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This chapter addresses the common assumption that research questions are fixed at the outset of a study and should remain stable thereafter. We consider field-based organizational research and ask whether and when research questions can legitimately change. We suggest that change can, does, and indeed should occur in response to changes in the context within which the research is being conducted. Using an illustrative example, we identify refinement and reframing as two distinct types of research question development. We conclude that greater transparency over research question evolution would be a healthy development for the field.

Blues music is in the midst of its second revival in popularity in roughly thirty years. The year 1960 can be identified, with some qualification, as a reference point for the first rise in international awareness and appreciation of the blues. This first period of wide‐spread white interest in the blues continued until the early seventies, while the current revival began in the middle 1980s. During both periods a sizeable literature on the blues has appeared. This article provides a thumbnail sketch of the popularity of the blues, followed by a description of scholarly and critical literature devoted to the music. Documentary and instructional materials in audio and video formats are also discussed. Recommendations are made for library collections and a list of selected sources is included at the end of the article.

Lobbying of politicians by business and other organisations has spread across the Atlantic and is now working strongly in Brussels. With the recent expansion of the European Union (EU) to 25 member states, the number of lobbyists in Brussels will soon equal those in Washington. The expansion of lobbying has mirrored the increase of the powers of central governments. Key components of effective lobbying are universal: intelligence, strategy and implementation. Implementation of lobbying strategies can now be as intensely developed as marketing or advertising campaigns. Lobbying has developed beyond the pursuit of individual and defined objectives to the development of corporate reputations. Attitude research in the sector suggests that lobbyists have become an intrinsic part of the political process. The debate over the influence of lobbyists on policy continues on both sides of the Atlantic.

The article guides the process for each aspiring leader to develop his or her own unique approach to leading.

Executives and managers can deepen theirunderstanding of leadership by mining three sources: the burgeoning archives of contemporary leadership theory and practice, case histories of leaders and leadership and the classic writings of literature, history and philosophy.

More managers must learn to be leaders, and the best way to make it happen is to avoid the clichés, the leadership training marketing hype, the platitudes and the pseudo-scholarly research and take charge of your own leadership journey.

The core of the do-it-yourself approach is to learn to lead by doing. Mastering the role of a leader is a challenge that, like mastering any craft, requires continual practice.

The article is an antidote to leadership training marketing hype. Instead of buying dubious advice, potential leaders can seize the opportunity to be creative, to discover a personal approach to leading that fits the time and place and is compatible with their own persona, values and beliefs.

This chapter explores the emergence, growth, and current status of the sociology of sport in Canada. Such an endeavour includes acknowledging the work and efforts of Canadian scholars – whether Canadian by birth or naturalization or just as a result of their geographic location – who have contributed to the vibrant and robust academic discipline that is the sociology of sport in Canadian institutions coast-to-coast, and who have advanced the socio-cultural study of sport globally in substantial ways. This chapter does not provide an exhaustive description and analysis of the past and present states of the sociology of sport in Canada; in fact, it is important to note that an in-depth, critical and comprehensive analysis of our field in Canada is sorely lacking. Rather, this chapter aims to highlight the major historical drivers (both in terms of people and trends) of the field in Canada; provide a snapshot of the sociology of sport in Canada currently; and put forth some ideas as to future opportunities and challenges for the field in Canada.

William Blackwood, the founder of the firm of the name, saw service in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and London before opening in 1804 as a bookseller at 64 South Bridge, Edinburgh. Blackwood continued in his bookselling capacity for a number of years, and his shop became a haunt of the literati, rivalling Constable's in reputation and in popularity. His first success as a publisher was in 1811, when he brought out Kerr's Voyages, an ambitious item, and followed shortly after by The Life of Knox by McCrie. About this time he became agent in Edinburgh for John Murray, and the two firms did some useful collaborating. Blackwood was responsible for suggesting alterations in The Black Dwarf, which drew from Scott that vigorous letter addressed to James Ballantyne which reads: “Dear James,—I have received Blackwood's impudent letter. G ‐ d ‐ his soul, tell him and his coadjutor that I belong to the Black Hussars of Literature, who neither give nor receive criticism. I'll be cursed but this is the most impudent proposal that was ever made”. Regarding this story Messrs. Blackwood say: “This gives a slightly wrong impression. Scott was still incognito. William Blackwood was within his rights. He was always most loyal to Scott.” There has been some controversy as to the exact style of this letter, and it has been alleged that Lockhart did not print it in the same terms as Sir Walter wrote it. Blackwood came into the limelight as a publisher when he started the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine in 1817, which was to be a sort of Tory counterblast to the Whiggish Edinburgh Review. He appointed as editors James Cleghorn and Thomas Pringle, who later said that they realised very soon that Blackwood was much too overbearing a man to serve in harness, and after a time they retired to edit Constable's Scots Magazine, which came out under the new name of The Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany. [Messrs. Blackwood report as follows: “No. They were sacked—for incompetence and general dulness. (See the Chaldee Manuscript.) They were in office for six months only.”] Blackwood changed the name of The Edinburgh Magazine to Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, and became his own editor, with able henchmen in John Wilson, Christopher North, John Gibson Lockhart, and James Hogg as contributors. It was a swashbuckling magazine, sometimes foul in attack, as when it told John Keats to get “back to the shop, back to plaster, pills, and ointment boxes”. Lockhart had a vigour of invective such as was quite in keeping with the age of Leigh Hunt, an age of hard‐hitting. The history of Blackwood in those days is largely the history of the magazine, though Blackwood was at the same time doing useful publishing work. He lost the Murray connexion, however, owing to the scandalous nature of some of the contributions published in Maga; these but expressed the spirit of the times. John Murray was scared of Blackwood's Scottish independence! Among the book publications of Blackwood at the period we find Schlegel's History of Literature, and his firm, as we know, became publisher for John Galt, George Eliot, D. M. Moir, Lockhart, Aytoun, Christopher North, Pollok, Hogg, De Quincey, Michael Scott, Alison, Bulwer Lytton, Andrew Lang, Charles Lever, Saintsbury, Charles Whibley, John Buchan, Joseph Conrad, Neil Munro—a distinguished gallery. In 1942 the firm presented to the National Library of Scotland all the letters that had been addressed to the firm from its foundation from 1804 to the end of 1900, and these have now been indexed and arranged, and have been on display at the National Library where they have served to indicate the considerable service the firm has given to authorship. The collection is valuable and wide‐ranging.

This paper aims to enable the operations management community to engage with concepts from the field of complexity theory and apply them to the issue of organisational transformation. It begins by reviewing existing work on strategic change, then provides an overview of complexity theory to show how the conditioned emergence model was developed. A brief statement on method follows, which describes our research process in terms of mode 2 knowledge production. An illustrative case study is then presented and is used to highlight aspects of the model and the overlaps and differences between conditioned emergence and other approaches. The paper concludes that organisational transformation can be viewed as an emergent process which can be accessed and influenced through three interacting gateways, i.e. order generating rules, disequilibrium and positive feedback. Finally, an appendix is included which focuses specifically on the issue of the research process. Here, it is argued that calls for managerially‐relevant research will be best met through more widespread adoption of mode 2 as an approach.

This paper explores the practicalities of organizational change in complex settings where much change has already occurred. It therefore offers insights into tackling and overcoming change fatigue.

The paper uses a longitudinal study of change within a healthcare organization. The paper draws on interviews, focus groups and observations during a 2.5‐year long action research project.

The paper reports findings on the speed at which change takes place, the importance of communication and the burden placed on senior officers during such communication and consultation processes, the use of appropriate external resources and expertise, the benefits of sharing best practice across sectors and the role of academic researchers in change processes.

The paper offers valuable insights to those charged with effecting organizational change in change fatigued settings.