Amelioration vs. Perversion

Words change meaning, usually in unpredictable ways. But some words’ meanings are revised intentionally. Revisionary projects are normally put forward in the service of some purpose – some serve specific goals of inquiry, and others serve ethical, political or social aims. Revisionist projects can ameliorate meanings, but they can also pervert. In this paper, I want to draw attention to the dangers of meaning perversions, and argue that the self-declared goodness of a revisionist project doesn’t suffice to avoid meaning perversions. The road to Hell, or to horrors on Earth, is paved with good intentions. Finally and more importantly, I want to demarcate what meaning perversions are. This, I hope, can help us assess the moral and political legitimacy of revisionary projects

Socrates and the Story of Inquiry

Argument and myth, historical figure and archetype, Socrates dominates our image of inquiry. How did this come about and should it continue

Ten propositions about public leadership

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of some pressing but under-researched aspects of public leadership. Ten propositions about public leadership are set out and these are intended to be thought-provoking and even controversial in order to stimulate researchers to design research which addresses key theoretical and practical questions about leadership in the public sphere. They will also help practitioners navigate an increasingly complex leadership context. Design/methodology/approach – This invited essay uses ten propositions about public leadership, selected from three sources: the leadership literature, the author’s own research and from collaborative research discussions with academics, policy makers and practitioners. Findings – The first proposition argues for distinguishing public leadership from public service leadership given that the former is about leadership of the public sphere. Other propositions concern context; purpose; conflict and contest at the heart of public leadership; leadership with political astuteness; dual leadership; leadership projections; fostering resilience; leadership, authority and legitimacy; and the challenge to researchers to use research designs which reflect the complexity and dynamism of public leadership. Practical implications – While this essay is primarily addressed to researchers, there are many ideas and concepts which practising leaders will find insightful and useful in their work. Originality/value – This essay draws on deep experience in undertaking high-quality academic research about public leadership which draws from and feeds into policy and practice. It utilises organisational psychology, public management and political science to create synergies in order to enhance the understanding of public leadership

Value Commitment, Resolute Choice, and the Normative Foundations of Behavioural Welfare Economics

Given the endowment effect, the role of attention in decision-making, and the framing effect, most behavioral economists agree that it would be a mistake to accept the satisfaction of revealed preferences as the normative criterion of choice. Some have suggested that what makes agents better off is not the satisfaction of revealed preferences, but ‘true’ preferences, which may not always be observed through choice. While such preferences may appear to be an improvement over revealed preferences, some philosophers of economics have argued that they face insurmountable epistemological, normative, and methodological challenges. This article introduces a new kind of true preference – values-based preferences – that blunts these challenges. Agents express values-based preferences when they choose in a manner that is compatible with a consumption plan grounded in a value commitment that is normative, affective, and stable for the agent who has one. Agents who choose according to their plans are resolute choosers. My claim is that while values-based preferences do not apply to every choice situation, this kind of preference provides a rigorous way for thinking about classic choice situations that have long interested behavioral economists and philosophers of economics, such as ‘Joe-in-the-cafeteria.

Being an Early-Career CMS Academic in the Context of Insecurity and ‘Excellence’: The Dialectics of Resistance and Compliance

Drawing on a dialectical approach to resistance, we conceptualise the latter as a multifaceted, pervasive and contradictory phenomenon. This enables us to examine the predicament in which early-career Critical Management Studies academics find themselves in the current times of academic insecurity and ‘excellence’, as gleaned through this group’s understandings of themselves as resisters and participants in the complex and contradictory forces constituting their field. We draw on 24 semi-structured interviews to map our participants’ accounts of themselves as resisters in terms of different approaches to tensions and contradictions between, on the one hand, the interviewees’ Critical Management Studies alignment and, on the other, the ethos of business school neoliberalism. Emerging from this analysis are three contingent and interlinked narratives of resistance and identity – diplomatic, combative and idealistic – each of which encapsulates a particular mode (negotiation, struggle, and laying one’s own path) of engaging with the relationship between Critical Management Studies and the business school ethos. The three narratives show how early-career Critical Management Studies academics not only use existing tensions, contradictions, overlaps and alliances between these positions to resist and comply with selected forces within each, but also contribute to the (re-)making of such overlaps, alliances, tensions and contradictions. Through this reworking of what it means to be both Critical Management Studies scholars and business school academics, we argue, early-career Critical Management Studies academics can be seen as active resisters and re-constituters of their complex field

The price of admission: football players' sacrificial conceptions of career and health through metaphors of war, religion, and family

textWith the recent discovery of traumatic brain injuries developing in retired professional football players, this study seeks to explore players’ perceptions of their careers in the sport, and how this may reflect notions of personal health over the long-term. Current and former football players, athletic staff, and other members of the football community were interviewed with the goal of learning about the full trajectory of a football career. Using grounded metaphorical analysis to examine the interview data, our study found the use of metaphor by participants to be integral in players’ descriptions of their careers. Participants likened aspects of their careers to enduring a war, having a religious experience, and being part of a family unit. Long-term, post-career health implications are discussed in relation to players’ conceiving of their experiences through these metaphors, along with limitations of the study and directions for future research.Communication Studie

Living for the Soul : Dolly\u27s Heroism in Anna Karenina

Most literary critics have either viewed Dolly Oblonsky in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (1877) as a somewhat pitiable character who, unlike Anna, submits to the oppressive patriarchal system, or they have neglected her as an insignificant minor character. I feel that such views are reductive and ignore Dolly’s personal strength compared with Anna’s weak character. Dolly’s heroism goes beyond her social, marital, and maternal status. Dolly “lives for the soul,” demonstrating personal and spiritual virtue (Tolstoy [1877] 794). Gary Saul Morson is the most important critical voice on the subject of Dolly in Anna Karenina and in many ways the most influential Tolstoyan critic in recent scholarship of the English-speaking world. Morson is also the main originator of the idea that one of the novel’s seemingly secondary characters – Dolly Oblonsky – is the true hero of Anna Karenina. In his work Anna Karenina In Our Time: Seeing More Wisely (2007) Morson offers an analysis and interpretation of Tolstoy’s great novel in terms of his thesis on “prosaics”. He argues that Tolstoy’s work criticizes romanticism in favor of “prosaic”, everyday love and rejects Anna’s narcissistic and romantic nature in favor of Dolly’s “prosaic love and lowly wisdom” (Morson [2007] 189). In doing so, Morson controversially attempts to establish Dolly as the true hero of the novel by arguing that her “prosaic” love and wisdom align with Tolstoy’s ideas of morality. However, while Morson’s illuminates many aspects of Anna Karenina beautifully, his “prosaics” thesis has two significant shortcomings. Firstly, his analysis almost entirely neglects the pervasive religious content of the novel, in spite of the fact that this religious content strengthens the argument for Dolly’s heroism. Secondly, Morson’s analysis can be open to feminist critique. Morson proves Dolly to be a Tolstoyan “prosaic” hero, but many feminist scholars might suggest that Tolstoy’s own perception of this “prosaic” female heroism and morality is in fact misogynistic. By employing and integrating both feminist and religious-ethical criticism, my thesis demonstrates that in “living for the soul” and exemplifying religious virtue, Dolly Oblonsky achieves a sense of independence and purpose, in spite of her adherence to traditional gender roles and social structures , and is therefore a true hero of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina

How can PhD supervisors play a role in bridging academic cultures?

PhD supervision is generally deemed a rewarding experience as supervisors and students embark on an academic journey together. Pursuing a PhD in a ‘foreign’ context inevitably brings forth distinct opportunities and challenges for students and their supervisors. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, this qualitative study of supervisors and PhD students examines the cross-cultural facets of doctoral supervision in the light of Urie Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecological theory of human development and its underpinning explanation for supervisory processes and learning orientations. Undertaken in the Danish context, our paper highlights exemplars of contrasting supervisors’ and PhD students’ experience in relation to academic and psychosocial adaptations. This research strongly endorses that supervisors’ appreciation of the intertwined link between academia and society combined with a positive view of their role in bridging academic cultures can powerfully complement students’ adjustments and subsequently make a qualitative difference towards a more fulfilling and meaningful academic journey together