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Information is often defined in terms of meaning. Traditional theories of meaning, each with some drawbacks, have been rooted in language; but a more satisfactory theory of meaning may be rooted in information. Meaning can be defined as coordinated action toward some end. In this sense, the meaning of something is the way it affords and constrains actions, and it is therefore inextricable from its context. Meaning can be discussed in several senses, including personal, social, environmental, historical, political, etc. Because information studies is concerned with the intersection of people and information, two key conceptualizations of meaning are personal meaning and social meaning. When activities have this meaningful dimension, they make a person's life feel more valuable and worth living, as a person and/or as a member of a group. In general, personal and social meaning include aspects such as purpose and connection with others.

The purpose of the current innovative practice paper is to introduce a technique to explore leader identity development and meaning-making that builds on the narrative pedagogical tradition. In this paper, we recommend a process for combining turning-point graphing and responsive (semi-structured) interviews to co-explore leadership identity development and meaning-making with college students.

The paper provides student feedback data on the effectiveness of the technique in improving understanding of leader identity and transforming meaning-making.

We hope practitioners can utilize this approach to build leadership identity development and meaning-making capacity in college students.

The current paper is part of a larger scoping review project investigating the intersection of leader(ship) identity development and meaning-making. In this review, we analyzed 100 articles to determine the current extent of literature that covers the intersection of leader(ship) identity development, meaning-making and marginalized social identities.

A review of the extant literature is included, and a conceptual model is suggested for further exploration into this critical and under-researched domain.

More research is needed at the intersection of leadership identity development, meaning-making and marginalized social identities.

As this area of study has expanded, scholars have noted an absence of research on the effect of multiple social identities, especially marginalized identities, on meaning-making and leadership identity construction.

This study suggests that although there are no apparent clues in the built environment of informal housing settlements developed by immigrants from rural areas, urbanization processes lead to acculturation. It is possible to trace this transformation by utilizing semantic tools.

Istanbul has experienced a major population increase due to immigration from rural areas in the last two decades. Most buildings in the areas developed by these new citizens appear to be impermanent and unfinished. This study suggests that regarding to the evaluation of such settlements some of the widely accepted assumptions may not be valid, and new ways of understanding involved processes are necessary. This study suggests acculturation occurs in such areas, contrary to the general belief held until the end of 1990's. These processes are explained with the semantic model of the ‘home’ suggested in this study. This is a temporal and ‘living’ model, based on the idea that as a result of processes of urbanization people's meanings associated with their homes change. This model is used as a tool to predict these changes in the meanings and explain them in relevance with processes of acculturation. The results of the study are expected to contribute both to semantic research and research on illegal settlements.

While there is growing recognition of the role of leaders as managers of meanings, leadership theories have so far focused primarily on the articulation of a positive vision, the framing of organizational issues as opportunities, and emphasizing potential gains and benefits for the organization and its members. However, these positive frames may not be equally valid under all circumstances and with respect to all issues. This chapter concentrates on exploring leadership as management of meanings in times of crisis and recovery, when leaders attempt to stop deterioration, turn the organization around, and lead it to recovery. We label this leadership approach prevention-oriented leadership. On the basis of an analysis of a series of weekly e-mail letters sent by the CEO of a large company to all organizational members over a period of 22 months we suggest that prevention-oriented leaders may use three related ways to manage meanings, namely (1) generating a clear picture of the negative challenge, (2) strengthening the organizational members’ self-efficacy and confidence in the organization's resources available for coping with the crisis, and (3) creating a sense of progress.

Most of the literature on strategic management portrays the strategic leader as a planner, decision formulator, and implementer of structure and processes. Theories of strategic management have not paid much attention to the essence of all leadership roles, namely the role of influencing others, and have not been much informed by leadership theories in this regard. In this chapter, I argue that the existing gap between the field of leadership and the field of strategic management can be bridged by paying closer attention to the fundamentally social and interpretative nature of the strategy formation and implementation, and in particular to the role of strategic leaders as managers of meanings. The chapter presents the idea of leadership as the management of meanings, applies this idea to the role of strategic leaders, offers a set of meanings to focus on when we consider strategic leaders as managers of meanings, discusses the link between meaning making and organizational performance, and attends to some potential dangers involved in viewing leaders as managers of meanings.

The authors explore self-identity construction as a mechanism of institution­aliz­ation at the individual level. Building on in-depth analysis of life stories of yoga practitioners who are at different stages of practice, the authors found that as yoga practitioners are more exposed to the yogic institution, yogic meanings gradually infuse their general worldview and self-concept. The authors follow the line of research which focuses on professional identity construction as institutional work, yet, opening the “black box,” the authors argue that institutional meanings take root at the individual level beyond the institutional context and beneath the explicit level of identity.

The design of a job is deeply consequential for employees’ psychological experiences at work. Jobs are collections of tasks and relationships that are grouped together and assigned to an individual (Ilgen & Hollenbeck, 1992), and scholars have long been interested in the way these elements come together to constitute the experience of a job (Griffin, 1987; Hackman & Oldham, 1980). Research in this area has traditionally built on a core assumption that managers design jobs in a top-down fashion for employees, which places employees in the relatively passive role of being the recipients of the jobs they hold.