The Refugee Status: Challenge and Response

What do executives do, and how do their actions impact on the company’s results? Questions such as these are constantly targeted in leadership research. Despite thousands of reports in the field, there is no consensus on what the concept of leadership entails. Nor can companies and organisations be said to have a clear idea of what executives actually do. Nevertheless, the investments in leadership development seem to indicate that executives are considered vital to the company’s results. The vague notions about what executive work entails, together with assumptions concerning their importance to the company or organisation, lend a certain magical aura to their work. In this study, executives are regarded as a professional category, and are consequently examined with a qualitative method whereby the professionals begin by reflecting in writing on their skills, and then take part in a group discussion on their skills based on their written reflections. This method, known as the dialogue seminar method, has been used on other professional categories with good results. Since executives have not previously been studied in terms of their skills, the results have been compared to leadership research. Leadership studies with a gender perspective have shown that gender impacts on the likelihood of obtaining and practising executive positions and skills. Therefore, the results of this study have also been analysed from a gender perspective. The skills of executives and other staff are described as the capacity to follow rules, i.e. interpreting rules and then applying them in concrete situations. A rule says nothing about how it should be followed, however. If the way in which a rule should be followed were to be described in a rule, another rule would be needed to describe how that rule should be followed, and so on, ad infinitum. Thus, rules must be interpreted as something that requires access to an “archive” of examples. One specific executive skill consists of developing co-workers’ rule-following skills. For executives, following the rules involves making decisions based on tacit knowledge. Tacit knowledge, in turn, is based on an inner vision of what is taking place right now in the organisation, and what is crucial to customers, employees, the organisation and the world at large. It also includes understanding people’s urges, thoughts, needs, wishes, and what they are saying. Tacit knowledge develops in the interplay between reflecting over examples and taking strategic action. Decision-making situations can often be unclear and contradictory. Therefore the executive’s skills must include the ability to handle uncertainty in three different ways. The first is by being honest about the fact that all decisions cannot be made, and that some decisions take time. The second is explaining to employees that an organisation cannot be entirely regulated by guidelines, and that judgement in the form of reflected experience is therefore a crucial element in all action. The third is coping with the fact that an executive position does not automatically entail being able to make the right decision. Thus, the executive must accommodate uncertainty in the world at large, the employees’ uncertainty, and his or her own uncertainty. Empirical analysis also highlights another aspect of executive skills. Executives need to be fast, not merely in the sense of having a high work capacity, but in the sense of never saying no or questioning deliveries. Above all, comparisons with leadership research reveal differences in the interpretation of empirical data. The way in which executives follow rules, for instance, is also described in research on leadership, but only as a phenomenon linked with unusual situations, as when executives need to take emergency action in unforeseen circumstances, or make decisions in cases that are not covered by the general rules, rather than as a day-to-day occurrence. Similarly, there is a difference in perspectives on handling uncertainty. In leadership research, this is described as the executive dealing with something that has gone wrong and putting it right. In the study at hand, the concept is expanded, to demonstrate that the executive’s actions can involve accommodating the worries that this uncertainty breeds within the organisation. Empirical data do not show any differences in the descriptions of the executive skills of women and men. Women and men practise these executive skills similarly. Men’s tendency to identify themselves with senior management, however, is interpreted as a sign of homosocial structures in the organisation. The fact that men are more ambivalent than women faced with the opportunity and responsibility of promoting change consequently indicates that admittance into a homosocial structure restricts their freedom of action. There is a difference, however, between the executive skills of women and men in that women, unlike men, have to relate to the issue of their own gender. Their approach to this can vary between two leadership discourses; one that is gender-neutral, and one where gender is significant. Women’s knowledge of how gender is constructed in organisations, in leadership and in other structures and processes, is thus included in the tacit knowledge that comprises their skills. Keywords: executive, manager, management, leadership, gender, skills, tacit knowledge, follow rules, breaking rules, rules, decision-making, accommodate uncertainty, homosocial structures.Vad en chef gör och vilken betydelse chefens agerande har för företagets resultat är frågor som ständigt sysselsätter ledarskapsforskare. Men trots många tusen studier finns det inom forskningen inte någon gemensam uppfattning om vad begreppet ledarskap innebär. Inte heller inom företag och organisationer finns någon tydlig bild av vad chefer egentligen gör. Däremot visar till exempel satsningar på ledarutveckling att cheferna uppfattas som mycket viktiga för företagets resultat. Otydligheten i vad chefers arbete innebär tillsammans med föreställningen om chefens betydelse för företag och organisationer resulterar i att bilden av chefers arbete får inslag av magi. I den här studien ses chefskap som ett yrke och undersöks därför med en kvalitativ metod som innebär att yrkesutövare först skriftligt reflekterar över sitt yrkeskunnande och sedan i grupp diskuterar yrkeskunnandet utifrån de skriftliga reflektionerna. Metoden som kallas dialogseminariemetoden har använts i andra yrkesgrupper än chefer med goda resultat. Eftersom chefers yrkeskunnande inte tidigare undersökts som yrkeskunnande har resultaten jämförts med ledarskapsforskning. Att kön har betydelse för förutsättningarna att få och att utöva chefskap visas i ledarskapsforskning med könsperspektiv. Därför har även studiens resultat analyserats ur detta forskningsperspektiv. Yrkeskunnande för såväl chefer som medarbetare beskrivs som regelföljande det vill säga att tolka regler och därefter agera i en konkret situation. En regel säger ingenting om hur den ska följas. Om följandet av en regel skulle beskrivas i en regel skulle följandet av denna regel behöva beskrivas i en regel och så vidare i all oändlighet. Istället måste regler tolkas något som kräver tillgång till ett ”bibliotek” av exempel. Ett specifikt yrkeskunnande för chefer är att utveckla medarbetarnas yrkeskunnande i form av regelföljande. För chefer innebär regelföljande att fatta beslut utifrån tyst kunskap. Den tysta kunskapen bygger på en inre bild av vad som händer just nu i verksamheten och är viktigt för kunder, medarbetare, organisation och omvärld. Samt en förståelse för vad människor drivs av, tänker, behöver, önskar och säger. Den tysta kunskapen byggs upp i ett växelspel mellan reflektion över exempel och ett strategiskt agerande. Ofta är beslutssituationerna otydliga och motstridiga. Det innebär att chefens yrkeskunnande innebär att härbärgera osäkerhet på tre olika sätt. Det första genom att stå för att alla beslut inte kan fattas och att vissa inte kan fattas snabbt. Det andra genom att tydliggöra för medarbetarna att verksamheten inte går att fullt ut styra med regelverk och att omdöme i form av reflekterad erfarenhet därför är en viktig del i allt handlande. Det tredje genom att hantera insikten om att chefspositionen inte automatiskt innebär att det går att fatta rätt beslut. Chefen härbärgerar således omvärldens osäkerhet, medarbetarnas osäkerhet och den egna osäkerheten. I analys av empirin framkommer också en annan aspekt av chefers yrkeskunnande. Chefer måste vara snabba, inte bara i betydelsen att ha hög arbetskapacitet utan också som att aldrig säga nej till eller ifrågasätta leveranser. Jämförelsen med ledarskapsforskning visar framför allt på skillnader i tolkningen av empirin. Chefers regelföljande beteende beskrivs till exempel även inom ledarskapsforskningen. Men där beskrivs det som något som sker ibland, att chefen gör en brandkårsutryckning när något oväntat händer eller fattar beslut i de fall som inte hanteras av regelverken, inte som något som sker ständigt. På samma sätt finns en skillnad i synen på hanterandet av osäkerhet. Det beskrivs inom ledarskapsforskningen som att chefen hanterar det som gått fel och ställer allt till rätta. I denna studie utvecklas begreppet genom att visa att hanterandet för chefen kan innebära att härbärgera den oro osäkerheten medför i organisationen. Empirin visar inte några skillnader mellan kvinnor och män i beskrivningarna av chefers yrkeskunnande. Kvinnor och män utövar chefskap på samma sätt. Männens identifikation med högre chefer tolkas dock som tecken på homosociala strukturer i organisationen. Att männen är mer ambivalenta än kvinnorna till både möjligheten och det egna ansvaret för att driva förändring innebär då att upptagande i en homosocial struktur begränsar handlingsutrymmet. Däremot finns det en skillnad mellan kvinnors och mäns yrkeskunnande som chefer på så sätt att kvinnor till skillnad från män måste förhålla sig till sitt kön. Kvinnorna väljer att hantera detta genom att växla mellan två ledarskapsdiskurser; en könsneutral och en där kön har betydelse. Kvinnornas kunskap om hur kön görs i organisationer, i konstruktionen av ledarskap såväl som i övriga strukturer och processer, är således en del i den tysta kunskap som utgör deras yrkeskunnande.QC 20120514</p

HUMAN CAPITAL NEEDS OF BLACK LAND-GRANT INSTITUTIONS

Labor and Human Capital, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

BUILD -- A System Construction Tool

BUILD is a proposed tool for constructing systems from existing modules. BUILD system descriptions are composed of module declarations and assertions of how modules refer to each other. An extensible library of information about module types and module interaction types is maintained. The library contains information that allows BUILD to derive construction dependencies from the module declarations and referencing patterns enumerated in system descriptions. BUILD will support facilities not adequately provided by existing tools; including automatic derivation of system descriptions, patching of systems, and incorporation of information about how modules change (e.g. the ability to differentiate between the effect of adding a function definition and the effect of adding a comment).MIT Artificial Intelligence Laborator

Debt as Power

FROM THE EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: In Debt as Power, Di Muzio and Robbins present a historical account of the modern origins of capitalist debt by looking at how commercial money is produced as debt in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. They expertly demonstrate their key contention -- that debt is a technology of power -- and identify the ways in which the control, production, and distribution of money, as interest-bearing debt, are used to discipline populations. Their sharp analysis brings together histories of the development of the Bank of England and the establishment of permanent national debt with the intensification and expansion of debt, as a “technology of power”, under colonialism in a global context. The latter part of the book addresses the consequences of modern regimes of debt and puts forward proposals of what needs to be done, politically, to reverse the problems generated by debt-based economies. The final chapter presents a convincing case for the 99% to use the power of debt to challenge present inequalities and outlines a platform for action suggesting possible alternatives

PETITION FOR RECONSIDERATION OF INVESTIGATION ORDER1

In addition, all materials in connection with this Petition for Reconsideration should also be provided to MID&apos;s counsel at the following address

Operational semantics for signal handling

Signals are a lightweight form of interprocess communication in Unix. When a process receives a signal, the control flow is interrupted and a previously installed signal handler is run. Signal handling is reminiscent both of exception handling and concurrent interleaving of processes. In this paper, we investigate different approaches to formalizing signal handling in operational semantics, and compare them in a series of examples. We find the big-step style of operational semantics to be well suited to modelling signal handling. We integrate exception handling with our big-step semantics of signal handling, by adopting the exception convention as defined in the Definition of Standard ML. The semantics needs to capture the complex interactions between signal handling and exception handling.Comment: In Proceedings EXPRESS/SOS 2012, arXiv:1208.244