Strategizing for Legitimacy in Pluralistic Contexts: New Zealand’s Science Sector

<p>How do organizations strategize for legitimacy in pluralistic contexts? Little is known about the strategies organizations use to manage their legitimacy with multiple internal and external stakeholders within pluralism. For instance, how strategies interrelate and are combined simultaneously by organizations has not been researched. Through addressing this question the thesis seeks theoretical elaboration that contributes to our understanding in this regard and addresses this gap in the legitimacy literature. In particular, a combinatorial picture of legitimacy strategies is provided that provides insight into how strategies might be combined and interrelate. Based on a novel tabulation that brings the various strands of the literature together a framework is developed for investigating the research problem. Theoretical extension is then sought through an empirical focus on the pluralistic setting of New Zealand’s science sector. Six case studies based on two layers of replication are explored, principally through 58 multi-stakeholder interviews. The findings show that multiple embedded tensions and complex diffused power relationships characterise these organization cases. This provides a basis for investigating legitimacy strategies amidst pluralism: the basis of the analysis A picture of agency intensive legitimation is provided with organizations found to construct and change, as well as conform to, legitimacy demands. This informs the research agenda focused on redressing an identified ‘conformity bias’ (Kitchener, 2002) in much legitimacy theory. Further, a traditional preoccupation with overarching field level systems within dominant strands of legitimacy research has been recognized (Kraatz & Block, 2008). This research contributes by seeking to rectify this imbalance through adopting a framework of legitimacy strategies at the organizational level. The result is five propositions and extension to the theoretical framework. Prior work has tended to associate an organization with a dominant single strategy. This thesis finds multiple legitimacy strategies and strategic combinations being implemented by organizations amidst pluralism. Propositions are offered in this regards. The result is increased understanding of both infrequently explored legitimacy strategies and the relationships between them. Such theoretical development blurs the ‘demarcating lines’ that and are implicit in many frameworks and empirical studies. Additional propositions are also provided regarding why similar organizations experiencing similar pluralism might implement different legitimacy strategies. It is proposed that differences in stakeholder perceptions of pluralism’s dimensions are associated with the implementation of different legitimacy strategies by organizations. Overall, both the creative potential and challenges inherent in strategizing for legitimacy amidst pluralism are illustrated. A nuanced picture in this regard is enabled by the diverse array of strategies surfaced both within and across the focal pluralistic organizations.</p>

Strategizing for Legitimacy in Pluralistic Contexts: New Zealand’s Science Sector

<p>How do organizations strategize for legitimacy in pluralistic contexts? Little is known about the strategies organizations use to manage their legitimacy with multiple internal and external stakeholders within pluralism. For instance, how strategies interrelate and are combined simultaneously by organizations has not been researched. Through addressing this question the thesis seeks theoretical elaboration that contributes to our understanding in this regard and addresses this gap in the legitimacy literature. In particular, a combinatorial picture of legitimacy strategies is provided that provides insight into how strategies might be combined and interrelate. Based on a novel tabulation that brings the various strands of the literature together a framework is developed for investigating the research problem. Theoretical extension is then sought through an empirical focus on the pluralistic setting of New Zealand’s science sector. Six case studies based on two layers of replication are explored, principally through 58 multi-stakeholder interviews. The findings show that multiple embedded tensions and complex diffused power relationships characterise these organization cases. This provides a basis for investigating legitimacy strategies amidst pluralism: the basis of the analysis A picture of agency intensive legitimation is provided with organizations found to construct and change, as well as conform to, legitimacy demands. This informs the research agenda focused on redressing an identified ‘conformity bias’ (Kitchener, 2002) in much legitimacy theory. Further, a traditional preoccupation with overarching field level systems within dominant strands of legitimacy research has been recognized (Kraatz & Block, 2008). This research contributes by seeking to rectify this imbalance through adopting a framework of legitimacy strategies at the organizational level. The result is five propositions and extension to the theoretical framework. Prior work has tended to associate an organization with a dominant single strategy. This thesis finds multiple legitimacy strategies and strategic combinations being implemented by organizations amidst pluralism. Propositions are offered in this regards. The result is increased understanding of both infrequently explored legitimacy strategies and the relationships between them. Such theoretical development blurs the ‘demarcating lines’ that and are implicit in many frameworks and empirical studies. Additional propositions are also provided regarding why similar organizations experiencing similar pluralism might implement different legitimacy strategies. It is proposed that differences in stakeholder perceptions of pluralism’s dimensions are associated with the implementation of different legitimacy strategies by organizations. Overall, both the creative potential and challenges inherent in strategizing for legitimacy amidst pluralism are illustrated. A nuanced picture in this regard is enabled by the diverse array of strategies surfaced both within and across the focal pluralistic organizations.</p>

A palace fit for the future: Desirability in temporal work

Research on the strategic organization of time often assumes that collective efforts are motivated by and oriented toward achieving desirable, although not necessarily well-defined, future states. In situations surrounded by uncertainty where work has to proceed urgently to avoid an impending disaster, however, temporal work is guided by engaging with both desirable and undesirable future outcomes. Drawing on a real-time, in-depth study of the inception of the Restoration and Renewal program of the Palace of Westminster, we investigate how organizational actors develop a strategy for an uncertain and highly contested future while safeguarding ongoing operations in the present and preserving the heritage of the past. Anticipation of undesirable future events played a crucial role in mobilizing collective efforts to move forward. We develop a model of future desirability in temporal work to identify how actors construct, link, and navigate interpretations of desirable and undesirable futures in their attempts to create a viable path of action. By conceptualizing temporal work based on the phenomenological quality of the future, we advance understanding of the strategic organization of time in pluralistic contexts characterized by uncertainty and urgency.

Strategizing in pluralistic contexts: a narrative literature review

Objetivo: Considerando que o pluralismo vem sendo relativamente ignorado pelos estudos clássicos em estratégia, e que está cada vez mais presente nas organizações do século XXI (Jarzabkowski Fenton, 2006), o objetivo desta pesquisa foi compreender como ocorreu o avanço do conhecimento sobre strategizing em contextos pluralistas a partir da pesquisa de Jarzabkowski e Fenton (2006).Método: Adotamos uma abordagem qualitativa por meio de uma revisão narrativa da literatura, com buscas nas plataformas Ebsco, Scopus and Periódicos Capes. Seis publicações sobre strategizing em contextos pluralistas foram selecionadas e agrupadas segundo suas características em comum: tensões na gestão estratégica em contextos pluralistas; estudos empíricos sobre strategizing em contextos pluralistas; e propostas sobre como lidar com o pluralismo das organizações.Resultados: Nossos resultados indicam que o strategizing em contextos pluralistas é um tema recente e ainda pouco abordado pela agenda de pesquisa em estratégia. Os seis estudos selecionados apontam para tensões inerentes a contextos pluralistas: alguns abordam como certos ambientes lidam com essas pressões e outros propõem soluções para minimizar o pluralismo das organizações.Originalidade/Relevância: A relevância desta pesquisa centra-se na importância e necessidade de aprofundar o conhecimento sobre strategizing em contextos pluralistas, considerando a pluralidade que compõe as organizações contemporâneas.Contribuições teóricas/metodológicas: Nosso estudo contribuiu para a compilação e a análise acerca do avanço do conhecimento sobre strategizing em contextos pluralistas. Identificamos a ascensão do campo de pesquisa e salientamos a necessidade de desenvolver esse tema em vista do avanço da pluralidade que compõe as organizações.

Epilogue

The epilogue returns to the theme of community building and the contexts under which Jewish life can and has flourished. It argues strongly against narratives in which persecution is seen as the cement that binds Jewish communities together over time. Instead, the Epilogue asserts that Jewish belonging thrives in places of choice and that Jews find more reasons and ways to remain connected to their culture and to each other in cities and countries with multiple viable options. It also asks an open-ended question regarding the future of Jewish belonging in a time of continued individualistic belonging. Taking an optimistic approach, the Epilogue concludes with a call for increased and pluralistic contexts for the perpetuation of Jewish belonging and self-identification.

Discussing publicness on the public square?

In the wide-ranging and multifaceted discourses of public theologies within very different and pluralistic contexts, the strongest contemporary emphasis falls on their integrity and relevance in relating to their respective contexts and socio-political movements within those much globalised contexts. This emphasis is questioned, arguing that a more fundamental and critical question is at stake. Against the background of a short overview of different stories (self-understandings) of public theology, the critical question is put forward, namely whether the emphasis should fall on the public square after all, but much rather on the ‘publicness’ of rationality that precedes the different contexts (squares!). The focus is therefore on the publicness of rationality in pursuit of the old well-known but ever challenging question, namely ‘will the real public theology please stand up’. It is argued that the integrity and relevance that ‘public theologies’ strive for, are to be firstly sought and found in their models of rationality – as the ‘stuff’ of embodiment as sites of struggle and survival that they are woven from – and secondly contextually articulated and explicated in engagement and conversation with the very pluralism they hope to address in a constructive-realistic manner.

INNOVATION AWARDS: REWARD, RECOGNITION, AND RITUAL

This paper draws on a detailed case study of an innovation awards-giving scheme in a professional service firm to consider the role of discretionary awards in encouraging and displaying innovation capabilities. Because of their association with competition, it might seem that awards are likely tools in pluralistic contexts such as professional service firms where risk-taking and collaboration require deep relationships with clients and with professionals from different specialisations. We intend to show how managers and professionals mobilised around the scheme using the rewarding, recognising, and ritualising of innovation through awards, as a platform to initiate and promote other organisational processes that foster innovation capabilities.

Revisiting Mead on Pragmatic “Fusion”: From Emotion to Function

<p><em>A recent biography and re-issue of George H. Mead’s Mind, Self, and Society emphasize the emergent meanings of his work and of self’s cognitive and affective dimensions in interaction. Erving Goffman likewise posits an interaction order based on individual and social identity. Mead’s metaphor of fusion furthers recognition of an emotional merging of selves with each other and with emerging community. He initially characterizes this experience as “precious” and illustrates its presence in interactional domains such as teamwork, religion, and patriotism. Among other scholars, Charles Taylor uses fusion to interpret aspects of the contemporary secular age. Application to terrorist identities finds that emotional fusion motivates actions that threaten the moral imperative informing presentation of selves that grounds public order. From a pragmatic perspective, selves in pluralistic contexts must subordinate emotional fusion to functional fusion within an interaction order that fosters a larger self and more inclusive community to address common issues. </em></p>

Kritische Authentizitätsorientierung als religionsdidaktisches Prinzip

The concept of authenticity proves to be useful for understanding and arranging religious education in secular and pluralistic contexts. Analyzing its discussion in cultural anthropology, the article describes authenticity as an epistemological and ethical concept. Authenticity promises an immediate access to and expression of reality - above and beyond culturally formed and thus deconstructable concepts. Claiming authenticity, however, does not prove its existence. To avoid naïve approaches didactics should emphasize authenticity as a principle of religious learning but not neglect deconstruction. In pointing out seven mechanisms which facilitate authentic effects the article elaborates a critical approach to authenticity as a didactical principle for arranging religious learning.