case study over a long period of middle managers doing strategy during a radical change situation.

Reporting data collected by observation of the total work activities of 21 manufacturing managers in the UK, this article investigates the controversy: “Are managerial jobs similar or different to each other?” The data shows that, contrary to substantial inference within the literature, significant differences can be distinguished between managerial jobs. Specific attention is directed towards the work activity differences between quality assurance and production managers. The former are shown to work with less physical intensity, make more non‐routine decisions, pursue less definable objectives and enjoy a less cooperative environment than the latter. Finally, the article raises the question of whether manufacturing managers (other than quality assurance managers) are sympathetic to the wider aims of quality assurance.

This is a guide to networking; how to establish new groups and increase the creativity of those already in existence.

The majority of manager development programmes may be described as “piecemeal”, and the purpose of this article is to present a strategy for a unified programme — in which the various components are working in harmony. The author develops a systems view of a programme, listing eight essential principles. For this programme then to be applied, the support of top management must be gained. The programme itself, in ten steps, is then described.

Collaboration is the norm in marketing and consumer research, yet the dynamics of academic cooperation are poorly understood. The aim of this paper is to probe the sociology of collaboration within marketing scholarship by means of a detailed case study of the seminal consumer odyssey.

The paper presents a history of the consumer odyssey based on a range of secondary sources.

The consumer odyssey, one of many collaborate circles in marketing thought, was a seminal moment in the development of marketing research.

This paper encourages reflection on the dynamics of collaboration and the collegial character of marketing scholarship. Also, the paper has implications for institutional policy, for example the RAE, which measures research as an individual endeavour.

This paper presents a rare reflection on the social dynamics of marketing scholarship. Although it focuses on the interpretive research tradition within consumer research, its findings are relevant to every marketing academic, regardless of their philosophical bent, empirical concern or methodological preference.

The purpose of this paper is to address the on-going debate in research on how a luxury brand ' s image of exclusiveness and uniqueness may be preserved in the ubiquitous mass medium internet. Specifically, the study aims to provide insights on how luxury brand homepages should be designed to evoke perceptions of luxury.

First, desk research on 81 existing luxury brand homepages and expert interviews are used to empirically detect specifics of luxury homepage design. Second, a randomised laboratory experiment is conducted to analyse the effects of luxury versus conventional homepage design on perceived luxury.

First, luxury homepage design differs from conventional homepage design in four main aspects: the use of darker background colours, the use of a larger or full screen space to present the stage content, a horizontal navigation bar, and a substantial reduction of elements. Second, experimental results indicate that luxury homepage design significantly affects consumers ' perceptions of conspicuousness and uniqueness.

The experiment was conducted in a laboratory setting. Future research could use this work as a framework and extend it to a field environment, analysing the effect of luxury homepage design on key performance indicators, such as site traffic and conversion rates.

The results of the study provide luxury managers with guidance for designing luxury brand homepages.

While previous research has mainly addressed luxury homepage design conceptually, this paper is the first to empirically identify key characteristics of luxury homepage design and empirically examine the effect of luxury homepage design on consumer perceptions of luxury.