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Researching the Mechanisms of Gossip in Organizations: From Fly on the Wall to Fly in the Soup

In this paper, I explored how to research a sensitive topic such as gossip in organizations and used a narrative approach to illustrate the methodological and ethical issues that come up when considering a variety of research methods. I first attempted to conduct an ethnographic research on a project group from a Dutch university undergoing a major change. At the very beginning of the project, as a participant observer, I struggled to remain an outsider, or a “fly on the wall.” But as issues of power came into play and access became increasingly problematic, I moved towards the role of an “observing participant.” Therefore, in order to research gossip and some of the hidden dimensions of organizational life, I turned to auto- and self-ethnography as a way to regain access and greater authenticity. While following this route presented its share of ethical and methodological issues, it also provided valuable insights that could be of value to researchers attempting to study sensitive topics such as gossip in organizations. https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol23/iss7/18 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominiquedarmon/

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Researching the Mechanisms of Gossip in Organizations: From Fly on the Wall to Fly in the Soup

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Data literacy for improving governmental performance

Big data analytics received much attention in the last decade and is viewed as one of the next most important strategic resources for organizations. Yet, the role of employees' data literacy seems to be neglected in current literature. The aim of this study is twofold: (1) it develops data literacy as an organization competency by identifying its dimensions and measurement, and (2) it examines the relationship between data literacy and governmental performance (internal and external). Using data from a survey of 120 Dutch governmental agencies, the proposed model was tested using PLS-SEM. The results empirically support the suggested theoretical framework and corresponding measurement instrument. The results partially support the relationship of data literacy with performance as a significant effect of data literacy on internal performance. However, counter-intuitively, this significant effect is not found in relation to external performance.

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Data literacy for improving governmental performance

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Leadership in blended care

A Magnet-related program has been recently adopted in the Netherlands. Support for staff nurses from nurse middle managers (NMMs) is a key component of such a program. A Bourdieusian ethnographic organizational case study in four hospitals in the Netherlands and the United States (Magnet, Magnet-related and non-Magnet) was conducted to explore NMMs’ supporting role behavior. Bourdieus concepts of habitus, dispositions, field and capital guided the analysis. Eight dispositions constitute NMMs habitus. A caring, clinical and scientific disposition enhance NMMs’ capital in particular organizations-as-fields. Further research is necessary to link Magnet (related) program characteristics to various configurations of dispositions of NMMs habitus.

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A circular moonshot

We aim to understand the interaction between shifting organizational field logics and field actors’ responses to reconcile logic plurality and maintain legitimacy through business model innovation. Drawing on a multimethod, longitudinal field study in the fashion industry, we traced how de novo and incumbent firms integrate circular logics in business models (for sustainability) and uncover how productive tensions in field logics lead to experimental spaces for business model innovation. Our findings showed a shift in the discourse on circular logic that diverted attention and resources from materials innovation (e.g. recycling) to business model innovation (e.g. circular business models). By juxtaposing the degree of field logic tension and the degree of business model innovation, we derive four types of business model hybridization responses that actors engaged in to maintain legitimacy – constrained, limited, integrated, and expanded. Our study generates new insights on business models for sustainability as vehicles for organizational field change.

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Series: Practical guidance to qualitative research

In the course of our supervisory work over the years we have noticed that qualitative research tends to evoke a lot of questions and worries, so-called frequently asked questions (FAQs). This series of four articles intends to provide novice researchers with practical guidance for conducting high-quality qualitative research in primary care. By ‘novice’ we mean Master’s students and junior researchers, as well as experienced quantitative researchers who are engaging in qualitative research for the first time. This series addresses their questions and provides researchers, readers, reviewers and editors with references to criteria and tools for judging the quality of qualitative research papers. The first article provides an introduction to this series. The second article focused on context, research questions and designs. The third article focused on sampling, data collection and analysis. This fourth article addresses FAQs about trustworthiness and publishing. Quality criteria for all qualitative research are credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. Reflexivity is an integral part of ensuring the transparency and quality of qualitative research. Writing a qualitative research article reflects the iterative nature of the qualitative research process: data analysis continues while writing. A qualitative research article is mostly narrative and tends to be longer than a quantitative paper, and sometimes requires a different structure. Editors essentially use the criteria: is it new, is it true, is it relevant? An effective cover letter enhances confidence in the newness, trueness and relevance, and explains why your study required a qualitative design. It provides information about the way you applied quality criteria or a checklist, and you can attach the checklist to the manuscript.

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Series: Practical guidance to qualitative research

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Challenges in Building Robust Interventions in Contexts of Poverty

We examine the demise of a multi-stakeholder network that was launched to promote an inclusive dairy market in Ethiopia to better understand why nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) may develop interventions in contexts of poverty that fail to endure after they exit. We identify organizational reflexivity – the capacity to recognize and understand the recursive interplay between an intervention and the local environment – as a key explanatory mechanism for this intervention outcome. Limited reflexivity not only prevented the NGO we studied from properly aligning the intervention with the context (design failures), but also prevented the organization from adjusting its intervention when negative feedback emerged (orchestration failures), which eventually evolved into the demise of the network (maintenance failure). While our study confirms the theoretical premise that NGOs need to contextualize their interventions, we expand current knowledge by highlighting the role of organizational reflexivity in this process. Moreover, by showing how reflexivity deficits can trigger a cascade of failure, especially when intervening in voids where incumbent firms have interests in maintaining the void, our study calls attention to the politicized nature of institutional voids.

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Circular Moonshot: Understanding Shifts in Organizational Field Logics and Business Model Innovation

We aim to understand how actors respond to field logic plurality and maintain legitimacy through business model innovation. Drawing on a longitudinal field study in the fashion industry, we traced how de novo and incumbent firms incorporate circular logics in business models (for sustainability) and uncover how the intersection between issue and exchange fields creates institutional complexity and experimental spaces for business model innovation. Our findings showed a shift in the discourse on circular logic that diverted attention and resources from materials innovation (e.g., recycling) to business model innovation (e.g., circular business models). By juxtaposing institutional complexity and external pressure to maintain legitimacy, we derived four strategic business model innovation responses—preserve, detach, integrate and extend—that illuminate how actors leverage shifting logics and innovate extant business models (for sustainability). We make novel contributions to the literature on organizational fields, business models for sustainability, and business model innovation.

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Circular Moonshot: Understanding Shifts in Organizational Field Logics and Business Model Innovation

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The paradoxes of communication and collaboration in maternity care

Background: Research on maternity care often focuses on factors that prevent good communication and collaboration and rarely includes important stakeholders – parents – as co-researchers. To understand how professionals and parents in Dutch maternity care accomplish constructive communication and collaboration, we examined their interactions in the clinic, looking for “good practice”. Methods: We used the video-reflexive ethnographic method in 9 midwifery practices and 2 obstetric units. Findings: We conducted 16 meetings where participants reflected on video recordings of their clinical interactions. We found that informal strategies facilitate communication and collaboration: “talk work” – small talk and humour – and “work beyond words” – familiarity, use of sight, touch, sound, and non-verbal gestures. When using these strategies, participants noted that it is important to be sensitive to context, to the values and feelings of others, and to the timing of care. Our analysis of their ways of being sensitive shows that good communication and collaboration involves “paradoxical care”, e.g., concurrent acts of “regulated spontaneity” and “informal formalities”. Discussion: Acknowledging and reinforcing paradoxical care skills will help caregivers develop the competencies needed to address the changing demands of health care. The video-reflexive ethnographic method offers an innovative approach to studying everyday work, focusing on informal and implicit aspects of practice and providing a bottom up approach, integrating researchers, professionals and parents. Conclusion: Good communication and collaboration in maternity care involves “paradoxical care” requiring social sensitivity and self-reflection, skills that should be included as part of professional training.

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The paradoxes of communication and collaboration in maternity care

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PhotoReflexivity

This paper describes the development and results of the pedagogical photo-based method PhotoReflexivity. This method is designed to support reflexivity for students in design education, which guides them in better understanding and situating themselves in the outside world. To uncover the value of this method, mixed research methods including iterative prototypes were deployed in real-world learning scenarios with design students. Attitudes, behaviour, and reflexive conversations were analysed, from which design patterns and recommendations were derived. It is argued that PhotoReflexivity fills a gap in design education by aiming for extensive and transformational outcomes associated with reflexivity, which previous research has considered hard to achieve. It does so by providing pragmatic technologies and materials to support 1) sharing and collaboration, and 2) verbalising reflexive thoughts. By facilitating reflexivity, students might become more autonomous and responsible design professionals.

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Researching the Mechanisms of Gossip in Organizations: From Fly on the Wall to Fly in the Soup