This is the first volume to bring together philosophers, sociologists and scientists to explore and examine the role of practices in human activity.

In the 1980s, philosophical, historical and social studies of science underwent a change which later evolved into a turn to practice. Analysts of science were asked to pay attention to scientific practices in meticulous detail and along multiple dimensions, including the material, social and psychological. Following this turn, the interest in scientific practices continued to increase and had an indelible influence in the various fields of science studies. No doubt, the practice turn changed our conceptions and approaches of science, but what did it really teach us? What does it mean to study scientific practices? What are the general lessons, implications, and new challenges? This volume explores questions about the practice turn using both case studies and theoretical analysis. The case studies examine empirical and mathematical sciences, including the engineering sciences. The volume promotes interactions between acknowledged experts from different, often thought of as conflicting, orientations. It presents contributions in conjunction with critical commentaries that put the theses and assumptions of the former in perspective. Overall, the book offers a unique and diverse range of perspectives on the meanings, methods, lessons, and challenges associated with the practice turn.

The Cambridge Handbook of Strategy as Practice provides a comprehensive overview of an emerging and growing stream of research in strategic management. An international team of scholars has been assembled to produce a systematic introduction to the various epistemological, methodological and theoretical aspects of the strategy-as-practice approach. This perspective explores and explains the contribution that strategizing makes to daily operations at all levels of an organization. Moving away from a disembodied and asocial study of firm assets, technologies and practices, the strategy-as-practice approach breaks down many of the traditional paradigmatic boundaries in strategy to investigate who the strategists are, what strategists do, how they do it, and what the consequences or outcomes of their actions are. Including a number of detailed empirical studies, the handbook will be an essential guide for future research in this vibrant field.

In general, information practices are viewed as tools that people use to further their everyday projects. Essentially, people's information practices draw on their stocks of knowledge that form the habitual starting point of information seeking, use, and sharing. To judge the value of information available in external sources like newspapers and the Internet, people construct information source horizons. They set information sources in order of preference and suggest information seeking paths, such as "first check the net, then visit the library." Everyday Information Practices draws on interviews with environmental activists and unemployed people during 2005 and 2006, exploring the practices of information seeking by focusing on the ways in which the participants monitored everyday events and sought information to solve specific problems. The book shows that everyday information seeking practices tend to be oriented by the principle of "good enough." Overall, the role of routines and habits is more significant than has earlier been assumed. Thus, everyday information seeking practices tend to change quite slowly.

Creativity has become a central concept in trying to understand the contemporary economy. It is a universally accepted strategic asset and a key issue in developing economic policy. But at the same time, this lauding of the creative economy raises many questions. What can creativity really do for us? What challenges does it pose for the management and organization of companies? And, in an age when everyone tries to be creative, what does the concept even mean? This book deals with these issues, and is an engagement with the manifold ways in which creativity emerges as energy and functions as an organizing principle in modern organizations. The book presents a wide variety of approaches to understanding one of the most critical and exciting issues in modern management, with sections dedicated to the organization of innovation and creativity, leadership and management in creative endeavors, as well as creativity and organization change.

Over the past 20 years European theatre underwent fundamental changes in terms of aesthetic focus, institutional structure and in its position in society. The impetus for these changes was provided by a new generation in the independent theatre scene. This book brings together studies on the state of independent theatre in different European countries, focusing on the fields of dance and performance, children and youth theatre, theatre and migration and post-migrant theatre. Additionally, it includes essays on experimental musical theatre and different cultural policies for independent theatre scenes in a range of European countries.