Churches and Urban Regeneration in Postindustrial Amsterdam

Abstract

The central focus of this article is the interaction between religious actors and urban regeneration in the former industrial area of Amsterdam North. While there is extensive literature on the structural, sociocultural, and economic impact of urban regeneration and related processes of gentrification, the role of religious groups in these processes of neighborhood change has largely been ignored. Based on ethnographic research, I examine how different Christian movements interact with their changing neighborhood in varied forms. The redevelopment of industrial buildings and the gentrification of working-class neighborhoods in Amsterdam North enable different but particular forms of Christian place-making. I focus on two forms of engagement with urban spaces: (a) the reuse of industrial buildings by Pentecostal movements and (b) the transformation of traditional Protestant church buildings into socially mixed neighborhood centers. These two different forms of urban place-making highlight how Christian organizations bring the active agency to urban regeneration and cocreate urban neighborhoods materially and socially.

Empowering middle managers to free their strategic capabilities

“…These arguments foster the idea that middle managers are obsolete “dinosaurs” (Floyd and Wooldridge, 1994; Holmemo and Ingvaldsen, 2016), all the more so in a particularly unstable and turbulent environment. Thus, to be more responsive and agile, many organizations are motivated to flatten their structure (Bodrožić and Adler, 2018; Lee and Edmondson, 2017) by reengineering traditional hierarchies to create functional teams in order to eliminate management layers (Van De Kamp, 2014). Finally, the literature on frontline employees' empowerment suggests that many practices, such as job enlargement and enrichment (Hut and Molleman, 1998) or delegating responsibilities (Kirkman and Rosen, 1999), have significant implications for organizational effectiveness (Rauch and Hatak, 2016).…”