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Thomas Hardy (1840–1928), careful plotter of the fictional region of “Wessex,” is a novelist both acutely aware of the role of space in his works and remarkably fascinated by violence. Bringing these two significant elements of his fictional method together, this chapter examines the numerous violent spaces created by Hardy throughout his fiction. It focuses in particular on the ways in which different spaces, at first presumed to be safe, become invaded by extreme acts of violence. In the course of the chapter, I ask: How does this perversion of space by violence contribute to Hardy's literary aims? How do spatial relationships and boundaries intersect with his characterization? And does Hardy leave his readers with any hope for future spaces?

I suggest that Hardy's situation of acts of violence in a range of spaces, natural and domestic alike, is purposefully disorientating. It allows him to interrogate defined social ideas of “moral” indoor spaces and “wild” outdoor landscapes during the late Victorian period. There is, in fact, no such thing as a safe space in Hardy – spaces are ambiguous, changing and shaped by their inhabitants. The effect of violent spaces in Hardy, therefore, provides a challenge both to the conventional settings of nineteenth-century realist writing and any presumed knowledge of these environments. It might be tempting to see such spatial aesthetics as rather pessimistic, yet I argue that by dispelling the illusory link between space and safety, Hardy promotes a more sensitive awareness of everyday environments and our interactions with/within them.

Scholars have primarily focused on how language represents categories. We move beyond this conception to develop a discursive perspective of market categorization focused on how categories are constructed through communicative exchanges. The discursive perspective points to three under-researched mechanisms of category evolution: (1) the interaction between market participants, (2) the power dynamics among market participants and within the discourse, and (3) the cultural and material context in which categories are constructed. In this theoretical paper, we discuss how each of these mechanisms shed light on different phases of category evolution and the methods that could be used to study them.

Purpose – The broader aim of this research is twofold. First, we aim to better understand how the business computer was conceptualized and used within U.S. industry. Second, this research investigates the role of social factors such as relational structure, institutional entrepreneurs, and position in the formation of conceptualizations of new technologies.

Design/methodological/approach – This paper is theoretically motivated in the sense that it responds to the lack of attention to the failure of institutional entrepreneurs to change belief systems. Through detailed archival, network, and descriptive statistical analysis, the paper shows how the failed institutional entrepreneur fits conventional explanations for success. The paper then analyzes two matched cases, comparing the insurance industry's rejection of the institutional entrepreneur with manufacturing's acceptance, in order to identify what is missing in current explanations of institutional entrepreneurs.

Findings – Our analysis reveals that the role of the audience structure in interpreting the institutional entrepreneur's message influences the change outcome. In our case, the institutional entrepreneur's view of the computer as a brain that supported decision-oriented applications did not fit with views of the insurance groups who had centralized authority over interpreting the computer. Because manufacturing had less centralized control in its discourse around the computer, there were fewer constraints on assimilation, allowing the entrepreneur's views to resonate with some of the occupational groups.

Research limitations/implications – This paper develops a theoretical approach to institutional entrepreneurship that situates the entrepreneurial efforts of individual actors within a system characterized by the structure of its audience and subject to distinct historical macro-structural processes that present significant obstacles to the realization of their entrepreneurial projects.

This chapter focuses on a new school-level instrument for international benchmarking and policy learning – the OECD’s PISA-based Test for Schools (“PISA for Schools”) – and how it helps to constitute new global spaces and relations of education policymaking and governance. Unlike main PISA, PISA for Schools assesses school performance in reading, mathematics, and science against the schooling systems measured by the main PISA test. Schools are thus positioned within a globally commensurate space of measurement and comparison, and are encouraged to engage with, and learn from, the policy expertise proffered by “high-performing” international schooling systems and the OECD itself. Drawing suggestively across literature and theorizing around new spatialities associated with globalization, the “becoming topological” of culture and “power-topologies,” and informed by document analysis and interviews with 33 policy actors from across the PISA for Schools policy cycle, the chapter examines how PISA for Schools helps the OECD to directly “reach into” local schooling spaces. This respatialized PISA for Schools, or “PISA to Schools”, provides the OECD with the means to influence how schooling is practised and conceived at the level of local policy implementation, while limiting mediation by national and/or subnational politics. Moreover, the school-to-system performance comparisons enabled by PISA for Schools arguably provide one of the first – if not the only – international data-driven catalysts of school-level reform. This furthers the relevance and diffusion of “lessons” from main PISA and the OECD to schools themselves, and helps extend the epistemic communities through which the OECD practices its global epistemological governance of education.

Action films have traditionally been included in a category of popular cinema that enhanced and celebrated male heroes as the epitome of masculinity. Classical representations of men in this genre included notorious characters such as Indiana Jones, John Rambo or John McClane, to name just a few, who were conceived as characteristic of heteronormative and male-based aesthetics. The films in which these characters appeared reaffirmed a model of masculinity that perceived women as just an accessory that complemented men's attributes, but there were other examples within the genre that offered more complex views in the treatment of gender roles. Therefore, this chapter will focus on the evolution of the roles played by men and women in the Mad Max action film series, and will discuss how the representation of gender is determined in the franchise by the mediation of space in the generation of male and female roles.

The different representations of The Wasteland in Mad Max have contributed to locate characters in positions that have traditionally been associated with either men or women, such as cars, roads, wilderness or domestic environments. However, the evolution experienced by director George Miller's gender awareness, from the representation of the original Max Rockatansky in the first Mad Max film to his relegation to a supporting role in the latest production, in favour of iconic Imperator Furiosa, has provided a description of how the resignification of these spaces has been fundamental in presenting female characters as autonomous, independent and performative subjects, and male characters as active yet not intrusive participants in the empowerment of women and in dismantling male privilege.

In this study we examine how resource-constrained organizations can maneuver for competitive advantage in highly institutionalized fields. Unlike studies of institutional entrepreneurship, we investigate competitive maneuvering by an organization that is unable to alter either the regulative or normative institutions that characterize its field. Using the “Moneyball” phenomenon and recent changes in Major League Baseball as the basis for an intensive case study of entrepreneurial actions taken by the Oakland A’s, we found that the A’s were able to maneuver for advantage by using bricolage and refusing to enact baseball’s cognitive institutions, and that they continued succeeding despite ongoing resource constraints and rapid copying of their actions by other teams. These results contribute to our understanding of competitive maneuvering and change in institutionalized fields. Our findings expand the positioning of bricolage beyond its prior characterization as a tool used primarily by peripheral organizations in less institutionalized fields; our study suggests that bricolage may aid resource constrained participants (including the majority of entrepreneurial firms) to survive in a wider range of circumstances than previously believed.

This is the second set of lecture notes from courses in public finance published in an archival volume in this series. Volume 19-C (2001) was entirely devoted to notes from lectures by E. R. A. Seligman at Columbia University. Two differences mark Seligman’s lectures and the lectures by Henry C. Simons at Chicago, as reported below. Seligman seems to have been lecturing primarily to students in tax administration, hence he presented very little economic theory; whereas Simons was lecturing to graduate students in economics, and presented relatively more theory. Seligman did not refrain from some passing of judgment but his lectures were largely descriptive and non-judgmental; whereas Simons has no hesitation in presenting his own normative approach on various issues. These issues tended strongly to focus on inequality, tax justice, and progressivity.

Craig and Auzenne-Curl reflect on how their individual experiences and personal practical knowledge developed in context over time contribute to a collective review of the backdrop of the stories of experience shared in this volume. The chapter provides context for the study that inspired the collection and a preview of the chapters yet to come.