Sonal Minocha

We will teach you the steps but you will never learn to dance

Purpose – To critique individual learning experiences in organization, explore the role people play in inhibiting learning in organization and explore theories of individual learning as “theories in use”, drawing on a metaphor of steps and dance.Design/methodology/approach – Based on a subjective qualitative approach engaging in semi‐structured interviews with individual participants and narrative data analysis. A metaphor of “steps” and “dance” is used to analyse narrative data and theories “in use”; the “steps” imply a fixed form which constrains the individual within the confines of the job role, while the “dance” relates to a fluidity and flexibility which enables individuals to express movement and therefore learning.Findings – Empirical data reveal a level of “not learning” in practice and raise the significance of both upward and downward feedback and questioning in learning levels. Results highlight the management‐employee relationship and the crucial role of managers in unlocking or inhibiting in...

The “learning trap”: a Bollywood frame for strategic learning

Purpose – This paper aims to highlight the nature of strategic learning in Bollywood, Indias Hindi Film Industry. Film making is an art that requires continuous learning as a prerequisite to creativity and innovation. Improved competitive performance goes beyond operational organisational learning into strategic learning. This research investigates the extent to which strategic learning, as opposed to operational learning, is taking place within film making organisations operating in the Bollywood setting.Design/methodology/approach – The research was conducted through two descriptive case studies of production houses in Bollywood using semi‐structured observations and interviews with producers and directors in the case study sites. Data are analysed using techniques of interpretive “illuminative evaluation”.Findings – The research suggests that the current frame of film making at Bollywood is stuck in a learning trap, in that organisational learning tends to be adaptive not generative and leads only to ...

Towards a body-aware strategic organization

This essay attempts to give a voice to the non-verbal in strategic organization through an enhanced conceptualization of the body, a discussion of which has too long been overlooked within the field. As a result, management in general, and strategic management in particular, have been theorized as disembodied (Swan, 2005). In part, this is likely the outcome of a focus on strategy rather than the practice of strategy, which characterized the field until the late 1990s, and the ready availability of written and verbal aspects of strategy for study. Nevertheless, even the currently active practice agenda in strategy has thus far focused largely on talk and given little attention to the body (Whittington, 1996, 2001, 2002, 2003). In our view, a conceptualization of strategizing that fails to consider strategists’ physicality and embodiment is incomplete. Stated more strongly, divorcing the body from our praxis is inhibiting the growth of practice itself. The body may act positively, negatively or neutrally in the strategic processes, impacting the effectiveness of processes themselves as well as the strategies chosen and their outcomes. Borrowing ideas and approaches from the broader organization studies field and beyond, and building on research questions posed by Whittington (2003) for a practice perspective, we make a case for ‘body-aware’ research on the practice of strategy. In calling for acknowledgement of the body we urge the study of non-verbal gestures, sounds, silences, gestures, voices and the overall physicality of strategizing processes. However, study is not limited to the physical body but also its embodiment – the meaning-made body (Bourdieu, 1977: 75), the lived body (Grosz, 1994, 1995), the becoming body (Styhre, 2004: 104).

From graduate employability to employment: policy and practice in UK higher education

The purpose of this paper is to enrich the current conceptualization of graduate employability and employment through the lens of policy, academia and practice in UK higher education. We examine the UK policy context that is shaping graduate employability and employment debates before enriching this conceptualization through a discussion of key themes in the academic literature. We then undertake a comparative study across a sample of 35 higher education institutions in the UK to identify and discuss key employability practice areas shaping their graduate employability and employment provision. We do so by drawing on institutional employability data that is already available in the public domain. In mapping key themes in the literature against institutional employability practice, we conclude that the employer-university interaction theme in the literature is not sufficiently addressed in UK higher education practice. Drawing on the evidence from our comparative study, we provide a discussion on four directions worthy of further exploration by universities as they shape their institutional responses to the lack of employer-university interaction.

Systemic capabilities: the source of IT business value

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop, and explicate the significance of the need for a systemic conceptual framework for understanding IT business value. Design/methodology/approach – Embracing a systems perspective, this paper examines the interrelationship between IT and other organisational factors at the organisational level and its impact on the business value of IT. As a result, a systemic conceptual framework for understanding IT business value is developed. An example of enhancing IT business value through developing systemic capabilities is then used to test and demonstrate the value of this framework. Findings – The findings suggest that IT business value would be significantly enhanced when systemic capabilities are generated from the synergistic interrelations among IT and other organisational factors at the systems level, while the system’s human agents play a critical role in developing systemic capabilities by purposely configuring and reconfiguring organisational factors. Prac...

The Artistry of Practice or the Practice of Artistry: Embodying Art and Practice in a Business School Context

This article is an autoethnographic perspective on innovative management practice in the U.K. business school context. Business schools, in general, have long been criticized for their “formulaic” and “irrelevant” approach to management education. The authors take the position that the alternative model of management education that addresses the criticisms of business schools is the practice-based model, most well articulated by Mintzberg. This practice-based view formed the basis of a new vision for their case study organization (a leading U.K. business school) that they set out to embed in the organization and its space through the use of wall art. Recognizing the role played by art, design, and creativity in management, the authors reflect on their use of wall art as part of an approach to embedding a new business school vision, offering the lessons that can be drawn for further application of this practice within other business school contexts.

Bollywood on Creativity An Interview With the Internationally Acclaimed Film Director Shekhar Kapur

This paper explores creativity through the eyes of an individual renowned worldwide for his creativity and intellect: the film director Shekhar Kapur, who is the first film director to successfully span the Hollywood–Bollywood divide. We provide a critical overview of the literature of creativity from a business perspective, with an emphasis on the individual and organizational dimensions, and their impact on enhancing and transforming performance. This review of the literature is a prelude to the insights to creativity furnished by our conversation and interview with Mr. Kapur, whose films have won numerous awards in his native India and whose biopics of Queen Elizabeth (Elizabeth and its sequel) produced for Hollywood secured no less than seven Oscar nominations, including that for best picture. The paper, through the combination of interview and literature, presents new insights to our understanding of creativity and it as a source of superior business performance.

Out There...Out There in the Distance: A Management Choreopoem.

This article documents the authors own embeddedness of experience emerging from her interest with dance, dance as a form of embodied art, a form of expression, a metaphor, and ontology. Dance is a way of “showing and telling” stories through steps and choreography and rhythm and embodiment. It is both a ritual and a reality in different contexts. It is both a situation and a totality. Writing as an agent provocateur in this article, the author attempts to bridge the divide between poetry and prose, arguing for dance to become a natural future avenue for theorizing the art of and in management.