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This paper aims to present a critical interpretation of unfolding events related to corporate and policymaking elites during the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic crisis to serve as a point of contrast to mainstream views.

Drawing upon literature on elite maintenance and power, learning from recent previous crises and emerging evidence during the Covid-19 pandemic crisis, this study develops arguments to question and problematize the exercise of power by elites toward maintenance of existing systems across the pandemic.

Critical examination points attention to three related but analytically distinct strategies in the exercise of elite power: reinforcing myths, redirecting blame and reclaiming positions, all directed to maintain the system and preserve power. The potential effects of this ongoing elite maintenance are highlighted, revealing the old and new forms of power likely to emerge at the corporate, national and global levels across the pandemic crisis and endure beyond it.

It is hoped that the critical examination here may build more awareness about the deep and complex nature of elite power and systems across the globe that preclude meaningful system change to address societal challenges. It may thereby provide more informed engagement toward system change.

The main originality of the paper lies in its attempt to tie together the various types of elite maintenance works and their potential effects into an overarching narrative. Making these connections and interpreting them from a critical perspective provides a rare large-canvas picture of elite power and system maintenance, particularly across a global crisis.

Local organisations have been established on participatory approach whose central purpose is to establish development activities bringing about positive change as four pillars of developments: to establish decentralised robust local organisation for sustainable forest management to enhance livelihood of rural people, to meet the forest products basic needs of local people, targeted interventions for poverty alleviation and social mobilisation initiatives and biodiversity conservation climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Local organisational elites designed/conceptualised the concept, where it can be operated organisationally and in local organisational context that provides new ways and methods to develop conceptual framework (Table I), which sheds light on involvement of poor and underprivileged members in decision-making process and distribution of benefit on equity basis.

The findings will lead to a positive change through the organisational elite model through both reorganising organisations and restructuring of power with change in the society and reduce the impact of rational choices, vested interests of elites (leaders of local organisation) and political factors, which are otherwise playing a game or tragedy of commons.

Because of the limited resources and time, the authors are unable to verify it on the other development line agencies such as drinking water scheme, livestock, health and cooperative.

It considerably appears that the impacts are very sound to conclude from the review of above models of elites that provide a very clear understanding and useful conceiving lens to formulate how participation occurs in the executive committee of the community forestry user groups (CFUG) and community-based organisations based on three key elements. First are the caste and the caste structure of the community. Second is the wealth status of the individual, and third is power created both from wealth and caste. This should be determined from the local organisational elite model (Table I) about the nature of interactions on the executive of the CFUGs and other vehicles of local community-based development organisations.

Local organisations will provide an opportunity in reality to both elites and non-elites to considerably change, make aware and create a realistic situation to determine the dialectical opportunity to develop relationship, interaction and configuration between elite and non-elite members both outside and inside of the local organisations.

It has not been found in literatures yet such sort of concept developed in development field particularly in the development activities performed by participation of local users. Hence, it is certainly original conceptual framework.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the elective affinity between sport science and elite football by situating it first, within the wider political economy of football and second, within the dynamics of the market and work situation faced by elite players in the modern game.

The methodology underpinning this paper continues this movement by considering the impact on market and work situation of elite footballers due to wider social structures and the distribution of social power peculiar to the football industry. It is premised on the view that observed events and contingent relations and processes are linked to more enduring social structures and that knowledge must take account of all three.

The resulting impact of sport science on elite football is contradictory, facilitating, on the one hand, the development of football as an aesthetic experience, while on the other hand, threatening to transform the football spectacle into a mundane exercise in the search for increased functional peak performance for its own sake.

The value of this paper is that it considers salaries and player power to determine value by exploring the impact on market and work situation of elite footballers set in the context of wider social structures and the distribution of social power peculiar to the football industry.

Elite footballers yield immense power over their market situation, which sport science has the potential to enhance and sustain by fine honing peak fitness. The football club’s relative lack of control of the player’s market situation necessitates the appliance of sport science to help maximize control over the player’s work situation.

The paper demonstrates that sport science develops elite footballers to peak fitness, while also developing footballers as commodities; and this latter aspect if taken too far may potentially transform football into a mundane exercise in the search for increased functional peak performance for its own sake.

The paper draws together the relatively neglected analysis of the football labour process with the increasing interventions of sport science to football and sets this within a broader political economy of football.

Elite individuals and groups constitute a distinctive, upper echelon and social grouping. In various shapes and forms, elites have been an enduring feature of many societies and in the contemporary era, the concept of elites and the related notion of celebrity have seen fresh interconnected developments. The purpose of the paper is to consider the literature on elite interviewing both generally and more specifically against a backdrop of an organization and management disciplinary setting. Importantly the paper examines and surfaces the role of context in relation to elite interviewing. In order to consider and illustrate this phenomenon the argument engages with the organizational environment and behaviours of the English professional football industry with the intention of offering fresh perspectives into the form and function of context in elite interviewing.

The paper's examination of the literature feeds into the fieldwork stage which employs an inductive and interpretivistic methodology. The key method employed within the methodology is semi‐structured interviews tailored for elites and conjoined with participant observation. The approach is applied within an elite interviewing process in the specific organizational context of the professional football industry.

The paper concludes that in relation to elite interviewing, there is scope to consider a contextualisation and recontextualisation of elite interviewing processes through the development of a potential range of novel conceptual and theoretical models. By engaging with interview frameworks, the paper draws heightened attention to the possibility of generating typologies for, and categorising elites operating within, those given contexts. The paper underlines the established notion of inter‐differences between elites in different sectors, and, more importantly, surfaces intra‐differences in elites within sectors. This issue of diversity of elites is currently not a factor that is clearly acknowledged or addressed in the extant literature. In the case of the present study this novel analysis and illustration are undertaken within the English professional football industry. Therein, the argument exemplifies how elites and elite interviewing may be understood in this specific context through the concepts of process, power and “positionality” and “knownness” identifying, for example, issues of arrogance, amateurism and the phenomenon of insider‐outsider.

Elites and celebrities constitute longstanding phenomena that have endured into the twenty‐first century and, as a consequence, merit on‐going close analysis. Equally replete in contemporary life are the multifarious organizational and managerial domains and contexts in which given elites reside and operate. Given the potential impact of elites and their actions on people, it would seem worthwhile and important to seek heightened understanding of them. The professional football industry is one particular instance for study given that it is high profile, represents a substantial business sector in its own right, and, plays a central role in the lives of many members of the public.

The work is an original study of the contextual issues surrounding interviewing elites in the organizational and management setting of the English professional football industry. In a more specific sense, the paper contributes insights into the issue of typologies within elite interviewing, the role of elites in English professional football and makes progress in redressing a general paucity of commentary on elite in the overall business and management research methodology literature.

Problems arose in the “market for information” (MFI) during the “dot.com” boom, the Enron case, Northern Rock failure and during the great financial crisis (GFC) of 2007-2009. This paper aims to extend the understanding of the MFI through field research and theoretical sources. It also aims to understand the MFI during relatively stable periods and during periods of rapid change, crisis and failure. It seeks to use these insights to propose changes to reduce the possibilities for negative change and problems in the MFI.

Field studies are used to develop an “empirical narrative” for ongoing MFI structures, processes and outcomes during relatively stable periods. The paper develops a “theoretical narrative” to extend the understanding of the MFI empirical insights.

The paper reveals that the MFI structure that includes knowledge and social context is central to ongoing MFI economic processes for MFI agents. Outcomes include changes in markets, firms and others. Changes and problems are means to understand interactions between the MFI social structure, knowledge, actions and outcomes as they rendered visible the previously invisible issues.

The paper shows that a coherent combination of new empirical narrative and theoretical narrative is essential to develop a critical stance, new policy prescriptions and new regulations to deal with problems and changes in the MFI. This provides the frame to propose changes in the “world of knowledge” and in (concentrated and elite) social and economic structures in the MFI. It proposes: making explicit shared knowledge in the MFI, monitoring change processes and promoting active formal learning.

“Corrupt practices” is a recurring feature of media coverage. The paper seeks to encourage debates about the influence of institutional structures on agency to break away from methodological individualism. This paper aims to encourage reflections on the role of both the structures and actors which have shaped the continuous expansion of corrupt practices in Nigeria.

Whilst recognising that deviant behaviour by some individuals is always possible, this paper has rejected methodological individualism and shows the value of locating anti-social practices within the broader socio-political and historical context. Within a socio-political framework, this study adopts the theories of critical realism, developmental state and globalisation to understand the relationship between social agency and society, focusing upon the institutional structures and the role of social actors.

The evidence shows that socio-political and economic development, politics, power, history and globalisation have continued to reproduce and transform the institutional structures and actors which have facilitated anti-social practices in Nigeria. The paper concludes that large sums of government revenue have been undermined by the anti-social practices of the Nigerian political and economic elite (both local and international), which have enriched a few, but impoverished most, Nigerians.

As a consequence of recurring corrupt practices in Nigeria, there is a pressing need for reform to curb these practices which have had, and continue to have, a serious effect on Nigeria and its future development.

It provides a framework for understanding and explaining the inter-relations of actors and institutional structures and the linkages and influences that have shaped the practices in Nigeria.

The paper aims to conceptualise cosmopolitanism drivers from the third-level power perspective by drawing on the Steven Lukes’ (1974; 2005) theory of power. Additionally, the paper aims to investigate the relationship between entrepreneurs’ cosmopolitan dispositions and habitus, i.e. a pattern of an individual’s demeanour, as it was understood by Pierre Bourdieu.

This conceptual paper makes use of Bourdieu’s framework (habitus) by extending it to the urban cosmopolitan environment and linking habitus to the three-dimensional theory of power and, importantly, to the power’s third dimension – preference-shaping.

Once cosmopolitanism is embedded in the urban area’s values, this creates multiple endless rounds of mutual influence (by power holders onto entrepreneurs via political and business elites and by entrepreneurs onto power holders via the same channels), with mutual benefit. Therefore, mutually beneficial influence that transpires in continuous support of a cosmopolitan city’s environment may be viewed as one of the factors that enhances cosmopolitan cities’ resilience to changes in macroeconomic conditions.

The paper offers a theoretical model that allows to enrich the understanding of the power–cosmopolitanism–entrepreneurship link by emphasising the preference-shaping capacity of power, which leads to embedding cosmopolitanism in societal values. As a value shared by political and business elites, cosmopolitanism is also actively promoted by entrepreneurs through their disposition and habitus. This ensures not only their willing compliance with power and the environment but also their enhancement of favourable business conditions. Entrepreneurs depart from mere acquiescence (to power and its explicit dominance) to practicing their cosmopolitan influence by active preference-shaping.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a critical approach of the identification and rejection strategies in discourses and practices of a “global elite” of business leaders and managers.

A literature review of mainstream and more critical management and sociology literature on global or transnational elites and classes is presented. The identification and rejection discursive strategies of some (French) multinational corporations’ managers and internationalization agents are then empirically and qualitatively observed and analyzed.

The findings are interpreted under the following strategies: constructive strategies, reproductive and legitimizing strategies and exclusion strategies. Some members of the global elite deploy a cosmopolitan and welcoming discourse to not only identify legitimate members of that class but also turn this discourse into one of exclusion, that is, find ways through language, and practice, to exclude those they perceive as illegitimate.

Management research on global elites needs more critical thinking and reflexivity to avoid acting as a mere vector of global managerial doxa. Studying values, practices and reactions of other less “prestigious” classes confronted with those elites (small- and medium-sized enterprises’ entrepreneurs, individuals from emerging countries, etc.) may contribute to such perspective.

The paper shows that the literature (in management) often speaks very highly of global elites. It identifies some dynamics of power between members of that/those classes and individuals who intend to join them and thus provides explanations about the elite’s unwritten codes of conduct, pre-requisites for consideration and inclusion and shows how global classes/elites discursively legitimize and exclude others.

Elite interviewing is a well-established area of interview research methods. Nevertheless, the actual casting of an “elite” has been generally conducted in a prima facie or broad manner. A consideration of entrepreneurs and owner-managers as “elites” has been less profiled and received less attention, therefore the paper views the entrepreneurs and owner-managers as constituting a form of “local elite” within given and varying sectorial, regional and community boundaries. The authors argue that a consideration of entrepreneurs as “local elites” and transferring knowledge from an elite interviewing perspective may strongly support scholarly research in the entrepreneurship field.

The study conducts a comprehensive narrative literature review of elite interviewing literature and transfers key methodological insights to the entrepreneurship field. The methodological contribution based on literature is complemented by experiences and observations from an extensive inductive interview study with over 30 entrepreneurs of German manufacturing Small and Medium-sized Entities (SMEs) and are used to reflect on, and refine, interview research approaches with entrepreneurs.

The reflections and discussions in this paper provide valuable insights for other researchers conducting research in entrepreneurship domains regarding the power dynamics of negotiating access, procedural issues of interviews and thereby enhancing the quality of data.

The contribution to knowledge is mainly of a methodological nature. While the paper takes a novel act of recasting elite interviewing in the SME and entrepreneurship context, the paper methodologically contributes to the entrepreneurship and elite interview literature thereby facilitating higher quality interviews.

The purpose of this study is to explore some of the distinctive features of organizing and organization in France which set it apart from organization in other nations, and which are fundamental to its modus operandi. In particular, this article is concerned with elite connectivity and concerted action by elite “connectors”.

The research underpinning this article stems from a cross-national comparative project on business elites and corporate governance in France and the UK. This has three dimensions, being quantitative, qualitative and case study-based. Concerted action by the ruling elite is explored through two illustrative vignettes: the ousting from office of Jean-Marie Messier and State-sponsored expansion as pursued by EDF. Both examples shed light on the French business elite’s response to globalization and the development of international business.

The paper finds elite cohesion to be achieved quite differently in the two countries. In addition, it finds that the ties that bind French connectors tend to be strong and institutionally based.

The case of EDF suggests that the most ambitious of State-sponsored strategies can also be the most successful. It implies that elite ideologies in France have deviated relatively little from sentiments expressed by Rousseau and de Gaulle concerning the primacy of the national interest and the conviction that firms can serve as an (expansionist) instrument of the nation. The Messier case illuminates the pattern of close relationships among the French business elite. It demonstrates how a strategy of expansion may come unstuck when it is not grounded in the customary modes of business regulation.

This research confirms a slight preference on the part of the French business elite for more homogenous ties. Against this, the paper demonstrates that a significant proportion of the French elite act as boundary spanners, brokering relationships with others from more distant parts of the wider network. The integration of the French elite in the Eurozone has potentially favored bridge-building relationships and weakened national embeddedness. This may contribute to the decline of indigenous interlocks, while promoting the further internationalization of top management teams. The implications of this for organizational strategy, firm survival and economic performance form an agenda for future research.