The interplay between the sociomaterial, cognitive and paradox views in the field of strategy as practice : "How can we know what we think until we see what we do"

The strategy-as-practice research has grown noticeably in recent years to emphasize the micro-level activities in strategy. Whilst previous research have acknowledged the importance of sociomaterial, cognitive, and paradoxical perspectives in strategy, studies combining these approaches have been missing. This dissertation seeks to contribute to the strategy as practice (SAP) literature and aims to “make sense of the interplay between the sociomaterial, cognitive, and paradox views in the field as strategy as practice”. The empirical part of the thesis comprises five articles from three different datasets collected both public and private organizations. The results of the study illustrate the interplay of different views and the complexity of strategy work, and suggest that cognitive structures frame organizational strategy work. Furthermore, the findings suggest that sociomaterial practices facilitate strategy work by both enabling and structuring the strategic discussions and the process of strategy work. Finally, sociomaterial practices provide means how to balance between paradoxes faced during strategy work and strategic change situations. The present study creates a framework to increase our understanding about the interplay between the sociomaterial, cognitive, and paradox views in the research field of strategy as practice.Mikrotasoisiin strategisiin käytäntöihin painottuva strategia käytäntönä -tutkimus on kasvanut merkittävästi viime vuosina. Vaikka strategia käytäntönä -tutkimus on tutkinut sosiomateriaalisten, kognitiivisten ja paradoksaalisten näkökulmien merkitystä strategiassa, aiemmat tutkimukset eivät ole tutkineet näiden lähestymistapojen keskinäistä vuorovaikutusta. Tämä väitöskirja pyrkii omalta osaltaan tuomaan uutta strategia käytäntönä -kirjallisuuteen ja ymmärtämään sosiomateriaalisen, kognitiivisen, ja paradoksinäkökulman vuorovaikutusta strategia käytäntönä -tutkimusalalla. Väitöskirjan empiirinen osa koostuu viidestä tutkimusartikkelista, jotka pohjautuvat julkisesta ja yksityisistä organisaatioista kerättyihin aineistoihin. Tutkimustulokset havainnollistavat eri näkökulmien keskinäistä vuorovaikutusta ja kompleksisuutta strategiatyössä, jossa kognitiiviset rakenteet määrittelevät organisaation strategiatyötä. Tulokset tuovat esiin sosiomateriaalisten käytäntöjen mahdollistavan roolin organisaation strategiatyössä: sosiomateriaaliset käytännöt mahdollistavat ja luovat rakennetta sekä strategiakeskusteluille että strategiatyölle. Lisäksi sosiomateriaaliset käytännöt tarjoavat keinoja tasapainoilla strategiatyössä ja strategisessa muutoksessa esiin nousevien paradoksien kanssa. Tämä tutkimus luo viitekehyksen lisäämään ymmärrystä sosiomateriaalisen, kognitiivisen ja paradoksinäkökulmien keskinäisestä vuorovaikutuksesta strategia käytäntönä -tutkimusalalla.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Critique of Creativity: Precarity, Subjectivity and Resistance in the ‘Creative Industries’

234 p. : il., Tablas.Libro ElectrónicoLa creatividad siempre está en movimiento: surge, se establece en el ente colectivo, palidece y desaparece a veces en el olvido; renace, vuelve con innovaciones, se reformula y resurge iniciando de nuevo el ciclo. Los viejos mitos de la creación y los creadores, los trabajos consagrados y los organismos privilegiados de los demiurgos están de nuevo en marcha, produciendo nuevos cambios. Los ensayos recogidos en este libro analizan ese resurgimiento complejo del mito de la creación y proponen una crítica contemporánea de la creatividad.Creativity is astir: reborn, re-conjured, re-branded, resurgent. The old myths of creation and creators – the hallowed labors and privileged agencies of demiurges and prime movers, of Biblical world-makers and self-fashioning artist-geniuses – are back underway, producing effects, circulating appeals. Much as the Catholic Church dresses the old creationism in the new gowns of ‘intelligent design’, the Creative Industries sound the clarion call to the Cultural Entrepreneurs. In the hype of the ‘creative class’ and the high flights of the digital bohemians, the renaissance of ‘the creatives’ is visibly enacted. The essays collected in this book analyze this complex resurgence of creation myths and formulate a contemporary critique of creativity.Contents vii Contributors ix Acknowledgements xv Introduction: On the Strange Case of ‘Creativity’ and its Troubled Resurrection 1 PART ONE: CREATIVITY 7 1 Immanent Effects: Notes on Cre-activity 9 2 The Geopolitics of Pimping 23 3 The Misfortunes of the ‘Artistic Critique’ and of Cultural Employment 41 4 ‘Creativity and Innovation’ in the Nineteenth Century: Harrison C. White and the Impressionist Revolution Reconsidered 57 PART TWO: PRECARIZATION 77 5 Virtuosos of Freedom: On the Implosion of Political Virtuosity and Productive Labour 79 6 Experiences Without Me, or, the Uncanny Grin of Precarity 91 7 Wit and Innovation 101 PART THREE: CREATIVITY INDUSTRIES 107 8 GovernCreativity, or, Creative Industries Austrian Style 109 9 The Los Angelesation of London: Three Short Waves of Young People’s Micro-Economies of Culture and Creativity in the UK 119 10 Unpredictable Outcomes / Unpredictable Outcasts: On Recent Debates over Creativity and the Creative Industries 133 11 Chanting the Creative Mantra: The Accelerating Economization of EU Cultural Policy 147 PART FOUR: CULTURE INDUSTRY 165 12 Culture Industry and the Administration of Terror 167 13 Add Value to Contents: The Valorization of Culture Today 183 14 Creative Industries as Mass Deception 191 Bibliography 20

The two-price model revisited. A Minskian-Kaleckian reading of the process of 'financialization'

In Passarella (2011B) a kind of up-grading of Minsky’s economic thought was proposed, in which his ‘financial instability hypothesis’ was inter-bred with inputs from the current heterodox literature. This up-grading was done within a one-good model where capital goods were regarded as a mere portion of firms’ homogeneous output. This simplifying hypothesis did not permit us to include explicitly the ratio of the (demand) price of capital assets to the supply price of capital goods – i.e. the key analytical concept in Minsky’s theory. This paper aims to improve the simplified model provided in Passarella (2011B) by considering explicitly an artificial, pure credit, closed capitalist economy in which production firms are split into two different sectors. The result is a new, although paradoxical, monetary circuit model which allows us to retrieve some of the most disputed results of Minsky’s analysis of economic instability

The two-price model revisited. A Minskian-Kaleckian reading of the process of 'financialization'

In Passarella (2011B) a kind of up-grading of Minsky’s economic thought was proposed, in which his ‘financial instability hypothesis’ was inter-bred with inputs from the current heterodox literature. This up-grading was done within a one-good model where capital goods were regarded as a mere portion of firms’ homogeneous output. This simplifying hypothesis did not permit us to include explicitly the ratio of the (demand) price of capital assets to the supply price of capital goods – i.e. the key analytical concept in Minsky’s theory. This paper aims to improve the simplified model provided in Passarella (2011B) by considering explicitly an artificial, pure credit, closed capitalist economy in which production firms are split into two different sectors. The result is a new, although paradoxical, monetary circuit model which allows us to retrieve some of the most disputed results of Minsky’s analysis of economic instability

Social Welfare

"Social Welfare" offers, for the first time, a wide-ranging, internationally-focused selection of cutting-edge work from leading academics. Its interdisciplinary approach and comparative perspective promote examination of the most pressing social welfare issues of the day. The book aims to clarify some of the ambiguity around the term, discuss the pros and cons of privatization, present a range of social welfare paradoxes and innovations, and establish a clear set of economic frameworks with which to understand the conditions under which the change in social welfare can be obtained

The Informal Economy in Lebanon: Dangers and Benefits

This thesis investigates through situational and empirical analysis the beneficial and detrimental characteristics of the informal economy in Lebanon and its impact on the public and state interest through its socio-economic associations. The informal economy is a polymorphous entity, and in order to determine its versatile contribution, has been separated into four different variables or key drivers. The four key drivers constitute the determinant variables of the informal economy. The main method used to explore the four determinant variables is the Force Field analysis. The first key driver is informal remittances as they represent a significant fraction of the informal economic activity in Lebanon and make a major contribution to Gross Domestic Product. The second driver is corruption, as this involves massive economic transactions on a daily basis, with an enormous impact at both the microeconomic and macroeconomic levels. The third key driver is the informal employment and commerce sector, as the unpaid VAT and corporate and income tax evasion results in a huge annual loss of government revenue in Lebanon. The fourth and last key driver is the illegal networks, as Lebanon represents an international hub for smuggling, drug and people trafficking and money-laundering, with strong links with, and implication for, its sectarian constituents. The current situation in Lebanon fuels the creation of a chaotic socio-economic environment where it is impossible to estimate accurately the significance of the informal economy, or indeed the size of the overall economy. As far as possible in this research all the key drivers have been independently and collectively evaluated through the data collected from the primary sources (users/public opinion, government officials and academics) and secondary material in order to assess each key driver’s input to the informal economy. Subsequently the thesis provides an estimation of the beneficial and detrimental contribution of the informal economy in Lebanon, as well as the overall perceptions of each of the respondent groups. Lastly, the primary and secondary materials are collectively assessed from a single perspective to build, using an inductive approach, a theoretical model of the factors which fuel and perpetuate the informal economy in the country. The present thesis may constitute the foundation for future analysis of the informal economy in Lebanon by providing unconventional recommendations. It is an attempt to present the possibility of an alternative approach to the informal economy, by stressing its merits and advantages, while also recognising the dangers and challenges it poses for both the state and the society

The emergence of the mobile internet in Japan and the UK: platforms, exchange models, and innovation 1999‐2011

In 1999 Japanese mobile operator NTT DoCoMo launched arguably the world’s first successful mobile Internet services portal called “i‐mode”. In Europe at the same time a series of failures diminished the opportunities to attract customers to the mobile Internet. Even though similar Internet technologies were available in Japan and the UK, very different markets for services developed during the initial years 1999‐2003. When the West expected Japanese firms to become dominant players in the mobile digitalisation of services during the introduction of 3G networks, it remained instead a national affair. The dominant views of how markets for mobile services operated seemed flawed.   So‐called delivery platforms were used to connect mobile phones with service contents that were often adapted from the PC world. Designing and operating service delivery platforms became a new niche market. It held a pivotal role for the output of services and competition among providers.   This thesis sets out to answer a set of inter‐related questions: How and where did firms innovate in this new and growing part of the service economy and how are new business models mediated by service delivery platforms? It argues that innovation in the digitalised economy is largely influenced by firms achieving platform leadership through coordination of both technological systems and the creation of multi‐sided exchanges. This thesis demonstrates from cases of multi‐sided markets in operator‐controlled portals, of mobile video and TV and of event ticketing in Japan and the UK that defining the scope of the firm on the network level forms the basis for incremental innovation, the dominant form of service innovation. A parallel focus on coordinating platform technology choices forms the basis for firms to trade fees, advertisements, and user data, enabling control over profitable parts of multi‐sided value networks