Wash Corporate Heads! Business Practice can be Changed via the Dispositions of Executives: Re-socialization towards Implicit Eco-sustainability

The present paper is the synopsis of my doctoral dissertation, which assumes that – in addition to rational factors – the dispositions of management also decisively affect business decisions, and thus business executives' mindset and behavioral patterns (their 'habitus') should be the target of the influence of society whenever societally important changes depend on current business practice. I outlined an institutionalized framework of re-socialization to influence the CEO subculture (and suggest it as part of the CSR agenda). The ecological sensitivity and awareness of industry are treated as a societal issue in the thesis. I have carried out research into the presence and functioning of dispositional logic (the Bourdieusian habitus) in managerial practice with the help of a few narrative interviews.disposition, Habitus, business practice, executive subculture, ecological responsibility, CSR, eco-sustainability, voluntary standard, logic of collective action, mindset, interplay as collusion, controlled influence, practice constructing community, auxiliary socialization, re-socialization, strategy-as-practice, stewardship, fiduciary duty, social engagement, organizational choreography, professional identity, executive mask, meaning negotiation

Defamiliarizing heavy-contact sports: A critical examination of rugby, discipline, and pleasure

Pleasure can be regarded as a productive force in the constitution of the social sig-nificance of sport and desiring sport subjects. The organization and use of sport plea-sure has been a relatively marginalized topic of examination. To promote and examine sport pleasure, I conducted semistructured interviews with seven passionate rugby players. Transcripts were analyzed via Foucauldian theorizing and revealed the inter-twined workings of technologies of dominance and self in the constitution of rugby pleasures. As a strategy to defamiliarize and disrupt habitual and uncritical accep-tance of rugby aggression, I argued that rugby pleasures were akin to sadomasochism. Rugby can be understood as a taboo-breaking game associated with transparent rela-tions of power connected with the pleasure induced from physical domination and the fear of pain

Political Institutions and Street Protests in Latin America

This paper argues that where institutions are strong, actors are more likely to participate in the political process through institutionalized arenas, while where they are weak, protests and other unconventional means of participation become more appealing. This relationship is explored empirically by combining country-level measures of institutional strength with individual-level information on protest participation in 17 Latin American countries. Evidence is found that weaker political institutions are associated with a higher propensity to use alternative means for expressing preferences, that is, to protest. Also found are interesting interactions between country-level institutional strength and some individual-level determinants of participation in protests.Political institutions, Public policies, Institutional strength, Protests, Alternative Political Technologies, Political party representation, Ideology, Ideological extremism, Latin America

Beyond consumerism: new historical perspectives on consumption

If there is one agreement between theorists of modernity and those of post-modernity, it is about the centrality of consumption to modern capitalism and contemporary culture. To thinkers as different as Werner Sombart, Emile Durkheim and Thorstein Veblen at the turn of the twentieth century, consumption was a decisive force behind modern capitalism, its dynamism and social structure. More recently, Anthony Giddens has presented consumerism as simultaneous cause and therapeutic response to the crisis of identities emanating from the pluralization of communities, values and knowledge in ‘post-traditional society’. Post-modernists like Baudrillard have approached consumption as the semiotic code constituting post-modernity itself: ultimately, signs are consumed, not objects. Such has been the recent revival of theoretical interest in consumption that the historian might feel acutely embarrassed by the abundance of choice and the semiotic and, indeed, political implications of any particular approach. Which theory is most appropriate for the historical study of ‘consumer society’? What is being consumed, by whom, why, and with what consequence differs fundamentally in these writings: should we study objects, signs or experiences, focus on the drive to emulate others or to differentiate oneself, analyse acquisitive mentalities or ironic performances, condemn resulting conformity or celebrate subversion? The aim of this article is to outline some of the questions that may help structure such a debate. Should we think in terms of a linear expansion of western consumerism ending in global convergence? What was the underlying dynamic of this expansion and where should we locate its modernity? What was the place of consumption in social and political relations, and what do these connections (and disconnections) tell us about the nature of ‘consumer society’? More broadly, what are the meanings of consumption and what should historians include or exclude? ‘Consumerism’ and ‘modern consumer society’, it will be argued, are concepts with diminishing analytical and conceptual usefulness that have privileged a particular western version of modern consumption at the expense of the multi-faceted and often contradictory workings of consumption in the past and are increasingly at odds with the current debate about the cultures and politics of consumption

Traumatic pasts, literary afterlives, and transcultural memory : new directions of literary and media memory studies

This article presents new directions of literary and media memory studies. It distinguishes between (1) the study of "traumatic pasts", i.e. representations of war and violence in literature and other media, (2) diachronic and intermedial approaches to "literary afterlives" and (3) recent insights into the inherent transculturality of memory and their consequences for literary and media studies. Keywords: cultural memory studies, literature and memory, media and memory, transcultural memor

Crisis is governance : sub-prime, the traumatic event, and bare life

The article provides a critical analysis of the role of discourses of trauma and the traumatic event in constituting the ethico-political possibilities and limits of the subprime crisis. It charts the invocation of metaphors of a financial Tsunami and pervasive media focus on emotional ‘responses’ like fear, anger, and blame, suggesting that such traumatic discourses constituted the subprime crisis as a singular and catastrophic ‘event’ demanding of particular (humanitarian) responses. We draw upon the thought of Giorgio Agamben to render this constituted logic of event and response in terms of the concomitant production of bare life; the savers and homeowners who became ‘helpless victims’ in need of rescue. We therefore tie the ongoing production of the sovereign power of global finance to broader processes that entail the enfolding and securing of everyday financial subjects. These arguments are illustrated via an analysis of three subjects: the economy, bankers and borrowers. We argue that it was the movement between subject positions – from safe to vulnerable, from entrepreneurial to greedy, from victim to survivor, etc. - that marked out the effective manner of governance, confirming in this process sovereign categories of financial citizenship, asset based welfare, and securitisation that many would posit as the very problem. In short, (the way that the) crisis (was constituted) is governance

History, Sociology, Modernity : How Connect?

Special Issue on 'The State of Scottish History: Past, Present and Future'Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Exploring the remuneration ‘black box’: establishing an organizational learning insight into changing remuneration committee ‘social worlds’

Current executive compensation research posits a need to extend analysis beyond principalagent theory in order to explore the complex social influences and processes implicated in Remuneration Committee (RemCo) decision-making (e.g. Bender, 2007; Kakabadse et al, 2006; Main et al., 2007), particularly given the current uproar surrounding reported levels and structuring of executive remuneration. We respond to this international need by highlighting how innovative organizational learning theorizing can be integrated into further investigations of the remuneration ‘Black Box’, in order to focus attention upon the nuances of what and how organizational learning takes place in the remuneration process. Additionally, we note the importance of investigating the main actors and particularly their performance of complex roles within their rapidly evolving ‘social worlds’. By exploring the organizational learning phenomena implicated in executive remuneration, we argue that practitioners, regulatory bodies etc. can appreciate further the implications of their respective decision-making