Constructing Trustworthy Historical Narratives: Criteria,Principles and Techniques

Organizational scholars increasingly recognize the value of employing historical research. Yet the fields of history and organization studies struggle to reconcile. In this paper, the authors contend that a closer connection between these two fields is possible if organizational historians bring their role in the construction of historical narratives to the fore and open up their research decisions for discussion. They provide guidelines to support this endeavor, drawing on four criteria that are prevalent within interpretive organization studies for developing the trustworthiness of research: credibility; confirmability; dependability; and transferability. In contrast to the traditional use of trustworthiness criteria to evaluate the quality of research, the authors advance the criteria to encourage historians to generate more transparent narratives. Such transparency allows others to comprehend and comment on the construction of narratives, thereby building trust and understanding. Each criterion is converted into a set of guiding principles to enhance the trustworthiness of historical research, pairing each principle with a practical technique gleaned from a range of disciplines within the social sciences to provide practical guidance.     

A Probabilistic Framework for Risk Analysis of Widespread Flood Events: A Proof‐of‐Concept Study

This article presents a flood risk analysis model that considers the spatially heterogeneous nature of flood events. The basic concept of this approach is to generate a large sample of flood events that can be regarded as temporal extrapolation of flood events. These are combined with cumulative flood impact indicators, such as building damages, to finally derive time series of damages for risk estimation. Therefore, a multivariate modeling procedure that is able to take into account the spatial characteristics of flooding, the regionalization method top‐kriging, and three different impact indicators are combined in a model chain. Eventually, the expected annual flood impact (e.g., expected annual damages) and the flood impact associated with a low probability of occurrence are determined for a study area. The risk model has the potential to augment the understanding of flood risk in a region and thereby contribute to enhanced risk management of, for example, risk analysts and policymakers or insurance companies. The modeling framework was successfully applied in a proof‐of‐concept exercise in Vorarlberg (Austria). The results of the case study show that risk analysis has to be based on spatially heterogeneous flood events in order to estimate flood risk adequately.     

Embracing Indeterminacy: On Being a Liminal Professional

The rise of the corporate profession has contributed to a more varied and ambiguous professional terrain that is increasingly seen to be indeterminate and fluid. This paper advances the current debate around the development of corporate professions, exploring how practitioners respond to this environment. Drawing on research with public relations practitioners, the paper shows how the idea of being a liminar facilitates the formation of a professional identity in conditions of high indeterminacy. In taking an individual level of analysis of professions, the paper suggests that indeterminacy is a more resonant feature for corporate professionals than previously suggested in the research, but that this indeterminacy is navigated in professional identity construction through ‘being a liminar’, and thus greater nuance may need to be recognized in the conceptualization of both corporate professions and corporate professionalization. It also demonstrates the use of liminality as a discursive resource in identity construction and with it, challenges the common association of liminality with self‐doubt and existential anxiety. In turn, the paper considers the implications of the liminal professional identity for the future of contemporary professions, and for understanding the liminal experience.     

A pixel level evaluation of five multitemporal global gridded population datasets: a case study in Sweden, 1990–2015

Population and Environment - Human activity is a major driver of change and has contributed to many of the challenges we face today. Detailed information about human population distribution is...     

Enterprising? Disabled? The status and potential for disabled people’s microenterprise in South Korea

This article explores the position, potential and scope for self-employment and microenterprise for disabled South Koreans. The chronic barriers experienced in disabled people gaining paid work suggest that self-employment and enterprise might offer a good alternative to paid work. The self-determined nature of running a microenterprise has been shown to connect with disabled people who may not conform to standardised notions of body and brain that underpin many mainstream work contexts. Despite this promise, several barriers continue to beset disabled people’s access to micro-enterprise activity; barriers ranging from Confucian precepts, to employment protections that are geared largely towards paid employment and to the lack of training, finance and business support for disabled people starting up and sustaining microenterprise in Korea. The extension of legal protections, meaningful start-up subsidies, better business support and bridges between paid work and microenterprise are all seen as important policy correctives that would better support disabled people.     

Foreign-born and native-born migration in the U.S.: evidence from linked IRS administrative and census survey records

Journal of Population Research - This paper details efforts to link administrative records from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to American Community Survey (ACS) and 2010 Census microdata for...     

Marxist sociology and humanist sociology: Diversity, intersections, and convergence

Marxist sociology is at the intersection of Marxism and sociology; while humanist sociology is at the intersection of humanist thought and sociology. Both see sociological theory as a living, evolving activity, and both take a critical stance toward the workings of capitalism. The main difference between them is that Marxist sociology is a body of thought tied to a movement, whereas humanist sociology is a movement tied to a body of thought. Professor of Sociology, Purdue University Calumet. He is past chair of the Section on Marxist Sociology, has been a member of the AHS for twenty years, and is co-author of Crisis and Change: Basic Questions of Marxist Sociology.