Gender, identity, and diversity: learning from insights gained in transformative gender training

PurposeThe purpose of the paper is to introduce a systemic approach to organizational learning “triple loop learning” (TLL) that addresses processes of power. Three equally important foci in our TLL are processes of design, processes of debate and processes of power. The focus on power aims to shift “power over” (power as domination) to “power to” enact empowering designs, “power to” co-develop responsible decision-making and “power to” transform our relations with each other and with life on Earth.Design/methodology/approachThe organizational learning literature is reviewed in the context of power dynamics and its shortcomings are highlighted. The authors introduce their understanding of TLL, and how it engages with power dynamics in organizations.FindingsPeter Senge’s conceptualization of systems thinking is unable to recognize processes of power in organizations and offers limited support to transformative learning. Conceptualizations of TLL aim to enhance learning in organizations but none satisfactorily address the processes of power. The learning organization literature as a whole does not satisfactorily address processes of power or reflect our way of envisaging “looping between loops of learning” in TLL to better design, better debate and better develop relationality in the social fabric of organizations.Originality/valueThe authors introduce an original approach to TLL that directly addresses the processes of power in organizations. It offers researchers, learning facilitators and practitioners of the learning organization a way to engage with the processes of power without neglecting other important organizational and environmental issues.

This paper builds on the literature that explores the renewed form of power in postmodern organisations. Specifically, it explores the practice of executive coaching. Using an interpretive approach and an adbuctive method, the article confirms and illustrates the critical literature that analyses coaching as a practice for organisational control. However, by uncovering acts of affirmative resistance generated by the active engagement of the coachee in the coaching process, our analysis nuances the totalitarian dimension of coaching. Rather we identify a juxtaposition of power dynamics represented along a continuum that are navigated through the coachee's acts of resistance. The concept of the continuum portraying coaching as a malleable space adds to the literature that positions coaching as an 'uncertain process' by articulating its ambiguity with its malleability.

Using a longitudinal, critical ethnographic approach this research explored how a change process was managed over a five-year period at a large Australian hospital. This thesis aims to explain how power dynamics that operate in the health system actively generate systemic inertia making organisational change difficult and complex. The thesis questions the efficacy of the rise of the new public management agenda and clinical management as valorised practice among clinicians. The context for the research was the construction of a $300 million hospital that was intended to introduce a new approach to health service management. The hospital redevelopment created an opportunity for redevelopment beyond the new infrastructure. A particular goal for the redevelopment was to bring about change in organisational design to create an integrated model for service delivery and a new organisational culture. Although the redevelopment was completed the new model of service delivery and culture change were not realised. The research is shaped theoretically by Bourdieu’s theory of practice and is informed by literatures about institutional inertia, organisational change, sociology of power and the professions, complexity theory and health services management. In particular, this research applies a model of systemic inertia as a means to critically reflect on change in health services. The model of systemic inertia involves six mechanisms of reproduction that it is proposed create paradoxical tension in organisations. The six mechanisms of reproduction identified are loose coupling, path dependency, cascading, discontinuity, dissonance and indeterminacy. The findings of the research are organised around these key constructs. The most important contributions of this thesis are findings that reveal how new public management infiltrated political, professional and bureaucratic fields of power strengthening pre-existing power structures that underpin a dominant discourse, which is reproduced through systemic inertia. Loose coupling facilitated the emergence of clinical management and the preservation of clinical dominance via a gradual adoption of business principles and practices by clinical managers. Path dependency in particular explains how power structures perpetuate medical dominance. Thus clinical management emerged as an extension of medical dominance and clinical managers became the new elite relegating other non-clinical departments to support services. The research also observes that cascading explains how the accumulative effects of power differentials led to the implementation of clinical management but not to culture change or the new model of service delivery. Power differentials resulted in cost shifting between acute and community services that consumed vast resources and generated systemic inertia. An understanding of how cost shifting operates through hospital centrism is a valuable insight of this thesis. Terms such as “collaboration” and “integration” are common in clinical management discourse, but such practices are undermined by an enthusiasm for competition in new public management. Indeed, competition, coercion and manipulation practised by managers and threats of commercialisation caused industrial conflict, job insecurity and increased workloads that created paralysing organisational tensions. In this way, systemic inertia is generated by dissonance resulting from power and domination. Indeterminacy as a construct explains how clinical managers covertly influence an organisation through the shadow system. In addition, the shadow system observed was self-organising because it enabled the system to generate new structures and patterns based on its own internal power dynamics, logics and imperatives. Hence, decision making processes about health services often appeared to be invisible to those outside and usually remained unquestioned. This invisibility assisted the preservation of traditional power relations and the blocking of culture change and the integrated model of service delivery. In the model that emerged from this research, discontinuity describes the disruption linked to, for example, rapid turnover of managers, restructuring and reviews, and inadequate training and planning that generated systemic inertia. Discontinuity was most evident over the course of this research in terms of disrupted decision making as the health department restructured three times in less than five years. It is argued that cyclical discontinuity occurred because of the associated bureaucratic and political power struggles that are prominent during perpetual cycles of health ‘reform’. Respondents reported that restructuring not only consumed massive resources, it causes discontinuity at every level of the organisation. Systemic inertia as a construct explained the underlying relationship between power and inertia in organisations. This study reveals the habitus of the clinical manager gives rise to discursive organisational practices as the means through which the dominant ideologies that create systemic inertia are constructed and maintained. In terms of applications for practice, the thesis proposes that health service managers need to take systemic inertia into account in their planning. The findings suggest the current top down approach to planning needs to be reversed if a more integrated Australian health system is to be established. To hear and act upon the muted voices of patients and the wider community it is necessary to unmask and disrupt the power of dominant groups such as clinicians and clinical managers.

Both workplace mental health and gender equity issues are in the spotlight in Canada as they are internationally. Accordingly, it is timely for Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) to systematically consider sex, gender, and intersecting identities. Four cross-cutting priorities emerged from a focused analysis of the literature: (1) targeted outreach to men and other priority populations, (2) enhanced gender and diversity training for EAP counselors, (3) digital EAP services to meet preferences beyond face-to-face counseling, and (4) performance and quality improvement of both the EAP process and outcomes. The implications of these are considered using a Canadian case example.

This article presents a case study of the course “The Third Sector Facing Gender Issues”, conducted between 2023 and 2025 as part of FQTS, a training project for leaders and volunteers in the Third Sector of Southern Italy. The course is analyzed as an experiment in a gender-sensitive learning community: an educational space involving both women and men, aimed at promoting a transformation of gender cultures within organizational cultures, power dynamics and society at large. The theoretical references include the concept of ‘community’ as interpreted by Bauman in relation to that of organization, and pedagogy as a tool for individual and social emancipation, as proposed by hooks. The study highlights how the course enabled the emergence of certain issues that participants – especially women – found difficult to address within their organizations. The investigation was carried out through two main actions: fostering public dialogues among participants during various in-person meetings across different cities, which were treated as a qualitative corpus and subjected to thematic analysis; and conducting interviews with key informants. This article focuses on the results of the first action, which brought to light the prejudices and silent resistances that oppose gender equality, as well as various elements useful for planning future training activities.

This integrative review critically examined current evidence on cyberbullying, cyberincivility, and online harassment involving nurses as recipients, perpetrators, or participants in professional and public digital spaces. Guided by Whittemore and Knafl’s framework and reported in accordance with PRISMA 2020, peer-reviewed studies (2017–2025) were identified through CINAHL, MEDLINE, and Embase (final search: 3 December 2025). Methodological quality was appraised using Joanna Briggs Institute tools, and findings were synthesised through inductive thematic analysis. Nine studies met the inclusion criteria. Five themes emerged: cyberbullying is widespread and multimodal; shaped by organisational culture and power dynamics; associated with significant psychological and occupational harm; intensified by blurred personal-professional boundaries; and inadequately addressed due to fragmented leadership, education, and policy responses. Cyberbullying and cyberincivility represent pervasive digital extensions of workplace bullying in nursing, with serious implications for nurse wellbeing, professional identity, workforce retention, and patient care. Addressing these behaviours requires recognition of cyber-aggression as workplace violence and coordinated organisational action across leadership, education, policy, and research.

This study synthesizes empirical evidence on how workplace artificial intelligence (AI)—ranging from collaborative robots to algorithmic management—restructures organizational culture, identity, and power dynamics. A PRISMA-guided systematic review and meta-analysis of seven databases and grey literature identified 88 empirical studies conducted between 2015 and 2025. The evidence was integrated through thematic synthesis complemented by a descriptive quantitative summary. The findings converge on five key themes: AI simultaneously threatens and enables work identities; it reconfigures social dynamics by fostering collaboration while also introducing strain; it shifts power toward data-driven control and surveillance; it accelerates human–AI augmentation and job redesign; and it produces uneven cultural adaptation characterized by fear, resistance, and fragile trust. Outcomes are consistently moderated by factors such as leadership quality, organizational support, participatory implementation, and system transparency. The evidence indicates that AI is not culturally neutral; its cultural consequences depend heavily on governance and implementation choices. Practically, organizations should implement transparent communication strategies, involve workers in co-design processes, establish robust ethical and privacy safeguards, and promote targeted upskilling and AI literacy. These measures aim to translate efficiency gains into cultural value while safeguarding autonomy and well-being. Such approaches foster trust and support sustainable performance and cultural resilience in AI-enabled workplaces.

This review study explores the controversial concept of violence in contemporary Iraqi novels. This study draws on studies that discussed the concept of violence as depicted in contemporary Iraqi novels of Alsaadawi's. It argues that violence in contemporary Iraqi novels is represented in those literary works as something other than mere physical cruelty, it is also a psychical, social, and political event. The discussion offers insight into historical and modern-day violence occurring in Iraq. It also deals with themes of war, trauma, and identity. A clear enunciation among the findings is that these novels engage in very critical ways with how optimum violence constructs and is constructed by both the individual and collective identity, relating to societal structures and dynamics of power. It is in these works that elements of horror, supernatural, and stark realist descriptions of the modern warfare setting interplay to create something that does hold deep insight into the dehumanizing process of violence and the resilience of its victims. In this way, the present research concludes by pointing out that literature has an important role in realizing and challenging the complex realities of violence.

In the current era of greatly increased availability of media technology platforms, fans with their domains continue to expand, becoming a rapidly growing concept of our time (Scott, 2019; Stanfill, 2019). The study examines $2 [厕所, toilet], a type of social bot account on Weibo, differs from algorithm-driven bots as it’s manually managed by real users who set up site conventions, review and post users’ submissions, and promote opinion coordination. As an emerging mode of information exchange and group interaction in Chinese Internet culture, $2 is especially active in fandom. It serves as both an organizational structure and an information dissemination tool, offering insights into how individual fans regulate collective personas and providing a new organizational model for fan communities in the platform media era. $2 can be seen as a type of fan-create Nonhuman Online Persona (NHOP), a coherent digital assemblage with no direct connection to individual human identities. The research investigates how Cesuo operates, its role in fan community building, and the power dynamics it establishes. By analyzing two representative $2 accounts and conducting semi-structured interviews, the study identifies three key characteristics of $2 : its anonymity and collective identity performance, its usage of fan slang as a form of community regulation, and its paratextual production and emotional bonding. Ultimately, the study argues that $2 enables alternative forms of digital fandom, emphasizing emotional connection and shared agency over individualized fan identity.

In the 1960s, political threats drove petroleum multinational corporations in Venezuela to deploy highly sophisticated defense strategies. The American industry leader, Creole, wanted the local business community to adopt corporate social responsibility (CSR) identities and practices as a buffer against state intervention and communist uprising. How would Creole instigate such field-level organisational transformation? By addressing this question through theoretically informed historical narration, I endeavour to extend institutional theory into the world of inter-firm mobilizations for institutional creation and change. Such mobilizations are organised through inter-firm convening: a mechanism through which organisations mobilise – based on the establishment of a special-purpose meta-organisation – to address external challenges by modifying collective identities, remodelling forms of organisation, and diffusing practices in their field. (In Venezuela, this meta-organisation was called Dividendo.) By using this centrally coordinated form of mobilisation, the project’s agenda setters can exert transformative influence on the identity and behaviour of potentially numerous other organisations. I discuss implications for the study of institutional work, organisational power, and global diffusion. The article promotes a corporate and management-centred perspective on CSR, Latin American, and Cold War historiography.

Book reviewed in this article:Susan T. Fiske, Daniel L. Schacter, and Carolyn Zahn‐Waxler (Editors). Annual Review of Psychology.Manuel London (Editor). How People Evaluate Others in Organizations.Louis Diamant and Jo Ann Lee (Editors). The Psychology of Sex, Gender, and Jobs: Issues and Solutions.Ronald Fry, Frank Barrett, Jane Seiling, and Diana Whitney (Editors) Appreciative Inquiry and Organizational Transformation: Reports from the Field.Terence L. Gargiulo. Making Stories: A Practical Guide for Organizational Leaders and Human Resource Specialists.Manuel London. Leadership Development: Paths to Self‐Insight and Professional Growth.Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee. Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence.Louis Carter, David Giber, and Marshall Goldsmith (Editors). Best Practices in Organization Development and Change.Carol Beatty and Harvey Schachter. Employee Ownership: The New Source of Competitive Advantage.Margaret B. W. Graham and Alec T. Shuldiner. Corning and the Craft of Innovation.C. Fred Alford. Whistleblowers: Broken Lives and Organizational Power.Peter Koestenbaum and Peter Block. Freedom and Accountability at Work: Applying Philosophical Insight to the Real World.Reviewed by Anthony F. Buono, Professor of Management and Sociology, Bentley College, Waltham, MA.Jane Galloway Seiling. The Meaning and Role of Organizational Advocacy: Responsibility and Accountability in the Workplace.Daniel C. Kramer. Workplace Sabbaticals: Bonus or Entitlement?Andrew Mayo. The Human Value of the Enterprise: Valuing People as Assets–Monitoring, Measuring, Managing.Richard A. Swanson. Assessing the Financial Benefits of Human Resource Development.Tom W. Goad. Information Literacy and Workplace Performance.Lisa A. Burke (Editor). High‐Impact Training Solutions: Top Issues Troubling Trainers.John B. Kidd, Xue Li and Frank‐Jurgen Richter (Editors). Advances in Human Resource Management in Asia.Edmund Heery and Mike Noon. A Dictionary of Human Resource Management.Peter Warr (Editor). Psychology at Work (5th edition).Neil Anderson, Deniz S. Ones, Handan Kepir Sinangil, and Chockalingam Viswesvaran (Editors). Handbook of Industrial, Work, and Organizational Psychology.Biostat. Power and Precision: A Computer Program for Statistical Power Analysis and Confidence Intervals.

The geography of native or indigenous groups in the United and other former British colonies is evolving as result of both internal and external forces. Native groups in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and Africa are experiencing opportunities for self-expression and for establishing native-voiced priorities that are very much part of the postcolonial present. In the United two related situations, gaming and probable cuts in the budget of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), twist the administrative tasks of tribal governments into pretzel-like contortions. On one hand, the decline of BIA funds means less revenue from federal sources; on the other, in isolated cases activities like gaming are producing revenue that greatly increases tribal autonomy. In other regions of the postcolonial world, native groups face diminishing governmental funds and lack the ability to create capital, even as they express the confident rhetoric and hope of self-governance - especially in looking toward control of land and natural resources. These conditions are part of historical process, one that not only affects the present condition of native groups but also sets the agenda for native issues in the next century. The ability and desire of native groups to define their own landscapes by modifying natural environments, establishing settlement patterns, and formally acknowledging the symbolic importance of specific sites is part of wider global system which unites hundreds of culture groups that have experienced British imperialism since the sixteenth century. Though culturally unique, the groups were systematically faced with centrally organized state power that attempted to create homogeneous relationship with all of them, as if they were one. The primary objectives of the British were to dominate other European powers in global trade and to acquire land and resources. But British colonial imperialism, in which American federal Indian policy had its roots, is ending; and native, aboriginal, or Indian groups are more able than ever to participate in determining cultural landscapes and economic survival. The pace of native survival is much like an Apache women's circle dance: small steps to slow and constant rhythm, swaying shawls leaving trail in the dust of the powwow ground. The progress is slow, sometimes the drumming is faint, sometimes the drumming is louder, but the circle is not broken. The same pattern is evident in the history of native adjustments to British colonial systems: A constant circle of native life has withstood considerable disruption. Adjustments to imperialism required natives to reestablish individual and group identity that had to satisfy two contradictory worldviews. These contradictions have created sense of ambiguity and sometimes hopelessness that can be found in almost all native communities today. The task now for those communities is to escape the reproduction of contradictions and hopelessness by returning to production of native-defined worlds in the present. David I. Wishart, geographer at the University of Nebraska, reminds us of major source of Indian hopelessness in An Unspeakable Sadness: The Dispossession of the Nebraska Indians. The title of his book comes from phrase that an Omaha Indian used in 1912 to describe his sense of loss. Quoted by Wishart, White Horse says, Now the face of all the land is changed and sad. The living creatures are gone. I see the land desolate, and I suffer unspeakable sadness. Sometimes I wake in the night and feel as though I should suffocate from the pressure of this awful feeling of loneliness (Wishart 1994, v). This despair follows the Nebraska into the modern era, according to Wishart. Having defined the pervasive turmoil of the Nebraska, Wishart goes on to construct an impressive and convincing argument about the process of land losses of the Nebraska as a means of determining the justness, or lack of justness, of the United States in its treatment of the Nebraska (p. …

Background: Cultural humility is becoming a core concept in nursing, and specifically in the more multicultural healthcare settings of the present day. While cultural competence is more about learning about others, cultural humility is characterized by a more profound, more introspective process rooted in self-awareness, humility, and ongoing commitment to personal and professional development. Aim: The aim of this concept analysis is to investigate and clarify the concept of cultural humility in nursing with an emphasis towards distinguishing it from its related constructs and to establish its application in the promotion of culturally safe and responsive care. Method: The study utilized Walker and Avant's eight-step concept analysis approach. A comprehensive literature review assisted in identifying the most important attributes, antecedents, consequences, empirical referents, and illustrative cases to better understand cultural humility in nursing practice. Result: Cultural humility has been described as an iterative, introspective process characterized by openness to others' experiential realities, rigorous self-reflection, awareness of current power dynamics, and respectful dialogue with all cultural groups. Precursors of note are individual self-reflection, diversity and inclusion training, and extensive cross-cultural contact. Cultural humility outcomes are improved patient-provider communication, enhanced therapeutic relationships, and mitigation of health disparities. Conclusion & Implementation: Cultural humility as a core virtue of the times facilitates fair, inclusive, and patient-centered care. Integration of this practice into nursing education, practice, and leadership can potentially drive social justice in health care and enable the establishment of trust in diverse cultural settings. To operationalize cultural humility in practice, institutions need to integrate it into curricula, clinical policy, and organizational culture. Interventions include integrating reflective practice into curricula, establishing continuing cultural conversation in clinical environments, and developing mentorship models that honor lived experience and multiple viewpoints. With these initiatives, cultural humility can be a sustained and actionable aspect of nursing professionalism and patient advocacy.

This chapter examines how institutional imperialism technically shapes and politically frames national development in the dynamic relations between the world order and regions. The investigation focuses on the political economy of Colombia’s incorporation into the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) between 2010 and 2018. Departing from a critical global political economy (GPE) approach, the investigation critically explores the role assumed by the OECD as neutral and purely technical, analyzing the dynamics of power in the intersections of domestic-international economics. It shows how the OECD technically shapes and politically frames national development in key areas that define the international insertion of the country into the world economy, with domestic laws based on the Washington Consensus and post-Consensus. Three major conclusions are reached. The first is that international organizations can determine domestic policies of development with the aim of inserting peripheral countries within an imperialist economy so as to facilitate the transfer of value, as is shown to be the case with Colombia. The second contribution is how multilateral recommendations become central conditionalities that define the relationship between the international organization and the state but are presented as neutral and technical standards. Finally, the chapter describes how this dynamic of imperialist economic integration took form in several domestic policies in Colombia, presenting them as ‘better policies for development’.

In this chapter, I demonstrate how Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) perspectives can extend inquiry and practice to transform higher education in equity-oriented directions. My aims are to (1) show CHAT’s affordances to enhance research and practice about equity-oriented organizational and systems change and (2) provide tools for researchers to apply CHAT to study (in)equity in higher education organizations and systems. After a brief orientation to CHAT, I examine how studies of two interventions identified organizational dynamics and possibilities for equity-oriented transformation to advance migrant students’ postsecondary opportunities and to build the capacity of postsecondary personnel to promote equitable student outcomes. Subsequently, I employ CHAT to analyze primary ethnographic data about undergraduate geoscience fieldwork that also involved an intervention to promote equity and inclusion in this setting. My ethnographic analysis shows how, compared with more common higher education conceptual perspectives, the application of CHAT offers a finer-grained analysis of cultural practices, how they are generated, and how they are sustained or transformed over time. Therefore, a CHAT analysis of these organizational practices provides more specific ways to understand and transform systemic dynamics of exclusion and power. I conclude with implications about CHAT’s potential to enhance expansive learning, equity-oriented inquiry, and transformation of higher education organizations and systems.