On the Complexity of Shared Conceptualizations

In the Social Web, folksonomies and other similar knowledge organization techniques may suffer limitations due to both different users’ tagging behaviours and semantic heterogeneity. In order to estimate how a social tagging network organizes its resources, focusing on sharing (implicit) conceptual schemes, we apply an agent-based reconciliation knowledge system based on Formal Concept Analysis. This article describes various experiments that focus on conceptual structures of the reconciliation process as applied to Delicious bookmarking service. Results will show the prevalence of sharing tagged resources in order to be used by other users as recommendations.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación TIN2009-09492Junta de Andalucía TIC-606

Mental models of high reliability systems

Reliable performance in complex systems is determined in part by the ade quacy with which mental models of the system capture accurately the dimen sions of system coupling and system complexity. Failure to register coupling and complexity leads the observer to intervene into an imagined technology that does not exist and to convert opportunities for error into actual errors. To decrease the frequency with which this conversion occurs, people can make their models more complex or the systems they monitor less complex. Neither type of change is as daunting as it may appear, and this is illustrated by an analysis of the mental model and system design associated with the invasion of Grenada.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68652/2/10.1177_108602668900300203.pd

The Ties that Double Bind Us: Career, Emotion and Narrative Coping in Difficult Working Relationships

This article examines through an autoethnographic account how career aspirations and constraints may lead individuals to endure emotionally aversive situations. It presents evidence that individuals in such situations engage in emotion‐focused coping through narrative, illustrated by the author’s autoethnographic narrative of a difficult working relationship which developed into a double bind situation. The paper suggests that narrative coping in response to a double bind can actually serve to reify and prolong such situations. The paper concludes that autoethnographic research does not lend itself to simple organisational solutions. Possible avenues for further research are outlined and discussed

What makes mindful self-initiated expatriates bounce back, improvise and perform:Empirical evidence from the emerging markets

Drawing upon the self-determination theory (SDT), this study examines what makes individual employees leverage improvisational capability to act extemporaneously to find relevant solutions for enhanced task performance. Using supervisor-subordinate dyadic self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) samples, we used structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine this study's hypotheses. We found that mindfulness influences resilience and improvisation in the workplace. Furthermore, we found improvisation to mediate the influence of resilience on task performance. We discussed in detail the essential findings and their contributions to advance theory and practice in the field

Appraising empirical applications of Structuration Theory in management and organization studies

There is an increasing interest in the application of Structuration Theory in the fields of management and organization studies. Based upon a thorough literature review, we have come up with a data-set to assess how Structuration Theory has been used in empirical research. We use three key concepts of this theory (duality of structure, knowledgeability, and time-space) as sensitizing concepts for our analysis. We conclude that the greatest potential of Structuration Theory for management and organization studies is to view it as a process theory that offers a distinct building block for explaining intra and interorganizational change, as exemplified through concepts such as routine, script, genre, practice, and discourse

Trust and control interrelations: New perspectives on the trust control nexus

This article is the post-print version of the published article that may be accessed at the link below. Copyright @ 2007 Sage Publications.This article introduces the special issue on New Perspectives on the Trust-Control Nexus in Organizational Relations. Trust and control are interlinked processes commonly seen as key to reach effectiveness in inter- and intraorganizational relations. The relation between trust and control is, however, a complex one, and research into this relation has given rise to various and contradictory interpretations of how trust and control relate. A well-known discussion is directed at whether trust and control are better conceived as substitutes, or as complementary mechanisms of governance. The articles in this special issue bring the discussion on the relationship between both concepts a step further by identifying common factors, distinctive mechanisms, and key implications relevant for theory building and empirical research. By studying trust and control through different perspectives and at different levels of analysis, the articles provide new theoretical insights and empirical evidence on the foundations of the trust-control interrelations

Creating university spin-offs: A science-based design perspective

Academic entrepreneurship by means of university spin-offs commercializes technological breakthroughs, which may otherwise remain unexploited. However, many universities face difficulties in creating spin-offs. This article adopts a science-based design approach to connect scholarly research with the pragmatics of effectively creating university spin-offs. This approach serves to link the practice of university spin-off creation, via design principles, to the scholarly knowledge in this area. As such, science-based design promotes the interplay between emergent and deliberate design processes. This framework is used to develop a set of design principles that are practice based as well as grounded in the existing body of research on university spin-offs. A case-study of spin-off creation at a Dutch university illustrates the interplay between initial processes characterized by emergent design and the subsequent process that was more deliberate in nature. This case study also suggests there are two fundamentally different phases in building capacity for university spin-off creation. First, an infrastructure for spin-off creation (including a collaborative network of investors, managers and advisors) is developed that then enables support activities to individual spin-off ventures. This study concludes that to build and increase capacity for creating spin-offs, universities should do the following: (1) create university-wide awareness of entrepreneurship opportunities, stimulate the development of entrepreneurial ideas, and subsequently screen entrepreneurs and ideas by programs targeted at students and academic staff; (2) support start-up teams in composing and learning the right mix of venturing skills and knowledge by providing access to advice, coaching, and training; (3) help starters in obtaining access to resources and developing their social capital by creating a collaborative network organization of investors, managers, and advisors; (4) set clear and supportive rules and procedures that regulate the university spin-off process, enhance fair treatment of involved parties, and separate spin-off processes from academic research and teaching; and (5) shape a university culture that reinforces academic entrepreneurship by creating norms and exemplars that motivate entrepreneurial behavior. These and other results of this study illustrate how science-based design can connect scholarly research to the pragmatics of actually creating spin-offs in academic institutions

Making sense of leadership development: Developing a community of education leaders

In education literature there is a distinct lack of scholarly work on issues of leadership other than on functional leadership at lower levels or high-level individual leadership activity which dominates existing studies. This empirical research is based on the result of a merger of education providers within the North East of England. A crucial aspiration of the newly merged organisation was to provide an overarching innovative leadership structure to facilitate integrated leadership. The specific focus of this article is participants of a bespoke postgraduate learning intervention. The authors apply sense-making theory to identify how student-leaders undertaking a leadership development intervention developed to become a community of education leaders. The reflective accounts of the student-leaders indicated a combined approach of distributed, shared and collaborative leadership. Whilst the study was conducted in the UK, the concepts and ideas are likely to have international application

A multilevel neo-institutional analysis of infection prevention and control in English hospitals: coerced safety culture change?

Despite committed policy, regulative and professional efforts on healthcare safety, little is known about how such macro-interventions permeate organisations and shape culture over time. Informed by neo-institutional theory, we examined how inter-organisational influences shaped safety practices and inter-subjective meanings following efforts for coerced culture change. We traced macro-influences from 2000 to 2015 in infection prevention and control (IPC). Safety perceptions and meanings were inductively analysed from 130 in-depth qualitative interviews with senior- and middle-level managers from 30 English hospitals. A total of 869 institutional interventions were identified; 69% had a regulative component. In this context of forced implementation of safety practices, staff experienced inherent tensions concerning the scope of safety, their ability to be open and prioritisation of external mandates over local need. These tensions stemmed from conflicts among three co-existing institutional logics prevalent in the NHS. In response to requests for change, staff flexibly drew from a repertoire of cognitive, material and symbolic resources within and outside their organisations. They crafted 'strategies of action', guided by a situated assessment of first-hand practice experiences complementing collective evaluations of interventions such as 'pragmatic', 'sensible' and also 'legitimate'. Macro-institutional forces exerted influence either directly on individuals or indirectly by enriching the organisational cultural repertoire