A discursive framework

Despite the widespread interest in business models, relatively little is known about how organizations innovate business models. We conceptualize business model innovation as problem-atizing, i.e. a specific kind of ‘discursive practice’ that challenges the dominant paradigm under which a given collective operates. Therefore, we transplant the concept of problematizing from the literature on discourse theory to the literature on business models. Moreover, we develop four ideal types of problematizing that matter for the business model innovation process (determined prob-lematizing, exhaustive problematizing, pragmatic problematizing and symbiotic problematizing). Each of these types signifies a distinct probability whether the ‘ideated’ business model will be ‘implemented’ into the organization. We argue that the occurrence of these types is influenced by the degree of compatibility between different institutional logics of ‘ideating units’ and ‘imple-menters’ of business models, as well as their power balance

The un-designability of the virtual. Design from problem-solving to problem-finding.

Drawing on Gilles Deleuze (1991) this chapter investigates the virtual as what problematizes the possible by inserting contingency in the process of emergence of the new. The tension between the virtual as what is uniquely placed to engender true innovation, and its aleatory and unforeseeable nature mirrors the tension existing in design between form-making and the need to acknowledge contingency. In embracing the un-designability of the virtual, design is called to take contingency and material variability as forces impinging on the process of emergence of the new. The chapter puts forward a new model for design research that shifts from problem-solving to problem-finding and is predicated on the undesigned at the core of design itself. This points to a further shift: the role of designer from creator to facilitator, teasing form out of the formless, engaged with the manifold forces expressed through material variation

Strategies for Systemic Change:Youth Community Organizing to Disruptthe School-to-Prison Nexus

The school disciplinary landscape across the United States changed significantly through the enactment of policies that criminalize students’ behaviors during the 1990s and 2000s. Schools began to involve the police and criminal legal system in school disciplinary issues that used to be handled by school administrators. This shift led youth of Color1 to increasingly come into contact with the juvenile legal system through school suspensions, expulsions, and referrals to alternative schools—what we characterize as the school-toprison nexus. Conceptualizing the school-to-prison pipeline as a nexus, or interlocking system of power over youth, allows us to understand how the criminalization of youth is a systemic problem that demands structural change and interventions across multiple levels of analysis and settings, including local schools, school districts, police departments, and state policies. Although important research has documented the ways that Black and Latino youth are referred to the juvenile legal system through punitive school policies, there has been less attention to the actions youth are taking to critique and dismantle these policies. Youth community organizing (YCO) against the school-to-prison nexus represents an arena of youth activism that deserves further attention and analysis. In this chapter, we define YCO as groups that create spaces for young people to think critically about their everyday social conditions, identify root causes of social problems, and build political power and voice to create policy solutions and change in their communities (Ginwright, Noguera, & Cammarota, 2006; Kirshner, 2015; Watts, Griffith, & Abdul- Adil, 1999)

Exploring misery discourses: problematized Roma in labour market projects

The aim of this article is to analyse learning practices in labour market projects cofinanced by the European Social Fund (ESF) targeting unemployed Roma in Sweden. The empirical material consists of 18 project descriptions from ESF projects, as well as national and European policy documents concerned with the inclusion of the Roma in contemporary Europe. The contemporary empirical material is analysed in relation to a government report from 1956 concerning the ‘Roma issue’ in Sweden. The analytical perspective of the study is governmentality, and the analysis focuses on different kinds of problematizations and the discursive positioning of the Roma subjects. One of the main findings is that unemployed Roma are situated in various discourses of misery and constructed as in need of reshaping their subjectivities in order to become educable as well as employable. (DIPF/Orig.

Becoming a Seer: Thoughts on Deleuze, Mindfulness and Feminism

This essay circles around two ideas. First, I try to answer the ethical question “What is the right thing to do?” through the application of the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze’s affirmative philosophy. Second, I relate Deleuze’s philosophy to mindfulness. I do not wish to suggest that they are identical. They are not. Yet, mixing mindfulness with Deleuze leads to a philosophy of mindfulness. That is a philosophy that makes us less blind to our experiences, but also ethically responsible for what actually happens. Hereby, I move mindfulness from the sphere of psychology into philosophy, or from being primarily a practice of turning inward to one of turning outward, but also make Deleuze’s ethic more operational. The latter I will – briefly – illustrate by touching on elements of feminism

Bourdieu and the dead end of reflexivity: on the impossible task of locating the subject

This article examines recent attempts by IR scholars to flesh out a reflexive approach inspired by the work of Pierre Bourdieu. The French sociologist pioneered the idea of turning the tools of sociology onto oneself in order to apply the same grid of social analysis to the object and subject of scholarship. This represents the culmination of a long tradition of seeking to understand from where one speaks and grasp our subjective biases through reflexive means. But as I argue Bourdieu – like most reflexive scholars – largely overestimated his ability to grasp his own subject position. For he assumed he could be objective about the very thing he had the least reasons to be objective about: himself. Instead of bending over backwards in this way and directly take the subject into account, I then propose to rearticulate the problematic of reflexivity by going back to a more classic concern with the question of alienation. Through a detailed critique of Bourdieu's reflexive approach and the ways in which it was received in IR, I set out a series of principles to reconfigure the agenda of reflexivity and offer a platform for a proper methodological alternative to positivism

Crisis management as a critical perspective

Purpose: This paper draws on the authors experience of teaching a crisis management module within a range of MBA programmes in the UK, EU and USA. A key characteristic of the module was its development as a means of critiquing conventional approaches to management education. The paper details that experience. Design/methodology/approach: It reviews the literature on management education that has been critical of prescriptive and ‘toolkit-based’ approaches to MBA education. Findings: An approach to a crisis management course is shown to provide a means of challenging dominant theoretical and practical approaches to management. Practical implications: The paper identifies challenges and personal and academic benefits for educators and students when engaging with critical perspectives and critical pedagogies. Originality/value: Through introducing the notion of crisis management, the paper discusses the importance of challenging theory and practice and creating within students, an appetite to challenge the dominant paradigms of conventional teaching and business practice

An Incremental Construction of Deep Neuro Fuzzy System for Continual Learning of Non-stationary Data Streams

Existing FNNs are mostly developed under a shallow network configuration having lower generalization power than those of deep structures. This paper proposes a novel self-organizing deep FNN, namely DEVFNN. Fuzzy rules can be automatically extracted from data streams or removed if they play limited role during their lifespan. The structure of the network can be deepened on demand by stacking additional layers using a drift detection method which not only detects the covariate drift, variations of input space, but also accurately identifies the real drift, dynamic changes of both feature space and target space. DEVFNN is developed under the stacked generalization principle via the feature augmentation concept where a recently developed algorithm, namely gClass, drives the hidden layer. It is equipped by an automatic feature selection method which controls activation and deactivation of input attributes to induce varying subsets of input features. A deep network simplification procedure is put forward using the concept of hidden layer merging to prevent uncontrollable growth of dimensionality of input space due to the nature of feature augmentation approach in building a deep network structure. DEVFNN works in the sample-wise fashion and is compatible for data stream applications. The efficacy of DEVFNN has been thoroughly evaluated using seven datasets with non-stationary properties under the prequential test-then-train protocol. It has been compared with four popular continual learning algorithms and its shallow counterpart where DEVFNN demonstrates improvement of classification accuracy. Moreover, it is also shown that the concept drift detection method is an effective tool to control the depth of network structure while the hidden layer merging scenario is capable of simplifying the network complexity of a deep network with negligible compromise of generalization performance.Comment: This paper has been published in IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy System

Rudolf Otto’s Encounter with Rāmānuja as a Model for Comparative Theology

Among his more noteworthy achievements, Rudolf Otto introduced Vaiṣṇava theism, Rāmānuja’s Viśiṣṭādvaita in particular, to a broader theological audience. In this paper, I argue that despite the well-known shortcomings of Otto’s comparative work, in particular, his tendency to essentialize the compared traditions and his presumption of Christian superiority, Otto’s encounter with Rāmānuja and Vaiṣṇavism nevertheless anticipates some of the characteristic features of the contemporary practice of Comparative Theology. The article describes how Otto’s work on Vaiṣṇavism exemplifies two such features of the new Comparative Theology in particular. The first of these is this discipline’s concern with problematizing the often invidious representations of non-Christian traditions that have historically sustained notions of Christian uniqueness. The second is its skillful use of comparison to foreground features of the home tradition that might otherwise escape notice. As is well known, the German Lutheran theologian Rudolf Otto undertook a serious study of Sanskrit and the theological traditions of Hinduism in the second half of his academic career. Arguably his greatest Indological achievement was introducing Vaiṣṇava theism, Rāmānuja’s Viśiṣṭādvaita in particular, to a broader theological audience.1 In this short paper I would like to argue that not only does Otto’s encounter with Rāmānuja and Vaiṣṇavism represent a significant moment in the reception history of Indian religious thought in the West, but it also exemplifies some of the characteristic features of the contemporary practice of Comparative Theology. Indeed, as I have argued elsewhere, Otto was a comparative theologian avant la lettre.2 There are two characteristic features of the new Comparative Theology in particular that I wish to highlight, the first of which is critical, the second constructive. The first of these is the discipline’s concern with problematizing the often invidious representations of non-Christian traditions that have historically sustained notions of Christian uniqueness. The second, more constructive aspect of Comparative Theology is its skillful use of comparison to foreground features of the home tradition that might otherwise escape notice. I shall discuss each of these in turn with reference to Otto’s encounter with Rāmānuja and the Śrī-Vaiṣṇava tradition

Problematizing Choice: Responsible consumers and sceptical citizens

About the book: Governance, Consumers and Citizens is the first book to bring together a study of governance with consumption, examining the changing place of the consumer as citizen in recent trends in governance, the tensions between competing ideas and practices of consumerism and the active role consumers play in the construction and practice of governance. Radically pushing forward the debate on consumers and governance, this collection outlines new conceptions and posits new policy agendas. Bringing together international experts from political science, history, geography, social policy and media studies, this study shows how governance and consumption are intertwined in crucial aspects of public policy and contemporary politics