scholarly journals REINSTATING FUNCTIONALISM IN THE FIGURATIONAL APPROACH TO ORGANIZATIONS

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 517-528
Author(s):  
Aleksejs Šņitņikovs
Keyword(s):  
Organization Theory ◽  
Contingency Theory ◽  
Organizational Life ◽  
Central Concept ◽  
Relational Approach ◽  
The Past ◽  
Civilizing Process ◽  
Norbert Elias ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Process Sociology

Over the past two decades, there have been attempts to apply ideas from figurational sociology founded by Norbert Elias in research of different aspects of organizational life. The central contributions are derived from his theory of the civilizing process and the principles of process sociology. While this research mostly is relevant for contemporary organization theory, many contributions tend to emphasize Elias’s relational approach to the neglect of his functionalism, which underlies the whole corpus of Elias’s works. Rediscovery of Elias’s functionalism opens up the way for a fruitful reinterpretation of the central concept of his sociology, figuration, and enables to find new ways of combining figurational sociology with more familiar approaches to organization theory, in particular, with contingency theory. This helps to identify the factor of technology in the theory of the civilizing process and place it in the context of the concepts of figurational sociology such as interdependence, power and subjectivity, which enhances the analytical strength of figurational approach to organizations. The paper discusses some applications of figurational sociology to date and points to new directions in the study of organizations with the use of the conceptual tools of figurational approach. 

Management Ethics without the Past: Rationalism and Individualism in Critical Organization Theory

2000 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 623-643 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven P. Feldman
Keyword(s):  
Organization Theory ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Cultural Analysis ◽  
Positive Contribution ◽  
Organizational Life ◽  
Management Ethics ◽  
The Past ◽  
Moral Tradition ◽  
Moral Conduct ◽  
Modern Mind

Abstract:Since the Enlightenment our attachment to the past has been greatly weakened, in some areas of social life it has almost ceased to exist. This characteristic of the modern mind is seen as an overreaction. The modern mind has lost the capacity to appreciate the positive contribution the maintenance of the past in the present achieves in social life, especially in the sphere of moral conduct.In the field of organization theory, nowhere is the past as explicitly distrusted as in critical organization theory. The maintenance of the past in the present is seen as a potential carrier of oppressive and unjust social relationships. Perpetual critique is advocated as a means to uncover these oppressive and unjust relations and prevent any new undemocratic relations from becoming established.I present an historical and cultural analysis of the modern attitude toward the past and develop a concept of moral tradition to analyze critical organization theory’s ethical assumptions and implications. In so doing, an effort is made to rectify the exaggerated confidence critical organization theory places in rationalism and individualism and to recognize the ineluctable role traditions play not only in organizational life, but also in the way we theorize about organizations.

Chinese Medicine Protein and Peptide in Gene and Cell Therapy

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 251-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yinlu Feng ◽  
Zifei Yin ◽  
Daniel Zhang ◽  
Arun Srivastava ◽  
Chen Ling
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Medicine ◽  
Cell Therapy ◽  
Future Research ◽  
The Past ◽  
Promising Strategy ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Gene And Cell Therapy ◽  
Proteins And Peptides

The success of gene and cell therapy in clinic during the past two decades as well as our expanding ability to manipulate these biomaterials are leading to new therapeutic options for a wide range of inherited and acquired diseases. Combining conventional therapies with this emerging field is a promising strategy to treat those previously-thought untreatable diseases. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has evolved for thousands of years in China and still plays an important role in human health. As part of the active ingredients of TCM, proteins and peptides have attracted long-term enthusiasm of researchers. More recently, they have been utilized in gene and cell therapy, resulting in promising novel strategies to treat both cancer and non-cancer diseases. This manuscript presents a critical review on this field, accompanied with perspectives on the challenges and new directions for future research in this emerging frontier.

scholarly journals Current challenges in modelling vibrational fatigue and fracture of structures: a review

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Khangamlung Kamei ◽  
Muhammad A. Khan
Keyword(s):  
Fatigue Damage ◽  
Thermal Environment ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Working Life ◽  
Stochastic Response ◽  
Metal Structures ◽  
Life Estimation ◽  
The Past ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Fatigue And Fracture

AbstractFatigue damage is a concern in the engineering applications particularly for metal structures. The design phase of a structure considers factors that can prevent or delay the fatigue and fracture failures and increase its working life. This paper compiled some of the past efforts to share the modelling challenges. It provides an overview on the existing research complexities in the area of fatigue and fracture modelling. This paper reviews the previous research work under five prominent challenges: assessing fatigue damage accurately under the vibration-based loads, complications in fatigue and fracture life estimation, intricacy in fatigue crack propagation, quantification of cracks and stochastic response of structure under thermal environment. In the conclusion, the authors have suggested new directions of work that still require comprehensive research efforts to bridge the existing gap in the current academic domain due to the highlighted challenges.

scholarly journals Evolution of Cancer Vaccines—Challenges, Achievements and Future Directions

Vaccines ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 535
Author(s):  
Ban Qi Tay ◽  
Quentin Wright ◽  
Rahul Ladwa ◽  
Christopher Perry ◽  
Graham Leggatt ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cancer Vaccines ◽  
New Drugs ◽  
Delivery Methods ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
The Past ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Tumour Antigens ◽  
Target Characteristics ◽  
Toxic Responses ◽  
Shed Light

The development of cancer vaccines has been intensively pursued over the past 50 years with modest success. However, recent advancements in the fields of genetics, molecular biology, biochemistry, and immunology have renewed interest in these immunotherapies and allowed the development of promising cancer vaccine candidates. Numerous clinical trials testing the response evoked by tumour antigens, differing in origin and nature, have shed light on the desirable target characteristics capable of inducing strong tumour-specific non-toxic responses with increased potential to bring clinical benefit to patients. Novel delivery methods, ranging from a patient’s autologous dendritic cells to liposome nanoparticles, have exponentially increased the abundance and exposure of the antigenic payloads. Furthermore, growing knowledge of the mechanisms by which tumours evade the immune response has led to new approaches to reverse these roadblocks and to re-invigorate previously suppressed anti-tumour surveillance. The use of new drugs in combination with antigen-based therapies is highly targeted and may represent the future of cancer vaccines. In this review, we address the main antigens and delivery methods used to develop cancer vaccines, their clinical outcomes, and the new directions that the vaccine immunotherapy field is taking.

Whirling in between the personal and the impersonal

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-284
Author(s):  
Armen E. Petrosyan
Keyword(s):  
Organization Theory ◽  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Essential Elements ◽  
Organizational Life ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Organizational Goals ◽  
Last Stage ◽  
First Time ◽  
Current Paradigm

Purpose The paper aims to present a systematic conceptual analysis of the problem of organizational goal and to reduce the insights into it provided by the main conceptions taken in their development from one to another, to break out of the ruling paradigm and outline a new solution. Design/methodology/approach The study has been carried out from the historical and critical perspective. Findings The paper discovers the logic of the evolution the approaches to organizational goals have undergone and portrays it in a matrix form in the heart of which is the “zigzag effect”: each posterior stage returns to the essential elements rejected by those preceding it, and the last stage, being diametrically opposite to the first, is, at that, as well as the latter, akin to the intermediate stages. The opportunities afforded by the current paradigm have been exhausted and it seems to run to an impasse. Instead, the author suggests a new frame of orientation: organizational goals are closely interknit with personal, but not reducible to them and bear fundamentally transpersonal character, while the mechanism of involving the preferences of individuals and groups in goal-setting is based on the self-contained interests of the organization they pertain to. Research limitations/implications The findings, conclusions and generalizations obtained can serve for a necessary ground to researchers getting deeper into the essence of what bonds organizational life and activity. Practical implications The material empowers practitioners to comprehend the difficulties of framing cohesive goal and find efficient ways to overcome them. It is of value also to the teachers seeking to present a more exact and elaborate view of teleological foundations of management and organization theory. Originality/value Both the conceptual analysis of the evolution of the approaches to organizational goals and the author’s exposition of its logic and vision of their nature are provided for the first time.

OXYCHALCOGENIDES AS NEW EFFICIENT p-TYPE THERMOELECTRIC MATERIALS

2013 ◽  
Vol 06 (05) ◽  
pp. 1340007 ◽  
Author(s):  
CELINE BARRETEAU ◽  
LIN PAN ◽  
YAN-LING PEI ◽  
LI-DONG ZHAO ◽  
DAVID BERARDAN ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Figure Of Merit ◽  
Parent Compound ◽  
Thermoelectric Figure ◽  
Medium Temperature ◽  
Temperature Range ◽  
The Past ◽  
Thermoelectric Conversion ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Wide Scale ◽  
P Type

During the past two years, we have underlined the great potential of p-type oxychalcogenides, with parent compound BiCuSeO , for thermoelectric applications in the medium temperature range (400–650°C). These materials, which do not contain lead and are less expensive than Te containing materials, exhibit large thermoelectric figure of merit, exceeding 1 in a wide temperature range, mainly due to an intrinsically very low thermal conductivity. This paper summarizes the main chemical and crystallographic features of this system, as well as the thermoelectric properties. It also gives new directions to improve these properties, and discuss the potential of these materials for wide scale applications in thermoelectric conversion system in the medium temperature range.

Rise and Fall

2000 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 727-754 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Chase-Dunn ◽  
E. Susan Manning ◽  
Thomas D. Hall
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Systems Approach ◽  
World Systems ◽  
Central Concept ◽  
Global System ◽  
Systems Perspective ◽  
Early States ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Regional System

The world-systems perspective was invented for modeling and interpreting the expansion and deepening of the capitalist regional system as it emerged in Europe and incorporated the whole globe over the past 500 years (Wallerstein 1974; Chase-Dunn 1998; Arrighi 1994). The idea of a core/periphery hierarchy composed of “advanced” economically developed and powerful states dominating and exploiting “less developed” peripheral regions has been a central concept in the world-systems perspective. In the last decade the world-systems approach has been extended to the analysis of earlier and smaller intersocietal systems. Andre Gunder Frank and Barry Gills (1994) have argued that the contemporary global political economy is simply a continuation of a 5,000-year-old world system that emerged with the first states in Mesopotamia. Christopher Chase-Dunn and Thomas Hall (1997) have modified the basic world-systems concepts to make them useful for a comparative study of very different kinds of systems. They include very small intergroup networks composed of sedentary foragers, as well as larger systems containing chiefdoms, early states, agrarian empires, and the contemporary global system in their scope of comparison.

Danish humor in cross-cultural professional settings: linguistic and social aspects

2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lita Lundquist
Keyword(s):  
Power Distance ◽  
Work Relationships ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Social Aspects ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
Sociological Approach ◽  
Civilizing Process ◽  
Norbert Elias ◽  
Low Degree

AbstractThe specificities of national humor are often mentioned in humor research, but seldom explained in depth. This article concerns two studies, which reveal that Danish humor (as used in professional settings) is judged by Danes and non-Danes alike as ironic, self-ironic, sarcastic, and direct, with no limits or taboos. These characteristics of Danish humor are analyzed here using two different theoretical frameworks: linguistics – where an explanation is found in certain type-specific features of the Danish language, namely the dialogical particles typical of the Nordic languages in general – and the historico-sociological approach proposed by Norbert Elias. According to Elias, the mentality of a people has been molded through an ongoing historical process of civilization. The civilizing process specific to Danish society has engendered a “campfire mentality”, leading up to the egalitarian, consensual welfare state. Work relationships in Denmark are based on a horizontal, flat structure with low power distance, a structure for which management researchers actually recommend the use of humor, irony and self-irony. Finally, the specificities of Danish humor are linked to a low degree of gelotophobia, the fear of being laughed at, among Danes.

Die koninkryk van God in die Ou Testament: ’n Kort oorsig

2021 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel F. O'Kennedy
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Kingdom Of God ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Real Difference ◽  
Central Concept ◽  
The Past ◽  
To Come ◽  
Psalm 22 ◽  
The Church ◽  
Technical Terms

The kingdom of God in the Old Testament: A brief survey. The kingdom of God is a central concept in the teaching of Jesus, but the question posed by this article is the following: What does the Old Testament say about the kingdom of God? Several Old Testament terms convey the concept of kingdom, kingship and rule of God. This article focuses on the Hebrew and Aramaic ‘technical’ terms for kingdom: mamlākâ, malkût, mělûkâ and malkû. One finds only a few Old Testament references where these terms are directly connected to God, most of them in the post-exilic literature: 1 Chronicles 17:14; 28:5; 29:11; 2 Chronicles 13:8; Psalm 22:29; 103:19; 145:11–13; Daniel 2:44; 3:33 (4:3); 4:31 (4:34); 6:27; 7:14, 18, 27; Obadiah 21. A brief study of these specific references leads to a few preliminary conclusions: The kingdom of God refers to a realm and the reign of God, the God of the kingdom is depicted in different ways, God’s kingdom is eternal and incomparable with earthly kingdoms, the scope of the kingdom is particularistic and universalistic, the Old Testament testifies about a kingdom that is and one that is yet to come, et cetera. It seems that there is no real difference when comparing the ‘kingdom of God’ with the ‘God is King’ passages. One cannot unequivocally declare that ‘kingdom of God’ is the central concept in the Old Testament. However, we must acknowledge that Jesus’s teaching about the kingdom of God did not evolve in a vacuum. His followers probably knew about the Old Testament perspective on the kingdom of God.Contribution: The concept ‘kingdom of God’ is relevant for the church in South Africa, especially congregations who strive to be missional. Unfortunately, the Old Testament perspective was neglected in the past. The purpose of this brief survey is to stimulate academics and church leaders in their further reflection on the kingdom of God.

Making Europe—Processes of Europe-Formation since 1945

2000 ◽  
Vol 48 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 235-256
Author(s):  
Dennis Smith
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
State Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
National Society ◽  
The European Union ◽  
National State ◽  
Civilizing Process ◽  
Norbert Elias

Dennis Smith argues that the development of the European polity that has become the European Union has been shaped by social processes similar in many respects to those analysed by Norbert Elias in The Court Society and The Civilizing Process. However, these processes have occurred at the supra-state level whereas Elias described them as they occurred at the level of the developing national state, especially during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. During the 1940s and 1950s the United States played a key role in pacifying the European nations and imposing a framework of rules for the conduct of their economic and diplomatic affairs. States in western Europe were increasingly locked into tight bonds of interdependence. This movement towards integration was complemented by the disembedding of regions and large businesses from their close ties to the national state; they became ‘Europeanised’. Brussels became Europe's Versailles, a place where the courtier's skills were employed by the lobbyist. It is suggested that just as France represented, in Elias's eyes, a vanguard society within Europe in respect of the civilising process at the level of the national society, the European Union may play such a role globally in respect of developments at the supra-state level.

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