Organizational Well-Being

The aim of this paper is two aspects: to provide an overview of organizational wellbeing (OW) research; to present a new model of OW focusing on successful outcomes and its operationalization of the construct and the recommendations for future. A summary literature review of the OW literature, focusing on organizational well-being and its possible consequences. The literature is used to develop and propose a new model of OW and its success indicators. Testable relationships are proposed between these indicators. The research model has not been tested empirically. It is an external representation, is a new and untested concept in the OW literature. The paper provides a model that leaders, managers and newcomers may find useful to successfully establish the OW process. The model proposed is novel and raises the important issue of appropriate OW success indicators. New propositions are made regarding relationships between antecedents and output variables.

The Life-Idealism of Michel Henry

The purpose of the present essay is to exposit and interpret the principal contours of the phenomenology of Christianity proposed by Michel Henry in dialog with his theological critics. Against the claims commonly made about him, Henry is not a Gnostic of any sort: neither a monist, nor a dualist, nor a pantheist, nor a denier of faith, nor a world- or creation-denier or anything of the sort. He rather proposes a form of “life-idealism” according to which (i) life is the foundation of the possibility of the world, (ii) life assumes a visible, external representation (viz., the empirical body) in its activities in the world, and (iii) the meaning of the world is that it is the arena in which life pursues the goal of its own perfection and growth. Interpreted in this light, his thought is not Gnostic.

The Spatial Thinking Process of the Field-Independent Students based on Action-Process-Object-Schema Theory

<p style="text-align: justify;">Spatial thinking has roles to facilitate learners to remember, understand, reason, and communicate objects and the connections among objects that are represented in space. This research aims to analyze the spatial thinking process of students in constructing new knowledge seen from the field-independent cognitive style learners based on Action-Process-Object-Schema (APOS) theory. APOS theory is used to explore spatial thinking processes which consist of mental structures of action, process, object, and schema. This research is qualitative research with an exploratory method. It provided the students' opportunity to solve problems alternately until the method found the most appropriate subjects for the research objectives. The subjects were 2 students of Mathematics Education in the fourth semester of Universitas Muria Kudus Indonesia. The data collection techniques were started by distributing the validated and reliable spatial thinking questions, the cognitive style question, and the interview. The applied data analysis consisted of data reduction, presentation, and conclusion. The findings showed (1) spatial thinking process of holistic-external representation typed learners were indicated by the representative thinking element, abstract-illustrative figure expression to communicate and complete the tasks correctly, (2) spatial thinking process of the holistic-internal representation typed learners were indicated by the representative means, having ideas, connecting with the previous knowledge in the forms of symbols and numbers, and finding the final results correctly although incomplete.</p>

Nodes Afford Connection: A Pilot Study Examining the Design and Use of a Graphical Modeling Language

External representations such as diagrams facilitate reasoning. Many diagramming systems and notations are amenable to manipulation by actual or imagined intervention (e.g., transposing terms in an equation). Such manipulation is constrained by user-enforced constraints, including rules of syntax and semantics which help preserve the representation’s validity. We argue that the concepts of affordances and signifiers can be applied to understand such representations, and we suggest the term graphical affordance to refer to rule-constrained syntactic manipulation of an external representation. Following this argument, we examine a graphical modeling language in terms of these graphical affordances, and we present a pilot study examining how participants interact with the modeling language. Preliminary results suggest that using the modeling language, as opposed to prose representation, influences user behavior in a manner aligned with the graphical affordances and signifiers of the modeling language.

Learning Model Development of Memorizing The Qur'an Through Integration of Internal and External Representation

This research aims to create a learning model of memorization of the Qur'an based on the nature of the brain that tends to require relevance between the projection of information that occurred internally in the brain (internal representation) and externally presented information outside the brain (external representation). Integration of the two modes of representation was carried out through a developmental study by adopting Research and Development (R &amp; D) from Borg and Gall as a reference for the development of conceptual frameworks and memory models of Y Wang as a reference framework of the development of operational stages. From the model development process, several components of the model implementation have successfully been developed. The model implementation was operationally integrated with internal and external representation modes such as Phase I: the formulation of indicators, Phase II diagnostic assessment dealing with prior al-Qur’an memorizing ability, Phase III Conditioning students, Phase IV Coding memorizing materials, and Phase V repetition and recalling memorizing outcomes.

Fundamental Rights in the EU Institutional Landscape

This chapter examines the roles of the various institutional actors in the EU fundamental rights architecture. The European Commission is the most well-known supranational institution of the EU. It acts as the central pillar of the EU system with responsibilities spanning legislative proposals and enforcement of EU law, among others. As such, the Commission has an important role in ensuring that EU and implementing national law is consistent with fundamental rights. The conduct of the Commission itself is equally subject to fundamental rights requirements which is of additional significance due to its external representation role in which the Commission should also promote human rights. The other institutional actors include the European Parliament; the Council of the European Union; the Court of Justice (CJEU); the European External Action Service (EEAS) and EU Special Representative (EUSR) for Human Rights; the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA); the National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs); the national equality bodies (NEBs) and national data protection authorities (NDPAs); and the European Ombudsman. Although the Member States are not EU institutions or bodies, their importance in the EU system overall and for the protection of fundamental rights in particular cannot be overlooked.

Involvement of Asian Actors in the European Commission’s Online Consultations in Comparative Perspective

In order to examine the involvement of Asian interests in European Union politics, we develop a preliminary framework for studying the involvement of external interests in EU policy -making. Using data on the online consultations of the European Commission from 2001 till 2010, we aim at explaining both the level of engagement, the types of active actors and policy areas of involvement of different regions. We find that that external representation is partly but not fully accounted for by economic ties and possession of resources. Moreover, we find variation in which areas and by which actors different regions are represented suggesting that variation in national-sectoral structures between them affects differences in the character of representation between them.

„One too much“: Europa braucht einen (nicht zwei) Präsidenten – ein Plädoyer für mehr Effizienz, geopolitische Glaubwürdigkeit und demokratische Legitimation an der Spitze der Europäischen Union

The executive of the European Union (EU) is currently led by two Presidents: the President of the European Commission and the President of the European Council. This double Presidency is the result of a compromise between the supranational and the intergovernmental schools of thoughts at the European Convention 2002/2003. However, in practice, the interplay of the two Presidents and their competencies, which are not always clearly separated by the provisions of the Treaty of Lisbon, occasionally leads to inefficiencies or even conflict in the external representation of the EU. This is why former Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker proposed, on 13 September 2017, to merge the functions of the two Presidents by always electing the President of the Commission as President of the European Council. The article explains the rationale of the Juncker proposal, which has the potential to make the EU easier to understand for its citizens and more efficient geopolitically, while overcoming the artificial distinction between national and European interests in the leadership of the Union. The current debate about the future of the EU and its more effective positioning in global affairs appears to be a good moment to look again at the Juncker proposal, which could be implemented without the need to change the Treaties.