This article explores strategy-making modes within organisations. The implications of certain strategy-making modes for the responsible leader as an architect or change agent are highlighted. The study on which this article is based, showed that the use of emergent strategy-making is as prevalent as the use of deliberate strategy-making. This article reports on the thinking of organisational leaders, managers and non-managers regarding strategy-making processes and records empirical findings from (...) mixed method research. It was found that emergent strategy-making is associated with quick response and adaptation to environmental changes, more autonomous decisions and actions, less control and higher intangibility whereas the deliberate strategy is known for its clear objectives, articulated vision and direction and specific ends and means. It is recommended that organisational leaders should take cognisance of the growing use of emergent strategy-making as well as its characteristics in facilitating effective governance. A knowledge and understanding of these characteristics of strategy-making modes should be sought to serve as guideline for organisational leaders who want to be responsive and responsible in all their actions areas for future research. (shrink)

Rationality in decision making is commonly assessed by comparing choice performance against normative standards. We argue that such a performance-centered approach blurs the distinction between rational choice and adaptive behavior. Instead, rational choice should be assessed with regard to the way individuals make analytic decisions. We suggest that analytic decisions can be made in two different modes in which control processes are directed at different levels. In a RUN mode, thought is directed at controlling the operation of a (...) decision strategy. In the JUMP mode, the individual analyses the interpretation of the decision situation as well as the appropriateness of alternative strategies. We suggest that a decision should be considered “rational” when an individual is able to switch between these modes and balance their interaction. (shrink)

bell hooks is one of the seminal feminist theoreticians whose body of work not only provides discursive understandings of intersectional modes of oppression, but also a conceptual roadmap for creating the material conditions that lead to social transformation. In this essay, I posit the formulation of a theory of transformative revolutionary action that comes out of hoolis' ruminations on the following concepts: marginality as a position and place of resistance, killing rage, revolutionary interdependency and the politics of sisterhood, and (...) the beloved community and the politics of love. These concepts form the basis for imagining a community of individuals committed to advancing feminist principles through revolutionary action that promotes social transformation, hool identifies the spatial, emotional, and interpersonal factors that contribute to a praxis-oriented transgressive politic, and reminds feminist academics of our place in social movement work, which is to construct the theoretical, conceptual and empirical apparatus to bolster feminist activism. While her ideas are not without criticism, the dialectical tension among feminist thinkers ultimately leads to a more profound, nuanced understanding of womens experiences that will then inform feminist activism. (shrink)

Strategies of naturalization have pervaded throughout the course of modernity. In order to understand both the stability and the discontinuities of modes of naturalization that refer to the knowledge of the life sciences, it is worth going back to the time when biology and related forms of naturalizing sex and race first emerged. The article explores philosophical articulations of biological knowledge at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries. Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (...) and Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel not only conceptualize ‘sex’ and ‘race’ in different ways but they also attribute a different status to biological knowledge. In order to understand how ‘naturalization’ works, I argue, the modes of making references to ‘biological’ knowledge and their underlying assumptions about science and philosophy must be scrutinized. (shrink)

The intellectualist strategy of appealing to the notion of a practical mode of presentation to explain the practical component of know-how faces two standard objections. According to the first, the notion of a practical mode of presentation is mysterious; according to the second, intellectualists get the order of explanation wrong when they use the practical mode of presentation to explain know-how. In the first section, after reviewing recent literature on defusing the first objection, I employ some phenomenological insights to (...) develop four lines of argument which do show that the objection does not work. In the second section, I maintain that although the current version of the second objection is not conclusive, a restricted version of it is tenable. According to this restricted version, intellectualists do indeed get the order of explanation wrong at the level of basic action. The upshot is twofold: a challenge for anti-intellectualism to make room for the well-defined notion of the practical mode of presentation, and a challenge for intellectualism to explain the practical component of know-how at the basic level. (shrink)

What is it for a sound or gesture to have a meaning, and how does it come to have one? In this paper, a range of simulations are used to extend the tradition of theories of meaning as use. The authors work throughout with large spatialized arrays of sessile individuals in an environment of wandering food sources and predators. Individuals gain points by feeding and lose points when they are hit by a predator and are not hiding. They can also (...) make sounds heard by immediate neighbours in the array, and can respond to sounds from immediate neighbours. No inherent meaning for these sounds is built into the simulation; under what circumstances they are sent, if any, and what the response to them is, if any, vary initially with the strategies randomized across the array. These sounds do take on a specific function for communities of individuals, however, with any of three forms of strategy change: direct imitation of strategies of successful neighbours, a localized genetic algorithm in which strategies are ‘crossed’ with those of successful neighbours, and neural net training on the behaviour of successful neighbours. Starting from an array randomized across a large number of strategies, and using any of these modes of strategy change, communities of ‘communicators’ emerge. Within these evolving communities the sounds heard from immediate neighbours, initially arbitrary across the array, come to be used for very specific communicative functions. ‘Communicators’ make a particular sound on feeding and respond to that same sound from neighbours by opening their mouths; they make a different sound when hit with a predator and respond to that sound by hiding. Robustly and persistently, even in simple computer models of communities of self-interested agents, something suggestively like signalling emerges and spreads. Keywords: meaning, communication, genetic algorithms, neural networks. (shrink)

Is Big Data science a whole new way of doing research? And what difference does data quantity make to knowledge production strategies and their outputs? I argue that the novelty of Big Data science does not lie in the sheer quantity of data involved, but rather in the prominence and status acquired by data as commodity and recognised output, both within and outside of the scientific community and the methods, infrastructures, technologies, skills and knowledge developed to handle data. These developments (...) generate the impression that data-intensive research is a new mode of doing science, with its own epistemology and norms. To assess this claim, one needs to consider the ways in which data are actually disseminated and used to generate knowledge. Accordingly, this article reviews the development of sophisticated ways to disseminate, integrate and re-use data acquired on model organisms over the last three decades of work in experimental biology. I focus on online databases as prominent infrastructures set up to organise and interpret such data and examine the wealth and diversity of expertise, resources and conceptual scaffolding that such databases draw upon. This illuminates some of the conditions under which Big Data needs to be curated to support processes of discovery across biological subfields, which in turn highlights the difficulties caused by the lack of adequate curation for the vast majority of data in the life sciences. In closing, I reflect on the difference that data quantity is making to contemporary biology, the methodological and epistemic challenges of identifying and analysing data given these developments, and the opportunities and worries associated with Big Data discourse and methods. (shrink)

This article addresses shared themes in the writing of Saint Paul and the work of the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. Much recent philosophical interest in Saint Paul focuses on his contemporary significance as a radical political thinker, following Jacob Taubes' influential late work, The Political Theology of Paul. Assessments of Paul's writing in this context (e.g. by Agamben, Badiou, Milbank) highlight the various ways in which he uses fictionalizing, for example in setting up the tension between the present (...) world and a messianic future, in the role he assigns to faith, and in the importance he assigns to the counter-factuality of resurrection. Yet the common thread of fictionalizing running through these themes has not been explicitly discussed. Meanwhile, the supposed `religious turn' in Dick's late writing has often been taken to have less political significance than his earlier science fiction. Considering Paul alongside Philip K. Dick, this article will attempt to bring out this central role of fictionalizing in the religious experiences of both. Like Paul, Dick experienced a visionary encounter with a God-like entity that shaped his interests and writing for the remainder of his life, and developed his own soteriology in response to what he perceived as the continued existence of (the Roman) Empire in modernity. Bringing out the mutual complementarity of Dick and Paul is facilitated by a framework derived from Henri Bergson's Two Sources of Religion, which theorizes the relation between mechanization as a human tendency characterizing both imperialism and industrialization, and fabulation as a human faculty for using fiction for the jointly immanent-transcendent purposes of survival/salvation. In this context, the diverse modes of fictionalizing employed by both Dick and Paul, including their unconsciously produced visions, may be understood as part of an ongoing, continually renewed strategy of revolutionary transformation of both self and world. (shrink)

This article addresses shared themes in the writing of Saint Paul and the work of the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. Much recent philosophical interest in Saint Paul focuses on his contemporary significance as a radical political thinker, following Jacob Taubes' influential late work, The Political Theology of Paul. Assessments of Paul's writing in this context (e.g. by Agamben, Badiou, Milbank) highlight the various ways in which he uses fictionalizing, for example in setting up the tension between the present (...) world and a messianic future, in the role he assigns to faith, and in the importance he assigns to the counter-factuality of resurrection. Yet the common thread of fictionalizing running through these themes has not been explicitly discussed. Meanwhile, the supposed `religious turn' in Dick's late writing has often been taken to have less political significance than his earlier science fiction. Considering Paul alongside Philip K. Dick, this article will attempt to bring out this central role of fictionalizing in the religious experiences of both. Like Paul, Dick experienced a visionary encounter with a God-like entity that shaped his interests and writing for the remainder of his life, and developed his own soteriology in response to what he perceived as the continued existence of (the Roman) Empire in modernity. Bringing out the mutual complementarity of Dick and Paul is facilitated by a framework derived from Henri Bergson's Two Sources of Religion, which theorizes the relation between mechanization as a human tendency characterizing both imperialism and industrialization, and fabulation as a human faculty for using fiction for the jointly immanent-transcendent purposes of survival/salvation. In this context, the diverse modes of fictionalizing employed by both Dick and Paul, including their unconsciously produced visions, may be understood as part of an ongoing, continually renewed strategy of revolutionary transformation of both self and world. (shrink)

In the context of China’s online technology business, this study explores the linkages between knowledge acquisition via social media, two modes of market orientation, social media strategic capability, and brand innovation strategy. Data were collected from 853 Chinese technology firms with the help of questionnaire. To analyze the collected data structure, equation modeling was applied using smart-PLS 3.3 version. Results indicate that knowledge acquisition from social media, market orientation, and strategic capability has significant impact on brand innovation in (...) the context of social media. Furthermore, strategic capability on social media moderates the relationship between knowledge, market orientation, and brand innovation in the context of social media. This study offers new perspectives on market orientation and brand innovation strategy by extending the literature and testing key assumptions. Moreover, using social media knowledge in social media marketing and innovation management is a sensible approach for making changes and transforming an organization. (shrink)

:This paper explores a form of corporeal copying which it terms mimetic communication, and explores the way it is not limited to human communication but can and does operates across species. Focusing on the way movement and vision can be seen to be at work in this kind of mimetic communication, the paper argues that it constitutes an important form of affective knowledge about both human and non-human others. Taking the work of early twentieth-century documentary filmmaker Jean Painlevé, who worked (...) extensively with marine creatures, as a case in point, it explores the way in which certain technologies – in this case, cinema – can make use of mimesis as a communicational strategy which comprises the key feature of an aesthetic practice. It examines the implications of this for the way we conceive of affective spectatorship in cinema and for the way we understand our relations with animals, especially as we seek to study them. (shrink)

:This paper explores a form of corporeal copying which it terms mimetic communication, and explores the way it is not limited to human communication but can and does operates across species. Focusing on the way movement and vision can be seen to be at work in this kind of mimetic communication, the paper argues that it constitutes an important form of affective knowledge about both human and non-human others. Taking the work of early twentieth-century documentary filmmaker Jean Painlevé, who worked (...) extensively with marine creatures, as a case in point, it explores the way in which certain technologies – in this case, cinema – can make use of mimesis as a communicational strategy which comprises the key feature of an aesthetic practice. It examines the implications of this for the way we conceive of affective spectatorship in cinema and for the way we understand our relations with animals, especially as we seek to study them. (shrink)

This study aims to explore the current situation and strategy formulation of sports psychology teaching in colleges and universities following adaptive learning and deep learning under information education. The informatization in physical education, teaching methods, and teaching processes make psychological education more scientific and efficient. First, the relevant theories of adaptive learning and deep learning are introduced, and an adaptive learning analysis model is implemented. Second, based on the deep learning automatic encoder, college students’ sports psychology is investigated and (...) the test results are predicted. Finally, the current situation and development strategy of physical education in colleges and universities are analyzed. The results show that when the learning rate is 1, 0.1, and 0.01, there is no significant change in the analysis factors of recall, ndcg, item_coverage, and sps. When the learning rate is 1, their analysis factors change obviously, and it is calculated that the optimal learning rate of the model is 1. And the difficulty of the recommended test questions by using the sports psychology teaching method based on adaptive learning and deep learning is relatively stable. The test questions include various language points of sports psychology. Compared with others methods, adaptive learning and deep learning can provide comprehensive test questions for sports psychology teaching. This study provides technical support for the reform of sports psychology teaching in colleges and universities and contributes to optimizing the information-based teaching mode. (shrink)

A robust adaptive fuzzy nonlinear controller based on dynamic surface and integral sliding mode control strategy is proposed to realize trajectory tracking for a class of quadrotor UAVs. In this study, the composite factors including parametric uncertainties and external disturbances are added to controller design, which make it more realistic. The quadrotor model is divided into two subsystems of attitude and position that make the control design become feasible. The main contributions of the proposed ADSISMC strategy are as (...) follows: The combination of dynamic surface and integral sliding mode makes the system always in sliding stage by finding the appropriate initial position compared with the common sliding mode, and the complexity of explosion in backstepping method is eliminated. By introducing the fuzzy system, the unknown functions and uncertainties can be approximated which significantly improves the robustness and the tracking performance. The switching control strategy is utilized to compensate for the errors between estimated and ideal inputs; the tracking performance of the whole system has been significantly improved. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed control method. (shrink)

We propose that firms that engage in morally imaginative sensemaking will manage society's changing ethical expectations more effectively than those engaging in habituated sensemaking. Specifically, we argue that managers engaging in habituated sensemaking will tend to view changes in expectations as threats and respond to them defensively. In contrast, morally imaginative managers will tend to see these same changes as opportunities and address them by proactively or interactively engaging stakeholders in learning processes. We contribute to the literature on moral imagination (...) by highlighting the value of moral imagination relative to conventional sensemaking, and by positioning moral imagination as an ongoing mode of sensemaking. While we recognize that managers' capacity to continuously address changing ethical expectations using moral imagination is constrained by cognitive limitations, we posit that morally imaginative sensemaking may economize on cognitive resources over time by enabling managers to avoid managing ethical issues unproductively based on habit. We also contribute to the issues management literature by calling attention to two underlying factors, managerial sensemaking mode and firm enterprise strategy, that drive companies' approaches to issues management. (shrink)

The study reported here, building on the research methods of Conversation Analysis, Politeness Theory, and Relevance Theory, attempts to examine the distribution of Mandarin qishi and shishishang across two different discourse modes in formal speech settings: formal lectures and TV panel news discussions. The results indicate that qishi is prevalent in TV panel news discussion data, which fall into the interactional mode, whereas shishishang is more prevalent in formal speech data, which fall into the transactional mode. The study shows (...) that in interaction, qishi is addressee-oriented and signals alignment or divergence, whereas shishishang is message-oriented and asserts a proposition with a tone of certainty. In addition, the study suggests that although the literal meanings of qishi and shishishang, which are concerned with factuality, are seemingly unrelated to emotive expressivity, they offer a rhetorical strategy for expressing the speaker’s attitudinal position, and can both serve to indicate the speaker’s epistemic inference. (shrink)

This article brings a phenomenological account of the body into dialogue with theories of gender performativity, through an analysis of performance artist Cathy Sisler’s videos Aberrant Motion #1 (1993) and Aberrant Motion #4 (1994). In the work I discuss, Sisler foregrounds he limits of visibility and employs a visual mode which is more haptic than strictly optic. At the same time, the work makes explicit the power of visibility to regulate, control and mark out the subject and critiques the effect (...) of the gaze upon structures of identity formation and, crucially, the motility of the body. I argue that in this work, the viewer’s relation to the images is severed from the visual mastery associated with the modes of viewing which position Sisler as ‘other’, but which remain vitally at stake within the haptic visual economy she creates. (shrink)

Recent work in the business ethics field has called attention to the promise inherent in the concept of authenticity for enriching the ways we think about core issues at the intersection of management ethics and practice, like moral character, ethical choices, leadership, and corporate social responsibility [Driver, 2006; Jackson, 2005; Ladkin, 2006]. In this paper, I aim to extend these contributions by focusing on authenticity in relation to a set of organizational processes related to strategy making; most specifically (...) an organization’s strategic intent, arguing that these provide an ideal venue for particularising this exploration, as they represent the key processes through which an organization defines the self it aspires to be. In order to do this, I examine specifically what a shift from “business as usual” to the search for the creation of a more authentic corporate self might look like in practice, contending that such a shift offers the possibility for improving both the moral good and the business outcomes of an institution simultaneously. I conclude with assessment of the risks inherent in undertaking such a search for more authentic strategic intention in business organizations today. (shrink)

This article uses simulation as an empirical method for identifying process models of strategy effects in a category-learning task. A general set of learning assumptions defined a symbolic learning framework in which alternative simulation models were defined and tested. The goal was to identify process models that could account for previously reported data on the interaction between how a learner encounters category variance across a series of training samples and whether the task instructions suggested an active, hypothesis-testing approach, or (...) a more passive learning mode. Descriptive characterizations of active and passive learning were mapped into complementary settings of parameters operating with the general learning framework. Alternative models, defined by different configurations of these parameters, were evaluated on their goodness of fit to the observed data. The signature differences between models that best fit the passive learning data and models that best fit the active learning data concerned a delayed versus immediate learning parameter and a degree-of-match parameter that determined which patterns were retrieved to make category decisions. A functional account of these parameters is given by considering the learning task as a search process and the role of these parameters in localizing the impact of learning mechanisms in certain areas of the search space. Issues related to simulation as an empirical method for identifying candidate process models are discussed. (shrink)

[Pre-peer review draft available to download.] Our imaginative capacities shape the making of images, while the making of images has the ability to shape our imaginative capacities. What are the connections between vision and mental visual images that allow for this traffic between the contents of our minds and external images? And how are image-makers able to exploit the distinctive powers of imagery, to extend the modes of representation that are available to us, and hence also to (...) extend the resources upon which our imaginations can draw? The chapter explores various aspects of those issues. It starts by exploring “visual imagery” as a general category; and it identifies one very striking range of cases that encompasses both suitable mental and nonmental visual images. It develops a philosophical account of what is distinctive about the range of visual images thus identified. Subsequent sections then use the resulting ideas to investigate some of the ways in which various strategies for creating visual images exploit in remarkably inventive ways possibilities that are latent within the general phenomenon of imagistic representation. (shrink)

This essay examines the ways that the terms "self and "no-self can illuminate the views of classical Chinese thinkers, particularly Confucians such as Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi, and the Daoist thinker Zhuangzi. In particular, the use of the term "no-self" to describe Zhuangzi's position is defended. The concepts of self and no-self are analyzed in relation to other terms within the thinkers' "concept clusters" - specifically temporality, nature, and social roles - and suggestions are given for constructing typologies that sort (...) out the range of meanings of self and no-self based on the characteristics of the relations among terms within the concept clus- ters. The essay focuses on the way that the Confucians and Zhuangzi use concepts of self and no-self, respectively, as soteriological strategies that aim at making connections with larger systems or wholes, and it concludes that different connections are emphasized by the Confucians and Zhuangzi precisely because the various connections are made possible and sustained by different conceptions of self, temporality, nature, and social roles. (shrink)

Russell takes his paper ?On denoting? to have achieved the repudiation of the theory of denoting concepts and Frege?s theory of sense, and the invention of the notion of incomplete symbols.This means that Russell attempts to solve the set theoretic and semantic paradoxes without making use of a theory of sense.Instead, his strategy is to revise his logical ontology by arguing that certain symbols should be treated as incomplete.In constructing such arguments Russell, at various points, makes use of (...) epistemological and metaphysical considerations.These arguments do not form themselves into a systemic set of considerations to be used in appraising a logical system.Finally, the vicious circle principle is argued for on the basis of considerations, which are presumed evident, about the nature of propositional functions.The stringency of this principle is a basic problem for the system of Principia mathematica.However, even given the terms of the argument, ?On denoting? does not offer a complete repudiation of the notion of sense.This allows the possibility of retaining some of the insights of Principia mathematica whilst rejecting the stringency of the vicious circle principle.The basis of such a system is the theory of sense. (shrink)

Much of the fear and uncertainty around Zika epidemics stem from potential association between Zika virus complications on infected pregnant women and risk of their babies being born with microcephaly and other neurological abnormalities. However, much remains unknown about its mode of transmission, diagnosis and long-term pathogenesis. Worries of these unknowns necessitate the need for effective and efficient psychosocial programs and medical-legal strategies to alleviate and mitigate ZIKV related burdens. In this light, local and global efforts in maintaining fundamental health (...) principles of moral, medical and legal decision-making policies, and interventions to preserve and promote individual and collectiveHuman Rights, autonomy, protection of the most vulnerable, equity, dignity, integrity and beneficence that should not be confused and relegated by compassionate humanitarian assistance and support. This paper explores the potential medical and ethical-legal implications of ZIKV epidemics emergency response packages and strategies alongside optimizing reproductive and mental health policies, programs and best practice measures. Further long-term cross-borders operational research is required in elucidating Zika-related population-based epidemiology, ethical-medical and societal implications in guiding evidence-based local and global ZIKV maternal-child health complications related approaches and interventions. Core programs and interventions including future Zika safe and effective vaccines for global Zika immunization program in most vulnerable and affected countries and worldwide should be prioritized. (shrink)

Much of the fear and uncertainty around Zika epidemics stem from potential association between Zika virus complications on infected pregnant women and risk of their babies being born with microcephaly and other neurological abnormalities. However, much remains unknown about its mode of transmission, diagnosis and long-term pathogenesis. Worries of these unknowns necessitate the need for effective and efficient psychosocial programs and medical-legal strategies to alleviate and mitigate ZIKV related burdens. In this light, local and global efforts in maintaining fundamental health (...) principles of moral, medical and legal decision-making policies, and interventions to preserve and promote individual and collectiveHuman Rights, autonomy, protection of the most vulnerable, equity, dignity, integrity and beneficence that should not be confused and relegated by compassionate humanitarian assistance and support. This paper explores the potential medical and ethical-legal implications of ZIKV epidemics emergency response packages and strategies alongside optimizing reproductive and mental health policies, programs and best practice measures. Further long-term cross-borders operational research is required in elucidating Zika-related population-based epidemiology, ethical-medical and societal implications in guiding evidence-based local and global ZIKV maternal-child health complications related approaches and interventions. Core programs and interventions including future Zika safe and effective vaccines for global Zika immunization program in most vulnerable and affected countries and worldwide should be prioritized. (shrink)

This essay explores an aspect of Cicero's use of cultural writing for political ends: his employment of the epideictic rhetorical mode in two of his speeches, Pro Archia and In Pisonem. The epideictic is a ludic rhetorical domain that embraces paradoxes: it encompasses both praise and blame, is both markedly Greek and proximate to the Romans' laudatio funebris, and is associated both with textual fixity and viva voce improvisation. The epideictic mode is thus an ideal vehicle for Cicero's self-fashioning and, (...) moreover, constitutes a framework which reveals that Cicero's encomiastic defense of Archias' Roman citizenship and his invective against his aristocratic nemesis Piso are polar and complementary opposites. The self-consciously literary quality of epideictic allows Cicero to transform the Pro Archia from a legal defense to a general meditation on literary culture in which Cicero blurs himself with his client to defend his own status within Rome's elite while fixing his version of his consulate in ornate prose. The Pro Archia simultaneously becomes a simulacrum of the poem which Cicero hopes Archias will write and Cicero's own pre-mortem funeral oration. Yet the Pro Archia's suppressed legal arguments pregure the eventual failure of his immediate self-fashioning aims. The In Pisonem's invective inverts the Pro Archia's self-fashioning strategies in order to debunk Piso's image and to recuperate Cicero's own prestige at the expense of Piso's. The In Pisonem has the same long-range cultural ambitions as the Pro Archia, but without the previous speech's hopes for tangible short-term success. Faced with his inability to cause Piso real political damage, Cicero crafts an ornately polished caricature of Piso designed to achieve canonical longevity. Cicero's reception by the orators of Seneca's Suasoriae and Controversiae gives evidence of the successes, and limitations, of these long-term cultural goals. (shrink)

Countries around the world have adopted different policies to address the global issue of poverty, though their poverty line varies. China has achieved remarkable results in poverty alleviation through education. Aware that poverty eradication must rely on intellectual support, the country has shifted its anti-poverty theory and policy actions from a passive, one-off poverty reduction mode based on ‘blood transfusion’ to an active and sustainable mode aimed at improving the ‘blood making’ capacity of the poor population, namely the Chinese (...) mode. Education is the fundamental way of such a mode. China has always focused on nine-year compulsory education in implementing anti-poverty policies; conducted classified and tiered efforts in education against poverty and made policies more targeted; adopted diverse policy instruments and shifted the focus from subsidy to educational capacity building; developed quantified poverty alleviation indexes to set standards for policy evaluation; and included educa... (shrink)

This paper examines vegetarianism in the eighth “no meat-eating” chapter of the Laṅkāvatāra with specific attention to how the sūtra confronts the previous dietary code and combats Buddhist resistance to the new doctrine. This study corroborates previous observations that vegetarianism in Indian Buddhism was a response to outsiders’ censure, rather than an expression of a specific Buddhist doctrine. It goes on to explore how the Laṅkāvatāra introduces a new dietary norm, one that was incompatible with the preexisting monastic code that (...) allowed monks to partake of meat pure in three aspects. The Laṅkāvatāra replaced the three conditions for meat to be pure with the three modes of killing, thereby rendering the old regulation into a rule that makes any form of meat-eating impossible. In an effort to suppress intra-Buddhist resistance to vegetarianism, the sūtra prophesized the future appearance of anti-vegetarian Buddhists and identified them as heretics. Eliminating the past and future possibility of meat-eating, the Laṅkāvatāra defines Buddhism as a meat-free tradition. (shrink)

If we presume an organizational ontology of complex, dynamic change, then what role remains for strategic intent? If managerial action is said to consist of adaptive responsiveness, then what are the foundations of value on the basis of which strategic decisions can be made? In this essay, we respond to these questions and extend the existing strategy process literature by turning to the Aristotelian concept of prudence, or practical wisdom. According to Aristotle, practical wisdom involves the virtuous capacity to (...) make decisions and take actions that promote the "good life" for the "polis". We explore contemporary interpretations of this concept in literature streams adjacent to strategy and determine that practical wisdom can be developed by engaging in interpretative dialogue and aesthetically-rich experience. With these elements in view, we re-frame strategy processes as occasions to develop the human capacity for practical wisdom. (shrink)

This paper examines whether and to what extent the overall business strategy influences the firm’s mismanagement of sustainability. Specifically, an empirical measure for the mismanagement of sustainability is developed by exploiting the newly available materiality guidelines for US firms to define industry-specific material sustainability issues. Using this measure, this paper shows that mismanagement of sustainability can represent unethical business behavior when firms intentionally perform better on immaterial issues than on material issues by diverting stakeholders’ attention from the firm’s low (...) overall sustainability performance. This paper assumes that the right business strategy can prevent such unethical actions. Based on Miles and Snow’s organizational theory, this paper distinguishes between Prospector and Defender business strategies. By employing multiple firm-level panel regressions, the findings suggest that Prospector-type firms are more likely to mismanage sustainability issues compared to Defender-type firms intentionally. The results give implications for researchers, regulators and standard setters, auditors, sustainability practitioners, and scholars. (shrink)

How is scientific data used to represent phenomena and as evidence for claims about phenomena? In this paper, I propose that a specific type of claims – evidential claims – is involved in data practices to define and restrict the representational and evidential content of a dataset. I present an account of data practices in the epidemiology of the exposome based on the notion of evidential claims, which helps unpack the approaches, assumptions and warrants that connect different stages of research. (...) I identify three different strategies to generate different types of evidential claims in this case. The macro strategy, which individuates the dataset that serves as the initial evidential space for research. The micro strategy, which is used to generate evidential claims about the microscopic and individual component of target phenomena. The association strategy, that uses evidence from the other strategies to identify a dataset as representation of the different levels and relations of exposure and disease. Differentiating between these strategies sheds light on the multi-faceted landscape of biomedical research on environment and health; and the roles of data and evidence in the process of inquiry. (shrink)

This study examined the role of key causal analysis strategies in forecasting and ethical decision-making. Undergraduate participants took on the role of the key actor in several ethical problems and were asked to identify and analyze the causes, forecast potential outcomes, and make a decision about each problem. Time pressure and analytic mindset were manipulated while participants worked through these problems. The results indicated that forecast quality was associated with decision ethicality, and the identification of the critical causes of (...) the problem was associated with both higher quality forecasts and higher ethicality of decisions. Neither time pressure nor analytic mindset impacted forecasts or ethicality of decisions. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

The current study uses a sensemaking model and thinking strategies identified in earlier research to examine ethical decision making. Using a sample of 163 undergraduates, a low-fidelity simulation approach is used to study the effects personal involvement (in causing the problem and personal involvement in experiencing the outcomes of the problem) could have on the use of cognitive reasoning strategies that have been shown to promote ethical decision making. A mediated model is presented which suggests that environmental factors (...) influence reasoning strategies, reasoning strategies influence sensemaking, and sensemaking in turn influences ethical decision making. Findings were mixed but generally supported the hypothesized model. It is interesting to note that framing the outcomes of ethically charged situations in terms of more global organizational outcomes rather than personal outcomes was found to promote the use of pro-ethical cognitive reasoning strategies. (shrink)

This paper presents an integrative framework for analyzing decisions. Three generic modes of decision making are identified: consequential choice , matching and reassessment . The three generic modes are compared on a common set of attributes, and the conditions for their proper use are outlined. Two case analyses illustrate how the framework can be used to analyze specific decisions from multiple perspectives.

As an alternative to attempts to impose models of personal moral development (e.g. Kohlberg) upon organisations we propose an evolutionary model of managing ethics in organisations. The Modes of Managing Morality Model that we suggest, is based on an analysis that explains why business organisations tend to move from less complex modes of managing ethics to more complex modes thereof. Furthermore, it also identifies the dominant ethics management strategies that characterise each of the stages. It is done (...) in a way that avoids claiming that the more advanced modes of managing ethics necessarily represent moral development by business organisations. Instead of claiming the organisations develop morally, we claim that organisations move through an evolutionary process of improving their sophistication in managing ethical performance. (shrink)

Methodological strategies for the identification and synthesis of ‘evidence’ to support decision‐making in relation to complex healthcare systems and practices This paper addresses the limitations of current methods supporting ‘evidence‐based health‐care’ in relation to complex aspects of care, including those questions that are best supported by descriptive or non‐empirical evidence. The paper identifies some new methods, which may be useful in aiding the synthesis of data in these areas. The methods detailed are broadly divided into those that facilitate the (...) identification of evidence and those that enable the interpretation of the data retrieved. To illustrate some of the issues involved, reference is made to a multimethod review recently completed by the authors, which aimed to identify factors that promote continuity in the transition from child to adult health and social care. It is argued that as healthcare organisations are becoming increasingly preoccupied with the evidence base of practice, such methods may help ensure that aspects of care and approaches that are outside the dominant pharmaco‐medical domain maintain a prominent position on the healthcare agenda while remaining open to external scrutiny. Healthcare professionals who use such approaches need to know their relative utility and benefits to inform clinical decisions, so as to ensure that best practice is observed. (shrink)

Illustrates how using ethics in decision making can improve communication, resolve disagreements, and set just standards for worker-management relations. Presents strategies for how organizations can use ethics to uncover values and beliefs, and determine whether they are acting upon just and moral decisions.

This study focuses on a series of videos aimed at teacher recruitment in Singapore and how they are used as an ideological tool for persuasion. By adopting a multimodal critical discourse analysis approach to focus on affect, it examines how these videos create and promulgate the ideology of an ideal teacher as one who is caring, encouraging and supportive of students. The analysis shows how affect is not only embodied in and performed by the primary protagonists in the video narratives (...) through their action, facial expression, posture and speech. It is also evoked through various secondary meaning-making modes, such as focus, angle, lighting, background music and setting, through which the narratives unfold. More importantly, it demonstrates how affect is used not only as a means to arouse and engage viewers’ sensibilities but also as a persuasive strategy to manufacture and manage particular social and economic realities in contemporary society. (shrink)

Companies disclosing negative aspects in sustainability reports often employ legitimation strategies to present mishaps in a favorable light. In incentivized experiments, we find that nonprofessional investors divest from companies with a negative sustainability-related incident, and that symbolic legitimation (which only evasively explains a negative incident) is not a strong enough signal to counter this divestment behavior. Even substantial legitimation (which reports on measures and behavioral change) mitigates the divestment decisions only if the company reports on concrete remediation actions in morally (...) charged situations, such as social or environmental incidents. We elaborate these results in light of signaling and screening theory, and suggest the conceptual extension of “costly signals” to what we call “valuable signals.” We argue that valuable signals need be not only costly for the sender from an economic perspective but also perceived as appropriate by the receiver from a noneconomic perspective. (shrink)

Biodiversity is a valuable resource that supports sustainability within agricultural systems, yet in contradiction to this agriculture is recognised as a contributor to biodiversity loss. Agricultural advisory services are institutions that support sustainable agricultural development, employing a variety of approaches including farmer discussion groups in doing so. This study evaluates the impact of a farmland biodiversity management (FBM) communication strategy piloted within Irish farmer discussion groups. A sensemaking lens was applied in this objective to gain an understanding of how (...) this strategy could create an actionable space for FBM promotion amongst farmers. The strategy was piloted with six Irish dairy farmer discussion groups, after which focus groups were conducted with members of these groups. Additionally, baseline and endline surveys were completed by the members to determine their knowledge, attitude and on-farm practices relating to FBM. Analysis of the focus group data identified that the communication strategy supported the affordance of sensemaking with respect to FBM. Analysis of the data from the baseline and endline surveys relating to knowledge, attitudes and practices found that engaging with the communication strategy promoted farmers to improve their attitude in relation to FBM. Results from this study provide important lessons for agricultural advisory services to support farmers in incorporating FBM into the overall management of their farms and, in turn, to promote the improvement of farmland biodiversity and contribute to a sustainable future. (shrink)

The paper problematizes the national soft power strategies of authoritarian states arguing that many of their features stem from those countries’ political regime. In particular, the author focuses on such features as actors involved in soft power policies, the public media’s international and domestic rhetoric, the presence or absence of ideological commitments, strategies’ proactiveness/reactiveness as well as their long- and short-termness. The author presents his argumentation in a fashion similar to what is called theory-building process tracing: first, he shows causal (...) links between an autocratic political regime and each of those features, and then illustrates them with relevant examples taken from case studies and media publications on the soft power strategies of contemporary Russia and China. (shrink)

The notion of epistemic coherence is interpreted as involving not only consistency but also stability. The problem how to consolidate a belief system, i.e., revise it so that it becomes coherent, is studied axiomatically as well as in terms of set-theoretical constructions. Representation theorems are given for subtractive consolidation (where coherence is obtained by deleting beliefs) and additive consolidation (where coherence is obtained by adding beliefs).

The supply chain management function is currently undergoing a dramatic change: it is adopting an increasingly strategic role. However, this growing financial importance is matched in only a handful of exemplary companies by a greater contribution to environmental protection initiatives in the supply chain. This paper explores some of the obstacles to greater supply chain management involvement in environmental protection and offers suggestions for greener supply. At a personal level, the gap between public opinion on the environment and managerial values (...) needs to be closed, and the support offered by management education and by professional bodies needs to be improved. Within the organisation, the reward structure for supply chain managers needs to move away from narrow economic criteria. Greener supply would also benefit from a larger supply chain management role in corporate strategy making; the function could even be offered a seat on the Board of Management. Changes to the mode of supply chain management, including improvements to the information flow on environmental issues, the decision–making tools used in the face of complex environmental challenges and novel approaches to supply chain management need to receive urgent attention. (shrink)

The supply chain management function is currently undergoing a dramatic change: it is adopting an increasingly strategic role. However, this growing financial importance is matched in only a handful of exemplary companies by a greater contribution to environmental protection initiatives in the supply chain. This paper explores some of the obstacles to greater supply chain management involvement in environmental protection and offers suggestions for greener supply. At a personal level, the gap between public opinion on the environment and managerial values (...) needs to be closed, and the support offered by management education and by professional bodies needs to be improved. Within the organisation, the reward structure for supply chain managers needs to move away from narrow economic criteria. Greener supply would also benefit from a larger supply chain management role in corporate strategy making; the function could even be offered a seat on the Board of Management. Changes to the mode of supply chain management, including improvements to the information flow on environmental issues, the decision–making tools used in the face of complex environmental challenges and novel approaches to supply chain management need to receive urgent attention. (shrink)