title: Narrating The Body Shop: A story about corporate identity

authors: Grant, Sasha

subjects: The Body Shop

abstract: The narrative turn in organisation studies locates organisations as authors of their own identities. Organisations in all sectors are talking about values, engaging in ongoing conversations with the larger society and telling their story to multiple audiences in their never-ending construction of meaning. Today, modern organisations are entwined in a constant struggle to remain distinctive from their competitors and articulate their identities in the marketplace of discourse and images. While some organisations work to personalise their identities through visible characters, others position themselves in terms of values such as environmental awareness and social responsibility.

The purpose of this research was to examine how the identity of The Body Shop has been expressed and transformed through an ongoing corporate narrative of which the founder, Anita Roddick, has been the primary storyteller. Specifically, the thesis examined the relationship between the founder’s (charismatic) leadership and the organisation’s identity in a value-driven company. Within this context, the founder’s narrative, as well as supporting and competing narratives by other characters, were crucial to understanding the development of a corporate identity so closely tied to the values, goals and identity of a person. In this study, narrative is treated as a perspective on human communication that emphasises the story as more than merely an artefact of language but as a dominant mode of appeal and influence. In relation to the ‘narratives’ examined in this thesis, I adopt Czarniawska’s (1995) use of the term to refer to a sequential account of events, usually chronologically, whereby sequentiality indicates some kind of causality, and action-accounted for in terms of intentions and deeds and consequences and is commonly given a central place. From an organisational communication perspective, stories reinforce the development of identity and create meaning for the organisation. In this way, organisational identity has a narrative character that persists - usually through the leader or founder's ability to narrate the organisation's life. The analysis of organisational stories thus serves to provide a better understanding of the influence of individuals in the construction and management of corporate identity.

Data for this chronological case study consisted of narratives which were collected through extensive documentary analysis and an-depth interview with Anita Roddick and the two New Zealand Body Shop Directors. The narrative analysis then progressed through three distinct levels, beginning with a thematic analysis and moving ultimately to a critical-interpretive approach that drew especially on concepts from rhetorical criticism and critical discourse analysis.

The findings from this research highlighted the influence of Roddick's personal identity and values on the identity of The Body Shop, which resulted in the organisation personifying its founder. The unity and uniqueness of The Body Shop's identity was achieved through the process of narrativity as Roddick conceived her own, as well as The Body Shop's existence, as a special story.

In the early years of The Body Shop's history, Roddick linked her own personal identity to the corporate identity of The Body Shop through the retrospective narrative construction of the self in autobiography and other Body Shop texts. Roddick used her first autobiography, Body and soul, in 1991, to document the organisation's evolution, and to connect the past to the present. This idea of the Self as socially constructed – in interactions between individuals within the social worlds relevant to them – is exemplified through Roddick's storied reactions to those who questioned the authenticity of The Body Shop's identity. Roddick's (2000a) second autobiography, Business as unusual, saw Roddick reinvent both her personal and organisational identity against alternative plots, augmenting the existing epic as constructed by Roddick in Body and soul. Her discursive strategy involved reconstructing the original characteristics that set The Body Shop apart from the others and revisiting her original stories which negotiated boundaries for, and with, the rest of the business community.

In 1998, traces of a more conventional business discourse found its way into The Body Shop narrative, augmented with the arrival of a new management team.  Consequently, several authorised and unauthorised versions of the corporate story coexisted at The Body Shop, all of them struggling for dominance and recognition. More recent Body Shop narratives actually expose a significant fracture in the relationship between individual and organisational identity, signalling the end of the founder's era. In fact, the irony only confirms the linkage of individual and organisational identity in that as Roddick distanced herself from The Body Shop, the organisation no longer spoke through her voice. Roddick's conversations with the larger community no longer served to affirm the identity of The Body Shop but her own. What was once one, unified identity (‘Anita Roddick of The Body Shop’) became two distinctly separate identities (‘Anita Roddick and The Body Shop’).

text: Narrating The Body Shop: A story about corporate identity The narrative turn in organisation studies locates organisations as authors of their own identities. Organisations in all sectors are talking about values, engaging in ongoing conversations with the larger society and telling their story to multiple audiences in their never-ending construction of meaning. Today, modern organisations are entwined in a constant struggle to remain distinctive from their competitors and articulate their identities in the marketplace of discourse and images. While some organisations work to personalise their identities through visible characters, others position themselves in terms of values such as environmental awareness and social responsibility.

The purpose of this research was to examine how the identity of The Body Shop has been expressed and transformed through an ongoing corporate narrative of which the founder, Anita Roddick, has been the primary storyteller. Specifically, the thesis examined the relationship between the founder’s (charismatic) leadership and the organisation’s identity in a value-driven company. Within this context, the founder’s narrative, as well as supporting and competing narratives by other characters, were crucial to understanding the development of a corporate identity so closely tied to the values, goals and identity of a person. In this study, narrative is treated as a perspective on human communication that emphasises the story as more than merely an artefact of language but as a dominant mode of appeal and influence. In relation to the ‘narratives’ examined in this thesis, I adopt Czarniawska’s (1995) use of the term to refer to a sequential account of events, usually chronologically, whereby sequentiality indicates some kind of causality, and action-accounted for in terms of intentions and deeds and consequences and is commonly given a central place. From an organisational communication perspective, stories reinforce the development of identity and create meaning for the organisation. In this way, organisational identity has a narrative character that persists - usually through the leader or founder's ability to narrate the organisation's life. The analysis of organisational stories thus serves to provide a better understanding of the influence of individuals in the construction and management of corporate identity.

Data for this chronological case study consisted of narratives which were collected through extensive documentary analysis and an-depth interview with Anita Roddick and the two New Zealand Body Shop Directors. The narrative analysis then progressed through three distinct levels, beginning with a thematic analysis and moving ultimately to a critical-interpretive approach that drew especially on concepts from rhetorical criticism and critical discourse analysis.

The findings from this research highlighted the influence of Roddick's personal identity and values on the identity of The Body Shop, which resulted in the organisation personifying its founder. The unity and uniqueness of The Body Shop's identity was achieved through the process of narrativity as Roddick conceived her own, as well as The Body Shop's existence, as a special story.

In the early years of The Body Shop's history, Roddick linked her own personal identity to the corporate identity of The Body Shop through the retrospective narrative construction of the self in autobiography and other Body Shop texts. Roddick used her first autobiography, Body and soul, in 1991, to document the organisation's evolution, and to connect the past to the present. This idea of the Self as socially constructed – in interactions between individuals within the social worlds relevant to them – is exemplified through Roddick's storied reactions to those who questioned the authenticity of The Body Shop's identity. Roddick's (2000a) second autobiography, Business as unusual, saw Roddick reinvent both her personal and organisational identity against alternative plots, augmenting the existing epic as constructed by Roddick in Body and soul. Her discursive strategy involved reconstructing the original characteristics that set The Body Shop apart from the others and revisiting her original stories which negotiated boundaries for, and with, the rest of the business community.

In 1998, traces of a more conventional business discourse found its way into The Body Shop narrative, augmented with the arrival of a new management team.  Consequently, several authorised and unauthorised versions of the corporate story coexisted at The Body Shop, all of them struggling for dominance and recognition. More recent Body Shop narratives actually expose a significant fracture in the relationship between individual and organisational identity, signalling the end of the founder's era. In fact, the irony only confirms the linkage of individual and organisational identity in that as Roddick distanced herself from The Body Shop, the organisation no longer spoke through her voice. Roddick's conversations with the larger community no longer served to affirm the identity of The Body Shop but her own. What was once one, unified identity (‘Anita Roddick of The Body Shop’) became two distinctly separate identities (‘Anita Roddick and The Body Shop’).

year: 2004

title: International migration and income inequality in Aotearoa New Zealand, 2013–2018

authors: Islam, Ahmed Zohirul

subjects: migration

abstract: Income inequality and international migration are often interrelated and have both become key concerns in Aotearoa New Zealand over recent decades. The present study aimed to examine the effects of immigration on income inequality in Aotearoa New Zealand by decomposing the within-group and between-group contributions to the level of inequality and to the change in income inequality between 2013 and 2018. Drawing on census and administrative income data, we explored two routes (composition effect and group-specific income-distribution effect) through which international migration influences the aggregate income distribution. Mean log deviation (MLD) decomposition technique was used to decompose the within-group inequality and between-group inequality, and the population subgroup decomposition of Mookherjee and Shorrocks’s (1982) approach was used to decompose the change in inequality over the 2013–2018 period. The results show that income inequality was higher among immigrants than among New Zealand-born, and recent immigrants have relatively lower incomes which improve over time. Between 2013 and 2018, increases in the share of the high-skilled immigrant groups had inequality-increasing contributions. The decrease in the population share of low-skilled recent immigrants contributed to decreasing overall income inequality as did the effect of change in group-specific income distribution of low-skilled earlier immigrants. These results highlight the need for more focus on the role of migrant composition in terms of gender, nationality, occupation and migrant status in order to gain greater insight into the relationship between immigration and inequality.

text: International migration and income inequality in Aotearoa New Zealand, 2013–2018 Income inequality and international migration are often interrelated and have both become key concerns in Aotearoa New Zealand over recent decades. The present study aimed to examine the effects of immigration on income inequality in Aotearoa New Zealand by decomposing the within-group and between-group contributions to the level of inequality and to the change in income inequality between 2013 and 2018. Drawing on census and administrative income data, we explored two routes (composition effect and group-specific income-distribution effect) through which international migration influences the aggregate income distribution. Mean log deviation (MLD) decomposition technique was used to decompose the within-group inequality and between-group inequality, and the population subgroup decomposition of Mookherjee and Shorrocks’s (1982) approach was used to decompose the change in inequality over the 2013–2018 period. The results show that income inequality was higher among immigrants than among New Zealand-born, and recent immigrants have relatively lower incomes which improve over time. Between 2013 and 2018, increases in the share of the high-skilled immigrant groups had inequality-increasing contributions. The decrease in the population share of low-skilled recent immigrants contributed to decreasing overall income inequality as did the effect of change in group-specific income distribution of low-skilled earlier immigrants. These results highlight the need for more focus on the role of migrant composition in terms of gender, nationality, occupation and migrant status in order to gain greater insight into the relationship between immigration and inequality.

year: 2024-04-25

title: Time to Diagnosis and Persistence: The Two Major Determinants of Effective Tuberculosis Control

authors: Ruthe, Alaine Tess

subjects: tuberculosis

abstract: The greatest challenge confronting effective tuberculosis (TB) eradication is the time to diagnosis, and duration of treatment of chronically infected individuals which represent a pool of infection. In an attempt to help limit the spread of TB in New Zealand, a fast SNP based diagnostic test was developed, to quickly identify the highly transmissible and virulent endemic Rangipo strain. The role of VapBC toxin-antitoxin systems in M. tuberculosis has been the subject of great interest recently, due to their expanded number in the genome and links with virulence and the regulation of cell growth in response to environmental stress. Their ability to regulate growth under adverse conditions for presumed survival advantages possibly leading to dormancy or persistence, make them ideal candidates for the development of new M. tuberculosis treatments. To establish differential expression of vapC, and therefore identify possible pathways and functions of the VapBC proteins, RT-qPCR was used to assess the expression levels of vapB and vapC in M. smegmatis under conditions of stress. No consistant changes in vapC mRNA levels were observed, resulting in the hypothesis that it is not the transcriptional differences which are important in the regulation of VapC, but post-transcriptional factors. In order to investigate the function(s) of M. tuberculosis VapBCs, these VapBC proteins were expressed and purified in M. smegmatis, and the VapC toxin tested for RNase activity. The purification, expression, RNase testing and bioinformatic analysis of M. tuberculosis VapCs suggested that VapCRv2530c, VapCRv0065 and VapCRv0617 may all target the same recognition sequence, UA*GG. Bioinformatic analysis revealed an abundance of this target sequence in horizontal gene transfer and TA genes, raising the possibility that VapC toxins could be functioning as selfish elements, or initiating transcriptional regulation cascades when a rapid change in the proteomic response and metabolic state of the cell is required. It is intriguing that the three M. tuberculosis VapC proteins tested thus far appear to target the same recognition sequence, possibly suggesting that all 47 VapCs are RNases and are targeting the same sequence. Alternatively; VapCs may belong to sub-groups targeting different sequences, allowing M. tuberculosis to exude both gross and fine metabolic control; or, they may share the same target, but are regulated by different activators triggered in response to different environmental stimuli.

text: Time to Diagnosis and Persistence: The Two Major Determinants of Effective Tuberculosis Control The greatest challenge confronting effective tuberculosis (TB) eradication is the time to diagnosis, and duration of treatment of chronically infected individuals which represent a pool of infection. In an attempt to help limit the spread of TB in New Zealand, a fast SNP based diagnostic test was developed, to quickly identify the highly transmissible and virulent endemic Rangipo strain. The role of VapBC toxin-antitoxin systems in M. tuberculosis has been the subject of great interest recently, due to their expanded number in the genome and links with virulence and the regulation of cell growth in response to environmental stress. Their ability to regulate growth under adverse conditions for presumed survival advantages possibly leading to dormancy or persistence, make them ideal candidates for the development of new M. tuberculosis treatments. To establish differential expression of vapC, and therefore identify possible pathways and functions of the VapBC proteins, RT-qPCR was used to assess the expression levels of vapB and vapC in M. smegmatis under conditions of stress. No consistant changes in vapC mRNA levels were observed, resulting in the hypothesis that it is not the transcriptional differences which are important in the regulation of VapC, but post-transcriptional factors. In order to investigate the function(s) of M. tuberculosis VapBCs, these VapBC proteins were expressed and purified in M. smegmatis, and the VapC toxin tested for RNase activity. The purification, expression, RNase testing and bioinformatic analysis of M. tuberculosis VapCs suggested that VapCRv2530c, VapCRv0065 and VapCRv0617 may all target the same recognition sequence, UA*GG. Bioinformatic analysis revealed an abundance of this target sequence in horizontal gene transfer and TA genes, raising the possibility that VapC toxins could be functioning as selfish elements, or initiating transcriptional regulation cascades when a rapid change in the proteomic response and metabolic state of the cell is required. It is intriguing that the three M. tuberculosis VapC proteins tested thus far appear to target the same recognition sequence, possibly suggesting that all 47 VapCs are RNases and are targeting the same sequence. Alternatively; VapCs may belong to sub-groups targeting different sequences, allowing M. tuberculosis to exude both gross and fine metabolic control; or, they may share the same target, but are regulated by different activators triggered in response to different environmental stimuli.

year: 2015