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This chapter is dedicated to understanding the idea of international as a key notion to the development of globalisation and to promoting the rescaling of spaces and subjects in contemporary higher education. The author discusses the concept of scale as a performative device that activates the capacities of bodies. Instead of seeing scale as a naturalised and hierarchical structure of spatial distribution, the author understands it as an ensemble of discourses and practices that produce scalar effects. Globalisation uses scale to promote the idea that subjects would become ‘international’ by being linked to privileged spaces and bodies in the Global North. In this sense, globalisation is not merely about nodes where certain flows converge. Rather, the author understands it as the political conditions that control and constrain the space for certain flows to occur and not others. Using assemblage analysis, the author presents and analyses three scenes taken from his ethnographic records that have as a guiding line the materialisation of the international. These scenes report the experience of being a Latin American doctoral student attending a congress in the United States, a tense situation experienced at a Chilean university academic event, and the unpretentious manifestation of an elaborate idea of internationality from a personal experience of a trip to India. The results point to three elaborations of the international: an optimistic view of a shared world, a geopolitical internationality and the production of a global corporeality.

This paper aims to investigate the process by which performative technologies (PTs), in this case accreditation work in a business school, take form and how humans engage in making up such practices. It studies how academics come to accept and even identify with the quantitative representations of themselves in a translation process.

The research involved a longitudinal, self-ethnographic case study that followed the accreditation process of one Nordic business school from 2015 to 2021.

The findings show how the PT pushed for different engagements in various phases of the translation process. Early in the translation process, the PT promoted engagement because of self-realization and the ability for academics to proactively influence the prospective competitive milieu. However, as academic qualities became fabricated into numbers, the PT was able to request compliance, but also to induce self-reflection and self-discipline by forcing academics to compare themselves to set qualities and measures.

The paper advances the field by linking five phases of the translation process, problematization, fabrication, materialization, commensuration and stabilization, to a discussion of why academics come to accept and identify with the quantitative representations of themselves. The results highlight that the materialization phase appears to be the critical point at which calculative practices become persuasive and start influencing academics’ thoughts and actions.

This paper explores organization-level racialized work strategies for maintaining racialized organizations (Ray, 2019). It focuses on intentional actions to maintain dominant racial norms, demonstrating how work strategies are informed by dominant racial structures that maintain racial inequities.

We compiled a chronological case study (Yin, 2012) based on 168 news media articles and various organizational documents to examine responses to athlete protests at the University of Texas at Austin following the death of George Floyd. Gioia et al.’s (2013) method uncovered how dominant racial norms inform organizational behaviors.

The paper challenges institutional theory neutrality and identifies several racialized work strategies that organizations employ to maintain racialized norms and practices. The findings provide a framework for organizations to interrogate their strategies and their role in reproducing dominant racial norms and inequities.

In 2020, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement was reinvigorated within sporting and corporate domains. However, many organizations engaged in performativity, sparking criticism about meaningful change in organizational contexts. Our case study examines how one organization responded to athlete activists’ BLM-fueled demands, revealing specific racialized work strategies that maintain structures of racism. As organizations worldwide disrupt and discuss oppressive structures such as racism, we demonstrate how organizational leadership, while aware of policies and practices of racism, may choose not to act and actively maintain such structures.

This paper explores how conflicting institutional logics shape the behaviors of macro- and micro-level actors in their use of a calculative practice. Thereby, this paper explains how quantification can undermine the intended purpose of a governance system based on a single number.

The study draws upon the literature on calculative practices and institutional logics to present the case of how a single number—specifically the conversion factor for Atlantic Cod, established by macro-level actors for the purposes of governance within the Norwegian fishing industry—is interpreted and used by micro-level actors in the industry. The study is based on documents, field observations and interviews with fishers, landing facilities, and control authorities.

The use of the conversion factor, while intended to protect fish stock and govern industry actions, does not always align with the institutional logics of micro-level actors. Especially during the winter season, these actors may seek to serve their interests, leading to potential system gaming. The reliance on a single number that overlooks seasonal nuances can motivate unintended behaviors, undermining the governance system’s intentions.

Integrating the literature on calculative practices with an institutional logics perspective, this study offers novel insights into the challenges of using quantification for the governance of complex industries. In particular, the paper reveals that when the logics of macro- and micro-level actors conflict in a single-number governance system, unintended outcomes arise due to a domination of the macro-level logics.

The purpose of this systematic narrative review is to discourse on vision and organizational performance. By analysing work-life and organization studies journals, the authors respond to a call to view the process of visioning more holistically.

The methodological approach is a discourse-oriented qualitative content analysis. The authors explore visioning through an epistemological lens, which emphasizes both the connections and differences between “traditional” philosophical approaches.

The findings show how the different interpretations of vision and related concepts are tied to the following themes: clarity, causality, embodiment and sensory experiences and actionability.

Through the frameworks of scientific realism and relativism, the authors illustrate novel insights into the ways in which visioning occupies a place in knowledge management.

The purpose of the study is to identify barriers to collaboration among female administrators at a Ghanaian technical university (TU), based on the social identity theory (SIT).

A mixed-method approach was adopted, integrating qualitative interviews of 15 female administrators and completing structured questionnaires from 117 randomly sampled female administrators. The SIT, as the analytical framework, identified themes emerging from the data on barriers to collaboration among female administrators. While exploratory factor analysis identified measures of factors hindering collaborations, the use of structural equation modeling (SEM) enabled the confirmation of relationships among the barriers to collaboration with female administrators.

There existed statistically significant relationships between four of the barriers: intergroup relations conflict, trust with stakeholders and among females and structural barriers (SBs). For the quantitative analysis, it was found that SBs, intergroup relations, conflict and trust were statistically significant except for weak cultures. For the qualitative, results showed that SBs, lack of trust with stakeholders and among females and intergroup conflict hinder collaboration.

The study has a limited scope in using only one TU and focusing on a particular gender. The implications of this research will enrich the literature on barriers to female administrative collaboration in technical education based on the SIT.

Promoting administrative collaborations in the TU will ensure sustainability and efficient administrative systems.

Institutional policies should include gender inclusivity and equality on networking opportunities and provide mentorship programs for efficient administrative systems.

We used the SIT to determine barriers to collaboration among female administrators in a technical education institution, and the mixed methodology added a unique dimension to the study.

This paper aims to explore how the competence-based vocational education and training (VET) curricula facilitate shaping of work values of VET students. It discusses methodological and ideological orientations of competence-based VET in teaching work values and discloses the typical characteristics of teaching work values in the VET system of Lithuania.

A quantitative research approach leading to a survey method is adopted to investigate how VET students acquire and apply work-related values and attitudes to work.

The survey of the VET students has disclosed that students are open to accepting different values of work, including cognitive values, social prestige and altruist values. However, orientation of the VET curricula to and provision of instrumental values lead to relatively weak internalization of the work values related to societal and spiritual dimensions.

The paper provides empirical evidence regarding the implications of the competence-based curricula for teaching students work values in the school-based VET.

This concluding chapter summarises the main themes and topics discussed in this book, synthesising the key issues facing contemporary anti-racism efforts. It reflects on a possible anti-racist future(s) in a context of greater sociocultural affiliations and more interconnected local and global environments. Ideas about race and ethnicity have adapted, and racial hierarchies, structures and processes continuously shape the way social groups engage, interact and live with difference. This raises questions regarding the enduring influence of race and racism. What will the state of multiracial societies be in the evolving digital economy that has transformed the structural and institutional environment affecting everyday life? What kind of an anti-racist future can be imagined that will contribute to ensuring greater social equity? This chapter ponders on a range of possibilities to chart directions towards an anti-racist future that fosters increased intercultural understanding for relational engagements across difference. It draws conclusions and lessons for an anti-racist future and lays out some directions for future research.

Michael Buckland's works have spanned theoretical, historical and practice-oriented foci and genre. This article focuses on some of his theoretical-historical works that span over 20 years, which demonstrate a reading and critique of European Documentation in terms of what has been called “Documentality.” This turn to a philosophy of information called “Documentality” marks the moment of “neo-documentation.” This article surveys this moment in Buckland's works by reading his articles “Information as Thing,” “What is a ‘Document’?”, and “Documentality Beyond Documents.” It shows the transition from Documentation as a philosophy of information as representation to Documentality as a philosophy of information as function and performance. Some concepts and works of Bruno Latour are used to illuminate this transition from Documentation to Documentality. Implications and further research directions are discussed at the end.

Conceptual and historical analyses.

The article follows a neo-documentalist transition in Buckland's works in the thinking of documents from an Otletian representationalist epistemology (“Documentation”) to a functionalist and performative epistemology (“Documentality”) for documents.

This is a conceptual work on a limited corpus in Buckland's oeuvre. It has a limited discussion of Documentality in the works of other writers, namely the works of Bernd Frohmann and Maurizio Ferraris.

The article points to historical shifts in the study of documents in Library and Information Science.

Documentality critically and materially studies documents in sociotechnical information management systems and elsewhere.

This work highlights the importance of the above works and the importance of the neo-documentalist perspective of Documentality.