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Journal ArticleDOI

Outline of a Theory of Practice.

01 Mar 1980-Contemporary Sociology-Vol. 9, Iss: 2, pp 256
About: This article is published in Contemporary Sociology.The article was published on 1980-03-01. It has received 14683 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Practice theory.
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine intra-organizational contestation over different temporal structures needed to entrain to discrepant temporal environments and explain how contestation, temporal reflexivity, interpretive shifts, and mutual appreciation of interdependencies led to the reconstitution of Fairtrade's development model to bridge competing temporal structures.
Abstract: We study the influence of a pervasive Western organizational mentality--clock-time orientation--in market-based models for human development. While a linear, clock-time orientation optimized for markets is meant to enhance efficiency, coordination, and control, it may be unsuitable for managing emergent, complex, and indeterminate processes such as development. To examine how the tension between market and development temporalities plays out at the organizational level, we draw on an ethnography of Fairtrade International, an organization connecting markets in the North with low-income community development in the South. We examine intra-organizational contestation over different temporal structures needed to entrain to discrepant temporal environments. We explain how contestation, temporal reflexivity, interpretive shifts, and mutual appreciation of interdependencies led to the reconstitution of Fairtrade's development model to bridge competing temporal structures. We contribute by (a) elucidating an agentic view of time, where time is used as a cultural resource to regulate attention and render social phenomena amenable to particular types of managerial action; (b) developing the notion of "ambitemporality," where organizations accommodate seemingly contradictory temporal orientations; and (c) explaining how deep-seated Western organizational mentalities truncate the power of development models, and how these models may benefit from embracing processual approaches associated with Eastern thought

178 citations

Proceedings ArticleDOI
19 Mar 2011
TL;DR: The research framework used at the University of Siegen is described, based on a collection of design case studies in particular fields of practice and identifies cross-cutting issues to compare and aggregate insights between these cases.
Abstract: Information and communications technology (ICT) pervades most aspects of our lives and changes everyday's practices in work and leisure time. When designing innovative ICTs, we need to engage with given practices, institutional arrangements, and technological infrastructures. We describe the research framework used at the University of Siegen. It is based on a collection of design case studies in particular fields of practice and identifies cross-cutting issues to compare and aggregate insights between these cases. To illustrate this framework, we describe our research activities and discuss three themes which became important in different design case studies.

178 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This grounded theory-building multiple-case study examines the relationship between the characteristics of the set of business-unit general managers and firm performance in six firms operating in the high-dynamic software industry with an in-depth comparative case study.
Abstract: This grounded theory-building multiple-case study examines the executive leadership group that comprises the general manager (GM) that heads each of the firm's business units in a multibusiness organization. Because each GM exercises control and authority over their business unit's resources, they operate at the nexus of firm-level strategy and strategy implementation through the development of business-unit-level strategy and tactics. Moreover, they play an essential role in adapting the organization by collectively sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring resources and thereby capturing product-market opportunities that emerge. However, there is little direct empirical understanding of this important executive leadership group. This study begins to address this gap in the literature by exploring the relationship between the characteristics of the set of business-unit general managers and firm performance in six firms operating in the high-dynamic software industry with an in-depth comparative case study. New theory is developed that begins to open the “black box” of executive leadership groups, and in so doing contributes new understanding of executive leadership groups and dynamic managerial capabilities, and thereby introduces the notion of an episodic team.

178 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The framework for sharing proposed in this article will be useful for structuring comparisons of technology adoption and access across cultural contexts.
Abstract: This article examines forms of shared access to technology where some privileges of ownership are retained. Sharing is defined as informal, non-remunerative resource distributing activities where multiple individuals have a relationship to a single device as purchaser, owner, possessor, operator and/or user. In the specific case of mobile phones in rural Uganda, dynamics of social policing and social obligation were mediated and concretized by these devices. Patterns of sharing mobile phones in rural Uganda led to preferential access for needy groups (such as those in ill health) while systematically and disproportionately excluding others (women in particular). The framework for sharing proposed in this article will be useful for structuring comparisons of technology adoption and access across cultural contexts.

177 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors make the case for developing materials for teachers that reflect both up-to-date theoretical understandings of language practices in bilingual communities and a more critically contextualized understanding of the power dynamics that operate in bilingual classroom contexts.
Abstract: This review poses an increasingly common—and increasingly urgent—question in the field of teacher education: How can teachers best be prepared to educate Latina/o bilingual learners? The answers that we offer here challenge some of the prevailing assumptions about language and bilingualism that inform current approaches to teacher preparation. To work effectively with bilingual learners, we argue, teachers need to develop a robust understanding of bilingualism and of the interactional dynamics of bilingual classroom contexts. Unfortunately, the conceptions of language and bilingualism portrayed in much of the teacher-directed literature fall short of offering teachers access to such understandings. In this review, we will make the case for developing materials for teachers that reflect both more up-todate theoretical understandings of language practices in bilingual communities and a more critically contextualized understanding of the power dynamics that operate in bilingual classroom contexts. We recognize that helping teachers come to these more robust understandings of bilingual language practices and the interactional dynamics of bilingual contexts implies an ideological shift for educators—and teacher educators—in the United States. Having made the case for rethinking how we talk to teachers about bilingualism in classroom contexts, we will venture to explore why this matters: What will teachers be better positioned to do once equipped with these understandings? It is our contention that such understandings will better position teachers to manage their classrooms for equity and learning for all students. Indeed, these more robust understandings of language and interaction are necessary if teachers are to capitalize on the flexibility and intelligence displayed by bilingual students as they engage in hybrid

177 citations