Tools and Technologies of Transparency in Sustainable Global Supply Chains

This article explores the role that technology plays in creating and fostering transparency in global supply chains. Transparency is deemed vital in the creation of sustainable and resilient supply chains and overall effective corporate governance. There are two distinct orientations toward the use of technology by multinational corporations (MNCs) in creating sustainability transparency within their global supply chains: control and relational. A control orientation views technology as a tool to gather the ever-increasing levels of sustainability data on supplier practices in an efficient, secure, and progressively automated manner. A relational orientation adopts a view where technology is a tool to help build social relations and improve dialogue and collaboration on sustainability throughout the supply chain. A key difference in the two orientations lies in the mindset of the MNC manager toward the development of supply chain sustainability transparency. The article illustrates the effective application of both approaches and offers advice to managers on the design choices they need to consider in choosing technologies.

Discerning the body: Recentering Christian community in the vocational formation of university undergraduates

We report and analyze undergraduate students’ perceptions of vocation and propose constructive responses that prepare students for purposeful Christian lives. Discussion in focus groups elicited accounts of vocation as oriented toward positive relational impact but shaped by a latent individualism and an underdeveloped sense of the vocational implications of Christian community. We propose expanding on this relational orientation by helping students to “discern the body” in three ways: reflecting on their own embeddedness in the body of Christ, participating in the body through mentoring relationships, and grounding their future vocational journeys as part of a body shaped by Christological hope.

Relational Evaluation in Secondary Education

Relationships are of paramount importance for adolescents whose lives are undergoing changes in many dimensions. With appropriate support and care grounded in relational processes, young people can more readily overcome disaffection and apathy. In this chapter, the authors place special emphasis on the quality of interaction and exchange among students and between students and teachers, especially when exploring and reflecting on their experiences and processes of learning. Carefully facilitated dialogic and collaborative approaches in the classroom can provide meaningful feedback on the learning tasks as well as help sustain students’ engagement in learning. Other practices such as portfolio work, learning agreements, journaling, and personal records can further nurture students’ capacity to reflect on learning, including self-evaluation and co-evaluation with peers. Likewise, learning groups and collaborative projects are excellent illustrations of how a relational orientation to evaluation can enrich students’ potential to build positive relations with others and with learning.

Environmental Conservation Through Study Value of Bali Aga Tenganan Pegringsingan Community Culture

This research aimed to know the implementation of environmental conservation in terms of cultural value orientation, including humanistic nature orientation, man-nature orientation, time orientation, activity orientation, and relational orientation. The population of this research was the entire community in traditional village Tenganan Pegringsingan, Karangasem, Bali. This research sample amounted to 25 people, consisting of the conventional village apparatus, community leaders, and the general public. Methods of data collection were the method of observation, interview, questionnaire, and checklist. The collected data were analyzed descriptively. This research indicated that the orientation of cultural values of humanistic nature orientation and man-nature orientation had an excellent quality. The time orientation, activity orientation, and relational orientation parameters had good quality. Culture in the study community generally showed a positive thing, so the impact of culture on the quality of the environment, in general, was excellent. The results of observations in the field revealed that there were all community activities at Tenganan Pegringsingan that could not cause environmental pollution. Therefore, the role of traditional regulation or awig-awig to regulate environmental and social-culture.

A Study Protocol

There is a complex relationship between social media use and mental health outcomes. To explore this complexity and understand how social media influence adolescent mental health, a two-phase, explanatory sequential mixed-method study will be conducted. Firstly, the quantitative phase will involve surveying a healthy sample of 400 adolescents attending secondary schools in the UK (n=200) and Turkey (n=200). We will use the survey to investigate the moderating effect of relational orientation in a cross-sectional study, in which participants will be selected from secondary schools in Portsmouth, United Kingdom and Kayapinar, Diyarbakir, Turkey. Secondly, the qualitative phase will involve interviewing a mixed sample of 10-12 clinical and non-clinical adolescents in London. In these interviews, we will explore key quantitative findings in more detail, for example, how and why adolescents use social media and the role of social media in the development and maintenance of mental health well-being. The strengths and limitations of the study proposal have been discussed. Keywords: social media, anxiety, depression, adolescents, culture, relational orientation

The Confluence of Us

This essay explores gay men's identities as processes of creative-relational construction of the self. I problematize the common sex-centered conception of being gay as “I am gay because I have sex with men.” Bringing together Paul Ricœur's work on identity as autobiography, Audre Lorde's concept of the erotic as a constructive force, and Derek Greenfield's understanding of relational orientation, in the light of an interview with Manoel, a young gay man from Malta, creative-relational inquiry affords a richer notion of gayness as “I am gay when I am with you” and “I am gay because I love you.”