Making the matrix work : how can conflict be managed when introducing the matrix organization structure in growth markets; a case study in the Middle East

The introduction of the matrix organization structure leads to both advantages and disadvantages. This study investigated how to manage conflict, as an outcome of introducing the matrix structure, with a specific focus on the Middle East growth market. The nature of conflict to be managed is the negatively perceived conflict with destructive impact, bearing in mind that conflict in its normal form is a desired outcome of the matrix that can be positively utilized. The study applied the grounded theory building method, in view of the limited research data available on the Middle East region. The research followed the iterative approach, where the scope of the study eventually developed and expanded to include several categories, based on the continuous flow of slices of data and analyzing such data. Such categories included organization development interventions (ODIs), culture and leadership, following the outcomes of the in-depth interviews conducted in the pilot study. The research findings and conclusions suggest that the introduction/implementation of matrix organization structures in dynamic growth markets like the Middle East is unlikely to be successful in the traditional form. Managers perceive it as hindering to the business. To make the matrix structure work, managers apply a variety of creative approaches, building on loose coupling, sense-making and sense giving. They deploy personal capabilities, influential games and cultural tools, which in essence break all matrix rules. Transition to a matrix structure should be done gradually, building on local leaders’ experience as champions. The company should introduce ODIs at early stages and ensuring effective orientation and alignment on basic decision rules. Implications for business can be quite significant for multinational firms interested in expanding the business to the emerging markets including the Middle East. The matrix model needs either to be modified or even abandoned in the early stages of business growth, to ensure local managers’ endorsement and acceptance. Companies are encouraged to use methodological approaches such as the grounded theory in providing solutions for contextual issues in real life. The research provides room for a strategic approach to market entry models, taking into consideration various elements including leadership, national and professional cultures as well as market dynamics. This approach is represented in the form of a conceptual framework proposed for market entry. This would affect the training and development models adopted by companies as well as the development of innovative ODIs that cover specific market needs

Khwaja Sira: Culture, Identity Politics, and Transgender Activism in Pakistan

In 2009, the Pakistani Supreme Court began granting rights to gender ambiguous people who are locally known as khwaja siras. The Court organized this population into taxonomic groups and ordered the government to `mainstream\u27 them. These actions were based on certain cultural assumptions and occurred amid uncertainties about who khwaja siras really were. Meanwhile, khwaja siras began to mobilize in an effort to control their public image. Based on fourteen months of ethnographic fieldwork on the identity politics of khwaja siras in Karachi, this dissertation seeks to understand the ways in which gender ambiguous people constructed, negotiated and represented themselves both within their social networks and in the wider society, as well as the factors underpinning their public portrayals. I conceive khwaja sira politics as a `game\u27, that is, as the art of manipulation and concealment. I argue that the games of secrecy and deception in which this minority population engaged were responses to the stigma they experienced in everyday life. Khwaja sira relationships with the general public were strategic game-like interactions that were meant to conceal knowledge, misrepresent gender variant people, and confuse opponents. They allowed khwaja siras to maintain ambiguity about their corporeality, conceal their sexualized lifestyle, and seek inclusion into mainstream society. These everyday forms of agency and deceit emerged on a larger scale and in far more sophisticated ways in the realm of activism. However, social stigma was so pervasive that it permeated into the khwaja sira cultural system, impacting the self-esteem of its members and triggering identity wars between them. These fissures were replicated within activist spaces where they often stifled efforts to empower khwaja siras. The games of secrecy and deception that gender variant people played both facilitated and undermined their movement. These empowering and conscious acts of self preservation enhanced their security within an oppressive social environment. However, khwaja sira politics did not promote understanding of gender and sexual difference. These provisional solutions perpetuated ambiguity about khwaja siras, temporarily grazing the surface of their struggles without promoting long-term stigma reduction

Opening Up Transformation Pathways for Sustainable Wellbeing: Exploring the Role of Sustainability Experiential Learning as a Capacity Building Mechanism for Global Ecological Citizenship

abstract: Criticisms of technocratic and managerial sustainability responses to global environmental change have led scholars to argue for transformative shifts in ideology, policy, and practice favoring alternative, plural transformation pathways to sustainability. This raises key debates around how we build transformative capacity and who will lead the way. To further this critical dialogue, this dissertation explores the potential for sustainability experiential learning (SEL) to serve as a capacity building mechanism for global ecological citizenship in support of transformation pathways to sustainable wellbeing. In the process it considers how the next generation of those primed for sustainability leadership identify with and negotiate diversity—of perceptions, values, agency, and lived experiences—in what constitutes sustainable wellbeing and the approaches needed to get there. Inspired by the STEPS (Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) Centre’s transformation pathways approach, this research proposes a Transformative Capacity Building model grounded in a Transformation Pathways to Sustainable Wellbeing framework that integrates and builds upon tenets of the original pathways approach with transformative learning, Value-Believe-Norm, and global ecological citizenship (eco-citizenship) theories and concepts. The proposed model and framework were applied to an in-depth ethnographic case study of sustainability experiential learning communities formed within the four Summer 2015 Global Sustainability Studies (GSS) programs at Arizona State University. Using mixed methods, including semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and Photovoice, this study examines the values, perceptions, and perceived agency of participants post-program in relation to the knowledge-making and mobilization processes that unfolded during their international GSS programs. Of particular interest are participants’ cognitive, moral, and affective engagement as SEL community members. Through multi-level thematic analyses, key values, perceptions, agency and engagement themes are identified and influencing relationships highlighted across the different SEL communities and programs. Implications of these factors and their relationships for capacity building for eco-citizenship and future program development are considered. The dissertation concludes by translating study findings into actionable pathways for future research AND practice, including the proposal of program development and implementation recommendations that could enable future sustainability experiential learning programs to better contribute to transformative capacity building for eco-citizenship.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Anthropology 201

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

America versus the Environment? Humanity, Nature, and the Sacred 1973-2014

The relationship between environmental concern and religiosity in the United States is complex and contentious. Analyses of survey research have yielded mixed results. Historical research has indicated that some strands of present-day environmentalism in the U.S. are rooted in specific Protestant attitudes and practices. Conceptual work has suggested that faith-based environmental organizations focus on long-term ethical change, rather than issue-based policy reform. It follows that efforts to model the connection between environmental concern and religiosity should account for change over time, which is the aim of this dissertation research. Using data from the 1973-2014 General Social Survey, measures of stewardship and conservation were regressed on several dimensions of change over time within religious group identities, including cohorts (Chapter 3), upbringing and disaffiliation (Chapter 4), as well as calendar year and age (Chapter 5). Environmental concern in the U.S. increased over time across all groups, but generally increased more quickly on average among members of religious groups with historical pro-environmental stances. Upbringing in a religious group with a historical pro-environmental stance was linked to higher levels of environmental concern in adulthood, though the highest levels of environmental concern were found among those who disaffiliated in adulthood. Younger religious persons were significantly more environmentally concerned than older religious persons in the same religious group. Separating cohorts by gender (Chapter 6), class (Chapter 7), as well as political party affiliation and race (Chapter 8): religious group identity was more salient in predicting changes in environmental concern over time among men; the conditional effect of religious group identity on environmental concern is largely confined to people of average income; and the often-discussed political polarization on environmental concern is largely due to increasing divides among white Protestants. In short, environmental concern has increased among younger religious adherents relative to older members of the same group. These trends generally take the form of “catching up to” historically higher levels of environmental concern among the unaffiliated. This research offers a relatively novel means by which to approach the religion-environment connection and suggests that religious groups may play a meaningful role in future efforts to address environmental issues

Analysis of sports policy in Greece through a strategic relations perspective 1980–93

The aim of this study is to identify the changing nature of sports policy in Greece in the period 1980–93. Key themes addressed were the relationship between policy goals and the political values of the principal political actors; the impact of the changing nature of the economic and social structure on policy goals and implementation; and the significance of national, local and transnational influences and contexts for sports policy. This study reflects a concern to develop knowledge in this field, in the sense both that Greek sports policy as an object of study has received little research attention, and that the framework of strategic relations theory, which has informed this analysis, has not been employed to date in investigations of sports policy systems in the literature. [Continues.

The role of social, cultural and symbolic capital in generating national competitive position in Sierra Leone

National competitiveness is forged by the dominant network of Hofstede(an) values and Leung’s social expectations that configure “the set of institutions, policies and factors that determine the level of productivity of a country” (Porter & Schwab, 2008). The development of social infrastructure and political institutions (SIPI) enjoys the clearest link – in the literature - to the relative wealth and poverty of countries. Porter’s seminal 1990 work did not fully account for the contribution of a country’s history and culture to its national competitiveness. His competitiveness Diamond was separated from SIPI in the World Economic Forum’s 2008 Global Competitiveness Report (GCR). However, the GCR does not include a theory of the economic sociol-ogy of national competitiveness. Bourdieu’s sociology of competition is proposed as the foundation of an extended framework. The alternative Coleman/Granovetter/Putnam sociology of integration, popular in business schools and international development including the World Bank, is weaker; albeit with positive contributions that are best harnessed within a Bourdieurien framework. It omits many aspects of economic action, including a link to the macro-economic level, culture, and politics – all of which are integrated within Bourdieu’s economy of practices. Bourdieu’s competition is more consistent with the relevant economics than is Putnam: including, inter alia, the opportunism of William-son’s Contracting Man; Akerlof’s dishonest lemons; the multi-person prisoners’ di-lemmas of Dixit’s economic governance; Fehr & Tyran’s strategic complementarity of a few and Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons. Bourdieu and the economists indi-cate the imperative to proactively manage the conflicts inherent in human choices re-garding scarce resources. Bourdieu’s Neo-Marxian politics should not prejudice the dispassionate use of the neutral contributions of his economic sociology. External national competitiveness demands internal national cooperation. This re-quires risk mitigation of the inevitable structural forces of Bourdieurien conflict, through the systemic development and inter-generational sustenance of requisite lev-els of Polanyi’s social interest and Putnam’s social trust. 3 - Preliminaries 1-combined-D36674-06-05_Jones_v19.docx Theoretical and applied frameworks are developed that utilise economic and game theory constructs as bridges for the Bourdieurien transport of social, cultural and symbolic capital into the arena of the economy. A rich, mixed methods, exploratory research on Sierra Leone is primarily driven by ethnographic action research to build productivity-enhancing structures of cooperation within the professional sector re-sponsible for a basic requirement of the GCR i.e. the strength of auditing and financial reporting. Taken with the action research, supplementary cross-sectional and contextual analysis suggests that Sierra Leone has the Societal Cynicism dimension, linked to weaker co-operation, lower performance and lower productivity, in Leung’s 2002 studies of so-cial axioms. Results of the action research included the private design and promotion of a new na-tional institution, recognised by the International Accounting Standards Board and the Sierra Leone Government, that seeks to deliver Hardin’s “mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon” within the auditing and accounting sector of Sierra Leone i.e. to build the foundations for a sectoral contribution to a resurgence of national competitiveness

Analysis of sports policy in Greece, through a strategic relations perspective 1980-93

The aim of this study is to identify the changing nature of sports policy in Greece in the period 1980-93. Key themes addressed were the relationship between policy goals and the political values of the principal political actors; the impact of the changing nature of the economic and social structure on policy goals and implementation; and the significance of national, local and transnational influences and contexts for sports policy. This study reflects a concern to develop knowledge in this field, in the sense both that Greek sports policy as an object of study has received little research attention, and that the framework of strategic relations theory, which has informed this analysis, has not been employed to date in investigations of sports policy systems in the literature. Gathering of data in Greece, incorporated both secondary sources, which provided aspects of the structural picture of sport, and primary data derived from interviews, which principally focused on the relations between actual policy outcomes, the goals of individuals and groups, and the struggles occurring within the social and political structure. Interviews were undertaken at various levels within the hierarchies of sports organisation and of the state. The principal elements of the concluding analysis in this study were: first, a focus on political change, from the socialist to right wing government, which resulted in changes in economic and social policy, which were themselves reflected in the nature of sports policy; second, a focus on the position of groups and individuals, and the strategic relations within the structures which are subject to policy changes; and third, an analysis of how local, national, and transnational influences have mediated the context of sports policy in Greece from 1980 to 1993. Having concluded the analysis of empirical data, a number of key themes are developed. These include the significance of the political values of the principal parties on the nature of policy goals at national level; the evidence of clientelistic relations between central government and national governing bodies of sport; patterns of corporatism in the relations between local government and local sporting bodies; and the impact of political partisanship in the relations between central and local government and its implications for sports policy at local government level. The study concludes by reviewing these phenomena within the context of the conceptual framework implied by strategic relations theory