Exploring discourse-based organizational change in Japan: practicing between dominant and alternative discourses

The primary objective of this study is to respond to Grant and Marshak’s (J Appl Behav Sci 47:204–235, 2011) call for a move toward change perspectives that emphasize the generative nature of discourses, narratives, and conversations and how change practitioners discursively facilitate emergent processes. This article attempts to explore the question, “Can we specify the conditions and sources which make generative conversations emerge and may lead to a successful change effort in Japan?” The abductive inquiry into the question indicates that the generative change process convinces change sponsors that changing the dominant discourses and welcoming alternative ones can lead to the long-term development of the organization and the members. With respect to the sources of alternative discourses, psychological safety and trust in the external authority figure are generally required. The importance of survival anxiety and talent diversity may vary across the broad contexts on which organizations depend.

“You Can’t Make Me Sing”

Chapter 6 introduces Wayfarers Collective, an “emerging church” that decries what it perceives as the superficiality and entertainment-centeredness of mainstream evangelicalism. The Collective meets in a temporary rental spaces, eschews categories of formal membership, and brands itself as a “last stop” for people who are considering leaving the church forever. The Collective faces significant evangelistic hurdles: residents of the Pacific Northwest tend to be fiercely independent, and hostile towards institutions that seek to limit their personal freedom, creativity, or identity. The Collective’s anti-authoritarian ethos both helps and hinders its practices of corporate worship. Positively speaking, sermons at the Collective are a back-and-forth conversation between preacher and congregation: all participants are on equal ground. Musical worship—where the congregation must follow the directions of an authority figure—is more problematic.

Saint Ashley

During Covid-19 lockdown in New Zealand from March to June 2020, gendered discourses appeared in artistic and commercial products featuring Ashley Bloomfield, New Zealand’s Director General of Health and ‘hero of quarantine’. Using an analytical framework combining Foucauldian discourse analysis with critical multimodality, we explore how Ashley is shaped into existence through discourses portraying him as a superhero, love interest/sex symbol, national treasure, saviour, saint and authority figure. These emergent discourses ride on the wave of longstanding dominant discourses relating to gender and sexuality, alongside nation, class and ethnicity. While dominant discourses may provide reassurance when established realities are under threat, they simultaneously cause harm by reproducing unequal power relations between social groups. We contend that, even in periods of crisis, we should consider what broader messages we are sending when we latch onto the latest discursive trend.

The participation role of the researcher as a co-operative achievement

In this paper, I examine my role as a researcher doing video-based fieldwork in mainstream classrooms with deaf youths in Iquitos, Peru through the lens of participation frameworks that emerged within moments of situated interaction. While conducting video-based fieldwork, I attempted to primarily occupy the role of a passive participant-observer in order to capture the deaf students’ everyday interactions with minimal interference from the researcher. As I will develop in the paper, it is evident that my status within the classroom participation frameworks was dynamic. While I often was not attended to in the participation framework and positioned as a ratified overhearer of the unfolding interaction, my status could quickly shift as the students and teacher responded to my presence. Moments when my status in the participation framework changed make visible the various roles that I occupied in the classroom, from an observer, to a confidant, to an authority figure. Through interactional extracts, I illustrate how the roles that I occupy in the classroom social ecology are a moment-by-moment co-operative achievement between members of the class and myself.

Childhood roots of being green: Environmental morality and behavior in children and adults

How do environmental morality and sustainable behavior emerge in childhood? We examined individuals’ moral judgments of environmental actions and their observed sustainable behavior in an environmental trade-off task in a sample of N = 555 young adults (Study 1) and N = 45 children ages 3–10 (Study 2). We show that both children and adults viewed pro-environmental behavior positively and environmental harm negatively—even if the action was sanctioned by an authority figure; however, both children’s and adults’ judgments of actions impacting other people were stronger than judgments of actions impacting the environment. Among children, negative judgments of environmental harm strengthened with age, as did their preference to befriend a pro-environmental character. Sustainable behavior was associated with judgments of environmental harm among adults, but with judgments of pro-environmental actions among children. These findings point to both developmental continuity and change in environmental morality and behavior.

Obedience

This chapter discusses the life and work of Stanley Milgrim, who created an electrical shock box to see how far the average person would go to appease an authority figure. In his study, the majority of participants followed instructions to the end, putting aside their own reservations about what was ethical and right. Milgrim discovered that obedience could be expected in situations with a legitimate authority figure, established obligations, worthy goals, vague ethical guidelines, limited time to contemplate, and binary decisions. Seeing that these same traits characterize the traditional workplace, questions are raised about whether the average employee can overcome pressures against whistle-blowing and hold their organization accountable for unethical behavior.

Milgram's experiment and gender biases in Indian context

Across every area of our culture, the distinction between influential people and those below them is normal. There are figures of authority who conduct duties every day for us, and yet we are also lazy. In this paper, participants face the same order but of two distinct individuals-figures ofauthority or ordinary citizens-to test the difference in responses. The responses when the authority figure is specific are also checked. We seek to get the common public to address figures of authority in the Indian sense. Individuals appear to be more likely, without any proofor test, to obey certain rules and submit to certain individuals.This paper will bring out the biases and change in behavior of people, when encountered with authority figures, but of different genders.

How procuratorial judicial and police misconduct can get us foreign researchers in trouble

Police misconduct has soared in recent years particularly in locations that are unable to handle the cases. Procuratorial and judicial misconduct usually follow due to strict correlations between the public entities. This is an abuse of court time and proceedings as well as of members of the public. An authority figure is supposed to provide a duty of care towards everyone regardless of religion, background, profession or word of mouth. Most of these cases are impacted by the mental state of authority figures. A study conducted recently shows that psychopathy is raising in number in certain jobs. It is unsafe to attend court nowadays due to continuous miscarriages of justice. How could someone who was a victim of assault by a police officer simply for rejecting be convicted of a similar violent crime? And what are behaviours that identify misconduct at those high levels?

On Note-Taking

<p>Note-taking, or copying quickly and accurately the material that the professor puts on the blackboard, is the predominate – and preferred – student activity in college-level mathematics classrooms. This activity is herein investigated in relation to the following eleven topics in the constructivist theory of mathematics education: student-centered environment, the professor as an authority figure, dialogue and participant activities, personal autonomy, self-reliance, real math, interconnected cognitive spaces, metacognition, assessment, interpersonal relations and social values. In each case, it is found that the activity of taking notes is not compatible with the constructivist position on these topics. A few remarks are also made regarding note-taking in more general, non-constructivist settings.</p>