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This chapter explores the expansion of reality regarding the issue of terrorism. “There are those who argue that there is an empirically verifiable truth as to what constitutes the political” (Easton, D. (1968). International encyclopaedia of the social sciences (Vol. 12, pp. 46, 282–298), while others maintain any definition is a contingent social construction, with the disciple of politics dependent upon the nature of the political arena, itself dependent upon socially constructed and historically variable forces. Definitions of “political” are not discoverable in nature, but are rather a legacy or convention (Wolin, S. (1961). Politics and vision (p. 5). London: Allan & Unwin).

Regarding terrorism as an objective reality and subjective interpretation, this chapter reviews the definition, history, and perceptions of terrorism as it relates to the theoretical interpretations of constructivism (the meaning-making activity of the individual mind and unique experiences) and social constructionism (social interpretations of understanding).

The need to comprehend the notion of ontological relativity – that each person has a unique history from which to make sense of and create an individual reality that is valid to the self, while at the same time knowing that culture has an enormous influence on an individual’s worldview.

Thoughts, ideas, perceptions, and interpretations are important for all nations and especially in the United States because voters in history’s most influential, wide- ranging, hegemonic power are helping to shape American policy. Perceptions and interpretations (subjective reality) influence whether or not – and for whom – a person votes, which has long-lasting and far-reaching political implications. Once a vote is cast, that vote becomes an objective reality.

Data use cultures in schools determine data use practices. Such cultures can be muted by powerful macro accountability and organizational learning cultures. Further, strong equity-oriented data use cultures are challenging to establish. The purpose of this paper is to engage these cultural tensions.

The data discourse and decisions of four grade-level teams in two elementary schools in one district were studied through observation of 62 grade-level meetings over the course of a year. The observations focused on “data talk,” defined as the structure and content of team conversations about interim student performance data.

Distinct macro cultures of accountability and organizational learning existed in the two schools. The teams’ own data use cultures partly explained the absence of a focus on equity, and none of the teams used student performance data to make instructional decisions in support of the district’s equity aims. Leadership missed opportunities to cultivate an equity-focused data use culture.

School leaders who advocate that equity importantly guides data use routines, and can anticipate how cultures of accountability or organizational learning “show up” in data use conversations, will be better prepared to redirect teachers’ interpretations of data and clarify expectations of equity reform initiatives.

This study is novel in its concept of “data talk,” which provided a holistic but nuanced account of data use practices in grade-level meetings.

Traditionally, the kinds of ethical inquiry that one encounters in program and policy evaluation involve two broad matters: Evaluator (mis)conduct – that is, concerns such as conflict of interest, contractual obligations, competence, integrity and honesty, and so forth – and protection of evaluation participants’ rights to autonomy, privacy, informed consent, and so on. Ethical inquiry in both cases is typically guided by a set of ethical theories, standards, guidelines, or principles that an evaluator must interpret and apply in the situation at hand (Newman & Brown, 1996). For example, the Joint Committee's (1994) Propriety Standards speak to matters of both evaluator conduct – with respect to formal agreements/contracting, conflict of interest, and fiscal responsibility – and to matters of participants’ rights. Similarly, the Guiding Principles for Evaluators, endorsed by the American Evaluation Association (see www.eval.org), address these two ethical concerns stressing the evaluator's duty or obligation with respect to methodological competence, integrity and honesty, and respecting people. These are important matters in professional ethics in evaluation, situated largely within the discussion of the ethics of principles or rules. However, this view of ethical inquiry in evaluation is not my concern here.

(Editors)

The strategic management literature emphasizes the concept of business intelligence (BI) as an essential competitive tool. Yet the sustainability of the firms’ competitive advantage provided by BI capability is not well researched. To fill this gap, this study attempts to develop a model for successful BI deployment and empirically examines the association between BI deployment and sustainable competitive advantage. Taking the telecommunications industry in Malaysia as a case example, the research particularly focuses on the influencing perceptions held by telecommunications decision makers and executives on factors that impact successful BI deployment. The research further investigates the relationship between successful BI deployment and sustainable competitive advantage of the telecommunications organizations. Another important aim of this study is to determine the effect of moderating factors such as organization culture, business strategy, and use of BI tools on BI deployment and the sustainability of firm’s competitive advantage.

This research uses combination of resource-based theory and diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory to examine BI success and its relationship with firm’s sustainability. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and a two-phase sequential mixed method consisting of qualitative and quantitative approaches are employed. A tentative research model is developed first based on extensive literature review. The chapter presents a qualitative field study to fine tune the initial research model. Findings from the qualitative method are also used to develop measures and instruments for the next phase of quantitative method. The study includes a survey study with sample of business analysts and decision makers in telecommunications firms and is analyzed by partial least square-based structural equation modeling.

The findings reveal that some internal resources of the organizations such as BI governance and the perceptions of BI’s characteristics influence the successful deployment of BI. Organizations that practice good BI governance with strong moral and financial support from upper management have an opportunity to realize the dream of having successful BI initiatives in place. The scope of BI governance includes providing sufficient support and commitment in BI funding and implementation, laying out proper BI infrastructure and staffing and establishing a corporate-wide policy and procedures regarding BI. The perceptions about the characteristics of BI such as its relative advantage, complexity, compatibility, and observability are also significant in ensuring BI success. The most important results of this study indicated that with BI successfully deployed, executives would use the knowledge provided for their necessary actions in sustaining the organizations’ competitive advantage in terms of economics, social, and environmental issues.

This study contributes significantly to the existing literature that will assist future BI researchers especially in achieving sustainable competitive advantage. In particular, the model will help practitioners to consider the resources that they are likely to consider when deploying BI. Finally, the applications of this study can be extended through further adaptation in other industries and various geographic contexts.

Wonders whether companies actually have employees best interests at heart across physical, mental and spiritual spheres. Posits that most organizations ignore their workforce – not even, in many cases, describing workers as assets! Describes many studies to back up this claim in theis work based on the 2002 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference, in Cardiff, Wales.

Descriptions of research conducted within the interpretive research paradigm do not always capture its messy and unpredictable nature. The naturalistic inquiry described in this paper attempts to provide a candid account of some of the challenges encountered in such research. Interestingly, many of those challenges were consistent with the challenges associated with the process of learning to be a facilitator, which was the focus of my study. The study sought to describe the theories and practices of facilitator educators preparing facilitators to work in community organisations, training or education contexts, and business management settings. Following a brief description of the methodology and methods of the study, some of the unexpected symmetries between learning to be a facilitator and conducting interpretivist research are discussed. These included the need for selfawareness, practising intentionality, and managing conflicting roles. The strategies I used to respond to the research challenges I describe are also discussed and I encourage others to reflect on, and share, the trials and tribulations encountered during their research.

I aim to understand how informal relationships at work provide a supportive context for individuals and contribute to their engagement in an environment of disruptive change when they are likely to be stressed.

The research was conducted in three UK public service organizations during pre-Brexit disruption. An app was used to capture 400+ transient emotions, reactions, and diary entries of employees about their interactions with co-workers, colleagues, and close colleagues. This was followed by 25 interviews to reflect more deeply on those relationships documented in the app.

Interactions with co-workers, colleagues, and close colleagues are shown to contribute in different ways to emotions felt and different aspects of engagement. Closer relationships, less transactional and more emotional in nature, contribute to feelings of trust, significance, and mutual reliance. A typology of four close colleague relationship types also emerged variously driven by the depth of the relationship and sense of shared mutuality.

This research documents employees' lived experience during disruption to show that relationships provide support for the meaningfulness, psychological safety, and availability aspects of personal engagement. It maps the process of developing supportive workplace relationships that form the relational context with four sub-contexts, distinguishing work, and personal engagement by their different foci. Practical and social implications are discussed.