scholarly journals The critical incident technique reappraised

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 276-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory Bott ◽  
Dennis Tourish
Keyword(s):  
Nonprofit Organizations ◽  
Critical Incident ◽  
Critical Incident Technique ◽  
Theory Building ◽  
Organization Studies ◽  
Thick Description ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Nonprofit Boards ◽  
Organization And Management ◽  
Rich Data

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.

Cultural learning process: lesson from microhistory

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tianyuan Yu ◽  
Albert J. Mills
Keyword(s):  
Learning Process ◽  
Critical Incident ◽  
Cultural Learning ◽  
Extensive Reading ◽  
Organization Studies ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Knowledge Accumulation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Historical Accounts

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the cultural learning process (namely, the development, practice and enhancement of cultural intelligence (CQ)) of a successful entrepreneur – Harold Bixby, a Pan American Airways expatriate, as reflected in the memoir of his experiences in China during 1933–1938. Design/methodology/approach This study adopts a microhistory approach as a methodology for studying history and the past while ultimately requiring evaluations informed by the present. This paper first identifies the literature gap on CQ development and the need to study historical accounts of the past in assessing the CQ development process. This study then outlines the four key foci of microhistory as a heuristic for making sense of on-going and past accounts of selected phenomena. Findings This paper finds that specific personality traits (namely, openness to experience and self-efficacy), knowledge accumulation through deep cultural immersion (namely, extensive reading/study, visiting/observation and interacting/conversation), critical incident and metacognition all contributed to Bixby’s CQ development, which was a time-consuming process. Originality/value The study contributes to debates around cultural learning and historical organization studies by providing a rich, qualitative study of CQ assessment and CQ development through microhistory. This study highlights the importance of cognitive CQ and the function of extensive reading/studying in the process of knowledge accumulation. This paper draws attention to critical incidents as an underexplored way of learning tacit knowledge. Moreover, this study suggests metacognitive CQ can be enhanced through meditative and reflexive teaching and research practices. These findings have significant implications for cross-cultural training programs.

Supervisor transgressions: a thematic analysis

2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tessa E. Basford
Keyword(s):  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
Critical Incident ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Critical Incident Technique ◽  
Employment Decisions ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Qualitative Responses ◽  
False Accusations ◽  
Practical Implications ◽  
Initial Exploration

Purpose – Despite the harmful impact of supervisor transgressions, they have received little empirical attention. The purpose of this paper is to addresses this important gap, examining the nature of transgressions committed at work by supervisors against subordinates. Design/methodology/approach – A critical incident technique was employed in which employees described a transgression committed by their supervisor. Qualitative responses were then analyzed, resulting in the emergence of supervisor transgression themes. Findings – In total, 11 themes emerged, including: performance criticisms, demeaning insults, false accusations, undue demands, unfair employment decisions, inconsiderate treatment, inequitable behavior, inappropriate contextual selections, disregard of opinions, undersupplied resources, and underprovided recognition. Research limitations/implications – While this approach is not without limitations, including the potential for participant memory error and researcher analytical bias, it offers a necessary initial exploration into the content of supervisor transgressions. Findings open new areas for continued research exploration into the nature and functioning of supervisor transgressions. Practical implications – Practitioners also stand to benefit from this work, as this identification of supervisor transgression themes affords organizations knowledge about how to best target supervisory interventions. Originality/value – Though researchers have just begun to examine the nature of leader transgressions, they have yet to analyze the content of supervisor transgressions. This study offers an original investigation into how supervisors transgress against subordinates at work.

Praise or revenge: why do consumers post about organizations on social media

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anita Whiting ◽  
David L. Williams ◽  
Joe Hair
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Critical Incident ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Word Of Mouth ◽  
Critical Incident Technique ◽  
Comprehensive Model ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Managerial Implications

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate motives for engaging in electronic word of mouth (eWOM) about organizations on social media sites. This study explores motives for posting positive eWOM and motives for posting negative eWOM. It also investigates whether existing WOM frameworks adequately capture consumers’ motives for spreading eWOM within the context of social media. This study seeks to confirm established motives in literature while also identifying new motives specific to social media. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative study was conducted using the critical incident technique. In all, 64 positive incidents and 60 negative incidents were analyzed. Findings This study provides a typology for understanding consumers’ motivations for engaging in positive and negative WOM within the context of social media. Four new motives for sharing eWOM are identified; eight established WOM motives are re-confirmed; and new subcategories for eWOM motives are proposed. The study also finds that further refinement of WOM motives and scales within a social media context is needed. Research limitations/implications An integrated conceptual framework of both positive and negative motives is developed to illustrate a more comprehensive model of motives of eWOM within social media. Managerial implications for managing negative eWOM and amplifying positive eWOM are discussed. A limitation is that the study is exploratory in nature. Originality/value This study identifies new motives for sharing eWOM, re-labels existing WOM and eWOM motives with more descriptive and comprehensive titles and confirms established WOM and eWOM motives within the context of social media. This study is conducted across multiple firms and industries, leading to more generalizable results.

A response to global nonprofits’ succession failure

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-10
Author(s):  
Joseph C. Santora
Keyword(s):  
Nonprofit Organizations ◽  
Chief Executive Officers ◽  
Boards Of Directors ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Chief Executive ◽  
Executive Succession ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Nonprofit Boards ◽  
Succession Plan ◽  
Executive Officers

Purpose This paper aims to raise the level of awareness of the critical need to have a chief executive succession plan in nonprofit organizations. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses a review of survey literature to determine the degree to which nonprofits plan for chief executive succession. Findings The findings reveal a serious lack of planning for successors in nonprofit organizations. Originality/value This paper underscores the need for a three-pronged approach by nonprofit boards of directors, chief executive officers, and HR departments to address planning for successors to prevent potential chaotic organizational situations and create sustainable nonprofits.

Mute, mutation, and mutiny: on the work of feminist epistemology

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta B. Calás ◽  
Linda Smircich
Keyword(s):  
Business Schools ◽  
Organization Studies ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Past ◽  
Organization And Management ◽  
Analytical Potential ◽  
History Of ◽  
Women Scholars ◽  
Feminist Epistemologies ◽  
Edith Penrose

Purpose This paper aims to bring to the fore the importance of feminist epistemologies in the history of the organization of management studies since the 1980s by following various intellectual moves in the development of feminist theorizing as they cross over to organization studies, including their analytical possibilities for reclaiming historically the voices of major women scholars, especially in doctoral seminars. The paper narrates these epistemological activities by mobilizing and reconsidering from the past to the present, the notions of “unmuting,” “mutating” and “mutiny.” It ends in a reflection addressing the state of business schools at present and why the field of organization and management studies needs “mutiny” now. Design/methodology/approach The paper adopts a narrative approach in which the voices of its authors appear to be central as they consider and reconsider over time their understanding of “unmuting,” “mutation” and “mutiny” as notions with analytical potential. This approach is influenced by Foucault’s “history of the present” but with contingencies brought about by feminist interpretations. The application of these notions is demonstrated by reclaiming and clarifying the epistemological underpinning in the works of three major women scholars as included in a doctoral seminar: Mary Parker Follett, Edith Penrose and Rosabeth Moss Kanter. These notions are further redeployed for their potential in institutional applications. Findings At present, the findings are discursive – if they can be called so, but the main motivation behind this writing is to go beyond discourse in the written sense, and to mobilize other activities, still in the realm of epistemological and scholarly work. These activities would legitimize actual interventions for changing business schools from their current situation as neoliberal entities, which mute understanding of major problems in the world, as well as the voices of most humans and non-humans paying for the foibles of neoliberalism. Originality/value The paper demonstrates the necessity of developing approaches for interventions in knowledge producing institutions increasingly limited by neoliberal premises in what can be said and done as legitimate knowledge. In doing this, the paper articulates the importance of keeping history alive to avoid the increasing “forgetfulness” neoliberalization brings about. The paper, in its present form, represents an active act of “remembering”.

Attitudes of police officers toward offenders: implications for future training

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olga Soares Cunha ◽  
Rui Abrunhosa Gonçalves
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Graduate Students ◽  
Marital Status ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Critical Incident ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Correctional Officers ◽  
Critical Incident Technique ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Police Service

Purpose Police officers’ attitudes toward criminals are critical to the justice system’s response to crime. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the attitudes toward offenders (ATOs) among police officers. Design/methodology/approach To assess police officers ATOs, the authors adapted the Attitudes Toward Prisoner scale to produce the ATO scale. The scale was completed by 431 male police officers in a Portuguese police institution. Findings The results revealed that police officers hold more negative ATOs than correctional officers and graduate students. Moreover, the results revealed significant differences in average ATO scores according to police officers’ age, years of service, marital status and education; namely, police officers who were older, married, less educated, and with more years of police service had more positive ATOs. However, the results revealed that these demographic factors had a limited value in predicting attitudes, as none of them emerged as a predictor of ATOs. Originality/value Nonetheless, considering the relevance of attitudes in law enforcement procedures, the implications for training police officers are provided, specifically using critical incident technique strategies.

Patient-centred professionalism in pharmacy: values and behaviours

2015 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 413-430 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Elvey ◽  
Karen Hassell ◽  
Penny Lewis ◽  
Ellen Schafheutle ◽  
Sarah Willis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Critical Incident ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Pharmacy Practice ◽  
Critical Incident Technique ◽  
Support Staff ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Focus Group Interviews ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Group Interviews ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose – Research on patient-centred professionalism in pharmacy is scarce compared with other health professions and in particular with pharmacists early in their careers. The purpose of this paper is to explore patient-centred professionalism in early career pharmacists and to describe reported behaviours. Design/methodology/approach – This study explored patient-centred professional values and reported behaviours, taking a qualitative approach. In all, 53 early-career pharmacists, pharmacy tutors and pharmacy support staff, practising in community and hospital pharmacy in England took part; the concept of patient-centred professionalism was explored through focus group interviews and the critical incident technique was used to elicit real-life examples of professionalism in practice. Findings – Triangulation of the data revealed three constructs of pharmacy patient-centred professionalism: being professionally competent, having ethical values and being a good communicator. Research limitations/implications – It is not known whether our participants’ perspectives reflect those of all pharmacists in the early stages of their careers. The data provide meaning for the concept of patient-centred professionalism. The work could be extended by developing a framework for wider application. Patient-centred professionalism in pharmacy needs further investigation from the patient perspective. Practical implications – The findings have implications for pharmacy practice and education, particularly around increased interaction with patients. Social implications – The data contribute to a topic of importance to patients and in relation to UK health policy, which allocates more directly clinical roles to pharmacists, which go beyond the dispensing and supply of medicines. Originality/value – The methods included a novel application of the critical incident technique, which generated empirical evidence on a previously under-researched topic.

Discomfort and organizational change as a part of becoming a world-class university

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (8) ◽  
pp. 1265-1287
Author(s):  
Fiona Niska Dinda Nadia ◽  
Badri Munir Sukoco ◽  
Ely Susanto ◽  
Ahmad Rizki Sridadi ◽  
Reza Ashari Nasution
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Change ◽  
Critical Incident ◽  
Resistance To Change ◽  
Critical Incident Technique ◽  
University Ranking ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Initial Stage ◽  
World Class ◽  
The Government ◽  
The University

PurposeThis study examined organizational change in universities as it relates to discomfort among the organization's members.Design/methodology/approachUsing the critical incident technique (CIT), data was collected from the informants in an Indonesian public university that had been mandated by the government to enter the top 500 world university ranking. This would make it a “World-Class” university.FindingsThe findings describe the causes, courses and consequences of the discomfort felt in response to the organizational change in the university context. The causes of discomfort were categorized as a fear of loss, organizational culture, systems and policies, work overload and a lack of resources. Discomfort can manifest through negative affective, cognition and behavioral tendencies. Meanwhile, the consequences result in active and passive participation in the process of the organizational change itself.Originality/valueDiscomfort with organizational change is a new variable that has rarely been explored, thus it requires testing and validation using different methods and contexts, as offered by this study. We have also shown that in the initial stage of organizational change (unfreezing), discomfort will always emerge that must be immediately managed in order not to trigger resistance to change. Furthermore, this study exhibits the use of the critical incident technique in the context of organizational change. Finally, we offer comprehensive views by exhibiting the causes, the reactions shown and the consequences of discomfort with the change.

Exploring jaycustomer behavior and handling approach in casinos

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 1403-1425 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence Hoc Nang Fong ◽  
Amy Siu Ian So ◽  
Rob Law
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Critical Incident ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Critical Incidents ◽  
Critical Incident Technique ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Casino Industry ◽  
Casino Employees ◽  
First Time ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose This paper aims to uncover various types of jaycustomer behaviors, causes of the behaviors and employees’ handling approaches in casinos, which is an underresearched sector in the literature. Design/methodology/approach Using critical incident technique (CIT), the researchers prompted 52 casino employees in Macao to recall critical incidents about jaycustomer behavior that they had encountered. The informants, then, described the circumstances that led up to the situation, the responses of customers and how they and their colleagues handled the situation. Content analysis was used to develop the categories. Findings The findings of this study report 9 categories of jaycustomer behaviors, 9 causes of the behaviors and 12 handling approaches. Different from previous findings, breaking a promise and instigation are identified for the first time. Such causes as a losing experience and superstition are specific to the casino industry. Strict handling approaches are rarely adopted to handle jaycustomers, especially the premium customers. Practical implications Casino operators are recommended to ensure that employees are well-trained and provide clear guidelines on handling jaycustomers. Conniving approaches should be re-evaluated. Seeking support from other personnel has to be tactical. Moreover, customers should be educated to reduce their misunderstanding of gaming and transaction procedures. Originality/value There has been increasing scholarly focus on jaycustomer behaviors. However, very less is known regarding such behaviors, their causes and employees’ handling approaches in casino, a sector which is different from other hospitality sectors. The current study unveiled jaycustomer behaviors which have not been found in previous studies and causes which are specific to the casino sector.

scholarly journals Theory as method: introduction to supertheoretical options for organization and management research

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Steffen Roth ◽  
Albert Mills ◽  
Bill Lee ◽  
Dariusz Jemielniak
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Field Method ◽  
Research Field ◽  
Management Research ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Organization Studies ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Organization And Management ◽  
Relative Value ◽  
Minimum Requirements

PurposeThis article is devoted to conditions and examples of how theories may be applied as methods in the fields of management research and organization studies.Design/methodology/approachAn introduction to minimum requirements for a successful refunctionalization of theory as method as well as to nine contributions to a special issue of the Journal of Organizational Change Management on “Theory as method” is provided.FindingsThe review of these nine cases suggests that the use of theories as methods is not necessarily harmful for the former, and particularly not for the more robust among them.Originality/valueThis article sheds new light on the value of theoretical monism or loyalty and calls for a reassessment of the relative value of expertise in a specific research field, method and or theory.

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