scholarly journals Virtuous Persons and Virtuous Actions in Business Ethics and Organizational Research

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 287-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel Alzola

ABSTRACT:The language of virtue is gaining wider appreciation in the philosophical, psychological, and management literatures. Ethicists and social scientists aim to integrate normative and empirical approaches into a new “science of virtue.” But, I submit, they are talking past each other; they hold radically different notions of what a virtue is. In this paper, I shall examine two conflicting conceptions of virtue, what I call the reductive and the non-reductive accounts of virtue. I shall critically study them and argue that the non-reductive view is the best philosophical account of virtue and the only one that can account for the way we talk about virtue in business and in everyday life. We can only understand what it means to act virtuously through the examination of the attitudes, beliefs, desires, and inclinations of the virtuous agent. I shall illustrate the differences between the reductive and non-reductive accounts by considering the virtue of gratitude.

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-37
Author(s):  
Liis Jõhvik

Abstract Initially produced in 1968 as a three-part TV miniseries, and restored and re-edited in 2008 as a feature-length film, Dark Windows (Pimedad aknad, Tõnis Kask, Estonia) explores interpersonal relations and everyday life in September 1944, during the last days of Estonia’s occupation by Nazi Germany. The story focuses on two young women and the struggles they face in making moral choices and falling in love with righteous men. The one who slips up and falls in love with a Nazi is condemned and made to feel responsible for the national decay. This article explores how the category of gender becomes a marker in the way the film reconstructs and reconstitutes the images of ‘us’ and ‘them’. The article also discusses the re-appropriation process and analyses how re-editing relates to remembering of not only the filmmaking process and the wartime occupation, but also the Estonian women and how the ones who ‘slipped up’ are later reintegrated into the national narrative. Ultimately, the article seeks to understand how this film from the Soviet era is remembered as it becomes a part of Estonian national filmography.


Author(s):  
Malene Friis Andersen ◽  
Karina Nielsen ◽  
Jeppe Zielinski Nguyen Ajslev

There is a growing interest in organizational interventions (OI) aiming to increase employees’ well-being. An OI involves changes in the way work is designed, organized, and managed. Studies have shown that an OI’s positive results are increased if there is a good fit between context and intervention and between participant and intervention. In this article, we propose that a third fit—the Relational Fit (R-Fit)—also plays an important role in determining an intervention’s outcome. The R-Fit consists of factors related to 1) the employees participating in the OI, 2) the intervention facilitator, and 3) the quality of the relation between participants and the intervention facilitator. The concept of the R-Fit is inspired by research in psychotherapy documenting that participant factors, therapist factors, and the quality of the relations explain 40% of the effect of an intervention. We call attention to the importance of systematically evaluating and improving the R-Fit in OIs. This is important to enhance the positive outcomes in OIs and thereby increase both the well-being and productivity of employees. We introduce concrete measures that can be used to study and evaluate the R-Fit. This article is the first to combine knowledge from research in psychotherapy with research on OIs.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory D. Clemenson ◽  
Antonella Maselli ◽  
Alexander J. Fiannaca ◽  
Amos Miller ◽  
Mar Gonzalez-Franco

AbstractGPS navigation is commonplace in everyday life. While it has the capacity to make our lives easier, it is often used to automate functions that were once exclusively performed by our brain. Staying mentally active is key to healthy brain aging. Therefore, is GPS navigation causing more harm than good? Here we demonstrate that traditional turn-by-turn navigation promotes passive spatial navigation and ultimately, poor spatial learning of the surrounding environment. We propose an alternative form of GPS navigation based on sensory augmentation, that has the potential to fundamentally alter the way we navigate with GPS. By implementing a 3D spatial audio system similar to an auditory compass, users are directed towards their destination without explicit directions. Rather than being led passively through verbal directions, users are encouraged to take an active role in their own spatial navigation, leading to more accurate cognitive maps of space. Technology will always play a significant role in everyday life; however, it is important that we actively engage with the world around us. By simply rethinking the way we interact with GPS navigation, we can engage users in their own spatial navigation, leading to a better spatial understanding of the explored environment.


2003 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. C. Sharman

Social scientists studying revolutions have increasingly argued that explanations of revolutions that do not include subjective factors, such as culture, are inadequate. The failure to explain the anti-Communist revolutions of 1989 is forceful testimony to this inadequacy. But the way in which cultural aspects are being added to existing approaches tends to undermine past advances in studying revolutions. Recent historiography of the French Revolution provides an example of a more thorough-going approach to political culture. A productive synthesis that both preserves past advances and better explains the revolutions of 1989 is achieved by analyzing the effects of cultural change on state elites.


2021 ◽  
pp. 239386172110146
Author(s):  
Susan Visvanathan

This article attempts to understand the way in which climate change affects the once dry cold desert of Ladakh and how local communities have adapted to these changes by becoming excellent organic gardeners. The contributions of Sonam Wangchuk and his work with regard to water harvesting and alternative education have been recognised by the Ramon Magsaysay Committee for 2018. This will propel Sonam to complete his life mission, which is the construction of a whole new township in Phey, to relieve Leh of the overload it now experiences. The article provides a background to the work of Sonam and his wife Rebecca Norman in the details of everyday life and work, which they bring to their school, SECMOL.


Author(s):  
Yeşim Kaptan

This article investigates how Turkish audiences conceptualize authenticity in their engagement with foreign television (TV) productions in the case of Danish TV dramas. The theoretical notion of authenticity is juxtaposed with empirical material from fieldwork interactions, focus group interviews, and one-on-one interviews conducted with Turkish audiences between 2016 and 2018. By employing a semiotic analysis of fieldwork data, I argue that Turkish audiences attribute authenticity to the Danish TV drama series according to a socially created modality (truth value of a sign). This article draws on accounts about modality markers in TV drama series such as authentic portrayals of Danish TV characters and plausible-realistic depictions as a verisimilitudinous representation of everyday life. In the context of cross-cultural television viewing practices, the way Turkish audiences attribute meaning to Danish TV series in terms of authenticity, realism, and modality reveals a distinct differentiation between Danish TV dramas and other nationally and globally circulating media products.


2005 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
pp. 134-136
Author(s):  
Gerd-Rainer Horn

For some time now, sociologists, economists and assorted futurologists have flooded the pages of learned journals and the shelves of libraries with analyses of the continuing decline of industrial and other forms of labor. In proportion to the decline of working time, those social scientists proclaim, the forward march of leisure has become an irresistible trend of the most recent past, the present and, most definitely, the future. Those of us living on planet earth have on occasion wondered about the veracity of such claims which, quite often, appear to stand in flat contradiction to our experiences in everyday life. The work of the Italian sociologist Pietro Basso is thus long overdue and proves to be a welcome refutation of this genre of, to paraphrase Basso, obfuscating hallucinations.


1997 ◽  
Vol 44 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 274-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Longhurst ◽  
Mike Savage

Bourdieu's work has been an important point of departure for recent analyses of the relationship between social class and consumption practices. This chapter takes stock of Bourdieu's influence and explores some problems which have become apparent—often in spite of Bourdieu's own hopes and general views. We point to the way that Bourdieu's influence has led to an approach to consumption which focuses on the consumption practices of specific occupational classes and on examining variations in consumption practice between such occupational groups. We argue that it this approach has a series of problems and suggest the need to broaden analyses of consumption to consider issues of ‘everyday life’, sociation, and social networks.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 122
Author(s):  
Jaime Almansa Sánchez

While Archaeology started to take form as a professional discipline, Alternative Archaeologies grew in several ways. As the years went by, the image of Archaeology started being corrupted by misconceptions and a lot of imagination, and those professionals that were claiming to be scientists forgot one of their first responsibilities; the public. This lack of interest is one of the reasons why today, a vast majority of society believes in many clichés of the past that alternative archaeologists have used to build a fictitious History that is not innocent at all. From UFOs and the mysteries of great civilizations to the political interpretation of the past, the dangers of Alternative Archaeologies are clear and under our responsibility. This paper analyzes this situation in order to propose a strategy that may make us the main characters of the popular imagery in the mid-term. Since confrontation and communication do not seem to be effective approaches, we need a change in the paradigm based on Public Archaeology and the increase of our presence in everyday life.


Adeptus ◽  
2015 ◽  
pp. 53-63
Author(s):  
Monika Bogdzevič

The concept of wisdom in Polish and Lithuanian paremiologyIn this paper, an attempt has been made to present the semantic and axiological substance of wisdom hidden in the consciousnesses of two different, namely Polish and Lithuanian, linguistic-cultural communities. The analysis belongs to a branch of linguistics, interpreting language in terms of concepts, viewing it as a source of knowledge about people themselves, different communities, their mentality, ways of perception and interpretations of the way the world is. As a model to present the most thorough understanding of wisdom, the method of cognitive definition proposed by Jerzy Bartmiński is applied. Linguistic-cultural images of wise [person], understood as the concretizations of wisdom have to reveal him/her in opposition to stupid. The cognitive picture of wise is for the most part based on the analysis of features of character and appearance, portrayed behavior, interpersonal relations and the way others have as a perception of wise. Many cognitive parameters of wisdom are revealed while exploring the interactions between people and that of nature (plants, animals) which surrounds them and investigating deeper interpersonal relations with other people. The material for research was taken from Polish and Lithuanian proverbs. The latter occur as a result of world perception, everyday life observation, confrontations with its phenomenon. The proverbs are taken from compendiums of Polish and Lithuanian proverbs: Nowa księga przysłów i wyrażeń przysłowiowych (The New Book of Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases) by Julian Krzyżanowski and Lietuvių patarlės (Lithuanian Proverbs), Patarlių paralelės (Parallels of Proverbs) by Kazys Grigas. Given as cognitive definitions the cultural visions of wise, despite all the emphasized differences, enable us to perceive many evaluations of wise similar or even common to Polish and Lithuanian cultures. Próba kognitywnego ujęcia mądrości (na materiale przysłów polskich i litewskich)Zamierzeniem artykułu jest próba przedstawienia semantycznej i aksjologicznej treści pojęcia mądrości tkwiącej w świadomości dwóch odrębnych wspólnot językowo-kulturowych – polskiej i litewskiej. Przeprowadzona analiza mieści się w nurcie badań językoznawczych, traktujących język jako źródło wiedzy o człowieku, jego mentalności i systemie wartości, sposobie postrzegania i interpretacji świata. Narzędziem opisu jest zaproponowana przez Jerzego Bartmińskiego metoda definicji kognitywnej. Językowo-kulturowe obrazy człowieka mądrego, stanowiąceukonkretnioną wizję abstrakcyjnego pojęcia mądrości, przedstawiają go w opozycji do człowieka głupiego. Obraz człowieka mądrego obejmuje cechy jego charakteru oraz wyglądu, mechanizmów zachowań, charakterystycznych miejsc przebywania oraz uwidacznia związek z zajmowaną przez niego pozycją społeczną. Wiele parametrów kognitywnych mądrości ujawnia się w trakcie analizy różnorodnych relacji człowieka z otaczającą go przyrodą (roślinami, zwierzętami) oraz wynika z bardziej skomplikowanych układów – ze stosunków z innymi ludźmi. Materiał analityczny stanowiły paremia polskie i litewskie, traktowane jako rezultat poznawania świata, obserwacji życia codziennego, zderzenia z różnymi jego zjawiskami. W badaniach wykorzystane zostały kompendia przysłów polskich i litewskich: Nowa księga przysłów i wyrażeń przysłowiowych pod red. Juliana Krzyżanowskiego oraz Lietuvių patarlės (Przysłowia litewskie), Patarlių paralelės (Paralele przysłów) pod red. Kazysa Grigasa. Ujęte w strukturę definicji kognitywnych kulturowe wizje człowieka mądrego, mimo istniejących różnic, pozwalają wyodrębnić sporo wartościowań podobnych albo nawet wspólnych, charakterystycznych dla kultur polskiej i litewskiej.


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