Living with contradictions: the dynamics of senior managers in relation to sustainability

In this article, we investigate how senior managers located in Northern Europe in the energy and power industry coordinate their recognition of sustainability challenges with other things they say and do. Identity theory is used to examine the fine-grained work through which the managers navigate identities and potentially competing narratives. In contrast with other studies we find that pursuing cohering identities and resolving potential tensions and contradictions does not appear to matter for most of the managers. We explore the dynamics of how managers live with apparent contradictions and tensions without threat to their narrative coherence. We extend existing research into managerial identities and sustainability by: showing how managers combine different potentially contrasting identity types; identifying nine discursive processes through which the majority of managers distance and deflect sustainability issues away from themselves and their companies; and, showing the contrasting identity dynamics in the case of one manager to whom narrative coherence becomes important and prompts alternative action

Understanding sustainability through the lens of ecocentric radical-re?exivity : implications for management education

This paper seeks to contribute to the debate around sustainability by proposing the need for an ecocentric stance to sustainability that reflexively embeds humans in—rather than detached from—nature. We argue that this requires a different way of thinking about our relationship with our world, necessitating a (re)engagement with the sociomaterial world in which we live. We develop the notion of ecocentrism by drawing on insights from sociomateriality studies, and show how radical-reflexivity enables us to appreciate our embeddedness and responsibility for sustainability by bringing attention to the interrelationship between values, actions and our social and material world. We examine the implications of an ecocentric radically reflexive approach to sustainability for management education

Organisational change and the individual

Organizations and change are pervasive features of modern life, and organizational changes, whether intended or not, are becoming increasingly frequent. Despite its practical significance the field of organizational change lacks widely accepted theories aimed either at the academic observer or the participant in change, which explain what it is and how it takes place. This thesis attempts to develop an understanding of the nature and dynamics of organizational change from both perspectives. The thesis is divided into three main parts. The first part reviews some of the existing theories in the field, and proposes an alternative theory based on the notion of differential rates of change, and which distinguishes between descriptions and explanations of change. This is then elaborated through a review of the literature in the fields of organizational and individual change. The main theory, and ideas derived from it, are extended further and evaluated in the second and third parts of the thesis. Case studies are employed in the second part and survey data used in the third part; both are drawn from nurses facing major changes in a Group of National Health Service hospitals. A number of specific conclusions are reached about the ways change may be effected in organizations, and about the ways people may react to these changes. For instance, the examination of individual reactions to anticipated changes suggested two main areas of response. Affective attitudes towards the change were related most closely to judgements made about future patterns in the organization; whereas coping behaviour was more closely related to perceptions of existing patterns (and opportunities

John Hill, Exotic Botany and the competitive world of eighteenth-century horticulture

Botany in the mid-eighteenth century was about much more than gathering medical simples or developing scholarly systematisations. The collection and classification of the vegetable world also depended on practical expertise, particularly concerning the preservation and cultivation of plants. Specimens could be conserved in herbaria, or through botanical illustrations, or, as I discuss here, as live plants grown in gardens. From his early position as Petre’s assistant gardener at Thorndon to his later work for Bute in developing Kew Gardens, John Hill’s life and works were grounded in this earthier dimension of botany. This chapter situates John Hill within the context of botany and horticulture in the mid-eighteenth century, focusing on questions of social status, competition and rivalry. Drawing evidence from Hill’s beautiful and rare book Exotic Botany (1759), I discuss his connections with a network of botanical gardeners and plant traders active in and around London, a green-fingered community that originated almost wholly from these lower social tiers. Seeking to understand how this community dealt with rivalry, I examine how gardeners and nurserymen responded to an increasingly competitive commercial scene. Hill operated within a world in which scholars and entrepreneurs might attempt to gain an edge on their rivals through deploying their intellect and their capacity for puffery. To what extent did gardeners and nurserymen engage with such methods? And was Hill’s trajectory really atypical compared with those in the wider botanico-horticultural community?PostprintNon peer reviewe

To tape or not to tape: Reflections on Methods of Data Collection

A pivotal part of the qualitative research process is dependent on the collection of large quantities of interview data. Some insights into this part of the qualitative research task are presented here, based on the personal experiences of the two authors, Ruth Mattimoe and Treasa Hayes. Our observations relate to data collected for two major pieces of research. One of us (Ruth) chose the audio-tape route to gather her data, while the other (Treasa) opted for manual recording of interview material. We now share some of the lessons gleaned in the course of these respective research journeys. In order to provide some context for the discussion, we provide an overview of the two major studies (Mattimoe, 2002 and Hayes, 1996) for which the data were gathered. While both studies were interprevist, Study A, undertaken by Ruth, took the ‘tape’ route during interviews conducted for this research, whereas manual recording was the route chosen for data collection in Study B, which was undertaken by Treasa. Next, various aspects of the debate surrounding the question: ‘To tape or not to tape?’ are addressed. The discussion finishes with some final reflections which may be of use to other researchers

Recalcitrant seeds : material culture and the global history of science

Archival research was funded by a Carnegie Trust Research Incentive Grant #70320.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Reputation in a box. Objects, communication and trust in late 18th-century botanical networks

Research was supported by a Max Weber Fellowship at the European University Institute, and a Dibner Fellowship in the History of Science at the Huntington Library.This paper examines how and why information moved or failed to move within transatlantic botanical networks in the late eighteenth century. It addresses the problem of how practitioners created relationships of trust, and the difficulties they faced in transferring reputations between national contexts. Eighteenth-century botany was characteristically cross-cultural, cosmopolitan and socially diverse, yet in the 1770s and 1780s the American Revolutionary Wars placed these attributes under strain. The paper analyses the British and French networks that surrounded the Philadelphian plant hunter William Young (1742–1785), to show how botanists and plant collectors created and maintained connections with each other, especially when separated by geographical and cultural distance. It highlights in particular the role played by commercial plant traders, and demonstrates how practitioners used objects to transmit social as well as scholarly information. The transnational circulation of information and knowledge in the Enlightenment was determined by culturally specific judgements about trust, confidence, communication and risk. Despite the prominent role played by material culture within these networks, scholars continued to place high value on face-to-face contact as a means of judging the trustworthiness and cooperation of their agents.PostprintPeer reviewe

Perceiving ‘capability’ within dynamic capabilities: the role of owner-manager self-efficacy

This article combines two popular, yet separate concepts, dynamic capabilities and self-efficacy. Both are concerned with ability / capability and offer potentially valuable synergies. As such, our in-depth qualitative study based in three micro-enterprises in the United Kingdom (UK), investigated, ‘what role(s) may owner-manager perceived self-efficacy play as a micro-foundation of dynamic capabilities in micro-enterprises?’ Our findings show that perceived self-efficacy can influence dynamic capability enactment in multifaceted ways and even suggest that in some cases, perceived self-efficacy is a crucial component of dynamic capabilities, without which there may be no such capability. These insights help open up the black box of dynamic capabilities by contributing important knowledge to the growing body of research into the micro-foundations of such capabilities. Furthermore, our study illuminates the importance of idiosyncratic micro-foundations of dynamic capabilities in micro-enterprises and expands extant knowledge of the potential effects of self-efficacy in the small business and entrepreneurship domain

From incremental to radical: organizational knowledge-related barriers and enablers of paradigm-shifting innovation

From incremental to radical: organizational knowledge-related barriers and enablers of paradigm-shifting innovatio