A Philosophical Examination of the Creative Manager, the Authentic Leader and the Entrepreneur

This thesis undertakes a philosophical examination of three figures at the heart of post-bureaucratic thought – the figures of the creative manager, the authentic leader and the entrepreneur. While the figures of the creative manager, the authentic leader and the entrepreneur share the aim of resolving the crisis of Taylorism, this thesis argues that they produce their own internal crises. They do so because the figures of the creative manager, the authentic leader and the entrepreneur are inherently bound to concepts that resist transmutation into a managerial logic that would enable them to serve their functional purposes without betraying their conceptual dynamics. What philosophy offers us is not a ready-made solution to the crises of the creative manager, the authentic leader and the entrepreneur, but rather a point of departure for constructing concepts that enable us to explore the paradoxes embedded within these figures. Since philosophical concepts dwell in crisis, they enable the thesis to capture the paradoxes, aporias and impossibilities that inevitably accompany post-bureaucratic thought. Instead of regarding the crises in post-bureaucratic management thinking as an impasse, abyss or deadlock, the thesis shows how they can chart new ways of conceptualizing the postbureaucratic organization. Drawing on Derrida’s concept of pharmakon, Deleuze’s concept of simulacrum and Zizek’s concept of fantasy, three concepts equally marked by their paradoxical nature, this thesis opens up a philosophical critique of the post-bureaucratic image of thought. This will be done by exploring the figure of the creative manager through a reading of Gary Hamel’s popular management handbook The Future of Management informed by Derrida’s concept of pharmakon; the figure of the authentic leader through a reading of Bill George’s semiautobiographic self-help tome Authentic Leadership informed by Deleuze’s concept of simulacrum; and the figure of the entrepreneur through a reading of Richard Branson’s autobiography Losing My Virginity informed by Zizek’s concept of fantasy

Religiopolitical and sociocultural factors shaping creative decisions in the production of British and Malaysian Islamic television

By drawing on ethnographic data gathered from British and Malaysian Islamic television channels between 2012 and 2017, this article argues that different religiopolitical and sociocultural environments in which such television production workers as creative managers, producers and researchers exist, shape how they make creative decisions for religious programmes that they produced. This article points to the extent to which these television production workers from both the British and Malaysian television channels have various degrees of creative autonomy, and how ‘limited’ creative autonomy affects their working life. The results show that the creative managers and producers of British Muslim television channel have lesser autonomy than their Malaysian counterparts. The clash between the Western and Islamic cultures and intergenerational clash are mainly the forms of religiopolitical and sociocultural factors that shape the creative autonomy in Islamic television production in Britain. Such representational issues relating to religious personalities, music artists and performances, and women, are among the constraints that these workers faced. By contrast, creative managers and producers in Malaysia, have some degree of autonomy. Unlike their British colleagues, religiopolitical and sociocultural factors concerning identity politics have less implication for their working life. Nonetheless, despite having a higher level of creative autonomy than their British equals, their creative decisions often are driven by the notion of giving what audiences want. Such commercial pressures as audience ratings and advertising force are the primary factors that shape the creative autonomy of managers and producers of Islamic programmes in Malaysia

The False Problem of Urbane Design

Urbane design concerns itself with promoting the qualities associated with the urban – dynamism, transversal networks, etc. – in places where these do not (yet) exist. Urbane design can be considered a neoliberal off-shoot of ‘urban curating’ and other contemporary forms of extending architectural practice into the social realm. The urbane designer is the creative manager of the creative city, whose specific task is animating or activating urban space.Arguing that architectural theory needs to interrogate urbane design beyond the traditional confines of architectural theory, this article addresses three different aspects of urbane design in relation to the mixed-use flagship development Studio in Malmö, Sweden.This article makes the case that urbane design plays an important part of neoliberalism’s attempt to portray itself as spontaneous, un-hierarchical and ‘natural’ and calls for a return to the underlying problems rather than focusing solely on their solutions. It is argued that this is a central task for a critical architectural theory at present

Sport and Leisure: A Precarious Relationship in Business

Sport and leisure are highly interrelated. The presence of planning, organizational purpose and goals, and leadership are key elements to success

Effectiveness of training programs for graduate engineers

This thesis represents an investigation of effectiveness as a result of engineering training. The basic elements of effectiveness and its learning process are explained and said that the effectiveness could be learnt and improved. The term training, is basically the process of education and training. But training cannot be performed as an individual, but is performed as a group. Therefore training a group with having so many individuals needs careful consideration in designing a training program. In order to get the broadest possible picture of current thinking and current activity in the area of company training programs for graduate engineers, a survey was conducted. This survey consists of a questionnaire so designed to obtain the answer on which basis the effectiveness and the need for an effective training program could be determined. The questionnaire along with a covering letter was sent to one hundred and one companies. Out of one hundred and one questionnaires sent, a total of forty two have answered and returned the questionnaire which accounts to 41.58% of total participation. After recieving the answered questionnaire the author visited three companies personally and discussed various aspects of training. To sum up the survey and personal visits, it could be concluded that there is a need for an effective training program. Because the management set up their goals and objectives, but it needs careful evaluation. The process of learning again is an individual matter as such the teacher - whom is called as trainer, has the prime responsibility of training the graduate engineers more effectively so that they could be useful both to the company and to the society. The engineer as an engineer has created wonders in the technology and now he has to face and resolve the consequences of engineering innovations. The concept of social problems is not appealing to every industry, as such this fact was enlightened. The engineer has a great future. Hence training the engineers should be considered as a prime responsibility because engineer has many changing roles to play such as supervisor, manager and up. The element of selecting a potential teacher as a trainer and training him to become a efficient trainer, would be the major success to-wards effective learning. A training program, has been developed in general but certain guidelines has been indicated by which means the industry could develop and establish an effective training program. It is the conclusion of this thesis that by means of an effective training program, every engineer will become more efficient to their industries and to the society in solving their social problems, so that the dream of having the cleaner atmosphere and healthy living will come back to the world again. A periodic evaluation and re-establishment of training program will be of more beneficial to the individual and to the company. It is the sincere hope that majority of the business and industry will work as a team in solving to-day\u27s social problems by utilizing the engineer\u27s effectively. Certain guidelines were developed which is to be followed in establishing the training program. The steps for establishing and adminstering the programs were spelled out. By following these steps the author is confident that the industry could develop the author\u27s proposed effective training program to suit their changing needs. Adhering to these two predominant factors any addition would increase the effectiveness. It is imperative to evaluate the effectiveness Petiodically and revise or review the training program to maximize effectiveness

Determinants of innovative ability

Deze strategische verkenning gaat in op de vraag welke factoren bepalend zijn voor het innovatievermogen van dienstverlenende bedrijven met 10 tot 100 werknemers. Voor deze bedrijven is de invloed van 38 factoren op het innovatievermogen onderzocht.

Cooperation Peculiarities Between Designers, Artists and Managers when Creating Black Ceramics Prototypes for the Market. A Case of “Baltic Patterns in Ceramics: from the Past to the Future”

Today, contemporary design solutions require creative thinking because the original design is based on innovation and creative solutions to solve certain problems such as preservation of old traditions, cultural heritage for future generations. Design as an area of science and practical activities functions by defining specific design peculiarities. Design products in scientific literature are described as closely directly related to the process, distributed in the context of the process, ones that impact the context and alter the process further. A creative product is created when acting together with other artists and is planned for the consumer, where the globalisation of the 21st century is one of the threats to national cultures. In the meantime, the person first understands the image and terms created by the culture around him, so artists, creators of creative products, play an important role here. Cooperation is a new and inspiring means of this activity that provides power to initiate, implement and evaluate solutions that is based on not only shared responsibilities, but also partnership that strengthens communication, increases trust, empathy between organisations and satisfaction in a generally received result. Sientific problem may be raised: What are the specificities of design product development and commercialization? In realizing this problem the theoretical concept and peculiarities of design product were discussed; the stages and principles of design product development and its introduction to the market were analysed; a theoretical model of design product development was created and introduction to the market; the theoretical model was analyzed by the implementation of the project “Baltic Patterns in Ceramics: From the Past to the Future”. The methods of scientific literature systematic analysis, comparison and abstraction were employed in the research

Edukacja kreatywna w kontekście zmiany wektora procesu oświatowego

The main goal in the article was the disclosure of the content and strategy of creative education, its importance in forming the professional competencies of a competitive manager. The terms “education for development” and “education for sustainable development” were analyzed. It was proved that nowadays exactly the educational factor is extremely important for the positive dynamics of society’s development. The emphasis was put on the importance of the new educational paradigm formulation in order to determine the perspectives for sustainable social development. In the context of the foregoing, the place of the creative education, which integrates other kinds, connects them into a complex of very important, positive characteristics of the professional studies and the formation of a manager. The need to consider the creative and the reflexive and the creative education as the most important components of the educational paradigm in the educational process was stressed. The content of creative education, which focuses on the development of the future manager creative abilities and on the consolidation in his professional consciousness the orientation of the innovation, was specified. It includes problems analysis and activity variants, and its result is an increase in the level of management art. Therefore, creative management education is focused on the establishment and development of the management art that appears and seen only under certain education circumstances and conditions. At the same time, creative education widens the range of managerial development problems and designs variants for their solution, which should be the main thing in the modern manager work. The need to change the technology of the educational process (focusing on the forming aims of the creative manager potential) and its organization was stated in the context of creative education content analysis, and at the same time emphasizing, that creative education is a new type of education that cannot be realized only by organizational restructuring. A new term “creative economy” was introduced. Firstly, it is characterized by the use of new technologies and findings in various spheres of man’s activity, much larger amount of existing knowledge, the new knowledge generating, a high degree of the motivational innovation. Creative education is the basis of the motivational innovation, which produces intellectual and creative human resources by teaching critical thinking skills and the ability to move from a problem to an effective decision making zone.Głównym celem artykułu było nakreślenie treści i strategii edukacji kreatywnej oraz wskazanie jej znaczenia w kształtowaniu fachowych kompetencji konkurencyjnego menedżera. Poddano analizie terminy „edukacja dla rozwoju” i „edukacja dla stałego rozwoju” oraz udowodniono, że właśnie oświatowy czynnik jest współcześnie niezwykle ważny dla pozytywnej dynamiki rozwoju społeczeństwa. Podkreślono znaczenie sformułowania nowego oświatowego paradygmatu w celu wyznaczenia perspektyw stałego rozwoju społecznego. W tym kontekście uzasadnia się miejsce kreatywnej edukacji, która integruje inne rodzaje, łączy je w kompleks bardzo ważnych, pozytywnych cech studiów zawodowych i kształtowania menedżera. Podkreślono przy tym potrzebę uznania kreatywnej i refleksyjno-kreatywnej edukacji za najważniejsze elementy nowego paradygmatu procesu edukacyjnego. Określono treść edukacji twórczej, która koncentruje się na rozwoju zdolności twórczych przyszłego menedżera oraz na utrwaleniu w jego świadomości zawodowej orientacji na innowację. Obejmuje ona analizę problemów i warianty działań, a jej wynikiem jest wzrost poziomu sztuki zarządzania. Dlatego edukacja kreatywnego zarządzania skupia się na tworzeniu i rozwijaniu sztuki zarządzania, która pojawia się i jest postrzegana tylko w określonych okolicznościach i warunkach edukacyjnych. Jednocześnie edukacja kreatywna poszerza zakres problemów związanych z rozwojem zarządzania i projektuje warianty ich rozwiązania, które powinny być najważniejsze w nowoczesnej pracy menedżera. Potrzeba zmiany technologii procesu edukacyjnego (koncentrując się na kształtowaniu celów potencjału kreatywnego menedżera) i jego organizacji została stwierdzona w kontekście analizy treści edukacji kreatywnej i jednocześnie podkreślono, że edukacja kreatywna jest nowym rodzajem edukacji, której nie da się zrealizować jedynie poprzez restrukturyzację organizacyjną. Wprowadzono nowy termin „kreatywna gospodarka”. Charakteryzuje się on zastosowaniem nowych technologii i odkryć w różnych sferach działalności człowieka, znacznie większą ilością istniejącej wiedzy, generowaniem nowej wiedzy, wysokim poziomem innowacji motywacyjnych. Kreatywna edukacja jest podstawą innowacji motywacyjnej, która wytwarza intelektualne i kreatywne zasoby ludzkie poprzez uczenie umiejętności krytycznego myślenia oraz umiejętności przejścia od problemu do skutecznego podejmowania decyzji

The low cost manufacture of high technology machines

This paper argues for the importance, within the Mars Society in Australia and elsewhere, of the development not only of new kinds of hardware, but of new processes for constructing them. The task of preparing the way for future planetary exploration is a demanding one, especially for volunteers working with limited resources of time, money and skills. Successfully managing high-technology projects under these conditions could depend on teams taking advantage of and further adapting the best management methods and tools available. Project managers should strive from the outset to design hardware and processes that cost less, depend less on skilled labour, are flexible, are economical in short run or once-off quantities, meet the needs of scientific field testing and appear credible to media and public scrutiny. Practical lessons learned by the author while managing the construction of the Starchaser pressurised rover prototype are offered to exemplify some of these principles. The paper concludes with a brief call to the international Mars Society to extend this process beyond manufacturing to the foundation of a new synthetic culture, fostering values of pioneer self-reliance, mastery of technology, recognition of human limits and service to the group

Theorizing media production: the poverty of political economy

This article argues that the Political Economy of Communication (PEC) has generally failed to develop theories of media production. Such theory as exists has been heavily influenced by accounts of mass production and flexible specialization in Hollywood. Hollywood film production has been viewed as paradigmatic of media production in general, in the same way as Ford was for manufacturing, and these theories continue to influence accounts of production across media and cultural industries. The article tests the mass production/flexible specialization paradigm against both the evidence of the Hollywood case and Ford’s mass production system. An alternative paradigm, the theory of craft media production, is also examined. The article then attempts to show how applying organization theory and media economics can provide a more convincing explanation of media production and of the Hollywood case. Finally, the article briefly attempts to show how we might develop rich theoretical explanations of media production by exploring the relationships between economic, organizational and media-specific cultural elements