scholarly journals Observing Materiality in Organizations

M n gement ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 9-27
Author(s):  
Isabelle Royer
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Physical Environment ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Organizational Research ◽  
The Past ◽  
Physical Environments ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Three Components

Research on materiality has grown rapidly over the past 10 years, highlighting the influence of physical artifacts and spaces in organizations, which had been overshadowed by discursive approaches. This body of research enriches our understanding of organizations in many areas including technology, decision-making, routines, learning, identity, culture, power, and institutions. However, researchers sometimes struggle to select methods suited to study materiality, as previous works have not been explicit in that respect. This article calls organizational researchers interested in physical environments – that is, artifacts and spaces – to integrate observation into their data collection. The first section presents a tripartite definition of the physical environment including activities, conceptions, and lived experiences. Ontological debates are introduced, and observation is proposed as a relevant method for studying materiality in organizational research. The second section presents observation techniques based on three approaches: observing materiality in actions, observing beyond seeing, and making participants observe. Each approach is mainly associated with one of the three components of materiality. The final section discusses the scope of observation techniques, suggests how to combine approaches, and flags difficulties associated with visual techniques.

DECISION TYPE—A KEY TO REALISING THE POTENTIAL OF DECISION MAKING UNDER UNCERTAINTY

2007 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 309 ◽  
Author(s):  
S.I. Mackie ◽  
S.H. Begg ◽  
C. Smith ◽  
M.B. Welsh
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Real World ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Oil And Gas Industry ◽  
Decision Making Under Uncertainty ◽  
Gas Industry ◽  
The Past ◽  
Decision Outcomes ◽  
Decision Type ◽  
Definition Of

Business underperformance in the upstream oil and gas industry, and the failure of many decisions to return expected results, has led to a growing interest over the past few years in understanding the impacts of decisionmaking tools and processes and their relationship to decision outcomes. A primary observation is that different decision types require different decision-making approaches to achieve optimal outcomes.Optimal decision making relies on understanding the types of decisions being made and tailoring the type of decision with the appropriate tools and processes. Yet the industry lacks both a definition of decision types and any guidelines as to what tools and processes should be used for what decisions types. We argue that maximising the chances of a good outcome in real-world decisions requires the implementation of such tailoring.

Functional Ambiguity in Musical Structures

1983 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Thomson
Keyword(s):  
General Theory ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Limited Attention ◽  
Musical Structure ◽  
The Past ◽  
Extensive Analysis ◽  
Musical Structures ◽  
Definition Of

This paper first establishes a definition of ambiguity and its significance to art and to perception in general. Its understanding is framed within a hierarchical conception of musical structure most similar to that of Leonard B. Meyer (1956,1973). Following (1) an illustrative survey of occurrences of intentional ambiguity found in the standard music repertory, and (2) a discussion of the limited attention paid by music theorists to ambiguity in the past, a general theory of musical ambiguity's causes is developed. The paper's final section consists of an extensive analysis of functional ambiguity as a principal expressive vehicle in Chopin's Mazurka, Opus 17, No. 4.

scholarly journals An Integrative Definition of Coaching Effectiveness and Expertise

2009 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Côté ◽  
Wade Gilbert
Keyword(s):  
Positive Psychology ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Conceptual Models ◽  
Current Paper ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Development Literature ◽  
Coaching Effectiveness ◽  
Three Components

The purpose of the current paper is to present an integrative definition of coaching effectiveness and expertise that is both specific and conceptually grounded in the coaching, teaching, positive psychology, and athletes' development literature. The article is organized into six sections. The first section is used to situate the proposed definition in the predominant conceptual models of coaching. The second, third, and fourth sections provide detailed discussion about each of the three components of the proposed definition of coaching effectiveness: (a) coaches' knowledge, (b) athletes' outcomes, and (c) coaching contexts. The proposed definition is presented in the fifth section along with a clarification of common terminology and guiding postulates. The final section includes implications for practice and research.

The Effects of Signage and the Physical Environment on Stair Usage

2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 237-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Bungum ◽  
Mindy Meacham ◽  
Nicole Truax
Keyword(s):  
Physical Activity ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Physical Environment ◽  
Built Environments ◽  
Post Intervention ◽  
Physical Environments ◽  
Final Data ◽  
Building Characteristics ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

Background:Physical activity (PA) is a health behavior that most Americans do not participate in at recommended levels.Methods:We sought to increase PA by use of motivational signs in selected buildings. Because physical environments are known to influence PA, the relationship of building characteristics and stair usage was also assessed. One pre- and two post-intervention observations were conducted.Results:The proportion of those using the stairs increased from baseline to the second data collection, (χ2 = 39.31, p < 0.01) and baseline to a final data collection (χ2 = 10.1, p < 0.01). Built environment factors, including steps to the next higher floor and the number of floors in the building were consistent predictors of stair use. With signs positioned, the visibility of the stairs while standing in front of elevators became a significant predictor of stair usage.Conclusions:Motivational signs and characteristics of built environments are associated with increased stair usage.

scholarly journals ‘You get a better life here’: social in/security and migration in a time of geopolitical transformations

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-320
Author(s):  
Rebecca Kay
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
The Past ◽  
And Migration

This paper is not about Brexit and yet it is. It presents findings from a project which explored the ways in which experiences of material and emotional in/security have shaped the decision-making and choices of people who came to live in Scotland from Central and Eastern Europe over the period 2004–2014. Their stories reveal much about the ways in which apparently monumental moments of geopolitical change resonate in longer-term lived experiences of transformation. The analysis foregrounds the often mutually constitutive influence of material and emotional in/securities in people's experiences of and decisions regarding migration and settlement. It demonstrates the linkages between these and wider questions of representation and entitlement which can feed into a (lacking) sense of deserving presence. It explores the complex relationship between the past, present and future which provide rationales and justifications for sometimes difficult decisions and experiences. Based on research largely undertaken before the referendum had even been announced the papers arguments and findings resonate closely with an emerging literature on Brexit and its consequences.

scholarly journals Examples of Mental Mistakes Made by Systems Engineers While Creating Tradeoff Studies

2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 22 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Bohlman ◽  
A. Terry Bahill
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
System Design ◽  
Systems Engineering ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Problem Statement ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Design Documents

Problem statement: Humans often make poor decisions. To help them make better decisions, engineers are taught to create tradeoff studies. However, these engineers are usually unaware of mental mistakes that they make while creating their tradeoff studies. We need to increase awareness of a dozen specific mental mistakes that engineers commonly make while creating tradeoff studies. Aims of the research: To prove that engineers actually do make mental mistakes while creating tradeoff studies. To identify which mental mistakes can be detected in tradeoff study documentation. Methodology: Over the past two decades, teams of students and practicing engineers in Bahill’s Systems Engineering courses wrote the system design documents for an assigned system. On average, each of these document sets took 100 man-hours to create and comprised 75 pages. We used 110 of these projects, two dozen government contractor tradeoff studies and three publicly accessible tradeoff studies. We scoured these document sets looking for examples of 28 specific mental mistakes that might affect a tradeoff study. We found instances of a dozen of these mental mistakes. Results: Often evidence of some of these mistakes cannot be found in the final documentation. To find evidence for such mistakes, the experimenters would have had to be a part of the data collection and decision making process. That is why, in this paper, we present only 12 of the original 28 mental mistakes. We found hundreds of examples of such mistakes. We provide suggestions to help people avoid making these mental mistakes while doing tradeoff studies. Conclusions: This paper shows evidence of a dozen common mental mistakes that are continually being repeated by engineers while creating tradeoff studies. When engineers are taught about these mistakes, they can minimize their occurrence in the future.

scholarly journals Shift in translations: Data work with patient-generated health data in clinical practice

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 577-586 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Sigridur Islind ◽  
Tomas Lindroth ◽  
Johan Lundin ◽  
Gunnar Steineck
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Clinical Practice ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Health Data ◽  
Cancer Rehabilitation ◽  
Active Part ◽  
Rehabilitation Clinic ◽  
Three Components

This article reports on how the introduction of patient-generated health data affects the nurses’ and patients’ data work and unpacks how new forms of data collection trigger shifts in the work with data through translation work. The article is based on a 2.5-year case study examining data work of nurses and patients at a cancer rehabilitation clinic at a Swedish Hospital in which patient-generated health data are gathered by patients and then used outside and within clinical practice for decision-making. The article reports on how data are prepared and translated, that is, made useful by the nurses and patients. Using patient-generated health data alters the data work and how the translation of data is performed. The shift in work has three components: (1) a shift in question tactics, (2) a shift in decision-making, and (3) a shift in distribution. The data become mobile, and the data work becomes distributed when using patient-generated health data as an active part of care.

scholarly journals Between Secularity and Post-Secularity: Critical Appraisal of Charles Taylor's Account

2019 ◽  
Vol 79 (2) ◽  
pp. 411-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bojan Žalec
Keyword(s):  
Final Section ◽  
Critical Appraisal ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Secular Age ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Narrative Account

The article deals with Charles Taylor's account of the secular age. In the first part, the main constituents of Taylor's narrative account are presented: the central concepts, distinctions, definition of the subject, the aims etc. The author pays special attention to the notions of secularity, secular age, religion, and transcendence. In the second part, Taylor's genealogy of the secular age is outlined and comparatively placed in the context of other main relative forms of genealogical account. Because our age is an age of authenticity, a special section is devoted to it. The final section presents some reproaches to Taylor and evaluates their strength and the value of Taylor's contribution. Besides, some speculative »forecasts« about secularity and post-secularity in Europe, the USA, and at the global scale are presented (by reference to Taylor's account). The author concludes that despite some (serious and cogent) reproaches and second thoughts about Taylor's account, it is doubtless one of the major achievements in the area that manifests features of a paradigmatic work. It helps us a lot to understand the condition of religion not only in the past and today, but also gives us directions and guidelines, conceptual and methodological tools, and ideas to more clearly discern the forms and condition of religion in the future.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michel Meyer
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Equal Weight ◽  
The Past ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
First Time ◽  
Three Components

The Introduction recalls how rhetoric has been understood in the past and offers an outline of a new, integrative conception of rhetoric. Ethos or the speaker, pathos or the audience, and logos as discourse are the three components of any definition of rhetoric. For the first time, each of these components is here given equal weight, thus allowing for a new definition: rhetoric is the negotiation of distance between individuals, the speaker (ethos) and the audience (pathos) on a given question (logos). The Introduction also provides a summary of each of the book’s chapters. A detailed analysis of each component of the new definition of rhetoric will be found in each chapter of the book.

Teaching Cost Management: A Strategic Emphasis

2009 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward J. Blocher
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Cost Management ◽  
Management Accounting ◽  
Cost Accounting ◽  
Appropriate Use ◽  
The Past ◽  
Management Accountants ◽  
Strategic Emphasis ◽  
Definition Of

ABSTRACT: Cost management has been tied in the past to the concepts of score-keeping, attention directing, and problem solving, but the expectations of accountants in today's world have changed dramatically, extending well beyond these concepts. This paper presents a different way to view cost management. It is not a planning or decision-making focus, but instead a focus on helping the organization be successful, through the implementation of an effective competitive strategy. Strategy is implemented by the appropriate use of cost management methods. The “why strategy?” question is answered by a review of survey findings, a discussion of the potential errors in nonstrategic decision making, and a review of changes at the Institute of Management Accountants that reflect a greater emphasis on strategy, including a new definition of management accounting which focuses on strategy. The paper shows the strategy-based content flowcharts for each of the three courses: management accounting, cost accounting, and advanced management accounting.

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