Dominant Perspective Research Articles

Staffing effectiveness across countries: An institutional perspective

AbstractThis study draws on institutional theory to investigate why and how staffing effectiveness varies across countries. Utilising data from multiple sources (Cranfield Network on Comparative Human Resource Management [CRANET], Global Leadership and Organisational Behaviour Effectiveness [GLOBE], World Economic Forum [WEF], Transparency International, Tightness‐Looseness Index), it covers 2,918 organisations in 11 countries. Extending earlier research on comparative staffing that focuses on cultural or regulatory differences separately, our findings show that companies in different countries implement staffing practices in line with their normative (i.e., cultural), regulatory, and cognitive institutions. A second key finding shows that institutionally embedded staffing practices are associated with organisational turnover, thus challenging dominant universalist perspectives on staffing effectiveness. Finally, we shed light on a central yet understudied boundary condition of contextual perspectives on staffing by identifying the strength of institutional pressures (i.e., societal tightness‐looseness) as a moderator of the relationships between national institutions, staffing, and turnover.

Towards Dialogic Metaphors of Learning – from Socialization to Authoring

The background of the article is an interest in theories of learning and the metaphors of learning they build on and propagate. The basic argument is that the discursive construction of learning plays a central role in theoretical perspectives in research but also in discussions of societal issues in a wider sense. An initial observation is that current metaphors of learning oscillate between emphasizing socializing/reproductive dimensions and perspectives which foreground new-thinking transformations of existing collective knowledge; the culturally given. Hence, our aim is to explore conceptions of learning underpinning dominant theoretical perspectives as behaviorism, cognitivism, pragmatism, and various sociocultural traditions, in the light of this theoretical tension. Our conclusion is that the views of communication and learning inherent to the radical dialogic perspective on communication that stresses the unfinalizable nature of knowing, offered by Bakhtin, add to our understanding of how learning may be conceptualized in contemporary society. Such a dialogic perspective, emphasizing open-ended agency, plurality of voices, and performative potentials of creatively expressing opinions when learning from each other, offers a perspective on learning worth considering in times of diversity, unpredictable risks, and the need for critical self-reflexivity.

Institutional Ethnography and Exploring the Social

There is a new trend taking place in Egypt over the last decades that is attempting to establish a new culture of development arguing for a knowledge-based development of Egyptian society. Consequently, Egyptian society has begun to witness the emergence of different policies, national strategies, and mega development projects that try to translate these policies into reality. But the question that remains is what type of knowledge, and in which context, should be developed? In this vein, this research serves two purposes. First, it contests the notion of knowledge while using a new method of inquiry that creates an opening for an alternative-more-humanized sociology that opposes the dominant sociological perspective that studies people as quantitative objects. The research uses institutional ethnography to provide new-actor-related insights and interpretations while exploring the social momentum within Egyptian society. Second, the research seeks to investigate the relationship between the desire to transform Egypt into a knowledge-based society through the knowledge precincts projects, following the global agenda, and the creation of a political, social, and cultural environment that allows knowledge to thrive, leading to more social justice and equity. In the end, the research asks: What is the definition of ‘knowledge' provided by the Egyptian government through its different developmental policies? How does it function inside the knowledge precincts projects? It also asks: Does Egypt's commitment to large scale programs through knowledge precincts reveal an authoritarian inclination?

A study of ecocriticism on the representations of ecological conditions in Rawa Gambut

This study aims to determine the representation of the ecological crisis found in the Rawa Gambut drama script written by Conie Sema. This qualitative descriptive research used an ecocritical approach. The data are in the form of words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs that contain information on ecological conditions. Textual analysis was used to examine the data. Data were collected through reading and note-taking techniques with heuristic and hermeneutic reading. The results showed the themes within the drama script as an ecological crisis in Indonesia due to unfriendly environmental development policies. The representation of the ecological crisis are: 1) ideal ecological conditions are maintained if the utilization pattern is wise and responsible, 2) the ecological crisis is closely related to human intervention, 3) humans are the main cause of ecological disasters, 4) there is a disregard for environmental wisdom principles in the use of sustainable living space, 5) the moral message is the importance of awareness to maintain environmental sustainability, and finally, 6) the author offers an ecocentric paradigm to oppose the ideology of anthropocentrism, which is still the dominant perspective in the natural resource management. This study has implications, along with the importance of educational efforts, to raise awareness of environmental sustainability through drama scripts.

Engaging with Transformative Paradigms in Mental Health.

When graduates of Australian social work courses embark on a career in mental health, the systems they enter are complex, fragmented and evolving. Emerging practitioners will commonly be confronted by the loneliness, social exclusion, poverty and prejudice experienced by people living with mental distress; however, social work practice may not be focused on these factors. Instead, in accordance with the dominant biomedical perspective, symptom and risk management may predominate. Frustration with the limitations evident in this approach has seen the United Nations call for the transformation of mental health service delivery. Recognising paradigmatic influences on mental health social work may lead to a more considered enactment of person centred, recovery and rights-based approaches. This paper compares and contrasts influences of neo-liberalism, critical theory, human rights and post-structuralism on mental health social work practice. In preparing social work practitioners to recognise the influence of, and work more creatively with, intersecting paradigms, social work educators strive to foster a transformative approach to mental health practice that straddles discourses.

Moving Beyond the Question of Education or Exploitation: The Dynamic Experiences of Black Male Student-Athletes

When discussing the Black male student-athlete, dominant perspectives argue that they are being educated while another perspective argues that this population is being exploited. This article moves beyond the question of whether Black male student-athletes are being educated or exploited as we argue that both can happen. Utilizing Critical Race Theory, we highlight dominant perspectives about Black male student-athletes as well as offer an analysis of their experiences. The article provides the presentation of a fictive counterstory that portrays the notion that this population can experience education and exploitation. We conclude by offering a discussion about approaches that institutions and athletic departments can take to better serve Black male student-athletes, including adopting the Excellence Beyond Athletics approach (Cooper, 2016).

Deconstructing theperiphery: Korean degree-seeking students’everyday transformationsin and throughIndia

According to dominant perspectives on educational mobilities, India is not an obvious study destination choice and more so not a favoured one for students from South Korea. The aim of this paper is to question this prevalent discourse by drawing attention to the small-sized but rather steady flow of Korean students who have gone to Indian universities for both short-term and long-term educational programmes. Obviously, this unique but underexplored phenomenon is at odds with the prevailing episteme surrounding international student mobilities (ISM) focused on the ‘world-class’ imaginary and East–West, South–North binaries. By presenting empirical data on and from Korean degree-seeking students in India, this study offers fertile understanding of student experiences and imaginings of transformations – those that take place in what have been typecast as ‘peripheral’ study destinations such as India. Drawing on critical scholarship on ISM, this paper seeks to find out what changes and shifts are generated in and through the periphery as a place of study. In particular, it asks: what discourses on transformation do students construct as they experience, imagine and desire changes in their lives through their everyday encounters with and negotiation of India? How are these transformations articulated and how do these articulations, in turn, manifest (de)constructed views of place, of self and of others? And, lastly, how do these narratives shape the broader discourse on educational mobilities and study abroad? In approaching these questions, this paper introduces diverse discourses on ‘everyday transformations’ articulated by students through comparison, contradiction and conjecture.

Cost-Effectiveness of Endovascular Aneurysm Repair Versus Open Surgical Repair for Ruptured Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms: A Systematic Review

Context: If the diameter of an aneurysm increases by more than 6 cm, the risk of aortic rupture increases by 50% within 10 years. Therefore, rupture of aneurysm, which is usually asymptomatic, can lead to severe complications and increase the risk of mortality. The current study aimed to systematically review studies comparing the cost-effective endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR) and open surgical repair (OSR) as the primary treatment options for patients with ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs). Methods: An electronic search was conducted in PubMed, EMBASE, Science Direct, Scopus, and other scientific economic databases. Relevant articles were searched from 1999 to 2020 using keywords, such as “abdominal aortic aneurysm”, “endovascular”, “open surgery”, “rupture”, “economic evaluation”, and “cost-effectiveness”. The quality of articles was assessed using the Quality of Health Economic studies (QHES) checklist; finally, five articles were included in this review. Results: The results of the QHES checklist showed that most studies had a good quality. A third-party payer’s perspective was the dominant perspective in all selected studies, comparing EVAR with OSR. All studies considered the direct medical costs and did not disclose any discount rates, except for one study, reporting a 3.5% discount rate. Almost all included studies found EVAR to be a cost-effective intervention; only one study concluded that EVAR, with a cost-effectiveness ratio of €424,542, was not the best treatment option. Conclusion: In patients with ruptured AAAs, the EVAR intervention improved the quality of life, decreased the mortality rate, and shortened the hospital stay as compared to OSR.

Introduction to the special issue: No longer second-order? Explaining the European Parliament elections of 2019

The dominant perspective of European Parliament (EP) elections is that these are second-order national elections where little is at stake. This Special Issue asks whether this perspective is still valid in view of increased politicisation of European integration and in view of the higher turnout levels at the last EP elections. This introduction provides a general framework for the Special Issue and reflects upon some of its main findings. We argue that EP elections can only be considered first-order if they are primarily about the policies, rather than the polity. Some of the contributions in this Special Issue suggest that this is indeed the case. We reflect upon this and argue that there are reasons to expect that EP elections will become first-order elections in the future.

Enhancing Planning Behavior during Retirement: Effects of a Time Perspective Based Training Intervention

Time perspective is a psychological construct that reflects the way people view time. Two schools of thought exist that theorize how this temporal mindset affects behavior—dominant and balanced. We applied dominant and balanced time perspective frameworks separately to two versions of an online intervention that aimed to promote goal-setting and accumulation of essential retirement resources (health, physical, social, cognitive and emotional) and compared effects with a control group. The effectiveness of the intervention was tested with 109 US retirees using a 4-wave design over a 6-month period. Linear mixed models showed an increase in health goal striving for the balanced group at posttraining and gains were maintained at the 3-month time point. Both training groups demonstrated an increase in the number and specificity of goals at posttraining and 3-months. Applying a time perspective framework to an online planning intervention for retirees shows promise in promoting planning for retirement resources. Practical implications, limitations, and suggestions for developing future interventions are discussed.

The life-cycle of engagement: towards a divergent critical HR/pluralist conceptualization

ABSTRACT Since Kahn's (1990) pioneering work, the concept of engagement has attracted considerable interest globally. With expansion is a desire for conceptual convergence. Yet different disciplines (work psychology, HRM/D, industrial/employee relations), theoretical approaches (unitarism and pluralism) and research methods (positivist/quantitative and interpretivist/qualitative) create divergence. I consider the life-cycle of engagement, as an ‘umbrella’ construct, to make sense of convergence and divergence in HRD. Kahn advocated multi-level, case study research to better understand engagement yet this has been overshadowed by a dominant narrow, unitarist and quantitative perspective. To explore tensions between diverse conceptualisations, I conducted a narrative review. This identified theoretical, methodological and practical implications of unitarist and pluralist perspectives. I argue engagement needs to be conceptualised from a critical HR, pluralist perspective, and present a multi-level analytical framework to assist this endeavour. I propose a new direction for engagement research. This more situationally-sensitive, employee-centred approach recognises discretionary behaviours flow from the competency of HR(D) practitioners and line managers in balancing efficiency, equity and voice within the contested work context. Such a critical HR/pluralist approach might address some of the criticisms charged at HRD professionals of being removed from work-place realities.

Deconstructing innercirclism: a critical exploration of multimodal discourse in an English as a foreign language textbook

ABSTRACT English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers and students are often pressured to use generic, globally published textbooks featuring ‘inner-circle’ social realities. While some studies look at specific instances of content that socially marginalizes their intended audiences, few attempt comprehensive examinations of the multimodal ensembles on each opened page. Inspired by critical discourse studies that problematize some textbooks as vehicles for social injustice, this study features a novel, critical multimodal analysis process (CMAP) to look closer at the discourse in a popular textbook, asking: (1) What power relations and ideologies are harbored in the multimodal discourse? (2) What dominant narratives do the lessons appear to teach? After analyzing six units of lessons in a popular, globally published EFL textbook, CMAP reveals dominant inner-circle perspectives and othering, to which this study collectively labels innercirclism. Considering globally published EFL textbooks continue to be a popular choice for academic programs in expanding circle nations, the implications of this study suggest innercirclism diminishes the pedagogical vision of the teacher to ensure the value of their students’ investment in English language learning.

The Existential‐Phenomenological Situation of Ideological Extremism

AbstractIn this essay Steven Zhao provides an existential‐phenomenological account of radicalization and extremism. This elaboration is in response to what Zhao perceives to be the two problematically dominant perspectives of discourse on radicalization: the ideational perspective and the psychological perspective. The ideational perspective is risky because it offers an incomplete understanding of radicalization by presuming that it is the expression of cognitive errors. The psychological perspective, on the other hand, excessively individualizes radicalization as an exceptional psychological aberration that can riskily result in instructivistic preventative approaches in education. Zhao proposes the existential‐phenomenological elaboration as a supplemental articulation of radicalization that has potential to address the issues associated with these two dominant perspectives. According to this elaboration, ideological extremism is a relational phenomenon that constitutes a “dysfunctional” structure of intersubjectivity. Applying interrelated notion of subjectivity and intersubjectivity illuminates radicalization in a way that both widens the scope of ideational attributions/corrections and transcends the individualistic confines of psychopathology/psychological resilience. Ultimately, this elaboration seeks to enrich educational approaches to addressing radicalization such that preventative strategies are informed by the relational foundations intrinsic to both cognitive and psychological motivations of extremist behaviors and beliefs.

On the Functions of Work: A Meta-Analysis of Jahoda’s Latent Deprivation Model

The necessity of work for psychological well-being is a topic that has generated much research. Two dominant perspectives on this issue are the agency restriction model, which posits that it is the manifest (i.e., financial) function of work that is most necessary for well-being, and the latent deprivation model, which instead points to the latent functions of work as most necessary. These two models suggest that work’s absence in unemployment is pernicious for different reasons. Thus, the current meta-analysis examines the question of work’s importance for well-being according to these two models, examining the difference in access to the latent and manifest functions between persons who are unemployed versus employed as well as the association between the functions and well-being. We find that unemployment indeed deprives persons of access to each function, and, moreover, the deprivation of these functions is associated with decreased well-being. However, the results of this meta-analysis suggest that both perspectives must be considered together rather than separately. We discuss further implications of these results.

Assessing and Extending the Unique Contributions of Chinese Management Studies

The field of Chinese management studies has grown tremendously over the past four decades. Despite an increasing interest in uniquely Chinese phenomena, Western management theories have long been the dominant perspectives for understanding Chinese firms and managers. Yet, the explanatory potential of our current theoretical toolkit remains unelucidated in non-Western contexts. Through a matched-samples meta-analysis, which integrates matching techniques into meta-analysis, we compare the mean effect sizes for five classic Western management theories (i.e. institutional theory, resource dependence theory, the resource-based view, agency theory, transaction cost theory) on 452 matched samples drawn from 1,028 U.S. and Chinese studies. Results show that, contrary to popular belief, Chinese firms (a) are less responsive to coercive and mimetic pressures yet more subject to normative forces, (b) are less focused on establishing relational ties when faced with resource dependencies and transaction costs, (c) are better at managing strategic resources for profit, and (d) respond better to pay incentives than their U.S. counterparts. To understand the specificities of Chinese management practices, we furthermore conduct a focused review of the emerging literature on China-endemic explanations: political institutional imprinting theory, a specifically Chinese take on sustainable development, and a China-specific theory of corporate governance.

The value of including employees: a pluralist perspective on sustainable HRM

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to advance a conceptualization of sustainable HRM that builds on scholarship focusing on the pluralistic nature of human resource management. The paper seeks to advance the promise of sustainable HRM as an alternative to HRM scholarship that adopts a unitarist frame of reference.Design/methodology/approachThe paper draws on a variety of HRM-related literatures to offer new insights about what a pluralist perspective on sustainable HRM from the perspective of employees would look like and what it would accomplish, and in so doing allow sustainable HRM to become socially sustainable.FindingsTaking a pluralistic perspective is essential for making the concept of sustainable HRM more distinct and robust. Sustainable HRM can offer a challenge to the dominant unitarist perspective on the employment relationship, focusing the attention of researchers on the extent to which employment practices benefit both employers and employees while contributing to social sustainability outside of the employment context.Originality/valueThis paper adds analyses of pluralism and unitarism to the current literature on sustainable HRM while also focusing attention on how sustainable HRM might be more robustly conceptualized and also more normative in its orientation.

Comparing approaches in urban morphology

ABSTRACT Comparing different approaches to urban form has been acknowledged as one of the most important lines of research in urban morphology. This challenge has been reinforced over the last decade. While some studies compare different morphological perspectives, others attempt to go one step further, establishing composite views. In both cases, there is still a need to undertake more systematic research supported by rigorous comparisons of findings. Against this background, the paper seeks to demonstrate the benefits of an integrated morphological approach for a better understanding of human settlements. For that purpose, the article compares the separate application of three dominant perspectives on urban form (historico-geographical, process typological and configurational approaches) with an integrated view and methodology, the so-called MAP – Morphological Analysis and Prescription. MAP is framed by a ground-breaking understanding of morphological zoning, typology, and configuration. The comparison is developed in a case study in Oporto, Portugal.

Between the Peechil-kamra and the Dabusa: Mapping Worldbuilding and Heterotopic Space on Board the Ibis in Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies

With the steady rise in the exploration of the idea of worldbuilding, studies have extensively researched the production and consumption of fantasy worlds created by animation studios like Disney and Studio Ghibli. However, the idea of worldbuilding remains inadequately studied in the context of South Asian fiction. This paper aims to engage with the thematic ramifications of ideas such as subcreation and worldbuilding by critically examining Sea of Poppies (2008), the first novel in Amitav Ghosh’s “Ibis” trilogy. The prevalent scholarship on this novel has largely romanticised the creation of the ship-community of jahaj-bhais and jahaj-bahens which was forged through the bond of jahaji-nata and have argued how, in the process of subcreating a world for themselves, the characters “transgress the accepted boundaries of race, gender, and caste” and free themselves from the artificial barriers and divisions prevalent on land. However, such a reading privileges the perspective of a few major characters such as Deeti and Paulette, while denying the multiple layers and hierarchies that permeate the physical space of the ship. Taking this as a point of departure, this paper explores through the eyes of a minor character, Jodu, how the dominant utopic narrative of jahaji-nata of Paulette and others may be challenged from within the heterotopic world of the Ibis. By reinforcing the structural inequities of our everyday lives in the subcreated world of the Ibis, Ghosh’s textual imagination constantly subverts the dominant perspective while holding the two worlds in precarious equilibrium.

Interrogating theoretical and empirical approaches to employability in different global regions

AbstractThis special issue expands the scope of a panel presentation at the Society for Research into Higher Education Annual Conference 2019 and makes two identified contributions to the field. First, drawing from existing literature, this introductory paper proposes three categorisations of employability as: outcomes approach, process approach and conceptual approaches. This moves beyond normative conceptualisation of employability from mostly the outcomes approach. The applicability of the categorisation is further enumerated by the diversity of contributions in this special issue that highlights (a) the complexity in the field and (b) the interrelatedness of the categories. Second, the special issue puts together a rarely combined collection of global perspectives on conceptualisations of employability, and insights from research on little studied groups in Western and non‐Western contexts (the UK, Portugal, Australia, the Indo‐Pacific Region, Germany, Kenya and Kazakhstan). The papers, therefore, illustrate the need to widen our scope of understanding employability beyond current dominant perspectives. The broadening that is required in employability discourses is further needed in view of unprecedented disruption brought on higher education during the COVID‐19 pandemic. This suggests the need to rethink our conceptualisations of employability amidst uncertainty and potential disruption to the future of work.

The Existence and Evolution of Business Groups in Emerging Economies: A Selective Review of the Literature

Business Groups and their ubiquitous presence in emerging economies affect the broad patterns of economic performance. The study of such hybrid organizational form has been relevant to various domains such as industrial organization, corporate finance, strategic management, economics and sociology etc. This paper is an attempt to first understand the reason for their dominant presence in emerging markets and then proceeds to review the literature based on the dominant research perspectives of the existing scholarly work.