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1 – 10 of 83
Book part
Publication date: 30 September 2020

Fabrizio Maimone

This conceptual chapter, based on literature review, aims to elaborate an integrative approach to the study of cultural differences/convergence within and across the borders of…

Abstract

This conceptual chapter, based on literature review, aims to elaborate an integrative approach to the study of cultural differences/convergence within and across the borders of Eastern European countries, in order to conciliate the two theoretical perspectives prevailing in the debate on cultural diversity management: the emic and the etic theoretical stances.

This chapter tries to propose a ‘third way’ to cultural analysis that includes the two perspectives, within a wider and complex multiparadigmatic and pluralistic framework, with a specific focus on Eastern European cultures.

Eastern European countries represent a sort of ideal construction that includes several countries, characterized by different trajectories and heritages: Catholic versus Orthodox religions, Slavic versus non-Slavic identities, Capitalistic versus Former Soviet Union values, etc. In spite of the renovated interest towards the regional area of Eastern Europe, empirical data show that there are significant differences in the distribution of cultural values, among national clusters. On the other hand, it is very difficult to say that Eastern European countries should be considered separate sociocultural entities, without any point of contact among other.

The main assumption of this chapter is that to better understand sociocultural dynamics within and across Eastern European countries, it is necessary to go beyond cultural mapping, in search of a more complex theoretical and methodological approach.

This approach may help to conciliate the apparent paradoxes emerging from the comparison of data related to Eastern European national clusters, providing a more complex and deep view of cultural phenomena, within and outside organizational and national boundaries.

Details

Understanding National Culture and Ethics in Organizations
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83867-022-1

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 April 1991

Ken Kamoche

The decade has witnessed unprecedented interest in what has beenseen as a radically new direction in the management of people inorganisations: human resource management (HRM). HRM…

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Abstract

The decade has witnessed unprecedented interest in what has been seen as a radically new direction in the management of people in organisations: human resource management (HRM). HRM has, however, been bedevilled by controversy and ambiguity to the extent of being regarded as just another “flavour of the month” management rhetoric. There is little consensus about what HRM means and what it entails in practice. Conceptual clarity is sought by adopting a multiparadigmatic approach to analyse HRM, which is classified into “hard” and “soft” variants. The use of paradigmatic “frames” or “lenses” enriches our understanding of them, and should enhance our appreciation of the implications of different approaches in the management of employees.

Details

Personnel Review, vol. 20 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0048-3486

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Book part
Publication date: 9 November 2020

Queenie K. H. Lam

The main objective of this chapter is to explore the potential and applicability of framing, a multidisciplinary and multiparadigmatic ‘metatheory’ of sense-making through…

Abstract

The main objective of this chapter is to explore the potential and applicability of framing, a multidisciplinary and multiparadigmatic ‘metatheory’ of sense-making through communication, or media effects specifically, in guiding higher education research. To reach this objective, the author first synthesized theoretical discussions on framing in different disciplines, collated the core concepts developed around the framing concept and developed a universal framing process model, to be applied with the introduction of a theme and the selection of research paradigms. Following that, the author provided an overview of the application of the framing concept in higher education research and explored the potential application of the model to guide and coordinate framing research in the field.

Article
Publication date: 1 April 1996

Stephen L. Payne

Often associated with early stages of individual and organizational change is exploration of basic premisses or assumptions held by individuals. Management faculty could benefit…

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Abstract

Often associated with early stages of individual and organizational change is exploration of basic premisses or assumptions held by individuals. Management faculty could benefit from an increased awareness of epistemological and values assumptions that they and others are applying in their educational planning and classroom instructional choices. Multiparadigmatic qualitative research on the evolving field of management education itself might allow better understanding of these deeper, partially taken‐for‐ granted and important faculty assumptions. One potentially useful multiparadigmatic approach for qualitative research might include aspects of interpretive, critical and post‐structural/postmodern social inquiry. Results from such basic research, through publication in some forum or outlet in the management discipline, could be applied for reference and unfreezing purposes in faculty development/ change programmes at individual business colleges or management departments.

Details

Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 9 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0953-4814

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Article
Publication date: 1 September 2006

Ali Bakir and Vian Bakir

The dominant strategy discourse projects strategy as rational and calculable. However, leading academics conclude that strategy is “elusive” and “complex”. The purpose of this…

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Abstract

Purpose

The dominant strategy discourse projects strategy as rational and calculable. However, leading academics conclude that strategy is “elusive” and “complex”. The purpose of this paper is to unravel strategy's elusiveness and unpack its complexity through empirical hermeneutic investigation.

Design/methodology/approach

Strauss' grounded theory is used to investigate leisure and cultural managers' understanding of strategy‐making. Data were collected through multiple interviews with senior managers of a local authority, and the organisation's strategy documents were examined. The grounded theory's transferability to organisations in, and outside, public leisure and culture was provisionally tested.

Findings

It was found that in making strategy, managers engage in purposeful, complex processes, here termed “navigational translation” which have mutually impacting relationships with organisational resources, the environment and managers' character, explaining its complexity and elusiveness. The provisional testing of navigational translation's transferability suggests that it has scope beyond public sector leisure and cultural strategy.

Research limitations/implications

As this research focused on theory generation, a main limitation is its small‐scale testing of navigational translation's transferability. Future research could test transferability with more organisations in leisure, culture and other fields.

Practical implications

This explanation provides a robust understanding of strategy that could improve practice. It empowers managers so that they are no longer subjugated to unrealisable expectations that rationalistic strategy tools will work in a complex world.

Originality/value

Navigational translation offers a richer, practitioner‐oriented understanding of strategy, which utilises leading academic explanations from the various, competing and divergent strategy schools into a pragmatic, multiparadigmatic framework.

Details

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, vol. 1 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5648

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Article
Publication date: 17 August 2012

Gilbert Ahamer

The purpose of this paper is to first define the “jet principle” of (e‐)learning as providing dynamically suitable framework conditions for enhanced learning procedures that…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to first define the “jet principle” of (e‐)learning as providing dynamically suitable framework conditions for enhanced learning procedures that combine views from multiple cultures of science. Second it applies this principle to the case of the “Global Studies” curriculum, a unique interdisciplinary curriculum at Graz University in Austria that is targeted to multicultural and developmental learning among students from diverse ethnic and disciplinary backgrounds.

Design/methodology/approach

Social and learning procedures are heuristically analysed based on ten years of interdisciplinary experience in interdisciplinary learning settings in a multicultural environment with critical approach to globalisation, while also diverse scientific disciplines are counted as “cultures of understanding”.

Findings

The outcomes of the analysis suggest that the negation‐oriented web‐supported five‐level learning suite “Surfing Global Change” (SGC) is capable of providing helpful framework conditions to multicultural learning that can suitably be applied in the “Global Studies” curriculum as well as in other similar international curricula.

Research limitations/implications

Quality criteria are subject to scientific cultures and hence differ from discipline to discipline; thus representing continuous challenge for suitable perception of actors and bystanders.

Practical implications

Complexities of cultural diversity are reflected also by complexities caused by origins in diverse scientific cultures. For constructing thorough and practically implementable consensus solutions, dialogic processes and peer review are best mediated through web‐based discussion, for which this paper provides examples. Discourse‐oriented features and amendments for curricula of “Global Studies” are presented.

Social implications

Networking among multicultural and interdisciplinary curricula with a critical stance towards globalisation is facilitated through suggestions in this paper.

Originality/value

By offering a new type of graphic notation for learning procedures, this paper facilitates new perspectives on the intrinsic dynamics of learning, adoption of new standpoints and acquiring a 360° view of the institutional landscape and interest patterns in complex multi‐stakeholder issues such as globalisation.

Details

Multicultural Education & Technology Journal, vol. 6 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1750-497X

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Article
Publication date: 9 November 2012

Gilbert Ahamer

Education for equity in global development and cultural diversity calls for professional capacity building to perceive diverse perspectives on complex procedures of globalisation…

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Abstract

Purpose

Education for equity in global development and cultural diversity calls for professional capacity building to perceive diverse perspectives on complex procedures of globalisation. The discipline of human geography is such a “provider of perspectives”. The purpose of this paper is to propose a historic series of how theories of geography and human development have emerged.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper contributes to education and training by proposing a historic series of how theories of geography and human development have emerged.

Findings

The outcomes of this analysis of geographic paradigms offer options for the management of multicultural education in development. A critical synopsis and a combination of various paradigms on global development seem most promising for a holistic and comprehensive understanding of globalisation.

Research limitations/implications

In particular, recent developments in human geography exhibit rapidly changing paradigms (ironically called “the Latin America of sciences”) and are hence difficult to systematise.

Practical implications

Spaces are understood to be communicational spaces, the substrate of which is enabling communication technologies. The theoretical contemplations of this paper permit to design learning environments, learning styles and related technologies.

Social implications

Perception and understanding of contradicting theories on global (economic and human) development facilitate education fostering multiple cultures of understanding. The author's own professional experience shows that only esteem for all paradigms can provide the full picture. Success means “collective production of meaning”.

Originality/value

Understanding history frees us to reach future consensus.

Details

Multicultural Education & Technology Journal, vol. 6 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1750-497X

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Article
Publication date: 23 June 2014

Gilbert Ahamer

The purpose of this paper is to inquire about the applicability of the concept of granularity to the necessity of future research or – as often called in the European Union …

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to inquire about the applicability of the concept of granularity to the necessity of future research or – as often called in the European Union – forward looking (FL). After theoretical deliberation, it uses a planned world-wide information system as a case study for applying the notion of granularity regarding economic sectors, time steps, geographic regions and correlations for energy, water, land use and several other drivers of global change.

Design/methodology/approach

A planet-wide information system might optimally include areas such as human development indicators, water demand and supply and deforestation issues. A short literature analysis on “granularity” shows this concept to have a highly culturally determined and constructivist nature.

Findings

The spatial, temporal and sectoral granularity of data presentation strongly impacts conclusions and considerations while looking forward. Hence, granularity issues are of key importance for the question of which megatrends are ultimately discerned as most relevant.

Practical implications

These findings may impact the regular report on global megatrends authored by the European Environment Agency, as well as world-wide energy and emission scenarios and technological foresight, such as the “Global Change Data Base” as a next step of research.

Social implications

In future research, the step from purely quantitative perceptions towards structural perceptions, pattern recognition and understanding of system transitions might be facilitated. The FL statements of larger companies might be diversified, enlarged in scope and use deeper structural understanding.

Originality/value

Earlier databases tend to have been focused on one or several single disciplines; the present approach, however, attempts transdisciplinarity and a multiparadigmatic approach.

Article
Publication date: 16 June 2020

Frank Bogna, Aldo Raineri and Geoff Dell

Traditional approaches in qualitative research have adopted one research paradigm linked to an established typology. This paper addresses the unconventional application of two…

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Abstract

Purpose

Traditional approaches in qualitative research have adopted one research paradigm linked to an established typology. This paper addresses the unconventional application of two research paradigms in one study. A critical realist approach was used to augment a constructivist analysis of data in a research project seeking to explore the meaning that managers in small to medium enterprises (SMEs) attach to hazard identification, the construction of a hazard profile reflective of the business and its use in assisting to manage hazards within the SME's safety management system framework. Critical realism offered a complementary but essential framework to explore causal mechanisms that led to a deeper understanding of the findings by searching for the processes and causality that lay beneath the social and organizational phenomena observed.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper compares the two research paradigms in order to seek junctures and apply them to a research project. Analytical tools applied to each research paradigm within the project are presented, followed by a new multiparadigm conceptual model that integrates critical realism and constructivism, providing an original contribution of knowledge to this field of qualitative research.

Findings

The adoption of a multiparadigm model enabled not only the interpretation of social phenomena but also the determination of its causality, enabling a more insightful answering of the research question and leading to a deeper insight into the phenomenology that was studied. This research approach widens the boundaries of qualitative inquiry within organizational research by promoting strategies that challenge more traditionally anchored research typologies, and consequently contributes to better research outcomes.

Research limitations/implications

This study was conducted across four organizations. Similar research is encouraged across a greater number of case studies to validate the process of using a constructivist and critical realist paradigm to gain a more insightful understanding of events and their causality.

Practical implications

The comparison of two research paradigms and consequent provision of a conceptual model (Figure 3) provides potential for the development of further multiparadigm models for research projects within the field of organizational management.

Social implications

This paper has the potential to promote engagement and collaboration between research scholars seeking to explore the use of multiple research paradigms.

Originality/value

Such an approach has not previously been widely discussed or adopted to examine qualitative data, and advances theory in qualitative research. The application of two research paradigms using such an approach can be applied to businesses in a number of different contexts to gain a more insightful understanding of research participant perspectives, observable events arising from those perspectives and their associated causality.

Details

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, vol. 15 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5648

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Article
Publication date: 7 June 2013

Gilbert Ahamer

This article aims to explain why geography is a prime discipline for analysing globalisation and a multicultural view of Global Studies. The generic approach of human geography to…

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Abstract

Purpose

This article aims to explain why geography is a prime discipline for analysing globalisation and a multicultural view of Global Studies. The generic approach of human geography to first select an appropriate methodology is taken as a key approach.

Design/methodology/approach

Concepts from aggregate disciplines such as history, economics, and geography are scanned through during a short description of the historical genesis of these sciences and the paradigmatic shifts they have encountered.

Findings

There are four main theses: (1) values are created by appreciation; (2) development is growing jointly with responsibility; (3) accumulation of material value is seen as expenditure to achieve non‐material values; and (4) spatial relations are interrelated with social relations.

Research limitations/implications

Conceptual considerations have to be further corroborated by quantitative analyses using suitable metrics of “development”.

Practical implications

“Social and cultural geography” should contribute to any curriculum of “Global Studies”.

Social implications

Dialogue and discourse between world views is the essential, ideology‐free approach for understanding globalisation.

Originality/value

Unlike other scientific articles focusing on “facts”, this article focuses on perspectives. Thus, it explains “multi‐perspectivity” and a multi‐paradigmatic approach.

Details

Multicultural Education & Technology Journal, vol. 7 no. 2/3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1750-497X

Keywords

1 – 10 of 83