Search results

This chapter looks at the discursive dimension of the working environment in research and higher education organizations; more specifically at neoliberal managerial discourse and at how it participates in shaping the way researchers, teachers and support staff perceive themselves and their experiences. It is based on a multiple case study and combines an intersectional and a socio-clinical approach. The empirical data is constituted by in-depth interviews with women conducted in Ireland and Chile, and includes some observations made in France. A thematic analysis of individual narratives of self-ascribed experiences of being bullied enables to look behind the veil drawn by managerial discourse, thus providing insights into power vectors and power domains contributing to workplace violence. It also shows that workplace bullying may reinforce identification to undervalued social categories. This contribution argues that neoliberal managerial discourse, by encouraging social representations of “neutral” individuals at work, or else celebrating their “diversity,” conceals power relations rooting on different social categories. This process influences one’s perception of one’s experience and its verbalization. At the same time, feeling assigned to one or more of undervalued social category can raise the perception of being bullied or discriminated against. While research has shown that only a minority of incidents of bullying and discrimination are reported within organizations, this contribution suggests that acknowledging the multiplicity and superposition of categories and their influence in shaping power relations could help secure a more collective and caring approach, and thus foster a safer work culture and atmosphere in research organizations.

Product trials are an effective way to influence consumer attitudes. While research has established several factors that influence whether consumers will try a product or not, it is less understood how marketers can optimize the trial experience itself. The purpose of this paper is to explore flow as an optimal state and the factors that give rise to it during a product trail.

This research consists of three experimental studies in which people trial new music. This paper explores the ability of curiosity to optimize consumers’ flow experience during the trial and their attitudes toward the trialed product. This paper manipulates curiosity before the trial using information about the music (Study 1) and music previews (Study 3) and also demonstrates that curiosity is naturally elevated among those high in openness to experience (Study 2).

The results demonstrate that curiosity before a product trial fosters an optimal experience during the trial in the form of flow states, defined as an enjoyable state of full engagement, which in turn mediates more positive attitudes toward the trialed product. This paper demonstrates that curiosity can be evoked using product information or a preview of the content and can vary based on individual differences in openness to experience. The relationship between curiosity and flow is moderated by the valence of the information that is used to elicit curiosity, such that negative-valence information thwarts the relationship.

While the studies conducted by the authors focus on the positive influence of curiosity in the trial of music, the effects may be different for other products. These studies are also limited to two different manipulations of curiosity.

This research has implications for marketers, as it demonstrates the relevance of flow and how to enable it in product trials to optimize effectiveness. The manipulations also demonstrate how to manage the amount of information that is given to consumers before they trial a product.

This research reveals that flow states optimize the product trial experience. This research also advances the understanding of the relationship between curiosity and flow by moderating their relationship with the valence of information that elicits curiosity. The findings also broaden the relevance of curiosity and flow in marketing by demonstrating their benefits within product trials.

This paper aims at from the perspective of the social exchange theory (SET) gaining an understanding of how promotion of halal concept in Sweden is perceived by Swedish hoteliers.

A mixed-methods approach has been used consisting of 62 completed surveys with closed-ended and open-ended questions, follow-up comments and five in-depth interviews with hoteliers in the mid-Sweden region. Content analysis has been employed.

Three categories of meanings are the main findings: general perception, safeguarding Swedish secular values and financially unjustifiable have been discovered. Most of the respondents have been sceptical towards halal and Muslim-friendly hotel concepts due to financial and cultural challenges these two concepts have for the Swedish tourism and hotel industries. Based on the SET, this entails more costs than benefits and is especially at odds with Swedish-rooted secular values.

This study provides practical implications and increased knowledge for tourism stakeholders including hotels in Sweden.

This is one of the very few studies on halal tourism in Scandinavia and the first Scandinavian study on hoteliers' attitudes towards halal tourism.

This paper aims to explore how historical context influences the content and selection of rhetorical legitimation strategies. Using case study method, this paper will focus on how insurance companies and labor tried to defend their legitimacy in the context of enactment of Medicare in the USA. What factors influenced the strategic (rhetorical) decisions made by insurance companies and labor unions in their institutional work?

The study is empirically grounded in archival research, involving an analysis of over 9,000 pages of congressional hearings on Medicare covering the period 1958–1965.

The authors show that rhetorical legitimation strategies depend significantly on the specific historical circumstances in which those strategies are used. The historical context lent credibility to certain arguments and organizations are forced to decide either to challenge widely held assumptions or take advantage of them. The authors show that organizations face strong incentives to pursue the latter option. Here, both the insurance companies and labor unions tried to show that their positions were consistent with classical liberal ideology, because of high respect of classical liberal principles among different stakeholders (policymakers, voters, etc.).

It is uncertain how much the results of the study could be generalized. More information about the organizations whose use of rhetorics the authors studied could have strengthened our conclusions.

The practical relevancy of the revised paper is that the authors should not expect hegemony challenging rhetorics from organizations, which try to influence legislators (and perhaps the larger public). Perhaps (based on the findings), this kind of rhetorics is not even very effective.

The paper helps to understand better how organizations try to advance their interests and gain acceptance among the stakeholders.

In this paper, the authors show how historical context in practice influence rhetorical arguments organizations select in public debates when their goal is to influence the decision-making of their audience. In particular, the authors show how dominant ideology (or ideologies) limit the options organizations face when they are choosing their strategies and arguments. In terms of the selection of rhetorical justification strategies, the most pressing question is not the “real” broad based support of certain ideologies. Insurance company and labor union representatives clearly believed that they must emphasize liberal values (or liberal ideology) if they wanted to gain legitimacy for their positions. In existing literature, it is often assumed that historical context influence the selection of rhetorical strategies but how this in fact happens is not usually specified. The paper shows how interpretations of historical contexts (including the ideological context) in practice influence the rhetorical strategies organizations choose.

The aim of this paper is to review the psychological literature on curiosity and its relationship to information-seeking behaviour, and compare this with the information science literature on the same subject.

The approach adopted is that of a comparative literature review, with an analysis of the papers retrieved in terms of their theoretical approach, context, study population and research method.

Curiosity is understood as a multi-faceted cognitive trait in humans and the relationship to information-seeking behaviour is explored through an exploration of other personality characteristics. There is very little citation of the information science literature in the psychological papers, and only a little more citation of the psychological literature in the information science papers.

The author is not aware of any similar exploration of the literature on curiosity.

This paper aims to present a conceptual model that identifies and relates the different approaches and thematic areas in the research area of tourism and gender.

The design of the conceptual model is based on a critical review of the literature and the evolution of feminist paradigms and theories.

The aforementioned theoretical frameworks are the basis for the further development of feminist studies and a gender perspective in the tourism industry research area, including research design, objectives, methodologies, analysis and result’s presentation.

Based on literature review, is theoretical.

Presentation of a conceptual model around the gender perspective in tourism, that leads to the identification of important research opportunities in this area.

The purpose of this qualitative study is to conduct an exploratory investigation of the impact and sustainability of coaching on career and leadership development of students and later, alumni, in an Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) program.

The sample for this qualitative study consisted of 14 alumni of an EMBA program at a private university in the Southwestern US who graduated between January 2012 and May 2019. Eleven alumni participated in the focus groups, and three alumni participated in personal interviews.

The open coding of the data resulted in three emergent themes (personal development by overcoming personal deficiencies, coaching translates to learning about leadership and coaching motivates sustained change) that confirmed the positive long-term effect of coaching as part of an EMBA program.

By participating in an executive coaching engagement, the EMBA students learned a development process that they could repeat for themselves after graduation and transfer to others. In addition, the EMBA students were able to leverage knowledge gained from the coaching experience for the development of others.

While the positive impacts of coaching are well-documented, its long-term impact on EMBA students/alumni has not yet been studied. This study builds on other evaluative studies to identify the benefits of executive coaching.

Change agents are individuals who can successfully transform aspects of how organisations operate. In education, teachers as change agents are increasingly seen as vital to the successful operation of schools and self-improving school systems. To date, however, there has been no systematic investigation of the nature and role of teacher change agents. To address this knowledge gap, we undertook a systematic review into five key areas regarding teachers as change agents. After reviewing 70 outputs we found that current literature predominantly positions teacher change agents as the deliverers of top-down change, with the possibility of bottom-up educational reform currently neglected.

The purpose of this paper is to present a methodology for research through game design and discuss how simulation games can be used to bridge the gap between operational exercises and simulation or analytical modelling and to provide guidelines on how simulation games can be designed for different research purposes in the context of humanitarian logistics.

This paper combines a literature review on gaming as a research method with an analysis of requirements for humanitarian logistics research methods. Starting from this theoretical framework, the authors develop a design thinking approach that highlights how games can be used for different research purposes. To illustrate the approach, the authors develop two different game set-ups that are of increasing fidelity and complexity. Finally, the authors discuss the results of the evaluation of both approaches, reflect on the design choices and provide recommendations for research and practice.

Gaming is a suitable research method to explore and analyse behaviour and decisions in emergent settings that require team work and collaborative problem solving. Especially when safety and security concerns may hinder access and experimentation on site, gaming can offer a realistic and engaging quasi-experimental environment. The aspects of engagement and realism also make gaming a suitable tool to combine training and research.

Although the use of games has attracted some attention in commercial supply chain management and crisis response, there is no systematic overview of gaming as a research method in humanitarian logistics. This paper is set to make a headway in addressing this gap by proposing a concrete approach to design games for humanitarian logistics research.

Outsourcing of logistics has great importance in disaster relief. Aid agencies spend several billion US dollars every year on logistics services. However, the concept of outsourcing has not been established adequately in literature on humanitarian logistics, leading to a fragmented view of the practice. This paper provides a holistic perspective of the concept by constructing a conceptual framework to analyze both practice and research of outsourcing in humanitarian operations. Based on this analysis, we explore future trends and identify research gaps.

The paper is based on a structured review of academic literature, a two-round Delphi study with 31 experts from aid agencies and a complementary full-day focus group with twelve experts from aid agencies and logistics service providers.

The paper systemizes the current practice of outsourcing in humanitarian logistics according to a conceptual framework of five dimensions: subject, object, partner, design and context. In addition, it reveals ten probable developments of the practice over the next years. Finally, it describes eight important research gaps and presents a research agenda for the field.

The literature review considered peer-reviewed academic papers. Practitioner papers could provide additional insights into the practice. Moreover, the Delphi study focused on the perspective of aid agencies. Capturing the views of logistics service providers in more detail would be a valuable addition.

The paper establishes the academic basis for the important practice of outsourcing in humanitarian logistics. It highlights essential research gaps and, thereby, opens up the field for future research.