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In this five-week study, two teacher educators and one preservice teacher brought console and virtual reality games into an elective middle school language arts course in order to explore aspects of literacy as a social practice. To the extent possible in a public school, researchers sought to construct the classroom as an affinity space, treat the games as literature worthy of thoughtful response, and position students as co-investigators. Small groups of students played games and reflected on their experiences in writing, class discussion, and a culminating interview. The evolving discourse was framed with questions designed to evoke student explanations of their thinking related to their play experiences. Thematic analysis of student writing, researcher field notes, artifacts from large group meetings, and final interviews revealed the importance of community to the gamers' progress in the game and to their well-being in the classroom.

The success of organisational development processes ultimately rests on individual action. A recent research study supports the argument that individual development should be the starting point for organisational development. The article takes the premiss that organisational reality is anything but rational and ordered, rather it is a world dominated by self‐interest, competing coalitions and conflicting goals. The ability to make a significant difference in this environment depends on the development of key individual meta‐abilities, those underlying learned abilities which inform effective management behaviour. Organisational development takes the form of “pockets of good practice” created by individual initiatives which serve as models for others in the organisation.

Considers the idea of taking personal responsibility for career development and contributing to the organization via the development of meta‐abilities. Provides an explanation of meta‐abilities and examines the implications for the way they are developed. The results of research into the role of meta‐abilities in the achievement of organizational change are reported. Concludes that meta‐abilities are necessary to take personal career actions and decisions within an uncertain organizational framework.

Despite the fact that recent anthropological interest in infrastructure has done much to illuminate the infrastructure asset as an assemblage of actors, technologies and ideas, an interdisciplinary approach is required to unpack how the infrastructure project comes together as an assemblage and to define the role that financial technologies and discourses play in shaping it. Here, an interdisciplinary approach is applied to a novel infrastructure asset, London's Thames Tideway Tunnel, in order to show how multiple actors and visions of the world are brought together to make the infrastructure asset come to fruition. The paper concludes that this interdisciplinary approach to infrastructure can allow us to keep multiple sides of the infrastructure project in sight simultaneously. This includes both the creation of a rhetorical vision and spectacle around the asset, and the underlying financial arrangements that bind it together. If we do so, we can understand how new infrastructural forms utilise particular financial technologies and ideas to change the relationship between the public and the private, and between consumers and providers, and act towards the creation of a new ‘public good’ that normalises private provision.

Aims to substantiate a previous study conducted in 1960 which explored the links between work and non‐work activities. Three types of links between leisure and work activity were proposed: compensation, spillover and segmental participation. Reports on a 1992 survey which examined the links observed from data gathered from 301 managers. There is evidence to support the view that segmental participation is the main link and that compensation and spillover are the minor links. Analysis of the percentages, modes and correlations all suggest that independent management development is edged to the margins by each link and in distinctive ways.

Fastenal's strategy is to pinch every penny twice before letting it go. So far, it's working.

As part of a larger study into the influence of a Writers in the Schools (WITS) professional development consultancy, this narrative inquiry began just as Hurricane Harvey, the second most costly hurricane to hit the United States, devastated the Texas Gulf Coast in August 2017 and drew to a close in late 2020 during the COVID-19 global pandemic. This chapter explores the 2017–2018 school-year interactions between WITS Collaborative writer, Mary Austin (pseudonym), and six writing teachers with whom she worked at McKay High School (pseudonym) in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. With record flooding and widespread damage causing school-opening delays, teachers, students, and WITS consultants navigated a rip tide of emotions as they strived to balance educational/professional needs and duties with personal loss and unexpected financial burdens. This inquiry examines how WITS teacher professional development was carried out in the midst of these trying circumstances.

This paper explores a phenomenon known as entrapment. Entrapment refers to situations where people become “locked into” decisions through the passage of time as distinct from actively re‐investing in failing projects. The present study examines Becker’s so called “side bets” theory which suggests that entrapment results from extraneous investments made during the course of employment. The exploration is conducted via two contrasting case studies of solicitors, one successful, the other unsuccessful. Analysis suggests some support for Becker’s theme. More importantly the study reveals that post hoc rationalization of events plays an important part in sustaining persistence. This insight raises a question. Do people become trapped by events as Becker suggests, or, do they largely imprison themselves?

Reports the conclusions of a study involving in‐depth interviews with 18 business leaders, focusing on the qualities and skills they felt to be essential for success in directing and guiding a large organization. These qualities include the ability to make sense of a complicated pattern of events and from this formulate clear goals for the organization; people and communication skills; integrity; drive and ambition. In selecting others, as potential future leaders and high‐flyers, this group of current leaders used the following criteria. There was high agreement that proven track record was vital, both as an indicator of future performance and to establish credibility. Another important characteristic is the ability to take an independent (even unpopular) line, and defend it. As could be predicted, interpersonal skills, team orientation, commitment and motivation were also seen as important.