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1 – 10 of over 2000David Sarpong, Martin Nils Amstéus and Joseph Amankwah-Amoah
Paul Davis and Neil Pyper
– This paper aims to take a new look at how scenarios are produced and used. It does so from a perspective that is unusual in the field: network pragmatism.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to take a new look at how scenarios are produced and used. It does so from a perspective that is unusual in the field: network pragmatism.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper takes a conceptual approach.
Findings
A network pragmatist account allows scenarios to play an important role in actions designed to secure specific futures for organisations. It, thus, endows them with micro-political force. Any scenario that fails to exert this force will wither and, ultimately, die, but it can be resuscitated. With its demise in the networked world, a scenario can assume a more partial and private existence, shaping the affections, loyalties and actions of notable individuals.
Research limitations/implications
This approach generates novel propositions that question the adequacy of currently dominant cognitive theories. However, it has yet to be tested empirically.
Originality/value
Pragmatist reading of scenarios that is proposed is not only distinct but also only ever partial. This work emphasises that a holistic account of scenario lives needs multiple theoretical perspectives.
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Anne Tallontire and Valerie Nelson
The recent departure of Fair Trade USA (FTUSA) from Fairtrade International is the most seismic event in the fair trade movement in the past decade. This paper aims to analyse…
Abstract
Purpose
The recent departure of Fair Trade USA (FTUSA) from Fairtrade International is the most seismic event in the fair trade movement in the past decade. This paper aims to analyse recent dynamics between and within multiple fair trade strands and the attendant changes in vision and approach.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use and develop a framework focusing on the relationship between business and development to analyse the dominant narratives and practices of each different strand of fair trade. To unpack the various fair trade narratives, they have conducted a narrative analysis of policy documents and online debates in the wake of the split in the fair trade movement and they draw on recent impact studies.
Findings
The politicising narrative in fair trade stresses governance and voice based on clear structures of representation within the standards body, and recognizes the value of development inputs that do not focus solely on technical and quality development, but lead to organisational advocacy and representational capacity of producer organisations and the regional networks. In contrast “pragmatism” focuses more on economic empowerment and using the market to drive change, an approach that is gaining greater traction with the split of FTUSA from FLO, the most prominent body within Fairtrade International.
Practical implications
The analysis raises implications with regards to how impact analysis captures both the pragmatic and politicising narratives.
Originality/value
The paper's originality/value lies in its novel use of narrative analysis and its early analysis of the shifting dynamics within fair trade precipitated by the departure of FTUSA.
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Marie Kerveillant and Philippe Lorino
The paper aims to investigate how far the pragmatist concept of inquiry (Dewey, 1916, 1938) makes it possible to develop a processual and relational approach to accountability…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to investigate how far the pragmatist concept of inquiry (Dewey, 1916, 1938) makes it possible to develop a processual and relational approach to accountability, moving the focus away from a representational conception of truth and subjectivist/individualist views on meaning-making, toward collective exploration and understanding of an issue by stakeholders with the aim of transforming social practices. The paper studies an accountability process in action, namely nuclear incident reporting, and its role in the construction of a community of inquiry investigating nuclear safety.
Design/methodology/approach
This research opts for a case study methodology including 36 in-depth interviews, field observation and document analyses. The data are drawn from a three-year field study of a “Local Information Commission”, a body set up to represent the public living near a nuclear site.
Findings
The object of accountability needs to be constructed through a joint exploratory inquiry by accountors and accountees into reports of incidents as originally presented, to advance their understanding and capacity for action.
Research limitations/implications
It will be important to test this processual and relational approach to accountability in other types of situation, involving different governance issues than nuclear safety.
Practical implications
To turn theoretical stakeholders such as the public into real stakeholders (e.g. in the studied case, active participants in safety inquiries), specific social and managerial conditions must be fulfilled (concerning time, resources, commitment to open, taboo-free dialogue and legitimacy).
Originality/value
The paper argues that Dewey's concept of inquiry makes a valuable contribution to the processual and dialogical view of accountability.
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The purpose of this paper is to critique the metaphor of “shadow organizing” in relation to researchers’ allegedly ontological commitment to processual metaphysics.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to critique the metaphor of “shadow organizing” in relation to researchers’ allegedly ontological commitment to processual metaphysics.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper focuses on the association of “shadow organizing” with post-epistemologies that are grounded in process ontology. The investigation examines aspects of relational thinking and is guided by John Dewey and Arthur Bentley’s genealogical reconstruction of modes of inquiry.
Findings
Inquiry is construed in either substantialist or relational ways by researchers. By using the metaphor of “shadow organizing,” the relational aspects of organizational phenomena are prioritized for explorative purposes. Other research objectives are aided by substantialist modes of inquiry. It is the argument of the paper, however, that relational research approaches need not make commitment to process ontology, and that the relational ambitions imbued in the metaphor of shadow organizing are in fact better honored for their methodological virtues.
Originality/value
The paper’s original contribution consists in critiquing post-epistemological attempts to ground organization studies in ontological first principles of process metaphysics. The paper argues that the metaphor of “shadow organizing” is a promising concept that is better appreciated as a methodological move than an ontological commitment.
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Aluisius Hery Pratono and Denni Arli
This article attempts to understand the impact of global consumer culture and ethnocentric consumerism on global citizenship by identifying the mediating effect of cultural…
Abstract
Purpose
This article attempts to understand the impact of global consumer culture and ethnocentric consumerism on global citizenship by identifying the mediating effect of cultural intelligence.
Design/methodology/approach
The proposed structural equation model explains the relationship between global consumer culture, ethnocentric consumerism, and global citizenship. The empirical analysis involves an online survey targeted young people in Indonesia context.
Findings
The empirical evidence broadly supports the view that cultural intelligence strengthens the impact of global consumer culture and ethnocentric consumerism on global citizenship. There is a strong tendency in this study to suggest that global consumerism will not be able to contribute to global citizenship unless cultural intelligence provides as a mediating variable. However, the results do not support the mainstream literature, which suggests that ethnocentric consumerism harms global citizenship.
Originality/value
This study extends the discussion on achieving sustainable development by examining global citizenship leads to a better understanding of consumer culture theory.
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Sid Lowe, Michel Rod and Ki-Soon Hwang
The purpose of this paper is to promote the use of pragmatism within industrial marketing and purchasing (IMP), business-to-business (B2B)/network research with its enhanced…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to promote the use of pragmatism within industrial marketing and purchasing (IMP), business-to-business (B2B)/network research with its enhanced emphasis on developing adaptable, workable solutions to practical problems. The usability of findings and the study produced means that implications and impact become a natural part of the research process rather than an afterthought concluding a research project. Although the reader might feel that the approach oscillates between viewing pragmatism in its everyday sense (through the use of terminology such as “a pragmatic approach […].,” the intent is to elevate the discussion to one where pragmatism is viewed as a guiding philosophy.
Design/methodology/approach
It blends literature review and conceptual contemplation and challenges convention by “reading against the grain” (Brown and Wijland, 2018).
Findings
The authors do this to challenge convention and advocate for pluralism and diversity, theoretical evolution based on empirical evidence and increased sensitivity to the critical role of discourse, semiotics and abduction as a catalyst between theory, method and empirical activities. This conceptual blending portrays “activities” and beliefs as mutually constituted through the symbolic mediation of rhetoric and discourse.
Research limitations/implications
Existing elements of American pragmatism and discourse are identified as already a tacit constituent of the IMP oeuvre. Combining these approaches more explicitly is advocated as a suitable basis for a potential future “IMP 3” research agenda with significant potentials afforded to IMP and B2B marketing research.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the development and dissemination of alternative and critical perspectives in marketing theory. The implication is that activities must usually be justified by actors within communication as believable and this process always involves mixtures of rational and non-rational appeals. Existing elements of American pragmatism and discourse are identified as already a tacit constituent of the IMP oeuvre. Combining these approaches more explicitly is advocated as a suitable basis for a potential future “IMP 3” research agenda with significant potentials afforded to IMP and B2B marketing research.
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Pragmatism in the sense of harmonizing rules and reality for the sake of appropriate problem solving and overall performance is a ubiquitous phenomenon in organizational life. As…
Abstract
Pragmatism in the sense of harmonizing rules and reality for the sake of appropriate problem solving and overall performance is a ubiquitous phenomenon in organizational life. As such it has been generalized as an everyday requirement of making organizations work and a virtue of human decision making under the condition of complexity, strategic dilemmas or “wicked problems.” This chapter addresses both the theoretical and the normative dimensions of pragmatism in organizations, public administration in particular. The main statement is that the necessary theoretical clarification concerns the distinction between pragmatism and what is referred to as a logic of appropriateness while the normative limits of pragmatism refer to the necessity of ranking logics of appropriateness and related values plus the ability to act on the basis of accurate judgment which is primarily, even if not exclusively, a matter of leadership.
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Max Baker and Stefan Schaltegger
The purpose of this paper is threefold. To clarify what is meant by “pragmatism” as a philosophy for social and environmental accountability (SEA) research, to survey its use…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is threefold. To clarify what is meant by “pragmatism” as a philosophy for social and environmental accountability (SEA) research, to survey its use within this research field and to explore how a further pursuit of pragmatism may extend this research field.
Design/methodology/approach
An extensive review of the SEA literature was conducted in order to determine what aspects of the philosophy of pragmatism have been used within the research. The authors organised the discussion of the literature around the pragmatist ideas of “truth” and “sensemaking”.
Findings
SEA research is a heterogeneous space in which various ideas are commonly attributed to the philosophical notion of pragmatism. However, there is a tension in the literature between seeing accounting as a medium for representing social and environmental organisational activities and a pragmatist view of accountings as a way of allowing managers and stakeholder to make sense of these same activities.
Research limitations/implications
A clearer development of the ideas of pragmatism may be used to redirect the focus of SEA research in a number of useful ways. Seeing accounting as a medium of sensemaking between organisations and their stakeholders allows the authors to widen the exploration of accounting not only to the production of reports but also their interpretation by users. The ideas of pragmatism also allow the authors to explore the ways stakeholders might affect change within organisations and how accounting may support this process rather than capture or limit it.
Practical implications
This paper concludes by providing a set of methodological prescriptions for conducting future SEA research in a way that is inspired by pragmatism. It outlines an approach to research that focuses on users and their sensemaking and encourages an exploration of the possible ways accounting may create positive change in organisations.
Originality/value
Overall, this paper refines what it means to follow pragmatism within SEA research. It will promote a clearer understanding of how we, as a research community, may engage with practice in more positive ways in order to facilitate corporate social responsibility.
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Graham Elkin, Malcolm H. Cone and Jianqiao (Jim) Liao
For 40 years, it has been widely believed in the West that learning organisations would be healthier, flexible and more competitive than other organisations. By now, one might…
Abstract
Purpose
For 40 years, it has been widely believed in the West that learning organisations would be healthier, flexible and more competitive than other organisations. By now, one might expect them to be widespread. However, fully developed learning organisations are rare in the West. In contrast, Chinese organisations seem naturally to be learning organisations. The paper aims to explore the impact of Eastern (largely Chinese) and Western (largely US) philosophies upon the development of learning organisations and suggests that for learning organisations to develop in the West a different philosophical approach may be needed.
Design/methodology/approach
The Chinese worldview, and Chinese pragmatism in particular, are discussed in the context of learning organisations. A link is made with the American pragmatism of Dewey. These philosophical traditions are compared to the prevailing worldview and philosophical tradition in the West, which may help explain the rarity of the learning organisation in the West.
Findings
A pragmatic philosophy and a relational worldview allow the development of natural learning organisations in China. The recovery in the west of pragmatism and a relational worldview might allow Western organisations to move towards becoming learning organisations. Without this philosophical underpinning, it is unlikely that there will be more than visionary glimpses of utopian ideas for learning organisations.
Originality/value
The significance of pragmatism in the development of learning organisations needs to be considered as a factor in the failure to develop widespread learning organisations in the West.
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