Dances of leadership: Bridging theory and practice through an aesthetic approach

2008 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 560-572 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arja Ropo ◽  
Erika Sauer
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
The Other ◽  
Organizational Life ◽  
Work Processes ◽  
Practical Action ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
Dominant Individual ◽  
Ballroom Dance ◽  
Corporeal Nature

AbstractWe wish to develop the argument in this paper that through aesthetic and artistic work, practices and their metaphorical use, we have a potential to better understand the relationship between academic leadership theory and practical action. By aesthetic approach we mean the experiential way of knowing that emphasizes human senses and the corporeal nature of social interaction in leadership. In this paper, we discuss how leadership could look, sound and feel like when seen via the artistic metaphor of dance. We use the traditional dance, waltz and the postmodern dance experience of raves to illustrate our argument. By doing so, we challenge traditional, intellectually oriented and positivistic leadership approaches that hardly recognize nor conceptualize aesthetic, bodily aspects of social interaction between people in the workplace.The ballroom dance waltz is used as a metaphorical representation of a hierarchical, logical and rational understanding of leadership. The waltz metaphor describes the leader as a dominant individual who knows where to go and the dance partner as a follower or at least as someone with a lesser role in defining the dance. Raves, on the other hand representparadigmatically different kind of a dance and therefore a different understanding of leadership. There are neither dance steps to learn, nor fixed dance partners where one leads and the other follows. Even the purpose or aim of dancing may not be known at the beginning of the dance, but it is negotiated as the raves go on. We think that raves describe the organizational life as it is often seen and felt today: chaotic, full of unexpected changes, ambiguous and changing collaborators in networks. Here leadership becomes a collective, distributed activity where the work processes and the targeted outcome is continually negotiated.Through the dance metaphors of waltz and raves, we suggest aspects such as gaze, rhythm and space to give an aesthetic description both to a more traditional and an emerging aesthetic paradigm of leadership where the corporeality of leadership is emphasized. We wish to make the point that leadership is aesthetically and corporeally co-constructed both between the leader and the followers as well as between the researcher and the subjects. The metaphor of dance illustrates the corporeal nature of leadership both to practitioners and theoreticians.

Dances of leadership: Bridging theory and practice through an aesthetic approach

2008 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 560-572 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arja Ropo ◽  
Erika Sauer
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
The Other ◽  
Organizational Life ◽  
Work Processes ◽  
Practical Action ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
Dominant Individual ◽  
Ballroom Dance ◽  
Corporeal Nature

AbstractWe wish to develop the argument in this paper that through aesthetic and artistic work, practices and their metaphorical use, we have a potential to better understand the relationship between academic leadership theory and practical action. By aesthetic approach we mean the experiential way of knowing that emphasizes human senses and the corporeal nature of social interaction in leadership. In this paper, we discuss how leadership could look, sound and feel like when seen via the artistic metaphor of dance. We use the traditional dance, waltz and the postmodern dance experience of raves to illustrate our argument. By doing so, we challenge traditional, intellectually oriented and positivistic leadership approaches that hardly recognize nor conceptualize aesthetic, bodily aspects of social interaction between people in the workplace.The ballroom dance waltz is used as a metaphorical representation of a hierarchical, logical and rational understanding of leadership. The waltz metaphor describes the leader as a dominant individual who knows where to go and the dance partner as a follower or at least as someone with a lesser role in defining the dance. Raves, on the other hand representparadigmatically different kind of a dance and therefore a different understanding of leadership. There are neither dance steps to learn, nor fixed dance partners where one leads and the other follows. Even the purpose or aim of dancing may not be known at the beginning of the dance, but it is negotiated as the raves go on. We think that raves describe the organizational life as it is often seen and felt today: chaotic, full of unexpected changes, ambiguous and changing collaborators in networks. Here leadership becomes a collective, distributed activity where the work processes and the targeted outcome is continually negotiated.Through the dance metaphors of waltz and raves, we suggest aspects such as gaze, rhythm and space to give an aesthetic description both to a more traditional and an emerging aesthetic paradigm of leadership where the corporeality of leadership is emphasized. We wish to make the point that leadership is aesthetically and corporeally co-constructed both between the leader and the followers as well as between the researcher and the subjects. The metaphor of dance illustrates the corporeal nature of leadership both to practitioners and theoreticians.

scholarly journals What can bodies do? Reading Spinoza for an affective ethics of organizational life

Organization ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torkild Thanem ◽  
Louise Wallenberg
Keyword(s):  
Theory And Practice ◽  
The Other ◽  
Moral Rule ◽  
Organizational Life ◽  
Organization Studies ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
Rule System ◽  
Ethics Of Recognition

Recent attempts to develop an embodied understanding of ethics in organizations have tended to mobilize a Levinasian and ‘im/possible’ ethics of recognition, which separates ethics and embodiment from politics and organization. We argue that this separation is unrealistic, unsustainable, and an unhelpful starting point for an embodied ethics of organizations. Instead of rescuing and modifying the ethics of recognition, we propose an embodied ethics of organizational life through Spinoza’s affective ethics. Neither a moral rule system nor an infinite duty to recognize the other, Spinoza offers a theory of the good, powerful and joyful life by asking what bodies can do. Rather than an unrestrained, irresponsible and individualistic quest for power and freedom, this suggests that we enhance our capacities to affect and be affected by relating to a variety of different bodies. We first scrutinize recent attempts to develop an ethics of recognition and embodiment in organization studies. We then explore key concepts and central arguments of Spinozian ethics. Finally, we discuss what a Spinozian ethics means for the theory and practice of embodied ethics in organizational life.

Do we form or deform? Qualitative Investigation in Public Hospitals of Madrid

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
María Jesús Gómez Camuñas ◽  
Purificación González Villanueva
Keyword(s):  
Participant Observation ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Public Hospitals ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Business Growth ◽  
Small Hospital ◽  
Student Learn ◽  
Depth Interviews

<div><i>Background</i>: the creative capacities and the knowledge of the employees are components of the intellectual capital of the company; hence, their training is a key activity to achieve the objectives and business growth. <i>Objective</i>: To understand the meaning of learning in the hospital from the experiences of its participants through the inquiry of meanings. <i>Method</i>: Qualitative design with an ethnographic approach, which forms part of a wider research, on organizational culture; carried out mainly in 2 public hospitals of the Community of Madrid. The data has been collected for thirteen months. A total of 23 in-depth interviews and 69 field sessions have been conducted through the participant observation technique. <i>Results</i>: the worker and the student learn from what they see and hear. The great hospital offers an unregulated education, dependent on the professional, emphasizing that they learn everything. Some transmit the best and others, even the humiliating ones, use them for dirty jobs, focusing on the task and nullifying the possibility of thinking. They show a reluctant attitude to teach the newcomer, even if they do, they do not have to oppose their practice. In short, a learning in the variability, which produces a rupture between theory and practice; staying with what most convinces them, including negligence, which affects the patient's safety. In the small hospital, it is a teaching based on a practice based on scientific evidence and personalized attention, on knowing the other. Clearly taught from the reception, to treat with caring patience and co-responsibility in the care. The protagonists of both scenarios agree that teaching and helping new people establish lasting and important personal relationships to feel happy and want to be in that service or hospital. <i>Conclusion</i>: There are substantial differences related to the size of the center, as to what and how the student and the novel professional are formed. At the same time that the meaning of value that these health organizations transmit to their workers is inferred through the training, one orienting to the task and the other to the person, either patient, professional or pupil and therefore seeking the common benefit.</div>

Five-year Psychosocial Impact of Living in Post-Disaster Prefabricated Temporary Housing

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Tetsuya Akaishi ◽  
Tomomi Suzuki ◽  
Harumi Nemoto ◽  
Yusuke Utsumi ◽  
Moe Seto ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Interaction ◽  
The Other ◽  
Temporary Housing ◽  
Psychiatric Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Psychosocial Conditions ◽  
Long Term Impact ◽  
Post Disaster

Abstract Objective: This study aims to evaluate the long-term impact of living in post-disaster prefabricated temporary housing on social interaction activities and mental health status. Methods: A total of 917 adult residents in a coastal town, whose residences were destroyed by the tsunami caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE), were enrolled for the assessment held five years after the disaster. They answered questions about their experience and consequence of living in prefabricated temporary housing after the disaster. Their present scores on five types of self-reported measures regarding the psychosocial or psychiatric status and their present and recalled social interaction activities were cross-sectionally collected. Results: A total of 587 (64.0%) participants had a history of living in prefabricated temporary housing, while the other 330 (36.0%) had not. The prevalence of social interaction activities significantly decreased after the GEJE. However, the experience of living in prefabricated temporary housing did not adversely affect the subsequent social interaction activities or mental conditions of the participants five years after the disaster. Conclusions: Living in post-disaster prefabricated temporary housing may not negatively impact subsequent psychosocial conditions or social interaction activities five years later.

The influence of concealing academic achievement on the self-esteem of adolescents with low achievement

2009 ◽  
Vol 37 (6) ◽  
pp. 805-810
Author(s):  
Baoshan Zhang ◽  
Jun-Yan Zhao ◽  
Guoliang Yu
Keyword(s):  
Academic Achievement ◽  
Social Interaction ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Low Achievers ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Positive Performance

An examination was carried out of the influences of concealing academic achievement on self-esteem in an academically relevant social interaction based on the assumption that concealing socially devalued characteristics should influence individuals' self-esteem during social interactions. An interview paradigm called for school-aged adolescents who either were or were not low (academic) achievers to play the role of students who were or were not low achievers while answering academically relevant questions. The data suggest that the performance self-esteem of low achievers who played the role of good students was more positive than that of low achievers who played the role of low achievers. On the other hand, participants who played the role of good students had more positive performance self-esteem than did participants who played the role of low achievers.

scholarly journals Physical Activity and Psychological Well-Being: Testing Alternative Sociological Interpretations

1990 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 329-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
William McTeer ◽  
James E. Curtis
Keyword(s):  
Physical Activity ◽  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Social Interaction ◽  
Physical Fitness ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Other ◽  
Positive Zero ◽  
Psychological Well Being ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This study examines the relationship between physical activity in sport and feelings of well-being, testing alternative interpretations of the relationship between these two variables. It was expected that there would be positive relationships between physical activity on the one hand and physical fitness, feelings of well-being, social interaction in the sport and exercise environment, and socioeconomic status on the other hand. It was also expected that physical fitness, social interaction, and socioeconomic status would be positively related to psychological well-being. Further, it was expected that any positive zero-order relationship of physical activity and well-being would be at least in part a result of the conjoint effects of the other variables. The analyses were conducted separately for the male and female subsamples of a large survey study of Canadian adults. The results, after controls, show a modest positive relationship of physical activity and well-being for males but no such relationship for females. The predicted independent effects of the control factors obtained for both males and females. Interpretations of the results are discussed.

scholarly journals Dewey’s Yardstick

SAGE Open ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 215824401770046 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Giamellaro
Keyword(s):  
Learning Outcomes ◽  
Cognitive Process ◽  
Situated Cognition ◽  
Student Experience ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
The Other ◽  
Important Link ◽  
Measurable Variable ◽  
The Relationship

Although experience and context are omnibus terms, the relationship between them provides some guidance on how each can be used to inform an understanding of the other. This article presents contextualization, or the degree to which content and context are connected through experience, as a measurable outcome of learning, education, or situated cognition. Contextualization is proposed here as a construct that (a) indicates curricular intention, cognitive process, and learning outcomes; (b) is a measurable variable that can be correlated to measures of learning; (c) is broadly applicable and thus represents a comparison variable across diverse scenarios; and (d) represents an important link between existing theory and practice. A contextualization spectrum framework is proposed to align curricular intentions for student experience to the resulting disposition of knowledge, as connected through contextualization.

COMMUNICATING EMPIRE: THE HABSBURGS AND THEIR CRITICS, 1700–1919

2009 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 117-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. J. W. Evans
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Roman Empire ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
The Other ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Free Standing ◽  
Power Base ◽  
The One ◽  
At Home

ABSTRACTIn the vibrant current debate about European empires and their ideologies, one basic dichotomy still tends to be overlooked: that between, on the one hand, the plurality of modern empires of colonisation, commerce and settlement; and, on the other, the traditional claim to single and undividedimperiumso long embodied in the Roman Empire and its successor, the Holy Roman Empire, or (First) Reich. This paper examines the tensions between the two, as manifested in the theory and practice of Habsburg imperial rule. The Habsburgs, emperors of the Reich almost continuously through its last centuries, sought to build their own power-base within and beyond it. The first half of the paper examines how by the eighteenth century their ‘Monarchy’, subsisting alongside the Reich, dealt with the associated legacy of empire. After the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 the Habsburgs could pursue a free-standing Austrian ‘imperialism’, but it rested on an uneasy combination of old and new elements and was correspondingly vulnerable to challenge from abroad and censure at home. The second half of the article charts this aspect of Habsburg government through an age of international imperialism and its contribution to the collapse of the Dual Monarchy in 1918.

THE ROLE OF THE OBITUARY PAGES IN FACSBOOK, IS IT FOR IMMORTALIZATION OR FOR CRYING OVER THE RUINS

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 119-126
Author(s):  
Hadeel EJMAIL
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Social Interaction ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
The Other ◽  
Dead Person ◽  
Screen Capture ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The One ◽  
Facebook Pages

Death is one of the most difficult topics a person can talk about. The human being is busy with how to continue his life and improve its conditions. This study aims is to explore the writing of Facebook pages of the dead. The research used the qualitative approach through a content analysis, where (50) publications were found on fifteen pages of a dead person with an intentional sample, and the results of the research showed that writing people in the pages of the dead included two directions, the first direction is a desire to immortalize the dead and a kind of preserving their roots Alive. As for the other direction, it was weeping over their ruins and showing the end of a person's death and his end life. Sometimes in the same post include both directions together, meaning "the use of the deceased’s account by his family by changing the profile picture of the dead, and at the same time inviting the deceased’s friends through his page to the memorial event. People write on the pages of the dead in order to weep over their ruins on the one hand, and to immortalize their memories on the other side. Facebook as a social platform and the interaction of people with the pages of the dead shows the great social interaction that takes place in this space, and research in this field is not consistent with one and only claim, as some posts are either temporary or permanent; Therefore, I have used screen capture technology to collect and retain information. The pages of the dead included referring to them, writing memorials and longing, etc. Facebook has become a social platform that allows those who lose a dear person to share their grief through it, and enables them to deal with death and relieve their pain

scholarly journals Social Interaction: A Study on the Openness Attitude of Both Religion Believers towards the Other Believers in the Southern Thailand

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 66
Author(s):  
Jaffary Awang ◽  
Mutsalim Khareng ◽  
Zaizul Ab. Rahman ◽  
Rohanee Machae ◽  
Khaidzir Ismail
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Basic Concept ◽  
Religious Pluralism ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Interaction Process ◽  
The Other ◽  
Good Relationship ◽  
Southern Thailand ◽  
Religious Teaching ◽  
Plural Society

<p>The Southern of Thailand citizens are known as the plural society that possesses various different religions. Even though the citizens are from multi-religious society, the majority of them are Muslims and followed by the Buddhists. It is a continuous issue for the religious believers in the Southern of Thailand in communicating with the other religious believers. Their interaction process is always accompanied by the suspicion and doubt among each other. Among the concepts of harmonious living in a religious pluralism society, openness attitude is the most important basic concept. It plays the significant role as a tool to form a good relationship among people. Therefore, this study is meant to scrutinize to which extent the religious teaching that teaches on the religious harmonious of life influence its believers in interpreting it to an openness attitude in their daily interaction. This study utilised two main methods namely the qualitative and the quantitative approaches. The results from the descriptive analysis depict that most of religious believers in the Southern of Thailand possess the openness attitude in interacting with the other believers at a good level as 40.02% of them agreed, and 30.96% of them strongly agreed on the issue. Hence, the findings have convinced the study that majority of the citizens in the Southern of Thailand are highly motivated to live harmoniously. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that there are some of the religious believers failed to practice the openness attitude when interacting with the other believers, so it is a must to identify the causes in order to offer the best solution for it.</p>

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