Humour and laughter in meetings: influence, decision-making and the emergence of leadership

Recent constructions view leadership as a process of social influence which coordinates processes of change. Moreover, such processes are not necessarily linked to role hierarchy but may be emergent and distributed within teams. However, the micro-processes through which this occurs are not well understood. The significance of the paper lies in its contribution to an understanding of the emergence of leadership in teams, and in particular how humour and laughter are drawn on as a resource by which to exert social influence. Here, we use the construct of the play frame, ‘non serious’ talk in which participants jointly construct extended humorous sequences as improvisations, to analyse how team members manoeuvre in order to accomplish influence, decision-making and leadership. In taking this approach we are not concerned with considerations of how managers use jokes to exercise control, or workers use humour to subvert management. Rather, we examine how humour, and particularly the laughter it engenders, can contribute to an understanding of organizations as centred on communication and founded on the precept that organizations are ‘talked into being’. Here we show how talk in a play frame institutes a context which can be utilised by participants to exert influence and we demonstrate the highly contingent and contextual nature of the emergence of leadership within teams

The Ambivalence of Promising Technology

Issues of responsibility in the world of nanotechnology are becoming explicit with the emergence of a discourse on ‘responsible development’ of nanoscience and nanotechnologies. Much of this discourse centres on the ambivalences of nanotechnology and of promising technology in general. Actors must find means of dealing with these ambivalences. Actors’ actions and responses to ambivalence are shaped by their position and context, along with strategic games they are involved in, together with other actors. A number of interviews were conducted with industrial actors with the aim of uncovering their ethical stances towards responsible development of nanotechnology. The data shows that standard repertoires of justification of nanotechnological development were used. Thus, the industrial actors fell back on their position and associated responsibilities. Such responses reinforce a division of moral labour in which industrial actors and scientists can focus on the progress of science and technology, while other actors, such as NGOs, are expected to take care of broader considerations, such as ethical and social issues

Recognising Desire: A psychosocial approach to understanding education policy implementation and effect

It is argued that in order to understand the ways in which teachers experience their work - including the idiosyncratic ways in which they respond to and implement mandated education policy - it is necessary to take account both of sociological and of psychological issues. The paper draws on original research with practising and beginning teachers, and on theories of social and psychic induction, to illustrate the potential benefits of this bipartisan approach for both teachers and researchers. Recognising the significance of (but somewhat arbitrary distinction between) structure and agency in teachers’ practical and ideological positionings, it is suggested that teachers’ responses to local and central policy changes are governed by a mix of pragmatism, social determinism and often hidden desires. It is the often underacknowledged strength of desire that may tip teachers into accepting and implementing policies with which they are not ideologically comfortable

Dominion cartoon satire as trench culture narratives: complaints, endurance and stoicism

Although Dominion soldiers’ Great War field publications are relatively well known, the way troops created cartoon multi-panel formats in some of them has been neglected as a record of satirical social observation. Visual narrative humour provides a ‘bottom-up’ perspective for journalistic observations that in many cases capture the spirit of the army in terms of stoicism, buoyed by a culture of internal complaints. Troop concerns expressed in the early comic strips of Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders and British were similar. They shared a collective editorial purpose of morale boosting among the ranks through the use of everyday narratives that elevated the anti-heroism of the citizen soldier, portrayed as a transnational everyman in the service of empire. The regenerative value of disparagement humour provided a redefinition of courage as the very act of endurance on the Western Front

Effectiveness and tolerability of pegylated interferon alfa2b in combination with ribavirin for treatment of chronic hepatitis C: the PegIntrust study

Background and study aims : Large international clinical trials conducted in the past 5 years rapidly improved the treatment of chronic hepatitis C; however, it is unclear whether the advances seen in clinical trials are being paralleled by similar improvements in routine clinical practice. PegIntrust is a Belgian community based trial evaluating the sustained virological response. Patients and Methods : Observational study of 219 patients receiving pegylated interferon alfa-2b (1.5 μg/kg/wk) and weight-based ribavirin (800-1200 mg/day) for 48 weeks. Primary study end point was sustained virological response (SVR), defined as undetectable HCV RNA 6 months after the completion of treatment. Results : In total, 108 patients (49.3 %) had undetectable HCV RNA at the end of therapy, 91 (41.6%) attaining SVR. Of the 111 patients without an end-of-treatment response, 28 were non-responders, and 21 had virological breakthrough. In total, 134 patients attained early virological response (EVR); 88 (65.7%) of those patients attained SVR. In contrast, 82 (96.5 %) of the 85 patients who did not attain EVR also did not attain SVR. Age, fibrosis score and baseline viral load were identified as important predictors of treatment outcome. The most frequently reported serious adverse events resulting in treatment discontinuation were anemia (n = 10), fatigue/asthenia/malaise (n = 6) and fever (n = 3). Conclusion : Our data indicate that treatment of chronic hepatitis C with PEG-IFN alfa-2b plus weight-based ribavirin results in favourable treatment outcomes in a Belgian cohort of patients treated in community- based clinical practice

Theoretical studies of the historical development of the accounting discipline: a review and evidence

Many existing studies of the development of accounting thought have either been atheoretical or have adopted Kuhn's model of scientific growth. The limitations of this 35-year-old model are discussed. Four different general neo-Kuhnian models of scholarly knowledge development are reviewed and compared with reference to an analytical matrix. The models are found to be mutually consistent, with each focusing on a different aspect of development. A composite model is proposed. Based on a hand-crafted database, author co-citation analysis is used to map empirically the entire literature structure of the accounting discipline during two consecutive time periods, 1972–81 and 1982–90. The changing structure of the accounting literature is interpreted using the proposed composite model of scholarly knowledge development

I’m not joking! The strategic use of humour in stories of racism

This study examines the use of humour by Black football coaches in England as a rhetorical device against racism. The paper draws on humour studies and critical race theory to illustrate signs of humour as defence. Research on humour has popularly explored the ambiguities and qualities of humour and, in particular, joke telling through its use as a foil to stem racial ills is less well understood. Where previous work has focused on explicit joke telling/banter in sport, this paper examines how techniques of humour are used in everyday racialised experiences. The use of techniques of humour enables feelings of subordination, and humiliation to be transposed into forms of resistance, while its physiological and psychological benefits can lead to inter-racial relief and catharsis. The paper concludes that techniques of humour remain underexplored as important tools of resistance to everyday racism

Making sense of violence: a study of narrative meaning

Dramatized violence has been a feature of entertainment in western civilization throughout history. The function of film violence is explored and compared to violence encountered in real life. The role of narrative in individuals' meaning-making processes is also investigated. Six adults were individually interviewed using a semi-structured schedule and narrative analysis was implemented. The findings revealed that real life violence is experientially distinct from film violence but narrative was found to be central to participants' quest for the meaning of violence in both contexts. The narrative framework of violence and whether it is justifiable were fundamental to participants' understanding. The function of violent film was found to be multifaceted: it can teach viewers about the consequences of violence; it allows them to speculate about their own and others' reactions to violence; and it provides an opportunity to experience something which is ordinarily outside of our experience in order to satisfy our human existential needs