Managing Complexity and Institutionalization

Author(s):  
Brian Corbitt ◽  
Konrad Peszynski ◽  
Olaf Boon

This chapter reports a case study of ERP implementation in an institution of higher education. The ERP is one based on integration of administrative tasks based on Oracle® systems and is successful both in terms of its embeddedness in institutionalized practice and in supporting that university’s operations. The key issue that emerged from the study showed that understanding complexity, institutionalized practice, and the power relations in existence enable the implementation to be more effective, as it can be managed when understood. The chapter argues that organizations reproduce practice and that an ERP challenges that. To deal with that challenge, social dramas emerge wherever power exists, and the resulting conflicts challenge the effectiveness of the systems put in place. In this case study, the key role of the project champion in resolving the social dramas became evident.

Author(s):  
Konrad Peszynski

This study examines the role of power and politics in systems implementation. Current literature misses the complexities involved in systems implementation through human factors and the political nature of systems implementation and is simplistic in nature. The concept of power relations, as proposed by Foucault (1977, 1978), has been utilised by the authors to identify the dynamic nature of power and politics. A case study of the implementation of an enterprise-wide learning management system at Newlands University is presented and analysed using social dramas to distinguish between the front stage issues of power and hidden discourses. Challenges for power are acted out in the front stage, or public forums between various actors. The social dramas, as they have been described here, are superfluous to the discourse underpinning the front stage. Furthermore, the enactment of policy legitimises power and establishes the discourse, limiting resistance.


2012 ◽  
pp. 1232-1248
Author(s):  
Konrad Peszynski

This study examines the role of power and politics in systems implementation. Current literature misses the complexities involved in systems implementation through human factors and the political nature of systems implementation and is simplistic in nature. The concept of power relations, as proposed by Foucault (1977, 1978), has been utilised by the authors to identify the dynamic nature of power and politics. A case study of the implementation of an enterprise-wide learning management system at Newlands University is presented and analysed using social dramas to distinguish between the front stage issues of power and hidden discourses. Challenges for power are acted out in the front stage, or public forums between various actors. The social dramas, as they have been described here, are superfluous to the discourse underpinning the front stage. Furthermore, the enactment of policy legitimises power and establishes the discourse, limiting resistance.


2020 ◽  
pp. 31-38
Author(s):  
Bahram Zeinali ◽  
Maedeh Najafi

In this scientific work, we consider the role of educators in the Iranian-Russian cultural societies by bringing up examples of the life of two famous writers: Jalal Ale Ahmad and L. N. Tolstoy. The years of the life of both thinkers are twisted by eternal questions about the social state of life of their people and the welfare of their homeland. They both came to the conclusion that the role of teaching is a lot in the destiny of man. Parenting forms the personality of a person. Both thinkers began to work as teachers in schools. Like major writers and educators, both of them belonged to the elite layers of their society. They expressed their thoughts through the prism of their literary works. They both dropped out: Jalal dropped out of his higher education in his final year of postgraduate studies in Persian literature; L. N. Tolstoy could not adapt himself to the education system of Kazan University. Both writers delve deeply into the issue of religion. In the last years of their lives, they left their homes: Tolstoy abandons his house at the age of which he is so fragile and even cannot stand the freezing weather of Winter; he falls ill and succumbs to death at Astapovo station. In the last years of his life, Jalal and his wife went to live in a village in Gilan province. With this decision, they were both trying to change their life condition.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Robert M. Anderson ◽  
Amy M. Lambert

The island marble butterfly (Euchloe ausonides insulanus), thought to be extinct throughout the 20th century until re-discovered on a single remote island in Puget Sound in 1998, has become the focus of a concerted protection effort to prevent its extinction. However, efforts to “restore” island marble habitat conflict with efforts to “restore” the prairie ecosystem where it lives, because of the butterfly’s use of a non-native “weedy” host plant. Through a case study of the island marble project, we examine the practice of ecological restoration as the enactment of particular norms that define which species are understood to belong in the place being restored. We contextualize this case study within ongoing debates over the value of “native” species, indicative of deep-seated uncertainties and anxieties about the role of human intervention to alter or manage landscapes and ecosystems, in the time commonly described as the “Anthropocene.” We interpret the question of “what plants and animals belong in a particular place?” as not a question of scientific truth, but a value-laden construct of environmental management in practice, and we argue for deeper reflexivity on the part of environmental scientists and managers about the social values that inform ecological restoration.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Helly Ocktilia

This study aims to gain a deeper understanding of the existence of the local social organization in conducting community empowerment. The experiment was conducted at Community Empowerment Institution (In Indonesia it is referred to as Lembaga Pemberdayaan Masyarakat/LPM). LPM Cibeunying as one of the local social institution in Bandung regency. Aspects reviewed in the study include the style of leadership, processes, and stages of community empowerment, as well as the LPM network. The research method used is a case study with the descriptive method and qualitative approach. Data collection was conducted against five informants consisting of the Chairman and LPM’s Board members, village officials, and community leaders. The results show that the dominant leadership style is participative, in addition to that, a supportive leadership style and directive leadership style are also used in certain situations. The empowerment process carried out per the stages of the empowerment process is identifying and assessing the potential of the region, problems, and opportunities-chances; arranging a participative activity plan; implementing the activity plan; and monitoring and evaluating the process and results of activities. The social networking of LPM leads to a social network of power in which LPM can influence the behavior of communities and community institutions in utilizing and managing community empowerment programs. From the research, it can be concluded that the model of community empowerment implemented by LPM Cibeunying Village is enabling, empowering, and protecting.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Michael Phillipp Brunner

Abstract The 1920s and 30s were a high phase of liberal missionary internationalism driven especially by American-led visions of the Social Gospel. As the missionary consensus shifted from proselytization to social concerns, the indigenization of missions and the role of the ‘younger churches’ outside of Europe and North America was brought into focus. This article shows how Protestant internationalism pursued a ‘Christian Sociology’ in dialogue with the field’s academic and professional form. Through the case study of settlement sociology and social work schemes by the American Marathi Mission (AMM) in Bombay, the article highlights the intricacies of applying internationalist visions in the field and asks how they were contested and shaped by local conditions and processes. Challenging a simplistic ‘secularization’ narrative, the article then argues that it was the liberal, anti-imperialist drive of the missionary discourse that eventually facilitated an American ‘professional imperialism’ in the development of secular social work in India. Adding local dynamics to the analysis of an internationalist discourse benefits the understanding of both Protestant internationalism and the genesis of Indian social work and shows the value of an integrated global micro-historical approach.


2021 ◽  
pp. 174619792098136
Author(s):  
Sansom Milton

In this paper, the role of higher education in post-uprising Libya is analysed in terms of its relationship with transitional processes of democratization and civic development. It begins by contextualising the Libyan uprising within the optimism of the ‘Arab Spring’ transitions in the Middle East. Following this, the relationship between higher education and politics under the Qadhafi regime and in the immediate aftermath of its overthrow is discussed. A case-study of a programme designed to support Tripoli University in contributing towards democratisation will then be presented. The findings of the case-study will be reflected upon to offer a set of recommendations for international actors engaging in political and civic education in conflict-affected settings, in particular in the Middle East.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 3836
Author(s):  
David Flores-Ruiz ◽  
Adolfo Elizondo-Salto ◽  
María de la O. Barroso-González

This paper explores the role of social media in tourist sentiment analysis. To do this, it describes previous studies that have carried out tourist sentiment analysis using social media data, before analyzing changes in tourists’ sentiments and behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the case study, which focuses on Andalusia, the changes experienced by the tourism sector in the southern Spanish region as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic are assessed using the Andalusian Tourism Situation Survey (ECTA). This information is then compared with data obtained from a sentiment analysis based on the social network Twitter. On the basis of this comparative analysis, the paper concludes that it is possible to identify and classify tourists’ perceptions using sentiment analysis on a mass scale with the help of statistical software (RStudio and Knime). The sentiment analysis using Twitter data correlates with and is supplemented by information from the ECTA survey, with both analyses showing that tourists placed greater value on safety and preferred to travel individually to nearby, less crowded destinations since the pandemic began. Of the two analytical tools, sentiment analysis can be carried out on social media on a continuous basis and offers cost savings.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document