Inside outsourcing: A grounded theory of relationship formation within a nascent service system

The theory of relationship formation developed in this study tells a coherent story about the relational work of service initiation in technology outsourcing. The study is focused on the contractually defined period of time at the beginning of outsourcing service delivery. As with a play-within-a-play, this work goes on primarily behind the scenes, away from the concurrent task of launching the inter-firm relationship between the client and the provider that will extend for the term of the full contract. This grounded theory study was completed over an eight-month period. The findings are grounded in interviews with 25 individuals who were actively involved in the work of service initiation. Additionally, data sources included extensive observation and access to documents and other artifacts. Data analysis was completed with the analytic processes of dimensional and situational analysis. The situational analysis describes five continuously shifting aspects of the situation that create the context, or supporting structure, for relationship formation. The dimensional analysis builds from the situational analysis to describe four deeply interrelated dimensions: (1) Helping, (2) Veiling / unVeiling, (3) Having Expectation, and (4) Responding to Turbulence. The study then presents a conceptual model of a grounded theory of relationship. It is through the enactment of this total model that relationship formation can be recognized as a vehicle for accomplishing work. An understanding that relationship formation depends on a way of recognizing and honoring the power of relationships and the role they play in supporting the everyday tasks of service initiation emerged from this work. As a result, this study does not strive to define relationship as one thing or even a group of things. Instead, it proposes a conceptual model through which relationships are formed and can be recognized as such. The electronic version of this dissertation is accessible at the OhioLINK ETD Center, https://etd.ohiolink.edu

Inside outsourcing: A grounded theory of relationship formation within a nascent service system

The theory of relationship formation developed in this study tells a coherent story about the relational work of service initiation in technology outsourcing. The study is focused on the contractually defined period of time at the beginning of outsourcing service delivery. As with a play-within-a-play, this work goes on primarily behind the scenes, away from the concurrent task of launching the inter-firm relationship between the client and the provider that will extend for the term of the full contract. This grounded theory study was completed over an eight-month period. The findings are grounded in interviews with 25 individuals who were actively involved in the work of service initiation. Additionally, data sources included extensive observation and access to documents and other artifacts. Data analysis was completed with the analytic processes of dimensional and situational analysis. The situational analysis describes five continuously shifting aspects of the situation that create the context, or supporting structure, for relationship formation. The dimensional analysis builds from the situational analysis to describe four deeply interrelated dimensions: (1) Helping, (2) Veiling / unVeiling, (3) Having Expectation, and (4) Responding to Turbulence. The study then presents a conceptual model of a grounded theory of relationship. It is through the enactment of this total model that relationship formation can be recognized as a vehicle for accomplishing work. An understanding that relationship formation depends on a way of recognizing and honoring the power of relationships and the role they play in supporting the everyday tasks of service initiation emerged from this work. As a result, this study does not strive to define relationship as one thing or even a group of things. Instead, it proposes a conceptual model through which relationships are formed and can be recognized as such. The electronic version of this dissertation is accessible at the OhioLINK ETD Center, https://etd.ohiolink.edu

Icons of contemporary childhood: a visual and lexicogrammatical investigation of toy advertisements

Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Comunicação e Expressão. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras/Inglês e Literatura Correspondente.A presente tese investiga o discurso de anúncios de bonecas sob uma perspectiva comparativa. Através da análise de dez anúncios extraídos do website da boneca brasileira Susi e dez anúncios extraídos do website das bonecas norte-americanas The Bratz - campeãs em vendas nos dois países de origem, respectivamente - a pesquisa investiga seus aspectos visuais, contextuais e lexicogramaticais de transitividade, a fim de observar como as práticas sociais dos dois países são refletidas e como estas reforçam determinadas estruturas sociais, tais como as referentes a questões de gênero. O arcabouço teórico adotado visa situar os dados obtidos em sua dimensão contextual, valendo-se de estudos em Sociologia da Infância e Estudos da Criança, bem como da gramática sistêmico-funcional de Halliday (1978;1994) e do trabalho de Kress & van Leeuwen (1996) em semiótica visual. Os resultados da análise verbal e visual dos dados apontam para a representação da figura feminina em posições predominantemente passivas, as quais reforçam a imagem da mulher enquanto objeto de atribuições estéticas e perpetuam as práticas sociais e distinções de gênero à medida que representam o universo feminino em seu compromisso de combinar papéis da esfera pública e da privada. This dissertation investigates the discourse of doll advertisements in a comparative manner. Through the examination of ten Brazilian and ten North-American doll advertisements available on the websites of best-selling dolls Susi and The Bratz, it looks at how the verbal and the visual choices of these advertisements reverberate the social practices of Brazil and the United States and how they reinforce the 'status quo' of existing social structures, such as the ones related to gender issues. The theoretical framework provides the means to connect the contextual with the textual features of the data. For the macro, contextual dimension, it draws on studies on The Sociology of Childhood and Children's Studies as well as on Halliday's (1978; 1994) system of transitivity in order to account for the lexicogrammatical aspects of the advertisements and Kress & van Leeuwen's (1996) work on the interplay between verbal and visual language analysis. The verbal and visual analyses of the advertisements have pointed to the portrait of the female figure in predominantly passive, objectified positions which reinforces women's image as repositories of aesthetic attributes and perpetuates social practices and gender distinctions in representing the female universe in its compromise between the public and private sphere

Felt_space infrastructure: Hyper vigilant spatiality to valence the visceral dimension

Felt_space infrastructure: Hypervigilant spatiality to valence the visceral dimension. This thesis evolves perception as a hypothesis to reframe architectural praxis negotiated through agent-situation interaction. The research questions the geometric principles of architectural ordination to originate the ‘felt_space infrastructure’, a relational system of measurement concerned with the role of perception in mediating sensory space and the cognised environment. The methodological model for this research fuses perception and environmental stimuli, into a consistent generative process that penetrates the inner essence of space, to reveal the visceral parameter. These concepts are applied to develop a ‘coefficient of affordance’ typology, ‘hypervigilant’ tool set, and ‘cognitive_tope’ design methodology. Thus, by extending the architectural platform to consider perception as a design parameter, the thesis interprets the ‘inference schema’ as an instructional model to coordinate the acquisition of spatial reality through tensional and counter-tensional feedback dynamics. Three site-responsive case studies are used to advance the thesis. The first case study is descriptive and develops a typology of situated cognition to extend the ‘granularity’ of perceptual sensitisation (i.e. a fine-grained means of perceiving space). The second project is relational and questions how mapping can coordinate perceptual, cognitive and associative attention, as a ‘multi-webbed vector field’ comprised of attractors and deformations within a viewer-centred gravitational space. The third case study is causal, and demonstrates how a transactional-biased schema can generate, amplify and attenuate perceptual misalignment, thus triggering a visceral niche. The significance of the research is that it progresses generative perception as an additional variable for spatial practice, and promotes transactional methodologies to gain enhanced modes of spatial acuity to extend the repertoire of architectural practice

Power relationships and authentic organisational learning : daring to break the silence on meaningful dialogue in policing organisations

The 21st century presents great opportunities and threats for business: national and global markets are demanding high performance, innovation, creativity, and flexibility. Public sector organisations are continually asked to do more with less, with equal if not greater efficiency and creativity demands as the private sector. Organisational learning is a concept touted as an important and necessary strategy for organisations to keep pace with the rapid changing global environment that now plays host to opportunities as well as great economic and social volatility. However the reality for many is that they become proficient at the kind of organisational learning that reinforces the status quo (Morgan, 2006). This thesis aims to make an original contribution to the organisational learning literature by exploring power relationships and the degree to which individual and/or groups have the capacity or power to question the existing order of things. More particularly, it examines how and why power relationships may facilitate or inhibit ‘authentic organisational learning’. In doing so, this research explores a conceptual model of power relationships drawing on a traditional organisational leadership framework originating with Burns (1978) – ‘transactional’ and ‘transformational’ – as well as incorporating a critical perspective, drawing on the work of Freire (1970) with the notion of a ‘revolutionary’ power relationship. These three power relationships are explored as they operate to varying degrees across the four dimensions of power drawn individually from Dahl through to Lukes and Foucault. Notions such as ‘meaningful dialogue’ and ‘liberated learning space’ are introduced as a means to explain the capacity or ‘power to’ question the existing order of things: including the traditional dominant attitudes, beliefs, values and norms in organisations. Despite the perceived importance of organisational learning as a strategy for organisations in the 21st century, and the significant growth in the literature since the early 1990s, the notion of power continues to be all but silent in the organisational learning literature. Positioned in the recent emancipatory perspective of organisational learning, underpinned by Critical Theory, this thesis contributes to breaking this silence by exploring beyond the possible vested interests that we, as managers, may have to maintain the existing order of things in organisations. The emancipatory perspective encourages me to distinguish between organisational learning that is more ‘compliant’ to the learning agenda of managers – whether exploiting existing learning or exploring new learning both for corporate benefit – and more ‘authentic organisational learning’ driven by employees. This original contribution has particular significance for policing organisations. The ability of individuals to question the existing order of things in such organisations is of interest due to a perceived inability to bring about meaningful cultural reform. This research argues that reform failures may be due to a managerial learning agenda being deployed, which may result in compliance rather than more ‘authentic’ learning. Hence, this thesis examines the conceptual model primarily in respect to two case studies of policing organisations: one Australian and the other in another part of the Oceania region

Entrepreneurial families in business across generations, contexts, and cultures

Purpose This article is the editorial for the special issue on “Entrepreneurial Families in Business Across Generations, Contexts and Cultures”. We aim to develop a road map that can help academics and practitioners navigate the findings of the articles contained in this special issue. We also suggest future lines of research around the topic of entrepreneurial families in business. Design/methodology/approach We develop a conceptual model for interpreting and understanding entrepreneurial families in business across contexts and time. Findings Our conceptual model highlights the importance of context and time when conducting research on entrepreneurial families in business. Practical implications The findings in this special issue will be of relevance for decision makers who tailor policies that embrace different economic and social actors, including entrepreneurial families. Originality/value This editorial and the articles that make up this special issue contribute to family business research by contextualising the phenomenon of entrepreneurial families in business. We propose a new holistic perspective to incorporate context and time in the study of entrepreneurial families that own, govern and manage family firms over time

Contemporary memorial landscape: how to convey meaning through design. A study based on cases from London and Palestine

Minimalism in contemporary memorial design has been criticised for being meaningless and inappropriate in creating powerful monuments (Long, 2007). However, abstraction in modern art and landscape design can appeal to the human ‘subconscious’, which inspires design and enriches the experience of viewers and visitors (Jellicoe, 1966, 1970, 1993). This study investigated the meanings and the values that contemporary memorials hold through theoretical and empirical study, by which means of ‘collective identity’, individual and community engagement are enriched. This notion of engagement in contemporary memorial was examined based on the psychological theories s of ‘transaction’ (Altman and Rogoff, 1987; Dewey and Bentley, 1949; Pepper, 1942, 1967) and ‘personal projects’ (Little, 1983). Some other notions, such as ‘anti-memorial’, ‘personalisation’ and ‘mirroring’, drawn from memorial design, environmental psychology and philosophy of art, were discussed in relation to the main theoretical background. Accordingly, this research drew a distinction between the classical memorial, where symbolic representation is viewed in isolation from the viewers and their internal cognition, and the contemporary memorial landscape with its potential for transaction and shared memory, in which a spectator becomes a participant. As memorial design is a complex and multi-layered process, a memorial project for Palestinian displacement was conducted as a complementary part to the main scientific research. It offered a complementary approach to the conventional scientific inquiry, where the research situation is not a problem to be solved, but an enquiry whose problematic situations are characterised by ‘uncertainty’, ‘disorder’ and ‘indeterminacy’ (Schon, 1983). The collection methods for qualitative and quantitative data were observation and behavioural mapping in conjunction with theory of ‘affordances’ and the ‘personal projects’ questionnaire of memorial users. Data was collected from three memorial landscapes in London: the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain (PDMF), the 7 July Memorial (7JM) and the John F. Kennedy Memorial (JFKM). They vary in scale, design approach and process. Applying these methods enabled the researcher to attain more insights into memorial behavioural settings and their possible affordances and transactional properties. Key results of the data analysis showed that PDMF had high levels of transaction and a cathartic nature through qualities of playfulness, bodily involvement and social value. While the success of this memorial mainly lay in its cathartic and grieving quality, the ceremonial phallic design of 7JM and the allegorical landscape of JFKM did prove to create successful and powerful memorials through both their didactic and cathartic dimensions. The text and lettering embossed on the design elements helped these to occur simultaneously. The intended outcome of this research was to contribute to the recent development of the way contemporary designers and artists should approach memorial design. This was in the form of design guidelines and statements, which allowed individuals and communities to gain access to what a memorial could symbolise. This could be achieved through memorial physical forms representing different meanings associated with the commemorated subject, and by addressing the memorial design process in relation to both users’ perception and designer’s intention

Exploring Thai teachers' conceptual beliefs about reading and their influences on instructional practices

Advisors: Mayra Daniel.Committee members: Chris Carger; James Cohen.Theories of reading have altered throughout history. Originally, reading was understood as a process of knowledge transmission, but currently, reading is viewed as a process of meaning construction. The changing conceptualizations about the reading process have emphasized the active role of readers among second language (L2) students and altered perspectives on L2 reading instruction in a more constructive way. An unawareness of the changing conceptualizations of L2 reading may be the main obstacle to the professional development among teachers of L2 reading. This study aims to explore Thai teachers' conceptual beliefs about reading, instructional practices in L2 reading classrooms, influences of teachers' beliefs about reading on instructional practices, and their perceptions of the roles of L2 reading teachers.Four Thai participants teaching English (L2) reading at a private university in Northern Thailand participated in the study. Primary data sources included in-depth interviews, classroom observations, and document reviews. A coding system was used to analyze the data.The research revealed that two participants hold transmission beliefs about reading while two others have beliefs that gear toward transactional beliefs about reading. In addition, these beliefs about reading are found to be related to teachers' instructional practices. L2 reading classrooms of teachers who hold transmission beliefs about reading were teacher-directed and focused on vocabulary while classrooms of teachers who hold transactional beliefs were student-centered and emphasized classroom discussions. Teachers who hold transmission beliefs about reading see themselves as a controller of classroom activities and an arbiter of interpretation, while teachers who have transactional beliefs about reading perceive themselves a facilitator of teaching and learning activities and students' reading processes.This study suggests classroom visits and knowledge sharing among teachers of L2 reading are needed. In addition, the university needs an effective professional development program focusing on current theories of L2 reading and teaching methods. Regarding L2 reading instruction, both text-based and reader-based knowledge should be the foci of L2 reading classrooms, and more explicit instruction of strategic reading is needed.Ed.D. (Doctor of Education

The Enactment of Strategic Leadership

This Open Access book explores the meaning and roles that strategy and leadership play in our lives. Based on decades of experience, the author contemplates whether we believe strategic leadership exists because it actually exists, or whether it exists because we believe it does? Both answers are true. The author argues that the duality of the essence of strategic leadership is clear. It may appear to be personalised, or it may seem to be an important characteristic of the organization enacted everywhere where there is guidance. In fact, the discussion about strategic leadership raises more questions. In this thought-provoking book, the author puts forward a robust critical assessment of one of the most widely used concepts in management research and practice. Beginning with an ontological and historical discussion around which the concept of strategic leadership has developed, the book continues to discuss the phenomenon of strategic leadership. Utilising a post-modern perspective and by heavily drawing on concepts such as hegemony and ideology, the author then discusses the role of organizational culture and networks, as well as the underlying tensions that come associated with strategic leadership