Anthony R. Yue

GHOSTS IN THE HALLWAYS: UNSEEN ACTORS AND ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

When considering successful organizational change strategies, the prescriptions usually include some strong sense of leadership; a champion for the cause of change. Likewise there is often the suggestion of the requirement for a commitment to change on the part of others in the organization. Yet organizations and their associated actors are held in a social context which is both fluid and persistent at different times and locations. This study suggests that we may gain some useful insights about organizational change through following the breadcrumb trails that these actors leave in their stories about what they did and how change happened. Through employing actor network theory (ANT) and following the trails found in interviews regarding change at an eastern North American community college, this study explores the intersecting stories and persistent actors that contribute to the implementation of an organizational change strategy. This is an examination of the particular situation of a change leader who leaves the organization part-way through the story. In his account, it becomes discernable just how some actors become more or less persistent, indeed punctualized, allowing an examination of the manners in which such actors are able to enroll others in their cause. This tracing of how the messages and enactment of change (or lack of change) persist allows the uncovering of evidence concerning durable actors. This is especially poignant in situations involving invisible or absent actors such as this organizations retired Chief Executive Officer, and thus has the potential to reveal some important attributes of persistent actors in organizational change situations.

An Existentialist in Iqaluit: Existentialism and Reflexivity Informing Pedagogy in the Canadian North

Reflecting on the personal experience of teaching human resource management in the Canadian Arctic, the author explores the utility of an existentialist approach to pedagogy. The author outlines select aspects of existentialism that are pertinent to the teaching and discusses the implications of using reflexive existential thought as guidance in a specific educational context. The author’s aim is to extend the dialogue concerning freedom and pedagogy using existentialism as a mechanism to navigate the implications of such.

We the Inuit: Fluid Notions of Age and Non-corporeal Actants

The narratives in this chapter provide insight into the value of the elderly; the meaningfulness of connections with an Elder; the fluidity of age definitions as related to Elder versus elderly; and the transference of knowledge from Elder to youth in an Inuit culture. In Management and Organizational Studies (MOS), organizational elders have multiple roles impacted by varying understandings from sources of history to barriers to progress. There is an intersection between cultural understandings of age and organizational operationalizations of the elder. We explore these phenomena so as to reveal the struggles that are experienced when attempting to construct a durable identity and attempt to better understand how the self-relationship with identity changes as ideas, values, and beliefs on ageing change.