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Where sporting games may be said to epitomize our species' unique agential capacity for playful movement, sports played in nature differ from their equivalent played indoors in that they envelop the human agent within the living physical environment from which our agency originates. In this paper, we draw attention to how sporting sites differ according to origin by pursuing a biosemiotic line of reasoning. Here, the story of a meaningful human life begins with the eukaryotic cell, even though the human subject itself arises much later. As such, the story of nature in relation to our agency, here, in sports, changes too. We present key concepts from biosemiotics, including its continuum life-as-semiotic-agency view, Umwelt, metasemiosis, and semiotic scaffolding to advance our argument that naturogenic sporting sites provide continuity to the macro processes that have generated our semiotic ability to play. Meanwhile, secluded anthropogenic environments constitute yet another discontinuity for the modern sportsperson where the moving body steps into an anthroposemiotic loop and its restricted signscapes from centralized agency. We conclude on the primacy of naturogenic sporting sites as they preserve the quality and complexity of animal ludens' constitutive relations and therefrom semiotic freedom, on which current and future gameplaying depends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Broadly speaking, student voice can be defined as initiatives that involve consultation of, feedback from, and engagement with students regarding their own education. This study's aim was to explore teachers' experiences and perceptions of enacting student voice in primary physical education. Method: Participants included six primary school health and physical education specialist teachers within Victoria, Australia. Data were collected via six rich and detailed one-on-one semistructured interviews. Results: Three main themes include: (a) "same-same but different" highlighting participants' varying conceptualizations and enactment of student voice, (b) "language matters" emphasizing the importance of language used when discussing and implementing student voice, and (c) "barriers and challenges to implementation" capturing participants' experience and limiting factors to the enactment of student voice practices. Discussion/Conclusion: Grounded in education for transformation and patterns of partnership theories, the discussion focuses on the disassociation between teachers' perceived understanding and enactment and the implications for students resulting from the misalignment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research enriches the field's perspective on value and argues that to seriously address inequality during the next 50 years, consumer research must explore processual aspects of value hierarchy and consider its relationship to inequality. Doing so recognizes the duality of structures as embodying outcomes and agency, as well as the need to view value not only as what it is but also as what it does. To begin to address limitations in the literature, we use empirical evidence from an investigation of the cancer care market from 1970 to 2021 to understand how value hierarchy shapes and manifests as inequality. This is conceptualized as: distribution of multilevel resources, consolidation of consumer power, stratification of consumer agency, and (de)credentialization of worthiness. Building on each of these, we discuss a research agenda for future JCR inquiries and introduce "value hierarchy as inequality" as a big-tent issue for consumer research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflects on the paradigmatic assumptions and ideologies that have shaped algorithmic management research. We identify two sets of assumptions: one about the "ontology of algorithms" (which holds that human resource management [HRM] algorithms are non‐human entities with material agency) and one about the "ontology of management" that HRM algorithms afford (which understands algorithmic management as a form of control for maximizing economic/shareholder value). We explain how these core assumptions underpin existing research of HRM algorithms, causing blind spots that hinder new ways of understanding and studying algorithmic management. After identifying and unpacking the assumptions and blind spots, we offer avenues to overcome these blind spots, allowing for future research based on new ideological assumption grounds that will help move algorithmic management scholarship further in significant ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Objective Method Results Conclusion The evolving life story is integral to personality, and motivational themes are central features of the life story. Personality implies individual differences that are relatively stable over time, but still allow for developmental processes. This study explored both long‐term stability and developmental change in thematic content of the life story.Fulfilled and unfulfilled agency and communion were studied in brief entire life narratives across 4 measurements in 12 years in a cohort‐sequential design including six cohorts (n = 172; age 8–77).Fulfilled agency and communion, as well as unfulfilled agency exhibited moderate rank order stability over 4 and 8 years, fulfilled communion showed even a modest 12‐year stability, whereas unfulfilled communion displayed an unsystematic pattern. Developmentally, multilevel analyses revealed an inverted U‐shaped association between age and both fulfilled and unfulfilled agency, peaking in mid‐life. Fulfilled communion declined after emerging adulthood, but unexpectedly did not increase again in old age. Unfulfilled communion showed no systematic age trends. Girls and women told life narratives with more fulfilled and unfulfilled communion, whereas genders did not differ in either kind of agency.The content of the life story exhibits rank‐order stability over time and systematic mean‐level development across the life span. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflects on the dynamic of co-developing knowledge within a Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) project in the UK that set out to direct teenage and young adult Ambulatory Care. This is a service that offers cancer treatment that would have once required inpatient hospital stays. Working within a Community-of-Inquiry (CoI), young people from this cancer community became co-researchers, participating in every phase of the qualitative research. This contribution is written from the perspective of two members of the CoI, Alison, a cancer researcher-practitioner, and Michela, a young associate researcher with lived experience of cancer. Drawing on the Ambulatory Care research as a case study, they offer a reflective account of involving young people in research that directs both action and participatory action research processes. In doing so, they engage in a critical exploration of their participatory research inquiry, contextualising their discussion with some of the extant literature relevant to their chosen CBPR approach. The researchers found that both Ambulatory Care and their research dynamic foster young people’s agency. Evident too, was that within research that prioritises relationships and knowledge democracy and which associates with a sense of the collective, individuality can also sit comfortably alongside. The authors conclude this that distinctiveness is a strength, which enhances the learning, criticality, and reach of engaged research inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on the work of Professor Joanna Shapland, this exploratory, phenomenological study theorizes contexts that ground desistance for people sentenced to life in prison for crimes committed as youth. The investigation draws from 28 interviews conducted with 10 formerly incarcerated youth lifers, all male, who were imprisoned for an average of 27 years in California. The major themes are presented along three phases in the desistance journey: life in prison as a barrier to desistance, the will to change, and policy changes and the process of parole. The analysis finds that despite a harsh and violent prison environment, all located sources of support (i.e. spiritual, family, and peers) that facilitated desistance and hope to create a meaningful life inside of prison. While the work of desistance was ultimately externally validated by a parole board, all participants asserted agency to take behavioral and attitudinal steps toward desistance long before they had hope for freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This ethnographic article examines the interactional processes through which Tibetan-Canadian heritage language learners agentively construct their linguistic identities in everyday family interactions. Because food is centrally involved in family routines, as well as broader cultural practices and the articulation of individual tastes, talk about food provides a site for analyzing negotiations of individual agency amid expressions of shared identity. Drawing from previous language socialisation scholarship that approaches family meal times as a resource for constructing identity, this paper analyzes children’s conversations at meal-times, during food preparation, and about food preferences. Through interactional analysis of twelve months of longitudinal video ethnography in two Tibetan-Canadian families, I found that, in these activities centered on food, children used multilingual and multimodal resources to negotiate authority over their cultural and linguistic knowledge. Specifically, children agentively displayed their knowledge of Tibetan language forms, elaborated on their capacities to participate in cultural activities, and instructed parents about their individual preferences. By analyzing these interactional displays of knowledge through the concepts of agency and co-operative action, I argue that children construct their identities as speakers of Tibetan, despite the dominance of English in their language repertoires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do workers in low-skilled jobs picture their futures? How are aspirations for career reorientation activated? What influence do institutions have on the objectives that individuals pursue? How do various socio-occupational groups approach and manage their future? What are the major differences between skilled and low-skilled workers? These are some of the questions raised after a series of reforms passed in France that aim to make all individuals the genuine agents of their professional lives and pathways rather than being the passive focus of training programmes and employability initiatives. This paper seeks to investigate these issues. Based on Sen's capability approach and the French linked and longitudinal Defis surveys, we contend that French low-skilled workers are more likely to aspire to career reorientation but have less capability to aspire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his seminal paper, Appadurai (2004) introduced the concept of "capacity to aspire" as a cultural capacity that may open routes out of poverty for the poor. He envisions entering a robust dialogue between his conception and the capability approach. The notion of aspirations is attractive for capability scholars since it seems to answer some shortcomings of the capability approach, namely the lack of any theory of preference or value formation, the missing dynamics, the question of countering adaptive preferences and eliciting information on people's values. I analyse capability literature on aspirations and argue that although they relate to these shortcomings, they fail to eliminate them and to enter the dialogue Appadurai invited. For doing this, the collective nature of the capacity to aspire has to be recognised. I suggest that the capacity to aspire rather than remedying one of the above-mentioned shortcomings is best understood as an example of Sen's concept of agency and how poor people can build up, exercise and sustain agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In South Africa, low-income rural black youth are assumed to exhibit endurance in their higher education agency while yet not really being agentic, because they accommodate an oppressive university and settle for less ambitious aspirational horizons. Drawing on illustrative empirical data from a longitudinal study of black youth without hot knowledge of higher education to deploy from their families' biographies, the project explored students' accessing, participating in and moving on from their studies at five South African universities. In exploring youth aspirations and agency, the concept of repair is employed to position aspirations as reparative and temporal where past injustices, present and future intersect in shaping agency and in projecting imagined futures for youth. The cultural lens of aspiration offers a space to interrogate and dismantle past exclusions and unsettle norms of the "disadvantaged student" to avoid reinscribing past injustice in ways which are globally relevant to marginalised university students from poor backgrounds compared to better off students. It shows how day to day negotiated conditions of living in universities by these students are agentic; enduring poverty and exclusion is an active aspirational struggle for dignity and recognition, even if these students are not able to undo relations of power. Ubuntu is mobilised as an ontological means to further deepen how we understand aspirations and agency as interdependent and interacted between person and community and as refusal of the neoliberal university. Finally, features of universities as potential spaces of aspirations and repair for transformative change and transformative futures are sketched. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

News coverage of the Thunberg-inspired student climate strikes in Australia in 2019 and 2020 framed school leaders 'in conversation' with politicians, education system spokespeople, political pundits, the public and student activists. While previous scholarly interest has mainly focused on the student protestors, we examine the intertextual framing of school leaders in the news. While our analysis affirms previous understandings of the politically divided nature of climate change communication, it also reveals that school leaders' agency was constrained by the discursive effects of news reporting. Moreover, the antagonisms and polarisation of views in news and commentary created a circulation of affective intensities that amplified the challenges for principals. We assess the implications of these framings and their effects on the agency of school leaders. We conclude by arguing for more proactive leadership and advocacy by school leaders to support the participation of students in politics and activism for climate justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores women's agentic practices in expressing their sexual dissatisfaction in the context of male sexual 'non-performance'. Much scholarly work on male sexual 'non-performance' in Tanzanian context largely focus on the voices of men in making sense of their sexual performance concerns. Common limitations of these studies are isolating women from male sexual 'non-performance' and their narrow focus on the voices of women. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Tanzania, and building on the Afro-feminism perspective, this article demonstrates women's cheating habits, breaking up with their partners, naming and shaming and, participating in non-sexual intimate matters as agentic practices of their sexual dissatisfaction in heterosexual relationships. While these practices that women devise to handle their male partner's sexual 'non-performance' challenge the patriarchal structures of sexuality and gender relations on the one hand, they performatively reproduce them on the other hand. The findings of this paper indicate that women are active social actors, who are often sexually expressive and devise various agentic practices for handling their partners' sexual 'non-performance'. In a nutshell, women's viewpoints in this paper highlight the need to further consider how women demand and achieve sexual satisfaction in their sexual relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amelia Opie's novels have typically been received as following the structure of the fallen-woman plot. This article reveals how Opie's late understudied novel The Only Child; or, Portia Bellenden (1821) forms a radical departure from this genre as the heroine uses her skill in writing and poetry composition to orchestrate for another character to die in her place. Using recent approaches in cognitive narratology, in particular the theory of predictive processing, I analyse how Portia utilises composition to manipulate emotions and genre expectations, and thus attain agency over plot events. This new cognitive account of composition's representation demonstrates how the novel's original poems model a method for constructing decisions that depart patriarchal scripted narratives. The cognitive approach to composition reveals how the novel's radical politics lie, not in offering specific political values, but in demonstrating how the reader can use composition to interrogate gendered ideologies that are represented as moral behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent literature has underscored the power of digital activism, but few studies have symmetrically examined its impact beyond domestic audiences and among illiberal regimes. The co-occurrence of mass protests in East and Southeast Asia in 2019–2021, when protesters called for help from international communities, offers a valuable opportunity to test the power of digital media. This study uses a data set of 154 million Twitter posts and a time-series model to contrast sets of collective action metrics and connective action metrics with a novel dependent variable—foreign politicians' responses. We then analyze the directional, intensity, and time-lagged effects of the relevant cue-taking processes. We find that the new metrics are more potent in predicting responses from foreign politicians. Agency- and network-centered metrics also outperform number- and intensity-oriented metrics across the three cases. These findings have implications for the roles of opinion leadership and engagement networks in digital activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the face of various challenges, mobility emerges as a long-standing adaptive strategy. This is also the case in Bangladesh, where internal mobility in particular is often employed to maintain a living in response to the loss of livelihoods at the place of origin. However, research exploring the changes in migrant women's livelihoods through their internal mobility in Bangladesh, and how their agency and the social structures come to influence this, is limited. This article addresses this gap by exploring the livelihood trajectories of migrant women through their internal mobility, intending to enhance the comprehension of the nuanced daily lives and livelihood experiences of Bangladeshi migrant women. Drawing on the stories of four women who relocated to the town of Mongla, the findings reveal the diverse and evolving strategies they employ to sustain a living through their internal mobility, showcasing the particularity of each livelihood trajectory. The findings suggest that migrant women's distinct livelihood trajectories are influenced by their varying levels of agency, often enhanced through their mobility, and potentially increasing their capacity to alter their life circumstances. However, given constraining gender roles and expectations, they face limited livelihood options. In this article, I show that a comprehensive examination of both the individual and the broader social contexts of migrant women's livelihoods is essential to gain deeper insights into their differing ways of making a living through mobility. Such insights may foster the comprehension of how they position themselves, between their livelihoods, different agency levels, and gender roles and expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many countries that lack the resources and/or political will to settle and integrate refugees among citizens pursue refugee encampment. At the heart of encampment is the categorization of populations according to the sedentarist dictates of the nation-state governance framework. As people who are categorized as de-territorialized bodies, refugees are subject to a peculiar form of governance which is sustained by ubiquity of refugee encampment around the world. This is the case whether in the Global South, where encampment has featured in refugee hosting for decades or in the Global North, where growing numbers of refugees in recent years have led to re-introduction of camps epitomized by anchor facilities, among others. This article argues that refugee encampment is underpinned by categorization, which separates refugees from other migrants as well as the displaced from the emplaced. Despite encampment's separation of refugees from citizens in line with the sedentarist inclinations of the nation-state, encampment in protracted situations has morphed into permanent settlements leading to informal and unofficial re-territorialization through refugee activities that challenge the logic of encampment. This and refugees' self-initiated relocation to spaces outside the camps have blurred the line between the displaced and the emplaced, thus demonstrating how refugees mediate the intended outcomes of migration categorizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women's agency in resisting violence and control within intimate relationships manifests in diverse forms, shaped by various social divisions and the socio-cultural contexts in which gender relations evolve. This research explores first-generation young Iranian immigrant women's responses to violence and control within their dating relationships in Canada. Employing an intersectional analysis, it delves into the multifaceted agency demonstrated by these women when confronting dating violence (DV). By contextualizing their agency within Collins's matrix of oppression, the study unveils how systems of oppression interlock to shape their agency. The findings underscored the substantial agency displayed by young women in asserting their self-determination and self-definition. This was evident in their ability to recognize the aggressor's controlling behaviors within their relationships and their outspoken critique of the deeply entrenched patriarchal and gendered norms prevailing in the dominant discourse within the Iranian community. The results underscore the pressing need for culturally sensitive interventions and education programs that move beyond mere DV awareness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is situated in the context of a design-driven master's-level course at a Finnish university where pre-service teachers (PSTs) planned and carried out an online English learning project for 11- to 12-year-old pupils in two schools. During the working process, the PSTs needed to rethink their perceptions of technology-mediated language education and look for new ways to organise pedagogical activities for the children. The study explores how the PSTs' professional vision and agency emerged in a hybrid space when orchestrating pupils' participation online. Diverse materials from orchestration sessions were examined through nexus analysis. The findings highlight the PSTs' professional vision and agency arising from interactions with the following activities while orchestrating language learning: 1) coordinating action and establishing continuity in design; 2) monitoring action and attending to emerging needs; and 3) attending to pupils' engagement with the designed activities and revising the design during action if necessary. The setting allowed collaborative problem solving and sense making which advanced a balanced interaction order. This made space for new experiences and discourses contributing to the development of the PSTs' professional vision as language teachers. The study has implications for language teacher education and language teaching in hybrid spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explore contemporary regional development in a historic industrial region. Specifically, we unpack the influences of industrial history and culture, built up over several centuries, on contemporary regional development dynamics and issues. In doing so, we draw on an evolutionary perspective within economic geography and perspectives from deindustrialization studies to understand how the past shapes the present. We combine these with theories of agency to understand how key actors comprehend the industrial heritage of a place, and how this is incorporated into contemporary regional development efforts. We explore this combination of conceptual lenses through an in-depth case study of Karlskoga, in Sweden, one of the country's 'bruksorter' (mill towns) that grew up around the production of iron and steel, leading to it eventually becoming one of the largest arms manufacturing cities in Europe, home of the well-known Bofors company. However, all has not been plain sailing, and Karlskoga has experienced the challenges of de-population, industrial restructuring, and shocks to the sector upon which the town is reliant. By analysing these mixed fortunes we develop new insights into how regional development is intertwined with structural, institutional, and cultural industrial legacies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing process of metropolization has revealed its flip side in the last decade in the form of increasing social problems in peripheral regions. Through a comparative study of two structurally similar small cities in the Czech peripheral region, this paper explains different population trajectories as well as diverging competitive and foundational economies. Based on the original data collected during extensive fieldwork in the Moravian-Silesian Region, the paper uncovers a dualistic relationship between different types of human agency and its structural context as the key determinant, explaining the different developments. The agency of public providers (in contrast to private providers) in the foundational economy has buffered the impact of peripheralization on the well-being of residents, while the agency of companies in the competitive economy has had a major impact on path development and demographic change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on how the environmental assets of old industrial regions were commodified and channelled in new productive processes , along with domesticating and distributing old and new negative externalities and risks unevenly in spatial and social terms. We adopted a political ecological approach to grasp how the emergence and dynamics of agency in such spaces are related to the mobilization of environmental resources, how peripheral industrialization is linked intimately to ecological exploitation jeopardizing the sustainability of old and new trajectories and how such processes are embedded in the ecological 'lock-in' position of OIRs. Our analysis rests on Hungarian case studies which produced empirical results and theoretical lessons beyond this context, for further studies in peripheral industrial regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The phenomenon of child and youth labor is a multifaceted challenge encompassing biological, psychological, and social dimensions, and it has emerged as a significant concern in various countries, including Iran. However, the predominant research has often approached this issue from a social work perspective, focusing on description and pathology. There has been a notable absence of studies addressing the empowerment of this demographic to navigate and overcome challenging environmental circumstances. Given the expanding population and the substantial personal and social challenges faced by working children and adolescents, it becomes apparent that conducting research in this area could contribute to the empowerment of these individuals. Aims: The present study aimed to present the model of human as an agent based on the lived experiences of youth labore. Methods: This study employed a qualitative approach, specifically utilizing the grounded theory method. The research focused on purposefully selecting 15 successful youth laborers residing in Tehran in 2023. Participants were chosen through referrals from Toloe Bi neshanha Center, Mehr and Mah Institute, and Al Yassin Assistance Clinic. After obtaining their consent and willingness to participate in the research, they became part of the study. Data was gathered through semi-structured interviews and analyzed using the Strauss and Corbin method. Results: The analysis of the interview data was generally categorized into seven axes: internal strength, chaotic environmental conditions, support system, learning experiences, humanistic strategies, positive and active design of life, and comprehensive and integrated growth, and finally, the conceptual model of the human as an agent based on the codes was drawn. Conclusion: The obtained results, in addition to increasing insight into the components of the human as an agent model and the factors behind its creation, can be used as a basis for further research and the design of educational and therapeutic programs aimed at improving the psychological capabilities of youth laborers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International organisations (IOs) have never been more authoritative and potentially agential while simultaneously faced more intense threats to their continued existence. Amid these dialectic conditions, this article identifies a novel type of behaviour: IO Survival Politics. IO Survival Politics occurs when senior institutional actors perceive the organisation to face an existential threat and, in response, employ extraordinary strategies to ensure the organisation's continued existence. Survival Politics thus differs both in degree and kind from the ways in which secretariats exercise influence during conditions of normal policymaking. Two case studies illustrate the concept: (1) the European Commission's response to Brexit and (2) NATO's response to President Trump's withdrawal threats. Drawing on 87 interviews with senior officials, the article shows that IO Survival Politics occurs across a range of diverse IOs in face of diverse threats and can be a crucial factor in determining the fate of IOs in crisis. By conceptualising IO Survival Politics, the article intends to open new avenues for research and advance scholarly understanding of IOs and the crisis of multilateralism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poststructuralist research in language and identity demonstrates how individuals exert agency to enact alternative identities, reshape power structures, and gain access to resources. However, this approach to agency carries immense risk for minoritized individuals, who must regularly negotiate their identities under systemic racism and linguistic discrimination. We focus on mixed-heritage individuals (MHIs), who are regularly questioned about or denied their ethnoracial identities through everyday microaggressions, and examine 293 MHIs' responses to open-ended survey questions, describing the strategies they use and risks experienced during negotiation of identity. Findings reveal MHIs use explanations, cultural capital, and linguistic styling to express ethnoracial identities; however, experiences of denial, objectification, racial imposter syndrome, and anxiety lead many to assess which situations are safe to enact their identities and which are not. Consequently, we discuss the importance of recognizing systemic risk during negotiation of identity for racialized individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the case of the COVID-19 lockdown as a disruptive event, this article aims to show the paradox of improvisation by investigating students' experiences of transitioning from in-person to digital learning spaces across three select business schools in Pakistan. Using Foucault, we analyse the discursive strategies deployed by students as they oscillate between different subject positions under improvised digital conditions. Our analysis reveals contradictory views about the agency of the improvised subjects which is often considered as enterprising in the sense that individuals are willing agents of change. Findings suggest that improvisation can also be paradoxically experienced as it misaligns with predispositions of agents. We show this through the struggles of students in getting to grips with the digital move, giving rise to uncertainty. This study, therefore, makes three distinct, yet interrelated, contributions to the literature on management learning by identifying: the risks of taming embodied subjectivities, the changing positionality of learners and the paradox of improvisation. Our work has implications for understanding improvisation in business schools during disruptive events, as overlooking the predispositions of students can lead to an enterprising agency of a different kind (e.g. resistance) that forfeits the purpose of improvisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Workplace incivility is experienced ubiquitously by immigrants. While a growing body of literature has sought to identify the causes and the outcomes of this phenomenon, what remains largely underexplored is the role of legal status in configuring how workplace incivility manifests in the immigrant experience. To advance the extant literature, in this article we investigate the question: How does legal status inform the ways in which immigrants exercise agency in response to workplace incivility? In addressing this question, we draw on the methodological resources provided by duoethnography and develop vignettes to make visible the dynamics with workplace incivility that we have individually encountered in the academic organizations in which we have been located—based in the UK and Canada. In juxtaposing the vignettes against one another, we are offered a glimpse into how legal status shapes the forms and the depth of agency available to immigrants to respond to incidents of workplace incivility. In light of our findings, we problematize the nexus between an immigrant's agency and workplace incivility as well as consider the implications this nexus has to ongoing debates in business ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on racism in the workplace has long focused on organizational remedies for this moral problem. Given the acknowledged inadequacies of organizational solutions such as anti-racism training, attention is now turning to how immigrants manage their individual experiences of racism in a western context. Employing an agentic lens, this article describes a qualitative study of 43 African nurses in the UK in which their capacity for withstanding workplace racism is examined. It investigates how participants draw upon a range of religious coping strategies to make sense of and respond to racism. The data indicate that African nurses rely on specific coping strategies at different points in time and across various contexts, adapting their coping approaches to accommodate their personal growth and individual experiences. This underscores the versatility, context-dependency, and temporal aspects of religious coping among immigrants. The study's findings are particularly interesting given the limited role that religion plays in western organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does the way in which people do gender influence their career advancement strategies? Based on semi-structured interviews with Saudi women senior managers and drawing from the postcolonial feminist theory, we discover in this study that it does. We show that Saudi women choosing to do gender well, the Sailing Through cohort, achieve career advancement by amplifying their commitment to family responsibilities, enacting respectful femininity, and invoking family associations to build winning alliances. We describe this form of resistance as crafty agency. In contrast, Saudi women choosing to do gender differently, the Trailblazing cohort, achieve their advancement goals by acting in a serious, composed, and competitive manner, investing in their human and professional capital, and effectively using self-promotion and self-advocacy. We describe this form of resistance as determined agency. Overall, our study demonstrates that Saudi women's agency is not fixed, or definite, or passive but rather it is fluid, multifaceted, and transformational. This article contributes to gender studies by showing how different stances on doing gender drive the reinvention of gender identities and pursuit of alternative career advancement strategies. It also provides a nuanced understanding of how Saudi women attain senior management positions as they navigate the messiness and contradictions of gender roles and gendered contexts, agency, doing gender well and doing gender differently, and career advancement strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers are divided on whether shareholder agreements (SAs) improve or hurt firm value. We offer family firms as a context where SAs add value and explain why; SAs limit "superprincipal" agency conflicts between family owners and other family members. A panel of French firms and a second study of French Initial Public Offerings show shareholders value SAs more in family than in nonfamily firms. Among family firms, SAs add greater value when weak governance undermines family owners' resistance to other family members' demands. Our study helps reconcile competing theory about SAs and distinguishes superprincipal conflicts from other family-firm agency problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate facilitator's tools and actions in promoting interaction in virtual co-development. Design/methodology/approach: In virtual environments, facilitation plays a crucial role. However, research does not provide many examples of tools and practices of virtual facilitation of co-development. To collect data, two virtual co-development processes were conducted. The data consisted of discussions during virtual workshops and was analyzed using both theory- and data-driven content analysis. Findings: The discussions during the virtual co-development processes related on the topic and script of co-development and the use of digital technology. In co-development, both the facilitators and the participants take responsibility on the topic and the progression of the session. The facilitator needs to balance between offering the participants tools, supporting interaction and leaving empty space for the participants' initiatives to enhance their agency. Originality/value: The study underlines the importance of the script and tools in virtual facilitation as well as flexibility in the execution of co-development processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This article develops an innovative multidisciplinary conceptual framework in the field of refugee entrepreneurship by combining the theory of mixed embeddedness with the concepts of intersectionality and agency. Focusing on the phenomenon of refugee entrepreneurship, this conceptual framework addresses the following questions: how is entrepreneurship informed by the various intersectional positions of refugees? And how do refugees exert their agency based on these intersecting identities? Design/methodology/approach: By revising the mixed embeddedness approach and combining it with an intersectional approach, this study aims to develop a multidimensional conceptual framework. Findings: This research illustrates how the intersectional positions of refugees impact their entrepreneurial motivations, resources and strategies. The authors' findings show that refugee entrepreneurship not only contributes to the economic independence of refugees in new societies but also creates opportunities for refugees to exert their agency. Originality/value: This conceptual framework can be applied in empirical research and accordingly contributes to refugee entrepreneurship studies and intersectionality theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Minoritised youth voices are often underrepresented in climate action research. Despite the increasing interest in youth climate activism, there is still an overall lack of attention to the perspectives of young people struggling with discrimination, poverty, and other social injustices. In this article, we focus on a diverse group of minoritised youth in Portugal to explore their experiences of climate activism, perceived agency, and political imaginaries of the future. We conducted a qualitative study involving seven focus groups with 55 participants, including young people with a migrant background and/or living in underserved communities in Portugal. Based on a Reflexive Thematic Analysis, we generated three main themes that illustrate participants’ ways of engaging with climate change issues, the barriers that constrain their engagement with climate activism and the challenges in the political imagination of the future. Our findings suggest that minoritised youth would like to have a voice in political debates about climate change and that more inclusive dialogues about climate futures could help bridge existing territorial and social divides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThe effect of child marriage and bridewealth payment on women’s agency is significant for access to justice and development programming, especially in the context of the goal of peaceful and inclusive societies. As prevalent practices in sub-Saharan Africa, child marriage and bridewealth payment hugely influence the ability of women and girls to exercise their agency. Indeed, these issues stand at the intersection of an intense cultural struggle between the custodians of culture and change agents. Based on field data collected in 10 countries in Africa, notably in eastern Nigeria, this paper argues that the exercise of agency by women and girls is not a self-enforcing activity. Rather, it is shaped by factors ranging from deficient and poorly implemented legal structures to lack of resources, entrenched cultural norms, and social pressure for normative conformity. By exposing culture and law as enablers and contributors to development, the article urges policy attention to needs-based factors that motivate and constrain women’s agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this theoretically oriented article is to promote the educational role and purpose of academic development in higher education by suggesting a holistic framework and theoretical articulation for university pedagogy. By discussing links between university pedagogy, academic development, and broader views of university education, our framework clarifies the concept of university pedagogy in the Nordic countries. The framework encompasses four themes: (1) the relationship between educational theory and pedagogical practice; (2) the interplay between knowledge and the curriculum; (3) the university as an organization and social institution; and (4) the agency in and of academic communities. We argue that university pedagogy operating within this framework has the potential to strengthen the scholarly foundations of the development of university education. The framework can enhance critical public discourse on the purpose of university education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article draws on narrative interviews with 16 young queer people who are involved in organizing meeting places and activities for and with other queers. Here, I explore how queer youth describe their needs and motives for engaging in organizing, and how narratives of agency and vulnerability are expressed and intertwined. Drawing on Judith Butler (2016. ‘Rethinking vulnerability and resistance’, in J. Butler, Z. Gambetti, and L. Sabsay (Ed.), Vulnerability in Resistance. Duke University Press), I argue that vulnerability among LGBTQ + youth is not the opposite of resistance and that agency is not the opposite of exposedness. In this context, LGBTQ + youth’s own acknowledgement of and collective resistance to dominant sexuality and gender norms, which put them at risk for exclusion, offence and violence, constitute a mobilization of vulnerability. The motives for organizing are described as three narratives concerning social needs and how queer youth relate themselves to a collective. The first narrative recognizes the person’s need for other people, the second other people’s need for them, and the third concerns the need for a community. The results show how queer youth use collective agency to create their own spaces and communities as well as to formulate and practice resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis paper explores reflections written by advanced undergraduates at two US universities. Using theories of languaging and positioning to frame our analysis, we found students used language in their written reflections that distanced themselves from the actions that occurred (and their control over those actions) and mitigated their agency when they recounted their experiences in professional spaces: we observed repeated instances of weaker lexical choices (e.g. helping someone instead of teaching someone) and syntactic structures including periphrasis in causatives (e.g. allowed me to…) and modals (e.g. I was able to…). We suggest students deployed these linguistic features strategically to position themselves as novices and thus less responsible for outcomes in these settings. In discussing our findings, we query the significance of socialization into professional communities for students, and in turn, we consider how we as instructors and mentors have invited students to position themselves in their written reflections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Positive human–animal interactions (HAIs) can be intrinsically rewarding and facilitate positive human–animal relationships. However, HAI paradigms vary across studies, and the influence of different interaction paradigms on the animal's response has been overlooked. We compared the behavioural responses of pigs (n = 28) individually tested with two types of gentle tactile interactions with a familiar human: 'free form (FF)' where the pig could voluntarily approach and interact as they normally would, and 'imposed contact (IC)' where the human imposed tactile contact on the pig according to a standardised protocol. Pigs did not differ in their level of engagement with the human between the two types of interactions. However, they differed in their behaviour as they explored the pen more during the FF test, while they emitted more low-pitched vocalisations (grunts) during the IC test. These differences can likely be imputed to the IC test differing to the pigs' habituation to human contact, which could have evoked greater attention to the human or triggered frustration due to violation of expectation. These findings highlight the influence of the predictability of the interaction or level of agency provided to the animal in HAI tests and relation to their previous experience of interacting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emotional valence of animals is challenging to assess, despite being a key component of welfare. In this study, we attempted to assess emotional valence through memory in 1- and 3-week-old piglets. It was hypothesized that piglets would spend less time in a pen where they experienced a negative event (castration) and more time in a pen where they experienced a positive event (enrichment). A testing apparatus was designed with three equally sized pens: two outer sections serving as treatment pens containing unique visual and tactile cues and a center section remaining neutral. Piglets received either negative or positive condition in one outer treatment pen and a sham treatment in the opposite. Various methods were tested (age of piglets, number and length of conditioning sessions, passive vs. active conditioning). Contrary to expectations, piglets did not decrease their time in the pen associated with the negative condition or increase their time in the pen associated with the positive condition. However, when exposed to the positive condition, results indicate older piglets developed an aversion towards the sham treatment. This study provides methodological groundwork for the application of place conditioning in piglets and highlights the nuances important for the use of cognitive tests to assess animal welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores Stephen Chifunyise’s portrayal of empowering identities of women which are considered as ‘gender activist’. Many of Chifunyise’s plays deal with gendered issues of space, democracy, governance and citizenship. The plays are rooted in African culture which attempts to balance the gendered nature of African communities to effectively advocate for the adoption of critical changes that have happened within these communities. The article views Chifunyise as a gender activist who uses theatre to bring to the fore issues which highlight the plight of women. The article utilizes an Africana Womanist perspective to analyse how Chifunyise includes women in society and more importantly, structures the way in which they are to be included as partners to the development of societies. Africana Womanism acknowledges men as part of this experience and as being key in its construction and in the deconstruction of women’s oppression. The article will analyse Chifunyise’s Waiting for Constitution (2010) and 365 (2011). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]