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In this chapter, the authors introduce Ludwik Fleck and his ideas of “thought style” and “thought collective” to suggest a re-thinking of the divide between “micro” and “macro” that has perhaps more inhibited than inspired organization studies in general, and institutional theory in particular. With Fleck, the authors argue that there is no such thing as thought style-neutral cognition or undirected perception: meaning, constituted through a specific thought style shared by a thought collective, permeates cognition, judgment, perception, and thought. The authors illustrate our argument with the longitudinal case study of Sydney 2030 (i.e., the strategy-making process of the City of Sydney, Australia). The case suggests that – regardless of its actual implementation – a strategy is successful to the extent to which it shapes the socio-cognitive infrastructure of a collective and enables those engaged in city-making to think and act collectively.

This chapter argues that the primary reason for the underdeveloped state of microfoundations research in language and communications studies is methodological. It asserts that the long-standing methodological division between micro and macro analyses (traditionally small-scale and large-scale, respectively) has led to their continued theoretical separation. The paper draws from Giddens’ theory of structuration and newly developed computational methods to outline an alternative, mixed-methods framework for discourse analysis that the author calls Recursive Analysis (RA). The author demonstrates the application of the RA framework through a case study of the electric vehicle industry that aligns small-scale and large-scale textual analysis to generate theoretical insights.

This chapter addresses the concern that much theory building in organization and management (OM) research suffers from de-contextualization. The authors argue that de-contextualization comes in two main forms: reductionism and grand theory. Whereas reductionism tends to downplay context in favor of individual behavior, grand theory looks at context only in highly abstract ahistorical terms. Such de-contextualization is problematic for at least two reasons. First, the boundary conditions of theories remain unexplored in ways that threaten scientific validity. Second, de-contextualization limits the potential of OM theory to fully understand the role of organizations in society and thereby address societal grand challenges. These claims are exemplified through critical reviews of four fields in OM research – gender, employee voice, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and institutional logics – and counterpoints that may help to overcome de-contextualized research are presented.

Scalar terms, such as “local” and “global,” “big” and “small” are fundamental in how academics and practitioners make sense of and respond to grand challenges. Yet, scale is so taken-for-granted that we rarely question or critically reflect on the concept and how it is used. The aim of this paper is to identify scale as an important concept in research on grand challenges and to point out why taking scale for granted can be problematic. In particular, I suggest that to date most research on grand challenges sees scale as a fundamental ontological feature of the world. Yet, scalar categories and hierarchies are not as self-evident and given as they may seem. Moreover, taking scale as an ontological fixed category limits our ability to make sense of, theorize and respond to grand challenges. As an alternative, I suggest seeing scale as an epistemological frame that participants employ in their everyday practices to make sense of, navigate and develop solutions to grand challenges. The chapter concludes with a research agenda for studying scale as socially constructed in practice.

Using the distinction between “private problems” and “public issues” derived from Mill's “sociological imagination”, this paper aims to assess how diverse social theory approaches problematise and define the ways in which social life is shaped and organised with regard to “emotions”.

The paper's approach is theoretical and novel in the interpretation of an under‐development theme in social theory, namely, that of emotion.

The paper found, on viewing differing sociological approaches, how emotion shifts the focus of our attention away from the idea of individual, private worlds of emotion to the wider context of social relations and the way in which language is used with power to identify subject positions.

This is a general literature.

This is an original paper as it is the first time diverse sociological theories have been pulled together to evince an understanding of what we understand by the concept, experience and symbol of “emotion”.

Purpose: The paper makes use of Kuhn’s “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” to explain Consumer Culture Theory (CCT) as a normal scientific tradition. The paper intends to show how a previously marginalized research tradition has now started solidifying its paradigmatic boundaries, and what implications this holds for aspiring CCT scholars.

Method/approach: The paper makes use of literature from the Journal of Consumer Research and Marketing Theory to point out the methodological and practical issues in the discipline that have been pointed out by CCT proponents. These criticisms are discussed as scientific “anomalies.” Furthermore, the paper critically analyzes immigrant acculturation literature produced by CCT researchers in the past 30 years through a Kuhnian lens to show proponents of the fields implicitly addressing different “anomalies,” explaining the tradition to be a normal scientific one.

Findings: An in-depth analysis of immigrant acculturation literature within CCT shows every successive project within the field has addressed “anomalies” by pointing out research gaps, providing a rationale for their respective methodology, and, in turn, adding precision to theoretical frameworks, depicting a normal scientific tradition.

Originality and value: The paper adds value by discussing the probable consequences of this boundary solidification. On one hand, aspiring scholars will have scientific assumptions with which to enter the laboratory (consumer world) and guidelines that can be used toward publishing. On the other, this can also lead to a possible dogmatization of an emerging consumer research paradigm, making it difficult for new scholars to be creative.

The paper proposes and presents a comprehensive and integrated circuit model for investigating the behaviour of partial discharges occurring in voids inside the solid insulations of medium and high voltage cables.

The model is based on the well‐known three capacitors model, which is remarkably improved to handle physical parameters such as cavity size, position, shape and pressure, environmental parameters such as cable temperature, in addition to operational parameters such as the contributions of the avalanche of free electrons inside the cavity through considering stochastic time delays.

A complete, flexible and reliable model for partial discharges in voids inside the solid insulation of medium and high voltage cables is presented whose output agrees with experimental reported results.

The proposed model deals only with single voids, and the semiconductor layers in the insulation of cables are not considered.

The model can be used in different physical, environmental and operational conditions in order to investigate the characteristics of partial discharge signals to be used as the bases for partial discharge detection and classification in power cables.

This paper presents a novel comprehensive and integrated circuit model with controlling functions to propose the behaviour of partial discharge occurring in voids inside the solid insulation of power cables. The model provides the contribution of geometrical parameters of the void, and operational conditions such as cable temperature and source frequency in partial discharge analysis.

This chapter introduces the Person-in-Environment (PIE) framework, a research design and a nationwide empirical study, developed by the author, to measure the relative impacts of socio-structural and personal factors on individual-level information behaviours (IB) and outcomes. The IB field needs to tackle two questions: (1) In a particular situation, how much of an individual's IB is influenced by personal characteristics? and (2) How much of this behaviour is shaped by one's environment, such as socio-structural barriers? PIE is a beginning effort to address this agency–structure debate, which is a topic that confronts many social scientists. This chapter first outlines IB research relevant to agency–structure integration. It then presents six principles of the PIE framework. Personal characteristics (e.g. cognitive and affective factors) and socio-structural factors (e.g. information resources distribution) are conceptualised as interrelated. Thus, these need to be tested simultaneously. Previously, it was difficult to link individual- and societal-level datasets because their units of observation often vary. To overcome these methodological challenges, this author purposed a research design that employs secondary analysis, geographic information systems techniques and structural equation modelling. An empirical study of the library usage by 13,000 American 12th graders is presented to demonstrate PIE's applicability. Discussions on the future directions of PIE studies conclude the chapter. The PIE framework can contribute to conceptual and methodological development in IB research. It also offers scholars and policymakers a way to empirically assess the contributions of information services on an individual's life, while taking personal differences into account.

To understand Peter Hall’s work on social policy, it is heuristic to place it in the context of work that was done contemporaneously. Public policy studies in the late 1960s through the early 1980s concentrated in large part on the large-scale governmental policies such as the Great Society Programs of the Lyndon Johnson administration, Follow-through, Headstart, special education, bilingual education. Social policy research of that time tended to take Weberian notions of technical rationality seriously, probably too seriously.