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Article
Publication date: 5 April 2021

Jonna Ristolainen, Virpi Outila and Rebecca Piekkari

The purpose of this paper is to explain the reversal of language hierarchy in a Finnish multinational corporation (MNC) from a political perspective. This paper situated the…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explain the reversal of language hierarchy in a Finnish multinational corporation (MNC) from a political perspective. This paper situated the language hierarchy in the historical context of the colonial-style relationship between Finland and Russia. From a post-colonial perspective, the colonial legacy of Russia has had an influence on language strategy and everyday translation work in the Finnish multinational until the present day.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper undertook a case study based on qualitative secondary analysis of existing data sets. These data sets originated from two previously conducted studies of the same Finnish MNC.

Findings

The findings revealed a reversal of the traditional corporate language hierarchy. Russian, as the host country language of powerful local subsidiaries, rose to the top of the hierarchy at the expense of English, the common corporate language, and other languages. The colonial-style relationship was enacted by professional and paraprofessional translators who collaborated by using “the master’s language and imitating the master’s voice” to reap the strategic benefits of local responsiveness.

Originality/value

In contrast to previous work drawing on post-colonial theory in the study of MNCs, this paper represents the headquarters in Finland as the “colonised” party and the Russian subsidiaries as the “coloniser.” Owing to its colonial legacy, Russian, the host country language, became very powerful and influenced the language strategy of the entire MNC. This paper conceptualized translation as a multilevel phenomenon and offers a holistic explanation of why the language hierarchy in the Finnish MNC was reversed.

Details

critical perspectives on international business, vol. 19 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1742-2043

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 7 November 2008

Alexander Styhre and Ulla Eriksson‐Zetterquist

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the concept of intersectionality. In recent management writing, a vocabulary has been introduced which enacts concepts such as assemblages…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the concept of intersectionality. In recent management writing, a vocabulary has been introduced which enacts concepts such as assemblages, multiplicity, rhizomes, and becoming. Such a vocabulary is helpful when revising the theoretical models used in gender research.

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing on this fluid mode of thinking, which is fundamentally indebted to a process thinking that favours becoming and change over stability and fixed entities as the primary analytical categories, the concept of intersectionality is discussed.

Findings

It is suggested that intersectionality perspectives, a concept developed to enable the analysis of co‐existing and co‐operating registers of knowledge and power, may inform gender and diversity studies and organization theory in general. Rather than reducing all sorts of identities or subject‐positions to a single plane, intersectionality perspectives conceive of identity as being derived from different registers functioning as shifting planes, at times operating detachedly from one another; in other cases directly overlapping and even clashing.

Practical implications

Intersectionality thinking is capable of influencing a variety of organizational and managerial practices.

Originality/value

The paper seeks to bridge process thinking, gender theory, and diversity management literature through introducing the concept of intersectionality as a helpful tool when thinking of organizational practice.

Details

Gender in Management: An International Journal, vol. 23 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1754-2413

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 October 2008

William De Maria

The paper aims to examine how the measurement of African “corruption” has been manipulated to serve western economic interests.

4693

Abstract

Purpose

The paper aims to examine how the measurement of African “corruption” has been manipulated to serve western economic interests.

Design/methodology/approach

In depth secondary source analysis within a post‐colonial framework.

Findings

The most popular measure of corruption, Transparency International's corruption perception index (CPI), is a flawed instrument. Capable only of calculating proxies of corruption, the measure is oblivious to cultural variance and is business‐centric in style. The CPI is embraced in good faith by African governments and donor organisations oblivious to its deeper purpose of serving western economic and geo‐political interests under the guise of weeding out something falsely portrayed as a universal negative.

Practical implications

The paper will assist efforts to ground the anti‐corruption effort in the realities of Africa.

Originality/value

The paper is part of a minority scholarship that seeks to provide space for the consideration of alternatives to the dominant conceptions of corruption and its measurement.

Details

International Journal of Public Sector Management, vol. 21 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3558

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 May 2008

Bill de Maria

The purpose of this paper is to provide space for the consideration of alternatives to the dominant conceptions of corruption and its measurement.

3730

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to provide space for the consideration of alternatives to the dominant conceptions of corruption and its measurement.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper provides an in‐depth secondary source analysis within a post‐colonial framework.

Findings

The paper demonstrates how public administration can be subverted to the agenda of business by the way the measurement and management of African “corruption” is manipulated to serve Western economic interests. The conclusion reached is that the most popular measure of corruption, Transparency International's (TIs) corruption perception index (CPI), is a flawed instrument, capable only of calculating vague proxies of corruption. The index is oblivious to cultural variance and is business‐centric in style and philosophy.

Originality/value

The paper represents one of the first attempts to expose the business serving purpose of TI's CPI. A fresh approach to corruption is advocated around two principles; corruption cannot be comprehended outside the experience, nor can it submit to empirical investigation. A new corruption‐fighting role for the African Union is envisaged.

Details

Critical perspectives on international business, vol. 4 no. 2/3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1742-2043

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 May 2015

Rafael Borim-de-Souza, Zandra Balbinot, Eric Ford Travis, Luciano Munck and Adriana Roseli Wünsch Takahashi

– The purpose of this paper is to characterize sustainable development and sustainability as study objects for comparative management theory.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to characterize sustainable development and sustainability as study objects for comparative management theory.

Design/methodology/approach

The primary objective of this paper is to characterize sustainable development and sustainability as study objects for comparative management theory.

Findings

Analytical dimensions were related to establishing three proposals, which represent possible theoretical routes for characterizing sustainable development and sustainability as study objects for comparative management theory. A framework which illustrates the theoretical route taken to develop these proposals is presented at the end of the theoretical-analytical discussions.

Research limitations/implications

This paper considers that discussion about sustainable development, sustainability and comparative management theory, as interesting themes for organizational studies, lack epistemological clarity and theoretical depth. Such shortcomings are identified based upon the difficulty in identifying ontological postures, epistemological perspectives, dominant paradigms and conceptual approaches that enable greater coherence to analysis of these themes, and also support the undertaking of research that can contribute to enriching proposals related to comparative management theory.

Originality/value

This is an innovative paper as it relates comparative management theory approaches with structural concepts from sustainable development and sustainability developed using contributions from organizational theories, sociological reflections, and political science. The proposed characterization is intended to blaze new and alternative epistemological paths for adding greater rigor to empirical research focussed on the relationship investigated here in a theoretical context.

Details

Cross Cultural Management, vol. 22 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1352-7606

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 13 June 2016

Liz Hayes, Clare Hopkinson and Alan Gordon Taylor

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the authors’ multiple subjectivities, in research and in practice which are ever shifting in context with each other. The authors…

1784

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the authors’ multiple subjectivities, in research and in practice which are ever shifting in context with each other. The authors present richness of understanding which can be revealed when researchers eschew consensus, certainty and easy solutions. The authors aim to show that plurality of ontological and epistemological approaches combined with diversity in understanding and subjective experience is necessary in qualitative research in organisations.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors take a playful and incomplete narrative approach in their critical reflection on the subjectivities being silenced or ignored in organisations and in academia. The authors present an unsettling and ambiguous read but the aim is to question the formulaic, linear, simplistic solutions and structures evident in organisations and academia that silence uncertainty, emotions, voice and creativity through standardisation and the rhetoric of collaboration for performance enhancement. This process the authors have termed philosophical violence.

Findings

The authors identify philosophical violence as a dominant theme in qualitative research, in organisational practice and within academia. In contrast, the authors’ embodied subjectivities preclude the reaching agreement or consensus too quickly, or indeed, at all. The authors’ embodied struggles add to the understanding of ambiguity, difference, critical reflexivity and understanding, providing richness and accommodating diversity and paradox in the inquiries in the organisations.

Originality/value

The authors show the struggles as hopeful and the non-collaborative collaboration as a resource from which the authors can individually and jointly develop new understandings of working and thus survive the philosophical violence found in organisations and in research. Honouring subjectivities is essential for rich qualitative research in organisations.

Details

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, vol. 11 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5648

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 13 April 2015

Frederick Ahen

This paper aims to answer two questions: How do technologies of governance explain how global governance is enacted? and What alternatives can be proposed for a sustainable future…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to answer two questions: How do technologies of governance explain how global governance is enacted? and What alternatives can be proposed for a sustainable future for the governed 7 billion?

Design/methodology/approach

Using institutional theory and Galtung’s (1971) structural theory of imperialism as critical theoretical frameworks, this paper confronts orthodox conception of global governance by offering transformative alternatives to inequality, a “historically situated urgency”, which is the product of a faulty global governance system.

Findings

Concrete, purposively sampled empirical illustrations on transnational corporations’ resource control and how “flight capital” fleeces the poor to enrich the affluent are provided to aid understanding. This helps to explain how such secretive financial mechanisms perpetuate global inequality in health, education and general well-being.

Social implications

The study introduces the concept of compressed spheres of global governance. It is theorized that diverse institutional logics provide clusters of governors in coopetition that affect individuals and communities of places and communities of interests differently.

Originality/value

The novelty in this study is the concept of compressed spheres of global governance which explain how both visible and invisible systems shape all the worlds of the governors and the governed, as well as how they both interpret their lived experiences.

Details

Foresight, vol. 17 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1463-6689

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 9 November 2015

Sarojni Choy, Minglin Li and Parlo Singh

The purpose of this paper is to present a case for appraisal of the current curriculum provisions for international students. In this paper, the authors summarise the key…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present a case for appraisal of the current curriculum provisions for international students. In this paper, the authors summarise the key challenges of Asian international research graduate students pursuing doctorate studies in Australian universities to become researchers for the global communities. The intention is to advocate further research on current higher degree research curriculum with a view to enriching the developmental experiences of international research graduate students in preparation for global practice.

Design/methodology/approach

This is an analytical paper that adopts a conceptual and rhetorical approach.

Findings

The authors review a growing body of research on higher degree research studies and establish a need for appraisal of current curriculum provisions.

Originality/value

This is the first paper to concentrate on an emerging need to appraise current higher degree research curriculum provisions to enhance the development international research graduate students for global practices.

Details

International Journal for Researcher Development, vol. 6 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2048-8696

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 11 January 2013

Sonya Lipczynska

98

Abstract

Details

Reference Reviews, vol. 27 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0950-4125

Keywords

Open Access

Abstract

Details

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, vol. 13 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5648

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