Learning Software-Maintenance Tasks in the Transition Phase of Offshore Outsourcing Projects: Two Learning-Theoretical Perspectives

The increasing practice of offshore outsourcing software maintenance has posed the challenge of effectively transferring knowledge to individual software engineers of the vendor. In this theoretical paper, we discuss the implications of two learning theories, the model of work-based learning (MWBL) and cognitive load theory (CLT), for knowledge transfer during the transition phase. Taken together, the theories suggest that learning mechanisms need to be aligned with the type of knowledge (tacit versus explicit), task characteristics (complexity and recurrence), and the recipients’ expertise. The MWBL proposes that learning mechanisms need to include conceptual and practical activities based on the relative importance of explicit and tacit knowledge. CLT explains how effective portfolios of learning mechanisms change over time. While jobshadowing, completion tasks, and supportive information may prevail at the outset of transition, they may be replaced by the work on conventional tasks towards the end of transition.

What drives adult personality development? A comparison of theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence

Increasing numbers of empirical studies provide compelling evidence that personality traits change across the entire lifespan. What initiates this continuing personality development and how does this development proceed? In this paper, we compare six theoretical perspectives that offer testable predictions about why personality develops the way it does and identify limitations and potentials of these perspectives by reviewing how they hold up against the empirical evidence. While all of these perspectives have received some empirical support, there is only little direct evidence for propositions put forward by the five-factor theory of personality and the theory of genotype→environment effects. In contrast, the neo-socioanalytic theory appears to offer a comprehensive framework that fits the empirical findings and allows the integration of other, more specialized, perspectives that focus on specific aspects of personality development like the role of time, systematic differences between categories of social roles or the active partake of the person himself or herself. We draw conclusions on the likely driving factors for adult personality development and identify avenues for future research.

The Effectiveness of Firms' Strategic Orientations: Investigating Multiple Theoretical Perspectives

The strategic orientation of firms can take on many forms. Researchers most commonly distinguish between entrepreneurial, market, and learning orientations. In combination, strategic orientations represent a firm's value proposition in terms of the markets in which it operates, where it deploys its resources, and which behavioral patterns are established. This thesis provides insights into the effectiveness of strategic orientations by adopting multiple theoretical perspectives. The strategic orientations of entrepreneurial, market, learning, and innovation orientations are investigated in an isolated as well as interrelated manner. The first research article concentrates on entrepreneurial orientation as its conceptualization and operationalization is subject to several debates in the literature. This conceptual study shows how the challenges of the entrepreneurial orientation construct can be overcome in future research to arrive at a higher level of construct clarity. Thereby, the theoretical perspectives of entrepreneurial dominant logic and the theory of planned behavior are employed. The literature has predominantly focused on investigating the effectiveness of particular strategic orientations. Recently, scholars have stressed their synergetic impact on firm performance and, as such, the relevance of considering their combined role in creating superior value for firms. However, empirical research on their interrelatedness remains scant and dispersed, making it necessary to conduct further research on strategic orientations in an integrative manner. As such, the second research article demonstrates which interrelated roles are played by entrepreneurial, market, and learning orientations in their relationship to firm performance. The rich body of existing knowledge is synthesized by means of meta-analysis under the perspective of strategic coalignment as well as the resource-based view of the firm.

Statusinkonsistenz im Lebensverlauf

Sozialbiographische Überlegungen und die Lebensverlaufsperspektive tragen zu einem Fortschritt in der Inkonsistenzforschung bei. Wichtige theoretische und methodische Voraussetzungen sind dabei die Berücksichtigung der Dynamik von Statusinkonsistenz und die Kontrolle der Zeitabhängigkeit von Statuslagen. Dadurch wird es möglich, Entstehen, Verschwinden, Dauer und Folgen von Statusinkonsistenz detailliert zu untersuchen. Die empirischen Befunde des Artikels zeigen, daß die Verortung von Individuen in einer Statushierarchie im Lebenslauf zunehmend mit vergleichbaren Plazierungen in anderen Statusdimensionen übereinstimmt. Dies verstärkt sich in der Abfolge von Geburtskohorten; ferner finden sich eher Frauen als Männer in ungünstigen statusinkonsistenten Lagen. Schließlich hat Statusinkonsistenz deutliche Auswirkungen auf berufliche Mobilität von Männern. Eine ungünstige Statuslage 'erzwingt' Mobilität, wenn, gemessen an der Bildung, unerwartete Statusverluste ausgeglichen werden sollen. Männer mit unerwarteten Statusgewinnen versuchen dagegen, ihre vorteilhafte Statuslage abzusichern, und sind eher immobil.

Cartografías de la ciudad. Representación y estilización lingüística en mapas mentales de Buenos Aires

Desde un enfoque constructivista del espacio urbano como producto social, en el presente artículo presentamos algunos aspectos teóricos y metodológicos para el análisis de las representaciones geosociales y la identidad urbana para luego investigar a partir de una selección de mapas mentales la imagen espacial que los hablantes expresan a través de las variedades lingüísticas que distinguen, estilizan y ubican en su cartografía mental de la ciudad. Se trata de un primer acercamiento a un corpus recopilado en 2013, que permite observar, por un lado, que la percepción del espacio urbano está basada en la fuerte identificación de los porteños con los barrios de la ciudad y, por otro lado, que existe en el imaginario colectivo una dicotomía norte-sur estilizada que se refleja tanto en lo social, lo espacial y lo lingüístico.

Firm-level strategic orientation and performance: a synthesis and extension of the knowledge base on entrepreneurial, market and learning orientation

Should a firm stay focused or should it rather adopt a broader strategic perspective? This dissertation summarizes and extends the existing knowledge base on entrepreneurial, market, and learning orientation. Building on multiple theoretical perspectives, empirical evidence from prior studies, as well as on survey and archival data collected in two economic contexts, performance effects from individual orientations, their dimensions and combinations are explored. Results reveal that the three strategic orientations are highly interrelated and that their relationship to firm performance is more complex than previously assumed.

Connecting and Educating Hindus: Hinduism Today and the Mediatization of a Global Hinduism

Hinduism Today is a quarterly magazine that appears in roughly 15.000 copies, shipped to nearly 60 countries worldwide. The majority of readers are Hindus in diverse diaspora countries, mainly Singapur, Malaysia, Mauritius, Trinidad und the USA. Its editors are monks of Kauai Adheenam, belonging to the Śaiva Siddhānta Church, situated in Kauai, Hawai’i, USA. One of the magazine’s declared goals is to foster global Hindu solidarity and educate Hindus worldwide about their religion. In this paper, I want to take a look at the history of this magazine in connection with the Śaiva Siddhānta Church, and at the development of the expressed aims behind its publication. For this, I draw on fieldwork done in Kauai in January, 2014. After a brief introduction to some theoretical and methodological preliminaries of my work, I shall, give an overview of the history of the Śaiva Siddhānta Church, founded by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. Following this, I will deal in more detail with the origins and development of the magazine and the websites connected with it. I will focus especially on the role the magazine was intended to play for global Hindu diasporas. A fourth chapter will analyze the modes of definition employed in order to depict Hinduism as a unified global religion. In conclusion, I shall briefly reflect upon the specific agenda of “Global Hinduism” and the strategies of positioning as followed by the publishers of Hinduism Today.

From Connecting Hindus to Uniting Global Hinduism: History and Guiding Principles of Hinduism Today

Hinduism Today is a quarterly magazine that appears in roughly 15.000 copies, shipped to nearly 60 countries worldwide. The majority of readers are Hindus in diverse diaspora countries, mainly Singapur, Malaysia, Mauritius, Trinidad und the USA. Its editors are monks of Kauai Adheenam, belonging to the Śaiva Siddhānta Church, situated in Kauai, Hawai’i, USA. One of the magazine’s declared goals is to foster global Hindu solidarity and educate Hindus worldwide about their religion. In this paper, I want to take a look at the history of this magazine in connection with the Śaiva Siddhānta Church, and at the development of the expressed aims behind its publication. For this, I draw on fieldwork done in Kauai in January, 2014. After a brief introduction to some theoretical and methodological preliminaries of my work, I shall, give an overview of the history of the Śaiva Siddhānta Church, founded by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. Following this, I will deal in more detail with the origins and development of the magazine and the websites connected with it. I will focus especially on the role the magazine was intended to play for global Hindu diasporas. A fourth chapter will analyze the modes of definition employed in order to depict Hinduism as a unified global religion. In conclusion, I shall briefly reflect upon the specific agenda of “Global Hinduism” and the strategies of positioning as followed by the publishers of Hinduism Today.

From metaphor to practice in the crafting of strategy

The editors of Strategy as Practice, Johnson, Langley, Melin and Whittington, illustrate theoretical perspectives and alternative methodologies of 'strategy as practice' research by reflecting and commenting on selected 'classic' research papers such as Buergi, Jacobs and Roos' "From metaphor to practice in the crafting of strategy". Their paper explores how the link between the hand and the mind might be exploited in the making of strategy. Using Mintzberg's image of a potter, Buergi et al. develop a three-level theoretical schema, progressing from the physiological to the psychological to the social to trace the consequences of the hand-mind link. They discuss their model in view of an indicative case of managers from a large telecommunications firm experimenting with a process for strategy making in which they actively use their hands to construct representations of their organization and its environment.