Companies seeking to effectively manage the ethical dimensions of their business have created formal and informal practices, including those with the labels “ethics and compliance” and “corporate social responsibility” (CSR). However, there is little research describing how practitioners who create and implement these practices understand their meaning and relationship. Leveraging a communities of practice theoretical perspective, this qualitative study proposes that these practices can be studied as artifacts of managerial learning. Thematic analysis of interviews with senior managers suggests that practices (...) have diverse meaning, with only informal relationships between them in most cases. Theoretically, this research offers a new lens through which to view compliance and CSR practices as socially negotiated, contextual, and dynamic. Practically, it suggests that there may be new opportunities for learning if managers create practices through an intentional exploration of shared meaning. (shrink)

Based on self-determination theory, we conceptualized the effect of empowering leadership on employee’s voice via harmonious passion. This paper further explored the moderating effect of job characteristics in voice process, and proposed a moderated mediation model. Using a sample of 674 supervisor-subordinate dyads, we found that (1) empowering leadership was positively related to employees’ harmonious passion and voice behavior, (2) harmonious passion played a mediating role in the relationship between empowering leadership and employee voice, and (3) job autonomy strengthened the (...) effect of harmonious passion on employee voice, which, in turn, enhanced the mediated relationship between empowering leadership and employee voice via harmonious passion. We discuss the implications of these findings for research and practice. (shrink)

This article offers an in-depth case study of a global high tech manufacturer that aligned its ethics and compliance, corporate social responsibility, and sustainability practices. Few large companies organize their responsible business practices this way, despite conceptual relevance and calls to manage them comprehensively. A communities of practice theoretical lens suggests that intentional effort would be needed to bridge meaning between the relevant managers and practices in order to achieve alignment. The findings call attention to the important role played by (...) employees who broker understanding between managers and practices, and the boundary objects used to create shared meaning and engagement. They also highlight that an organizing logic is necessary but not sufficient to align practices. This study describes the dynamics of alignment and provides a practical road map for scholars and managers interested in understanding how responsible business practices may be collectively organized. (shrink)

This paper discusses an important phase in Ludwig Wittgenstein’s analytic philosophy through a comparative examination of the profound correspondences that exist between his concept of silence and the poetics of another crucial authorial figure of the 20th century: James Joyce. Based on the hypothesis that there are striking resemblances between their early works, that is, between Joyce’s realistic short-story collection Dubliners and Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, the article employs mostly close-reading, analytical-interpretative and comparative methods. It argues that silence was an intentional (...) intellectual, aesthetic and ethical choice of both these authors, their way to preserve the autonomy of metaphysics and to honour the beauty of the unspoken. Starting from their common critical treatment of the habitual and largely alienated speech, the discussion connects Wittgenstein’s philosophical attitudes regarding the imprecision and inadequacy of every-day language and Joyce’s notion of ‘spiritual paralysis’ of the city-life, which he saw as the main motive for writing his collection about fin-desiècle Dublin. On the grounds of their shared views about the limits of words, behind which there are worlds that cannot be properly uttered, the idea of silence – or the highly significant narrative absence – grows to permeate the work of both. In the case of Wittgenstein, it is a call for a new philosophy, or anti-philosophy, which in negating metaphysics in effect preserves its independence from a discursive speech which cannot express it, whereas in the case of Joyce, correspondingly (and almost simultaneously), it is a quest for a new literary mode that will foreground a particular Modernist allusiveness, rhetoric of omission and deliberately incomplete, gnomonical narrative structures. (shrink)

In this work we propose the partial Wiener index as one possible measure of branching in phylogenetic evolutionary trees. We establish the connection between the generalized Robinson–Foulds (RF) metric for measuring the similarity of phylogenetic trees and partial Wiener indices by expressing the number of conflicting pairs of edges in the generalized RF metric in terms of partial Wiener indices. To do so we compute the minimum and maximum value of the partial Wiener index WT,r,n\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} (...) \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$W\left(T,r, n\right)$$\end{document}, where T\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$T$$\end{document} is a binary rooted tree with root r\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$r$$\end{document} and n\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$n$$\end{document} leaves. Moreover, under the Yule probabilistic model, we show how to compute the expected value of WT,r,n\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$W\left(T,r, n\right)$$\end{document}. As a direct consequence, we give exact formulas for the upper bound and the expected number of conflicting pairs. By doing so we provide a better theoretical understanding of the computational complexity of the generalized RF metric. (shrink)

These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions.

For more than a decade, scholars and practitioners have noted the disconnection between E&C and CSR practices in US corporations and called for their alignment. There is scant literature on why this lack of alignment persists. This article applies communities of practice theory to illuminate the separate learning trajectories that the E&C and CSR fields in the US have taken over the past twenty five years, anchored by their respective professional associations. This article provides an important perspective on the role (...) that n, boundaries, ethics and compliance, corporate social responsibility communities of practice play in reifying the knowledge and competencies within E&C and CSR, and the boundaries to collaboration that exist between their managers and practices. It also calls attention to the fact that alignment is not the only alternate trajectory that these practices and their communities may take in the future, and five distinct evolutionary paths are explored. (shrink)

Hélio Jaguaribe e o contexto do Iseb -- A filosofia como autoconsciência da cultura -- Os dilemas nacionais na circunstância brasileira -- Política ideológica : uma alternativa nacionalista.

Ricoeur’s autobiographical works, written mainly in the final decade of his life, have proven to be a valuable if contentious resource. On the one hand, they bring into focus the tense relationship between philosophical and religious thought in Ricoeur’s corpus; on the other, they offer new insights into the broader interdisciplinary implications of his philosophy. This essay considers the recent interpretations and potential misconceptions associated with these late publications. I argue that, contrary to recent critiques, these autobiographical works are neither (...) a deviation nor denunciation of his earlier philosophical approach. Rather, they offer a context to better understand Ricoeur’s ambitious hermeneutical project of the 1970s. (shrink)

Circular economy thinking has become the subject of academic enquiry across several disciplines recently. Yet whilst its technical and business angles are more widely discussed, its philosophical underpinnings and socio-economic implications are insufficiently investigated. In this article, we aim to contribute to their understanding by uncovering the circular economy role in shaping a new vision, highlighting the social and economic dimensions of future imaginaries and the mechanisms that can enable them to bring about change in the social context. We believe (...) that defining the vision that the circular economy is contributing to shape is key to explain its conceptual framework and activities. Drawing on the concept of fictional expectations, we uncover one of the plausible social dimensions inherent to the circular economy thinking thereby opening up a new perspective on the current debate in the circular economy literature wherein authors, by contrast, are emphasising the lack of an explicit social dimension. Fictional expectations are introduced to refer to those imaginaries of the future that can catalyse social action in the present and counteract societal addictions, in which modern society seems to be trapped. We show how a circular economy inspired vision can be instrumental to the emergence of a fictional expectation that can provide therapies to the current societal addiction of wasteful production and consumption systems. This philosophical background allows us to provide, in conclusion, a new conceptualisation of the circular economy as a cognitive framework instrumental to the emergence of a future imaginary. (shrink)

A fil rouge goes through Habermas’s decade long research. It is the idea that Reason and rationality permeate human societies and may lead human action towards emancipation, if aptly elaborated through the filter of theoretical reflection. Theory must pick up on this rational core and turn the intrinsic rational potential inherent to modern societies into a self-consciously pursued ‘project of enlightenment’. This introduction to the special issue ‘Habermas, Democracy, and the Public Sphere: Theory and Practice’ shows how Habermas’s work in (...) different scientific domains contributes to the construction of the ‘project of modernity’ from the many angles that such a complex project requires. The public sphere is, in Habermas’s theory, the societal domain in which communicative interactions have a chance to make Reason come to bear on human societies and lead them on the path to social and political emancipation. The contributions to this special issue focus therefore on the public sphere and illustrate the evolution of the concept in Habermas’s work and its relation to democracy at national and supranational level. (shrink)

The theory of vortices seems to contradict Descartes’s willingness to accept in physics only “principles also accepted in mathematics.” We show that this cosmological theory is on the contrary consistent with the Cartesian mathematical norm – explaining phenomena only by the properties that bodies have in common with mathematical objects – and partly implied by the thesis according to which the essence of matter consists of extension – circular motion being the only one allowing movement in a world saturated by (...) a homogeneous extension. In this respect, the incoherence of the Principles of Philosophy resides rather in the gap between the claim to have “proved by mathematical demonstration” and in the fact that, to pass from the level of general principles to that of cosmology, Descartes sets up a series of auxiliary hypotheses concerning the genesis of the world. (shrink)