‘Living at the border of poverty’: How theater actors maintain their calling through narrative identity work

People who have a sense of calling to their work are more inspired, motivated and engaged with what they do. But how is calling constructed and maintained within organizations? More importantly, how do people maintain a sense of calling to their work when this is a source of ongoing material and existential hardships? This paper seeks to address these questions by looking at the artistic setting of theater where actors maintain their calling despite their precarious work situation. The study employs a narrative approach to illustrate how three dominant narratives-religious, political and therapeutic-are central in constructing theater work as deeply meaningful. Specifically, each narrative explains how theater actors maintain their calling through different processes of identity work enacted through sacrifice (religious), responsibility (political) and self-care (therapeutic), with corresponding role identities as martyrs (religious), citizens (political) and self-coaches (therapeutic). We contribute to the literature on callings by: (a) showing how different processes of identity work are central to maintaining callings in precarious work situations, (b) exploring the role played by the 'other' as an interlocutor in accounting for and maintaining callings, and (c) advancing a theoretical explanation of callings that illustrates how callings contingently emerge as acts of elevation, resistance or resilience within contemporary society

Diversity or divide? In search of flexible specialization in the UK television industry

"In ihrem Beitrag über die britische Fernsehindustrie untersuchen die Autoren ausgehend von der These einer zunehmenden flexiblen Spezialisierung, die Organisation der Produktion und Distribution von Programminhalten. Angesichts neuer technologischer Möglichkeiten und ökonomischer Notwendigkeiten sowie unter Betonung des in Großbritannien wichtigen Einflusses der Reregulation dieser Industrie, finden die Autoren tatsächlich einen Trend zur Produktionsorganisation in flexibel spezialisierten Unternehmensnetzwerken, gleichzeitig aber auch die Weiterexistenz von Inhouse-Produktionen und eine Zunahme von Unternehmungsübernahmen in diesem Bereich. Der zunehmenden Diversität in der Produktionsorganisation stellen die Autoren die Konzentration im Bereich der Programmdistribution durch Fernsehsender gegenüber und geben eine Einschätzung der sich vor diesem Hintergrund verändernden Beziehungen zwischen Produktion und Distribution." (Autorenreferat, IAB-Doku)"Competitive pressures are driving firms in many industries towards more flexible organizational forms. In particular, stable, vertically integrated organizations are being challenged by those drawing together resources in unique, 'flexibly specialised' webs or 'networks'. Some analysts suggest that the growth of network organizations marks a major 'industrial divide' and that, with the decomposition of mass markets, organizations based upon the principles of economies of scale are no longer viable. This paper questions the interpretation of the flexible specialization thesis as a production paradigm via an examination of the UK television industry. In particular, the diversity of emerging organizational forms in UK television is explored by presenting flexible specializations as a 'mode of production' which can manifest itself in a diversity of organizational models. As a result of such analysis, it is concluded that emergent forms of organization in television are not subject to any one particular categorization, and indeed that to search for a dominant production paradigm is counter-productive." (author's abstract, IAB-Doku

The Development of Architectural Ambidexterity: Information Technology in an Age of Hypercompetition

How does an organization, operating in what has been historically a relatively stable environment such as banking, use IT to transform itself as that environment changes to one of hypercompetition? We argue that a key contribution of IT in this context is its potential role in the development of architectural ambidexterity which we define as the capacity to manage complex and apparently conflicting task demands ' such as efficiency and innovation, commoditization and customization, control and entrepreneurship - through the dynamic reconfiguration of resources and capabilities. The concept of architectural ambidexterity is developed building upon organization design and dynamic capabilities literature. Architectural ambidexterity is a collective ability that enables an organization to integrate know-how and processes and systems to enact forms of connectivity that ensure endurance and accommodation to an unpredictable future by building an overarching basis for stability, requisite uniformity, facilitatory flexibility and anticipative connectivity

The impact of business schools: increasing the range of strategic choices

The notion of impact is becoming important for international business schools, which are under increasing pressures related to their legitimacy. Although the term impact has gained in popularity, common approaches to business school impact rely either on academic publications or alumni’s salaries. To help uncover the potential for other approaches, we develop a conceptual framework as a basis for studying business school impact. The pluralism of approaches in terms of business school impact opens new spaces for original strategic choices, therefore limiting pressures for organizational isomorphism. Nevertheless, the notion of impact also has some limitations that need to be considered

The dilemmas of internationalization:corporate social responsibility in the multinational corporation

We add to the global–local debate by highlighting concerns with the empirical and conceptual validity of the construct 'integrated' as it operates within corporate social responsibility (CSR). We do so by investigating the extent to which foreign national culture and related local issues are incorporated into the CSR policy of 37 multinational corporations, examining strategy development and implementation across global locations. This research suggests that integrated internationalization strategies do not resolve global and local CSR issues. In fact, they reinforce outcomes similar to global strategies, where core issues identified by headquarters are legitimated and local issues are marginalized, an outcome that appears somewhat at odds with the spirit of local responsiveness embedded in CSR thinking

Remember Icarus! Seven risks that threaten Business Schools

Business schools, according to certain measures, have been a major success story in the recent past of the university, enjoying significant demand growth. We suggest that their future may be more problematic. We offer different possible scenarios for business schools and identify seven key risks that they face. We argue that the most significant challenge business schools must negotiate is to redefine and clarify their mission and redesign themselves to meet these risks. We conclude that the business schools best able to survive and prosper in the future are likely to be very different from those that currently exist

Survey of Period Variations of Superhumps in SU UMa-Type Dwarf Novae

We systematically surveyed period variations of superhumps in SU UMa-type dwarf novae based on newly obtained data and past publications. In many systems, the evolution of superhump period are found to be composed of three distinct stages: early evolutionary stage with a longer superhump period, middle stage with systematically varying periods, final stage with a shorter, stable superhump period. During the middle stage, many systems with superhump periods less than 0.08 d show positive period derivatives. Contrary to the earlier claim, we found no clear evidence for variation of period derivatives between superoutburst of the same object. We present an interpretation that the lengthening of the superhump period is a result of outward propagation of the eccentricity wave and is limited by the radius near the tidal truncation. We interpret that late stage superhumps are rejuvenized excitation of 3:1 resonance when the superhumps in the outer disk is effectively quenched. Many of WZ Sge-type dwarf novae showed long-enduring superhumps during the post-superoutburst stage having periods longer than those during the main superoutburst. The period derivatives in WZ Sge-type dwarf novae are found to be strongly correlated with the fractional superhump excess, or consequently, mass ratio. WZ Sge-type dwarf novae with a long-lasting rebrightening or with multiple rebrightenings tend to have smaller period derivatives and are excellent candidate for the systems around or after the period minimum of evolution of cataclysmic variables (abridged).Comment: 239 pages, 225 figures, PASJ accepte

A falling of the veils: turning points and momentous turning points in leadership and the creation of CSR

This article uses the life stories approach to leadership and leadership development. Using exploratory, qualitative data from a Forbes Global 2000 and FTSE 100 company, we discuss the role of the turning point (TP) as an important antecedent of leadership in corporate social responsibility. We argue that TPs are causally efficacious, linking them to the development of life narratives concerned with an evolving sense of personal identity. Using both a multi-disciplinary perspective and a multi-level focus on CSR leadership, we identify four narrative cases. We propose that they helped to re-define individuals’ sense of self and in some extreme cases completely transformed their self-identity as leaders of CSR. Hence we also distinguish the momentous turning point (MTP) that created a seismic shift in personality, through re-evaluation of the individuals’ personal values. We argue that whilst TPs are developmental experiences that can produce responsible leadership, the MTP changes the individuals’ personal priorities in life to produce responsible leadership that perhaps did not exist previously. Thus we appropriate Maslow’s (1976, p. 77) metaphorical phrase ‘A falling of the veils’ from his discussion of peak and desolation experiences that produce personal growth. Using a multi-disciplinary literature from social theory (Archer, 2012) moral psychology (Narvaez, 2009) and social psychology (Schwartz, 2010), we present a theoretical model that illustrates the psychological process of the (M)TP, thus contributing to the growing literature on the microfoundations of CSR

Phenotypic and Genome-Wide Analysis of an Antibiotic-Resistant Small Colony Variant (SCV) of Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Small colony variants (SCVs) are slow-growing bacteria, which often show increased resistance to antibiotics and cause latent or recurrent infections. It is therefore important to understand the mechanisms at the basis of this phenotypic switch.One SCV (termed PAO-SCV) was isolated, showing high resistance to gentamicin and to the cephalosporine cefotaxime. PAO-SCV was prone to reversion as evidenced by emergence of large colonies with a frequency of 10(-5) on media without antibiotics while it was stably maintained in presence of gentamicin. PAO-SCV showed a delayed growth, defective motility, and strongly reduced levels of the quorum sensing Pseudomonas quinolone signal (PQS). Whole genome expression analysis further suggested a multi-layered antibiotic resistance mechanism, including simultaneous over-expression of two drug efflux pumps (MexAB-OprM, MexXY-OprM), the LPS modification operon arnBCADTEF, and the PhoP-PhoQ two-component system. Conversely, the genes for the synthesis of PQS were strongly down-regulated in PAO-SCV. Finally, genomic analysis revealed the presence of mutations in phoP and phoQ genes as well as in the mexZ gene encoding a repressor of the mexXY and mexAB-oprM genes. Only one mutation occurred only in REV, at nucleotide 1020 of the tufA gene, a paralog of tufB, both encoding the elongation factor Tu, causing a change of the rarely used aspartic acid codon GAU to the more common GAC, possibly causing an increase of tufA mRNA translation. High expression of phoP and phoQ was confirmed for the SCV variant while the revertant showed expression levels reduced to wild-type levels.By combining data coming from phenotypic, gene expression and proteome analysis, we could demonstrate that resistance to aminoglycosides in one SCV mutant is multifactorial including overexpression of efflux mechanisms, LPS modification and is accompanied by a drastic down-regulation of the Pseudomonas quinolone signal quorum sensing system

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project : sample characterization

Y.S. acknowledges support from an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship and NSF grant AST-1715579. P.H. acknowledges support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), funding reference number 2017-05983. W.N.B. acknowledges support from NSF grant AST-1516784. C.J.G., W.N.B., and D.P.S. acknowledge support from NSF grant AST-1517113. Funding for SDSS-III has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Participating Institutions, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science.We present a detailed characterization of the 849 broad-line quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping (SDSS-RM) project. Our quasar sample covers a redshift range of 0.1 < z < 4.5 and is flux-limited to i PSF < 21.7 without any other cuts on quasar properties. The main sample characterization includes: (1) spectral measurements of the continuum and broad emission lines for individual objects from the coadded first-season spectroscopy in 2014, (2) identification of broad and narrow absorption lines in the spectra, and (3) optical variability properties for continuum and broad lines from multi-epoch spectroscopy. We provide improved systemic redshift estimates for all quasars and demonstrate the effects of the signal-to-noise ratio on the spectral measurements. We compile measured properties for all 849 quasars along with supplemental multi-wavelength data for subsets of our sample from other surveys. The SDSS-RM sample probes a diverse range in quasar properties and shows well-detected continuum and broad-line variability for many objects from first-season monitoring data. The compiled properties serve as the benchmark for follow-up work based on SDSS-RM data. The spectral fitting tools are made public along with this work.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe