Susanne Tietze

Spreading the Management Gospel – in English

English has become the ‘lingua franca’ of international business and management and is the preferred means of communication in intercultural and international encounters. In this paper it is shown that both the spread of the English language and the increasing dominance of a management discourse are based on a series of tacit assumptions and imbued with specific ideologies. When occurring together, they create a hegemonic field of forces which encourages the emergence of identities in line with neoliberal market economies. In order to ‘break open’ such tacit assumptions and ideologies, it is suggested that a critical management pedagogy needs to take a linguistic turn in order to instil in students a sense of agency, initiative and possibility as well as a sense of structure, context and constraint.

The times and temporalities of home‐based telework

Drawing on an empirical investigation situated in 25 households of professional managers, who worked regularly at home, this article explores how internalised time discipline is evoked, appropriated and challenged through and in home‐based telework. The notion of clock‐time is opposed with the notion of task‐time and it is shown how both temporalities inform the organisation of paid and unpaid work. It is shown that in some households the simultaneous co‐presence of conceptually different temporalities led to an increasing bureaucratisation of time as boundaries between “work” and “the household” had to be maintained and protected. In other households such co‐presence resulted in the emergence of more task‐based approaches to the co‐ordination of all activity and more elastic temporal boundaries drawn around them.

The Victorious English Language Hegemonic Practices in the Management Academy

This study explores hegemonic linguistic processes, that is, the dominant and unreflective use of the English language in the production of textual knowledge accounts. The authors see the production of management knowledge as situated in central or peripheral locations, which they examine from an English language perspective. Their inquiry is based on an empirical study based on the perspectives of 33 management academics (not English language speakers) in (semi) peripheral locations, who have to generate and disseminate knowledge in and through the English language. Although the hegemony of the center in the knowledge production process has long been acknowledged, the specific contribution of this study is to explore how the English language operates as part of the “ideological complex” that produces and maintains this hegemony, as well as how this hegemony is manifested at the local level of publication practices in peripherally located business and management schools.

From anxiety to assurance: concerns and outcomes of telework

Purpose – This paper aims to compare pre‐telework anxieties, expectations and motivators reported by 394 teleworkers with their corresponding actual experiences of telework.Design/methodology/approach – Based on an organizational survey, 394 samples were generated who had been teleworking for less than 12 months at the time of the survey. By using χ2 tests, comparisons were made between pre‐telework expectations and post‐telework outcomes reported by teleworkers with different characteristics such as gender, job type, the presence of dependent children, and working hours spent at home.Findings – The study found that prior to adopting telework sampled teleworkers tended to underestimate positive and overestimate negative experience of telework. It further demonstrated some statistically significant differences in pre‐telework expectations and post‐telework outcomes reported by different groups of teleworkers. For example, female teleworkers were more likely to report that telework made it easier to cope wi...

Rites of passage through talent management progression stages: an identity work perspective

Our aim in this study was to examine the experiences of organisational ‘talent’ as employees advance through progressive stages of a talent management programme and to identify ways in which identity work plays a major part in such transitional processes. A case study is presented which examines the experiences of accountancy professionals ‘talent’ in a global management consultancy as they progress through ‘rites of passage’ at different levels of a talent management programme. Findings firstly show that successful transitions through such rites of passage are the necessary precursors to talent advancement; secondly, that the exercise of identity work is a concomitant part of specific phases of such rites of passage (separation, liminality and incorporation); thirdly, that, particularly at the most senior management levels, ‘appropriate identities’ in line with normative assumptions of the organisation are required to be developed and displayed; and finally, that such progression is characterised by being in ambiguous and fluid relationships and contexts, which need to be overcome in an ongoing process of talent advancement. Lessons are drawn for the design of talent management interventions that take identity work into account.

Discourse as strategic coping resource: managing the interface between “home” and “work”

Purpose – To provide insight into the consequences of telework from the perspective of the teleworker and the household. The paper discusses the consequences of telework for the formulation of identities.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on empirical work, which comprises home visits to teleworkers and therefore includes observational data and interview data. The data are analysed following a particular framework, which is views discourse as a “strategic resource” and draws on the vocabulary of performativity and connectivity to investigate why some “discursive acts” take successfully while others fail.Findings – It is shown that teleworkers and their households need to engage in strategies to protect and reconfirm their respective identities. This is achieved through the enactment of regulatory as well as self‐regulatory (identity) acts.Originality/value – The paper is located in the household of teleworkers and therefore, includes this less well researched perspective. The linking of the ...

Homebased work: a review of research into themes, directions and implications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to systematically summarise and evaluate recent articles on modern homebased work (2000‐2009). In identifying the key recurrent themes and commonalities in the existing research, it brings order to the variety of contributions to provide future directions for inquiry and knowledge production.Design/methodology/approach – Papers are identified through systematic keyword searches of multi‐disciplinary databases. The aim is to identify papers that explore the social/organisational embeddedness of homebased work, rather than framing it as a technology related phenomena/problem.Findings – The review highlights some contradictory evidence about the potential for change entailed in homeworking practices and an absence of studies which focus on “less visible” workers engaged in homebased production. It also argues that few longitudinal studies exist which could address the question of the ability of homebased work to initiate change.Practical implications – The paper provide...

Identity, identity work and the experience of working from home

Purpose – This paper seeks to show how the shift of paid work from traditional locations into the home environment raises serious questions of identity for managers who have started to work from home and who have to “cope with” the sometimes conflicting demands imposed by different socio‐cultural spheres.Design/methodology/approach – Based on an empirical study of working from home, three case studies are presented, which articulate and summarise different modes of engagement with both paid and domestic work and respective identity issues.Findings – Adding to the extant literature on working from home, the findings indicate that the success or failure of working from home is intrinsically tied into issues related to homeworkers” identity.Research limitations/implications – The empirical data are taken from a period when homeworkers had to “learn” how to cope with being both “at home and at work”. Further empirical enquiry might focus on longitudinal aspects of the relationship between working from home an...

Pedagogy and the ‘Linguistic Turn’: Developing Understanding Through Semiotics

The appropriation of the ‘linguistic’ turn and the application of social constructionist ideas for research projects situated in organizational contexts and concerned with managerial work has enriched the fields understanding of the complexities of such settings and drawn attention to their processual nature. Using the unifying theory of a semiotic framework, this article argues for a similar appropriation of the ‘linguistic turn’ in teaching projects, to give students of management a theoretically informed access to, and understanding of, this growing literature. Employing the understanding and vocabulary of semiotics as applied to metaphor, discourse and stories, it is demonstrated how semiotic principles can be used to explore the mechanics of meaning making and expose the taken for granted assumptions inherent in this process.

A competence approach to the assessment of student placements

Discusses sandwich placements and their importance at Sheffield Hallam University. Outlines the Business Studies degree programme and the assessment procedure of work placements, mentioning its role in final degree assessment. Lists problems of assessment, and criticisms from the employers’ points of view. Finally, provides a framework for a new programme based on both the competence approach and a survey of placement companies.