Our study centralizes uncertainty, addressing not only its potential for organizational opportunities but also its existential dimensions for humans. Our ethnographic study of a deliberately “humanistic” company analyzes how human action and strategic agency are interwoven under conditions of deep uncertainty. Building on Strategy-as-Practice research and insights from sociology and science and technology studies, we develop three conceptual anchors: the cunning of uncertainty, communities of discovery, and resonant relationships. Our empirical findings describe how four interrelated practices – setting principles to encourage discovery, cultivating resonance through relational spaces, scaling communities through organizational spheres, and leading through zooming in and out- form a dynamic social web that connects human action to strategic agency.

Human shields have been increasingly documented in contemporary theatres of war. In this context, it is interesting to examine the circumstances in which the attacking party classifies the civilians they face as human shields. Therefore, this thesis focuses on the use of the classification of human shields by belligerents facing civilians during armed conflicts. The paper sets forth the argument that this legal category has been instrumentalized to justify civilian casualties, assigning the entire responsibility to the adversary. To support this claim, the research provides legal clarifications on the concept of human shields, the status of civilians used as such, and the obligations of the attacking party facing them. This involves uncovering the gaps and uncertainties in the law regarding human shields on the one hand, and the principle of proportionality on the other hand. Despite those uncertainties, this thesis maintains that human shields should be treated as civilians and that the principle of proportionality should apply normally. The subsequent examination of two case studies, the civil war in Sri Lanka and the conflict between Israel and Palestine, evaluates the patterns of instrumentalization of the category of human shields to avoid war crime accusations. Due to the lack of legal definition, the classification of human shields is being extended to cover up to hundreds of thousands of civilians, and allows for stretching the principle of proportionality to raise the threshold of acceptable casualties. This process often involves parallel narrative building to adapt the facts to this discourse. The case studies reveal the specific role of human shielding in instrumentalizing International Humanitarian Law. However, coupled with proportionality, these legal tools question the construction and the role of International Humanitarian Law in protecting civilians during armed conflicts. The appraisal of Israel’s modus operandi indeed demonstrates how the practice of instrumentalization has been systematized and shapes the course of hostilities.

Integrating the attention-based view with the strategic leadership interfaces perspective, we propose a theoretical model of situational urgency mechanisms influencing the allocation of CEOs' attention towards responsive actions. Specifically, we theorize upon the role of humility, which leads CEOs towards embracing interfaces and makes them particularly attentive to the situational context in which they operate. We test our theorization by studying corporate venture capital investments in digital ventures as a response to the situational urgency for digital transformation originating from multiple levels of analysis, internal and external to the firm. Testing a sample of 362 CEOs from 191 firms and 35 industries, we find support for the importance of CEO humility and the moderating role of the lack of top management team digital experience (team-level urgency) and emerging digital competition (industry-level urgency). Our study provides important insights into CEO responsiveness and advances our understanding of situated attention through the theorization of situational urgency and its integration with the strategic leadership interfaces perspective.

In today’s economy, numerous incumbents are engaged in or plan to engage with ecosystems, driven by the belief in significant growth opportunities and increased profitability. However, some firms have started retreating to their core businesses due to unmet expectations and unrealized goals. Despite the growing importance of ecosystems, relatively little is known about the realization of these expected performance outcomes. Therefore, we aim to shed light on the incumbents’ boundary conditions for profiting from ecosystems. Drawing on the dynamic capabilities’ literature as a powerful lens for incumbents operating in change, we argue that dynamic capabilities serve as a critical foundation for achieving successful performance outcomes. By using a survey dataset of firms in the banking and insurance industries, we reveal the positive relationship between dynamic capabilities and ecosystem performance. Additionally, we provide evidence of the positive impact of ecosystem performance on firms’ non-financial performance.

One major goal of eGovernment is the provision of an efficient and cost-effective infrastructure enabling access to online resources for all citizens. While at the beginning this goal was basically related to Internet, today there is growing demand for providing access anywhere and anytime also where wired networks are not available. Major drivers of this development are emerging technologies as WLAN and the growing mobility of inhabitants as well as increasing usage and penetration of mobile phones. Another driver are emerging opportunities for new services for citizens based on mobile technology summarized under the term mGovernment. In order to enable mobile applications on a larger scale an efficient infrastructure is necessary. In this paper the approach of Turku, Southwest Finland, in creating a wireless infrastructure will be described based on a case study.