scholarly journals Work, Human Agency and Organizational Forms: An Anatomy of Fragmentation

2003 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 595-618 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jannis Kallinikos
Keyword(s):  
Occupational Mobility ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Organizational Forms ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
Organizational Flexibility ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Organizational Anthropology ◽  
Modern Workplace

This article is concerned with the changing premises of human involvement in organizations underlying current employment and labour trends. The appreciation of these trends is placed in the wider historical context signified by the advent of modernity and the diffusion of the bureaucratic form of organization. The article attempts to dissociate bureaucracy from the dominant connotations of centralized and rigid organizational arrangements. It identifies the distinctive mark of the modern workplace with the crucial fact that it admits human involvement in non-inclusive terms. Modern humans are involved in organizations qua roles, rather than qua persons. Innocent as it may seem, the separation of the role from the person has been instrumental to the construction of modern forms of human agency. An organizational anthropology is thereafter outlined based on Gellner's conception of `Modular Man'. Modernity and bureaucracy construe human beings as assemblages of relatively independent behavioural modules that can be invoked individually or in combination to respond to the differentiated character of the contemporary world. While the occupational mobility and organizational flexibility currently under way presuppose a model of human agency that recounts basic attributes of the modular human, they at the same time challenge it in some important respects.

scholarly journals Pro-Environmental Behavior in an Aging World: Evidence from 31 Countries

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 1748
Author(s):  
Yan Wang ◽  
Feng Hao ◽  
Yunxia Liu
Keyword(s):  
Linear Models ◽  
Population Change ◽  
Population Aging ◽  
Environmental Behavior ◽  
National Level ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
The Individual

Population change and environmental degradation have become two of the most pressing issues for sustainable development in the contemporary world, while the effect of population aging on pro-environmental behavior remains controversial. In this paper, we examine the effects of individual and population aging on pro-environmental behavior through multilevel analyses of cross-national data from 31 countries. Hierarchical linear models with random intercepts are employed to analyze the data. The findings reveal a positive relationship between aging and pro-environmental behavior. At the individual level, older people are more likely to participate in environmental behavior (b = 0.052, p < 0.001), and at the national level, living in a country with a greater share of older persons encourages individuals to behave sustainably (b = 0.023, p < 0.01). We also found that the elderly are more environmentally active in an aging society. The findings imply that the longevity of human beings may offer opportunities for the improvement of the natural environment.

scholarly journals Animal Rights: A Philosophical Evaluation

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (Issue 4) ◽  
pp. 119-124
Author(s):  
Innocent Sanga
Keyword(s):  
Animal Rights ◽  
Moral Status ◽  
Controversial Issues ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Philosophical Debate ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
General Overview ◽  
Christian Perspective

Animal right is one of the most controversial issues in the contemporary world. A number of scholars have been discussing on whether the animals have rights like human beings or not. Through this debate, their opinions can be put into three groups; those who deny animal moral status, those who give some moral considerations to animals but deny them a fuller moral status, and those who extend rights to animals. This paper then gives a general overview on ‘Do Animals have Rights?’ It gives the meaning of the term “right” and explains whether the term right applies to animals too. It also portrays a drama whereby animals complain against sufferings imposed on them by human beings and a response given by a human being. It is also followed by philosophical debate on animal rights: pro and cons arguments. The Christian perspective is not left out. Finally, the paper ends with critical evaluations and conclusion. In evaluation of the debate on animal rights, the study found that, animals deserve to be treated well based on the argument that they have rights as animals. The main recommendation is that human beings should change their perception concerning animals by respecting animal.

scholarly journals Plant Life and More-than-human Agency in Zainab Amadahy’s Resistance

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 79-91
Author(s):  
Paula Wieczorek
Keyword(s):  
Human Agency ◽  
Speculative Fiction ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Bruno Latour ◽  
Donna Haraway ◽  
Cultural Violence ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Plant Life ◽  
As If

For centuries humans have acted as if the environment was passive and as if the agency was related only to human beings. Both Indigenous and non-Indigenous writers, scholars, and artists express the need to narrate tales about the multitudes of the living earth, which can help perceive the Earth as vibrant and living. The following paper discusses Black/Cherokee Zainab Amadahy’s speculative fiction novel 2013 Resistance as an example of a story resisting the claim about human beings as the ultimate species. The paper initially scrutinizes the phenomena of “plant blindness” and then explores how Zainab Amadahy illustrates plant life in her book. Unlike in traditional literary depictions of botany, the writer presents tobacco as an active and responsive agent that influences the characters, which, consequently, opposes anthropocentrism. The article also addresses the cultural violence and disregard that has dominated the Western perception of animistic cultures and expresses the need to rethink the theory of animism. This paper draws from posthumanist writings by scholars including Donna Haraway, Bruno Latour, Jane Bennett, and Stacy Alaimo. It also refers to some of the most influential contributions to critical plant studies made by Indigenous thinkers such as Robin Wall Kimmerer’ s Braiding Sweetgrass (2013).

scholarly journals NILAI-NILAI PSIKOLOGI PENDIDIKAN DALAM AL-QUR’AN

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 112
Author(s):  
Moh. Irmawan Jauhari ◽  
M. Luqman Hakim
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
Psychological Burden ◽  
Complex Problems ◽  
Psychological Balance ◽  
The Universe

Humans in the era of globalization have a level of mental vulnerability that is easily cracked and destroyed. Too much competition and the influence of information technology presents more complex problems. It is not uncommon for modern humans to flee to actions that are detrimental to themselves and society. Because they feel that their psychological burden is so heavy and cannot be borne by themselves. The Qur'an provides an understanding of human beings complete with their potential. In this case, also includes the psychological potential given by God so that humans are able to manage the universe. Understanding of the psychic potential of humans is important so that humans do not always hunt for what appears, but also provide inner satisfaction so that physical and psychological balance occurs. AbstrakManusia dalam era globalisasi memiliki tingkat kerentanan jiwa yang mudah retak dan hancur. Persaingan yang sedemikian hebat serta pengaruh teknologi informatika menghadirkan persoalan yang lebih kompleks. Tidak jarang kemudian manusia modern melarikan diri kepada perbuatan-perbuatan yang justru merugikan dirinya sendiri serta masyarakat. Sebab mereka merasa bahwa apa yang menjadi beban psikisnya sedemikian berat dan tidak bisa ditanggung sendiri. Al-Qur’an memberikan pemahaman mengenai manusia lengkap dengan potensi yang dimiliki. Dalam hal ini juga termasuk potensi psikis yang diberikan Allah agar manusia mampu mengelola alam semesta. Pemahaman potensi psikis manusia ini penting agar manusia tidak selalu memburu apa yang nampak, akan tetapi juga memberikan kepuasan batin agar terjadi keseimbangan jasmani dan psikisnya.

scholarly journals Still ‘the human thing’? Technology, human agency and the future of war

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Coker
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
Human Behaviour ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Human Control ◽  
The Future

Is war beginning to escape human control? Thucydides tells us the war is one of the things that makes us definitively human; but how long will this continue to be the case as our relationship with technology continues to develop? Kenneth Waltz’s book Man, the State and War affords one way of answering that question. So too does Nikolaas Tinbergen’s framework for understanding human behaviour and Bruno Latour’s Actor–Network Theory (ANT). The main focus of this article is the extent to which we will diminish or enhance our own agency as human beings, especially when we come to share the planet with an intelligence higher than our own.

'All must be condemned': when condemning historical personalities might undermine anti-racism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Joyce
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Moral Relativism ◽  
Short Discussion ◽  
Discussion Paper ◽  
Moral Imperative ◽  
Risk Reducing ◽  
Normative Value

If we condemn people for racist views expressed in a historical context where racism was normative, we must accept that most of us will one day be condemned for expressing ideas normative today. Since we cannot take action against what we do not yet know, this appears to remove human agency from the moral imperative. Because any normative value can later be condemned, it also makes later judgements about peoples’ lives appear arbitrary. Finally, the condemnation today of racism at a time when it was normative must be framed by the treatment of anti-racism as a moral absolute. But the removal of human agency from individuals and the introduction of arbitrariness to judgement leans towards moral relativism. These internal contradictions risk reducing the worth and coherence of anti-racism. This short discussion paper proposes protecting the notion of anti-racism by separating the condemnation of historical racism from the condemnation of individuals.

Performing Brains on Screen

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fernando Vidal
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Cultural Space ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
The Brain

Performing Brains on Screen deals with film enactments and representations of the belief that human beings are essentially their brains, a belief that embodies one of the most influential modern ways of understanding the human. Films have performed brains in two chief ways: by turning physical brains into protagonists, as in the “brain movies” of the 1950, which show terrestrial or extra-terrestrial disembodied brains carrying out their evil intentions; or by giving brains that remain unseen inside someone’s head an explicitly major role, as in brain transplantation films or their successors since the 1980s, in which brain contents are transferred and manipulated by means of information technology. Through an analysis of filmic genres and particular movies, Performing Brains on Screen documents this neglected filmic universe, and demonstrates how the cinema has functioned as a cultural space where a core notion of the contemporary world has been rehearsed and problematized.

Constructing human agency

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annabel S. Brett
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Political Space ◽  
Free Agency ◽  
Natural Agents ◽  
The World ◽  
Theological Differences

This chapter argues that human agency is free agency. It is freedom, or dominium over one's own actions, which makes a human being different from all other animals; and it is the foundation of the world of the moral, the juridical, and the political, which are all continuous with one another and from which animals—and a fortiori all other natural agents—are excluded. However, during the sixteenth century, the idea that human beings are essentially and ineradicably free to control their own actions came under severe pressure from new and irreconcilable theological differences over the freedom of the human will—differences that therefore implicitly pressured the primary threshold of political space.

Teaching the Faith in Early Christianity: Divine and Human Agency

2020 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-164
Author(s):  
Peter Gemeinhardt
Keyword(s):  
Christian Education ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract The present paper investigates the relationship between divine and human agency in teaching the Christian faith. While Christian education actually was conveyed by human beings (apostles, teachers, catechists, bishops), many authors claimed that the one and only teacher of Christianity is Jesus Christ, referring to Matt 23:8-9. By examining texts from the 2nd to the 5th century, different configurations of divine and human teaching are identified and discussed. The paper thereby highlights a crucial tension in Early and Late Antique Christianity relating to the possibilities and limitations of communicating the faith.

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