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Article
Publication date: 18 December 2020

Rodoula H. Tsiotsou

The purpose of this paper is to provide an in-depth understanding of actor engagement (AE) on social media by proposing a holistic and integrative conceptual framework.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to provide an in-depth understanding of actor engagement (AE) on social media by proposing a holistic and integrative conceptual framework.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on a sample of 118 articles, the paper draws on the service-dominant logic (SDL)-based service ecosystem perspective combined with the tenets of relational dialectics as theoretical lenses to inform AE research in social media.

Findings

The paper proposes a framework of AE in social media called the TASC model, an acronym of Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis-Conflict. TASC introduces the dialectical nature of AE and discusses the contexts and levels of AE in the social media ecosystem and their evolving processes.

Practical implications

Firms can apply the knowledge provided by TASC to gather marketing intelligence and develop marketing strategies to anticipate tensions, motivate the desired AE intensity and valence and reinforce value co-creation in the social media ecosystem.

Originality/value

TASC is a comprehensive framework that, for the first time, explains engagement at all levels of the social media ecosystem by combining the SDL-based service ecosystem view with the relational dialectics perspective.

Article
Publication date: 11 January 2022

Michael Buhagiar, Julien Pollack and Sharon Coyle

Scholars are increasingly acknowledging the importance of conversations in the management of complex projects. Defining dialectics as “the art of purposeful conversation”, this…

Abstract

Purpose

Scholars are increasingly acknowledging the importance of conversations in the management of complex projects. Defining dialectics as “the art of purposeful conversation”, this paper aims to rationalise the somewhat disorganised field of dialectics by developing a categoreal scheme.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors refer to the current state of research into the conversational aspects of complex projects, and examine the historical development of, and philosophical and scholarly commentary on, the dialectical method.

Findings

The categories the authors propose are the Socratic, Conversational, Fichtean and Peircean. They differ in relation to the subject matter of the dialectic; their vulnerability to environmental influences; the degree of structure they require for optimal performance; and the situations in which they might most profitably be applied.

Research limitations/implications

A single categoreal scheme is rarely the last word, and the authors invite other scholars to explore the field in a similar way.

Practical implications

The scheme proposed here is intended to enhance the project manager's approach to conversations, by referring to the specific virtues and limitations of each of the categories.

Social implications

The informed use of dialectics may help to ameliorate the significant damage done to organisations and economies around the world by failed and underperforming projects.

Originality/value

The authors present the first categorisation of the field, with the aim of equipping the practitioner to think about dialectical approaches in a more systematic way.

Details

International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, vol. 15 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1753-8378

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 8 April 2020

Donal Rogan, Gillian Hopkinson and Maria Piacentini

This paper aims to adopt a relational dialectics analysis approach to provide qualitative depth and insight into the ways intercultural families manage intercultural tensions…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to adopt a relational dialectics analysis approach to provide qualitative depth and insight into the ways intercultural families manage intercultural tensions around consumption. The authors pay particular attention to how a relational dialectics analysis reveals a relational change in the family providing evidence to demonstrate how a family’s unique relational culture evolves and transitions.

Design/methodology/approach

Qualitative insights from a relational-dialectic analysis on 15 intercultural families are used to illustrate the interplay of stability with instability in the management of intercultural dialectic tensions within these families.

Findings

Intercultural dialectical interplay around food consumption tensions are implicit tensions in the household’s relational culture. Examples of dialectical movement indicating relational change are illustrated; this change has developmental consequences for the couples’ relational cultures.

Research limitations/implications

This study provides qualitative insights on relational dialectics in one intercultural family context and reveals and analyses the dialectical dimensions around consumption in the context of intercultural family relationships. The research approach could be considered in other intercultural and relational contexts.

Practical implications

Family narratives can be analysed within the context of two meta-dialectics that directly address how personal relationships evolve; indigenous dialectic tensions within a family can also be identified.

Originality/value

This paper demonstrates the qualitative value of a relational dialectics analysis in revealing how food consumption changes within families are the result of reciprocal or interdependent learning, which has consequences for relational change.

Details

Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, vol. 24 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1352-2752

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 November 2007

B.N. Ghosh

The aim of the present paper is to deal with a conceptual category. The basic purpose of this paper is to lay bare the meaning and implications of Gandhian dialectics.

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Abstract

Purpose

The aim of the present paper is to deal with a conceptual category. The basic purpose of this paper is to lay bare the meaning and implications of Gandhian dialectics.

Design/methodology/approach

The analysis of the paper is somewhat abstract and depends on the metaphysical approach that deals with philosophical issues.

Findings

Gandhian dialectics can be interpreted in at least six different senses, and in many ways, is found to be well comparable with many aspects of dialectics that are used in the contemporary Marxist political economy.

Originality/value

Never before the concept of Gandhian dialectics has been elaborated by any researcher. Gandhian political economy applies implicitly the dialectical method in the analysis of social interactions and change.

Details

Humanomics, vol. 23 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0828-8666

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 10 December 2018

Marita Svane

This chapter proposes a quantum relational process philosophy as an approach for studying organization-in-becoming as a world-creating process. Furthermore, the quantum relational…

Abstract

This chapter proposes a quantum relational process philosophy as an approach for studying organization-in-becoming as a world-creating process. Furthermore, the quantum relational process philosophy is tied to quantum storytelling. Whereas the quantum relational process philosophy outlines a philosophy of a processual ontology, epistemology, and ethic, quantum storytelling provides the storytelling medium through which such an ontology, epistemology, and ethic emerges through articulation and actualization. As such, the two approaches are introduced as inseparable from each other.

The focus of this chapter is to unfold the ties between the quantum relational process philosophy and quantum storytelling through the perspective of the quantum relational process philosophy itself.

The proposed quantum relational process philosophy is defined as Being-in-Becoming. Thereby, this approach is suggested as an alternative to the “Being” perspective and the “Becoming” perspective or at least as a further development of the becoming perspective. These latter two perspectives present two different ways of viewing organizational change: development and transformation.

The being perspective relies on substance ontology acknowledging the existence of entities: that “which is.” In substance ontology, however, entities such as individuals and organizations are viewed as existing in themselves in fixed space-time frames. This view entails a rather static and stable ontology, perceiving the organization as a ready-made world of stable, unchanging entities. This perspective is often referred to as the approach of building the organizational world through intervention and control of change.

As a contrast, the becoming perspective relies on a process ontology while the organization is perceived as a sea of constant flux and change through which the organization emerges on the way. In this process-oriented perspective, attention is directed toward “that which is becoming.” In this perspective, the organization is perceived as a world-making phenomenon emerging through ceaseless processes of transformation. This approach is often referred to as the dwelling approach, that is, to dwell in the world-making phenomenon letting it happen. This perspective tends to ignore that which exists, that is the ready-made forms, and only focus on that which is becoming.

In this chapter, the proposed being-in-becoming perspective views the tension between being and becoming as a dialectical interplay that is decisive to organizational transformation. However, in the being-in-becoming perspective, “entities” are viewed from a quantum perspective whereby being-in-becoming differs from the substance ontology in its view of the nature of “entities.” In this perspective, the organization is viewed as a dialectical interplay between, at the one hand, the organizational form(ing) of life and, at the other hand, the aliveness of unfolding and transforming living life-worlds of being-in-the-world in fluid space and open time. This dialectical interplay is conceived as central in organizational world-creating processes.

The aim of the chapter is to develop a conceptual framework of a quantum relational process philosophy that embraces the dialectics of transforming organizations. The contribution is to be capable of understanding the performative consequences of dialectic to organizational transformation viewed from the being-in-becoming perspective of the quantum relational process philosophy.

Through the contribution of Heidegger, Hegel, Aristotle, and Boje, and further enriched by Barad, Bakhtin, and Shotter, a conceptual framework is developed for understanding, analyzing, and problematizing dialectical organizational world-creating.

This framework is called “Fourfold World-Creating.” The fourfold world-creating framework keeps the dialectic of organizational transformation at its center while it at the same time take into consideration the dialectical interplay of ontology, epistemology, and ethic. In this sense, the framework is proposed as quantum relational process philosophy. The incorporation of ethic in the quantum relational process philosophy represents an additional contribution of the chapter.

The fourfold world-creating framework is furthermore suggested to be conceived as a quantum relational process philosophy of the antenarrative dimension in David Boje’s quantum storytelling triad framework encompassing: (1) the narrative, (2) the living stories, and (3) the antenarrative. In his recent research, David Boje has a developed a dialectical perspective on his storytelling framework. Following in line with this thinking, this chapter suggests viewing (1) the narrative as the ready-made form, (2) the living stories as the living life-worlds, and (3) the antenarrative as fourfold world-creating.

In this sense, the proposed dialectical fourfold world-creating framework and its embeddedness in the quantum relational process philosophy contributes to our understanding of the research contributes of antenarrative storytelling in organizational studies.

As findings, the chapter proposes what could be considered as ontological, epistemological, and ethical key constituents in dialectical organizational world-creating. The contribution of these findings encompasses an analytical framework for (1) understanding the dialectical, transformative movements of the organization as well as (2) analyzing and problematizing the cease of dialectical tensions that seems to lock the organization in a particular state of being, only capable of repeating and reproducing its ready-made world in fixed space-time frames.

Details

The Emerald Handbook of Quantum Storytelling Consulting
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-671-0

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 28 July 2014

Ganga S. Dhanesh

This chapter proposes using a dialectical approach infused with elements of dialogism to analyze polyphonic discourses of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in order to create…

Abstract

Purpose

This chapter proposes using a dialectical approach infused with elements of dialogism to analyze polyphonic discourses of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in order to create more nuanced understandings of the contradictions, oppositions, tensions, and complexities that characterize the conceptualization, enactment, and communication of CSR.

Methodology/approach

This chapter draws upon the notion of dialectics discussed by scholars such as Hegel and Marx and infuses it with Bakhtinian notions of dialogism to create a dialectical framework for analyzing discourses of CSR.

Findings

This chapter illustrates the conceptual argument for a dialectical approach to examining discourses of CSR by using the example of the dualistic discussion of corporations as agents of empowerment or exploitation. When examined through a dialectical lens, the empowerment–exploitation debate reveals, among others, the dissolution of boundaries between the categories of empowerment and exploitation, the coexistence and interplay of a multitude of related oppositions, and raises questions on praxical patterns employed by social actors to manage the dialectical tensions inherent in everyday organizing.

Social implications

A dialectical approach in communication studies could open possibilities for acknowledging the co-existence of and interplay among multiple voices in society, thus opening spaces for engaging with diverse perspectives and creating a more holistic understanding of complex social constructs such as CSR.

Originality

A dialectical approach that attends to tensions negotiated by social and organizational actors as they try to conceptualize, enact, and communicate CSR can enrich the study of polyphonic discourses of CSR by generating more textured and insightful understandings of CSR than those currently examined through mostly dualistic lenses.

Details

Communicating Corporate Social Responsibility: Perspectives and Practice
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78350-796-2

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 6 June 2019

Marita Svane

The focus of this chapter is quantum dialectical storytelling and its contribution to generate anticipatory knowledge of the future through the intra-play between the…

Abstract

The focus of this chapter is quantum dialectical storytelling and its contribution to generate anticipatory knowledge of the future through the intra-play between the ante-narrative and the anti-narrative. The theoretical framework on quantum dialectical storytelling is based upon Boje’s triad storytelling framework interfused with Hegelian dialectics and Baradian diffraction. Through the inspiration of Judith Butler’s performative theory, Riach, Rumens, and Tyler (2016) introduce the concept of the anti-narrative as a critical reflexive methodology. By drawing on Hegel’s work on the dialectical phenomenology of critical reflexive self-consciousness, a dialectical pre-reflexive and reflexive framework emerges as intra-weaving modes of being-in-the-world toward future.

Details

The Emerald Handbook of Management and Organization Inquiry
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78714-552-8

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 22 April 2022

Rodoula H. Tsiotsou and Sandra Diehl

Transformative value is a central tenet of transformative service research (TSR) because it affects individual and community well-being, quality of life and sustainability…

Abstract

Purpose

Transformative value is a central tenet of transformative service research (TSR) because it affects individual and community well-being, quality of life and sustainability. Although transformative value plays a significant role in well-being, the literature suffers from a lack of sound interdisciplinary conceptual frameworks that delineate how transformative value is created in services throughout the service consumption process. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine the nature and role of service communications during the various stages of the service consumption process to enable the creation of transformative value for people and the environment.

Design/methodology/approach

To achieve the above goal, the authors integrate agenda-setting theory (media theory) combined with framing and relational dialectics (communication theories) as well as TSR.

Findings

In line with the objectives of the study, the authors propose an integrative framework named Transformative Value Creation via Service Communications (TVCSC) that explains how firms set their transformative corporate agendas through their dialectics with consumers, society and media. This transformative agenda is reflected in the marketing mix of their services (7Ps) as communicated with various means, physically and digitally (sales/frontline personnel, advertising, CSR, social media and website). Recommendations for a transformative marketing mix are provided. Furthermore, TVCSC illustrates how value is co-created in all customer–firm interactions via relationship dialectics throughout the service consumption process to result in transformative value outcomes.

Research limitations/implications

The proposed framework identifies several research gaps and provides useful future research directions.

Originality/value

This is the first comprehensive framework that explains how transformative value is created through the various communications in services and is the outcome of value co-creation interactions of the service consumption process.

Article
Publication date: 4 September 2009

Masudul Alam Choudhury

The purpose of this paper is to study dialectical methodology as a scientific reasoning process in Islam comparatively with mainstream philosophy of science.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to study dialectical methodology as a scientific reasoning process in Islam comparatively with mainstream philosophy of science.

Design/methodology/approach

Comparative discursive method of inquiry using the language of philosophy of science and abstract mathematization (limited use).

Findings

This is a theoretical paper of an intellectual category, which presents the arguments within the framework of the principle of universal and pervasive complementarities as the evidential sign of the epistemology of unity of knowledge studied through functional ontological logical formalism.

Research limitations/implications

The theoretical nature of an argumentative paper is at best a foundation one rather than an empirical one.

Practical implications

An example of the Islamic dialectical methodology of unity of knowledge is applied to socioeconomic development in Islamic perspective.

Originality/value

There is believed to be no other paper on Islam and its dialectical methodology in scientific reasoning compared to the theory of dialectics in mainstream philosophy of science in the contemporary literature.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 29 no. 9/10
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 21 December 2017

Xin Li, Verner Worm and Peihong Xie

The paper debunks Peter P. Li’s assertion that Yin-Yang is superior to any other cognitive frames or logical systems for paradox research. The purpose of this paper is to alert…

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Abstract

Purpose

The paper debunks Peter P. Li’s assertion that Yin-Yang is superior to any other cognitive frames or logical systems for paradox research. The purpose of this paper is to alert the Chinese indigenous management researchers to the danger of Chinese exceptionalism and over-confidence.

Design/methodology/approach

To show that Peter P. Li’s assertion is doubtful, the authors identify the flaws in his analysis.

Findings

The authors find that there are three serious flaws in Peter P. Li’s analysis. First, there are four defects in the typology of cognitive frames he built in order to compare Yin-Yang with the others. Second, his understanding of dialectics in general and Hegelian dialectics in particular is flawed. And finally, without resorting to Yin-Yang, many scholars can develop theories that are equivalent to those derived from Yin-Yang.

Research limitations/implications

Due to the page limit, this paper only focuses on arguing that Yin-Yang is not superior to other cognitive frames or logical systems without going one step further to explain in which situations Yin-Yang are valuable and might be more suitable than others for helping us understand some research issues.

Practical implications

This paper implies that we should not blindly believe that the Chinese way of thinking and acting is superior to other people’s. Chinese people should be open-minded in the globalized era, not only promoting their own culture but also appreciating and learning from other cultures.

Social implications

The reduction of cultural exceptionalism and ethnocentrism can make cross-cultural communication and interaction smoother.

Originality/value

This paper is a rigorous critique on the “Yin-Yang being superior” assertion of Peter P. Li.

Details

Cross Cultural & Strategic Management, vol. 25 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2059-5794

Keywords

1 – 10 of over 8000