Following Through the Good and the Bad?

Followers are underrepresented in the organizational change literature despite their considerable influence on change success. Politics, culture, motivation, communication, and readiness have a large impact on change success, and these influences are examined in the change context. Each of these are influenced by leaders and followers. The role of authentic followers in enabling positive change through their organizational engagement is explored in depth. This chapter demonstrates that while the influential role of leaders in change is established, the authentic follower represents a large body of potential change agents with the capacity to positively influence the success of change. Many behaviors of the authentic follower make them an ideal candidate for this role, including moral potency, high levels of engagement in organizational structure, and flexibility. Further research highlighting the value of the authentic follower is warranted.

The (In)discreet Charm of the Romans

Made in 2001 by Jerzy Kawalerowicz, the Polish film Quo vadis represents a vernacular variant of ‘heritage cinema’ which has flourished in the country since 1989. Mostly consisting of adaptations of Polish literary classics, whose action takes place in a relatively distant past, they feature protagonists who are preoccupied by matters such as love, honour, and patriotism that are always linked with Catholicism. As demonstrated in this chapter, Kawalerowicz’s film also condones regressive gender norms, patriarchal order, and the hegemonic discourse of Catholicism. Most importantly, the chapter will argue that Quo vadis follows other novels by Sienkiewicz in developing a vernacular colonial fantasy. In Kawalerowicz’s Quo vadis colonial fantasies merge with contemporary discourse about Poland’s Europeanness. Arguably, Lygia’s romance with Marcus Vinicius, who decides to convert to Christianity, implies a symbolic union between (Eastern European) Poland and the (Western European) Roman Empire. Kawalerowicz’s decision to frame the ancient story with two contemporary images of the Roman Colosseum seems to suggest that, ultimately, Poland has ‘returned to Europe’—as the post-communist slogan claimed. The chapter will also pay special attention to the film’s melodramatic mode of representation and its affective power, as well as to its potential to present a utopian world of moral potency and transparency. Melodrama in Quo vadis provides a textual space through which viewers could channel the emotions they had experienced during the stark time of transition.

Jansenism and England

This book examines the impact in mid- to later seventeenth-century England of the major contemporary religious controversy in France, which revolved around the formal condemnation of a heresy popularly called Jansenism. The associated debates involved fundamental questions about the doctrine of grace and moral theology, about the life of the Church and the conduct of individual Christians. The book offers an analysis of the main themes of the controversy and an account of instances of English interest, arguing that English Protestant theologians who were in the process of working out their own views on basic theological questions recognized the relevance of the continental debates. The arguments evolved by the French writers also constitute a point of comparison for the developing views of English theologians. Where the Jansenists reasserted an Augustinian emphasis on the gratuity of salvation against Catholic theologians who overvalued the powers of human nature, the English writers examined here, arguing against Protestant theologians who denied nature any moral potency, emphasized man’s contribution to his own salvation. Both arguments have been seen to contain a corrosive individualism, the former through its preoccupation with the luminous experience of grace, the latter through its tendency to elide grace and moral virtue. These assessments are challenged here. Nevertheless, these theologians did encourage greater individualism. Focusing on the affective experience of conversion, they developed forms of moral rigorism which represented, in both cases, an attempt to provide a reliable basis for Christian faith and practice in the fragmented intellectual context of post-Reformation Europe.

Ethical Leadership and Whistleblowing: Collective Moral Potency and Personal Identification as Mediators

Given the prevalence and concealment of misconduct in the workplace, whistleblowing has become an important organizational control mechanism. In this study, we focused on the process by which ethical leadership influences employees to blow the whistle internally. We collected data via a survey administered to the respondents, who were leader–member dyads in a large branch of the central bank in southern China. Hierarchical linear modeling results revealed that ethical leadership was positively related to internal whistleblowing by subordinates. We controlled for ethical climate and found that collective moral potency as a component of the ethical environment, and employees' personal identification with their supervisors fully mediated the relationship between ethical leadership and internal whistleblowing. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed and directions for future research are suggested.