The Prayer Factory: spirituality at work, and the paradoxes of performativity, monoculturalism and dissent.

Recent years have witnessed a significant growth of academic and practitioner interest in spirituality within the workplace, and in particular in spirituality management and leadership development. This paper argues that the literature in the area is replete with unresolved paradoxes. These revolve around how spirituality is defined, with advocates variously stressing its religious dimensions, usually from a Christian perspective, and others articulating a more secular approach focusing on nondenominational humanistic values. Additionally, much of the literature stresses the value of spirituality as an aid to increasing productivity and profits. Thus, spiritual means are attached to performative ends, even as its advocates stress its emancipatory intent. In exploring these contradictions, this paper argues that, despite asserting the opposite intention, spirituality management approaches seek to abolish the distinction between peoples work based lives on the one hand, and their personal lives and value systems on the other. Influence is conceived in uni-directional terms: it flows from spiritual managers to more or less compliant staff, deemed to be in need of enlightenment, rather than vice versa. It is therefore argued that, despite the emancipatory rhetoric in which much spirituality discourse is couched, it promotes constricting cultural and behavioural norms, and thereby seeks to reinforce managerial power at the expense of individual autonomy. The implications for the management of culture, and such issues as conformity and dissent, are considered

Making a difference: doing leadership research that matters

Leadership research largely ignores the really big issues facing our species, such as climate change, the now rapid growth of new technologies that are already transforming the world of work, and the possibility that an insufficiently reformed banking system will inflict a worse crisis on us than it did in 2008. We also have a proliferation of leadership constructs that often look remarkably like those they are trying to replace. There is much heat but little illumination. The dominant methodologies that the field employs are part of a wider crisis in management studies where many of our claimed results are invalid and/or unreliable, unreproducible and offer little guidance for practice. I conclude that radical changes are needed if we are to play a serious role in improving the world in which we live. Let's take Ken Parry's lead, and make a difference

Towards an organizational theory of hubris: symptoms, behaviours and social fields within finance and banking

Hubris has become a popular explanation for all kinds of business failure. It is often reduced to the one-dimensional notion of ‘over-confidence’, particularly on the part of CEOs. There is a need to clarify the extent to which other attitudes and behaviours constitute hubris, and how they are affected by such organisational dynamics as the struggle for power, status and material rewards between actors. This article explores these issues within the finance and banking sectors. It uses the Critical Incident Technique to identify behaviours associated with hubris and probes the interaction between them and the organisational contexts in which they occur. Five categories of behaviour based on an analysis of 101 incidents are described, as are a series of ‘inflection dynamics’ that reinforce the behaviours in question and constitute a social field conducive to hubris. I challenge the reductionist views that hubris is primarily a psychological state consisting mainly of ‘over-confidence’. This article seeks to complexify the term hubris and to develop an organisational rather than purely psychology theory of its emergence and institutionalisation within finance and banking

In Process and Practice: The Development of an Archive of Explicit Stylistic Data for Irish Traditional Instrumental Music

The study of style in Irish traditional music is very much in its infancy. Although current authors locate its beginnings in the 1980s, valuable information can be found from as far back as the eighteenth century. While style is a much-discussed topic, to date it has not been the subject of a major study. Through what is termed ‘the oral tradition’, much of the genre’s stylistic features are transmitted as implicit knowledge. This type of knowledge is difficult to measure, consciously use and share and while these difficulties have been highlighted in one EU-level report, they are also well known in informal conversation. Were this implicit knowledge to be codified into explicit knowledge, it is likely that the process of overcoming these issues could begin, however, at present, no such supplementary approach to transmission exists. In this study it is contended that through the collation of existing explicit knowledge and the codification of implicit knowledge, the creation of an archive of explicit stylistic data is possible. Furthermore, this thesis explores how such an archive may in the future be used as a resource in reducing the issues surrounding measurability and creativity. In order to do this, a two-part model termed the musical catalyst process is proposed. Its first component, the musical catalyst framework acts as a set of instructions for constructing an archive of explicit stylistic data and draws on the relevant literature (1786–2012), audio recordings, permutation formulae and practice-based research. As the initial lists of explicit stylistic knowledge grow, the implicit aspects of style are progressively easier to identify. While the stylistic data of the genre could never be exhaustively collected, the aim is to develop and explore a process that would deliver concrete results and which could be used as a reliable approach beyond this project. The end result of this is an archive of explicit stylistic data that has the potential to be further grown

Introduction to the special issue: why the coronavirus crisis is also a crisis of leadership

This editorial introduction argues that the coronavirus crisis is also a crisis of leadership theory and practice. Decision making is particularly hazardous when we have poor evidence to guide us and face unpredictable outcomes. Mainstream leadership theories are of little help, since an environment of radical uncertainty means that leaders have less information, expertise and resources to guide them than is often assumed. Undaunted, populist leaders exploit uncertainty to suggest that simple solutions will work. I suggest that the responses of such leaders have been characterised by incompetent leadership, denialist leadership, panic leadership, othering leadership and authoritarian leadership. I also consider the implications of the crisis for business leadership, suggesting that already strained relationships within organisations are likely to deteriorate still further. Critical leadership studies has an important contribution to make in challenging self-serving theories of business that have come to guide much leadership decision-making. We have an opportunity to do research that really matters, and participate in vital conversations about how the theory and practice of leadership can contribute to better outcomes from the coronavirus crisis, and others still to come

The critical incident technique reappraised: using critical incidents to illuminate organizational practices and build theory

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to offer a reconceptualization of the critical incident technique (CIT) and affirm its utility in management and organization studies. Design/methodology/approach: Utilizing a case study from a leadership context, the paper applies the CIT to explore various leadership behaviours in the context of nonprofit boards in Canada. Semi-structured critical incident interviews were used to collect behavioural data from 53 participants – board chairs, board directors, and executive directors – from 18 diverse nonprofit organizations in Alberta, Canada. Findings: While exploiting the benefits of a typicality of events, in some instances the authors were able to validate aspects of transformational leadership theory, in other instances the authors found that theory falls short in explaining the relationships between organizational actors. The authors argue that the CIT potentially offers the kind of “thick description” that is particularly useful in theory building in the field. Research limitations/implications: Drawing on interview material, the authors suggest that incidents can be classified based on frequency of occurrence and their salience to organizational actors, and explore the utility of this distinction for broader theory building purposes. Practical implications: Principally, the paper proposes that this method of investigation is under-utilized by organization and management researchers. Given the need for thick description in the field, the authors suggest that the approach outlined generates exceptionally rich data that can illuminate multiple organizational phenomena. Social implications: The role of nonprofit boards is of major importance for those organizations and the clients that they serve. This paper shed new light on the leadership dynamics at the top of these organizations and therefore can help to guide improved practice by those in board and senior management positions. Originality/value: The CIT is a well-established technique. However, it is timely to revisit it as a core technique in qualitative research and promote its greater use by researchers. In addition, the authors offer a novel view of incidents as typical, atypical, prototypical or archetypal of organizational phenomena that extends the analytical value of the approach in new directions

University of Massachusetts Medical School Report to Minnesota Department of Human Services Health and Incarceration Project

On behalf of the Minnesota Department of Health Services, Health Law & Policy experts from our Public and Private Health Solutions group completed a literature review of successful efforts to improve the health of previously incarcerated individuals. In addition, our experts conducted five focus groups to obtain recommendations from experienced professionals who work directly with previously incarcerated individuals regarding interventions likely to improve the health of this unique population. This study came about at the direction of Minnesota Legislature. They were interested in developing a methodology for paying higher rates to health care providers who provide services to high cost and high complexity groups such as individuals who were previously incarcerated. The goal is to ensure that populations experiencing the greatest health disparities would achieve the same health and quality outcomes as other populations in Minnesota. Accompanying the report is a list of recommendations for future policy considerations that be viewed here

Communication skills for effective management.

It is now widely recognized that communication is at the very heart of effective management. There is therefore an ever-expanding demand for valid and generalizable information on how best to relate to people in organizational contexts. Communication Skills for Effective Management meets this demand. It demonstrates how, for managers to be successful, they need to employ a range of key communication skills, styles and strategies. The contents are based upon the authors' considerable experiences of researching, teaching and consulting in a range of private and public sector organisations. From their academic and real-world involvement they have identified the core skills of effective management, presented in an academically rigorous yet student-friendly way, the reader is encouraged to interact with the material covered. Each chapter contains a series of boxed text, diagrams, tables and illustrations which summarise core points. Exercises are also provided to enable managers to put the material reviewed into practice. All of this is underpinned and supported by a firm foundation of research findings. This will be an excellent text for undergraduate business and management students studying business communication and MBA students. Practising managers will also find this book to be an invaluable resource

Towards a Theory of Software Development Expertise

Software development includes diverse tasks such as implementing new features, analyzing requirements, and fixing bugs. Being an expert in those tasks requires a certain set of skills, knowledge, and experience. Several studies investigated individual aspects of software development expertise, but what is missing is a comprehensive theory. We present a first conceptual theory of software development expertise that is grounded in data from a mixed-methods survey with 335 software developers and in literature on expertise and expert performance. Our theory currently focuses on programming, but already provides valuable insights for researchers, developers, and employers. The theory describes important properties of software development expertise and which factors foster or hinder its formation, including how developers' performance may decline over time. Moreover, our quantitative results show that developers' expertise self-assessments are context-dependent and that experience is not necessarily related to expertise.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, 26th ACM Joint European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE 2018), ACM, 201