Human-nature relationships: An introduction to social-ecological practice theory for human-wildlife interactions

Conservation science requires a balance of social and ecological perspectives to understand human-wildlife interactions. We look for an integrative social-ecological framework that emphasizes equal representation across social and ecological conservation sciences. In this perspective, we suggest "social-ecological practice theory", an integration of general ecological theory and anthropology's practice theory, for a conservation-minded social-ecological framework to better theorize human-nature relationships. Our approach deliberately pulls from subdisciplines of anthropology, specifically a body of social theory founded by anthropology and social science called practice theory. We then illustrate how to apply social-ecological practice theory to our case study in the Makgadikgadi region of Botswana. We highlight how the practices of people, lions, and cattle-in combination with environmental and structural features-provide the needed context to deepen the understanding of human-wildlife conflict in the region. Social-ecological practice theory highlights the complexity that exists on the landscape, and may more effectively result in conservation strategies for human-wildlife coexistence.

Health promotion roles shaped by professional identity: an ethnographic study in the Netherlands

How frontline care professionals interpret and fulfill their health promotion roles is of great importance for the health of the vulnerable clients they work with. While the literature on health promotion is limited to describing the roles of healthcare professionals, this study examines the health promotion roles held by various frontline professionals when working with clients with combined psychosocial problems and how this is associated with professional identity. Based on ethnographic data from Dutch frontline professionals in social welfare, general healthcare and mental healthcare, this article shows how various frontline professionals promote health by reframing and customizing health problems and that this is associated with how they identify as pragmatic or holistic professionals.

Toward a practice-theoretical view of the situated nature of attention

In this paper, we examine how a practice-theoretical perspective may complement and expand the central tenet of the attention-based view (ABV) that attention is contextually situated. We put forward three main arguments. First, the components that make a practice possible and that locate it in history and context (practice architecture) also prefigure a situated horizon of relevance and possibilities (pragmatic field of attention). Attention thus often befalls organizational members outside the realm of discursive consciousness as a consequence of being engaged in socio-material practices. Second, attention is situated at the crossroads of multiple practices, each with its practice architecture and local pragmatic field of attention. Organizational attention implies tensions, conflict, and contradictions and emerges from the interaction and negotiation of multiple individual and group pragmatic fields of attention. Finally, attention is situated in the temporal dynamics of sustaining and turning attention. This allows us to distinguish between inattention, dysfunctional distraction, and potentially productive attention turning. We argue that by focusing on the ordinary and routinized nature of attention, a theoretical practice view complements and enriches the ABV by offering a less voluntarist and top-down view and proposing a richer view of situatedness. A practice-theoretical approach also distributes attention among a broader set of elements, offering resources to theorize how these elements are connected. The approach also establishes a link between paying attention and caring, thus bringing emotions back into the study of organizational attention. In turn, the ABV helps the practice-theoretical perspective to recognize the central role of attention in organizational matters and the importance of engaging in full with the organizational unit of analysis when dealing with attention-related issues.

What does social prescribing look like in practice? A qualitative case study informed by practice theory

Social prescribing (SP) typically involves linking patients in primary care with a range of local, community-based, non-clinical services. While there is a growing body of literature investigating the effectiveness of SP in improving healthcare outcomes, questions remain about how such outcomes are achieved within the everyday complexity of community health systems. This qualitative case study, informed by practice theory, aimed to investigate how SP practices relevant to people at high risk of type 2 diabetes (T2D) were enacted in a primary care and community setting serving a multi-ethnic, socioeconomically deprived population. We collected different types of qualitative data, including 35 semi-structured interviews with primary care clinicians, link workers and SP organisations; 30 hours of ethnographic observations of community-based SP activities and meetings; and relevant documents. Data analysis drew on theories of social practice, including Feldman's (2000) notion of the organisational routine, which emphasises the creative and emergent nature of routines in practice. We identified different, overlapping ways of practising SP: from highly creative, reflective and adaptive ('I do what it takes'), to more constrained ('I do what I can') or compliant ('I do as I'm told') approaches. Different types of practices were in tension and showed varying degrees of potential to support patients at high risk of T2D. Opportunities to adapt, try, negotiate, and ultimately reinvent SP to suit patients' own needs facilitated successful SP adoption and implementation, but required specific individual, relational, organisational, and institutional resources and conditions. Feldman, M.S., 2000. Organizational Routines as a Source of Continuous Change. Organ. Sci. 11, 611-629.

Drivers and influencers of blockchain and cloud-based business sustainability accounting in China: Enhancing practices and promoting adoption

The field of sustainability accounting aims to integrate environmental, social, and governance factors into financial reporting. With the growing importance of sustainability practices, emerging technologies have the potential to revolutionize reporting methods. However, there is a lack of research on the factors influencing the adoption of blockchain and cloud-based sustainability accounting in China. This study employs a mixed-methods approach to examine the key drivers and barriers to technology adoption for sustainability reporting among Chinese businesses. Through a systematic literature review, gaps in knowledge were identified. Primary data was collected through an online survey of firms, followed by in-depth case studies. The findings of the study reveal a positive relationship between company size and reporting behaviors. However, size alone is not sufficient to predict outcomes accurately. The industry type also has significant but small effects, although its impact on reporting behaviors varies. The relationship between profitability and reporting behaviors is intricate and contingent, requiring contextual examination. The adoption of blockchain technology is positively associated with capabilities, resources, skills, and regulatory factors. On the other hand, cloud computing adoption is linked to resources, management support, and risk exposures. However, the specific impacts of industry on adoption remain inconclusive. This study aims to offer empirical validation of relationships, shedding light on the intricate nature of interactions that necessitate nuanced conceptualizations incorporating contextual moderators. The findings underscore the importance of providing customized support and adaptable guidance to accommodate the evolving practices in sustainability accounting. Moreover, the assimilation of technology and organizational changes highlights the need for multifaceted stakeholder cooperation to drive responsible innovation and address the challenges posed by digital transformations in this field.

The ethical challenges of teaching business ethics: ethical sensemaking through the Goffmanian lens

Business ethics (BE) professors play a crucial role in sensitizing business students toward their future ethical responsibilities. Yet, there are few papers exploring the ethical challenges these professors themselves face while teaching BE. In this qualitative paper, we rely on the lenses of ethical sensemaking and dramaturgical performance, and draw from 29 semi-structured interview conducted with BE professors from various countries and field notes from 17 h of observation of BE classes. We identify four kinds of rationalities that professors rely on for making sense of in-class ethical challenges, eventually leading them to engage in one of four corresponding types of performances. By juxtaposing high and low scores of two underlying dimensions (degree of expressivity and degree of imposition), we offer a framework of four emerging performances. Additionally, we show that professors can shift from one performance to another during the course of their interactions. We contribute to performance literature by demonstrating the plurality of performances and explaining their emergence. We also contribute to sensemaking literature by offering support to its recent turn from an episodic (crises or disruption-based) to a relational, interactional, and present-oriented understanding. Since professors' performances have an impact not only on their own teaching experiences but also on students' learning experiences, undermining these would result in compromising the efforts that business schools have been making toward sensitizing future managers to their ethical responsibilities.

Sociomateriality in Action

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an enforced ‘big bang’ adoption of working from home, involving the rapid implementation and diffusion of digital collaboration technologies. This radical shift to enforced working from home led to substantial changes in the practice of work. Using a qualitative research approach and drawing on the interview accounts of 29 knowledge workers required to work from home during the pandemic, the study identified five sociomaterial practices that were significantly disrupted and required reconfiguration of their constitutive social and material elements to renew them. The paper further shows evidence of the ongoing evolution of those sociomaterial practices among the participants, as temporary breakdowns in their performance led to further adjustments and fine-tuning. The study extends the body of knowledge on working from home and provides a fine-grained analysis of specific complexities of sociomaterial practice and change as actors utilize conceptual and contextual sensemaking to perceive and exploit possibilities for action in their unfolding practice of work. Against the backdrop of the increasing adoption of hybrid working in the aftermath of the pandemic, the paper offers four pillars derived from the findings that support the establishment of a conducive working from home environment.

“Hacking marketing”: how do firms develop marketers' expertise and practices in a digital era?

Purpose

Digital technologies, digitalised consumers and the torrent of customer data have been transforming marketing practice. In discussing such trends, existing research has either focussed on the skills marketers need or broad-based approaches such as agile methods but has given less consideration to just how such skills or approaches might be developed and used in marketers' day-to-day activities and in the organisation of marketing in the firm. This is what the authors address in this paper.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper adopts an in-depth case study approach to examine an exemplary digital enterprise in transformation of their digital marketing. The insights were gathered from 25 interviews, netnography and document analysis of the case organisation in addition to 10 interviews with independent experts.

Findings

Drawing on practice-oriented approach, the authors show how organisations respond to the emerging trends of digital consumers and big data by taking a ‘hacking marketing’ approach and developing novel marketing expertise at disciplinary boundaries. The authors put forward three sets of practices that enable and shape the hacking marketing approach. These include spanning the expertise boundary, making value measurable and experimenting through which their adaptive, iterative and multidisciplinary work occurs. This explains how managing digital consumers and big data is not within the realm of information technology (IT) functions but marketing and how marketing professionals are changing their practice and moving their disciplinary boundaries.

Practical implications

This study offers practical contributions for firms in terms of identifying new work practices and expertise that marketing specialists need in managing digital platforms, digitalised consumers and big data. This study’s results show that enterprises need to design and implement strong training programmes to prepare their marketing workforce in adopting experimentations of agile approach and data-driven decision making. In addition, Marketing education should be changed so that programmes consider a review of their courses and include the novel marketing models and approaches into their curriculum.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the nascent discussions by unpacking how enterprises can develop new marketing expertise and practices beyond skillsets and how such practices form new hacking marketing approach which addresses the problem of the inability of the conventional marketing approach to show its value within the firm.

Envisioning Architecture of Metaverse Intensive Learning Experience (MiLEx): Career Readiness in the 21st Century and Collective Intelligence Development Scenario

Th metaverse presents a new opportunity to construct personalized learning paths and to promote practices that scale the development of future skills and collective intelligence. The attitudes, knowledge and skills that are necessary to face the challenges of the 21st century should be developed through iterative cycles of continuous learning, where learners are enabled to experience, reflect, and produce new ideas while participating in a collective creativity process. In this paper, we propose an architecture to develop a metaverse-intensive learning experience (MiLEx) platform with an illustrative scenario that reinforces the development of 21st century career practices and collective intelligence. The learning ecosystem of MiLEx integrates four key elements: (1) key players that define the main actors and their roles in the learning process; (2) a learning context that defines the learning space and the networks of expected interactions among human and non-human objects; (3) experiential learning instances that deliver education via a real-life–virtual merge; and (4) technology support for building practice communities online, developing experiential cycles and transforming knowledge between human and non-human objects within the community. The proposed MiLEx architecture incorporates sets of technological and data components to (1) discover/profile learners and design learner-centric, theoretically grounded and immersive learning experiences; (2) create elements and experiential learning scenarios; (3) analyze learner’s interactive and behavioral patterns; (4) support the emergence of collective intelligence; (5) assess learning outcomes and monitor the learner’s maturity process; and (6) evaluate experienced learning and recommend future experiences. We also present the MiLEx continuum as a cyclic flow of information to promote immersive learning. Finally, we discuss some open issues to increase the learning value and propose some future work suggestions to further shape the transformative potential of metaverse-based learning environments.

Understanding performance measurement and management as a social system: towards a theoretical framework

Purpose

The conceptual foundations of performance measurement and management (PMM) are predominantly rooted in control systems research. However, the appropriateness of this paradigm for volatile and uncertain environments has been questioned. This paper explores whether grounding PMM in social systems theory and viewing uncertainty from an organisational behaviour perspective provides new insights into the PMM theory–practice gap.

Design/methodology/approach

A framework, rooted in social systems theory and practice theory, is created that describes how organisational behaviour shapes the social processes associated with organisational change. Semi-structured interviews of 35 people from 16 organisations coupled with thematic analysis are employed to identify the organisational behavioural characteristics that influence how PMM is executed in practice. PMM is then reconceptualised from the perspective of this social systems-based framework.

Findings

This investigation proposes (1) performance management is concerned with elements of PMM-related practices open to flexible interpretation by human agents that change the effectiveness of organisational practices, whereas performance measurement is concerned with elements of PMM-related practices not open to interpretation but deliberately reproduced to provide a consistent comparison with the past; (2) the purpose of PMM should be to achieve organisational effectiveness (OE) and (3) the mechanisms underlying performance management and performance measurement are social intervention and embeddedness, respectively.

Originality/value

This first social systems perspective of PMM advances the development of PMM's theoretical foundations by providing a behaviour-based interpretation of, and framework for, PMM-mediated organisational change. This competing approach has strong links to practice.

Value creation and CSR

A more robust, inclusive model of value creation will sharpen dominant normative theories of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) such as stakeholder theory and the theory of communicative/deliberative democracy. When measuring value creation, CSR theories oscillate between traditional, exchange-based approaches utilizing narrow financial metrics and value-oriented approaches embedded in prominent CSR theories. The two are often in conflict. The problem is aggravated by CSR's assumption that all firms, regardless of industry, possess the same generic responsibilities. A mining company, a sports betting service, and a medical device manufacturer are on all fours when measuring CSR success. The paper identifies a contradiction between settled normative convictions and the corporate decision making that normative CSR theories prescribe. Using the pharmaceutical industry as an example, it references the widespread conviction that during the 2019 Covid-19 pandemic some pharmaceutical companies had a responsibility to reach beyond the goal of financial optimization. It then explains why this conviction cannot be rationalized using two prominent normative theories of CSR, namely, stakeholder theory and the theory of communicative/deliberative democracy. The problem hinges on a defective model of value creation. One implication of the analysis is that healthcare companies should readjust corporate governance in order to make health a focal goal alongside that of profit. At the same time, a semiconductor firm might satisfy its CSR responsibilities by only designating profit as its focal goal. The thrust of the paper is to show why reconceiving the model of value creation can advance not only stakeholder and communicative/deliberative democracy theories, but all CSR.

Fragmented care trajectories in municipal healthcare: Local sensemaking of digital documentation

Objective

Since the 1990s, almost all healthcare organisations have had electronic health records (EHR) to organise and manage treatment, care and work routines. This article aims to understand how healthcare professionals (HCPs) make sense of digital documentation practice.

Methods

Based on a case study design, field observations and semi-structured interviews were conducted in a Danish municipality. A systematic analysis based on Karl Weick's sensemaking theory was applied to investigate what cues HCPs extract from timetables in the EHR and how institutional logics frame the enactment of documentation practice.

Results

The analysis uncovered three themes: making sense of planning, making sense of tasks and making sense of documentation. The themes illustrate that HCPs make sense of the digital documentation practice as a dominant managerial tool designed to control resources and work routines. This sensemaking leads to a task-oriented practice which centres on delivering fragmented tasks according to a timetable.

Conclusion

HCPs mitigate fragmentation by responding to a care professional logic, where they document to share information and carry out invisible work outside of timetables and scheduled tasks. However, HCPs are focused on solving specific tasks by the minute with the possible consequence that continuity and their overview of the service user's care and treatment disappear. In conclusion, the EHR system eliminates a holistic view of care trajectories, leaving it up to HCPs to collaborate in an effort to obtain continuity for the service user.

Who Pays the Cancer Tax? Patients’ Narratives in a Movement to Reduce Their Invisible Work

Many studies examine the division of labor inside organizations. Yet there is also an expected division of labor between organizations and their clients, which research to date has tended to ignore or has treated as static and easily accepted by both parties. How might clients change the expected division of labor with a service organization? We developed this question while studying an academic cancer center (ACC), where patient activists led a movement to bring to light the burdensome invisible work they and their families did to coordinate their treatment. They shared their own stories, developed formal channels for collecting more stories, and worked to broadcast the growing set of stories across ACC. Their stories became a resource for change and mobilized a coalition of staff allies. Coalition members drew on the patient stories to develop a new diagnostic framing of the “Cancer Tax”—the burdensome coordination work ACC required of patients. They also developed a prognostic frame for how ACC could help, which inspired a new program that took on some of the patients’ coordination tasks. In this way, the patients’ stories created new awareness of the problem and provided resources for staff allies to make the case for taking on some of the patients’ invisible work. This study shows that clients can effectively influence organizational change through movements fueled by personal narratives (for instance, lessening the coordination work they must do to coproduce complex services).

Creating a lean mind-set: Change of practice towards early treatment

This paper reports the findings of a qualitative study on lean implementation viewed as an organisational learning process. By using a scaffolding framework, we investigate the ways in which human resource development facilitates learning among clinicians. This study contributes to the temporary role of human resource development in learning processes within multi-disciplinary professional groups. We identify scaffolding activities from which we have identified three human resource development practices: phase 1 – cognitive scaffolding, in which human resource development acts as a ‘mindsetter’ that aims to motivate the learning of lean in relation to the clinicians’ practices; phase 2 – peer-to-peer scaffolding through ‘doing’ lean, in which human resource development performs the role of an ‘experience creator’ who creates knowledge engagement between peers – in order to put lean into practice; and phase 3 – fading of the scaffolding, in which human resource development performs the role of a ‘delegator’ who transfers the responsibility to the clinicians to promote learning. This contributes to our understanding of how knowledge is negotiated in a multidisciplinary context. We contribute to the learning literature by emphasising how learning trajectories are initiated by learning initiatives, highlighting the role limitations of human resource development in this context, and demonstrating how a new learning tension arises between different versions of ‘lean’ in the organisation.

Practice co-evolution: Collaboratively embedding artificial intelligence in retail practices

Many retailers invest in artificial intelligence (AI) to improve operational efficiency or enhance customer experience. However, AI often disrupts employees' ways of working causing them to resist change, thus threatening the successful embedding and sustained usage of the technology. Using a longitudinal, multi-site ethnographic approach combining 74 stakeholder interviews and 14 on-site retail observations over a 5-year period, this article examines how employees' practices change when retailers invest in AI. Practice co-evolution is identified as the process that undergirds successful AI integration and enables retail employees' sustained usage of AI. Unlike product or practice diffusion, which may be organic or fortuitous, practice co-evolution is an orchestrated, collaborative process in which a practice is co-envisioned, co-adapted, and co-(re)aligned. To be sustained, practice co-evolution must be recursive and enabled via intentional knowledge transfers. This empirically-derived recursive phasic model provides a roadmap for successful retail AI embedding, and fruitful future research avenues.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11747-022-00896-1.

Paradox as an Interactional Resource - An Ethnomethodological Analysis into the Interconnectedness of Organizational Paradoxes

In this paper, we demonstrate how performing and belonging paradoxes act as triggers, mitigators and amplifiers for each other in moment-by-moment interaction. We show how expressing a performing paradox as part of group practice triggers belonging tensions, particularly when there is a strong expectation towards a uniform value-base. We further demonstrate how another performing paradox at the organization level is constructed to mitigate the belonging paradox through latency. This leads to an amplification dynamic where a paradox that is more socially appropriate is reinforced in order to cope with a more interactionally problematic one. Our results speak to research on the intertwined nature of paradoxical tensions and the relationship between latency and salience in working through paradox. Our study advocates for developing a more systematic approach for studying the interactional foundations of organizational paradox and offers ethnomethodological conversation analysis (EMCA) as one means to achieve improved understanding in this domain.

Phronetic improvisation: A virtue ethics perspective

Traditional approaches to organizational improvisation treat it as a merely functional response to environmental constrains and unforeseen disruptions, neglecting its moral dimension, especially the valued ends improvisers aim to achieve. We attempt to address this gap by drawing on virtue ethics. In particular, we explore how phronetic improvisation is accomplished by drawing on the diary of an emergency-room physician, in which she describes her (and colleagues’) experience of dealing with Covid-19 in a New York Hospital, during the first spike in March–April 2020. We argue that improvisation is phronetic insofar as practitioners actively care for the valued ends of their practice. In particular, practitioners seek to phronetically fulfil the internal goods of their practice, while complying with institutional demands, in the context of coping with situational exigencies. Phronetic improvisation involves paying attention to what is salient in the situation at hand, while informed by an open-ended commitment to valued ends and constrained by scarce resources, and driven by a willingness to meet what is at stake through adapting general knowledge to situational demands. Such an inventive process may involve reshaping the original internal goods of the practice, in light of important institutional constrains.

Conceptualizing Information Systems Development as an Organizational Routine

Research acknowledges that information systems development (ISD) teams experiment with, overlook, or adapt the methods that they purportedly use. Given this, one stream of research adopts a perspective focused on prescriptions based on the idea of a method. Another stream of research adopts a perspective anchored in the view that human agency plays a critical role in the unfolding of ISD projects. We suggest that our understanding of ISD can be enriched by mobilizing both perspectives. Specifically, we propose a conceptualization of ISD as an organizational routine based on the ontology developed by Feldman and Pentland. We build on the elements of this ontology- (1) the idea of a routine (the ostensive aspect) and (2) its enactment (the performative aspect) as the two mutually constitutive aspects of organizational routines; and (3) the role of artifacts as mediators of the relationship between actors and the ostensive and performative aspects of organizational routines - to develop theoretical arguments explaining the benefits of applying this ontology to the ISD phenomenon. Extending the contextual boundaries of Feldman and Pentland's ontology, we propose research avenues that have the potential to contribute to our understanding of this core phenomenon of the IS discipline.

Rotinização em métodos ágeis: emergência e mudanças de rotinas em equipes Scrum

Novas abordagens para projetar práticas/rotinas exploram formas distribuídas e flexíveis de organização, incluindo organizações ágeis e abertas. Com base neste contexto, este artigo tem como objetivo contribuir para avançar na compreensão de como as rotinas emergem e se modificam em projetos de software gerenciados pelo método ágil Scrum. Nesse sentido, o método fenomenográfico foi escolhido como instrumento qualitativo, dada a sua capacidade de captação de dados distribuídos com base em experiências individuais, possibilitando ampliar as investigações sob a perspectiva da prática. As entrevistas foram realizadas, no período de julho de 2018 a abril de 2019, com profissionais participantes de equipes Scrum. Os resultados revelaram que a emergência de rotinas se relaciona com competências coletivas que são aprendidas pela equipe durante o ciclo de vida do projeto, suportando, desta forma, a necessidade de adaptabilidade contínua das rotinas de gerenciamento ao longo do projeto. Essa perspectiva introduz as competências coletivas da equipe como aspecto subjacente do fenômeno da emergência de rotinas de gerenciamento ágil de projeto.

A Routine-Based Theory of Routine Replication

Organizational routines have been investigated by scholars from two opposite perspectives: the first is rooted in the evolutionary economics of Nelson and Winter; the second relies on the reconceptualization of routines proposed by Feldman and Pentland. The main reason that has kept the perspectives separated concerns the issue of routine replication, which found space in the former while it remained in the shadows in the latter. Studies that have dealt with this issue offer many clues on the one or other form that replication can take. What is lacking is a routine-based theory of routine replication capable of comparing their different forms. The paper pursues this goal in two stages. First, routines are reconceptualized as repetitive, recognizable patterns of interdependent actions, connected with the external environment, guided by specific knowledge and involving multiple, interacting actors and artifacts. Then, this reconceptualization leads to a discussion of the issue of routine replication and its forms. This way of conceiving routines leads to developing an original and unitary theoretical framework covering the different forms of routine replication. What lends intra-organizational replication a greater replicability than inter-organizational replication is the presence of a template and of actors specialized in planning the replication process. In its serial and routinized form, intra-organizational replication can potentially reach the highest level of replicability. The same results can be achieved by the routine replication that underlies franchise systems. In the two forms of inter-organizational replication—spin-offs and employee mobility—the template is replaced by a weaker knowledge repository consisting of the memory of individuals who leave one organization and try to replicate its routines at another. The disadvantage deriving from the lack of a template can be contained when specific factors are present that facilitate the work of replication actors.

A Distributed Framework for the Study of Organizational Cognition in Meetings

This paper proposes an analytical framework for the analysis of organizational cognition that borrows from distributed and ecological cognition. In so doing, we take a case study featuring a decision on the topic of agreeing on a set point in the agenda of a meeting. It is through the analysis of a few minutes of video-recording used in the case that enables us to demonstrate the power of applying distributed and ecological cognition to organizing processes. Cognitive mechanism, resources, and processes are identified within this combined framework. Mechanisms are described as “socio-material” (CM1)—where “people” and “artifacts” are the related cognitive resources—and as “conceptual” (CM2)—with “group” identity, “topic” understanding, meaning of “procedures,” and perception of “time” as resources. Processes are defined as “coupling,” “de-coupling,” and “un-coupled” depending on the type of relation in place. Finally, the paper presents an agent-based computational simulation to demonstrate the potentials of operationalizing this approach.

“Magic through many minor measures”: How introducing a flowline production mode in six steps enables journalist team autonomy in local news organizations

While facing cuts, downsizing and revenue losses, media organizations experience paradoxical demands in being organized for print or linear production with daily deadlines and simultaneously striving to be ‘digital first’ and produce and publish stories online on a continuous basis throughout the day. In this paper, we describe efforts applied when introducing the metaphor flowline in a medium-sized newspaper organization in Norway with the aim of aligning their production and publishing processes to readers’ consumption of online news. Both the production volume of journalistic content, reader consumption and the newsroom workers’ experience of mastering their everyday work life increased dramatically in a very short time. The involvement of a temporary autonomous team in the planning and designing of a test pilot aiming to make flowline “as practice”, was integral to the digital transformation success, allowing for participative action across newsroom boundaries. Based on the empirical findings from the local newspaper organization and drawing on theories on liminality (Turner 1982, 1986) and metaphorical work (Schön 1993), this article presents a set of six interrelated steps incorporating a structure for autonomous teams and their role in enabling lasting change in organizations facing digital transformation.

Update of leadership-as-practice “practice theory”: Featuring Joe Raelin Interviewed by Jenny Robinson

This article constitutes an interview between a new researcher of the field of Leadership-as-Practice (L-A-P), Jenny Robinson, with one of the co-creators of the field, Joe Raelin. It is dedicated to providing an update and refinement of leadership-as-practice “practice theory,” which has gone through a fair degree of transformation since this journal’s first article on the subject in 2008. The call for such an update is precipitated by the need for emerging L-A-P researchers to appreciate the subject’s conceptual boundaries for more consistent and integrated exploration. In particular, L-A-P claims to differentiate not only from other plural traditions in leadership but from other “as-practice” approaches in the wider management field. Some of the other distinctions covered in this article comprise the role of theory in L-A-P, its contribution to leadership research and leadership development, its connection to other related fields, and its phenomenological, ethical, democratic, and post-humanistic foundations.

'Bringing the Covert into the Open': A Case Study on Technology Appropriation and Continuous Improvement

As end-users, employees appropriate technologies. Technology appropriation is generally conceived as a covert phenomenon. In particular, alternative ways and new purposes for which employees deploy technologies tend to remain hidden. Therefore, the potential of technologies as a source of organizational improvements may remain undisclosed. Continuous improvement (CI) programs, in contrast, are explicitly oriented at disclosing organizational improvements. In essence, CI programs encourage employees to openly discuss how to improve their work practices. Such continuous movements towards novel, often better, ways of working may be perfectly suited to bring the covert nature of technology appropriation into the open. Based on a case study on a personal digital assistant (PDA) in a Belgian nursing home with such a CI program in place, we document and analyze to what extent and why functionalities of the PDA were discussed and further developed. We distinguish between the functionalities that, upon implementation, intended to improve particular work practices, and those that surfaced after the technology had been introduced. To conclude, we point at employees’ perceived usefulness of their work practices and their willingness to improve these, rather than only the technology itself, to further the debate on technology appropriation.

Change Management and Innovation Practices during Pandemic in the Middle East E-Commerce Industry

This study highlights the appropriateness of innovation management principles to successfully manage radical change in the e-commerce industry during the COVID-19 period. The study focuses on transforming delivery platforms in the context of popular e-commerce organizations in the U.A.E. We conducted the study through interviews, and the results reflect the development of three major themes (shifting consumer behavior, implementation of innovation, and innovation for effective change management) since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. During the transition stage, critical aspects concerning product delivery have emerged to stabilize logistics performance with sustainability. The study suggests that firms need to be faster and more flexible to address the market uncertainty through innovative practices. Similar organizations can use this study to develop mechanisms to improve their delivery systems. Additionally, the study also argues that collaborative innovation significantly contributes to the enhancement of consumers’ well-being and boosts economic growth.

From rationale to lessons learned in the cloud information security risk assessment: a study of organizations in Sweden

Purpose

This study aims to address the issue of practicing information security risk assessment (ISRA) on cloud solutions by studying municipalities and large organizations in Sweden.

Design/methodology/approach

Four large organizations and five municipalities that use cloud services and conduct ISRA to adhere to their information security risk management practices were studied. Data were gathered qualitatively to answer the study’s research question: How is ISRA practiced on the cloud? The Coat Hanger model was used as a theoretical lens to study and theorize the practices.

Findings

The results showed that the organizations aimed to follow the guidelines, in the form of frameworks or their own experience, to conduct ISRA; furthermore, the frameworks were altered to fit the organizations’ needs. The results further indicated that one of the main concerns with the cloud ISRA was the absence of a culture that integrates risk management. Finally, the findings also stressed the importance of a good understanding and a well-written legal contract between the cloud providers and the organizations using the cloud services.

Originality/value

As opposed to the previous research, which was more inclined to try out and evaluate various cloud ISRA, the study provides insights into the practice of cloud ISRA experienced by the organizations. This study represents the first attempt to investigate cloud ISRA that organizations practice in managing their information security.

What Makes Resource Provision an Effective Means of Poverty Alleviation? A Resourcing Perspective

Adequately addressing the grand challenge of poverty requires addressing resource scarcity. However, efforts to provide resources as a means of poverty alleviation have met with mixed success. We explore what makes resource provision effective as a means of poverty alleviation. We adopt a resourcing perspective, which focuses on the relationship between potential resources and schemas, or shared understandings, that shape how resources are used. Consistent with prior research, we find that schemas shape how resources are used in practice. However, we also find that who can access the resources is as consequential as how they are used. In exploring this issue, we identify a new category of schemas related not to use but to access, which we refer to as access schemas. We define access schemas as shared understandings regarding who can appropriately access potential resources. We find that different social groups have distinct schemas regarding access, and we identify three mechanisms—precedence, complementarity, and scaffolding—that shape the way that access schemas are enacted in resource-scarce settings. Our study contributes to the literature on grand challenges by clarifying the link between resource provision and resource use. We also contribute to the literature on resourcing by uncovering mechanisms that shape schema enactment in the presence of conflicting access schemas held by different social groups.

Agency and the principle of charity: a pragmatist theory of the interaction order

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of agency on basis of a pragmatist philosophy framework of analysis. Agency is a key analytical concept in management studies, debated in terms of its theoretical elements and its degree of empirical substantiation. Agency is commonly either assumed to be the case, understood as some generic human capacity to act with integrity, or, alternatively, agency is considered to be derived from social structures, say professional norms or occupational identities acquired through socialization. In contrast, in an attempt to escape the agency/structure model, agency may be considered as what is generated in and through meso-level interactions, constituted as recurrent practices wherein accomplishments in the past serve as the template for new activities that further reinforce agential capacities.

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing on the work of pragmatist philosopher Donald Davidson and what he calls the principle of charity, this paper presents an analytical model wherein agency is generated on basis of a shared everyday language wherein beliefs and preferences are constituted and thereafter serve as the basis of agential action.

Findings

Davidson’s externalist theory of action is supportive of the theory and study of meso-level interactions and helps to overcome the question whether agency is exogenously given or the effect of social structure.

Originality/value

This paper reviews recent social science literature on agency and introduces pragmatist philosophy concepts to better examine under what conditions social actors can reasonably have faith in an interaction being premised on beliefs that are held on basis of rational and reasonable grounds. This adds to an integrated theory of agency, being of importance for social theory and organizational analysis more specifically.

Worlds apart: a socio-material exploration of mHealth in rural areas of developing countries

Purpose

The implementation of mobile health (mHealth) in developing countries seems to be stuck in a pattern of successive pilot studies that struggle for mainstream implementation. This study addresses the research question: what existing health-related structures, properties and practices are presented by rural areas of developing countries that might inhibit the implementation of mHealth initiatives?

Design/methodology/approach

This study was conducted using a socio-material approach, based on an exploratory case study in West Africa. Interviews and participant observation were used to gather data. A thematic analysis identified important social and material agencies, practices and imbrications which may limit the effectiveness of mHealth apps in the region.

Findings

Findings show that, while urban healthcare is highly structured, best practice-led, rural healthcare relies on peer-based knowledge sharing, and community support. This has implications for the enacted materiality of mobile technologies. While urban actors see mHealth as a tool for automation and the enforcement of responsible healthcare best practice, rural actors see mHealth as a tool for greater interconnectivity and independent, decentralised care.

Research limitations/implications

This study has two significant limitations. First, the study focussed on a region where technology-enabled guideline-driven treatment is the main mHealth concern. Second, consistent with the exploratory nature of this study, the qualitative methodology and the single-case design, the study makes no claim to statistical generalisability.

Originality/value

To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to adopt a socio-material view that considers existing structures and practices that may influence the widespread adoption and assimilation of a new mHealth app. This helps identify contextual challenges that are limiting the potential of mHealth to improve outcomes in rural areas of developing countries.

Narrowing the research-practice gap in project management

A área de Gerenciamento de Projetos (GP) é um domínio orientado à prática, mas as abordagens baseadas na prática permanecem sub-representadas em comparação com estudos teóricos e empíricos. Este cenário abre espaço para um melhor entendimento de como promover o engajamento entre acadêmicos e profissionais para estudar tópicos relevantes para a prática, que têm um efeito diário nas partes interessadas em GP. Este artigo visa contribuir com recomendações sobre formas compreensíveis de engajamento de pesquisa com profissionais que abordarão a lacuna da prática de pesquisa em GP. As recomendações estão alicerçadas na lacuna prática-pesquisa apontada por pesquisadores da Administração e de GP. Elas são escritas como ações para promover o envolvimento de profissionais que trabalham com projetos de pesquisa orientados à prática, para chamar a atenção de editores e responsáveis por conferências para tornar os profissionais parte da literatura de campo de GP e preencher a lacuna deixada por pesquisadores que negligenciam contribuições de utilidade prática. As recomendações também estão associadas ao processo de pesquisa e publicação, redação de teses, dissertações, artigos, relatórios e à comunidade de GP. Assim, o artigo tem uma dupla contribuição: 1. Conscientizar sobre o surgimento de pesquisas envolvendo profissionais e acadêmicos por meio de diferentes projetos de pesquisa; e 2. Fornecer uma compilação de ações para melhorar o engajamento entre profissionais e pesquisadores. 

Political Dynamics in Knowledge Work: Using Visual Artifacts to Deal with Pragmatic Boundaries

Previous research on knowledge work has started to explore how organizational actors deal with pragmatic boundaries that arise from their different interests, priorities, and viewpoints. Material objects, such as visual artifacts, can be used to shape and manipulate pragmatic boundaries, but our understanding of these dynamics is only partial. In this paper, we maintain that focusing on the uses of visual artifacts offers an opportunity to deepen our understanding of the political aspects of knowledge work. To this end, we conducted a practice-based study of an architectural project in which the building design became contested. Our empirical analysis reveals four practices in which visual artifacts are used to deal with pragmatic boundaries: surfacing, bridging, preventing, and minimizing. Through these practices, organizational actors can make boundaries more or less visible with important implications on their power relations and the project at hand. The main contribution of our study is to advance understanding of the political dynamics in knowledge work by revealing how visual artifacts can be used to manipulate pragmatic boundaries. By so doing, our analysis also helps to move the conversation on visual artifacts beyond their role as epistemic objects that sustain (or hinder) knowledge work.