Management theory and practice are facing unprecedented challenges. The lack of sustainability, the increasing inequity, and the continuous decline in societal trust pose a threat to ‘business as usual’. Capitalism is at a crossroad and scholars, practitioners, and policy makers are called to rethink business strategy in light of major external changes. In the following, we review an alternative view of human beings that is based on a renewed Darwinian theory developed by Lawrence and Nohria. We label this alternative view (...) ‘humanistic’ and draw distinctions to current ‘economistic’ conceptions. We then develop the consequences that this humanistic view has for business organizations, examining business strategy, governance structures, leadership forms, and organizational culture. Afterward, we outline the influences of humanism on management in the past and the present, and suggest options for humanism to shape the future of management. In this manner, we will contribute to the discussion of alternative management paradigms that help solve the current crises. (shrink)

Drawing on insights from evolutionary psychology and modern neuroscience, this paper highlights propositions about human nature that have far reaching consequences, when applied to leadership. We specifically examine the main factors of human survival and extend them to a model for leadership in the twenty-first century. The discussion concludes with an outlook on the organizational and structural conditions that would allow for better and more balanced leadership.

Measurement of scientific productivity is difficult. The measures used (impact factor of the journal, citations to the paper being measured) are crude. But these measures are now so universally adopted that they determine most things that matter: tenure or unemployment, a postdoctoral grant or none, success or failure. As a result, scientists have been forced to downgrade their primary aim from making discoveries to publishing as many papers as possible—and trying to work them into high impact factor journals. Consequently, scientific (...) behaviour has become distorted and the utility, quality and objectivity of articles has deteriorated. Changes to the way scientists are assessed are urgently needed, and I suggest some here. (shrink)

This article examines the emerging pattern of 19th-century warfare against the backdrop of Modernity’s expressed optimism regarding social and economic progress. The author argues that in the modern period western countries have been insufficiently conscious of the consequences of weapons of mass destruction and of their own involvement in acts of mass violence. The article identifies a modernist culture radically different from that articulated by Enlightenment narratives.

The central theme of the text concerns the role that intellectuals have played in the significant political, cultural and social changes which have occurred in Europe in the second half of the twentieth century. This book draws together a wide and diverse series of contributions to the problematique of the role of the intellectual in society.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Refugees of a Crisis in ReferenceHolocaust Memoir and the Deconstruction of Paul de ManPatrick Lawrence (bio)Since discovery of Paul de Man’s wartime journalism, the debate over perceived ethical deficiencies in the philosophies of postmodernism in general, and deconstruction in particular, has intensified. At times more or less vitriolic or persuasive, this debate has brought about a crisis of scholarship to accompany the crisis of reference that is one of (...) its central points.1 At the horizon of the discussion is the Holocaust and its potential to reform modes of representation. As Jeremy Varon notes in his essay “Probing the Limits of the Politics of Representation”:the premises and insights of a variety of discourses, notably postructuralism [sic], deconstruction, psychoanalysis in its newer versions, metahistory, and postmodern theory in general, have at once been applied to and checked against the Holocaust. Such discourses often approach the Holocaust as a kind of limit case that tests the strengths and weaknesses of their various interpretive strategies.(Varon 84)It seems natural because of its (perhaps incomprehensible) magnitude and significance that the Holocaust should occasion self-testing and soul searching on the part of a variety of discourses, notably those that already inclined to such activities.2 Because of its status as at once radically historical and radically ahistorical (in that its import for history cannot be denied, but that the scope of its horror may transform notions of historicity), the Holocaust calls for a reassessment of all aesthetic, poetic, and theoretical paradigms. In the context of such novel and difficult historicity, the problematization of reference that de Manian deconstruction occasions takes on new and complex implications that need particular attention. This is especially important because, like American deconstruction, artistic representations of the Holocaust also assert a new, problematic relationship with their referent.My intention is not to delve into this debate exhaustively. Rather, I attempt an understanding of the problems of some specific critical-theoretical tenets proposed by Paul de Man as they interact with Holocaust memoirs. Doing so may be a way to understand the larger issue by exploring its expression in a narrow vein: that of literature. Holocaust memoirs as a group have been read as making new claims about their relation to a particular referent—about the inability of fully representing the Holocaust in existing modes—but they also make simultaneous claims about the utter necessity of attempting to do so. It will be helpful to see how this revolution of the relationship of [End Page 17] writing to its referent is perhaps at odds with that other similar revolution, that of deconstruction. I also attempt to put this potential conflict into a frame that may elucidate the reasons for their disconnect, using Lyotard’s well-known attempt at establishing an order of postmodern ethics: The Differend, as well as approaches to trauma and memory suggested by Derrida.My aim here is also not to delve into judgments of guilt or innocence with respect to de Man himself and his activities during World War II. I instead venture into the ways, both positive and negative, but inherently problematic, that his writings come into contact with an event recognized by many as a limit event, one that demands recognition of its historicity, even as it engenders a body of literature that expresses the difficulty of understanding the event itself.There is much in de Man’s writings that forces us to consider the restraints and potential of the means of construction of written texts. Exploring this can lead toward a better understanding of the way that individual texts create and manipulate meaning. To this end, much can be gained from de Manian criticism that makes apparent the contradictory tendency of linguistic constructions to indicate something outside themselves (their referential potential), even while their structures and conventions cast in doubt the reality of this “something.” One makes use of this discourse, not in the hopes of destroying the privilege of referentiality that underlies the structures of testimony, victimization, and trauma, but in the hopes of finding a way for the discourse of memoir (and autobiography) to be reconciled with the discourse of deconstruction in such a way that... (shrink)

The study of human morality has historically been carried out primarily by philosophers and theologians. Now this broad topic is also being studied systematically by evolutionary biologists and various behavioral and social sciences. Based upon a review of this work, this paper will propose a unified explanation of human morality as an innate feature of human minds. The theory argues that morality is an innate skill that developed as a means to fulfill the human drive to bond with others in (...) mutual caring. This explanation has also been reported as part of a broader theory on the role of human nature in the shaping of human choices (Driven, Lawrence and Nohria). (shrink)

The study of human morality has historically been carried out primarily by philosophers and theologians. Now this broad topic is also being studied systematically by evolutionary biologists and various behavioral and social sciences. Based upon a review of this work, this paper will propose a unified explanation of human morality as an innate feature of human minds. The theory argues that morality is an innate skill that developed as a means to fulfill the human drive to bond with others in (...) mutual caring. This explanation has also been reported as part of a broader theory on the role of human nature in the shaping of human choices (Driven, Lawrence and Nohria). (shrink)

This study examines business students’ individual values and their perception of their university’s values and the relationship between these values and affective organisational commitment. Findings indicate that both groups of business students rated their personal values as consistent with the rankings of the major pan—cultural values with strong ethical orientation and self—development and learning values. In both educational institutions organisational vision values and individual conservatism values predicted affective commitment. Findings also indicate statistically significant differences between the students’ personal values and (...) their perception of their university’s values, suggesting a degree of lack of P—O fit between the students’ values and their university’s values. (shrink)