Scandinavian Journal of Management最新文献

The paper addresses a history of the present, doing so in relation to UN Sustainable Development Goal #13, that of taking urgent action to combat climate change. It uses key concepts from the circuits of power framework (Clegg 1989; 2023) to do so; notably the idea of social and system integration, adapted from Lockwood (1964). The focus is on the impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on European system integration that is dependent on trade in fossils fuels. The paper begins by a backwards glance at how the Soviet Union disintegrated to become Putin’s Russia, via Gorbachev’s attempts at reforming the basis for social integration (Brown, 1997). It contrasts the social integration of Russia with that of the Western democracies. All of this discussion is preparatory to a consideration of Putin’s paradoxes in invading Ukraine and how the unanticipated consequences of this strategic choice point to an undermining of the basis of Putin’s power. The cost inflation and limiting of gas supplies to Europe by supply chain disruption that have been a consequence of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine provide a massive stimulus for the greening of the global economy’s energy sources, thus undermining the resource based power on which the Russian economy is founded.

Scientific research was introduced in business schools in the mid-1950s to raise the quality of business education as well as to improve actual business practices. Schools expected scientific research to provide a benign and respected path toward improvements, and government support for research and students’ strong interest in studying business brought financial resources and hiring opportunities that made large changes possible. Consequently, hundreds of business schools began urging professors to publish scientific research. Sixty years later, plentiful evidence is showing that scientific research has not brought expected benefits for business operations; on the contrary, business-school research has generated a high percentage of untrustworthy “findings”. This disappointing outcome has six interacting causes: (1) Business schools have expanded by hiring professors who study fundamental topics of economics, psychology, and sociology rather than topics relevant for business practices, so few research findings have been adopted and tested by firms. (2) Instead of evaluating the quality or consequences of research, schools have relied on evaluations by journal editors and reviewers, whose overriding criteria emphasize theory at the expense of practical implications. (3) Editorial evaluations have high error rates because editors and reviewers only know what researchers choose to tell them, and because the complexity of manuscripts causes editors and reviewers to disagree frequently. (4) Schools have incentivized professors by making promotions and job security depend on publishing numerous papers in “prestigious” journals. (5) Many professors have responded to these incentives by engaging in covert practices that make studies unlikely to be supported in replications, and some professors have gone so far as to manufacture fake data. (6) Researchers, editors, and reviewers have largely relied on null-hypothesis statistical significance tests, which are prone to interpret small variations or random errors in data as “significant” findings. Although there are fresh efforts to make research findings more reliable and impactful, the need for further interventions to reform the present knowledge-production system is all too apparent.

To mark the 40th anniversary of the Scandinavian Journal of Management, we explore its becoming in a context where internationalism is used to evidence claims about journal quality. Through an analysis of editorial voices, we show how internationalism positions journals as ‘a view from nowhere’, making them party to a ‘God trick’. Acknowledging the situated nature of all knowledge instead provides a means of disturbing geographies of power that shape how knowledge is created, performed and transformed in journals and expanding the range of others that ‘management’ represents. We trace the beginnings of a feminist new materialist theoretical shift in the journal, which we argue is crucial in providing hope regarding what management can do and engaging with our ethical response-abilities as knowers.

In this article, I draw upon social practice theories as a way to understand the persistent lack of diversity in entrepreneurship as inter-related nexuses of practices. The article presents evidence from an autoethnography. It situates diversity issues within a larger set of interdependent relational practices that unfold over time in entrepreneurial contexts. Insights from my reflections on volunteering as a mentor in a celebrated, virtual accelerator highlight the ways that diversity in entrepreneurship can be understood as interconnected practices. The article contributes to the entrepreneurship-as-practice literature by examining the ways that sociomateriality and translation play in the social accomplishment of diversity in accelerators. It also offers suggestions for accelerator leaders and other practitioners.

Applying institutional theory to organizational identity (OI) work, this article analyzes how the OI of the Church of Norway was reformulated when it was disestablished as a state church. Building on social constructionist perspectives and their implications for agency, drawing on a case study, this article deepens the link between institutional work and OI research by promoting institutional work as an analytical tool to understand OI work. Deviating from current trends in OI research, which emphasize the discursive bottom-up work of organizational members, this work focuses on the pivotal role of regulative elements in a highly institutionalized organization and questions the division between a social actor and the social constructionist perspective of OI. It calls for more empirical research on OI work, which encompasses broader institutional aspects.

Unsustainability and the menace of poverty are the major challenges confronted by developing countries like Pakistan. This study intends to highlight the impact of microfinance interventions on women entrepreneurs in Pakistan and their potential to foster women's entrepreneurial ambition as a means of poverty alleviation. A quantitative research design has been used to collect data through a questionnaire from 400 women entrepreneurs who have benefited from the National Rural Support Program (NRSP)’s, (2019–2021) Microfinance and Enterprise Development Program in Pakistan. The study found that the concept of microfinance resources is gaining significance and its access is significantly impacting the entrepreneurial inclination and success of women entrepreneur’s vis a vis reduces poverty levels in low-income communities. The findings have significant implications for policymakers, microfinance institutions and women entrepreneurs in Pakistan, emphasizing the need for programs that target women entrepreneurs and provide them with microfinance resources and training to empower them to take charge of their businesses. Limited generalizability and self-reported data are the limitations to mention. Strategies like offering microfinance were found to be valuable tool in combating poverty and inequality from the women entrepreneurial initiatives perspective.

This paper explores power dynamics and symbolic power struggle in organizational transition in a Scandinavian telecommunications company. Our ethnographic study examines middle-managers’ efforts filling their allotted role as leaders of neoliberal transformation in a competition of force with their subordinates and the trade union. We develop a Bourdieu-inspired conceptualization of managerial pedagogy as a mode of control and reality definition to advance knowledge on how we can understand subtle uses of power and managers’ struggles gaining control, while simultaneously foregrounding how power is multidirectional when subordinates successfully attain and use power. Our results highlight neglected aspects of managerial power use and power deficits as we show how power dynamics in organizational change are anchored in institutions of the field.