Overcoming Managerial Challenges to Realize Growth Spurts: Insights from Cases of Three Enterprises

Organizations face several managerial challenges during their growth period. Growth spurts are realized when organizations overcome these challenges. Though the literature is full of studies on the enterprise growth, the knowledge about how these challenges facilitate or hinder growth is limited. We conceptualize and explain five challenges faced by an enterprise along its growth trajectory. For evidence, we then look at history of three organizations from different sectors and trace their strategies to overcome the challenges faced by them. The firm and the environment interact and make certain strategic choices, which in turn results in growth spurts in the organization. We draw insights from their growth stories and discuss the different strategies and interactions between the firm and the environment.

Nourishing Multiculturalism

This thesis project explores the potential of embodied play to cultivate empathy among students in multicultural classrooms in the western educational context. In a progressively mobile and intermingled world, with greater net flow of immigration from poorer to richer countries and higher birth rate of immigrant population in their new domiciles (Grayling, 2012), I deem the questions of identity, social cohesion, assimilation have become more pressing. Students in multicultural classrooms face new challenges every day. In order to establish an environment in the classroom which is favourable for learning and growth, it is important for students to learn to function cohesively despite the cultural differences between them. This research endeavours to mitigate cultural differences using the vehicle of spices. When students in multicultural classrooms acknowledge that the flavours they enjoy are a result of someone else’s labour, then they become aware of the interdependence of people on one another. Spice growers are largely from the global south. Learning about them through sensory play with spices develops awareness of cultural differences. This can lead to higher acceptance of the many different cultural backgrounds of fellow students. The design outcome of this research are a series of artefacts that use game design as a structured tool to explore embodied play in order to cultivate imagination and empathy among students. The design is targeted towards students who study at university level in multicultural classrooms in privileged western societies. Subjects such as mindfulness, gratitude, pedagogy, sensory design and imagination were explored throughout and have contributed in the journey of this research.Embodied playSocial justiceInclusivityRelationalityCritical pedagog

Empty rituals? A qualitative study of users’ experience of monitoring & evaluation systems in HIV interventions in western India

In global health initiatives, particularly in the context of private philanthropy and its ‘business minded’ approach, detailed programme data plays an increasing role in informing assessments, improvements, evaluations, and ultimately continuation or discontinuation of funds for individual programmes. The HIV/AIDS literature predominantly treats monitoring as unproblematic. However, the social science of audit and indicators emphasises the constitutive power of indicators, noting that their effects at a grassroots level are often at odds with the goals specified in policy. This paper investigates users' experiences of Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) systems in the context of HIV interventions in western India. Six focus groups (totalling 51 participants) were held with employees of 6 different NGOs working for government or philanthropy-funded HIV interventions for sex workers in western India. Ten donor employees were interviewed. Thematic analysis was conducted. NGO employees described a major gap between what they considered their “real work” and the indicators used to monitor it. They could explain the official purposes of M&E systems in terms of programme improvement and financial accountability. More cynically, they valued M&E experience on their CVs and the rhetorical role of data in demonstrating their achievements. They believed that inappropriate and unethical means were being used to meet targets, including incentives and coercion, and criticised indicators for being misleading and inflexible. Donor employees valued the role of M&E in programme improvement, financial accountability, and professionalising NGO-donor relationships. However, they were suspicious that NGOs might be falsifying data, criticised the insensitivity of indicators, and complained that data were under-used. For its users, M& E appears an ‘empty ritual’, enacted because donors require it, but not put to local use. In this context, monitoring is constituted as an instrument of performance management rather than as a means of rational programme improvement

Pathways to Grow Impact: Philanthropy's Role in the Journey

Since 2010, through the "Scaling What Works" initiative, GEO has fostered a conversation about scale that considers a variety of ways nonprofits are creating more value for communities and how funders are supporting their work. GEO's newest publication, "Pathways to Grow Impact", shares new learning about the role grantmakers should play. The publication is the result of a collaborative project with Ashoka, Social Impact Exchange, Taproot Foundation and TCC Group that sought to answer the question: How can grantmakers best support high-performing nonprofits in their efforts to grow their impact? "Pathways to Grow Impact" is for any grantmaker who wants his or her grant dollars to have a greater effect. The publication offers a framework for understanding different approaches to scaling impact, stories from nonprofit leaders who have successfully grown their organizations' impact, and practical recommendations for grantmakers seeking more effective ways to achieve better results

Leading With Intent: A National Index of Nonprofit Board Practices

A comprehensive scan of nonprofit board practices, policies, and performance. Building on data that BoardSource has collected and analyzed dating back to 1994, this report is a powerful window into current board leadership and trends

CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR AS MEANS OF TEACHING ENGLISH SPEECH PATTERNS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

The article focuses on the relevant problem of finding new methods in theory and practice of teaching foreign languages and attempts an interdisciplinary research of conceptual metaphors both as a phenomenon of linguistics and English-language training. The authors view the research novelty in considering conceptual metaphors of educational discourse as one of the means of teaching students English speech patterns. The research aim is to identify basic conceptual metaphors of educational discourse and describe the algorithm of using them in teaching English at universities. The primary methods of the study are conceptual-taxonomic analysis and the Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP). The materials of the study include the articles of the English-language educational discourse and topical lectures on Education, Communication, Science and Society at TED Talks platform. The main research results present conceptual metaphor classification and its possible use as the means of teaching English speech patterns. The basic mechanism of learning new English speech patterns through conceptual metaphors suggests the implementation of cognitive-communicative approach. The results of the research are addressed to master and post-graduate students when learning English in professional sphere of education sciences.

Games for a new climate: experiencing the complexity of future risks

This repository item contains a single issue of the Pardee Center Task Force Reports, a publication series that began publishing in 2009 by the Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future.This report is a product of the Pardee Center Task Force on Games for a New Climate, which met at Pardee House at Boston University in March 2012. The 12-member Task Force was convened on behalf of the Pardee Center by Visiting Research Fellow Pablo Suarez in collaboration with the Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre to “explore the potential of participatory, game-based processes for accelerating learning, fostering dialogue, and promoting action through real-world decisions affecting the longer-range future, with an emphasis on humanitarian and development work, particularly involving climate risk management.” Compiled and edited by Janot Mendler de Suarez, Pablo Suarez and Carina Bachofen, the report includes contributions from all of the Task Force members and provides a detailed exploration of the current and potential ways in which games can be used to help a variety of stakeholders – including subsistence farmers, humanitarian workers, scientists, policymakers, and donors – to both understand and experience the difficulty and risks involved related to decision-making in a complex and uncertain future. The dozen Task Force experts who contributed to the report represent academic institutions, humanitarian organization, other non-governmental organizations, and game design firms with backgrounds ranging from climate modeling and anthropology to community-level disaster management and national and global policymaking as well as game design.Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centr