Moving Beyond Mimicry: Developing Hybrid Spaces in Indian Business Schools

This article analyses the identity work of Indian management educators and scholars as they seek to establish, maintain and revise a sense of self in the context of business school globalization. We show how globalization, combined with the historical legacy of colonialism, renders Indian scholars precarious in their interactions with Western business schools. Based on a qualitative interview study, we explore how Indian business school scholars perform their identities in the context of neo-colonial relations, which are characterised by the dominance of English language and a pressure to conform to research norms set by globally-ranked journals. Drawing on postcolonial theory, our argument focuses on mimicry as a distinctive form of identity work that involves maintaining difference between Western and non-Western identities by 'Othering' Indian scholars, while simultaneously seeking to transform them. We draw attention to ambivalence within participants' accounts, which we suggest arises because the authority of Western scholarship relies on maintaining non-Western scholars in a position of alterity or 'not quite-ness'. We suggest that hybridity offers an opportunity to disrupt and question current practices of business school globalization and facilitate scholarly engagement that reflects more diverse philosophical positions and worldviews

Thermosensation in Caenorhabditis elegans is linked to ubiquitin-dependent protein turnover via insulin and calcineurin signalling

Organismal physiology and survival are influenced by environmental conditions and linked to protein quality control. Proteome integrity is achieved by maintaining an intricate balance between protein folding and degradation. In Caenorhabditis elegans, acute heat stress determines cell non-autonomous regulation of chaperone levels. However, how the perception of environmental changes, including physiological temperature, affects protein degradation remains largely unexplored. Here, we show that loss-of-function of dyf-1 in Caenorhabditis elegans associated with dysfunctional sensory neurons leads to defects in both temperature perception and thermal adaptation of the ubiquitin/proteasome system centered on thermosensory AFD neurons. Impaired perception of moderate temperature changes worsens ubiquitin-dependent proteolysis in intestinal cells. Brain-gut communication regulating protein turnover is mediated by upregulation of the insulin-like peptide INS-5 and inhibition of the calcineurin-regulated forkhead-box transcription factor DAF-16/FOXO. Our data indicate that perception of ambient temperature and its neuronal integration is important for the control of proteome integrity in complex organisms

Building Theoretical Foundations for Electronic Governance Benchmarking

Part 1: FoundationsInternational audienceThe success of the electronic governance (EGOV) benchmarking has been limited so far. Lacking a theory to integrate existing conceptualizations has made the acquisition and sharing of knowledge produced by different benchmarking exercises difficult. In order to address this problem, this paper: 1) explains the nature of the EGOV benchmarking activity though a wellestablished theoretical framework - Activity Theory, 2) applies the framework to carry out a mapping between a number of existing EGOV benchmarking conceptualizations, 3) develops an unified conceptualization based on these mappings and 4) validates the resulting model though a real-life national EGOV strategy development project. The use of the Activity Theory in the paper has enabled defining and relating initial dimensions of the EGOV benchmarking activity, and mapping the dimensions present in existing conceptualizations. This not only created a unifying theoretical basis for conceptualizing the EGOV benchmarking activity but allowed learning from and integrating existing conceptualizations. The work impacts on the EGOV benchmarking practice by enabling a logical design of the activity, and contextually correct understanding of existing EGOV benchmarking results with respect to their intended usage

Building Theoretical Foundations for Electronic Governance Benchmarking

The success of the electronic governance (EGOV) benchmarking has been limited so far. Lacking a theory to integrate existing conceptualizations has made the acquisition and sharing of knowledge produced by different benchmarking exercises difficult. In order to address this problem, this paper: 1) explains the nature of the EGOV benchmarking activity though a well-established theoretical framework - Activity Theory, 2) applies the framework to carry out a mapping between a number of existing EGOV benchmarking conceptualizations, 3) develops an unified conceptualization based on these mappings and 4) validates the resulting model though a real-life national EGOV strategy development project. The use of the Activity Theory in the paper has enabled defining and relating initial dimensions of the EGOV benchmarking activity, and mapping the dimensions present in existing conceptualizations. This not only created a unifying theoretical basis for conceptualizing the EGOV benchmarking activity but allowed learning from and integrating existing conceptualizations. The work impacts on the EGOV benchmarking practice by enabling a logical design of the activity, and contextually correct understanding of existing EGOV benchmarking results with respect to their intended usage