A comprehensive measure of organizational culture was developed using a lexical approach, a method typically employed within the study of personality. 1761 adjectives were narrowed down and factor analyzed, which resulted in the identification of a nine factor solution to organizational culture, including the dimensions of: Innovative, Dominant, Pace, Friendly, Prestigious, Trendy, Corporate Social Responsibility, Traditional, and Diverse. Comprised of 135 adjectives most frequently used in describing organizational culture by current employees of several hundred organizations, the Lexical Organizational Culture Scale (...) (LOCS) was found to predict employee commitment, job satisfaction, job search behaviors, and subjective fit better than earlier scales of organizational culture. The study demonstrates that organizational culture measured using a lexical approach such as LOCS was a significant improvement to measuring Organizational Culture using traditional anthropomorphic measures of organizational culture. Scales for each of the nine factors identified in the lexical study are developed and validated. (shrink)

Peter Singer’s recent appointment to Princeton University created considerable controversy, most of it focused on his proposal for active euthanasia of disabled infants. Singer articulates utilitarian ideas that often appear in public discussions of euthanasia. Drawing on Pope John Paul II’s work on ethics and suffering, I argue that Singer’s utilitarian theory of value is impoverished. After introducing the Pope’s ethic based on the imago dei, I discuss love as self-gift. I show how this concept supports a theory of value (...) in which spiritual goods are preeminent over material goods. I then describe how suffering reveals spiritual goods, discussing how participation in Christ’s suffering can alter our perception of value. I also consider how communal responses to suffering provide opportunities for self-giving. Third, I consider Singer’s proposal for killing infants with hemophilia, arguing that it arbitrarily ignores spiritual goods. I then discuss proposals to kill anencephalic infants, discussing how parental response to their suffering can demonstrate an extraordinary love in seemingly hopeless circumstances. I conclude by calling for a more sustained social response to euthanasia initiatives. (shrink)

This article examines Machiavelli’s writings on fortresses as a new starting point for a genealogy of urban fortification. In contrast to theorists of Machiavelli who approach fortresses as defensive structures that preserve the present political order, this article considers fortresses as weapons to privatize civic life. It explores the significance of fortresses for democratic readings of Machiavelli, suggesting that Machiavelli offers a careful analysis of the spatial organization of power and its implications for popular self-government. This reconsideration of fortresses in (...) Machiavelli brings his political thought into conversation with contemporary urban theorists critical of the enclosure of public space. The article argues that Machiavelli seeks to resignify notions of fortification and replace the construction of fortresses with practices of fortifying publics. Such practices find ways to strengthen public spaces and envision durable democracy. (shrink)

The authors of this book show that the failure of public health arises, not from a failure of contemporary medicine, but from a failure of the philosophical assumptions upon which it rests. They suggest an alternative approach to health care that derives from a ecological and holistic philosophy of nature.

John Finnis, religion and public reasons. Collected essays: volume V Content Type Journal Article Category Book Review Pages 1-4 DOI 10.1007/s11153-012-9346-5 Authors Derek S. Jeffreys, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay, 2420 Nicolet Drive, Green Bay, WI 54311, USA Journal International Journal for Philosophy of Religion Online ISSN 1572-8684 Print ISSN 0020-7047.

The ability to extrapolate essential gist through the analysis and synthesis of information, prediction of potential outcomes, abstraction of ideas, and integration of relationships with world knowledge is critical for higher-order learning. The present study investigated the efficacy of cognitive training to elicit improvements in gist-reasoning and fact recall ability in 556 public middle-school students (grades seven and eight), versus a sample of 357 middle school students who served as a comparison group, to determine if changes in gist-reasoning and fact (...) recall were demonstrated without cognitive training. The results showed that, in general, cognitive training increased gist-reasoning and fact recall abilities in students from families in poverty as well as students from families living above poverty. However, the magnitude of gains in gist-reasoning varied as a function of gender and grade-level. Our primary findings were that seventh and eighth grade girls and eighth grade boys showed significant increases in gist-reasoning after training regardless of socioeconomic status. There were no significant increases in gist-reasoning or fact recall ability for the 357 middle school students who served in the comparison group. We postulate that cognitive training in middle school is efficacious for improving gist-reasoning ability and fact recall in students from all socioeconomic levels. (shrink)

There has recently been a reappraisal of value in UK construction and calls from a wide range of influential individuals, professional institutions and government bodies for the industry to exceed stakeholders’ expectations and develop integrated teams that can deliver world class products and services. As such value is certainly topical, but the importance of values as a separate but related concept is less well understood. Most construction firms have well-defined and well-articulated values, expressed in annual reports and on websites; however, (...) the lack of rigorous and structured approaches published within construction management research and the practical, unsupported advice on construction institution websites may indicate a shortfall in the approaches used. This article reviews and compares the content and␣structure of some of the most widely used values approaches, and discusses their application within the construction sector. One of the most advanced and empirically tested theories of human values is appraised, and subsequently adopted as a suitable approach to eliciting and defining shared organisational values. Three studies within six construction organisations demonstrate the potential application of this individually grounded approach to reveal and align the relative values priorities of individuals and organisations to understand the strength of their similarity and difference. The results of these case studies show that this new universal values structure can be used along with more qualitative elicitation techniques to understand organisational cultures. (shrink)

We argue that developing a human ethics application is an effective method for refining the intent and design of research studies. Our study aimed to investigate the delivery of end-of-life and palliative care nursing to residents of an aged care unit in a Multi-purpose Service/centre in rural Victoria. We used the ethics application process as a strategy to focus the study, and to refine the data collection and analysis techniques. It is our contention that the process of completing the application (...) and gaining ethics approval is laborious; however, the intellectualising that occurs provides researchers with an opportunity to reflect upon and refine their studies, thus ensuring the ultimate success and timely completion of research investigations. (shrink)

Mengzi states that our human nature consists of our ability to feel compassion, disdain, respect, and (dis-)approval: all human beings have them. But he also states that we lose these four emotional capacities if we don’t reflect on or attend to them. There is an apparent contradiction in saying that all humans have them, but some have lost them. This essay offers a close reading of Mengzi’s phrase “to lose it” that helps explain away this appearance of contradiction. In doing (...) so, Mengzi is interpreted to be offering an ethics of attention about how we should attend to ourselves and others selectively to have a functional social life. (shrink)

Nazarene Theological Seminary, a graduate school in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition, is undergoing significant self-examination and adjustment in response to changes and challenges in ecclesial and higher education cultures. This article gives readers a glimpse into NTS’s process for the teaching and practice of spiritual formation—something integral to its heritage and history, intentionally engaged curricularly and relationally, yet in need of assessment and revitalization due to increased diversification and fragmentation of learning platforms and contexts. The school’s ecclesial and institutional roots are (...) reviewed, the contextual development of intentional spiritual formation programming described, important shifts and challenges in the educational and formational landscapes prompting new initiatives noted, a preliminary plan for assessment and evaluation of spiritual formation curriculum and programming outlined, and questions raised to focus the horizons for the continuation of the processes. Readers are invited to join the conversation and provide feedback and input for NTS moving forward. (shrink)

This paper reads Marx’s distinction between the method of inquiry and presentation as distinct and Marxist pedagogical logics that take the form of learning and studying. After articulating the differences and their current conceptualizations in educational theory, I turn to different interpretations of the Grundrisse and Capital. While I note the differences, I maintain these result from Marx’s alternation between learning and studying, to the different weights Marx gives to both. Marx sought to understand, articulate, learn, and relay the precise (...) logics of capital, of its contradictions, and of how the working class has and can seize on these contradictions to institute the revolutionary transition to communism. At the same time, he knew he couldn’t do this because no one can fully delineate and learn about capitalism so long as it exists, as capital is by definition a dynamic social relation. I show how readings of both books are products and productive of Marx’s own pedagogical constellation through their content and form of presentation. The argument is that this is a political and constellational pedagogy that’s contingent and singular rather than resolvable and unifiable. (shrink)

In this article, we consider similarities and differences in emotion research on older adults and individuals with bipolar disorder (BD). Recent research and theory within both areas has focused on the importance of positive emotion, but the case of older adults is generally considered a case of “adaptive” positivity whereas BD is usually considered maladaptive positivity. We explore the paradox of the same phenomenon being labeled as adaptive in one group and yet maladaptive in another, with attention to commonalities and (...) distinctions between these two groups. We identify only limited areas of overlap, and suggest a refinement of models of positive emotionality in the two populations. (shrink)

Bitton and Eyal's lengthy critique of our article on unassisted cessation was premised on several straw-man arguments. These are corrected in our reply. It also confused the key concepts of efficacy and effectiveness in assessing the impact of cessation interventions and policies in real-world settings; ignored any consideration of reach (cost, consumer acceptability and accessibility) and failed to consider that clinical cessation interventions which fail more than they succeed also may ‘harm’ smokers by reducing agency. Our article addresses each of (...) these problems, concluding that any consideration of the ethics of promoting smoking cessation in low-income nations should begin and end with the question of whether the strategies to be adopted have any prospect of influencing significant numbers of smokers to quit. (shrink)

An argument against the bias towards the near; how a defence of temporal neutrality is not a defence of S; an appeal to inconsistency; why we should reject S and accept CP.

In the first monograph on Lyotard and education, Derek R. Ford approaches Lyotard's thought as pedagogical in itself. The result is a novel, soft, and accessible study of Lyotard organized around two inhuman educations: that of "the system" and that of "the human." The former enforces an interminable process of development, dialogue and exchange, while the latter finds its force in the mute, secret, opaque, and inarticulable. Threading together a range of Lyotard's work through four pedagogical processes-reading, writing, voicing, (...) and listening-the author insists on the distinct educational logics that can uphold or interrupt different ways of being-together in the world, touching on a range of topics from literacy and aesthetics to time and political-economy. While Inhuman Educations can serve as an introduction to Lyotard's philosophy, it also constitutes a singular, provocative, and fresh take on his thought. (shrink)