Manuela Perrotta

Egg dates sperm: a tale of a practice change and its stabilization

The aim of this article is to enlarge practice-based studies to the consideration of institutional environment and institutional work, opening a dialogue with neo-institutionalism and, in so doing, advance the growing field of sociology of practice. This study attempts to do this by answering the question: how does a change in a practice become stabilized and what does the new practice do, once stabilized? Within practice-based studies, most studies have considered mainly endogenous changes, emergent from the community of practitioners under study. By contrast, this study discusses an exogenous change (a recent Italian law limits medically assisted reproduction practices) and the emergent relations that stabilize a provisional new practice through negotiation within the institutional context. Stabilization of a new practice is achieved by limitation, by rhetorical closure and by anchoring in technology. The aim of the article is to show the unintended power effects that a new practice generates once stabilized.

Between the hand and the head

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to add a new term to the vocabulary of practice-based studies: “formativeness”, which denotes the kind of knowledge that is generated in the process of realizing the object of the practice and that is discovered while the form of the object is being shaped. This term focuses the analysis on how the elements of a practice are held together, rather than on what elements are involved in a practice. Design/methodology/approach – Inspired by grounded theory, an empirical research study on craftswomen and their practical creativity (between the hand and the head) was designed. Storytelling was used in order to elicit the verbalization of the craftswomens ways of knowing/doing, and the episodic interview was the technique employed to access and present the data. Findings – Formativeness can be described and interpreted as the effect of the following dimensions: the emergence of the object, the golden rule of realization, forming by hybridization, experimentation, playfulne...

Where is induction? Profession, peer group and organization in contention

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop an interpretative framework of induction as a social practice in order to examine the ecology of the human and non‐human actors involved in the production of induction as a social effect.Design/methodology/approach – Three case studies are conducted in different types of organizations (private, public, and network) in order to analyse the relation between the induction process and the actors that influence it.Findings – Three different models of induction are described: in a professional bureaucracy, socialization precedes selections and the key actor is the profession; in a small private organization, induction is almost exclusively managed by the peer group in the form of seduction by the profession; in a large network of organizations, induction is explicitly managed by the organization and becomes a means to transmit the organizational culture.Research limitations/implications – In the description of the empirical data, it is shown how an individual un...

Entrepreneuring together: his and her stories

Purpose – Among the various “critical” voices which have contributed to problematizing the discourse on entrepreneurship, that of gender studies is indubitably one of the most significant and fruitful. Applying a gender perspective to the study of entrepreneurship has led to the uncovering of the (male) gender assumptions embodied in the dictates of entrepreneurship and to distinguish between study of women entrepreneurs and study of the relationship between gender and entrepreneurship. One aspect little explored within this diversified array of studies concerns “mixed” situations in which a firms management is shared between a woman and a man. Such situations are interesting in that: first, they make it possible to problematize the economic rhetoric which promulgates entrepreneurship as an individual and isolated, activity; second, the simultaneous presence of a man and a woman allows observation of whether and how gender stereotypes and practices are at work in the process of positioning Him and Her wi...

Daughters taking over the family business

Purpose – This paper aims to explore gender and legitimacy in family business succession. Design/methodology/approach – Within the theoretical framework of French pragmatic sociology, the authors conceptualise the family business as the locus where two regimes of engagement are present, generating the co-presence of two orders of worth, namely the domestic and the industrial. Taking a processual approach to entrepreneuring, and using case studies of small enterprises in Italy, this paper explores the case of daughters taking over the family firms. Findings – The paper shows how the daughters’ perceived gender inequality in the succession process is justified and how the justification work and the production of legitimacy are accomplished, shifting from one order of worth to the other. Originality/value – The value of the contribution consists in pointing to how gender inequality is reproduced and justified inside the family business. The dual regime of engagement is what justifies the reproduction of a sp...

On the paradoxical balancing of panaceaism and particularism within the field of management learning

Besides commenting on the papers selected for this special issue, we include a brief reflexive account of our journey in compiling this special issue, and report how we were struck by the de-coupling between our own local practices, on the one hand, and the global concepts that are familiar in management learning, on the other. We pose some general questions about the representability and transportability of knowledge for management learning that has been developed in one context to other contexts around the world. We ask whether the so-called universalist theories are generally applicable, or whether they need to be applied differently by managers and educators, tailored to their local situations. We inquire whether management educators should embrace cultural relativism and deliberately craft theories that are intended only for local applicability. We consider whether a kind of ‘glocalization’, or absorption of global ideas into local contexts while honouring core features of the host culture, might be achieved. We call for further research into the conditions for user-centred translation in management education.

The Organizational Construction of the Body in Assisted Reproductive Technologies

This chapter explores the relation between biotechnologies and the body through the case of assisted reproduction. On the basis of a case study realized in an artificial reproductive technologies centre in Italy, this paper explores how the organizational construction of the body takes place, providing some instances and illustrations of working and organizing practices as a locus where this construction is materially performed: how bodies are subjected to a series of organizational practices whereby the organization inscribes them in its spaces and produces ‘organizational bodies’; how the passage from body to fluids (follicular and seminal) is done in the laboratory practices; how gametes (oocytes and spermatozoa) are manipulated and ‘transformed’ into embryos; and how finally they return to the body.

Re-thinking induction in practice: profession, peer group and organization in contention

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop an interpretative framework of induction as a social practice to examine the ecology of the human and non-human actors involved in the production of induction as a social effect. Design/methodology/approach Three case studies are conducted in different types of organizations (private, public and network) to analyse the relation between the induction process and the actors that influence it. Findings Three different models of induction are described: in a professional bureaucracy, socialization precedes selections and the key actor is the profession; in a small private organization, induction is almost exclusively managed by the peer group in the form of seduction by the profession; in a large network of organizations, induction is explicitly managed by the organization and becomes a means to transmit the organizational culture. Research limitations/implications In the description of the empirical data, it is shown how an individual undergoes induction into the organization when he/she undergoes seduction (by the profession). Nevertheless, the models could be improved by the study of a larger sample of organizations. Originality/value This paper shows that induction is not the effect of solely the encounter between individual and organization, because two other agents are involved in the process, namely the profession and the peer group.

Becoming a Practitioner: Professional Learning as a Social Practice

A practice-based interpretative framework for reading the process of becoming a professional as a social practice is developed to examine the ecology of the human and non-human actors involved in induction to the organization and seduction by the profession. We argue that professionals undergo induction into the organization while they undergo seduction by the profession. The chapter illustrates the situatedness of this process in relation to different types of organizations (private, public, network) in order to analyse the relation between the induction process and the actors that influence it. Three different models of induction are described: (a) in a professional bureaucracy, socialization precedes selection, and the key actor is the profession; (b) in a small private organization, induction is almost exclusively managed by the community of practice in the form of seduction by the profession; (c) in a large network of organizations, induction is explicitly managed by the organization and becomes a means to transmit the organizational culture.