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This conceptual paper analyses cultural changes in the use of the concept of “play” in managerial ideologies and practices since the 1980s.

The paper uses Koselleck's approach to conceptual history in order to map how play is used in new ways by contemporary organisations. Organisational cultures characterised by “playfulness” and “fun” are used as technologies of self‐governance. It explores a variety of sources which show how this metamorphosis of play into a management tool has occurred.

The appropriation of play by management indicates a significant propensity in the contemporary culture of work. A more complex cultural process is unfolding in the ways in which play and work are recombined and intertwined: work organisations are increasingly places where people work more on themselves than they do on work. Work has become a central therapeutic stage set for engineering and managing souls, well‐being and even “happiness”. In an increasing number of cases, highly managed play settings make corporations resemble frenetic Dionysiac machines in which the Narcissistic modern self seeks an utopia of perpetual fun.

The paper proposes a novel approach to critiques of managerialism. Equally, it offers a new conceptual avenue for the historical analysis of managerial ideas. The result is an original interpretation of the way in which management practices function in their wider cultural contexts.

This paper aims to define and articulate the concept of digital protestainment, to address how technologies have enabled boundaries to become more permeable, and in which this permeability leads to the engendering of new cultures.

Two case studies, within Second Life and EVE Online, are examined to see how digital protestainment, through the lens of cultural borderlands, creates a hybridized culture. Recorded interviews and textual analysis of web sites are used to illustrate the concepts of play, work, and blended activities.

Within virtual environments the process of hybridization is not only increased in size, scope, form, and function. The borderlands process draws in cultural elements through a complex interchange between the online and the offline, in which hybridized cultural bits are carried out into other spaces.

The success of the cases does not represent all digital protest examples and so this study is limited in its ability to generalize to the population of virtual protests. This study limits the realm of digital protestainment to virtual worlds but the concept could be applied to any form of virtual community.

Companies that host these worlds will need to become aware not only of what their audience is but also how that audience will mobilize and the likely outcomes of their mobilization. Virtual worlds offer organizational leaders a new resource for training, support, and recruitment.

The theoretical concept of cultural borderlands is expanded to the digital environment and introduced as a potentially new and useful tool to internet researchers.

The purpose of this paper is to report on a qualitative study that examined how pre-service teachers (PSTs) used mobile technology and experiential learning to critically examine the processes that shape places over time. During Summer course work that occurred prior to beginning their field experience and student teaching, participants explored neighborhoods and public spaces, and researched the history as well as contemporary issues relevant to the places in which their future students live, play, work, shop, and go to school. The use of social media as a forum for sharing and reflecting upon their experiences provided opportunity to critique neoliberal and race-based public policies, as well as support reflection on the relationships between geography and teaching about social (in)justice in the social studies. Findings inform the work of teacher educators who seek to help teacher candidates think more deeply about how spatial contexts inform culturally sustaining and critically minded pedagogy in the social studies.

This qualitative study included pre- and post-surveys and two one-on-one interviews between research participants and the researcher. Data were also gathered through the use of posts made by participants to a shared social media account. Interested in the interactive process of subjects and their surroundings, symbolic interactionism provided the methodological framework for this study.

Involvement in the study provided PSTs with new ways of thinking about how places are shaped over time and the importance of incorporating local intersections of geography and injustice in the classroom. Through experiential learning, PSTs developed a critical understanding of how place relates to who they teach, moved away from deficit thinking about people and places, and, as evidenced in the examples shared, approached lesson planning as place-relevant and culturally sustaining social studies educators.

The majority of students enrolled in teacher education courses in the USA remains white and it is well documented that most possess few cultural and geographic ties to the schools and students they work with as PSTs. Interested in the intersection of race, place, and teacher education, this paper discusses research conducted with 12 pre-service secondary social studies teachers (PSTs) who were enrolled in an eight-week Summer seminar course that preceded their Fall field experience and Spring student teaching placements to learn how they interpret their movement through spaces and their understanding of how geography, race, and agency intersect and impact students.

The purpose of this paper is to synthetize qualitative research on play in the organizational context.

Through a metasynthesis, the research premises and findings of 12 individual empirical studies were examined.

The findings of the metasynthesis showed that the research on organizational play has focussed on three central themes addressing play as fun, pros and cons of organizational play, and management of play. In interpreting the findings, seven perspectives of organizational play are constructed as follows: authenticity, belongingness, experience, social activities, generating, functions, and artifacts. The perspectives are conceptualized into three dimensions of play as the orientation of being-in-the-world, play as meaning-making and enactment, and play as creations.

The sample consisted of 12 studies, which provided a limited insight into organizational play. However, following the guidelines of metasynthesis, the sample was appropriate and of good quality. The research suggests guidelines for further research into organizational play.

Achieving psychosocial well-being at work and success in management requires understanding of essential personal and social processes, such as play. The findings provide knowledge that can be applied in management and other workplace practices.

The study highlights the divergent perspectives of the organizationally important phenomenon of play. The paper contributes to a better understanding and the development of play in organizations.

Sets out the issues peculiar to the Scottish workforce in sport and fitness, play and the outdoor sectors. Provides an exploration of the development of vocational education in the form of sector skills training for these sectors in opposition to that formal education provided at further and higher education level. Draws on empirical research gathered as part of a report produced on each of the above sectors and written by the above authors. The report was supported by the Scottish Skills Fund in a grant to SPRITO, the national training organisation for these sectors. Although labour market intelligence suggests there are various skills shortages in these sectors and a lack of qualified personnel, the tension between the role of formal education and vocational work‐based learning qualifications is palpable. Solutions to apparent incommensurability of the two positions are offered, designed to ensure that these sectors achieve competitive advantage from a workforce that is both competent and reflective in their work practice.

This paper aims to examine how and why finance is represented in cultural products. Focussing on an illustration by Norman Rockwell for the cover of The Saturday Evening Post, this analysis suggests that financialization is represented through the technique of visually incongruent humour. Humour relays the cultural value of the separation of work and play, and financialization is a tool to make sense of play as work. Addressing why certain financial representations are produced highlights the influence of finance in determining how and what messages about financialization are made public. This analysis of a single illustration suggests a need for further research into comparative and contextual studies of culture and finance.

This paper is a qualitative analysis of The Expense Account (1957), a cover illustration for The Saturday Evening Post.

In analysing the visually incongruent humour of the illustration, the cultural value of the separation of work and play is muddied by the lack of supervision and undefined organizational space. Freedom of travel and lack of managerial presence suggest that travelling salesmen face anxiety and uncertainty in having to account for their fun activities as work. Accounting is one tool of financialization used to interpret play as work by employees. This illustration was produced in a for-profit context and was therefore influenced by the financial decisions of magazine editors and customers.

Interdisciplinary qualitative analysis of finance and humorous popular cultural images suggests that accounting is a financial tool for making sense of play as work outside fixed organizational spaces. Additional support is given for studying popular culture and finance together, as popular culture is produced within a financial system in which financial decisions determine humorous representations of financialization.

This paper adopts a financial perspective in examining a Norman Rockwell illustration and makes the case for examining how representations of financialization are made by humour and financial influence.

Reviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Higher education in the UK faced a crossroads in 2011 in terms of its long‐term funding and development. In fact, it faced an enormous, multi‐exit roundabout with the universities careering round the junction without a clue where they were heading and perplexed as to the speed of change in their industry.

Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to‐digest format.

This paper seeks to take up the challenge of complex social, political and cultural influences, uncertain economic conditions, ever advancing technologies and increasingly diverse student populations. The challenge for educational leadership scholars and practitioners is to figure out what their work as leaders should be in new times. The paper aims to discuss the issues.

Drawing loosely on the theoretical work of Pierre Bourdieu, and a continued research agenda, this paper outlines a framework for educational leadership that can be measured, but is not prescriptive.

The central argument of this paper is that viewing leadership as a complex social activity that is not directly observable has the prospect of moving scholarship and understanding beyond the superficial measurement of what is directly observed to a thick description of educational leadership.

The framework presented privileges the philosophical and scholarly elements of being an educational leader over the administrative and managerial. It is argued that this is what is needed in the leadership of educational institutions for the future and a framework for preparing the next generation of leaders.