Collective action and civil disobedience: the anti-GMO campaign of the Faucheurs volontaires

Civil disobedience has hitherto enjoyed only a relatively marginal place in the repertoires of French social movements, but has recently emerged as a key rallying frame for social mobilization, especially among environmental and counter-globalization movements. This paper examines the theory and practice of civil disobedience in the French context through an analysis of one such movement, the anti-GM Faucheurs Volontaires. Discussing the highly controversial campaign's positioning as 'civic disobedience', the article examines contested discourses of violence surrounding crop destruction, and the state responses to action, before asking what the campaign's claims to Republican civism mean for traditional notions of the relationship between state and challenging groups in France. It argues that framing action as civil disobedience is central to attempts to construct political and popular legitimacy, in terms of the campaign's national, international, and sectoral goals.

Harnessing diversity and collective action in the top management team

Diversity has become an important issue at all levels of the company from the boardroom to the back office. It is increasingly apparent that diversity is vital to productivity, with academic research indicating an important link between diverse top management team (TMT) composition and corporate performance. However, the nature of this link remains elusive, as there is little accessible research that can help top teams to evaluate how diversity impacts on their strategic capacity. This paper seeks to fill this gap by developing a conceptual framework, illustrated with case examples, to explain the relationships between TMT diversity and TMT collective action. As collective action is difficult to attain from top teams that are high in diversity, six practical processes are developed from this framework for establishing and exploiting top team strategic capacity. The paper concludes by outlining the theoretical implications of the framework. © Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Can we observe collective neuronal activity from macroscopic aggregate signals?

The fundamental problem faced by noninvasive neuroimaging techniques such as EEG/MEG1 is to elucidate functionally important aspects of the microscopic neuronal network dynamics from macroscopic aggregate measurements. Due to the mixing of the activities of large neuronal populations in the observed macroscopic aggregate, recovering the underlying network that generates the signal in the absence of any additional information represents a considerable challenge. Recent MEG studies have shown that macroscopic measurements contain sufficient information to allow the differentiation between patterns of activity, which are likely to represent different stimulus-specific collective modes in the underlying network (Hadjipapas, A., Adjamian, P., Swettenham, J.B., Holliday, I.E., Barnes, G.R., 2007. Stimuli of varying spatial scale induce gamma activity with distinct temporal characteristics in human visual cortex. NeuroImage 35, 518–530). The next question arising in this context is whether aspects of collective network activity can be recovered from a macroscopic aggregate signal. We propose that this issue is most appropriately addressed if MEG/EEG signals are to be viewed as macroscopic aggregates arising from networks of coupled systems as opposed to aggregates across a mass of largely independent neural systems. We show that collective modes arising in a network of simulated coupled systems can be indeed recovered from the macroscopic aggregate. Moreover, we show that nonlinear state space methods yield a good approximation of the number of effective degrees of freedom in the network. Importantly, information about hidden variables, which do not directly contribute to the aggregate signal, can also be recovered. Finally, this theoretical framework can be applied to experimental MEG/EEG data in the future, enabling the inference of state dependent changes in the degree of local synchrony in the underlying network.

Collective behaviour in a square lattice of driven Duffing resonators coupled to van der Pol oscillators

The global and local synchronisation of a square lattice composed of alternating Duffing resonators and van der Pol oscillators coupled through displacement is studied. The lattice acts as a sensing device in which the input signal is characterised by an external driving force that is injected into the system through a subset of the Duffing resonators. The parameters of the system are taken from MEMS devices. The effects of the system parameters, the lattice architecture and size are discussed.

Action research in a collective organisation:Developing an education programme in a pressure group

The aim of this project was to develop the education work of an environmental pressure group. The research devised and implemented a project to produce multi-media teaching packs on the urban environment. Whilst this involved understanding environmental education it was necessary to research beyond this to include the various structural and dynamic constraints on change in the field. This presented a number of methodological difficulties; from the resolution of which a model of the research process involved in this project has been developed. It is argued that research oriented towards practical change requires the insights of an experienced practitioner to be combined with the rigours of controlled systematic enquiry. Together these function as a model-building process encompassing intuition, induction and deduction. Model testing is carried out through repeated intervention in the field; thus an interplay between researcher and client ensues such that the project develops in a mutually acceptable direction. In practice, this development will be both unpredictable and erratic. Although the conclusions reached here are based on a single case study they address general methodological issues likely to be encountered in different field settings concerned with different practical problems.

Relational incentive policies in cross-border interfirm relationships

How an exporter can effectively craft a distributor agreement that encourages its network of foreign distributors to respond in pro-relational ways? This is an important issue as previous research has shown that relationship quality was linked to export performance. However, research failed to propose managerial tools that allowed exporters to foster relational phenomena in cross-border relationships. In this study, we suggest that exporters can influence importers' attitudes and behaviors with relational incentives policies. We also show that the impact of these policies is impervious to the noise, i.e., psychic distance and information asymmetry, that characterizes international business relationships. Our hypotheses are tested via structural equations modeling with data from a sample of French exporters.

Negotiating proximity:expert testimony and collective memory in the trials of environmental activists in France and the United Kingdom

This article analyzes the role of expert witness testimony in the trials of social movement actors, discussing the trial of the "Kingsnorth Six" in Britain and the trials of activists currently mobilising against airport construction at Notre Dame des Landes in western France. Though the study of expert testimony has so far overwhelmingly concentrated on fact-finding and admissibility, the cases here reveal the importance of expert testimony not simply in terms of legal argument, but in "moral" or political terms, as it reflects and constitutes movement cognitive praxis. In the so-called climate change defence presented by the Kingsnorth Six, I argue that expert testimony attained a "negotiation of proximity," connecting different types of contributory expertise to link the scales and registers of climate science with those of everyday understanding and meaning. Expert testimony in the trials of activists in France, however, whilst ostensibly able to develop similar bridging narratives, has instead been used to construct resistance to the airport siting as already proximate, material, and embedded. To explain this, I argue that attention to the symbolic, as well as instrumental, functions of expert testimony reveals the crucial role that collective memory plays in the construction of both knowledge and grievance in these cases. Collective memory is both a constraint on and catalyst for mobilisation, defining the boundaries of the sayable. Testimony in trials both reflects and reproduces these elements and is a vital explanatory tool for understanding the narrativisation and communication of movement identities and objectives. © 2013 The Author. Law & Policy © 2013 The University of Denver/Colorado Seminary.

Organizational learning and emotion:constructing collective meaning in support of strategic themes

Missing in the organizational learning literature is an integrative framework that reflects the emotional as well as the cognitive dynamics involved. Here, we take a step in this direction by focusing in depth over time (five years) on a selected organization which manufactures electronic equipment for the office industry. Drawing on personal construct theory, we define organizational learning as the collective re-construal of meaning in the direction of strategically significant themes. We suggest that emotions arise as members reflect on progress or lack of progress in achieving organizational learning. Our evidence suggests that invalidation - where organizational learning fails to correspond with expectations - gives rise to anxiety and frustration, while validation - where organizational learning is aligned with or exceeds expectations - evokes comfort or excitement. Our work aims to capture the key emotions involved as organizational learning proceeds. © The Author(s) 2012.

Can an episodic approach to social identification account for identification as interaction between individual and collective identity work in an increasingly flexible and transient identity formation context?

A review of available literature suggests that social identification exists at the interface between individual and collective identity work. This poster proposes that it is the interaction between these two processes that leads a person to define themselves in terms of their membership of a particular social group. The poster suggests that identity work undertaken by the group (or ‘the creation of identities as widely understood signs with a set of rules and conventions for their use’, Schwalbe & Mason-Schrock, 1996, p.115), can be used by a person to inform their own individual identity work and, from this, the extent of alignment between their identity and the perceived identity of the group. In stable or internally-structured groups collective identity work may simply take the form of communication and preservation of dominant collective identities. However, in unstable, new or transitional groups, interaction between individual and collective identity work may be more dynamic, as both collective and individual identities are simultaneously codified, enacted and refined. To develop an understanding of social identification that is applicable in both stable and transitional social groups, it is useful to consider recent proposals that identification may occur cyclically as a series of discrete episodes (Ashforth, Harrison & Corley, 2008). This poster draws on the literature to present these suggestions in greater detail, outlining propositions for social identification that are relevant to transient as well as stable identity formation, supported by suggestion of how episodes of social identification may lead to a person identifying with a group.

Increased salience of gains versus decreased associative learning differentiate bipolar disorder from schizophrenia during incentive decision making

Background Abnormalities in incentive decision making, typically assessed using the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), have been reported in both schizophrenia (SZ) and bipolar disorder (BD). We applied the Expectancy-Valence (E-V) model to determine whether motivational, cognitive and response selection component processes of IGT performance are differentially affected in SZ and BD. Method Performance on the IGT was assessed in 280 individuals comprising 70 remitted patients with SZ, 70 remitted patients with BD and 140 age-, sex-and IQ-matched healthy individuals. Based on the E-V model, we extracted three parameters, 'attention to gains or loses', 'expectancy learning' and 'response consistency', that respectively reflect motivational, cognitive and response selection influences on IGT performance. Results Both patient groups underperformed in the IGT compared to healthy individuals. However, the source of these deficits was diagnosis specific. Associative learning underlying the representation of expectancies was disrupted in SZ whereas BD was associated with increased incentive salience of gains. These findings were not attributable to non-specific effects of sex, IQ, psychopathology or medication. Conclusions Our results point to dissociable processes underlying abnormal incentive decision making in BD and SZ that could potentially be mapped to different neural circuits. © 2012 Cambridge University Press.

Undermining patient and public engagement and limiting its impact:the consequences of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 on collective patient and public involvement

Patient and public involvement has been at the heart of UK health policy for more than two decades. This commitment to putting patients at the heart of the British National Health Service (NHS) has become a central principle helping to ensure equity, patient safety and effectiveness in the health system. The recent Health and Social Care Act 2012 is the most significant reform of the NHS since its foundation in 1948. More radically, this legislation undermines the principle of patient and public involvement, public accountability and returns the power for prioritisation of health services to an unaccountable medical elite. This legislation marks a sea-change in the approach to patient and public involvement in the UK and signals a shift in the commitment of the UK government to patient-centred care. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.