Despite increasing pressure to deal with climate change, firms have been slow to respond with effective action. This article presents a multi-level framework for a better understanding of why many firms are failing to reduce their absolute greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute to climate change. The concepts of short-termism and uncertainty avoidance from research in psychology, sociology, and organization theory can explain the phenomenon of organizational inaction on climate change. Antecedents related to short-termism and uncertainty avoidance reinforce one another at (...) three levels—individual, organizational, and institutional—and result in organizational inaction on climate change. The article also discusses the implications of this multi-level framework for research on corporate sustainability. (shrink)

In this article I provide a critical perspective on governing the global corporation. While the papers in the 2009 special issue of Business Ethics Quarterly explore the political role of corporations I argue that they lack a sophisticated analysis of power acrossinstitutional and actor networks. The argument that corporate engagement with deliberative democracy can enhance the legitimacy of corporations does not take into account the effects of institutional, material and discursive forms of power that determine legitimacycriteria. As a result corporate (...) versions of citizenship mediate versions of social responsibility and morality, which are reflected in the institutional and political economic norms that are produced by this power/knowledge. In order to overcome the limits of corporate social responsibility there is a need to develop more democratic forms of global governance of corporations. A radical revisioning of democratic governance would also need to overcome the limits posed by sovereignty and would require new forms of multi-actor and multi-level translocal governance arrangements in an attempt to create forms of power that are more compatible with the principles of economic democracy. (shrink)

AbstractIn this paper I provide a decolonial critique of received knowledge about deliberative democracy. Legacies of colonialism have generally been overlooked in theories of democracy. These omissions challenge several key assumptions of deliberative democracy. I argue that deliberative democracy does not travel well outside Western sites and its key assumptions begin to unravel in the ‘developing’ regions of the world. The context for a decolonial critique of deliberative democracy is the ongoing violent conflicts over resource extraction in the former colonies (...) of Africa, Asia and Latin America. I argue that deliberative democracy cannot take into account the needs of marginalized stakeholders who are defending their lands and livelihoods. The paper contributes to the literature by (1) offering a critique of hegemonic models of democracy that cannot address issues of inequality and colonial difference and (2) offering possibilities to imagine counterhegemonic alternatives for a democratization of democracy from below. (shrink)

Acquiring expertise in a task is often thought of as an automatic process that follows inevitably with practice according to the log‐log law (aka: power law) of learning. However, as Ericsson, Chase, and Faloon (1980) showed, this is not true for digit‐span experts and, as we show, it is certainly not true for Tetris players at any level of expertise. Although some people may simply “twitch” faster than others, the limit to Tetris expertise is not raw keypress time but the (...) techniques acquired by players that allow them to use the tools provided by the hardware and software to compensate for the game's relentlessly increasing drop speed. Unfortunately, these increases in drop speed between Tetris levels make performance plateaus very short and quickly followed by game death. Hence, a player's success at discovering, exploring, and practicing new techniques for the tasks of board preparation, board maintenance, optimal placement discovery, zoid rotation, lateral movement of zoids, and other tasks important to expertise in Tetris is limited. In this paper, we analyze data collected from 492 Tetris players to reveal the challenges they confronted while constructing expertise via the discovery of new techniques for gameplay at increasingly difficult levels of Tetris. (shrink)

In this article, we examine the shifting roles played by non-state actors in governing areas of limited statehood. In particular, we focus on the emergence of voluntary grassroots organizations in Palestine and describe how regimes of international development aid transformed these organizations into professional nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that created new forms of colonial control. Based on in-depth interviews with 145 NGO members and key stakeholders and a historical analysis of limited statehood in Palestine, we found that social relations became disembedded (...) from the local context and re-embedded in new relations with international donor organizations resulting in a depoliticized public sphere. NGOization of the economy also resulted in new forms of exclusion and inclusion as well as contestations between a new class of urban middle-class professionals working in NGOs and the older generation of activists who were involved in grassroots organizations. Our findings have implications for business and human rights and governance in areas of limited statehood, in particular how private actors such as NGOs are able to exercise power in the economy. (shrink)

We highlight how Corporate Social Responsibility can be strategically used against the negative perception from earnings management. Using international data, we analyse the effect of CSR and EM on the cost of capital and corporate reputation. Results confirm that CSR strategy is positively valued by investors and other stakeholders. Contrary to EM, CSR has a positive effect on corporate reputation and lowers the cost of capital. In addition, we also find that the favourable effect of CSR on cost of capital (...) is consistently more intense in firms that show signs of EM indicating that the market does not identify when CSR practices are used as a strategy to mask EM. We also demonstrate how institutional factors influence the above relationship. (shrink)

Acquiring expertise in a task is often thought of as an automatic process that follows inevitably with practice according to the log‐log law (aka: power law) of learning. However, as Ericsson, Chase, and Faloon (1980) showed, this is not true for digit‐span experts and, as we show, it is certainly not true for Tetris players at any level of expertise. Although some people may simply “twitch” faster than others, the limit to Tetris expertise is not raw keypress time but the (...) techniques acquired by players that allow them to use the tools provided by the hardware and software to compensate for the game's relentlessly increasing drop speed. Unfortunately, these increases in drop speed between Tetris levels make performance plateaus very short and quickly followed by game death. Hence, a player's success at discovering, exploring, and practicing new techniques for the tasks of board preparation, board maintenance, optimal placement discovery, zoid rotation, lateral movement of zoids, and other tasks important to expertise in Tetris is limited. In this paper, we analyze data collected from 492 Tetris players to reveal the challenges they confronted while constructing expertise via the discovery of new techniques for gameplay at increasingly difficult levels of Tetris. (shrink)

Almaatouq et al. propose an “integrative approach” to increase the generalisability and commensurability of experiments. Yet their metascientific approach has one glaring omission (and misinterpretation of) – the role of sample diversity in generalisability. In this commentary, we challenge false notions of subsumed duality between contexts, population, and diversity, and propose modifications to their design space to accommodate sample diversity.

Inconsistent corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices across stakeholder groups may induce undesired consequences for the firm. This study investigates the longitudinal and differential effect of chief executive officer (CEO) tenure on external and internal CSR and the moderating effects of two important contingencies relevant to the firm's social investments: firm visibility and slack availability. It presents CEO tenure as an important upper echelon factor that may induce differential preferences toward external and internal CSR and, therefore, CSR inconsistencies. Accordingly, it proposes (...) two important and relevant contingencies and provides additional evidence on how a firm's visibility and slack availability could affect CEO tenure-related differential behaviors. The findings contribute to studies on the temporal orientations of CEOs and how they impact firm strategic behavior. They also contribute to the literature on firm visibility and slack and how they may interact with certain upper echelon characteristics and affect firm behaviors. The analysis cautions against the perceptions of the relationships between firm- and CEO-level variables and a firm's aggregate CSR. (shrink)

The collapse of the wavefunction is arguably the least understood process in quantum mechanics. A plethora of ideas—macro-micro divide, many worlds and even consciousness—have been put forth to resolve the issue. Contrary to the standard Copenhagen interpretation, objective collapse models modify the Schrödinger equation with nonlinear and stochastic terms in order to explain the collapse of the wavefunction. In this paper we propose a collapse model in which a particle’s wavefunction has a possibility of collapsing when it interacts with macroscopic (...) objects, without the intervention of a conscious observer. We propose four possible conditions of collapse of the wavefunction and make testable predictions which differ from standard quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Graphical AbstractScience and technology consortia provide a viable solution for the recent unsustainable academic growth in biomedical research.

The Essay In This Book Deal With Such Topics As Silence As A Constituent Of Language, Justification Of Kant`S Antological Principles, Hegel`S Concept Of Reason, Total Man And The Role Of Revolution, A Meta-Physical Analysis Of Freedom, Dimensions Of Self-Expression, Love As A Form Of Authentic Expression, Radical Education In Institutionalized Surroundings Etc. In Honour Of S.N. Ganguly.

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. ;This thesis investigates the application of the theory of Conceptual Structures to an Experience Base model, which is a question-answering system for a knowledge base of pseudo-natural language statements of everyday experience. This thesis progresses to extend the fundamental principles carried from the experience base, to develop a framework for Reasoning by Analogy. Both methodologies are implemented, and uncertainty in the models is handled using the theory of Support Logic. ;Incompleteness of (...) information, uncertainty of data and the need for a definite structure to the way in which rules and data interact, are aspects which must be dealt with if the experience base is to succeed. One more aspect is the knowledge representation which dictates the ease with which processing may be performed upon it. Conceptual graphs are used to store information used by an Experience Base. Control of the reasoning is effected by plausible inference reinforced by the theory of Support Logic for handling uncertainty. The knowledge base is a set of initially completely disparate islands of knowledge, which the system automatically clusters into coherent groups in an associative network. ;The principles evolved from research into experience bases lead to the conception, development and implementation of a computational framework for Analogical Reasoning. The reasoning is performed between domains of knowledge rather than within a single domain as in case-based reasoning, and operates on pseudo-natural language statements as for the experience base. It relies on relation-based structure mapping and includes a sophisticated mechanism for translating between the new problem and the analogue. The strong connection between this work and metaphor interpretation is also investigated, together with ideas on how to negotiate with the apparent multitude of types of analogical reasoning. (shrink)

Part of the equation in sub-section “Key findings” is missing in the original publication of the article. The error was caused by the fact that the equation, due to its length, exceeded the page width. The missing part of the equation is given below.

Several allocation rules allow for possible violations of the ‘independence of irrelevant alternatives’ axiom in cooperative bargaining game theory. Nonetheless, there is no conclusive evidence on how contractions of feasible sets exactly affect bargaining outcomes. We have been able to identify a definite behavioral channel through which such contractions actually determine the outcomes of negotiated bargaining. We find that the direction and the extent of changes in bargaining outcomes, due to contraction of the feasible set, respond to the level of (...) agent asymmetry with a remarkable degree of regularity. Alongside, we conclude that the validity of the IIA axiom is only limited to symmetric games. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This essay examines Satyajit Ray’s children’s film Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne to interrogate the ways it signals the utopian. Contending that its utopian desire manifests through the trope of wish-fulfillment, it illuminates the trope’s centrality in the film’s imagination and articulation of freedom. Moreover, the essay suggests that the film’s utopianism is also anchored in its irrealist aesthetics. Engaging with the film’s figuration of ghosts and its violation of the narrative structure of the real, the essay illuminates how these (...) formal features inform, and are informed by, a utopian desire. Furthermore, the essay notes that despite its inherent utopianism, Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne fails to resolve some of the more obdurate social contradictions in its diegetic world, especially around questions of class, gender, and caste. Arguing that these “failures” are in keeping with its utopian spirit, I suggest they draw our attention to the imperfections of our real conditions of existence and flag the limits of textual utopianism. In so doing, they refer negatively to the social field beyond pointing to the abiding importance of class struggle as the ultimate agent of transformative social change. (shrink)

On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 as a pandemic. The consequences of the twenty-first century’s biggest public health challenge has triggered an overall slump to all...

A translation of the ancient book of faith charts man's search for life's meaning and reveals his relationship with nature and God.

Mohanty, J. N. Kalidas Bhattacharyya as a metaphysician.--Deutsch, E. On meaning.--Potter, K. Towards a conceptual scheme for Indian epistemologies.--Ganguly, S. N. Rationality versus reasonableness (freedom: a reinterpretation).--Sen, P. K. A sketch of a theory of properties and relations.--Mohanty, J. N. Perceptual consciousness.--Chattopadhyaya, D. P. Theory and practice.--Bhadra, M. K. The idea of self as purpose, an existential analysis.--Matilal, B. K. Saptabhaṅgī.--Banerjee, H. The identification of mental states and the possibility of freedom.--Chatterjee, M. A phenomenological approach to the self.--Banerjee, S. P. (...) Alienation and freedom.--Sinha, D. Cognitive language in Shahrukh. (shrink)

differential from bottom to top, depth of fluid, and the coefficients of expansion, viscosity and thermal Bénard convection, is one of the more intensely conductivity of the fluid. Even though it is a simple studied dissipative systems, both theoretically and..

In this article, we address the public issue of mandatory Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) retail food labeling in the U.S., first by reviewing the policy arguments both in support and against labeling food containing GMOs; second, by describing the existing U.S. federal regulatory system pertaining to GMO labeling, and why it does not presently require labeling of food containing GMOs; third, by reviewing and interpreting the results of studies of American consumer attitudes toward mandatory GMO retail food labeling; fourth, by (...) evaluating, through the utilization of issue life cycle analysis in the nonmarket environment, where the issue of GMO retail food labeling stands in the national public policy process; fifth, summarizing the state of scientific evidence addressing the safety of GMO foods and the existing regulatory and public policy environment for this issue; and sixth, offering legislative and litigation strategies for the mainstream food nonmarket strategy framework to formally assess the GMO industry to protect their interests and those of American consumers not concerned with GMO food ingredients, while offering a voluntary labeling strategy for firms responding to and recognizing the “rights” of American consumers who “choose” to purchase non‐GMO food products. (shrink)