Organizational Logic Research Articles

Parties vs. partisans: the real contest about what memes mean in election campaigns

ABSTRACT This article examines the different use of internet memes between political party organisations and partisan spaces. We analyse the relationship between organisational logics and memes as a genre characterised by participation. We conduct a mixed-methods analysis of the internet memes posted by five Australian political parties, their youth branches, and partisan meme spaces during the 2022 Australian federal election. We identify three styles of memetic content created by political parties and partisans: professional, generic, and participatory. We argue that these different kinds of meme each relate to particular organisational logics, with the hierarchical structures of professional election campaigns largely hollowing out the participatory potential of internet memes in both production and form.

Distributional coding of associative learning in discrete populations of midbrain dopamine neurons

Midbrain dopamine neurons are thought to play key roles in learning by conveying the difference between expected and actual outcomes. Recent evidence suggests diversity in dopamine signaling, yet it remains poorly understood how heterogeneous signals might be organized to facilitate the role of downstream circuits mediating distinct aspects of behavior. Here, we investigated the organizational logic of dopaminergic signaling by recording and labeling individual midbrain dopamine neurons during associative behavior. Our findings show that reward information and behavioral parameters are not only heterogeneously encoded but also differentially distributed across populations of dopamine neurons. Retrograde tracing and fiber photometry suggest that populations of dopamine neurons projecting to different striatal regions convey distinct signals. These data, supported by computational modeling, indicate that such distributional coding can maximize dynamic range and tailor dopamine signals to facilitate specialized roles of different striatal regions.

Navigating Public Service and Profit-Making Mandates: The Case of the Daily Graphic Newspaper

ABSTRACT This study examines how Ghana’s Daily Graphic, a public newspaper operating as a limited liability company, balances its public service mandate with its economic rationality. The case study combined data from interviews with the newspaper’s reporters, editors, managers, and advertising agency executives with a study of official documents and analysis of newshole versus advertisement space allocation. The findings reveal the complicated nature of media management and journalistic autonomy in this hybrid public-private setting shaped by its sociopolitical and economic history and current context. Despite its stated public service mandate, the Daily Graphic’s organizational and individual-level economic logic (coupled with its advertiser–client relations) informs its operations and news practices. Also, contrary to the Daily Graphic’s stated 60:40 newshole to advertisement ratio, the newspaper consistently allocates more space to advertisements than news. We discuss the theoretical implications and recommend how news media can balance their economic motives and public service roles.

Ethical challenges from a problem-solving intervention with workplace involvement: a qualitative study among employees with common mental disorders, first-line managers, and rehabilitation coordinators

ABSTRACT Purpose This study aims to explore ethical challenges potentially arising from a problem-solving intervention with workplace involvement (PSI-WPI) in primary health care (with first-line manager involvement) for employees on sickness absence due to common mental disorders. Methods A qualitative design guided by the theoretical framework for systematic identification of ethical aspects of healthcare technologies. Semi-structured interviews were performed with coordinators (n = 6), employees (n = 13), and first-line managers (n = 8). Reflexive thematic analysis was used to analyse and interpret themes. Results A main theme was identified “the workplace and healthcare hold different organizational value logics” and four sub-themes: “the PSI-WPI challenged the organizational goals and values of the workplace and healthcare”, “the PSI-WPI challenged organizational values on fairness”, “the PSI-WPI challenged the professional roles of first-line managers and rehabilitation coordinators” and “the PSI-WPI introduced a need for the employee to juggle the employee and patient roles”. Conclusion Different organizational value logics, values, and goals can introduce ethical challenges. We advise clarifying stakeholders’ roles and preparing employees and managers for the return to work process by providing sufficient information. The ethical challenges and suggested measures to minimize them, should be considered when planning return to work interventions that involve several stakeholders.

Global Forms in Bolaño’s 2666: Genre, Race, Capital

ABSTRACT Roberto Bolaño’s posthumously published 2666 is a novel split into five parts without a clear logic of organization. I argue that its unity lies in the way each section takes up and then dissolves the conventions of an Euro-American genre, negating its usual organization of meaning and therefore relation to history. I argue that these genres are structures of experience which decompose in confrontation with the colonial destruction of life. Since there is no single received literary form that adequately represents the transformations of racial violence, Bolaño negates a procession of genres as a way of testifying to the complex matrix of power, death and revolt in the contemporary world. Subsequently, I demonstrate my interpretation with a reading of Book I, “The Part about the Critics”, as an academic novel. This genre has historically represented the world of an academic elite institutionally sheltered from the movements of history. Bolaño rewrites Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” as an allegory of colonial mining to stage the reemergence of slavery in the form of the university discourse.

Disinformation-for-Hire as Everyday Digital Labor: Introduction to the Special Issue

This introduction for the special issue “Disinformation-for-Hire as Everyday Digital Labor” carves out a specific area of inquiry within the ever-growing field of disinformation studies, with its sharp focus on the commercial transactions, organizational logics, and entrepreneurial practices that propel the production of disinformation. Inspired by traditions of political economy, media production studies, and everyday life approaches, this framework draws analytical focus to (1) the slow-burn horror of disinformation as everyday digital labor; (2) the diverse industries and workers engaged in disinformation production; and (3) regulatory areas beyond social media content policy and platform-centric accountability—especially relevant in the Global Majority context. Furthermore, this essay discusses how digital labor studies need to engage more directly with the ways disinformation thrives in the gray in-betweens of formal/informal and licit/illicit digital economies. The essays in our collection mobilize “disinformation-for-hire” as a valuable analytical frame that lays bare disinformation as a product of commercial and political complicities in the late capitalist arrangement of transnational digital industries.

Coordination matters –Territorial governance in innovation clusters: Comparison of Cité Biotech (Canada) and Polepharma (France)

This paper investigates the territorial governance mechanisms of proximity-based cluster agglomerations and organized proximity-based cluster communities. We argue that the territorial governance mechanisms of clusters consist of the locations of members, the organizational logics, and the roles of institutional intermediaries. Based on the compared case studies of Cité Biotech (Canada) and Polepharma (France), we address the similarities of both types of clusters in terms of local agglomeration, diversity of cluster members, and institutional intermediaries’ roles as brokers and facilitators. We also highlight their differences in external pipelines, logic of belonging, and intermediaries’ roles as mediators, orchestrators, and innovators in the cluster community. Finally, we conclude with the strategic implications for innovation cluster territorial governance.

A Study on the Internal Logic and Governance Effectiveness of Platform-Based Organizations from the Perspective of Digital Governance

Abstract This paper first constructs a basic framework for digital governance of platform-type organizations and explores the application of digital governance of platform-type organizations and the social governance process from the three dimensions of the logic of efficiency, the logic of legitimacy, and the logic of social relations. Then, the driving elements of digital governance of platform-based organizations are studied using the fsQCA method and QCA analysis, and the influence of social synergy and people’s participation on the effectiveness of digital governance of platform-based organizations is analyzed. The results show that attention allocation, social governance resources, digital governance capacity, social digital environment, cultural openness, peer competition pressure, and innovation environment need to reach at least 94.5%, 79.53%, 75.4%, 81.5%, 77.5%, 78.35%, and 78.33% of the social governance quality bottleneck level, respectively. This research paper explores the drivers and influencers of platform governance performance, which helps to identify the patterns of platform operations.

From Individual to Population: Circuit Organization of Pyramidal Tract and Intratelencephalic Neurons in Mouse Sensorimotor Cortex.

The sensorimotor cortex participates in diverse functions with different reciprocally connected subregions and projection-defined pyramidal neuron types therein, while the fundamental organizational logic of its circuit elements at the single-cell level is still largely unclear. Here, using mouse Cre driver lines and high-resolution whole-brain imaging to selectively trace the axons and dendrites of cortical pyramidal tract (PT) and intratelencephalic (IT) neurons, we reconstructed the complete morphology of 1,023 pyramidal neurons and generated a projectome of 6 subregions within the sensorimotor cortex. Our morphological data revealed substantial hierarchical and layer differences in the axonal innervation patterns of pyramidal neurons. We found that neurons located in the medial motor cortex had more diverse projection patterns than those in the lateral motor and sensory cortices. The morphological characteristics of IT neurons in layer 5 were more complex than those in layer 2/3. Furthermore, the soma location and morphological characteristics of individual neurons exhibited topographic correspondence. Different subregions and layers were composed of different proportions of projection subtypes that innervate downstream areas differentially. While the axonal terminals of PT neuronal population in each cortical subregion were distributed in specific subdomains of the superior colliculus (SC) and zona incerta (ZI), single neurons selectively innervated a combination of these projection targets. Overall, our data provide a comprehensive list of projection types of pyramidal neurons in the sensorimotor cortex and begin to unveil the organizational principle of these projection types in different subregions and layers.

Same position, different roles? How professional, organizational, and public policy logics shape frontline managers’ role conceptions

ABSTRACT This article integrates street-level bureaucracy and institutional logics theory to investigate how co-existing institutional logics shape frontline managers’ understanding of their managerial role. Based on 21 narrative interviews with managing medical doctors from 11 Danish public hospitals, the analysis shows that, although their formal positions are identical on paper, individual frontline managers understand their role in surprisingly different ways. The article contributes to extant scholarship by demonstrating that co-existing professional, organizational, and public policy logics are not only sources of cross-pressure; they also constitute important resources that allow frontline managers to conceptualize and enact different versions of their managerial role.

Leadership styles, collaborative integrative behavior and ambidexterity in university research groups

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to understand the influence of the transformational, transactional and laissez-faire leadership styles and collaborative integrative behavior of the team with respect to organizational ambidexterity (the combination of exploration and exploitation learning) in university research groups.Design/methodology/approachFrom a survey conducted with a sample of 506 researchers, members of 165 research groups, working in an emerging economy, a multiple regression model analysis was performed.FindingsFindings of this study provide evidence that the coordinator's transformational leadership and the collaborative integrative behavior of the team positively influence organizational ambidexterity of research groups. Transactional leadership and laissez-faire style do not show any significant influence.Originality/valueThis study addresses the lack of knowledge regarding organizational learning in research groups to explore and exploit knowledge through research result transfer processes based on the organizational ambidexterity logic in higher education institutions (HEIs) from emerging economies. The study aims to contribute to the literature on leadership styles and ambidexterity in HEIs in emerging economies, particularly in Latin America, where there is still a scarcity of research on the attributes of effective leadership.

Motivating, developing and retaining talent through job enrichment: an exploration of “side-of-desk” projects in a corporate environment

PurposeGlobal talent shortages, new skill demand and rising numbers of unfilled posts are fuelling an increasingly challenging job market, exacerbated by economic uncertainty and transformational digital change. Seeking creative solutions in response, the authors examine talent management’s (TM) theoretical and conceptual foundations, specifically the identification and selection of talent and TM programme design to explore the challenges and benefits of side-of-desk projects as interventions.Design/methodology/approachTaking an inductive qualitative approach, questionnaires, focus groups and semi-structured interviews gathered data from three employee groups in a UK digital communications organisation.FindingsThe authors reveal inconsistencies in the definition and selection of talent, highlighting programme quality challenges to expose a direct correlation between participant experience and motivation and retention, along with the longer-term challenges of balancing talented human capital, shareholder expectations and sustainable workforce resourcing.Originality/valueThe authors' research extends existing knowledge concerning the effect of organisational culture, context and workforce demands upon TM programmes, providing theoretical and practical implications for leaders and policymakers in designing enrichment activities to motivate, develop and retain talent. The authors make recommendations to inform the future design of TM programmes, revealing new opportunities to develop hidden talent and presenting a realistic and sustainable toolkit for future practice in the form of an organisational logic model.

Institutional hybridisation in Swedish public sector development cooperation

AbstractWhile the concept of hybridisation (blending of different organisational forms, logics, or identities) in public administration has gained traction, its interplay with principal‐agent dynamics, especially within development cooperation, remains underexplored. Recent shifts towards the “whole‐of‐society” paradigm in Swedish development cooperation introduce complexities in the inter‐organisational dynamics between actors involved. However, our understanding of how these dynamics influence the manifestation of hybridisation in everyday practices is limited. Drawing on the development cooperation experience of Swedish national authorities and data collected from interviews, focus group discussions, and archival documents, this study identifies the interplaying dynamics of three coexisting logics (managerialist, collaborative, and developmental), and two types of hybridisation (specialisation‐centric and integration‐centric). These findings shed light on the challenges and opportunities the inter‐organisational dynamics induce for translating the “whole‐of‐society” policy paradigm into development practice and outcomes. The study's theoretical and practical implications for hybridisation in public administration and development studies are discussed.

"Social question" in political philosophy of N.A. Berdyaev, S.N. Bulgakov and S.L. Frank: comparative analysis of concepts

The difference in organizational forms in social policy is caused by different economic and political reasons and different political and philosophical approaches to social problems. The hierarchy of values defines opinions on the social question and ideas about the appropriate architecture of social policy. The decisions that laid the foundations for social policy in Europe were made in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and their logic resembles the philosophy of the “Christian socialism” most. The purpose of the article is to identify and compare the attitude of Russian authors who were closest to Christian socialism towards the social question and their approaches to solving it. The key works of the authors on the social question were studied. The comparative historical approach, hermeneutics, discourse analysis, and institutional analysis were used. All authors tend to problematize both the social question and its' solutions, rather than offer their own proposals. All three talk about the importance of human internal development and criticize socialist ideas about environmental determinism and human renewal through mechanical reorganization of the economy. All authors moved from Marxism to its criticism, although Berdyaev's views shifted in his later works to the left, to the most radical position of the three thinkers, to the conviction that capitalism has to be abolished, which he blames for oppression and exploitation. Bulgakov sympathizes with the logic of economic organization in socialism, but considers it possible to change economic relations while maintaining the political system. Frank is convinced that limited social reforms within the framework of a market economy are sufficient to provide social support to those in need. Berdyaev and Bulgakov think that justice is the most important value, while Frank thinks that duty is. Berdyaev and Bulgakov follow the key arguments of Christian socialism, and Frank - those of liberal conservatism.

Institutional logics and organizational filters: Differential responses to innovation and environmentalism in China’s cleantech sector

While the institutional logics perspective has been applied to explore various empirical contexts, less is known about how different organizations respond differentially to the pressures that are imposed by logics. We investigate how different organizational attributes moderate institutional logics differently by using a proprietary dataset of venture capital and private equity (VC/PE) investment in cleantech startups in China. We first delineate two distinct logics—market and proenvironmental—that shape VC/PE investment across different regions. Moreover, we identify two organizational attributes—state ownership and business model—which moderate the two logics differently. Whereas the business model of venture investment firms (VC vs. PE) effectively resonates with the market logic, state ownership fails to make a firm more attentive to either of the logics. We contribute to the logics perspective by complementing our understanding of organizational filters, showing the relationships between two distinct logics and cleantech investment, and extending the study of logics to authoritarian contexts.

Designing assessment funds for the bachelor's degree program «art education in visual arts»: problems and solutions

Introduction. The research of tools for assessing the achieved educational results and the effectiveness of the educational process is a necessary mechanism for improving the quality of education and educational systems. Despite the accumulated experience in the formation of funds of assessment tools, the problem of assessing the formation of general professional and professional competencies of students, taking into account the specifics of the educational programme, remains relevant. The aim of the research: the search for procedures, types of tasks and the development of a model of complex FOS, allowing to assess the formation of all levels of competences of professional training of an art-pedagogue, including those reflecting the formation of competence in the field of visual arts. Materials and methods. The research materials were normative documents regulating the design and implementation of higher education programmes; Russian and foreign studies; survey data of 187 teachers of the Herzen State Pedagogical University. Methods: analysis of sources and regulatory documents, survey, quantitative assessment of data (percentages), typical selection. Results. The analysis of normative documents and theoretical sources revealed a contradiction between the need to standardise assessment procedures and the specifics of assessing the competences of an art-pedagogue. The results of the survey of teachers confirm this contradiction: the most acceptable form of objective assessment of competences is an oral test/exam (75.4%), practical assignment (70.1%). Among the main problems of designing assessment funds, teachers highlight the assessment of validity and reliability of the Funds of Assessment Tools (57.2%) and the possibility of assessing the competence as a whole (54%). The analysis of the research materials allowed the authors to propose a comprehensive model of assessment funds, including structural, content and assessment components. The proposed structure, logic of organisation and types of tasks (tests, professional tasks of artistic and creative disciplines, etc.), including invariant and variant parts of tasks for independent work, are the basis for valid assessment of the formation of all levels of competences, including professional ones, reflecting the specificity of training of art-pedagogues. Conclusion. The results of the analysis, the proposed model, procedures, types of assignments, and the described recommendations can be used in the design of funds of assessment tools for educational programmes of higher education in the context of training an art-pedagogue.

Tingbjerg Changing Diabetes: Experiencing and navigating complexity in a community-based health promotion initiative in a disadvantaged neighborhood in Copenhagen, Denmark

Abstract Background As a response to the complexity of reducing health inequity there has been a rise in community-based health promotion interventions adhering to the principles of complexity thinking. Such interventions often work with adaptive practice and constitute themselves in complex webs of collaborations between multiple stakeholders. However, few efforts have been made to articulate how complexity can be navigated and addressed by stakeholders in practice. This study explores how partners experience and navigate complexity in the partnership behind Tingbjerg Changing Diabetes (TCD), a community-based intervention addressing health and social development in the disadvantaged neighborhood of Tingbjerg in urban Copenhagen. The study thus contributes with important insights on the role of context and how it contributes complexity in community-based health promotion. Methods The study is based on 18 months of ethnographic action research in the local community where the first author participated in the development and implementation of one of TCD's activities, a community restaurant, alongside partner representatives and residents, including participant observations and 9 in-depth interviews with key partner representatives. Findings Findings show that complexity in TCD can be characterized by unpredictability in actions and outcomes, undefined purpose and direction, and differing organizational logics. Factors that support partners’ navigation in complexity include connectivity, embracing a flexible intervention framework, autonomy, and quick responsiveness. Conclusions The study showcases the interdependency between the intervention and the context of the disadvantaged neighborhood of Tingbjerg and encourages stakeholders and researchers to embrace the messiness of complexity, and to pay attention to ways through which messiness and unpredictability can be handled.

Mass Media's Role in Terrorism: The Issue of Frame Sending and Terrorist Communication

Abstract The propaganda videos of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) became a widespread issue throughout the Western world between 2014 and 2017. The problem was not that the videos went viral on social media but that people learned about them and their content through the news. Each ISIL video posted on social media provoked some kind of media reaction that generated public attention. Given that a common framing effect leads people to think through the frames offered to them, journalists and media outlets can pick up frames and send them via their reporting. Based on a qualitative content analysis of news articles in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, this article shows that media outlets often sent ISIL’s frames and discussed related problems using the frames set by ISIL. Therefore, the media played a crucial role in the logic of this terrorist organization and its communication strategy by sending specific strategic communicator frames to the public. However, this analysis reveals that media framing changed over time: reporting became more balanced and, in some cases, even contested ISIL’s frames.

A game of futures: the strategy of scenarios in a Danish medical company

ABSTRACT While the future has gained increasing attention in organizational research, the minutiae and intricacies of how organizational actors produce and enact the future remain little explored. In this article, we present an ethnographic study of a future-making practice called ‘the strategy of scenarios’ in a Danish medical company. We propose the concept of technologies of prefiguration to capture how such practices prefigure the future so as to make it actionable. Our study shows that this unfolds as a ‘game of futures’ in which prefiguration depends not only on an outward orientation towards societal developments, but equally on an inward orientation towards the political economy of the organization. Although rational reasoning forms part of this game, futures are established and negotiated through arational techniques of enchantment focused on ‘selling futures’. This challenges rationalist ideas of future-making, demonstrating the heterogenous, more-than-rational processes and distinct organizational logics by which futures are shaped.

Dogs Urinating on the 1623 Folio: The Jaggard Press’s Dionysus Ornament in Context

ABSTRACT This case study of the Dionysus ornament illustrates how the 1623 Shakespearean folio carries with it echoes of previous folio works as it reinterprets this image within its own context. The paper establishes the other Jaggard Press titles in which the headpiece appears to explore how these different contexts draw out the image’s semiotic potential. It notes an extreme uptick in use in Crooke’s Mikrokosmographia, an anatomical work in which urination and ejaculation feature prominently. Operating in tandem with the 1623 prefatory materials, the headpiece participates in the visual organisational logic of the Folio, structures the Folio’s establishment of generic variety, and introduces the volume-wide rhetorical strategy of reading Englishness within a global context. The woodcut’s synchronously urinating dogs also suggest a commentary on the communal bodily experience of live theatre. Having noted ways early modern printed folio projects can be mutually citational through ornaments, the paper discusses how the Shakespearean volume positions itself within the English inflection of classical single-author collected drama through the associations with Dionysus, patron god of drama, and Ben Jonson’s 1616 Workes. The conclusion considers the Second Folio’s adoption of the headpiece as part of the 1623 Folio’s iconic look.