IDENTITY AND CROSS-CULTURAL MANAGEMENT IN GLOBALLY DISTRIBUTED INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY WORK

An interpretive case study was conducted to examine how team members construct their identities and manage cultural differences in globally distributed information technology work. Research investigating globally distributed information technology work acknowledges the influence of culture on team members and their work activities, but issues of team members’ individual identity and agency are under explored. Guided by social identity theory, our research findings suggest four identity categories constructed by global virtual team members, which are affected by societal culture, organizational culture, individual experience, and structure of the globally distributed IT work. They are: national identity, organizational identity, individual identity, and power identity. Manifestation of each identity is discussed along with how the enactment of these identities affects the ways in which global virtual team members manage cultural differences

The political identities of neighbourhood planning in England

The rise of neighbourhood planning has been characterised as another step in a remorseless de-politicisation of the public sphere. A policy initiated by the Coalition Government in England to create the conditions for local communities to support housing growth, neighbourhood planning appears to evidence a continuing retreat from political debate and contestation. Clear boundaries are established for the holistic integration of participatory democracy into the strategic plan-making of the local authority. These boundaries seek to take politics out of development decisions and exclude all issues of contention from discussion. They achieve this goal at the cost of arming participatory democracy with a collective identity around which new antagonisms may develop. Drawing on the post-political theories of Chantal Mouffe this paper identifies the return of antagonism and conflict to participation in spatial planning. Key to its argument is the concept of the boundary or frontier that in Mouffe’s theoretical framework institutionalises conflict between political entities. Drawing on primary research with neighbourhood development plans in England the paper explores how boundary conditions and boundary designations generate antagonism and necessitate political action. The paper charts the development of the collective identities that result from these boundary lines and argues for the potential for neighbourhood planning to restore political conflict to the politics of housing development

The Role of Cultural Differences and Cultural Intelligence in Controlling IS Offshoring Projects: A Theoretical Model

Cultural differences between outsourcers and vendor firms in offshore locations pose unique management challenges. One ofthese challenges is to find a control strategy that fits the cultural setting. However, most of the previous research has analyzedcultural and control issues separately from one another. The objective of this paper is to bring together these two distinctresearch streams. The result is a conceptual model describing the relationships between cultural differences and the choice ofdifferent control modes in IS offshoring projects. Propositions are derived from organizational control and national culturetheory. In particular, we introduce the concept of cultural intelligence as moderating the relationship between culturaldifferences and the choice of control. The resulting conceptual model developed in this paper makes important theoreticalcontributions to IS offshoring and serves as a basis for future empirical research

Epochal Change and Second Modernity as a Sociocultural Manifestation of Managerialism

This paper returns to the prevalent notion of an epochal change that transformed advanced societies towards the turn of the millennium Using the neutral term second modernity to capture this polyonymous phenomenon three of its constitutive cultural attributes are discussed uncertainty and insecurity immediacy and accelerating rates of change and the flattening of hierarchies and rigid organisations The paper first reviews the way these attributes and their consequences were analysed by proponents and opponents of a postmodern break with the past It is then shown that the new managerial discourse and practices which arose concurrently with all these transformations both endorsed and propelled them At the same time these processes their effects and interpretations all increased the importance and social standing of management in organisations and society at large They also promoted the ethical and ideological foundation of the social ascendency of managers Together this lends support to perceiving the rise of second modernity as the sociocultural manifestation of the new social order of managerialis

Diagramming social practice theory:An interdisciplinary experiment exploring practices as networks

Achieving a transition to a low-carbon energy system is now widely recognised as a key challenge facing humanity. To date, the vast majority of research addressing this challenge has been conducted within the disciplines of science, engineering and economics utilising quantitative and modelling techniques. However, there is growing awareness that meeting energy challenges requires fundamentally socio-technical solutions and that the social sciences have an important role to play. This is an interdisciplinary challenge but, to date, there remain very few explorations of, or reflections on, interdisciplinary energy research in practice. This paper seeks to change that by reporting on an interdisciplinary experiment to build new models of energy demand on the basis of cutting-edge social science understandings. The process encouraged the social scientists to communicate their ideas more simply, whilst allowing engineers to think critically about the embedded assumptions in their models in relation to society and social change. To do this, the paper uses a particular set of theoretical approaches to energy use behaviour known collectively as social practice theory (SPT) - and explores the potential of more quantitative forms of network analysis to provide a formal framework by means of which to diagram and visualize practices. The aim of this is to gain insight into the relationships between the elements of a practice, so increasing the ultimate understanding of how practices operate. Graphs of practice networks are populated based on new empirical data drawn from a survey of different types (or variants) of laundry practice. The resulting practice networks are analysed to reveal characteristics of elements and variants of practice, such as which elements could be considered core to the practice, or how elements between variants overlap, or can be shared. This promises insights into energy intensity, flexibility and the rootedness of practices (i.e. how entrenched/ established they are) and so opens up new questions and possibilities for intervention. The novelty of this approach is that it allows practice data to be represented graphically using a quantitative format without being overly reductive. Its usefulness is that it is readily applied to large datasets, provides the capacity to interpret social practices in new ways, and serves to open up potential links with energy modeling. More broadly, a significant dimension of novelty has been the interdisciplinary approach, radically different to that normally seen in energy research. This paper is relevant to a broad audience of social scientists and engineers interested in integrating social practices with energy engineering

Toward a Theory of Public Entrepreneurship

This paper explores innovation, experimentation, and creativity in the public domain and in the public interest. Researchers in various disciplines have studied public entrepreneurship, but there is little work in management and economics on the nature, incentives, constraints and boundaries of entrepreneurship directed to public ends. We identify a framework for analyzing public entrepreneurship and its relationship to private entrepreneurial behavior. We submit that public and private entrepreneurship share essential features but differ critically regarding the definition and measurement of objectives, the nature of the selection environment, and the opportunities for rent-seeking. We describe four levels of analysis for studying public entrepreneurship, provide examples, and suggest new research directions.Entrepreneurship, public administration, political economy, institutions, transaction costs

Postmodernization: a phase we're going through? Management in social care

This paper considers the challenges facing managers of social care services in public sector organizations in the UK. Some theorists might argue that these challenges are the manifestation of a new postmodern era. It is argued here, however, that society is not fully postmodern: indeed modernity continues with some of its features (such as a concern with rationality and reason) heightened and intensified. Social trends associated with this transitional phase of postmodernization have been highlighted in the literature and here they form the framework for discussing social care management today

How to Prevent before You Must Cure – A Comprehensive Literature Review on Conflict Management Strategies in Global Project Teams

Global project teams are frequently confronted with diverse conflicts. As these teams involve people from different cultures, who work at different locations, they are more prone to conflicts than collocated teams. Geographical dispersion and dependency on information and communication technology entail more challenges for conflict management. In this study, we examine prior literature on cross-cultural conflicts and conflict prevention, management and resolution. We found that previous research on conflict prevention in global project teams is scarce. Therefore, we discuss effective conflict prevention methods and develop a model of a conflict prevention process. This paper contributes to the field in two ways: first, it structures existing literature on conflicts in global project teams, and secondly, it can be used by practitioners to improve conflict prevention in their global project teams

An exploratory investigation of critical success factors in wireless field force automation projects

Wireless Field Force Automation (WFFA) is a wireless solution designed to support field staff such as service personnel, repair or installation employees, technical teams, or medical workers. Certain companies try to provide their field workers with this sort of solution to improve their productivity, their effectiveness and to reduce administrative costs, but more than 50% of these projects fail. This paper discusses the Critical Success Factors (CSF) contributing to the success of these projects. To do this, an exploratory qualitative study was conducted with ten experts in the field. The results of this study show that eight CSF are important in this kind project and that conversely to traditional, sedentary Information Systems, successful WFFA requires taking into consideration a new CSF called “management of mobility” that integrates device management, helpdesk support and mobile device fleet management