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The tradition of developing typologies has been prominent in research, particularly within the fields of psychology and sociology, for decades. A typology is formed by grouping cases or participants into types on the basis of their common features. Despite the prominence of typologies in research, methodological guidance on the process of developing a typology, particularly as a qualitative method for analysing data, is scarce. Ideal-type analysis is a relatively new addition to the family of qualitative research methods, which offers a systematic, rigorous method for constructing typologies from qualitative data. In our approach to ideal-type analysis, the methodology consists of seven steps: becoming familiarised with the dataset; writing the case reconstructions; constructing the ideal types; identifying the optimal cases; forming the ideal-type descriptions; checking credibility; and making comparisons. This article is a summary of our approach to conducting ideal-type analysis. We hope that this article will help researchers to consider whether using ideal-type analysis may be a suitable approach for their own studies.

PurposeThis study aims to contribute knowledge about different professional identities represented among HR practitioners from Weber's “ideal types” framework.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on semi-structured interviews with 34 Swedish HR practitioners working in large public and private organisations.FindingsThe findings reveal that HR practitioners' identity is perceived as indistinct, unclear and shattered, which leaves lots of room for interpreting HR identity. Based on a thematic content analysis, three different ideal-type identities are presented, each representing the characteristic traits of an HR identity type. These are the Defender who always supports the managers, the Disturber who questions the managers in favour of the employees and the Driver who focuses on the economic expansion of the organisation.Research limitations/implicationsOne of the potential constraints of this study is the authors’ reliance on interview data. This finding implies that future research can employ mixed methods or observational techniques to bridge the gap between narrated responsibilities and real-time actions. The data source, predominantly from larger organisations, presents another limitation. This raises a significant research implication: there is a need to study identity formation among HR practitioners in smaller organisations. The theoretical framework this study contributes can aid in comprehending HR practitioners' identities and their corresponding actions. Continued research might explore the significance of these ideal-type identities.Practical implicationsThe model presented provides a new way of understanding HR practitioners' complex and shattered professional identity and the various stakeholders that direct different expectations towards them. This knowledge can be used both in HR education and in HR work as a basis for discussing the social work environment of HR practitioners and negotiating their work and identity.Originality/valueThe study contributes knowledge of the professional identities of HR managers, an under-researched area, especially when it comes to empirical research about the HR practitioners' own experiences of their everyday work and view of the HR profession.

This article has four main objectives. First, it introduces the ideal types of domination of Weber. Contrary to the received wisdom, which knows only \"three ideal types\" (traditional, charismatic and legal rational) I present the \"fourth\" type of domination, Weber called \"Wille der Beherrschten\" as an important correction of his ideal type of legal-rational authority. Next I make a novel, critical distinction between patrimonial and prebendal types of traditional authority. Third, I discuss various ways that communist regimes tried to legitimate themselves and how they entered eventually a legitimation crisis, leading to the collapse of communism. In the next section, I explore the different ways post-communist capitalisms seek legitimacy (with various combinations of legal rational authority and patrimonialism), and finally I conclude with a trend of re-convergence of some post-communist systems (especially Russia and Hungary, but with signs for similar trends elsewhere) into an illiberal, prebendal quasi-democratic system.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to contribute to the scholarship on public management models and to advance the theoretical conceptualization of the complexity of performance management systems (PMSs). The paper explores how the characteristics of PMSs vary within and across different organizational units in common institutional context, based on the case of a regional authority in Italy.Design/methodology/approachA framework of analysis considering both objective and subjective factors was derived from a combination of performance typologies in the public sector, namely ideal types of managing performance (Bouckaert and Halligan, 2007) and performance regimes (Jakobsen et al., 2017). The combination of the characteristics of these two models across different Directorates General (DGs) has also been explored through a nested case study (Starman, 2013). Data were gathered via a desk analysis of official documents regarding the planning and programming of a regional authority along with in-depth interviews with top-level managers.FindingsThe results highlighted a clear differentiation of PMSs, both within and across DGs. The findings of the study reveal the hybrid nature of PMSs within a common institutional context.Originality/valueDrawing on the theoretical frameworks of Bouckaert and Halligan (2007) and Jakobsen et al. (2017), the paper provides an integrated approach for analysing PMSs, considering both objective and subjective dimensions. Insights and indications for future research on hybridity at a meso level of public organizations are highlighted.

Background As a renewable energy solution, photovoltaics (PVs) are crucial in the transition to a more sustainable energy system. Besides large PV installations, household adoption of PVs will be an important contribution to this transition. However, the adoption of PVs on a household level faces many barriers, with gathering and understanding information being one of the major barriers. The aim of this article is to do an in-depth analysis of how households search for and interpret information about PVs and to discuss how to reach different groups with information. Methods The results in this paper are based on three interview studies made between autumn 2013 and autumn 2016. In the first interview study, seven non-adopters of photovoltaics were interviewed. In the second study, seven adopters of photovoltaics were addressed. In the third study, a total of 44 households were interviewed, with a mix of non-adopters and adopters. In total, 58 households were interviewed. Results From the interviews, we developed four ideal types for PV adoption. The non-adopters use few sources of information, find the information complicated, and have a tendency to emphasize barriers rather than enablers for PV adoptions. The environmentally engaged adopters search a lot of information but find it difficult to know when they have enough or the right information. They also find information too technical and complicated and find it hard to compare quotes. The professionally skilled group easily accesses information but also experienced problems in comparing quotes and are critical to that many problems occur during the installation process. The accidental adopters more or less happen to get a PV system and needed little information. They usually took the offer from the provider first met. Conclusions We can conclude that when dividing the households into different ideal types, it is possible to detect what kind of information measures different groups need. To get a future increase of the number of installed PVs, it is important to develop different measures in parallel, to meet the needs from the different groups.

With over one hundred million smartphone users in the world, mobile, spatially-aware devices are radically altering how individuals move through and experience both physical and social environments. This article presents a theoretical and methodological framework for engaging the emerging geoweb as part of a longer tradition of research into society and technology. A close reading of Microsoft's Pedestrian Route Production patent, dubbed the \"avoid ghetto GPS\", is used to construct two ideal type futures—one hopeful and one frightening. One where spatial technology ensures efficiency, safety, and new forms of coordination, while the other algorithmically sorts society by race and class. Despite not yet and potentially never existing, the patent offers a viable means through which potential futures are made real in the present. Through comparative analysis of these futures, their underlying commonalities are drawn out, revealing the relationship between technology and the delimitation of human experience. This analysis avoids grand narratives and teleological arguments, while making it possible to draw forth the unthought acceptance within each ideal type for the future: the continuing shift of human life itself towards a teleological, always already-calculated standing-reserve. The work on technology of Martin Heidegger and Herbert Marcuse (re)situate the geoweb within long-standing theoretical work on technology and its role in society, modernity, and capitalism.

In some of his writings, George Psathas suggests that Alfred Schutz’s account of social-scientific methodology as constructing ideal types falls short of ethnomethodology’s approach, which, by giving an account of how actors produce their social order, exemplifies a kind of social-scientific following of Husserl’s stipulation that phenomenology return to “the things themselves”. By distinguishing Schutz’s phenomenology of the natural attitude which does return to the things themselves from his account of social scientific methodology, one can conceive various social-scientific methodologies legitimately serving different scientific purposes with reference to the life-world basis, for instance, ideal–typical methodologies that might seek solutions to problems and ethnomethodological methods that capture actors’ production of order and mimic the phenomenological return to the things themselves. Despite delineating this distinction between phenomenology and ethnomethodology, which Psathas too makes, ethnomethodology reveals many of the investigative tendencies of phenomenology and the two can be seen to engage each other indirectly and interactively. Finally, ethnomethodologists maintain some intellectual, relevance-guided distance from the everyday actors they study, however minimal the distance between them and the actors they study may be.

Recent changes in the organization of long-term care have had controversial effects on gender inequality in Europe. In response to the challenges of ageing populations, almost all countries have adopted reform measures to secure the increasing resource needs for care, to ensure care services by different providers, to regulate the quality of services, and overall to recalibrate the work-life balance for men and women. These reforms are embedded in different family ideals of intergenerational ties and dependencies, divisions of responsibilities between state, market, family, and community actors, and backed by wider societal support to families to care for their elderly and disabled members. This article disentangles the different components of the notion of ‘(de)familialization’ which has become a crucial concept of care scholarship. We use a fuzzy-set ideal type analysis to investigate care policies and work-family reconciliation policies shaping long-term care regimes. We are making steps to reveal aggregate gender equality impacts of intermingling policy dynamics and also to relate the analysis to migrant care work effects. The results are explained in a four-pronged ideal type scheme to which European countries belong. While only Nordic and some West European continental countries are close to the double earner, supported carer ideal type, positive outliers prove that transformative gender relations in care can be construed not only in the richest and most generous welfare countries in Europe.

The article examines the effects of non-financial disclosure (NFD) on corporate social responsibility (CSR). We conceptualise trade-offs between two ideal types (government regulation and business self-regulation) in relation to CSR. Whereas selfregulation is associated with greater flexibility for businesses to develop best practices, it can also lead to complacency if firms feel no external pressure to engage with CSR. In contrast, government regulation is associated with greater stringency around minimum standards, but can also result in rigidity owing to a One-size-fits-air approach. Given these potential tradeoffs, we ask how mandatory non-financial disclosure has been shaping CSR practices and examine its potential effectiveness as a regulatory instrument. Our analysis of 24 OECD countries using the Asset4 database shows that firms in countries that require non-financial disclosure adopt significantly more CSR activities. However, we also find that NFD regulation does not lead to lower levels of corporate irresponsibility. Furthermore, our analysis demonstrates that, over time, the variation in CSR activities declines as firms adopt increasingly similar practices. Our study thereby contributes to understanding the impact of government regulation on CSR at firm level. We also discuss the limits of mandatory NFD in addressing regulatory trade-offs between stringency and flexibility in the field of corporate social responsibility.

Variation in the concept of social capital casts difficulties in measurements; moreover, measuring social capital requires different methods because concepts can differ by countries, regions and also according to the conceptual attributes included in the concept. Discussion on social capital has been gaining much attention in also East Asia, where Confucianism and family oriented values are suggested to be an important cultural background. This study aims to first critically review research on social capital not only in Korea, but also elsewhere, with a focus on measurements and indicators. By highlighting the importance of developing measurement that can reflect the cultural context of social capital, we compose survey questionnaires, which include multiple aspects of social capital and conduct an investigation on Korean social capital. Then, we exploit factor analysis with these questions. Next, with results from the factor analysis above, we employ the method of fuzzy set ideal type approach in order to measure social capital in Korea according to different demographic groups. The results suggest that people with low education and low income have difficulties participating in the society through interactions, even when their trust toward the society and their consciousness regarding the norm are similar to those of the other groups in Korea.