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Maria Anacleta described her life in Milan as follows (Maria Anacleta dictated the text in English, and the words in italics refer to Italian terms she used):I am a Filipina, I am [Maria Anacleta]. I came to Italy (…) with two of my friends. (…) I saw Rome, France, the Eiffel tower. My brother met me in Rome. Then I visited my Mom. My Mom was here in Milano [Milan], I saw her, I have been in the house with my mother and brother for seven months.When I found a job, I worked in _ [a city a few hours south of Milan]. My employer in _ died, but my soggiorno [work and resident permit] was ready. I met many Filipino people here and when I have no job, I work as a parrucchiere [hairdresser]: I cut their hair, and manicure them, to earn money.Now, after 3–4 years, I am very lonely, I remember my family, I want to return, but I have to wait for the renewal of my soggiorno. I cannot go home without my soggiorno because without it I cannot come back anymore.(…)When I was in the Philippines, cutting hair was really my job. That was what I did. And I made my children study. (…) One of them is a nurse, one studied in the hotel business, and one is in computer. (…) My husband worked in Saudi Arabia for 5 years. I am in the Philippines, I am in my shop, I am cutting hair, together with my children. They are still very young. He worked in an oil factory in maintenance, as a power plant operator. When he finished, he came to the Philippine and I told him “ok, you are finished working, so I will be the one to work, I will be the one to go abroad because I haven’t been.”

This study aimed to investigate the sensemaking strategies employed by early-career employees working within organizationally constrained environments.

Grounded in the sensemaking-as-accomplishment framework, a longitudinal multi-case study was conducted, involving three early-career employees. These participants were interviewed multiple times concerning tasks they themselves identified as anomalous and ambiguous.

The study's findings illuminate how early-career employees utilize sensemaking strategies to accomplish anomalous-ambiguous tasks. These strategies are interwoven with deliberate efforts to mitigate organizational constraints that exist in the organization or arise during the execution of complex tasks.

Notable limitation pertains to the time gap between task completion and the interviews. Conducting real-time interviews concurrently with task execution or immediately afterward was not feasible due to constraints in participant availability. This research has implications for organizational learning initiatives, particularly those encompassing employee-driven self-learning components. Insights derived from studies like this can inform the development of effective self-learning schemes within organizations.

Previous sensemaking research focused on what takes place in high-reliability organizations. This study explored sensemaking strategies in workplaces that are organizationally constrained.

The purpose of this paper is to extend the literature on how actors manage competing logics in an organizational field. The authors do so by introducing the concept of organizational irony to the literature on how to manage competing logics, and analyze a collaborative cultural project encompassing actors subjected to competing institutional logics.

The case study is built on qualitative data from in-depth interviews, newspaper articles and observations.

The authors describe and analyze a cultural project encompassing actors subjected to competing institutional logics and show how they responded to institutional pressures in their environment with the use of organizational irony. Thereby, the actors could collaborate with actors subjected to a competing institutional logic and still maintain adherence to their respective institutional logic.

Most studies of how to manage competing logics asserts that one logic will prevail over a competing one, either through “battles” or gradual dominance (Reay and Hinings, 2009). This study supports and adds to Reay and Hinings’ (2009) finding that actors also can collaborate and maintain adherence to their respective logic under such circumstances. In particular, it supports two identified mechanisms of how this can be achieved, namely, to separate decisions and to jointly innovate in experimental sites. It also adds to these mechanisms by showing that this can be done through the use of organizational irony. The authors only study one cultural project in one organizational field. It remains unclear if these findings are common in other cultural projects or in other organizational field, and the authors therefore encourage other researchers to extend or challenge the findings of this study.

The authors believe that the analysis and findings can be useful for politicians to take into account and address either to minimize the risk of organizational irony or on the contrary encourage it as a source of reflexive critique of society and cultural politics. The authors also believe that the response of organizational irony to institutional pressures broadens the acting space of cultural actors, provide media and critics with an analytical tool to analyze and deconstruct practices that otherwise would risk to be silenced or neglected. Finally, the authors believe that an analysis of organizational irony has the potential to make people attend to contradictions and multiple meanings in the artworks under study in a novel way.

The paper provides an intriguing and complex empirical case to demonstrate how actors manage competing logics in an organizational field through the production of organizational irony. The authors believe that its theoretical contributions and practical implications can inspire future research on how paradoxes can be managed through the use of organizational irony in other projects and organizational fields.

After completion of the case study, students will be able to identify and discuss ways in which informal financing of the kind discussed in the case study can provide new or different opportunities for access to alternative financing schemes; assess the role of“social capital” in micro and small business development and to understand and apply the role of social capital for female entrepreneurs in the Global South; critically analyse and reflect on the new role of digital technologies in challenging traditional patriarchal social norms and exclusion and ultimately be able to evaluate the role of digital technologies in terms of its practical implications for female entrepreneurs; and understand the role played by socio-cultural and historical contexts in female-owned/managed businesses within informal sectors of the economy. Furthermore, the students should be able to discuss how these contexts provide opportunities or challenges for actionable/robust/relevant business plans for female entrepreneurs.

This case study aims to create a platform for classroom conversations around: context of entrepreneurship in informal economies, challenges of accessing finance, women entrepreneurship, opportunities of digital entrepreneurship and resource acquisition and social capital. Overall, this case study intends to inspire and cultivate additional voices to advance authentic understanding of informal business practices in the financial sector that go beyond traditional formal western settings. This case study is based on a true story relating to the “sou-sou” financing system – an informal financing scheme – originating from West Africa which has been transported to other parts of the world including Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and other parts of Africa. The characters involve Maria, the main protagonist; Eunice, from LAC; and Fidelia from West Africa. With first-hand information from Eunice and Fidelia, Maria learnt about the ideological principles and the offerings of flexibility, trust, mutual benefits and kinship of the sou-sou system and was inspired to integrate digital technologies as a sustainable game changer for accessing microfinance. This case study draws on the contextual understanding of the economy in the Global South as well as the gender-based aspects of entrepreneurship as key aspects of women entrepreneurship and digital entrepreneurship. The sou-sou system is presented as a practical solution to the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs in the Global South to access finances, and the integration of digital technologies is considered instrumental not only in reinforcing the traditional system but also in transforming the entrepreneurial prospects for these women.

This teaching activity is aimed at postgraduate students in Master of Management and Master of Business Administration programmes. It can also be used for short executive courses, specialised PhD seminars and advanced bachelor programmes. This case study could be taught in the field of entrepreneurship in areas related to technology, gender, women entrepreneurship and financing in the context of the Global South.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

Association Football (football) is currently recognised as the world's most popular women's sport (Andersson & Barker-Ruchti, 2019; Dunn & Welford, 2017). In this chapter, we build upon a Foucauldian-informed feminist body of work (e.g. Barker-Ruchti & Tinning, 2010; Liao & Markula, 2009; Markula, 2003) to analyse the impact of the ‘shift in approach and purpose’ in the women's game (Rosso, 2010). And, in doing so, seek to explore how the relations of power operating in the context of women's elite and professional football have changed over the last 20 years. Moreover, we consider the implications of these changes for both elite female players and those responsible for their development and welfare. To achieve our aim, we compare the experiences of two players (Christine and Maria, pseudonyms) from opposite ends of the last 20 years, all the while recognising that the partial and situated insights we provide in relation to these shifts are inevitably tied to the intersections of marginalised (female) and privileged (white, able-bodied, heterosexual, middle-class) subject positions.

Jerry feels good as he leaves his office for the day. He takes pride in being CEO of a Healthcare System that provides much-needed services to the urban poor often in difficult circumstances. He reflects that his career has been an interesting journey. He had started as an accountant with Price Waterhouse, but found the work and time pressures very heavy. Wanting to spend more time with his family, he moved to the a health care system and rose to Controller. There had been a period while Controller when he wondered whether he had made an error in making the change, given the financial turbulence his health care system experienced with the transition to managed care. He experienced no less stress than at Price Waterhouse as he assisted his new employer to manage a turnaround to eliminate waste and reposition the system within a solid financial model. But he emerged from the turnaround with a new sense of direction and drive. Subsequently, seven years ago Healthhelp chose him as its Chief Financial Officer and he’s been CEO for almost three years. Today he’s excited about the new marketing plan he just reviewed which promises to give Healthhelp a bigger share of the home care market.

The purpose of this paper is to address both the neglect of non-Anglo-centric accounting gendered practices beyond the predominant professional setting and the controversial roles of women and accounting in power relationships inside the household. Analyzing a Spanish upper-middle class Catholic family in the early nineteenth century, the research focuses on the reciprocal interaction of accounting with practices and processes of daily life in a rigid patriarchal socio-cultural and juridical context.

This microhistory draws upon several archives, including in Spain the Archivo Histórico Provincial de Cádiz. In England, the Bath Record Office has preserved documents and correspondence, both personal and business related, and the Worcester Record Office preserved notarial documents concerning the family. The large number of letters which have survived has facilitated an in-depth study of the people who were affected by accounting calculations.

In a juridical context where women were conceived as merely the means for the circulation of property between two families, the evidence shows that accounting provided the proof of women’s patrimony value and the means to facilitate their recovery in this cosification process. Although women had a little involvement in the household’s accounting and management, they demonstrated confidence in accounting, fulfilling a stewardship function for the resources received. Also, evidence shows that by using accounting practices to shield supposedly defenseless women, this reinforced male domination over women and promoted the view that the role of women was as an ornament and in need of a good husband.

Contrasting with the Anglo-Saxon contemporary context, the Spanish law preserved a woman’s property rights, guaranteeing recovery of properties owned by her before marriage should the marriage be legally annulled or be dissolved because one of the spouses’ death. This required a detailed accounting of the wife’s properties brought to her marriage, most especially regarding the dowry provided by her family.

This study aims to explore and identify the information-seeking process and practices of those searching for the forcefully disappeared in Colombia. It answers the questions; how do families in Colombia seek information about a disappearance, how is this seeking process mediated and how are information barriers dealt with?

Based on document analysis and interviews with families and NGO representatives, this bottom-up study explores the trajectory of the families' information-seeking process to highlight the most salient information practices.

A general trajectory of a search for information is laid out. The overwhelming barriers to information forces families to carry the burden of becoming information providers. NGOs provide situated learning on how to document a disappearance and deal with the state. This knowledge is passed on to families creating communities of practices. The information produced here becomes the main source of knowledge about this crime.

It makes a new contribution to the field of information practices by introducing the context of enforced disappearances using the example of Colombia, identifying a significant information-seeking process.

To examine aging Puerto Ricans’ experiences with and perceptions of depression treatment.

In-depth analysis of eight exemplary cases from ethnographic interviews with a subsample of 16 aging Puerto Ricans in the Boston area who are part of the Boston Puerto Rican Health Study.

The results show that respondents were resistant to accepting pharmacological treatment for their depression, and they often characterized antidepressants as “dope.” Moreover, they claimed that in addition to their health problems, social stressors such as financial strain, lack of jobs, housing problems, and social isolation are triggering or contributing to their depression. Because of this, they express reluctance in accepting clinical treatment only, and suggest that broader social issues and other health needs ought to be addressed as part of an effective treatment. For many, pharmacological treatment is acceptable only in the more severe forms of depression.

These results have important implications for improving the quality of depression treatment and reducing health disparities for mainland Puerto Ricans.

Even though recent studies continue to show a high frequency of depression among Puerto Ricans, issues of treatment quality are still understudied and ethnographic accounts are especially lacking. Our study offers an exploratory investigation of this unresolved research issue.

Expertise in English language teaching (ELT) is determined by being a white native speaker of English. Therefore, ELT is a type of aesthetic labour because workers are expected to look and sound a particular way. As nonwhite teachers cannot perform this labour, they may experience employment discrimination in the form of racial microaggressions, which are everyday racial slights. The purpose of this paper is to investigate what types of microaggressions inform several nonwhite teachers that they cannot perform aesthetic labour in private language schools in Toronto, Canada.

The paper utilizes a critical race methodology in which several nonwhite teachers told stories of racial microaggressions.

The teachers were told that they lacked the right aesthetic through microaggressions involving employers being confused about their names, questioning their language backgrounds, and citing customer preferences.

Future research must find out whether nonwhite teachers experience discrimination throughout Canada. Other studies must investigate how intersecting identity markers affect teachers’ employment prospects.

To prevent the discrimination of nonwhite teachers (in Canada), increased regulation is needed. The international ELT industry also needs to fight against the ideology that English is a white language.

There is little literature that examines language/racial discrimination in the Canadian ELT industry and how this discrimination is articulated to teachers.