The importance of respect as a discursive resource in making identity claims: insights from the experiences of becoming a circus director

Though often invoked in the leadership and identity literatures, respect has been poorly articulated. This paper conceptualizes respect as a discursive resource for making identity claims and provides empirical illustration from circus directors’ accounts of becoming managers. Identity claims draw on particular discursive resources and enact recurrent social practices in “specific local historical circumstances” that cohere with “the local moral order”. To claim and to offer respect based on recognition, appraisal, identification, status and other discourses is to participate in such an order, and to make identity claims which are understood as positioning self and others. We provide “transparently observable” illustrations of respect as a discursive resource for forming, maintaining, strengthening, repairing or revising identity claims. An extreme case purposive sample of circus directors provides an organizational site in which identity dynamics are “highly visible”. Within the local moral order of travelling circuses respect is both desired from and conferred upon those whose artistic merit is recognized in both single acts and whole shows. We show that the distinction between appraisal and status as respect discourses evident in the wide social order breaks down in the case of circus. We theorize from this to the importance of respect as a discursive resource in identity claims and to its dependence upon particular accounts of merit

Institutions and moral agency: the case of Scottish Banking

It has been an enduring concern of institutional economics and critical realism to understand how individuals are able to exercise agency in the context of social structures, and to maintain appropriate connections, separations and balances between these two levels of causal power. This paper explores the contribution of Alasdair MacIntyre's neo-Aristotelian philosophy to the topic. Empirical data are provided from the career narratives of senior Scottish bankers recalled in the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2007/8. The method of the study is interpretive, using themes drawn from MacIntyre's writings. These bankers faced moral choices as tensions developed between their own professional standards and the new corporate goals of the banks. We discuss MacIntyre's understanding of individual moral agency as a narrative quest in the context of different types of institution with different and often conflicting ideas about what constitutes good or right action. Habituation and deliberation are important in enabling action, but fully developed moral agency also depends on individuals being able to make choices in the space opened up by tensions within and between institutions

Trade Unions and the 2016 UK European Union Referendum

This article reports on pre and post interviews with trade union leaders and senior Trade Union Congress (TUC) and union officials who held campaign responsibilities for the 2016 UK European Union (EU) Referendum. We consider the development of union policy towards the EU, the determination of unions’ final positions, campaign resources and media, the arguments made and the drivers of and constraints upon active campaigning. Campaign intensity, resourcing and strategic decision-making varied widely across unions and was frustrated by resource constraints, fear of alienating members and in some cases lack of priority. We conclude that unions must be better prepared to commit material resources and national officers’ time so that campaign issues are effectively framed in terms of member concerns

Rand and MacIntyre on moral agency

This paper contrasts the work of Ayn Rand and Alasdair MacIntyre on moral agency. Both argue that moral agency requires the application of a consistent moral code across relationships with others and that such consistency is rarely evident in the modern social order. However, while MacIntyre holds this failure to be a defining feature of the modern social order, Rand holds this to be a failure of individuals and a marker of a wider cultural confusion. While Rand sees selfishness and capitalism as the means to overcome individual and institutional "mixed premises," MacIntyre condemns both

The discovery of a peculiar good: towards a reading of Nell Stroud's 'Josser: days and nights in the circus'.

This paper is a reflexive account of an encounter with an auto-ethnographic text of life in a travelling circus written from the perspective of a member of a circus family. Utilises MacIntyre’s ‘practice-based community’ as an interpretive lens. Research progressed in Culture and Organization 2006 and forthcoming book chapter 2007

'Goods, virtues, practices, institutions' : defending, applying and extending Alasdair MacIntyre's theory of organisation

This PhD by Published Work comprises single and jointly authored papers published between 2002 and 2008. These have sought to defend, apply and extend the work of moral philosopher Alasdair Maclntyre in the context of organisation theory and management studies (OT/MS). The specific contributions they have made are to provide the field of OT/MS with: 1. a thorough review of Maclntyre's thought on organisations and the literature that has used his thinking (publications 1,2,3,8) 2. defences of Maclntyre's position against misinterpretation in the literature (publications 2,3) 3. a rationale for and examples of empirical work that can be conducted within a Maclntyrean framework (publications 4,5,6) 4. an heuristic device through which to structure future work using a MacIntyrean framework (publication 7) An Introduction outlines the extant treatment of Macintyre's work within OT/MS in 2002 and identifies the contribution that the papers make within this context. The publications are considered in three broadly defined sections — defences of Maclntyre's work against misinterpretation, empirical applications of his `goods — virtues — practices — institutions' framework and theoretical extensions to his work. The papers in these sections are briefly appraised in overviews of each. A Conclusion evaluates the contributions made by these papers and outlines their implications for the development of work in the future

Student abstracts of selected articles

Vowel Nasality in Sudanese by Ron Trail, abstracted from Robins, R. H. 1957. Vowel Nasality in Sudanese, A Phonological and Grammatical Study. Studies in Linguistic Analysis, J.R. Firth ed. London: The Philological Society, 87-103. Style in Huichol by Nancy Freiberger, abstracted from Grimes, Joseph E. 1955. Style in Huichol Structure, Language 31.31-35. Trique Tone by Richard Bergman, abstracted from Longacre, Robert E. 1952. Five Phonemic Pitch Levels in Trique, Acta Linguistica 7.62-82. Tonme Representation in Mazatec Orthography by Ron Trail, abstracted from Gudschinsky, Sarah. 1959. Toneme Representation in Mazatec Orthography, Word, 15.446-52. Totonac Verb Inflection by Kenneth D. Smith, abstracted from Aschmann, Herman, and Wonderly, William L. 1952. Affixes and Implicit Categories in Totonac Verb Inflections, IJAL 18.130-45. Have as a Function Word by Jean Haggar, abstracted from Fries, Charles C. 1948. Have as a Function Word, Language Learning, 1.3,4-8. Bella Coola Phonology by Margie Griffin, abstracted from Newman, Stanley, 1947. Bella Coola I: Phonology, IJAL 13.129-34. Old High German Umlaut by Elwood Jacobson, abstracted from Twaddell, W. Freeman. 1938. A Note on Old High German Umlaut, Monatshefte für deutschen Unterricht, 30:177-81. Reprinted in Readings in Linguistics, edited by Martin Joos, 1958. Washington: American Council of Learned Societies, 85-87. The Phonemic Principle by Nancy Freiberger, abstracted from Swadesh, Morris, 1934. The Phonemic Principle, Language 10.117-29. Reprinted in Readings in Linguistics, edited by Martin Joos. 1958. Washington: American Council of Learned Societies, 1957, 32-37. Meaning and Dictionary Making by Nancy Freiberger, abstracted from Nida, Eugene A. 1958. Analysis of Meaning and Dictionary Making, IJAL 24.279-92. Mazateco Whistle Speech by Nancy Freiberger, abstracted from Cowan, George M. 1948. Mazateco Whistle Speech, Language 24.280-86. Voiceless Vowels in Comanche by Bob Beadle, abstracted from Canonge, Elliot D. 1957. Voiceless Vowels in Comanche, IJAL, 23.63-67. Noun Possession in Villa Alta Zapotec by Gwen Young, abstracted from Mary Leal and Otis Leal, 1954. Noun Possession in Villa Alta Zapotec, IJAL 20.215-216. Sound Patterns by Richard Bergman, abstracted from Sapir, Edward. 1925. Sound Patterns in Language. Language, 1.37-51

Managerial Work in a Practice-Embodying Institution - The role of calling, the virtue of constancy

What can be learned from a small scale study of managerial work in a highly marginal and under-researched working community? This paper uses the ‘goods-virtues-practices-institutions’ framework to examine the managerial work of owner-directors of traditional circuses. Inspired by MacIntyre’s arguments for the necessity of a narrative understanding of the virtues, interviews explored how British and Irish circus directors accounted for their working lives. A purposive sample was used to select subjects who had owned and managed traditional touring circuses for at least 15 years, a period in which the economic and reputational fortunes of traditional circuses have suffered badly. This sample enabled the research to examine the self-understanding of people who had, at least on the face of it, exhibited the virtue of constancy. The research contributes to our understanding of the role of the virtues in organizations by presenting evidence of an intimate relationship between the virtue of constancy and a ‘calling’ work orientation. This enhances our understanding of the virtues that are required if management is exercised as a domain-related practice