Unconscious Processes of Organizing: Intergroup Conflict in Mental Health Care

A critical but overlooked issue in Weick’s seminal work, The Social Psychology of Organizing (1969/1979), concerns ‘the heat’ of organizing processes, namely, the underground emotional processes underpinning the organizing of conflictual work relationships. We present a qualitative case study of psychiatric agencies mandated by public policy to collaborate but instead engaged in persistent conflict despite its deleterious effects on their working relationship and on the wellbeing of the clients they intended to serve. To explain these conflictual features of organizing, we integrate Weick’s organizing theory with systems psychodynamics to deepen the understanding of emotions in organizing, specifically the motivational forces underpinning sensemaking and actions between interacting psychiatric agencies. This integration of theories reveals a critical feature of the relationship between the conscious and unconscious organizing processes: When a threat is involved, sensemaking and action are overtaken by social defences, resulting in dysfunctional organizing of the primary task. Drawing on these findings, we enrich Weick’s seminal work by developing a model that portrays organizing as the ritualized interaction of emotions, sensemaking and behavioural responses.     

The effects of group composition in a strategic environment: Evidence from a field experiment

Recent theoretical and empirical studies have explored the effect of group membership and identity on individual decision-making. This line of research highlights that economic models focusing on the individual as the sole entity in the decision-making environment potentially miss critical features. This study takes this literature in a new direction by overlaying a field experiment onto a setting where groups have arisen naturally. Our experimental laboratory is large open air markets, where we are able to examine the effects of group membership on seller׳s collusive behavior as measured by prices and surplus allocations. This permits us to explore strategic implications of group composition. Empirical results illustrate the importance of group composition on pricing decisions, and show that deviations from Nash equilibrium are crucially related to group membership.     

Firm Investment decisions in the post‐conflict context

Economic and political transition can occur through peaceful or violent means. Violent transition disrupts the incentive for firms to make productive investments. This paper studies the determinants of profit reinvestment for firms in post‐conflict transition economies. Results indicate that while access to finance is an important determinant of reinvestment during transition, it is not as important in the post‐conflict context. However, property rights protections, in particular institutions of contract enforcement, are a more important determinant of profit reinvestment for firms operating in the post‐conflict environment than for firms in general. This indicates that obstacles to investment are context specific.     

Resource conflict detection and removal strategy for nondeterministic emergency response processes using Petri nets

Correctness of an emergency response process specification is critical to emergency mission success. Therefore, errors in the specification should be detected and corrected at build-time. In this paper, we propose a resource conflict detection approach and removal strategy for emergency response processes constrained by resources and time. In this kind of emergency response process, there are two timing functions representing the minimum and maximum execution time for each activity, respectively, and many activities require resources to be executed. Based on the RT_ERP_Net, the earliest time to start each activity and the ideal execution time of the process can be obtained. To detect and remove the resource conflicts in the process, the conflict detection algorithms and a priority-activity-first resolution strategy are given. In this way, real execution time for each activity is obtained and a conflict-free RT_ERP_Net is constructed by adding virtual activities. By experiments, it is proved that the resolution strategy proposed can shorten the execution time of the whole process to a great degree.     

The joint effects of social identity and institutional pressures on audit quality: The case of the Chinese Audit Industry

This article examines how social identity links institutional pressures and audit quality. Combining institutional theory and social identity theory, we theoretically argue that the interaction between social and institutional forces shapes audit quality. Through an analysis of Chinese audit firms from 2000 to 2007, we show that isomorphic imitation has a more significant effect on firms belonging to the same-identity group than firms across cross-identity groups; foreign-affiliated audit firms are more willing to conform to normative pressure from professional networks than local firms; and foreign-affiliated firms are coerced to adapt to the local government’s expectation, particularly when they have a geographically concentrated customer base. We further reveal that a larger customer base attenuates within-identity group imitation but strengthens cross-identity group imitation. The results shed light on the role of social identity in shaping conformity in the audit industry, thus contributing to international convergence–divergence literature and institutional theory.     

How second-generation consumers choose where to shop: A cross-cultural semiotic analysis

Using ethnographic interviews and Greimasian semiotics, this study explores second-generation ethnic consumers’ perceptions of physical shopping environments from a cultural identity perspective. It reveals how second-generation ethnic consumers make decisions about where to shop for cosmetics. The key results reveal the identity dimensions of shopping behaviour that retail stores wanting to target second-generation ethnic consumers must take into consideration.     

Urban Warfare Ecology: A Study of Water Supply in Basrah

This article assesses the impact of armed conflict on the drinking water service of Basrah from 1978 to 2013 through an ‘urban warfare ecology’ lens in order to draw out the implications for relief programming and relevance to urban studies. It interprets an extensive range of unpublished literature through a frame that incorporates the accumulation of direct and indirect impacts upon the hardware, consumables and people upon which urban services rely. The analysis attributes a step‐wise decline in service quality to the lack of water treatment chemicals, lack of spare parts, and, primarily, an extended ‘brain‐drain’ of qualified water service staff. The service is found to have been vulnerable to dependence upon foreign parts and people, ‘vicious cycles’ of impact, and the politics of aid and of reconstruction. It follows that practitioners and donors eschew ideas of relief–rehabilitation–development (RRD) for an appreciation of the needs particular to complex urban warfare biospheres, where armed conflict and sanctions permeate all aspects of service provision through altered biological and social processes. The urban warfare ecology lens is found to be a useful complement to ‘infrastructural warfare’ research, suggesting the study of protracted armed conflict upon all aspects of urban life be both deepened technically and broadened to other cases.     

西方“前近代经济-社会史”的理论范式及其“中国化”：一个历史与逻辑的述评框架

关于“前近代经济-社会史”的研究，西方学界首开其端，形成若干种流派。进入中国以后，与本土问题相结合，表现更加多样。本文根据语义分析学中“同一‘能指’背后的‘所指转换’无限可能，以及在‘能指冲突’中理解‘所指’”的方法，一方面将各流派对前近代经济社会结构的理解作为一个维度，形成“共同体本位”与“个体本位”之事实差异；另一方面，将各流派对自由的态度作为一个维度，形成“对自由的认同”与“对反自由的认同”之价值差异。两维交叉，构成一个历史与逻辑的述评框架，从中或许可以窥见各派之间的共同点与分歧所在。     

Leadership marketing: an exploratory study

In an era when collaboration is the key to business prosperity, the ability to develop one truly coherent and agile brand lived by its employees and delivered to external stakeholders has become extremely challenging. Unity between the internal brand and a company’s external image, when change is the only constant, has almost ceased to exist. The marketing function is frequently underemphasised at board level and its role is often devalued in leading organisational change. This paper concerns how marketing can partner with organisational leadership for a mutually beneficial exchange of skills and capabilities to be able to reinvent organisations rapidly enough to cope with shifts in the external business environment and create a sustainable future for the business. This paper explores the concept of “leadership marketing” from an interpretivist perspective which challenges the conventional view of marketing and leadership as two separate fields and offers a holistic approach for business management and brand alignment.     

Experiential places or places of experience? Place identity and place attachment as mechanisms for creating festival environment

Tourism theory suggests mechanisms of place are critical in the construction of tourism environments. However, contradictory place theory has created confusion as to exactly what these mechanisms are and how they affect perceived environment. Literature identifies place attachment and place identity as primary mechanisms in the construction of tourist relationships with tourist environments. An interpretive methodology is used to explore these mechanisms during a festival experience, and thematically analyzed unstructured interviews show identity and attachment do influence attendees' place-based perceptions. Within the festival context, environments become either creations of the festival or exist independently of them. The latter allows realistic place identity to form, resulting in consonance between environmental expectations and reality. The former creates abstract identities resulting in unrealistic expectations and weak/no immediate attachment to the festival environment. A Model of Festival Place provides continuity-based festival recommendations allowing for clearer theoretical and practical understanding across tourism events.