bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Trust, Control, and Risk in Strategic Alliances: An Integrated Framework
Authors: Das T. K. , Teng Bing-Sheng
Published: March 2007

Trust and control are inextricably interlinked with risk in strategic alliances. Hence, to understand how partner firms can effectively reduce and manage this risk, we need to examine the inter-relationships between trust, control, and risk. In this article, we propose a comprehensive and integrated framework of the three constructs in the context of strategic alliances, contending that trust and control are the two principal antecedents of risk. First, we suggest that the three constructs are each comprised of certain key dimensions. Risk can be considered separately as relational risk and performance risk. The two dimensions of trust are identified as goodwill trust and competence trust, and control is differentiated in terms of the three modes of behaviour control, output control, and social control. Second, we discuss systematically the various linkages between the different types of trust, control, and risk in alliances. Third, we suggest several risk reduction approaches — minimizing relational risk through goodwill trust, behaviour control, and social control, while minimizing performance risk through competence trust, output control, and social control. Fourth, we discuss a number of trust-building techniques and control mechanisms to reduce risk in different types of strategic alliances. Finally, we develop propositions for empirical testing of the integrated framework and offer brief comments on future research directions and managerial implications
Institutionalization and Bargaining Power Explanations of HRM Practices in International Joint Ventures — The Case of Chinese-Western Joint Ventures
Authors: Bjorkman Ingmar , Lu Yuan
Published: March 2007

The human resource management (HRM) practices associated with local professionals and managerial-level employees in international joint ventures are analyzed in a study of 63 Chinese-Western joint ventures. Over all, the HRM practices more closely resemble those of the foreign parent company, than those of local companies. Institutionalization theory as well as the bargaining power perspective were instrumental in explaining the degree to which the HRM practices in the joint ventures were similar to those of the foreign parent company.
Globalization, Athletic Footwear Commodity Chains and Employment Relations in China
Authors: Frenkel Stephen J.
Published: March 2007

Globalization has hastened the growth of buyer-driven commodity chains that connect advanced country marketing or retail companies with contractors manufaturing in low-cost, developing countries. Allegations of labour exploitation have been levelled at the global firms for turning a blind eye to their contractors' labour practices. In response, some firms have implemented codes of practice. This paper focuses on the operation of these codes in two leading athletic shoe buyer-driven chains and their contractor plants in Southern China. The codes are administered differently by the two firms, encouraging a less authoritarian, more human-resource-oriented approach at the two plants associated with the larger and more successful global firm. Nevertheless, employment conditions at all four plants meet the requirements of the corporate codes of practice. The one major exception relates to worker representation and collective bargaining. While the current international context is conducive to upholding labour standards and improving employment relations, Chinese national and local institutional contexts limit this tendency. Consequently, workers remain in a vulnerable position. The paper concludes by arguing that although present structural tendencies favour increases in worker stability and power, institutional supports are needed to continuously improve employment relations and labour standards.
Effects of Reputational Sanctions on the Competitive Imitation of Design Innovations
Authors: Gemser Gerda , Wijnberg Nachoem M.
Published: March 2007

This study examines whether and under what conditions reputational sanctions are a strong deterrent to imitative firm behaviour. Results indicate that reputational sanctions can be an effective barrier to imitation, in particular when firms perceive a reputation for innovation to be a factor in their competitive success. Linkages between firms foster the effectiveness of this barrier to imitation, as such linkages make it relatively easy to detect imitative behaviour and to impose reputational sanctions.
`Two-Way Windows': Clinicians as Medical Managers
Authors: Llewellyn Sue
Published: March 2007

This paper uses the metaphor of the `two-way window' to understand the aspirations and activities of clinical directors (doctors with management responsibilities). Clinical directors work simultaneously with sets of ideas from both clinical practice and from management, therefore, their role (as `two-way windows') allows the possibility to create a new area of expertise — medical-management. To explore how `two-way windows' are being constituted, clinician managers in three medical organizations were interviewed. Three narratives were constructed from their accounts. The first narrative outlines the theories-in-use of clinical directors, the second and third consist of the strategizing of clinical directors as they seek to maintain their primary focus on clinical work whilst, at the same time, developing their management expertise and influence. The paper concludes that clinical directors can relatively easily occupy the `two-way' space opened up by the mediation of medicine and management. Only a lack of financial management expertise renders their new organizational positioning vulnerable.

All public bureaucracies now involve complex mediation between professionals and managers; hence, `two-way windows' will become increasingly significant in organizational development. These `two-way' roles privilege professional over managerial expertise as it is assumed that the appropriate professional training is of paramount importance. Unique professional/managerial discourses are being created in public-sector organizations. This paper provides a basis for understanding the development of such discourses.
The Production of Distrust by Means of Producing Trust
Authors: Walgenbach Peter
Published: March 2007

ISO 9000 certifications are spreading throughout the world. ISO 9000 standards and certification should serve as a verification that it is justified to trust the ability of a supplier to produce quality goods. In this paper, results of an empirical study on the use of ISO 9000 standards and ISO 9000 certification in Germany will be presented. An important finding is that the standards and the certification do not, as was intended, serve as a means for producing trust between customers and suppliers. Reasons as to why ISO 9000 certification does not serve as a means for producing an institutional-based type of trust will be presented. However, despite the fact that certification does not produce trust, the implementation of the standards was evaluated positively by the organizations investigated. The implementation of the ISO 9000 standards was regarded as an occasion for structuring and led to the development of a system of bureaucratic control that was both enabling and coercive.
Institutions and Innovation: The Legal Environment of Innovating Firms
Authors: van Waarden Frans
Published: March 2007

The literature on `national systems of innovation' emphasizes that the innovative capacity of nations depends on their institutions. This paper investigates the influence of an ideal-typical institution, law and regulations, on innovation, both directly and indirectly, through its influence on the organizational structure of — and cooperation between — firms that (may) engage in innovation. The paper starts by noting that innovation is fraught with risk and uncertainty which raise transaction costs. If these costs become too high, one would expect firms to refrain from investing in innovation. A major function of law and regulation is to reduce such risk and uncertainty. However, national legal systems differ in their capacity to reduce risk and uncertainty both effectively and efficiently. A typology of legal systems is introduced, based on two dimensions: an emphasis on regulation or on litigation; and an active or passive use of these. Subsequently, two legal systems are compared, which form more or less opposites in the typology, those of the United States and of the Netherlands. First, the possible direct effects of regulation on innovation are discussed. The American and Dutch legal systems are compared on the degree of activism of regulation, and the possible effect of both systems on innovation, through their influence on freedom versus predictability and through their technology-forcing effects. Second, the possible direct effect of litigation on uncertainty reduction and thus on innovation is considered. Third, the indirect effects of regulation and litigation on innovation are treated through their influence on organization, including inter-organizational relations. The conclusion is that, by comparison, the American system, with its emphasis on litigation, seems to be less effective and efficient in reducing uncertainty. Curiously enough, an institution, developed in order to reduce uncertainty, has itself become a new source of uncertainty. One would expect an economy with such a legal system to be less innovative. However, the opposite seems to be true. This paradox becomes understandable if one realizes that institutions are expressions of — and perpetuate — cultural values. Risk-averse cultures have legal systems that emphasize the reduction of risk and uncertainty. They also produce more risk-averse innovative behaviour in firms.
Co-Evolution of Entrepreneurial Careers, Institutional Rules and Competitive Dynamics in American Film, 1895-1920
Authors: Jones Candace
Published: March 2007

An historical case analysis of the American film industry is undertaken to gain a better understanding of the co-evolutionary processes of entrepreneurial careers, institutional rules and competitive dynamics in emerging industries. The study compares technology and content-focused periods, which were driven by entrepreneurs with different career histories and characterized by distinct institutional rules and competitive dynamics. Archival data and historical analysis is used to trace how entrepreneurial careers, firm capabilities, institutional rules, and competitive dynamics co-evolved. A co-evolutionary perspective is integrated with insights from institutional and resource-based theories to explain how the American film industry emerged, set an initial trajectory with specific institutional rules and competitive dynamics, and then changed.
Task and Institutional Influences on Managers' Mental Models of Competition
Authors: Daniels Kevin , Johnson Gerry , de Chernatony Leslie
Published: March 2007

From institutional theory, we argue (a) that the competitive, or task environment may encourage divergence of management cognition between organizations, management functions and amongst senior managers, and (b) that the institutional environment may encourage cognitive convergence at the level of the industry, the strategic group and within institutionalized practices linked to management functions and level. Using management cognition of competition as a vehicle and two cognitive mapping methods, we test a series of competing propositions amongst 32 managers in the UK personal financial services industry, an industry that evidences both task and institutional characteristics. Our findings indicate neither the superiority of exclusively task nor institutional explanations of management cognition. However, the results do indicate some influence of the institutional environment, most noticeably through the convergence of mental models within middle managers across the industry. The results also indicate some influence of the task environment, through cognitive differences across organizations and greater differentiation amongst senior managers' mental models. We interpret our results by referring to the usefulness of distinguishing between task and institutional environments in management cognition and strategic management research.
Enterprise Discourse, Professional Identity and the Organizational Control of Hospital Clinicians
Authors: Doolin Bill
Published: March 2007

Recent reform of the healthcare sector in New Zealand involved the corporatization of public hospitals, and the contractualization of social relations between and within institutions. Various attempts were made to incorporate hospital clinicians within some system of organizational control in order to make them accountable for the resources consumed as a consequence of their treatment decisions. This paper considers how the general intention of government to control, curtail or influence the professional autonomy of hospital clinicians was played out in the context of a single New Zealand hospital. It considers the possibility that power effects of discourses associated with such neo-liberal programmes of reform could influence the subjectivity of hospital clinicians, aligning their clinical behaviour with the broader goals of the governmental programme. It explores how individuals manoeuvre in relation to these discourses of management and enterprise, whether in acceptance, resistance or compromise. The resulting outcomes are complex and varied, as individuals negotiate dominant discourses in the construction of identity and self.
The Emergence of Business Groups: Israel and South Korea Compared
Authors: Maman Daniel
Published: March 2007

This paper examines the emergence of business groups in Israel and South Korea. The paper questions how, in very different institutional contexts, similar economic organizations emerged. In contrast to the political, cultural and market perspectives, the comparative institutional analysis adopted in this research suggests that one factor alone could not explain the emergence of business groups. In Israel and South Korea, business groups emerged during the 1960s and 1970s, and there are common factors underlying their formation: state-society relations, the roles and beliefs of the elites, and the relative absence of multinational corporations in the economy. To a large extent, the chaebol are the result of an intended creation of the South Korean state, whereas the Israeli business groups are the outcome of state policies in the economic realm. In both countries, the state elite held a developmental ideology, did not rely on market forces for economic development, and had a desire for greater economic and military self-sufficiency. In addition, both states were recipients of large grants and loans from other countries, which made them less dependent on direct foreign investments. As a result, the emerging groups were protected from the intense competition of multinational corporations.
Confronting Strategic Inertia in a Top Management Team: Learning from Failure
Authors: Hodgkinson Gerard P. , Wright George
Published: March 2007

Recently there has been a growing interest in the use of scenario-planning techniques and related procedures such as cognitive mapping as a basis for facilitating organizational learning and strategic renewal. The overwhelming impression conveyed within the popular management literature is that the application of these techniques invariably leads to successful outcomes. To the extent that this is not the case, the absence of documented accounts of instances where these techniques have failed may mislead would-be users into embarking on inappropriate courses of action, unaware of their fundamental limitations. In keeping with a number of recent calls to make organizational research and management theory more relevant to the world of practice, we present a reflective account of our own (largely unsuccessful) attempt to apply these potentially powerful methods of intervention in the context of a private sector organization. Drawing on the rich seam of qualitative data gathered over the course of our work with the senior management team of the organization concerned, we explore the reasons why our attempts to utilize these methods did not yield the benefits anticipated. The data are analyzed using Janis and Mann's (1977) Conflict Theory of Decision Making. It is argued that the primary reason why our process intervention failed is that the participants adopted a series of defensive avoidance strategies, amplified by a series of psychodynamic processes initiated by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). We contend that these defensive avoidance strategies served as a means of coping with the unacceptably high levels of decisional stress, which arose as a result of having to confront a variety of alternatives, each with potentially threatening consequences for the longterm wellbeing of the organization.
Doomed to Failure: Narratives of Inevitability and Conspiracy in a Failed IS Project
Authors: Brown Andrew D. , Jones Matthew R.
Published: March 2007

Episodes of failure provide an interesting arena for the observation of alternative interpretations of organizational events. The social psychology literature suggests that individuals tend to attribute failure to external forces and that this may be due to selective perception, which may be motivated by the preservation of self-esteem and/or image enhancement. This paper discusses the differing narratives describing the failure of an information system in a UK hospital. It is suggested that these narratives may be seen as attributing failure to either the occurrence of particular events, or to the deliberate actions of specific groups or individuals. These are characterized as narratives of inevitability and conspiracy. Some possible reasons for the promotion of these alternative narratives are discussed.
A Tale of Two Gladiators: 'Reading' Entrepreneurs as Texts
Authors: Pitt Martyn
Published: March 2007

One approach to exploring the context-particular, experiential knowledge of entrepreneurs is to treat their narrative explanations of how their firms have developed as quasi texts containing implicit, personal theories of managerial action. By drawing on cognitive and literary concepts, their personal theories are modelled as multi-element scripts that evolve and change, yielding rich and informative interpretations. It is suggested that this approach is relevant not only for entrepreneurs, but that it can also be used in both ethnographic and clinical studies.
Networking Network Studies: An Analysis of Conceptual Configurations in the Study of Inter-organizational Relationships
Authors: Oliver Amalya L. , Ebers Mark
Published: March 2007

Given the recent accumulation of research on inter-organizational relations and networks and the current fragmentation of the field, it is time to take stock and explore the achievements of, and future challenges for, this field of study. On the basis of a network analysis of the 158 articles on inter-organizational relations and networks that were published in four leading journals from 1980 to 1996, this paper empirically explores the linkages among, and configurations of, core theories and concepts underlying earlier empirical research on inter-organizational relations and networks. We identify core, as well as peripheral, areas of research interest in the field and point out areas of overlap and consolidation. Moreover, our empirical analysis shows that the field segments into four substantive research perspectives, namely social network, power and control, institutional, and institutional economics and strategy clusters. In sum, we suggest an innovative, empirically grounded approach towards a literature review that aims at a synopsis of a field of study and highlights possibly fruitful avenues for future research.
Charisma and the Archetypes of Leadership
Authors: Steyrer Johannes
Published: March 2007

The following contribution attempts to develop a charisma model in the context of business organizations, based on a social-cognitive information processing approach in the perception of leadership. It tries to operationalize charisma, departing from prototypical attributes that are inherent in the cognitive category of leadership. In contrast to the 'New Leadership Approach', we depart from a 'polymorphous phenotype' of charisma. This position is derived from the concept of charisma as Max Weber understands it. Based on the concept of 'archetypes' of leadership, four different phenotypes are then defined: the hero ('heroic charisma'), the father ('paternalistic charisma'), the saviour ('missionary charisma') and the king ('majestic charisma'). The main idea of this model is the correlation that is brought out clearly between charisma and stigma, and thus also the idea that both 'hyper-representativity' and 'anti-representativity' as well as 'social dramatization' and 'social reversion' can occasion the allocation of charisma.
Research Note: Asterix in Disneyland. Management Scholars from France on the World Stage
Authors: Engwall Lars
Published: March 2007

In the light of the growing expansion in international scientific publication, three questions are posed here. First, to what extent do French-based authors contribute to international management journals? Second, what are the geographical home bases of French authorships? Third, what is the orientation of French authorships? These questions are analyzed with the help of data from fifteen top journals in the management area during the period 1981-1992. This analysis reveals that authors based in France, like their colleagues in other non-US countries, account for a rather limited proportion of the articles in the top journals, namely less than 1 percent. It also appears that about 50 percent of the French-based authors are on the faculty of INSEAD, and that most of them have Ph.D.'s from prestigious U.S. universities and are not French nationals. Of the 'genuine' French, most come from the Paris area, or Grenoble or Lyon. Finally, the orientation of French-based authors tends particularly towards strategic management and operations research. Publications in accounting, on the other hand, are rare. Most references are to North American works.
Disciplined Bodies: Women's Embodied Identities at Work
Authors: Trethewey Angela
Published: March 2007

This study employs a Foucauldian feminist lens to analyze how organizational and gendered discourses are quite literally written upon women's bodies in ways that often constrain women's professional identities. Nineteen professional women were interviewed about their definitions and experiences of their professional bodies. The interview data are summarized in the following three emergent and telling themes: (1) a professional body is a fit body; (2) a professional body (purpose-fully) emits signs and messages through bodily comportment, nonverbal behaviours, and performances. Thus, the body is conceived as a text to be read; and, (3) a professional woman's body is positioned as excessively) sexual. The task of controlling the female body is made more difficult because the female body has a tendency to overflow. The undisciplined, excessive body points to the female body's otherness. These three themes indicate how professional women's bodies are normalized and made docile in organizational contexts. Additionally, the interview data imply that both men and women are disciplinarians. Finally, the political implications of women's embodied professional identities are discussed and future research directions are presented.
Constructive Destruction: Transformation of Russian State-Owned Construction Enterprises During Market Transition
Authors: Suhomlinova Olga O.
Published: March 2007

This paper examines the mechanism of the organizational transformation of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in economies undergoing transition from central planning to market orientation. It argues that the SOE transformation reflects the influence of three groups of factors: (1) the legacies of the past, embodied in the continuing influence of the state redistributive system, (2) the realities of the emerging markets, with their forces of legitimation and competition, and (3) the intraorganizational processes affecting the organization's propensity to change. The analysis is based on a population-level study of SOEs in the construction industry in two regions of the Russian Federation during the first five years of economic reforms (1989-1993) and focuses on the separation of the SOEs' structural units. The results show that the likelihood of transformation is negatively affected by the SOE's ability to procure resources from the state (as reflected in the enterprise status in the state redistributive hierarchy), has an inverted U-shape relationship with population density (indicating the influences of competition and legitimation), and is positively affected by the prior changes of the same and related types (as captured by the prior separations from the parent company and the prior leasing arrangement).
Some Remarks on the Problem of Incommensurability in Organization Studies
Authors: Scherer Andreas Georg , Steinmann Horst
Published: March 2007

Organization studies have become differentiated and complex fields of research. It has become difficult for both the researcher and the practitioner to find appropriate answers to theoretical or practical problems, and theoretical advice is often contradictory. Today, we have to deal with various schools of thought that are often considered incommensurable. An objective frame of reference to evaluate different paradigms is missing, and recent discussions in organization theory have shown that it is rather difficult to find common ground. It is the purpose of this paper to review the current paradigmatic state of organization studies, to consider the pluralism of paradigms and its consequences, and to discuss the possibility of overcoming the incommensurability problem. Our discussion makes clear that there is no theoretical solution to the incommensurability problem, but that the possibility of a practical solution does exist.
Pop Culture Magicians Seek Honest-Grappler-After-Truth for Marginal Discussion
Authors: Hassard John
Published: March 2007

In this article, a transcription is presented of Barry Turner's seminar `The Rise of Organizational Symbolism' given at the London Business School (LBS) on 14 January 1987. The issues discussed include the origins of the Standing Conference on Organizational Symbolism (SCOS), Turner's scepticism of the unitary organization culture concept and culture-driven change programmes, his concern with the lack of political sensitivity in culture-based studies, and his explanation of the upsurge in popularity of anthropological notions in organizational analysis. The article also describes events that preceded Turner's invitation to lead what was the first in a series of seminars on `New Perspectives on Organizations'. This account revolves around a brief history of the `Marginal's Club', a short-lived discussion group which hosted Turner's seminar.
`Surviving the Rigs': Safety and Surveillance on North Sea Oil Installations
Authors: Collinson David L.
Published: March 2007

This article examines the politics of accident reporting on North Sea oil installations. In the context of an all-pervasive safety culture and performance assessment system, offshore workers restricted the reporting of accidents. Other studies suggest that workers often respond to increased monitoring by engaging in defensive practices that manipulate performance information. Accordingly, a central contention of this article is that performance assessment frequently creates employee performances. In turn, the paper highlights the value of linking the work of Goffman to that of Foucault for the critical analysis of culture, performance assessment and safety in contemporary organizations.
Agency, Entrepreneurs, and Institutional Change. The Role of Strategic Choice and Institutionalized Practices in Organizations
Authors: Beckert Jens
Published: March 2007

One of the persistent problems facing institutional organization theory has been the question of how to deal with interest-driven behaviour and institutional change. If organizational structures and strategies are shaped by institutional environments, what is the role of `strategic choice' in the management of organizations? In this paper, my aim is to develop an integrative concept which theorizes the connection of strategic agency and institutions in a model of institutional change. I argue that, under market conditions, institutional rules and intentional rational agency can be conceptualized as antagonistic mechanisms that contradict each other, but, nevertheless, remain interdependent. The incorporation of a systematic place for interests does not weaken the main theoretical trait of institutional theory, but, on the contrary, demonstrates the importance of institutional rules for understanding institutional change in a comprehensive model. The notion of uncertainty is at the centre of this model. By referring to existing empirical findings of processes of institutional change, four propositions are developed and supported.
Global Quality Norms within National Production Regimes: ISO 9000 Standards in the French and German Car Industries
Authors: Casper Steven , Hanckj Bob
Published: March 2007

This article examines the impact of ISO 9000 upon different national production regimes. It asks how ISO 9000 has influenced the reorganization of industry, and how this reorganization has affected the production systems of different advanced industrial countries, in this case France and Germany. The paper argues that within the wider context of increased international competition within the car industry, ISO 9000 technical norms have facilitated a modernization of supplier network practices and work organization in both countries. Yet, at the same time, the implementation of ISO 9000-based quality management systems within firms and the reorganization of relationships across firms have tended to reproduce the previously existing architectures of authority and risk distribution, but within the context of modernized technical practices. In France, the quality standards reproduced, while modernizing, the underlying Taylorist company organization and the hierarchical links between final assemblers and their suppliers. In Germany, in contrast, ISO 9000 norms became embedded within new production concepts that reinforced the autonomy of skilled workers. In inter-firm relationships, they act as an informal insurance clause against new liability risks associated with network forms of organization, thus safeguarding the autonomy of small firms.
Wittgenstein and Rousseau on the context of justification
Authors: O'Donovan-Anderson Michael
Published: March 2007

The historical aim of this paper is to reveal some striking similarities in Wittgenstein's treatment of epistemic justification and Rousseau's treatment of political justification. The theoretical aim is to open up the possibility of an understanding of justification which requires neither the discovery of some fundamental ground for judgment nor the alienation of the judge from the community or practice to be justified.

Against the prevailing tradition in which justification occurs by reflectively rooting the practice in question in some unquestioned ground outside of and unaffected by that practice, a process which requires of the judge that her reason be untainted by practical involvements, both thinkers assert that justification can take place only within, being practically engaged with, whatever is to be justified. Indeed, we can go so far as to say for these thinkers that practical involvement is precisely the production of the grounds of legitimacy, and reasoned judgment is possible only from this engaged perspective.
Rational choice as critical theory
Authors: Heath Joseph
Published: March 2007

Habermas has argued that many of the endemic socio- economic problems of Western society are either symptoms or prod ucts of a 'lopsided' process of cultural rationalization, one that has emphasized instrumental forms of rationality over communicative. But other than presenting a rather general typology of lifeworld pathologies, Habermas has not done much to specify what these problems might be, nor has he provided any 'middle-range' analysis of the mechanisms through which they might be generated. This paper discusses some of the ways in which, consistent with Haber mas's general framework, rational choice theory can be used for pre cisely this task. In this analysis, rational choice theory is not presented as a comprehensive theory of action, but is employed as a critical- diagnostic tool that allows the theorist to identify undesirable social interaction patterns that arise from a broader instrumentalization of the lifeworld.
From city-dreams to the dreaming collective
Authors: Miller Tyrus
Published: March 2007

This essay discusses Walter Benjamin's development of 'dream' as a model for understanding 19th- and 20th-century urban culture. Following Bergson and surrealist poetics, Benjamin used 'dream' in the 1920s as an heuristic analogy for investigating child hood memories, kitsch art and literature; during the early 1930s, he also developed it into an historiographic concept for studying 19th- century Parisian culture. Benjamin's interpretative use of the dream cuts across Ricoeur's distinction between the hermeneutics of 'recol lection' and the hermeneutics of 'suspicion'. The political dream analyst seeks to discharge the 'fatal powers' of the ideological dream, while at the same time fostering the experience of waking in which dream elements may recollectively be grasped. Benjamin extends this dialectic of dreaming, interpreting and waking to the relation between historical epochs and the tasks of the materialist historian. Puzzling out the recent past's dreamlike rebuses may serve in the task of a present historical awakening.
Worlds apart?
Authors: Vetlesen Arne Johan
Published: March 2007

Though doubtless two of the leading philosophers in ethics today, Habermas and Levinas have yet to be subjected to sys tematic comparison. This essay undertakes a first step. Differences of terminology aside, Habermas and Levinas can be seen to pursue, via separate routes, a similar core idea. I term this the idea of immanent normativity. While Habermas locates an unchosen normative pull in the medium of interpersonal communication, Levinas locates an unconditional ethical command in the Other as face. Hence they unite in strongly opposing social contract theory's notion of moral ity as optional and of responsibility as conditional upon self-interest.
A critique of Rawls's hermeneutics as translation
Authors: Josefson Jim , Bach Jonathan
Published: March 2007

This paper seeks to demonstrate that hermeneutics is a powerful conceptual tool for exploring the current trend towards theorizing justice as a conversation. Specifically we explore the work of John Rawls in order to describe the particular variety of hermeneu tics at work in both 'political liberalism' and 'justice as fairness' and to critique this hermeneutics from the perspective of the ontological hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer. Using the critique of Quinean pragmatism found in Joseph Rouse's epistemology, we draw a par allel between the 'hermeneutics as translation' in Quine and Rawls's public reason. This parallel, we argue, helps us better understand the features and the limitations of political liberalism, especially when Rawls's hermeneutics is contrasted with the possibility of a theory of justice inspired by Gadamer.
The Jewish question revisited
Authors: Hull Gordon
Published: March 2007

The question of nationalism as spoken about in contem porary circles is structurally the same as Marx's 'Jewish Question'. Through a reading of Marx's early writings, particularly the 'Jewish Question' essay, guided by Derrida's Specters of Marx and Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities, it is possible to begin to rethink the nationalist question. In this light, nationalism emerges as the byproduct of the reduction of heterogeneous 'people' into a homo geneous 'state'; such 'excessive' voices occupy an ontological space outside of the categories within which the state operates, and thus return, in Derrida's terms, to 'haunt' it. When the nationalist ques tion is viewed in this way, contemporary solutions that depend on reproducing this reduction are called into question.
Sustainable development and the local justice framework
Authors: Roe Emery
Published: March 2007

Jon Elster's notion of 'local justice systems' helps recon ceive sustainable development in several fresh ways. Keeping options open for the future use of resources turns out to be a justice/injustice cycle: the more sustainable development becomes a global phenom enon, the more locally unjust its uniform application would necess arily be. The more uniform the application, the greater the local pressure for suitably varied alternatives. But the more varied the applications, the greater the chance of global injustice arising from the decentralization and lack of coordination on the ground. In this way, sustainable development must be seen as not ending when unjust global systems become more just, but rather as continuing through a set of iterations whose moments include a rejection of an overly globalized sustainable development.
The negotiation of equivalence
Authors: Arditi Benjamin
Published: March 2007

The paper deals with the status of referents for claims among conflicting claimants when multiplicity is a fact and there is no room for a substantive notion of community. It develops a notion of contingent and 'impure' universal as it arises in the negotiation of equivalence in scenarios of conflict between claimants. My argument is that measures of equivalence cannot conform to the caricature of absolute, all-encompassing referents intent on subjugating difference in the name of sameness; that a reflection about decisions and the validity of claims - i.e. concerning singularity - cannot be reduced to a simple application of the rule; and that decisions are lodged in the undecidable terrain between norms and their redescription, which means that the status of universals is an effect of continual political battles.
Aura: ■ the aesthetic of redemption?
Authors: Sherratt Yvonne
Published: March 2007

Adorno and Benjamin offer us an aesthetic concept, that of aura. The analysis of this has tended to circumnavigate the concept, that is, it has examined the historical dimension to aura, or turned to the texts of Adorno and Benjamin with a view to finding discrepancies between their theses. However, the important conceptual detail has not been explored with suf ficient rigour. My question is a simple one: what is aura? How do we piece together its various features such as 'a feeling of distance', 'pointing beyond a work's givenness' and 'a capacity to look back'? I provide a more in-depth and thoroughgoing analysis of these qualities and their interrelation than has so far been offered. I also argue for the relevance of aura to modernity.
Toward things and the good society
Authors: Wolff Kurt H.
Published: March 2007

In loving memory of Herbert Marcuse, who in the 1920s heard Husserl and in the 1960s came to be the voice of the rebelling students
Culture industry or social physiognomy?
Authors: Apostolidis Paul
Published: March 2007

A critical retrospective of 'The Psychological Technique of Martin Luther Thomas' Radio Addresses' sheds new light on an often underplayed tension in Adorno's thought concerning the capacity of mass culture to express resistance against domination. In 'Thomas' Adorno moved beyond denouncing mass culture as 'culture industry' by approach ing early Christian right radio in a manner consistent (initially) with his defense of the autonomous dimension of culture in general. At the same time, 'Thomas' accomplished groundwork for the culture industry theory, and this theory ultimately guided the study's conclusions. This critique confirms Adorno's ambivalence regarding the negative capabilities of mass culture while suggesting a new way to analyze the contemporary Christian right. This approach, which I illustrate, draws upon both the culture industry theory and a modified version of Adorno's method of immanent, dialectical criticism to identify ideological elements as well as moments of resistance in Christian right radio today.
The situated critic or the loyal critic? Rorty and Walzer on social criticism
Authors: Allen Jonathan
Published: March 2007

This article addresses the question whether the model of social criticism as 'connected' or 'loyal' which is advanced by Richard Rorty and Michael Walzer offers an adequate picture of social criticism. Two claims are made. First, it is suggested that loyalty is an internally conflicted concept, with three components: a recognition of situatedness in a particu lar relationship; an affirmation of that relationship by the loyal agent; a set of values or local principles. Where the third component is prominent, loyalty is more reflective and distanced; where the second component predominates, loyalty slips into unreflective commitment. Second, it is argued that Rorty and Walzer conflate the social critic's recognition of his or her situatedness in contexts of power with the affirmation of that situ atedness. It is concluded that the model of loyal social criticism is mislead mg, and that the practice of the critic must be tempered by the operation of the sense of injustice.
Mapping The Diversity among Runaways
Authors: Brennan Tim
Published: March 2007

THIS article discusses the diversity of runaway youth within a framework of descriptive taxonomic analysis. First, a review and critique of prior classification systems of runaways is provided. The inadequacies of the prior systems are reviewed. A descriptive taxonomy of runaway youth is then developed using cluster-analytic methods. The attribute space for this analysis is developed from an integration of strain and control theories and includes major social and psychological forces that impinge upon the youth. These forces relate to the strength of bonding, particularly within the family, peer, and school contexts. The empirical types which emerged from this analysis illustrate various patterns of weakness in the bonds between the runaway youths and their families, schools, or peer relationships. The article ends by explaining some relationships between the present findings and selected prior typological systems of runaway youth.
Preschoolers' Sex-Role Identity, Father-Role Perceptions, and Paternal Family Participation
Authors: Carlson Bonnie E.
Published: March 2007

AN exploratory study was conducted to investigate the relationships between three patterns of family role performance and (1) preschool-aged boys' sex-role preferences and (2) preschool-aged boys' and girls' perceptions of the father role. Three groups of 20 families were interviewed in their homes regarding division of labor and satisfaction with parent and work roles. These groups varied according to maternal employment status and extent of paternal responsibility for child care (either minimal or approximately equal to that of the mother). Children were tested for their intelligence, sex-role preferences, and perceptions of parent roles. Support was found for an inverse relationship between paternal participation in both child care and housework and children's functional stereotypes of the father role. In addition, paternal housework was found to be inversely related to sons' masculinity, whereas paternal influence in family decision making and sons' masculinity were unrelated. It was concluded that actual parental behaviors are not the sole source of influence on the development of children's sex-role preferences and perceptions of the father role.
Imperative Need Number 3
Authors: Backus Bertie
Published: March 2007

All youth need to understand the rights and duties of a citi zen of a democratic society, and to be diligent and com petent in the performance of their obligations as members of the community and citizens of the state and nation, and of the world.
Imperative Need Number 4
Authors: Hull J. Dan
Published: March 2007

All youth need to understand the significance of the family for the individual and society and the conditions conducive to successful family life.
Imperative Need Number 5
Authors: Wilhelms Fred T.
Published: March 2007

All youth need to know how to purchase and use goods and services intelligently, understanding both the values received by the consumer and the economic consequences of their acts.
Imperative Need Number 8
Authors: Ryan H.H.
Published: March 2007

All youth need to be able to use their leisure time well and to budget it wisely, balancing activities that yield satisfactions to the individual with those that are socially useful.
Impertive Need Number 10
Authors: Leonard J. Paul
Published: March 2007

All youth need to grow in their ability to think rationally, to express their thoughts clearly, and to read and listen with understanding.
America's Intellectual Resources
Authors: Wolfe Dael
Published: March 2007

This and the following article, "Supply of and Demand for Engineers," describe the urgent need for trained personnel in critical areas in our nation. We appeal to all principals, coun selors, and teachers of secondary schools to influence and en courage promising boys and girls to be interested in the fields of teaching, nursing, medicine, science, and engineering. The shortages are so great now and will continue so for the next few years that all competent and qualified youth will find unusual life opportunities in these professional areas and the further privilege of rewarding service.— The Editor.
Comments on a Scholar's Reply
Authors: Hand Harold C.
Published: March 2007

T HE Commsttee on Currrculum Planning and Development and the Executive Committee of the National Association of Secondary-School Principals and the Executive Committee of the Illinois Curriculum Program collaborated with Professors Harold C. Hand and Charles W. Sanford in preparing an analysis of the article, "Aimlessness in Education," and the address on "Anti-Intellectualism in the Schools: A Challenge to Scholars," both by Professor Arthur E. Bestor, Jr. This analysis is presented in the article, "A Scholar's Documents," which appeared in the May 1953 issue of THE BULLETIN of the National Association of Secondary- School Principals; the committees reaffirm their support of "A Scholar's Documents." The three committees named above commend Professors Hand and Sanford for the thorough manner in which they have exposed the unfair and distorted attacks made on public secondary education by Professor Bestor. An analysis of Professor Bestor's "Reply" is presented below.
The Challenge for Foreign Area Studies
Authors: Morse Richard M.
Published: March 2007

A hint to innovators at loss for a new lead: "We are no longer asking how best to smuggle these [non-Western] studies into the standard curriculum.... We are instead saying that the only conceivable justification for smuggling them in is that they serve as a Trojan horse for educational reform."
Rediscovering the Earth
Authors: White Gilbert F.
Published: March 2007

It was natural to turn to Gilbert White for the opening paper in this group on geography in the high school curriculum. He had planned to prepare an article for the BULLETIN, but as the deadline approached, his other professional commitments made the additional writing im possible. He told us, however, that many of the ideas he had intended developing for the BULLETIN he had incorporated in an earlier article in American Education. We appreciate the courtesy of that publication in granting permission to use Mr. White's paper here.
Careers in Geography
Authors: James Preston E.
Published: March 2007

Geography is a discipline that has other uses beside being studied and taught: the present demand for geographers in many aspects of the world's affairs far exceeds the supply. Professor James comments on the opportunities in this field and how to get ready to take advantage of them.
The Geography Teacher in Ontario
Authors: Pleva E.G.
Published: March 2007

The importance of competent teachers is not limited by the geographical or political features of the learning environment, as this discussion of the teaching of geography in Ontario shows.