A symbolic approach to competence development

A deep-lying assumption nested in the civil service culture is that of competence. The article illustrates the research project carried out in a municipality over a period of three years, using a symbolic approach to competence development. Competence is defined as a symbolic field, an imaginary territory comprising the ideas, projects and emotions that subjects attribute to their organization within a metaphorical map which represents the texture of organizing. Possessing competence or being competent is the dilemma which provides the key to the analysis of the symbolization processes which took place during the consultation. The social representation of competence highlights the relationships between organizational actors (the competent civil servant, the competent boss, the competent politician, the competent administration, the competent citizen) and their mutual image. Competence therefore becomes a relational concept.     

Outlines of a Critical Sociology of Consumption: Beyond Moralism and Celebration

The 'new' sociology of consumption that emerged in the 1980s acknowledged that consumption is a significant cultural and social practice and not just a mere signifier of the pathological elements of contemporary societies. Arguably, this rehabilitation of consumption has overshot its mark and has led to an overly positive, complacent and celebratory rendering of consumption and to an overriding concern with the symbolic and communicative dimension of goods. Driven by the debates on globalization, political consumerism and the relation between consumption and citizenship, current work shows increased interest in the politics of consumption. The article explores in what directions the classic concern with the symbolic and communicative dimension of goods might be taken if it is more thoroughly grounded in an analysis of the politics of consumption and of the current reconfigurations of consumers and citizens. The overall aim is to outline a basis for a critical sociology of consumption.     

China Brotsky,Sarah M. Eisinger,and Diane Vinokur-Kaplan: Shared Space and the New Nonprofit Workplace

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations -     

Company Post-Crisis Communication Strategies and the Psychological Mechanism Underlying Consumer Reactions

A theoretical framework is developed to explain the mechanisms that underlie the effectiveness of matching postcrisis communication strategies to the crisis types on relevant consumer reactions. Two studies are conducted regarding an actual crisis case: the Costa Concordia shipwreck on 2012. Study 1 provides evidence of more favorable consumer reactions to a company when confession strategy and preventable crisis are matched. The results verify that consumers’ emotions of anger and sympathy play a mediating role. Study 2 demonstrates corporate reputation's moderating role on the link between postcrisis communication strategy and sympathy and, through it, on consumers’ attitudinal and behavioral responses.     

COVID‐19 as a breakdown in the texture of social practices

‘A lot of things need to be repaired and a lot of relationships are in need of a knowledgeable mending. Can we start to talk/write about them?’ This invitation — sent by one of the authors to the others — led us, as feminist women in academia, to join together in an experimental writing about the effects of COVID‐19 on daily social practices and on potential (and innovative) ways for repairing work in different fields of social organization. By diffractively intertwining our embodied experiences of becoming together‐with Others, we foreground a multiplicity of repair (care) practices COVID‐19 is making visible. Echoing one another, we take a stand and say that we need to prevent the future from becoming the past. We are not going back to the past; our society has already changed and there is a need to cope with innovation and repairing practices that do not reproduce the past.     

No Small Change: Process‐Oriented Play Therapy For Children of Separating Parents

This article looks at a process‐oriented play therapy for children adversely affected by parental separation. Process‐oriented play therapy is a therapeutic method that involves the therapist directly entering the ‘world of play’ with the child, by amplifying various modes of expression and helping underlying meaning to emerge, in order to help children access aspects of their life they feel they have no say in. One particular case has been used as an example, involving ‘Jim’ (pseudonym) and his mother, who attended the play therapy session.