Suchergebnisse

Identity has emerged as a major theme in management and organisation studies. This is perhaps unsurprising since questions of who one is or who one might become are particularly important in organisational settings (Watson, 2008). An insightful and widely cited introduction to a special issue in the journal Organization by Alvesson, Ashcraft and Thomas note that 'Identity has become a popular frame through which to investigate a wide array of phenomena […] linked to nearly everything: from mergers, motivation and meaning-making to ethnicity, entrepreneurship and emotions to politics, participation and project teams' (2008: 5). They suggest that the concept's adoption reflects an academic fashion but argue that its popularity is predominantly due to identity's widespread application and its value for a range of different perspectives, including functionalist, interpetivist and critical approaches. Given its widespread and varied use in management and organisation studies, the concept of identity itself seems worthy of consideration and critical reflection.Generally, the adoption of identity to understand organisations and develop organisation theory has been taken up unproblematically. This is in contrast to other areas of study such as ethnicity where questioning identity has a longer and more powerful tradition (see, for example, Gleason, 1983; Brubaker and Cooper, 2000). Identity and Capitalism by Marie Moran represents a fascinating review of a range of these literatures, drawing out some of the often unquestioned or obscured limitations in identity scholarship that may also be of relevance and value to management and organisation studies. This review will follow Moran in outlining a contested history of the concept of identity before highlighting key debates and discussing what emerges from this critique which is, for Moran, the need to consider identity as a category of practice. ; Output Type: Book Review

Cover -- Half Title -- Series Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- 1 What Is Enterprise Policy and Why Is it Important? -- 2 Government, Small Firms and Entrepreneurship in the Nineteenth Century -- 3 Filling the Finance Gap -- 4 Regional Enterprise Policy -- 5 Early Lobbying and Debating the Role of Government -- 6 Taxation, Lobbying and a Voice for Small Business -- 7 The Europeanisation of Enterprise Policy -- 8 Neoliberalism and Enterprise Culture -- 9 Market Liberalisation and Deregulation -- 10 Tackling Deadweight and Displacement Through Consultancy -- 11 Enterprise Policy as an Answer to Deprivation and Exclusion -- 12 Conclusion -- Methodological Appendix -- References -- Index.

Significant doubts persist over the effectiveness of government policy to increase the numbers or performance of small- and medium-sized enterprises in the UK economy. We analyse UK political manifestoes from 1964 to 2015 to examine the development of small and medium-sized enterprise policy in political discourse. We do this by analysing how the broadly defined category of 'small- and medium-sized enterprise' has been characterised in the manifestoes and assess these characterisations in relation to the empirical evidence base. We highlight three consistent themes in UK political manifestoes during 1964–2015 where small- and medium-sized enterprises have been characterised as having the potential for growth, struggling to access finance and being over-burdened by regulation. We argue that homogenising the broad range of businesses represented by the small- and medium-sized enterprise category and characterising them in these terms misrepresents them, undermining policies developed in relation to this mischaracterisation.

Significant doubts persist over the effectiveness of government policy to increase the numbers or performance of small- and medium-sized enterprises in the UK economy. We analyse UK political manifestoes from 1964 to 2015 to examine the development of small and medium-sized enterprise policy in political discourse. We do this by analysing how the broadly defined category of 'small- and medium-sized enterprise' has been characterised in the manifestoes and assess these characterisations in relation to the empirical evidence base. We highlight three consistent themes in UK political manifestoes during 1964–2015 where small- and medium-sized enterprises have been characterised as having the potential for growth, struggling to access finance and being over-burdened by regulation. We argue that homogenising the broad range of businesses represented by the small- and medium-sized enterprise category and characterising them in these terms misrepresents them, undermining policies developed in relation to this mischaracterisation.

In this theoretical article we propose an approach to the spatial implications of homeworking derived from the work of social theorist Henri Lefebvre. By highlighting the processes involved in the inherently contested and (re)constructed nature of space in the demarcated home/work environment we draw on Lefebvre to suggest a collapse of this demarcation. We consider the impact of such a collapse on questions relating to the rewards and challenges of home-based work for both workers and their co-residents. In contrast to our approach to the spatial implications of home-based work derived from Lefebvre, we argue that a traditional, Euclidean conception of space risks ignoring the important, symbolic nature of social space to the detriment of both the effective research and practice of homeworking.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper, a "thought piece", is to consider the everyday realities of homebased working and the implications for work during a global pandemic and beyond.


Design/methodology/approach
The authors present a conceptual framework for considering the domestic sphere as a social space and apply this framework to consider the existing evidence base on homebased working. In particular, the authors consider the implications of homebased working during and after the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of gender.


Findings
The authors identify key challenges in relation to flexibility, work intensification and socio-economic differences. Consideration of these areas highlights the potential pitfalls and challenges that are likely to persist as many organisations begin to plan for an increase in homebased working.


Originality/value
The authors argue that some commentators have been too quick to celebrate the apparent successes of the sudden, unplanned move to intensive homebased working. Important differences in occupation, gender and other socio-economic factors will have important implications for the experience of homebased working for many workers and their co-residents.

The effects of regulations on SMEs have garnered significant political attention internationally yet, in the academic literature, these effects remain contested. This article presents findings from a systematic literature review of qualitative evidence on the effects of regulation on SMEs. We set out the strengths of qualitative approaches in relation to other, more dominant and influential quantitative approaches. We conduct a thematic synthesis of the qualitative research to develop a conceptual framework that provides a processual, embedded understanding of the effects of regulations on SMEs. The conceptual framework highlights four key, interconnected processes: identification-interpretation; strategisation; negotiation; adaptation. This conceptual framework generates insights into dynamic and potentially indirect effects of regulations in relation to a complex array of influences external to and within the business. On the basis of these insights we propose a new research agenda.