13 research outputs found
Explaining leadership in family firms: Reflexivity, social conditioning and institutional complexity
Research on leadership in family firms has concentrated on the drivers of performance viewed in the context of reciprocal family and business logics, family or non-family CEOs operating within different family governance and administrative settings. The explanatory aim is to ascertain the optimum configuration of elements for achieving improved economic rents so the benefits of family loyalty do not negatively impact firm performance. Our thesis challenges this research, which treats family leadership as a contingent outcome of the governance and administrative contexts within which family and non-family CEOs make strategic choices. We argue that family leadership studies restrict explanations of action to a narrow bandwidth because leadership is effectively black-boxed when it is treated as an outcome of these contingent relations. To overcome this limitation we propose a nested framing of social conditioning that explains the connections between actors, organizations and multiple social orders (and not just family and business). Our contribution is to theorize family leadership in the context of multiple âsocial context â personal preferenceâ modes; that is, leadership is conceived through reflexivity, which is the personal process mediating the effects of our circumstances upon our actions
Understanding tourism development: A representational approach
The article investigates hotel employees and postgraduate studentsâ representations of âtourism developmentâ, using social representations theory. Data from a sample of eighty participants were collected on Chios Island, Greece. To reveal social representations a word association procedure was applied followed by a correspondence analysis. The analysis attempts to map the meanings associated with âtourism developmentâ and to pinpoint the links between those meanings. Results highlight differences and similarities in the representation of âtourism developmentâ according to individualsâ social membership, offering an interesting insight for employers and educators
Relationally reflexive women: Household strategies of female entrepreneurs as social change
Building on research that favors a view of entrepreneurship as social change the study explores the actions of female entrepreneurs facing life discontinuities as examples of entrepreneurship. Despite increase in numbers, women still face structural inequalities in accessing entrepreneurial opportunities. We focus on understanding their experiences and how they negotiate the gendered structures in order to set up new ventures, paying particular attention to the family, occupational and household nexus. We conceive their actions through Archerâs work on âreflexivityâ, which is the process mediating the effects of our circumstances upon our actions. We identify three household strategies that female entrepreneurs engage with during moments of life discontinuities in order to overcome the gendered structures they experience and set up a business: âleverage relationshipsâ, ârepair relationshipsâ and âmaintain relationshipsâ. These strategies highlight female entrepreneursâ agency as they have the power to implement practices they deem appropriate for their lives and become successful. The theoretical frame and empirical data analysis presented in this article challenges the individualism that permeates normative entrepreneurship research and indicates how female entrepreneurs are active and at the same time pragmatic in in the way they conduct business. Entrepreneurship is this instance is a response to social instability
Negotiating Gendered Ageing:Intersectional Reflexivity and Experiences of Incongruity of Self-Employed Older Women
This article analyses the experiences of self-employed older women. Developing an intersectional reflexivity approach, our analysis shows how older women negotiate their concerns in relation to gendered ageing and realize self-employment. Our study reveals three practices: âExpressing the selfâ, âExploring learningâ and âEmbracing solidarityâ. We contribute to the neglected intersection of gender and age in studies of work, and to an appreciation of the transformational potential of self-employment for older women
Relational practices and reflexivity: Exploring the responses of women entrepreneurs to changing household dynamics
This qualitative study explores how and why women, positioned as mothers, wives, or carers, navigate changing household dynamics, related to care and reproductive resources, and become entrepreneurial. Drawing on relational reflexivity, we show how womenâs embodied, intimate relations with important others in the household form the focal point for entrepreneurial activities and offer evidence of their entrepreneurial agency. Our analysis reveals the emergence of three relational practices that result in a new venture as the entrepreneurial response of women. We critically evaluate normative analyses on gender, entrepreneurship, and household
Being a Self-Employed Older Woman: From Discrimination to Activism
This article presents an autobiographical account of an older womanâs lived experience of self-employment. Little is known about women who experience ongoing self-employment into their 50s and beyond. Shoshannaâs personal narrative describes her experiences and the challenges she has faced as she reflects upon her attempts to grow and sustain her business and the implications of ageism and gender inequality in laying a claim to entrepreneurship. The narrative proceeds to reflect on her activist work, as it is constructed through the creation of a social enterprise to support older people. Shoshannaâs narrative provides valuable insights into the intersection of age and gender in self-employment moving from discrimination to active support
Feminism in womenâs business networks: A freedom-centred perspective
How do womenâs business networks (WBNs) help to advance womenâs freedom? Drawing on Zerilliâs freedom-centred feminism, our study sets out to answer this question at the intersection of freedom, feminism and work. Critics argue that WBNs promote a postfeminist view of freedom focusing on individual self-realisation and thus participate in rolling back collective, feminist efforts to dismantle structural inequalities. We reconceptualize WBNs as political arenas and argue that making claims about shared interests and concerns in such an arena constitutes a feminist practice of freedom. With an original, inductive and qualitative research design combining topic modeling and dialectical analysis, we examine the claims made in 1,529 posts across four WBN blogs. We identify postfeminist claims and new forms of change and transformation that can help to advance womenâs freedom across three âdialectics of freedomâ: conformity and imagination; performative care and relational care; sameness and openness. Our findings show that uncertain and contradictory ways of defining and engaging with womenâs freedom can emerge through claim-making in such arenas. The fragility of the process and its outcomes are, then, what can move feminism forward at work and beyond
How does responsible leadership emerge? An emergentist perspective
Increasing academic and practitioner conversations regarding corporate responsibility, have led some leadership scholars to question the possibilities to accomplish responsible leadership. Drawing on an emergentist perspective, through an empirical study in three organizations, the article develops the responsible leadership literature by offering a critical analysis of the emergence of responsible leadership. Our key finding is that responsible leadership emerges as participantsâ âshared concernsâ, namely: âenvironmental and communal concernsâ, âprofessional concernsâ, âemployment concernsâ, and âcommercial concernsâ, which constitute social arrangements that give meaning to what is responsible and possible. The theoretical perspective we develop highlights the conditioning role of shared and nested concerns of the study participants and unpack how the social context variously shapes responsible leadership