Haute couture or pret-a-porter: Creating and diffusing management practices through the popular press

Management fads are increasingly a hot topic within Organization Theory. Recent articles have described the production process of fads, the role of «ideological» waves in explaining their emergence, and the development of management rhetoric supporting the fads. Despite this growing interest, management fads are seen as an outcome of the actions of Universities, business schools, and consulting firms in producing formal management knowledge; the role of the popular press, meanwhile, remains largely unexplored. Our paper aims to fill this gap by exploring the role of the popular press in producing and legitimating management fads. We argue that the popular press is a primary factor in diffusing and legitimating management fads. The popular press also represents a new laboratory for the construction of management practices. Being deeply rooted in the social context, magazines and newspapers link management practices with social acceptance, coupling management and society at large. We use both qualitative and quantitative methodologies to analyze the data. The data set consists of a collection of articles on Human Resource Management published during the last decade in leading newspapers and magazines in Italy. We suggest that the dynamics of the diffusion and popularization of management practices in Italy over the last decade represents a fair example of the processes that have taken place throughout the Western world.popular press; diffusing management practices;

Who’s Last? Challenges and Advantages for Late Adopters in the International Film Festival Field

Film festivals are claimed to be leading events establishing the reputation of directors and producers in the film industry and they constitute a well-established field in itself. Film festivals have become a widespread phenomenon over the last fifty years with specialization as an emerging feature, profiling festivals on the basis of the participating genre and quality of movies, directors and actors. Such a structured field constitutes an interesting domain to analyze challenges and advantages of late adopters in an institutionalized field. This paper is concerned with the strategic responses and efforts made by two late adopters film festivals – Copenhagen international film festival (CIFF), launched in 2003, and Festa del Cinema di Roma (FCR) launched in 2006 – in order to establish themselves as international film festivals within the international film festival field. The comparative study of two film festivals is based on qualitative data and thrives on business ethnographical methods. The paper investigates how the two festivals have positioned themselves and how they face the inclusion-exclusion dilemma (Brewer, 1991; Alvarez et al., 2005) establishing themselves within the institutionalised field of international film festivals. Combining the classical work by Tolbert and Zucker (1983) on early and late adopters in the diffusion of management ideas and practices with Suchman’s (1995) forms of legitimacy and Lawrence and Suddaby’s (2006) notion of institutional work, we analyze how imitation and innovation pressures have shaped the frames used to position and legitimate the film festivals and their relation with the industry

What does it mean for business educators?

In the last decade, scholarly interest has been mainly attracted on the nature of knowledge, mechanisms of knowledge production and the transformation of the institutions diffusing knowledge. Most of these studies share the underlying hypotheses that management knowledge "travels", as a package, from producers to passive receivers. A few exploratory attempts have envisioned an alternative perspective based on the idea of "knowledge consumption". Managers are active receivers of institutionalized knowledge in the course of enacting their organizational roles. Building on this last perspective, first we try to outline the process of knowledge consumption. We describe how sources of knowledge are selected, knowledge is acquired and consumed by assuming that managers are active consumer of management knowledge. Then, we construct the process linking the flows of management knowledge in organizations and the flows of action performed by managers. We sustain that knowledge has to be first dis-embed from the context and artifacts it is in to be translated into a portable form—a standardized artifact, a logic of action, etc. Then, specific courses of action are required to re-embed knowledge in new artifacts, practices or routines (e.g. a budgetary procedure, an organizational process, etc.). So, to re-embed knowledge in new contexts, managers have to mobilize resources and build consensus on the specific courses of action. By assuming this process, two consequences are derived: first, the dis-embedding/re-embedding process is not the outcome of conscious planning; it goes back and forth, allows for controversial or "hypocritical" moves, at least in the short run. In any case, once management knowledge is translated into logics of action, managers have to use their imaginative power to share these logics to mobilize constituencies on priorities and undertake specific courses of actions This supports the idea that the managerial role is intrinsically political. Second, management education cannot simply deals with managerial recipes and rules of thumb. It is increasingly asked for providing non-technical knowledge to help managers exert their political role. To mobilize constituencies and create consensus on controversial decisions, technicalities could be less relevant than business-unrelated knowledge. We hold that has a relevant impact on both the institutional settings and the content of management education. The paper is structured in three parts. First, a framework is proposed to describe management knowledge consumption. Second, we outline the process linking consumed knowledge with actual managerial action. Third, the impact of this perspective on the structure of the institutions diffusing knowledge and on the idea of what is needed to make managerial decisions are explored

Much Ado about Nothing? Untangling the Impact of European Premier Film Festivals

This study seeks to untangle the impact of film festivals on the conception and action of industry actors. This study puts forward the argument that film festivals, seen as instances of tournament rituals and field configuring events, play a role in bridging art and commerce. It examines three instances of a particular tournament ritual, that of the three leading European premier film festivals, namely the Cannes Film Festival, the Berlin Film Festival, and the Venice International Film Festival, to untangle their role as mediators between art and commerce and their impact on the artistic classification system of the cinema field. For the purpose, it uses admissions data from 36 European countries for the period of 1996 to 2005. It examines the impact of festival participation and awards on admissions, and further artistic recognition at award ceremonies in the US. Based on the results of our study we argue that, similarly to the classification of art forms, there is a status ordering of tournament rituals (i.e. film festivals) with regard to their ability to act as a nexus of dichotomous categories for a particular cultural form (i.e. art and commerce in the case of film)

Untangling the Impact of European Premier Film Festivals

This study seeks to untangle the impact of film festivals on the conception and action of industry actors. This study puts forward the argument that film festivals, seen as instances of tournament rituals and field configuring events, play a role in bridging art and commerce. It examines three instances of a particular tournament ritual, that of the three leading European premier film festivals, namely the Cannes Film Festival, the Berlin Film Festival, and the Venice International Film Festival, to untangle their role as mediators between art and commerce and their impact on the artistic classification system of the cinema field. For the purpose, it uses admissions data from 36 European countries for the period of 1996 to 2005. It examines the impact of festival participation and awards on admissions, and further artistic recognition at award ceremonies in the US. Based on the results of our study we argue that, similarly to the classification of art forms, there is a status ordering of tournament rituals (i.e. film festivals) with regard to their ability to act as a nexus of dichotomous categories for a particular cultural form (i.e. art and commerce in the case of film)

towards optimal distinctivenes in European film making

Abstract. This paper advances a micro theory of creative action by examining how distinctive artists shield their idiosyncratic styles from the isomorphic pressures of a field. It draws on the cases of three internationally recognized, distinctive European film directors - Pedro Almodóvar (Spain), Nanni Moretti (Italy) and Lars von Trier (Denmark). We argue that in a cinema field, artistic pressures for distinctiveness along with business pressures for profits drive filmmakers’ quest for optimal distinctiveness. This quest seeks both exclusive, unique style and inclusive, audience-appealing artwork with legitimacy in the field. Our theory of creative action for optimal distinctiveness suggests that film directors increase their control by personally consolidating artistic and production roles, by forming close partnership with committed producer, and by establishing own production company. Ironically, to escape the iron cage of local cinema fields, film directors increasingly control the coupling of art and business, hence forging their own "iron cage". "[T]he unusual and paradoxical place that Pedro [Almodóvar] has been able to find: we are within the industry but we preserve our peculiarity." (Agustín Almodóvar, 2001). Optimal distinctiveness: "social identity is viewed as reconciliation of opposing needs for assimilation and differentiation from others." (Marilynn Brewer, 1991)

Intuitive Robot Teleoperation through Multi-Sensor Informed Mixed Reality Visual Aids

© 2021 The Author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. For more information, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.Mobile robotic systems have evolved to include sensors capable of truthfully describing robot status and operating environment as accurately and reliably as never before. This possibility is challenged by effective sensor data exploitation, because of the cognitive load an operator is exposed to, due to the large amount of data and time-dependency constraints. This paper addresses this challenge in remote-vehicle teleoperation by proposing an intuitive way to present sensor data to users by means of using mixed reality and visual aids within the user interface. We propose a method for organizing information presentation and a set of visual aids to facilitate visual communication of data in teleoperation control panels. The resulting sensor-information presentation appears coherent and intuitive, making it easier for an operator to catch and comprehend information meaning. This increases situational awareness and speeds up decision-making. Our method is implemented on a real mobile robotic system operating outdoor equipped with on-board internal and external sensors, GPS, and a reconstructed 3D graphical model provided by an assistant drone. Experimentation verified feasibility while intuitive and comprehensive visual communication was confirmed through a qualitative assessment, which encourages further developments.Peer reviewe

Lack of Hypophagia in CB1 Null Mice is Associated to Decreased Hypothalamic POMC and CART Expression

Background: Cumulative data indicate that the endocannabinoid system plays a major role in feeding behavior and energy balance. Genetic silencing of cannabinoid receptor type 1 (CB1) reduces body weight gain, independently of food intake. Methods: In this work, we investigated whether the hypothalamic neuropeptide expression pattern supports the absence of the anorexigenic response observed under constitutive CB1 ablation, by using neuronal CB1 conditional null mice (CamK-CB1-KO) and whole body CB1 null mice (CB1-KO). Results: Our data showed that both CB1 null models display a marked decrease in proopiomelanocortin (POMC) and cocaine-amphetamine-regulated transcript (CART) expression in the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus (ARC). Conclusions: This evidence suggests that a lack of hypophagia is associated with the suppression of ARC anorexigenic neuropeptides and that behavioral changes in food intake (or lack thereof) after constitutive CB1 ablation are likely mediated by impaired melanocortin and CART signaling in the hypothalamus.The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement nº 281854 of the ObERStress European Research Council Project (Dr López) and 245009 of the Neurofast project (Drs Nogueiras, Diéguez, and López); Xunta de Galicia (Dr Nogueiras: EM 2012/039 and 2012-CP069; Dr López: 2012-CP070); the Frank Mohn Foundation, Bergen (Dr Fernø); Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII; Dr López: PI12/01814 and PIE13/00024); and MINECO, co-funded by the FEDER Program of EU (Dr Nogueiras: RyC-2008-02219 and BFU2012-35255; Dr Diéguez: BFU2011-29102). CIBER de Fisiopatología de la Obesidad y Nutrición is an initiative of ISCIIIS