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The purpose of this paper is to understand how historical materialities might play a contemporary role in legitimation processes through the memorialization of history and its reproduction in the here-and-now of organizations and organizing.

The authors briefly review the existing management and organization studies (MOS) literature on legitimacy, space and history; engage with the work of Merleau-Ponty to explore how organizational legitimacy is managed in time and space; and use the case of two Parisian universities to illustrate the main arguments of the paper.

The paper develops a history-based phenomenological perspective on legitimation processes constitutive of four possibilities identified by means of chiasms: heterotopic spatial legacy, thin spatial legacy, institutionalized spatial legacy and organizational spatial legacy.

The authors discuss the implications of this research for the neo-institutional literature on organizational legitimacy, research on organizational space and the field of management history.

This paper takes inspiration from the work of Merleau-Ponty on chiasms to conceptualize how the temporal layers of space and place that organizations inhabit and inherit (which we call “spatial legacies”), in the process of legitimation, evoke a sensible tenor.

The reorganization of the Portuguese national healthcare system around networks of hospital centers was advanced for reasons promoted as those of effectiveness and efficiency and initially presented as an opportunity for organizational transcendence through synergy. The purpose of this paper is to study transcendence as felt by the authors’ participants to create knowledge about the process.

The paper consists of an inductive approach aimed at exploring the lived experience of transcendence. The authors collected data via interviews, observations, informal conversations and archival data, in order and followed the logic of grounded theory to build theory on transcendence as process.

Transcendence, however, failed to deliver its promise; consequently, the positive vision inscribed in it was subsequently re-inscribed in the system as another lost opportunity, contributing to an already unfolding vicious circle of mistrust and cynicism. The study contributes to the literature on organizational paradoxes and its effects on the reproduction of vicious circles.

The search for efficiency and effectiveness through strategies of transcendence often entails managing paradoxical tensions.

The case was researched during the global financial crisis, which as austerity gripped the southern Eurozone gave rise to governmental decisions aimed at improving the efficiency of organizational healthcare resources. There was a sequence of advances and retreats in decision making at the governmental level that gave rise to mistrust and cynicism at operational levels (organizations, teams and individuals). One consequence of increasing cynicism at lower levels was that as further direction for change came from higher levels it became interpreted in practice as just another turn in a vicious circle of failed reform.

The authors contribute to the organizational literature on paradoxes by empirically researching a themes that has been well theorized (Smith and Lewis, 2011) but less researched empirically. The authors followed the process in vivo, as it unfolded in the context of complex strategic change at multiple centers.

Draws a distinction, via the edited text of an interview, between a sociology of postmodernity and postmodernism: the latter has an emphasis on theory and its intertextuality while the former would focus more evidently on discontinuities in the empirical world which serve to mark a difference from the ways in which that world has been appropriated and appreciated through a more modernist perspective. For organization theory the difference is articulated in particular by the awareness that there are now counter‐factuals available to challenge some predominant assumptions about the way in which organization occurs. The assumptions have a predominantly “Western” basis; some elements of the challenge come from an increasing knowledge of the specificities of Asian practice. A crucial axis for comparison between relevant tendencies towards “modernism” and “postmodernism” is that of “differentiation”. Proposes that modernist tendencies are towards the increase of differentiation, postmodern towards the increase of de‐differentiation – the throwing into reverse of the tendency towards differentiation. Considers contrasting models of what a postmodern, de‐differentiated future might look like in terms of their democratic potential.

In this paper, some peculiarities of a Southern European country are made explicit, namely, how the attraction of new, “global”, management practices combines with deeply persistent, thus traditional, ways of imagining organization. The dominant Anglo‐Saxon and Protestant models of management may not be fully adequate to characterize management and organization in the Latin Catholic countries of the south, or those postcolonial societies that they inscribed in Latin America. We present an interpretation of why what are glossed by moderns as dysfunctional management practices persist, sometimes despite their recognized inadequacy. The contributions advanced here may thus be relevant to researchers interested in the route of transition from closed to open societies and who are concerned that all models need to be appreciated in context.

Reports a study of female executives (n = 30) working in the public sector in Hong Kong. The research captures a set of organisational practices in transition: from a colonial to a post‐colonial setting, and from a bureaucracy that offered jobs for life to one that offers them on contract terms. The concept of career motivation is explored in the study through three dimensions of career resilience, career insight, and career identity. Overall, younger executives (n = 19) had higher levels of career motivation and were striving to attain additional responsibility and authority in work assignments, while senior executives (n = 11) were concerned with holding on to their previous accomplishments and competence in their occupational role. Moreover, the more ambiguity and uncertainty existing in the government office, the lesser the levels of career motivation. The results and their implications for future studies of career motivation are discussed.

Taken from an inaugural address at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. Discusses postmodernism, particularly regarding Japanese influences in this sphere but also looks at the overview of organizational characteristics among other nations, particularly the US. Looks also at the changes which must happen regarding the labour market and for flexibility amongst workers and management to ensure future prosperity. Goes on to show that postmodernism is the improved model over modernist theories.

To identify the distinguishing characteristics and future challenges for the business coaching industry in Australia.

A telephone survey of business coaching firms was used to identify the main structural characteristics of the industry. Structured interviews with selected business coaches were used to identify the key business and professional issues they faced.

Firms in the business coaching industry in Australia have three main characteristics: most firms are young and small; most are not exclusively dedicated to coaching; and most have a poor appreciation of the competitive environment in which they operate.

The research identified three main challenges for the business coaching industry that will need to be addressed if business coaching is to develop further: the challenge of defining standards of service and performance that do not inhibit the flexible and personal orientation of the coaching process; the challenge of developing a more coherent and well understood perception of the nature and benefits of business coaching amongst industry more generally; and the challenge of establishing robust and durable coaching businesses that can take leadership in growing and developing the industry.

Business coaching is an emerging industry that is increasingly being used to provide learning‐based interventions in organizations. To date there has been little formal research into the nature of this industry or the services it provides. This paper addresses this by examining the “state of play” of business coaching in Australia.

This paper addresses the reasons why Chinese businesses have long been identified as subordinate to world‐class brand owners; why “global” own brand developments are considered to be beyond their competence.

In this paper, we use an institutional perspective to examine the difficulties faced by Chinese firms in own brand development, using empirical data derived from a research project into the business strategies of Hong Kong firms, and contrasting these with the case of what is one of China's most successful foreign ventures, Haier.

The familial form appears to be transforming, due to the employment of a growing stratum of professional middle managers and Chinese family business firms appear to be developing into fully functionally integrated hierarchies capable of product and market development of own branded products. Three institutional supports make this possible. First, the development of parts of the People's Republic of China (PRC) into a quasi‐market economy created a regionally close and large market. Second, technology transfers from leading overseas consumer product brand owners’ supported the development of more sophisticated products and firm capabilities. Third, a steady supply of skilled graduates from Hong Kong and the mainland enabled firms to move further up the value chain and exert more control over their manufacturing and related activities. To go truly global, however, more is required: social capital that connects the firm to the local and national party elites, something that mainland firms may find easier than those from Hong Kong.

Gaining the data meant negotiating access through young professional managers now emerging from Hong Kong universities and was achieved through personal contacts; thus the sample is a small four‐case study. The counterfactual case of Haier is derived not from original research but from website material.

Successful original equipment manufacturing business that goes global will, in addition to the institutional supports identified in the Hong Kong cases, also require elite patronage, social capital and political support.

The paper is of value to managers and consultants interested in international business in China.

Immigrant groups often pursue entrepreneurial endeavors in their new home country. Even though both immigrant entrepreneurship and organizational identity have received scholarly attention, there has been little systematic exploration of identity strategies pursued by immigrant-owned organizations. In this article, we develop a theoretical framework that draws on the concepts of liability of foreignness and social identity theory in the context of immigrant entrepreneurship. Our framework explores how immigrant entrepreneurs may negotiate identities for their firms through the development of specific identity strategies that confirm or underplay their national/ethnic identities in order to survive in their immediate environment. We develop a model that shows how these confirmations or underplaying strategies work both for firms that have an individualistic entrepreneurial orientation, as well as those with a collective/associative entrepreneurial orientation. We also suggest two contextual moderators to this relationship: (1) the image of the founder's country of origin, and (2) the presence of immigrant networks in the host country, which may alter the effectiveness of identity strategies in terms of organizational mortality outcomes.