(Re)constructing Leadership

This chapter elucidates Keith Grint's model of leadership as a viable dynamic option in our complex world. By locating the model within a social constructionist frame, this chapter demonstrates how far we have come in the evolving stream of leadership research. Seven main characteristics of the Grint's model of leadership are discussed to demonstrate how the model can help us to understand wicked problems, such as the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia. The author also identifies two weaknesses of Grint's model: (1) organisational culture and (2) followership. Lastly, to address the two weaknesses, the author proposes an integrated model of leadership that combines the understanding of an adhocracy culture based on the competing value framework and Kelly's effective followership model. In conclusion, the integrative framework of leadership offers leadership researchers a model with more explanatory power in understanding the leadership phenomenon within the social constructionist supposition.

Need for Leadership in Times of Crises

The aim of this chapter is to give a comprehensive framework through integrating the modern and post-modern leadership approaches in times of crises. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to great challenges worldwide. Organizing in times of crisis or crisis management has gained greater attention much more than before. Pandemic new workforce created new perspectives on the basis of leadership. This study provides detailed information about both modern leadership types as autocratic, democratic, laissez-faire, charismatic, transformational, transactional, and post-modern leadership types as spiritual, resonant, agile, relational social constructionist, and hybrid. In chaotic and uncertain environment, the leadership types and their effectiveness are analyzed and discussed at the heart of social exchange, social identity, leader-member exchange, self-determination, and complexity leadership theoretical point of views and related empirical findings.

Sex Reassigment Surgery sebagai Penentuan Ulang Status Gender dalam Kajian Maqashid Syariah

Postgenderism is a social movement about understanding the balance between men, women and nature. The development of the times and technological advances has brought people to various conditions with various attitudes to life, including a new way of looking at humans regarding gender status. This is intended as a space for human potential by eliminating gender status biologically and psychologically because it is considered an arbitrary limitation space. Postgenderism faces the limitations of social constructionist views on gender and sexuality, as well as the possibility of gender transcendence through social and political means that can be resolved by means of technology. Maqashid Syariah is here to provide a bridge of thought in viewing discourses and phenomena that move with the times. This is as a role in providing a legal footing that is oriented to the benefit of the people. In order to provide a sharp analysis, this study uses a qualitative library research with the theory of Maqashid Syariah. The method used in this research is descriptive analytical by describing a problem, and qualitative analysis with reference to the literature and applicable legal provisions. So that through the research method used, the use of Sex Reassigment Surgery technology as a re-determination of gender status can be studied using the Maqashid Syariah theory which legally has benefits or brings new problems in its implementation in social life. Keywords: Maqashid Syariah Postgender, Sex Reassigment Surgery, Technology Abstrak: Postgenderisme adalah gerakan sosial tentang memahami keseimbangan antara laki-laki, perempuan dan alam. Perkembangan zaman dan kemajuan teknologi telah membawa manusia pada berbagai kondisi dengan berbagai sikap hidup, termasuk cara baru dalam memandang manusia mengenai status gender. Hal ini dimaksudkan sebagai ruang bagi potensi manusia dengan menghilangkan status gender secara biologis dan psikologis karena dianggap sebagai ruang pembatasan yang sewenang-wenang. Postgenderisme menghadapi batasan pandangan konstruksionis sosial tentang gender dan seksualitas, serta kemungkinan transendensi gender melalui sarana sosial dan politik yang dapat diselesaikan dengan sarana teknologi. Maqashid Syariah hadir untuk memberikan jembatan pemikiran dalam melihat wacana dan fenomena yang bergerak mengikuti perkembangan zaman. Hal ini sebagai perannya dalam memberikan pijakan hukum yang berorientasi pada kemaslahatan umat. Guna memberikan analisis yang tajam, penelitian ini menggunakan penelitian library research bersifat kualitatif dengan teori Maqashid Syariah. Metode yang dipakai di dalam penelitian ini bersifat deskriptif analitis dengan memaparkan mengenai suatu permasalahan, dan analisa kualitatif dengan acuan literatur dan ketentuan hukum yang berlaku. Sehingga melalui metode penelitian yang digunakan tersebut, penggunaan teknologi Sex Reassigment Surgery sebagai penentuan ulang status gender dapat dikaji menggunakan teori Maqashid Syariah yang secara muatan hukum memiliki kebermanfaat ataupun membawa permasalahan baru dalam implementasinya di kehidupan sosial. Kata kunci: Maqashid Syariah Postgender, Sex Reassigment Surgery, Teknologi

Shaping the ‘inexplicable’: A social constructionist analysis of news reporting of familicide-suicide

Media framing helps to shape our understanding of the meaning of news events, often problematically. This study examines how this process interacts with the phenomenon of familicide-suicide, where a person kills one or more family members before taking their own life. A social constructionist analysis of the print media coverage of three high-profile cases in Ireland highlights framing and discursive patterns, contributing to an explanatory framework that is misleading and lacking in an evidence base. As well as a tendency towards broad and poorly supported claims-making, several primary causal frames are prevalent: mental health; financial debt; fall from grace; and ‘out of the blue’, whilst a domestic violence frame is notable in its absence. Coverage is found to be episodic in character, linked to dramatisation and more simplistic explanatory frames, rather than evidence-based analysis of potential causal factors for these incidents. Findings raise important questions for journalistic practice, regarding processes of selection and salience of sources contributing to overall coverage that is partial and biased, rather than an ‘objective’ representation of the social world.

Negotiating Identity and Power during a Crisis: An Analysis of ‘Small Stories’ Told by Australian Christian Priests during the COVID-19 Health Crisis

The COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 and localised government responses have led to fundamental changes in the conditions in which organisations operate. This article draws on a social constructionist understanding of identity as multiple and performed (Angouri 2016; Butler 1990) to explore the experiences of a group of six Australian Christian priests during this crisis period. Drawing on in-depth interview data, the article presents a narrative analysis of the storying of identities and power relations within church communities whose everyday activities were suddenly curtailed. In contrast to linguistic studies of narrative which often focus on structural features of canonical discourse ‘events’, this article takes up Bamberg and Georgakopoulou’s (2008) extension of narrative analysis to focus on ‘small stories’ which reflect the everyday, situated practices in which identities and power relations are negotiated and performed. This article contributes unique insights into the operation and practices of religious organisations in a crisis context.

‘It’s Not Really a Part of Standard Practice’: Institutional Silencing of Sexuality Within Australian Mental Health Settings

Research seeking to understand and improve sexuality-related practice in mental health settings has paid little attention to the institutional context in which clinicians’ practice is embedded. Through a social constructionist lens, we used thematic analysis to examine how 22 Australian mental health clinicians implicated the wider institutional context when discussing and making sense of sexuality-related silence within their work. Interviews were part of a study exploring participants’ perceptions of sexuality and sexual health in their work more generally. Broader silences that shaped and reinforced participants’ perceptions and practice choices were situated in professional education; workplace cultures; and the tools, procedures and policies that directed clinical practice. We argue that sexuality-related silence in mental health settings is located in the institutional context in which clinicians learn and work, and discuss how orienting to this broader context will benefit research and interventions to improve sexuality-related practice across health settings.

Discursive navigation of employable identities in the narratives of former refugees

<p>In the coming decades, nations worldwide, exacerbated by political and environmental instability, will likely continue to struggle to deal with growing numbers of displaced persons. In this study I take an interactional sociolinguistic approach to exploring a critical area of refugee resettlement; that is, securing stable, desirable employment in host nations. Navigating the labour market in a new context can be a challenge for any migrant, and particularly so for former refugees. Host governments tend to consider accessing stable, long-term employment to be the most important factor for former refugees’ social integration. It is also a high priority for former refugees themselves, who are often unable to find employment appropriate for their qualification and experience levels. I approach this issue of employability from the perspective of an employable identity, rooted within a social constructionist view of identity as emergent from and negotiated within discourse. This approach facilitates a view of employability as a discursive and socially situated phenomenon, which is interactionally achieved with employers, interviewers, and colleagues. Specifically, I explore the negotiation of employable identities in narratives, the stories we tell about ourselves through which we make sense of our place in the social world. Narratives are rich sites within which to explore the co-constructed negotiation of identity, through the positioning of self (both as narrator and protagonist) and other (both present interlocutor(s) and other characters within the storyworld). This study comprises two phases. The first involves four highly-educated former refugee participants originating from different Middle Eastern and North and East African countries. Two were in (or finally achieved) full time employment, and two were unemployed for the duration of their involvement in this research. The data for this phase comes from multiple semi-structured, conversational, and ethnographically-informed interviews that were conducted with each of the participants over a 20-month period. The interview data illuminates the ways that these participants navigate the challenges of unemployment and underemployment in the New Zealand labour market. The second phase of this research focuses on the enactment and negotiation of an employable identity in the workplace. Following the methodology and ethos of the Language in the Workplace Project, I explored a former refugee’s navigation of workplace and wider local norms in interaction with two residents, while in her role as a carer at an eldercare facility. In both phases, the ways in which identity is negotiated (and re-shaped) in narrative emerge from the data. Specifically, the analysis indicates that negotiating a locally-useful employable identity in New Zealand, for former refugees, involves the navigation of social Discourses of Refugeehood and (refugee) Gratitude that can suggest more or less desirable or acceptable subject positions in discourse. The analysis suggests that the participants exercise discursive agency to align with, or disalign from, these Discourses in order to position themselves as capable, agentive, and employable in the local context. Furthermore, I explore the various types of cultural and social capital the participants have at their disposal, the challenges involved in actualising that capital post-migration (as well as creating new capital in a new context), and the ways that they draw upon that capital in discourse in attempts to negotiate a locally-valuable employable identity. This study draws attention to the two-way process of resettlement, in which both host society members and newcomers have roles to play in negotiating successful transitions from the peripheries of society to belonging.</p>

Discursive navigation of employable identities in the narratives of former refugees

<p>In the coming decades, nations worldwide, exacerbated by political and environmental instability, will likely continue to struggle to deal with growing numbers of displaced persons. In this study I take an interactional sociolinguistic approach to exploring a critical area of refugee resettlement; that is, securing stable, desirable employment in host nations. Navigating the labour market in a new context can be a challenge for any migrant, and particularly so for former refugees. Host governments tend to consider accessing stable, long-term employment to be the most important factor for former refugees’ social integration. It is also a high priority for former refugees themselves, who are often unable to find employment appropriate for their qualification and experience levels. I approach this issue of employability from the perspective of an employable identity, rooted within a social constructionist view of identity as emergent from and negotiated within discourse. This approach facilitates a view of employability as a discursive and socially situated phenomenon, which is interactionally achieved with employers, interviewers, and colleagues. Specifically, I explore the negotiation of employable identities in narratives, the stories we tell about ourselves through which we make sense of our place in the social world. Narratives are rich sites within which to explore the co-constructed negotiation of identity, through the positioning of self (both as narrator and protagonist) and other (both present interlocutor(s) and other characters within the storyworld). This study comprises two phases. The first involves four highly-educated former refugee participants originating from different Middle Eastern and North and East African countries. Two were in (or finally achieved) full time employment, and two were unemployed for the duration of their involvement in this research. The data for this phase comes from multiple semi-structured, conversational, and ethnographically-informed interviews that were conducted with each of the participants over a 20-month period. The interview data illuminates the ways that these participants navigate the challenges of unemployment and underemployment in the New Zealand labour market. The second phase of this research focuses on the enactment and negotiation of an employable identity in the workplace. Following the methodology and ethos of the Language in the Workplace Project, I explored a former refugee’s navigation of workplace and wider local norms in interaction with two residents, while in her role as a carer at an eldercare facility. In both phases, the ways in which identity is negotiated (and re-shaped) in narrative emerge from the data. Specifically, the analysis indicates that negotiating a locally-useful employable identity in New Zealand, for former refugees, involves the navigation of social Discourses of Refugeehood and (refugee) Gratitude that can suggest more or less desirable or acceptable subject positions in discourse. The analysis suggests that the participants exercise discursive agency to align with, or disalign from, these Discourses in order to position themselves as capable, agentive, and employable in the local context. Furthermore, I explore the various types of cultural and social capital the participants have at their disposal, the challenges involved in actualising that capital post-migration (as well as creating new capital in a new context), and the ways that they draw upon that capital in discourse in attempts to negotiate a locally-valuable employable identity. This study draws attention to the two-way process of resettlement, in which both host society members and newcomers have roles to play in negotiating successful transitions from the peripheries of society to belonging.</p>

A Critical Analysis of the Networking Experiences of Female Entrepreneurs: A Study Based on Small Business Tourism Sector in Sri Lanka

This study goes on to expand on current knowledge through the way it accounts for how female entrepreneurs form and develop their networks in the Sri Lankan context. It adopts social constructionism philosophy and narrative design to explore the female entrepreneurs' networking behaviour. Thematic analysis is used to understand the life stories of fourteen women entrepreneurs in the tourism sector. Findings suggest that female entrepreneurs are likely to rely on more informal recruitment methods and informal training practices. They have strong relationships with local communities, but they focus on customers beyond the locals. Seasonality within tourism has been the emphasis of tourism literature due to its disruptive effect on economic transactions. However, less of the literature has examined the social effects of seasonality, which is where this study can contribute by exploring how gender roles related to social and domestic responsibilities are renegotiated during the low and high seasons when tourism entrepreneurs re-adjust to new time-demand realities. Yet, the narrative research design is not widely used in the Sri Lankan context. Therefore, this article attempts to add to the entrepreneurial networking knowledge by analyzing stories towards female entrepreneurs' experience and social constructionist perspective.