bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Children's understanding of referential messages produced by deaf and hearing speakers
Authors: Brownell Marni D. , Trehub Sandra E. , Gartner Gloria M.
Published: March 2007

Children 4 to 10 years of age were presented with referential messages that varied in message adequacy and speech quality and were required to choose the intended referent from a set of four alternatives. Follow ing feedback regarding their choice, they evaluated the message as good or bad and provided reasons for their evaluation. Half of the messages had sufficient information to define the referent uniquely; half had insufficient or ambiguous information. Moreover, half of the messages were produced by hearing children and half by deaf children. Children's comprehension and evaluation of messages changed sys tematically with age, as did the basis for these evaluations. The 4- and 5-year-olds performed poorly on the picture selection task but evaluated most messages as good; 6-year-olds rated messages as good if they had chosen the correct referent, even by guessing. From 8 years of age, children judged the adequacy of messages independent of outcome and linked their justifications to relevant details of the mes sages. Messages that were fully intelligible to adults but had atypical speech quality resulted in poorer performance and evaluations than did messages with normal speech quality for children of all ages.
The social context of early sign language development
Authors: Harris Margaret , Clibbens John , Chasin Joan , Tibbitts Ruth
Published: March 2007

This paper is concerned with the strategies used by deaf mothers to ensure that their deaf infants are able to perceive both the signs addressed to them and the nonverbal contexts to which these signs relate. Four mother-child pairs were studied and observations were made when the children were aged between 7 and 20 months. A detailed analysis of the relationship between the mother's signing, the child's pattern of attention, and the nonverbal context of the signing revealed that a high proportion of signs were seen by the children and that, by 20 months of age, the majority of signs also had a nonverbal context which was salient for the child. There were general similarities in the pattern of strategies employed by the mothers to relate their signs to the nonverbal context but there were also interesting differ ences. The possible relationship of these differences to the children's sign language development is discussed in the light of the children's own sign production at two years of age.
Analysis of Cognitive Structure Using the Linear Logistic Test Model and Quadratic Assignment
Authors: Medina-Díaz Maria
Published: March 2007

The cognitive structure of an algebra test was defined and validated using the linear logistic test model (LLTM) and quadratic assignment (QA), respectively. The LLTM is an extension of the Rasch model with a linear constraint that describes the difficulty of a test item in terms of the cognitive operations required to solve it. The cognitive structure of a test is specified using the weight matrix W. The cognitive structure defined here was based on a set of eight production rules that represented the mathematical procedures employed in solving linear equations with one variable. A 29-item test was constructed and administered to 235 ninth-graders. Item response data were analyzed using Fischer & Formann's (1972) LLTM computer program. A QA confirmatory approach was used to validate the cognitive structure of the test. The structure was validated—examinees solved the items using the set of rules specified in the W matrix. The parameters estimated using the LLTM are quantitative indexes of the difficulties of each of the cognitive rules included in the W matrix.
Appropriateness Fit and Criterion-Related Validity
Authors: Schmitt Neal , Cortina José M. , Whitney David J.
Published: March 2007

Unmotivated or suspicious test takers in con current validation studies can cause numerous problems for test users. The effects of these problems, however, have not been carefully examined. This study used item response theory-based appro priateness fit indexes to identify and remove from a validation sample those examinees whose response patterns did not match their trait levels (e.g., examin ees with low trait levels who answered difficult items correctly). The person-fit index lz described in Drasgow, Levine, & Williams (1985) had little effect on validities. The multitest index lzm described by Drasgow & Hulin (1990) was more promising. Implications for selection research and practice are discussed.
Corporate Greening as Amoralization
Authors: Crane Andrew
Published: March 2007

This paper explores the moral dimension of corporate greening. Drawing on extensive case-study evidence from three organizational types, the proposition is advanced that there is a tendency in corporations for greening to be accompanied by a process of amoralization, i.e. a lack of moral meaning and significance for organization members in relation to the natural environment. By presenting corporate greening in terms of issue selling, specific processes of amoralization are identified in the symbolic action and impression management behaviours of policy champions. Variations in these processes across organizational types are explored and potential explanations are advanced with recourse to the organizational politics, power and culture literatures. The implications of these findings are discussed in the context of the actual and potential role played by morality in advancing corporate greening.
The Project of Rationalization: A Critique and Reappraisal of Neo-Institutionalism in Organization Studies
Authors: Hasselbladh Hans , Kallinikos Jannis
Published: March 2007

This article critically approaches various neo-institutional accounts of the process of formal organizing. While acknowledging the importance of the overall orientation marked by neo-institutional studies, the article identifies several crucial aspects that have escaped the attention of neo-institutional research. In particular, it criticizes the inability of neo-institutionalism to provide an account of the means linking situated forms of organizing with wider instrumental beliefs and practices, in terms other than adaptivist, diffusionist. Such a limitation is partly a consequence of unwillingness of neo-institutionalism to focus on and analyze the very architecture of the rationalized patterns and relationships which neo-institutionalists claim to be diffusing across organizational populations and fields. Drawing on several sources, the article develops a framework that seeks to outline the conceptual means for decomposing the carriers of rationalized patterns, models and techniques and showing the distinctive ways in which they implicate the building blocks of formal organizing.
Resourceful Sensemaking in Product Development Teams
Authors: Wright Charles R. , Manning Michael R. , Farmer Bruce , Gilbreath Brad
Published: March 2007

In this paper we attempt to bridge the gap between theory and practice by developing the concept of `resourceful sensemaking'.1 Resourceful sensemaking is the ability to appreciate the perspectives of others and use this understanding to enact horizon-expanding discourse. Using a critical events technique, we assess the resourcefulness of the sensemaking activities of individuals in interdisciplinary product development teams. Data include researchers' and stakeholders' observations of teams in action, careful reviews of documents and questionnaires completed by team members and selected stakeholders, and interviews with team members and other stakeholders during, and six months after completion of, the projects. We focus attention on the articulation of the resourceful sensemaking concept rather than on the formulation of testable propositions. We end the paper with a discussion of the implications of our study for work organizations using interdisciplinary product development teams.
Organization, Trust and Control: A Realist Analysis
Authors: Reed Michael I.
Published: March 2007

This paper develops a critical realist analysis of trust/control relations within and between complex organizations. It suggests that trust/control relations are most usefully seen as structures of interrelated `positioned-practices' which generate, shape and constrain the development of contrasting forms of expert power in a range of organizational contexts. The paper opens with a general overview of a number of currently influential theoretical perspectives on trust/control relations in social and organizational analysis. It then proceeds to advance a critical realist analysis of trust/control relations as generative mechanisms that govern, but do not determine, the production, reproduction and transformation of expert power. The explanatory significance of this realist analysis is illustrated by reference to a limited number of historical and institutional case studies on expert technologies and practices
Trust, Control and Post-Bureaucracy
Authors: Grey Chris , Garsten Christina
Published: March 2007

This paper is a contribution to the analysis of intra-organizational trust. From a discussion of concepts of trust, we suggest that trust is something which is constructed for and by people in organizations, thereby producing some degree of predictability. Trust is a precarious social accomplishment enacted through the interplay of social or discursive structures, including those of work organizations, and individuated subjects. We argue that bureaucratic organizations effected this construction in such an efficient manner that it `disappeared' as an issue for organizational theorists, but that shifting organizational forms have re-opened it. We suggest that the advent of corporate culturism in the 1980s offered one kind of reconfiguration of trust in organizations. However, subsequent extensions of organizational reform have undermined corporate culture as a way of constructing trust. These extensions, which, with some caveats, may be called post-bureaucratic, have brought with them new potential bases for trust, and hence control, in organizations. We explore these in two ways. First, we discuss how various types of managerial languages and techniques have the capacity to provide a global `script' through which particular local contexts can be made sense of, and which allow possible subject positions and identities to be secured. Second, we develop this discussion with reference to two different kinds of employees whose work is in some senses post-bureaucratic: accountants and consultants in Big Five firms, and temporary workers (temps) working through agencies to provide clerical and other services. In a conclusion, we comment on the durability of post-bureaucratic modes of trust
Revisiting Organizational Legitimation: Cognitive Diffusion and Sociopolitical Factors in the Evolution of Bulgarian Newspaper Enterprises, 1846-1992
Authors: Dobrev Stanislav D.
Published: March 2007

Arguments about constitutive and sociopolitical legitimation of organizational forms are applied to studying the evolutionary dynamics of the Bulgarian news paper industry as it transitioned through multiple political and institutional environments. The notion of relegitimation is advanced in the context of comparing the cognitive diffusion of the organizational form prior to the Communist takeover in 1946, and its revival in the collective memory of the public after 1989. Variation in the rate of organizational founding is also linked empirically to the strength of political turbulence. Violent political conflict deters new foundings, while institutionally mediated political activism has a positive effect on the rate of organizational entry.
Strategic Alliances and the Learning Life-Cycle of Biotechnology Firms
Authors: Oliver Amalya L.
Published: March 2007

Strategic alliances in the biotechnology industry are used as an inter-organizational learning device, in addition to their ability to provide financial resources, vertical and horizontal integration facilities, and legitimacy to dedicated biotechnology firms (DBFs). However, despite the advantages associated with strategic alliances, the literature accounts for hazards and disadvantages as well. This paper analyzes the relationship between organizational life-cycle and the formation of strategic alliances based on a population of 554 new biotechnology firms (DBFs) in a 15-year period. Using event history analysis, this study tests two propositions: that the inability of DBFs to form strategic alliances will be associated with organizational death and that firm growth will make it possible to reduce network learning through alliances (exploration stage of learning), allowing the firm to enter a period of internalized learning (exploitation). These propositions are supported by the data. The findings showed that lack of alliances is associated with organizational death, that learning through alliances is not a cumulative process, and that firm life-cycle alliance formation is not linear. Although alliance-based learning is vital to biotechnology firms at the early stages of their formation, when learning is associated with exploration, at later phases of the life-cycle, learning is internally exploited through intrafirm networks. The results also provide some evidence that another phase of external, network based, learning follows.
Institutionalized Mindsets of Invulnerability: Differentiated Institutional Fields and the Antecedents of Organizational Crisis
Authors: Wicks David
Published: March 2007

Building on Scott's (1995) institutional theory framework, this article uses a micro institutional approach to develop a model of the institutionalization of mind-sets in a differentiated institutional field. This model is grounded in textual data involving the 1992 explosion at Westray Mines, illustrating how regulative, normative and cognitive elements contributed to the institutionalization of a harmful mindset of invulnerability that clouded individual perceptions of the inherent risks in daily work practices. This process culminates in organizational crisis.
Organizational Climate Similarity and Performance: International Joint Ventures in Russia
Authors: Fey Carl F. , Beamish Paul W.
Published: March 2007

This study examines how organizational climate dissimilarity between parent firms and the joint venture organization (JVO) affects joint venture performance. Data were obtained from interviews with the general manager of 40 IJVs and questionnaires were completed by top-level managers from both parents and the JVO (6 people / IJV). Results indicate that to have the best chance of success, it is important for a firm starting a joint venture to select a partner with an organizational climate similar to its own. Results also indicate that it is important to create an organizational climate at the JVO that is similar to the foreign parent's organizational climate.
Trajectories in the Evolution of Technology: A Multi-Level Study of Competition in Formula 1 Racing
Authors: Jenkins Mark , Floyd Steven
Published: March 2007

This paper explores the trajectories of three key technologies in Formula 1 racing at the component, firm and system levels of analysis. The purpose is to gain an understanding of the evolutionary forces that contribute to the emergence and survival of dominant designs. Based on archival data and contemporaneous accounts of the period 1967-1982, we develop a series of propositions specifying the evolutionary forces acting on technological trajectories within each level of analysis. The resulting framework leads to a set of predictions about relationships between technological transparency, co-evolution, and the emergence of dominant designs. Specifically, we argue that when the costs and difficulty associated with transferring component knowledge between firms is low (technological transparency is high), technologies tend to co-evolve across firms, leading to the development of complementary technologies and increasing the likelihood of industry dominance. Where transparency is low, however, technologies tend to co-evolve across functions within firms, leading to the development of competing technologies across firms, increasing the likelihood of a technology's dominance within the firm. The data and argument suggest that the forces acting on these two types of technological trajectories are self-reinforcing, so that as momentum builds behind a trajectory, it becomes more likely that its evolutionary path will end in either firm-or system-level dominance.
Co-Evolution of Firm Capabilities and Industry Competition: Investigating the Music Industry, 1877-1997
Authors: Huygens Marc , Van Den Bosch Frans A.J. , Volberda Henk W. , Baden-Fuller Charles
Published: March 2007

This paper proposes that rival firms not only search for new capabilities within their organization, but also for those that rest in their competitive environment. An integrated analysis of these search processes at both firm and industry levels of analysis shows how their interaction makes industries and firms co-evolve over time. To contribute to an enhanced understanding of the concept of co-evolution, a dynamic and integrative framework crossing meso and micro levels of analysis is constructed. This framework is applied to a longitudinal study of the music industry with a time-span of 120 years. The first part, a historical study, covers the period 1877-1990. The second part, a multiple-case study, covers the period 1990-1997. We conclude that search behaviour drives co-evolution through competitive dynamics among new entrants and incumbent firms and manifests itself in the simultaneous emergence of new business models and new organizational forms.
The Co-evolution of Institutional Environments and Organizational Strategies: The Rise of Family Business Groups in the ASEAN Region
Authors: Carney Michael , Gedajlovic Eric
Published: March 2007

In this paper we consider Southeast Asian Family Business Groups (FBGs) as a form of business enterprise as well as existing theoretical accounts of their behaviour. To do so, we develop and describe a co-evolutionary framework that incorporates notions of interdependence, path dependence, and `system openness.' This co-evolutionary framework is used to anchor a case study describing the developmental paths of FBGs and their institutional environments. Because such neoevolutionary perspectives bring back into account adaptive behavior motivated by human agency and interests, they offer a promising means of capturing the dynamics (Fligstein and Freeland 1995) and complexity (Baum and Singh 1994) of the interaction between institutions and organizations.
Comparing Managers' Mental Models of Competition: Why Self-report Measures of Belief Similarity Won't Do
Authors: Hodgkinson Gerard P.
Published: March 2007

In their study designed to investigate the relative impact of `task and institutional influences on managers' mental models of competition,' Daniels et al. (2002) elicited cognitive maps using two complementary ideographic mapping procedures: a card-sort technique and a variant of the repertory grid. Given that the resulting individual maps were each based on differing organizations and attributes, Daniels and his colleagues assessed belief similarity — their key dependent variable — by asking their participants to rate the overall similarity of the various maps so elicited to their own mental models which prevailed at the time the comparative rating exercise was subsequently performed, some three to six months later. Drawing on research into the cognitive processes underpinning similarity judgements, I argue that this approach to the comparison of cognitive maps suffers from a number of severe limitations which are likely to bias the results in favour of the research hypotheses under test, thus leading to increased type I errors. Alternative procedures for eliciting and comparing individuals' mental representations of competition are briefly considered.
Organizational Reforms, `Ideal Workers' and Gender Orders: A Cross-Societal Comparison
Authors: Tienari Janne , Quack Sigrid , Theobald Hildegard
Published: March 2007

In this article, we put forth a comparative study of gender distinctions and relations within the processes of organizational reform in a German and a Finnish bank. We demonstrate how these processes are interwoven with assumptions about the `ideal worker' (cf. Acker 1990; 1992) that organizational members are measured against in management. We argue that the `ideal worker', even though, in general, a masculine notion, should not be perceived as a universal or as a static category. We suggest that notions of the `ideal worker' not only vary within different models of work organization, but that they vary across societal contexts. These notions are based on different gender orders (cf. Connell 1987) which penetrate organizational life and become incorporated in different, though predominantly masculine, conceptions. `Ideal worker' is also not a static category. If we consider gender distinctions and relations in organizations as produced, reproduced and redefined through continuously ongoing social interaction, there is a need to analyze how the notion of the `ideal worker' evolves in time — when organizations become subject to change efforts through reforms.
The Learning Organization, Sensegiving and Psychological Contracts: A Hong Kong Case
Authors: Snell Robin S.
Published: March 2007

I discuss a qualitative case study of the development of a Hong Kong-based utility company towards the ideals of `Learning Organization' (LO). The case illuminates the irony of promoting greater openness and creativity through top-down sensegiving, as many managers and professionals participated in the collective development towards LO ideals, but nearly fell into a propaganda trap. The case also highlights the importance of honouring psychological contracts, as a covenant with the workforce, leveraged the company's dominant industry position, and restored an atmosphere of mutuality with a marginalized rump. Noting that the focal company may have been blessed with relatively munificent circumstances, I identify four viability tasks that aspiring LOs may need to perform continually in order to forestall disillusionment.
Essai: Time, Duration and Simultaneity: Rethinking Process and Change in Organizational Analysis
Authors: Chia Robert
Published: March 2007

The recent rediscovery of concrete lived time from `clock-time' by process theorists enables us to make important adjustments in our thinking about the true nature of temporality, movement and change. For these process theorists, change is reality itself, and `organizations' are nothing more than `temporary arrestations' in a sea of flux and transformation. From this perspective it is the phenomenon of organisation that requires analysis and explanation and not change itself. This understanding opens up new avenues of inquiry for Organization Studies as a field of study. Thus the shaping of contemporary modes of thought, codes of behaviour, social mannerisms, dress, gestures, postures, the rules of law, ethical codes, disciplines of knowledge and so on, makes for more appropriate theoretical foci for an expanded realm of Organization Studies-one which offers a deeper understanding of organisation and its consequences for the world of affairs.
Divisionalization in the UK: Diversity, Size and the Devolution of Bargaining
Authors: Armstrong Peter , Marginson Paul , Edwards Paul , Purcell John
Published: March 2007

Business historians and theorists of organization have portrayed the divisionalized (M-form) organization as a response to the problems posed by diversity and, to a lesser extent, size. Assuming a drift towards optimal forms of organization, this implies that there should be a cross-sectional association between diversity, size and the incidence of the divisionalized form. This paper presents data from a survey of large UK companies which is only partly consistent with these expectations. The more diverse companies tend to be organised either in the divisionalized or the holding company form, whilst there is no size effect in the sense that divisionalized companies tend to be larger than the rest. There are size effects, however, on particular aspects of divisionalization. First, companies with levels of organization intermediate between their business units and headquarters tend to be larger than those which do not. Second, amongst companies without intermediate levels, size is associated with the reporting against target of profitability at business-unit level. This suggests that the introduction of intermediate levels or profitability targets might be alternatives in the earlier stages of company growth.

With the exception of earlier work by Marginson (1985, 1988), the possible relevance of the divisionalized structure to the control of labour has been ignored. Marginson found some evidence that the M-form organization was associated with a raising of the bargaining level to that of the division as a response to the plantlevel trade union strength during the 1960s and 1970s. In the present era of comparative trade-union weakness, this paper argues that the divisionalized structure offers a means of maintaining outline control of a devolved bargaining process which is able to adapt to local contingencies. Partly consistent with this expectation, our data show that the M-form company is associated with a devolution of pay bargaining to the level of the individual establishment, although this is also true of the H-form. Consistent with the argument from trade-union weakness, this is a relatively recent development. In M-form and H-form companies, devolved bargaining tends to be accompanied by genuine managerial autonomy on pay issues. In other forms of organization, establishment-level bargaining occurs within the framework of tight headquarters control, so that the devolution is more apparent than real.
Assessing Replication and Extension. A Commentary on Glaister and Buckley: Measures of Performance in UK International Alliances
Authors: Geringer J. Michael
Published: March 2007

This article reviews and critiques Glaister and Buckley's (1998) examination of measures of performance for a sample of UK international alliances. This article identifies and addresses issues regarding three aspects of Glaister and Buckley's research: (1) concerns regarding their efforts to 'replicate' an earlier study by Geringer and Hebert (1991), (2) concerns with their efforts to extend the study to non-equity alliances, and (3) concerns with efforts to extend their study to issues of alliance performance and culture. Suggestions are provided for improving the Glaister and Buckley study and for conducting future research on alliance performance.
When Groups Consist of Multiple Nationalities: Towards a New Understanding of the Implications
Authors: Hambrick Donald C. , Davison Sue Canney , Snell Scott A. , Snow Charles C.
Published: March 2007

International companies are rapidly increasing their use of multinational groups (MNGs), sometimes with great success and sometimes severe frustration. The purpose of this paper is to establish a conceptual understanding of the implications of multinational composition for group functioning. Moving across units of analysis, we focus first on the individual group member's characteristics as a reflection of his or her nationality, then on the effects of multinational diversity on group functioning and performance, and finally on the association between corporate policies and the use of MNGs. We close the paper with a proposed research agenda on multinational groups.
Pathways to Legitimacy Among Consumer Loan Providers in New York City, 1914-1934
Authors: Barron David N.
Published: March 2007

In this paper, I study the early development of two organizational forms: credit unions and Morris Plan banks which, in the early twentieth century became socially acceptable money-lenders. Three forms of legitimacycognitive, moral, and pragmaticare important in understanding their evolution and social integration. Cognitive legitimacy corresponds to what is usually considered by organizational ecologists to be legitimacy as 'taken-for-grantedness'. Organizations have moral legitimacy in so far as they have the moral approval of most members of society. Pragmatic legitimacy 'rests on the self-interested calculations of an organization's most immediate audiences' (Suchman 1995). The analysis goes beyond previous work in two ways. First, new mechanisms of legitimation are introduced into models of organizational founding and growth. Second, organizations are assumed to be able to deliberately influence their legitimacy by their actions. Empirical tests combine quantitative analyses of founding and growth rates with a qualitative analysis of historical material. In addition to density-dependent processes of legitimation, the organizations are found to act in a social-movement-like manner, thereby enhancing their moral legitimacy. This increases their founding and growth rates, and gives them a competitive advantage over earlier forms of money-lending that lacked moral legitimacy. I also find evidence that pragmatic legitimacy is spread via social networks.
Attitudes, Values and Organizational Culture: Disentangling the Concepts
Authors: Hofstede Geert
Published: March 2007

Sentiments collected through paper-and-pencil surveys are often arbitrarily classified according to categories imposed by the researcher, such as attitudes, values, and manifestations of organizational culture. The question is, to what extent are such classifications supported by the distinctions that respondents make in their own minds? In this paper, distinctions between categories of sentiments are supported empirically from the results of an employee survey in a large Danish insurance company (n = 2,590). The 120 questions used were classified into attitudes, values, perceptions of organizational practices (for diagnosing organizational cultures), and demographics.

Perceptions of organizational cultures were measured using an approach developed by the author and his colleagues in an earlier study across 20 Danish and Dutch organizational units. In the insurance company study, employee attitudes were found to be clearly distinct from employee values. Perceptions of organizational practices were unrelated to values, and only overlapped with attitudes where both dealt with communication. In the latter case, both can be seen as expressions of the organization's communication climate. Other perceptions of organizational practices did not form recognizable clusters at the level of individuals, but only at the level of organizational (sub)units.
Street-level Bureaucrats and the Social Construction of Environmental Control
Authors: Fineman Stephen
Published: March 2007

This article explores the micropolitics of environmental regulation of industry through interviews with, and ethnographic observations of, regulatory inspectors. As street-level bureaucrats, inspectors are seen to cope with the legal and social ambiguities of their work mainly through negotiative forms of control — which are often idiosyncratic and partial. How inspectors construct local moral orders and standards, in interaction with industrial operators, is explored in some detail, especially the role of organizational ritual, symbols and emotional display as tools of control. The importance of understanding the processes of negotiated orders in the growing regulation of industry is discussed, as well as role of interpretive forms of research in such endeavours.
Market Organization in Indonesia: Javanese and Chinese Family Business in the Jamu Industry
Authors: Rademakers Martijn F. L.
Published: March 2007

In Southeast Asia, people of Chinese origin have a remarkably strong presence in trade and industry. The main question addressed in this paper is whether the organization of inter-firm linkages in the Indonesian herbal medicine (jamu) industry resemble characteristics of the Chinese family business or whether, in this industry, a distinct mode of market organization has developed. The business systems approach forms the basis of the analytical framework which is comprised of four market organization characteristics and five key social institutions. In the Indonesian national context, a number of mutually connected social institutions constitute a favourable environment for the development of the Chinese family business system. Results from case studies of eight large and medium-sized jamu firms owned by either Indonesian Chinese or indigenous business people show that, in many respects, the market organization in the Indonesian jamu industry reflects Chinese family business characteristics. However, a distinct Javanese characteristic was also found. The jamu firms display strong paternalistic behaviour towards their suppliers and customers, which can be linked to Javanese authority relations known as bapakism and the high level of collectivism within micro-societies in Indonesia.
The Organization of Industrial Relations in Hong Kong: Economic, Political and Sociological Perspectives
Authors: Chiu Stephen W.K. , Levin David A.
Published: March 2007

In this paper we focus on the question of why the organization of industrial relations in post-World War II Hong Kong has remained much less formalized and centralized than in other industrial societies. We assess the merits of three analytical perspectives — transaction cost economics, political conflict and neo-institutional sociology — in accounting for these characteristics. We argue that the economic and political perspectives, despite their limitations, contribute to the understanding of the Hong Kong case but that it is the institutional environment, analyzed from a neo-institutional sociological perspective, which has constituted the overarching framework within which political and economic variables operate. We conclude by suggesting that the contrast between the continuity in the organization of industrial relations in postwar Hong Kong and the reorganization of industrial relations in post-colonial Asian societies shows that political arguments may apply best during periods of major political transformation when significant shifts occur in the power structure.
Paradigms and their Development: The Psychometric Paradigm of Personnel Selection as a Case Study of Paradigm Diversity and Consensus
Authors: McCourt Willy
Published: March 2007

An examination of the psychometric paradigm of personnel selection is offered as a case study of the relative merits of paradigm diversity and consensus in organization studies. The achievements of work done within the paradigm are contrasted with the low take-up for the paradigm methods. The paradigm's historical development reveals four central assumptions: that good practice is universal and impersonal, that organizational performance is the sum of individual performances, and that research should be based on psychometric procedures. Analysis suggests that those assumptions have become flaws which are detrimental to research. Their increasingly inappropriate persistence is exacerbated by the exercise of a professional jurisdiction which has favoured narrow research requirements over organizational needs. The case study suggests that the alternatives of diversity and imposed consensus are both unsatisfactory, and that professional jurisdiction might be used to stimulate research partnerships promoting integration and possible consensus.
The ethics of cryptonormativism
Authors: Kolodny Niko
Published: March 2007

In his later work, Foucault was more skeptical of theory than he was of norms. His apparent evasion of normative theory was not meant to suggest, as some interpreters have thought, that norm ative theory is useless or oppressive, but rather that it is fragile and uncertain, that it depends for its practical effect on something essen tially untheorizable: character, or what Foucault alternately called 'ethos' and 'philosophical life'. This conception of ethos suggests a way to make sense of Foucault's 'cryptonormativism' - his apparent tendency to rely tacitly on norms that he publicly rejected - and sheds light on his views on authorship and the purpose of genealogy.
Liberation theology as critical theory
Authors: Gordon Joy
Published: March 2007

One of the central issues in political philosophy is the problem of perspective: if there is a dispute as to how justice is to be defined, or a dispute as to whether a particular situation is unjust, how do we determine who is right? I reject the claim that an idealized speech situation or a transcendental perspective can legitimately be invoked to resolve such disputes. In their place, I discuss critical theory's commitment to the position that all perspectives are ideo logical, partial, and rooted in interests. I then discuss Lukács's notion that, given that ideology and interests are ineluctable, certain per spectives are epistemologically privileged (though not transcenden tal). I discuss the notion of the preferential option for the poor in liberation theology, as an instance of such a claim of epistemological privilege. I argue that this has implications for the concept of alterity, and specifically for the role of the Other in a community of discourse. Finally, I discuss Lyotard's notion of incommensurable phrase regi mens, and the particular kind of harm which is done by exclusion from a discursive community.
Alasdair MacIntyre
Authors: Kitchen Gary
Published: March 2007

At the heart of MacIntyre's critique of modernity is the problem of moral truth. He argues that the 'Enlightenment project' of justifying morality has failed due to the breakdown of a concep tual scheme inherited from Aristotle, in which the idea of an essen tial human nature or function played a crucial part. Where modernity trades on moral fictions such as 'utility' and 'natural rights', Aris totle's scheme allows moral judgements to be matters of fact. Mac Intyre's denigration of modernity draws attention to his own positive account of moral justification, which I examine from a position of scepticism about moral knowledge. I argue that, while there is much of value in his work - his critique of modern moral philosophy is remarkably cogent and helps clarify what is at stake in discussion of modernity - his account of the good life seems to be circular and his notion of rational progress is unpersuasive.
Are ethical conflicts irreconcilable?
Authors: Cooke Maeve
Published: March 2007

The discussion starts with the fact of ethical disagreement in contemporary liberal democracies. In responding to the question of whether such conflicts are reconcilable, it proposes a normative model of deliberative democracy that seeks to avoid the privatization of ethical concerns. It is argued that many contemporary models of democracy privatize ethical matters either because of a view that ethical conflicts are fundamentally irreconcilable or because of a mis trust of the ideal of rational consensus in the fields of law and politics. Against this, the article contends that most ethical disagree ments are reconcilable in principle; it further suggests that mistrust of the ideal of rational consensus in the fields of law and politics is based on misunderstanding. Here, Habermas's model of deliberative democracy is drawn on. His account of public ethical deliberation is criticized and his negative interpretations of civic republicanism and ethical patterning are questioned; however, his model is seen as fundamentally fruitful from the point of view of dealing with ethical conflict.
The architectonic of the ethics of liberation
Authors: Dussel Enrique
Published: March 2007

This contribution is a critical and constructive engage ment with discourse ethics. First, it clarifies why discourse ethics has difficulties with the grounding and application of moral norms. Second, it turns to a positive appropriation of the formal and proce dural aspects of discourse ethics. The goal is the elaboration of an ethics that is able to incorporate the material aspects of goods and the formal dimension of ethical validity and consensuability. Every morality is the formal application of some substantive good. Every ethical perspective demands its evaluation in terms of its uni versability. In order to achieve this mediation, it is suggested that we must incorporate not only the historical dimension of moral systems, but also the role of critical consciousness and the negativity embod ied by those who are victims of the existing consensus. The essay con cludes with six points that need to be considered when formulating a material ethics that is universalizable and, most importantly, that can address the massive poverty and dehumanization of those excluded from the present community of communication.
Communicative action and philosophical foundations
Authors: Papastephanou Marianna
Published: March 2007

Anglo-American and continental philosophy are often con sidered sharply divergent, even hostile, movements of thought. However, there have been several attempts to cross the divide between them, leading some theorists to very interesting and promising new projects. Apel has been one of the first German philosophers whose serious preoccupation with continental themes has not impeded his thorough and responsible investigation of analytic and post-analytic issues. Thus, Apel promotes a linguistic analysis that aspires to unveil the hidden, implicit, but non circumventible linguistic-pragmatic presuppositions of argumentation and to explore its implications for epistemology, ethics and politics.
The virtue of history
Authors: Bloechl Jeffrey
Published: March 2007

Maclntyre's critique of modern moral theory is supported by a theory of narrative in turn premised on a discontinuous reading of history. Thought through to the end, historical discontinuity redefines objectivity according to the rules of the particular context in which it appears. This claim both founds Maclntyre's intervention in moral debate and troubles that intervention from within. Against his opponents, he claims to have the argument most in accord with the rules of our context; Maclntyre's narra tivity is thus universalistic within the post-Enlightenment context. But contrary to his own tendency and occasional statements, that same com mitment to contextuality deprives him of the possibility of a final, secure position. This tension within Maclntyre's argument better expresses his theory of contextuality than does the specific direction he wishes to take it in: narrativity can be considered to embody an instability essential to not only moral debate but also moral identity.
Adorno, Heidegger and the critique of epistemology
Authors: O'Connor Brian
Published: March 2007

Adorno and Heidegger are frequently aligned because of apparent similarities in their critiques of modern epistemology. This alignment fails, however, to appreciate the substantial differences in the philosophical presuppositions that inform those very critiques. I distinguish Adorno's negative dialectic from Heidegger's fundamental ontology under the respective designations of critical versus phenomenological forms of transcendental philosophy. I argue that only by understanding Adorno's negative dialectic as a revised version of epistemology (namely a dialectical epistemology, committed to subject-object and transcendental argument) can we make sense of, first, the profound differences between Adorno and Heidegger on the question of epistemology and, second, the philosophical motivations behind Adorno's trenchant rejection of Heidegger.
Self-consciousness, the other and Hegel's dialectic of recognition
Authors: Kain Philip J.
Published: March 2007

This article examines Hegel's treatment of self-consciousness in light of the contemporary problem of the other. It argues that Hegel tries to subvert the Kantian opposition between theoretical and practical reason and tries to establish a form of idealism that can avoid solipsism. All of this requires that Hegel get beyond the Kantian concept of the object - or the other. Hegel attempts to establish an other that is not marginalized, dominated, or negated. What he gives us is a valuable alternative to post modernism, which attempts instead to deconstruct or dissolve the other.
A critique of Baudrillard's hyperreality: towards a sociology of postmodernism
Authors: King Anthony
Published: March 2007

Through the critical examination of Baudrillard's concept of hyperreality, this article seeks to make a wider contribution to contempor ary debates about postmodernism. It draws on a post-Cartesian, Heideg gerian philosophy to demonstrate the weakness of the concept of hyperreality and reveal its foundation in a Cartesian epistemology. The article goes on to claim that this same Heideggerian tradition suggests a way in which the concept of hyperreality and nihilistic postmodern sociologies more generally might be dialectically superseded. Instead of these theories being seen as saying anything insightful about recent social transformations, the epistemological void in which they position themselves should be inter preted as the intellectual expression of the wider cultural and postmodern trend of transgression.
Runaway Children Twelve Years Later
Authors: Olson Lucy , Liebow Elliot , Mannino Fortune V. , Shore Milton F.
Published: March 2007

THIS is a 12-year follow-up pilot study of 14 youths who ran away from home in the mid-1960s. The study is based on 44 intensive interviews with the former runaways, their nonrunaway siblings, their parents, and other relatives. Four major questions were addressed. Marked differences in outcomes were found (a) between runaways and their siblings; (b) between runaway repeaters and nonrepeaters, and (c) between runaways from working-class backgrounds and those from middle-class backgrounds. In general, whatever their other statuses, children who ran away more than once showed increasing personal and social dysfunction as young adults.
Conjugal Work Roles and Marital Solidarity
Authors: Simpson Ida Harper , England Paula
Published: March 2007

WE propose a role homophily theory which posits that marriages are enhanced when spouses' roles are similar. We use cross-sectional survey data to determine how respondents' marital solidarity is affected by whether wives are employed, and by the occupationally derived socioeconomic status of both husbands and wives. We find that wives' employment has a positive effect on marital solidarity as perceived by both husbands and wives. This finding is consistent with role homophily theory, but inconsistent with the predictions of both sex-role differentiation and bargaining theories. When we examine effects of husbands' and wives' socioeconomic status on marital solidarity we find little support for any of the three theories. We conclude that role homophily theory is the best supported of the three theories.
Function VII
Authors: Floyd Oliver R.
Published: March 2007

To guide students on the basis of exploratory and revealing courses and of other information gathered from personnel studies, as wisely as possible into wholesome and worth-while social relationships, maxi mum personality adjustment, and advanced study or vocations in which they are most likely to be success ful and happy.
A Study of the Occupational Adjustment of School-Leaving Youth
Authors: Landy Edward
Published: March 2007

The following paper was presented before the National Voca tional Guidance Association on Friday, February 23, 1940, at St. Louis, by Edward Landy, Director of the Occupational Adjustment Study, a special study undertaken by the Implementation Committee (Will French, Chairman) of the National Association of Secondary- School Principals.
A Curriculum Guide to Pan-American Literature
Authors: Hess Walter E.
Published: March 2007

To aid teachers, directors of curriculum, and supervisors of instruction in the secondary school in the revision and adaptation of the curriculum on Pan- America, an extensive list of curriculum guides has been prepared by a staff member of the National Association of Secondary-School Principals. Schools will find this description of projects and the bibliography helpful.—EDITOR.