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Book part
Publication date: 12 October 2012

Larry W. Isaac and Paul F. Lipold

Purpose – We make a case for bridging two types of logics – analytic and dialectic – for explaining processes of social-historical change, and maintain that a successful bridge…

Abstract

Purpose – We make a case for bridging two types of logics – analytic and dialectic – for explaining processes of social-historical change, and maintain that a successful bridge between these two logics depends on a variety of conditions and most especially the type of analytic logic or model one employs for capturing dynamic processes.

Methodology/approach – Conventional models of social change processes typically presuppose ergodic social worlds and are problematic as analytic approaches generally and most certainly are not fertile grounds for feeding dialectic theorization. Instead, we propose modeling dynamic processes that begin by assuming a nonergodic social world – one in flux, one that is nonrepeating, one within which model process and parameter structures are historically contingent and change with time, one that is autocatalytic, creating and changing its own possibilities.

Findings – We develop the line of thinking adumbrated above and illustrate these modeling strategies with empirical examples from US labor movement history. Results from these examples lend much weight to our proposals. Thus, this chapter demonstrates that concerns about the use of ergodic assumptions and about greater use of dialectical reasoning when studying social processes are not idle speculations within theoretical commentaries but have practical consequences in the conduct of research and the building of better theory.

Research limitations/implications – To approximate such an approach, social scientists should avoid cross-sectionalist and longitudinal modeling strategies that presuppose stability and homogeneity in parameter and process structures. Homogeneity and stability in parameter and process structures should be demonstrated, not assumed.

Originality/value – Rather than accepting the alienated spheres of social science analytics and dialectic theory, our proposal presupposes nonergodic social worlds and takes pragmatic steps for estimating analytic models that are more amenable to dialectic reasoning. Models that take nonergodicity seriously not only have the potential to produce better, historically grounded analytics but are also best suited to bridge with dialectic logic, thus taking advantage of the strengths of both forms of logic.

Details

Theorizing Modern Society as a Dynamic Process
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78190-034-5

Keywords

Abstract

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 12 no. 4/5/6/7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Article
Publication date: 26 June 2020

Muhammad Naeem

The failure rate of change is high amongst countries and cultures where collectivism, destructive politics and resistance are high. Therefore, change leaders are more focused on…

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Abstract

Purpose

The failure rate of change is high amongst countries and cultures where collectivism, destructive politics and resistance are high. Therefore, change leaders are more focused on exploring how they can create networking and socialization amongst major organizational stakeholders that can minimize detrimental cynicism and lobbying during change implementation. This study is an attempt to shed light on how Social Networking Applications (henceforth SNAs) can facilitate change implementation processes in the insurance sector.

Design/methodology/approach

The individual reaction and interaction realities during the change process cannot be discovered once and for all as there are varied perspectives on the same subjects. Therefore, a social constructionist position was used to understand the different realties of change managers and change recipients using the context of insurance sector.

Findings

The study documented how SNAs can play an active role in addressing the concerns of employees as well as managing and protecting knowledge sharing to facilitate the change implementation process. The collaborative and interactive nature of SNAs can enhance richness in knowledge sharing and can facilitate the participation of employees. Therefore, management should monitor these platforms as a means to improve the change process and to address the concerns of employees. These networking channels which include WhatsApp and Facebook can enhance social interactions, support and acceptance at individual and organizational levels.

Research limitations/implications

Social media has become a familiar tool for employees to use to discuss internal changes and policies within their organizations. Social media enhances the richness, reach, knowledge exchange and effective internal communication potential amongst organizational change stakeholders. Using social media, change recipients are now more empowered and connected with their leadership that ever before. It is now easier to facilitate decision making during the change formulation and implementation process.

Practical implications

Social media applications have become necessary to ensure incremental and radical changes to the survival of dynamic businesses. The findings of this study are beneficial for change leaders and recipients of change to implement successful organizational change using social media tools. The effective and efficient use of social media applications helps organizations to foster knowledge amongst employees and they can address various critical issues, that is resistance to change, lower levels of knowledge sharing and support for change acceptance and lack of employee participation in decision making.

Originality/value

There is an inadequate understanding regarding how SNAs play a role in facilitating the change process in both public and private sector organizations. This study offers a social mchange facilitation model with the help of social learning, social networking and social behaviourism theories.

Details

Business Process Management Journal, vol. 26 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1463-7154

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 22 December 2016

Dawn M. Francis and Stephanie L. Colbry

This chapter explains how the Social Change Model of Leadership served as the process for uniting the campus on Cabrini Day around one shared vision of Leadership for Social Change

Abstract

Purpose

This chapter explains how the Social Change Model of Leadership served as the process for uniting the campus on Cabrini Day around one shared vision of Leadership for Social Change. It also uses Mezirow’s theory of transformative learning to examine the resulting transformation that occurred among students engaged in this process.

Methodology/approach

In an effort to showcase students’ transformation into leaders for social change, the chapter focuses expressly on students enrolled in one particular course. These students worked together to develop a live simulation for Cabrini Day that brought campus community members through the real-world experiences of unaccompanied immigrant minors fleeing to the United States to escape violence in their home countries. The chapter employs an action research methodology to describe how, when, and why these students became transformed. Students’ planning steps, actions within the live simulation event, and reflections on their actions were analyzed using the individual, group, and community values of the Social Change Model, as well as the tenets of transformative learning theory.

Findings

Findings reveal that the Social Change Model is a viable process for integrating curricular and cocurricular endeavors on campus. Findings also show that this process can lead to transformative student learning outcomes.

Originality/value

Integrating curricular and cocurricular experiences on college campuses can lead to significant student learning outcomes and experiences.

Details

Integrating Curricular and Co-Curricular Endeavors to Enhance Student Outcomes
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-063-3

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 August 2006

Melvin L. Smith

Better understanding the mechanisms through which individuals engage in sustainable change efforts has been an ongoing concern of both researchers and practitioners. While dyadic…

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Abstract

Purpose

Better understanding the mechanisms through which individuals engage in sustainable change efforts has been an ongoing concern of both researchers and practitioners. While dyadic interactions with others can play a significant role in individual change efforts, the purpose of this article is to explore how the networks of relationships in which individuals are embedded are likely to impact their efforts to engage in sustainable change.

Design/methodology/approach

This article develops a conceptual framework and offers propositions regarding the suggested impact of bridging and bonding social capital on each of the discovery phases of the intentional change process.

Findings

Drawing on a variety of literatures, It is argued that the bridging and bonding forms of social capital may each significantly influence the intentional change process, but in different ways. Also provided is an example of how the intentional change process can, in turn, be utilized to build one's social capital.

Originality/value

While previous research on intentional change has alluded to the importance of relationships to individual change efforts, little attention has been paid to the role that social capital may play in facilitating the individual change process. Considering the role of social capital in individual change efforts may suggest new avenues of inquiry for researchers, as well as provide insight to practitioners interested in mechanisms to facilitate change at the individual level.

Details

Journal of Management Development, vol. 25 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0262-1711

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Article
Publication date: 7 August 2017

John Holland

Problems arose in the “market for information” (MFI) during the “dot.com” boom, the Enron case, Northern Rock failure and during the great financial crisis (GFC) of 2007-2009…

Abstract

Purpose

Problems arose in the “market for information” (MFI) during the “dot.com” boom, the Enron case, Northern Rock failure and during the great financial crisis (GFC) of 2007-2009. This paper aims to extend the understanding of the MFI through field research and theoretical sources. It also aims to understand the MFI during relatively stable periods and during periods of rapid change, crisis and failure. It seeks to use these insights to propose changes to reduce the possibilities for negative change and problems in the MFI.

Design/methodology/approach

Field studies are used to develop an “empirical narrative” for ongoing MFI structures, processes and outcomes during relatively stable periods. The paper develops a “theoretical narrative” to extend the understanding of the MFI empirical insights.

Findings

The paper reveals that the MFI structure that includes knowledge and social context is central to ongoing MFI economic processes for MFI agents. Outcomes include changes in markets, firms and others. Changes and problems are means to understand interactions between the MFI social structure, knowledge, actions and outcomes as they rendered visible the previously invisible issues.

Originality/value

The paper shows that a coherent combination of new empirical narrative and theoretical narrative is essential to develop a critical stance, new policy prescriptions and new regulations to deal with problems and changes in the MFI. This provides the frame to propose changes in the “world of knowledge” and in (concentrated and elite) social and economic structures in the MFI. It proposes: making explicit shared knowledge in the MFI, monitoring change processes and promoting active formal learning.

Details

Qualitative Research in Financial Markets, vol. 9 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1755-4179

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 July 2011

Curt M. Adams and Gaetane Jean‐Marie

This study aims to draw on elements of diffusion theory to understand leadership reform. Many diffusion studies examine the spread of an innovation across social units but the…

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Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to draw on elements of diffusion theory to understand leadership reform. Many diffusion studies examine the spread of an innovation across social units but the objective is to examine diffusion of a collective leadership model within school units. Specifically, the strength of reform diffusion is tested to account for differences in instructional capacity and to explain the spread of leadership reform within Title I elementary schools.

Design/methodology/approach

A mixed method design was used to understand how social factors facilitated the diffusion of leadership reform, and to test for a diffusion effect. Qualitative data were derived from interviews, field notes, observations, and documents using a grounded theory approach. Open and axial coding techniques were used to develop coherent categories of major and minor themes. Quantitative data were hierarchical, with teachers and students nested in schools. A random‐intercepts, means‐as‐outcomes model was used to test for a diffusion effect on instructional capacity.

Findings

Strong principal leadership, a commitment to collective responsibility and shared influence, frequent and open communication, and time to build capacity were conditions that supported diffusion of the leadership model. Diffusion of the leadership model mattered for instructional capacity. Each indicator of instructional capacity was more prevalent in schools that had diffused the leadership model to the mentoring and sustaining stages.

Research limitations/implications

The study is limited to one type of reform and 36 Title I elementary schools from an urban and urban fringe district in a Southwestern state. Further, the study does not delve deeply into facilitative factors within various stages of the diffusion processes. It focuses on social factors that enable schools to bring the leadership reform to scale.

Practical implications

Framing reform as an intervention to be implemented in schools, rather than a social process that institutionalizes planned change, trivializes the actual complexity of transforming practice. Regular interactions among school members around the school's vision, coupled with leadership and time, contributed to reform diffusion and improved instructional capacity in this study. Reform diffusion, a process that takes time, strong leadership, and regular social interactions, needs to be given more consideration as a valuable process to improve school performance.

Social implications

The findings suggest that facilitative factors of diffusion can advance reform and improve capacity simultaneously. Successful reforms, defined as ones that disrupt traditional cultures and achieve goals, evolve through developmental stages that eventually lead to a changed culture. The rate of this evolution may vary, but the temporal process of establishing a shared understanding; designing, experimenting, and developing new tools; fostering expertise; and forming strong social networks are foundational supports for authentic and sustainable reform.

Originality/value

Reform diffusion offers an alternative framework to better understand the institutionalization of planned change in schools. The findings, while limited to elementary schools engaged in leadership reform, provide support for studying reform as an holistic social process that encompasses the design, adoption, implementation, and institutionalization of planned change.

Details

Journal of Educational Administration, vol. 49 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0957-8234

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 9 July 2004

Robert Thamm

It is the general purpose of this chapter to introduce assumptions, postulates and hypotheses concerning the social nature of human emotions. I will propose some universal social

Abstract

It is the general purpose of this chapter to introduce assumptions, postulates and hypotheses concerning the social nature of human emotions. I will propose some universal social causes of emotion categories by integrating Kemper’s (1978) power and status dimensions in dyadic relations to universal structures of human groups. These structures, of Self and Other meeting or not meeting expectations and receiving rewards or not, predict specific emotion categories. Power and status dimensions are added to the model and defined in terms of expectation/sanction (E/S) states, and are proposed to be universal as well. Furthermore, changing E/S conditions produce corresponding changes in power/status relations, and changes in emotion categories. These changing social structural conditions cause individual anxieties to emerge. Extending Kemper’s theoretical conceptualizations, gaining or losing power-advantage or status-advantage predicts syndromes of universal anxiety emotions.

Details

Theory and Research on Human Emotions
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-76231-108-8

Book part
Publication date: 22 July 2011

J. Howard Kucher

Social entrepreneurship is gaining attention as a valid field for academic inquiry and a useful tool for funding a social mission and driving social change. As they are…

Abstract

Social entrepreneurship is gaining attention as a valid field for academic inquiry and a useful tool for funding a social mission and driving social change. As they are assimilated, innovative mechanisms and practices often require a new vocabulary and context to support precision in communication and clarity in analysis. This chapter takes a step toward merging previously disparate fields that may need to be aligned to help the advancement of social entrepreneurship and offers a neologism to describe this process. Primarily, it proposes that the real value of social entrepreneurship is an advancement in non-violent social change.

Details

Social and Sustainable Entrepreneurship
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78052-073-5

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 14 December 2017

David Pettinicchio

Given the growing interest in social movements as policy agenda setters, this paper investigates the contexts within which movement groups and actors work with political elites to…

Abstract

Given the growing interest in social movements as policy agenda setters, this paper investigates the contexts within which movement groups and actors work with political elites to promote their common goals for policy change. In asking how and why so-called outsiders gain access to elites and to the policymaking process, I address several contemporary theoretical and empirical concerns associated with policy change as a social movement goal. I examine the claim that movements use a multipronged, long-term strategy by working with and targeting policymakers and political institutions on the one hand, while shaping public preferences – hearts and minds – on the other; that these efforts are not mutually exclusive. In addition, I look at how social movement organizations and actors are critical in expanding issue conflict outside narrow policy networks, often encouraged to do so by political elites with similar policy objectives. And, I discuss actors’ mobility in transitioning from institutional activists to movement and organizational leaders, and even to protesters, and vice versa. The interchangeability of roles among actors promoting social change in strategic action fields points to the porous and fluid boundaries between state and nonstate actors and organizations.

Details

On the Cross Road of Polity, Political Elites and Mobilization
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-480-8

Keywords

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