Myriad potential for mentoring: Understanding the process of transformational change through a gender equality intervention

This article contributes to understanding transformational change towards gender equality by examining the transformational change potential of a mentoring programme for women, a type of gender equality intervention both criticized and praised for its ability to bring about change. Drawing upon an empirical case study of a mentoring programme for women academics in a Dutch university, we explore three dimensions of transformational change: organizational members (i) discussing and reflecting upon gendered organizational norms and work practices; (ii) creating new narratives; and (iii) experimenting with new work practices. Our findings indicate five specific conditions that enable transformational change: cross‐mentoring, questioning what is taken for granted, repeating participation and individual stories, facilitating peer support networks and addressing and equipping all participants as change agents. We suggest that these conditions should be taken into account when (re)designing effective organizational gender equality interventions.     

That's My Art: A Case Study on Children's Views of Cultural Policy

How do children experience a participatory TV cultural policy project and, related to that, which views do they share on cultural policy matters? These questions guided a case study on a TV show aired on the Flemish children's public service channel, which staged children as cultural experts. Although the programme was presented as a participatory project, we found that the children's views were minimally involved in the production process. The children also expressed concerns about how (their) art and cultural practices were represented. Yet, from a cultural policy perspective, the children accepted adults’ authority in art and cultural matters.     

History matters: The impact of reviews and sales of earlier versions of a product on consumer and expert reviews of new editions

Product reviews are assumed to be based on the observable characteristics of the underlying product. However, in the case of new editions in a product series, the determinants may include signals that originate from the reviews and the sales of editions that precede the focal product edition. Our analysis of 577 video games released in a series between 2000 and 2009 indicates that the reviews of earlier versions carry over to the reviews of the sequel by the same type of reviewer. We also find that expert reviews are influenced by the average review of previous editions by consumers and the average sales of previous editions of the product. This suggests that experts tend to adapt to the taste of consumers. Furthermore, it is found that a lack of consensus, between reviewers of a particular type, weakens the impact of average past reviews, whilst it magnifies the impact of the sales of earlier versions.     

Deaths at the borders database: evidence of deceased migrants’ bodies found along the southern external borders of the European Union

Irregular migrants and asylum seekers have died and continue to die attempting to cross the external borders of the EU without authorisation, seeking to enter the territories of its Member States. Yet, remarkably little is known about these ‘border deaths’. In 2015, the Human Costs of Border Control project published the Deaths at the Borders Database for the Southern EU, an open-source ‘evidence base’ of individualised information about people who have died border deaths between 1990 and 2013, sourced from the death management systems of Spain, Gibraltar, Italy, Malta and Greece. It is the first database on border deaths in the EU to be based on official sources as opposed to the news media. The project involved searching 563 state-run death registry archives and deductively selecting the death certificates of persons who died border deaths. This paper describes, in detail, the making of the Deaths at the Borders Database: from the systematic, multi-sited, quantitative data collection and qualitative case studies, to the construction and final results of the Database itself.     

From inclusion to exclusion: Refugees and immigrants in Italy between 1861 and 1943

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the young Italian state was concerned with various groups of refugees. These refugees experienced little interference for the heroes of the Italian unification had themselves lived in exile. The tide turned at the time of Mussolini. Immigration and refugee policy became increasingly restrictive under the Fascist regime. Nevertheless, numerous Jewish refugees were able to survive under this dictator. In the present article, a side of Italian history that has received only fragmented and sporadic attention will be examined‐namely, the development of immigration and refugee policy between 1861 and 1943.     

What is Negotiated in Negotiated Accountability? The Case of INGOs

This paper discusses the constructivist, negotiated perspective to INGO accountability. According to this perspective, INGO accountability is a process of mutual negotiations between different INGO stakeholders who hold different accountability demands. Acknowledging that this perspective provides a good starting point for a better understanding of INGO accountability, we comment on this conceptualization of INGO accountability. Through an analysis of accountability instruments and procedures, we examine closely how the demands of the INGO’s stakeholders are embedded in particular relationships of accountability which are sustained by particular accountability logics. From this analysis, we point out that, due to the differences that exist between these accountability logics, processes of negotiation are likely to be filled with complex tensions and trade-offs. Moreover, as some accountability logics are much clearer and more compelling than others, a constructivist perspective on INGO accountability does not automatically coincide with an understanding of INGO accountability in which primordial importance is given to the beneficiaries.     

Authoritarian Learning and Authoritarian Resilience: Regime Responses to the ‘Arab Awakening’

The spread of protests throughout the Arab world can be viewed as the product of social learning by Arab citizens—a wave effect facilitated by the rapid diffusion of ideas, discourses, and practices from one country to another and their adaptation to local contexts. Yet it less commonly recognized that Arab regimes' counter-revolutionary strategies have also been shaped by processes of learning and diffusion among regime elites, especially among those where protests began later in the sequence of events that constitute the Arab awakening. Accordingly, there have been two parallel processes at work in the unfolding and the potential unraveling of the Arab awakening: one at the level of Arab societies and the other among authoritarian regimes. Initially, the first of these processes worked to the advantage of protestors. As regimes adapted to the repertoires of contention developed by protesters and assessed the direction of regional and international trends, the advantage shifted in their direction. Several incumbents in the region became increasingly persuaded that their best bet lay in strategies of repression, and, in essence, in hunkering down and pursuing a range of measures to ride out uprisings which themselves seemed to confront diminishing probabilities of success.

La difusión de protestas a través del mundo árabe puede verse como un producto de aprendizaje social por ciudadanos árabes—un efecto de oleaje facilitado por la rápida difusión de ideas, conversaciones y prácticas de un país a otro y su adaptación a contextos locales. Sin embargo, es menos reconocido que las estrategias contrarrevolucionarias de los regímenes árabes se hayan formado por procesos de aprendizaje y difusión entre regímenes elitistas, especialmente entre aquellos a donde las protestas empezaron más tarde en la secuencia de eventos que constituyen el despertar árabe. En consecuencia, ha habido dos procesos paralelos en función de la revelación y desenredo potencial del despertar árabe: uno al nivel de las sociedades árabes y el otro entre los regímenes autoritarios. Inicialmente, el primero de estos procesos trabajó en ventaja de los manifestantes. En cuanto los regímenes se adaptaron a los repertorios de opinión desarrollados por los manifestantes, y evaluaron la dirección de tendencias regionales e internacionales, la ventaja cambió en su dirección. Varios de los mandatarios en la región aumentaron su persuasión de que su mejor opción radicaba en estrategias de represión y fundamentalmente en refugiarse y perseguir una serie de medidas para superar los levantamientos que ellos mismos parecían hacerle frente, disminuyendo las probabilidades de éxito.

遍及阿拉伯世界的抗议浪潮可被视为阿拉伯各国公民进行社会学习的产物——一种由观念的迅速扩散、演讲、从一国到另一国的实践以及对当地环境的适应等助推下的波浪效应。然而人们较少认识到,阿拉伯各国政权反革命的策略已经由政权精英之间,尤其是那些在构成阿拉伯觉醒的事件序列中较晚出现抗议的政权之间的学习和扩散过程塑造成形。相应地,在展现着的和潜在瓦解着的阿拉伯觉醒中,有两个平行的进程：一个是阿拉伯社会这一层面的进程,另一个是统治政权中间的进程。起初,第一个进程有利于抗议者。当各政权适应了抗议者提出的各种论争并评估地区和国际趋势的方向后,有利地位就转到了它们一边。该地区一些现任领导人已日益相信,他们最好的办法是实行镇压策略,根本上说是着手控制并采取一系列措施,以平安渡过这些起义,而它们自身似乎也面临成功概率下降的问题。     

The social structure of leadership and creativity in engineering design teams: An empirical analysis

Creativity is essential for research and development efforts. Unfortunately, little is known about how the role of team leaders determines the team’s creativity. Based on a sample of 39 engineering design teams in the space industry, this study examines the effects of leader position within different flows of communication on team creativity. The results indicate that the balance between holding a central or a peripheral position indeed determines the creativity of such teams. Specifically, very central and very peripheral positions of team leaders within the work-flow and awareness network hamper team creativity, whereas peripheral situated team leaders within the information network propel the creativity. In addition, team leaders stimulate creativity when they stay central in the external information network. In managerial terms, the analyses implicate that stimulating engineering design team creativity requires team leaders to smartly limit their involvement in communication and mainly act as gatekeepers to external sources of information.     

Selection system orientations as an explanation for the differences between dual leaders of the same organization in their perception of organizational performance

We investigate to what extent individual managers operating in a dual leadership structure have different perceptions of how well his/her organization is performing. Using selection system theory we develop hypotheses on the relationships between a leader’s selection system orientation and his/her perception of performance along multiple dimensions: market performance, expert performance and peer performance. The hypotheses are tested using dyadic data from 59 organizations in the performing arts led by two—hierarchically equivalent—managers. Our results show that dual leaders’ differences in terms of market orientation and expert orientation relate positively to perceived performance differences along the same dimensions. This relationship is not found with respect to peer selection orientation. Generally, the relationship between orientation differences and perceived performance differences is stronger if the process of interpreting signals to construct a perception of organizational performance leaves more room for equivocality and uncertainty.