Walking,talking, remembering: an Afro-Swedish critique of being-in-the-world

This article examines the existential grounds and experiential limits of an embodied and intersubjective being-in-the-world, in walking dialogue with the remembrances of Afro-Swedish subjects. To walk, wander, and roam in Sweden, particularly through the abundant green spaces that intrude upon and surround nearly every town and city, is a socially constitutive practice of everyday life. It is a sign of personal vitality, healthfulness, and a kind of being-with others predicated on a regular, vigorous, and widespread being-toward nature. Yet, for many Swedes of African descent (as for non-white Swedes more generally), such an imagined community of salubrious walkers is largely just that, a socially constructed fiction that perforce excludes them; an abstraction of urban planning that encumbers their movements, creating anomalous spaces of stasis and immobility; a caesura in the biopolitical field that indexes their black lives as matter out of place, beyond both culture and nature.     

Walking and talking chester I. Barnard

The influence of Chester Barnard in contemporary management and organization theorising is substantial but often barely acknowledged. Contemporary authors sometimes ‘borrow’ a fragment to support their case but his was a fundamentally holistic work which sought to interweave and integrate rather than dissect and disintegrate. The research data reported in this paper were not generated to test Barnard's work but in the process of analysis, it emerged that Barnard spoke in a voice which echoed closely the comments of senior executives. Indeed, he is the only theorist to do so in such a comprehensive way. On further reflection, it was found that his work embraces a breadth and depth of conceptual thought which remains unequalled in our vast literature. His intellectual foundations were quite radical for his time, again in a way which does not find contemporary parallel. In what remains a rare gestalt analysis of organization, he manages to blend the contradictions and conflicts of individual and organization and inherent fickleness and ambiguity of social life together with a dexterity and integrity which resembles the practitioners of executive arts rather more than contemporary theorists. This paper seeks to highlight some of the areas in which his work still exposes our current lack of conceptual imagination and ability.     

Talking the talk,but not walking the walk: A comparison of self-reported and observed prosocial behaviour

The claim that Public Service Motivation (PSM) is an antecedent of prosocial behaviour has often been empirically tested and supported. However, closer inspection of this literature reveals large disparities in relating the two constructs. One reason that could explain such differences is that the relationship between PSM and prosocial behaviours has been primarily tested using self-reported cross-sectional, single-rater and same-survey data. While all of these are widely used methodological approaches in social sciences, they are also susceptible to potential biases. We conduct two comparative studies to re-examine this relationship. Study 1 utilizes self-reported cross-sectional, single-rater and same-survey data linking PSM and prosocial behaviour, revealing a positive relationship with PSM's Compassion dimension. Study 2 involves observing actual prosocial behaviour in a real-life setting. Then, the correlation between PSM and prosocial behaviour disappears. We conclude by discussing the possible reasons that could lead to the differences found across the two studies.     

Walking the fiscal tightrope: local government budgeting and fiscal stress

This paper discusses the components of local government budget processes and their relationship to fiscal stress. While many cities and counties are suffering from stressful fiscal situations, leading in some cases to bankruptcy filings or other severe measures, their budgets have to be balanced, unlike the federal government and some state governments. Using survey data from a large number of jurisdictions, this paper shows how local governments have developed budget processes which respond to these changing fiscal situations. Governments use computers, collect and analyze many different types of information, and use budgetary information for other management purposes in order to improve productivity. Budget processes are providing good information to local government decision makers which is helping them respond constructively to the fiscal crises of the 1990s.     

Flexible framing: Analysing innovative austerity talk from a cultural perspective

This article examines how local policy elites conceptualize and communicate potential innovations to overcome the fiscal crisis. Four austerity frames based on cultural theory are developed: an individualist, hierarchist, egalitarian and fatalist frame. Two expectations are tested by tracing frame usage in austerity speeches by the leadership in Birmingham, Cologne and Rotterdam. First, the modest contribution of the individualist frame in NPM‐sceptic Cologne is confirmed, but no evidence is found of individualist dominance in NPM‐minded Birmingham. Second, it is shown that leaders in Birmingham and Rotterdam combine elements of multiple frames so as to create a new promising narrative which opens up routes towards innovation. The importance of ‘frame flexibility’ is stressed to deal with the complexities of coping with the fiscal crisis in ways that are logical (given available views) and innovative (exploring alternative views), and highlight the importance of further developing understandings of such (municipal) coping.