184,701 research outputs found

    Contracts to Communities: A Processual Model of Organizational Virtue

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    In the face of systemic challenges to corporate legitimacy, scholars and managers alike have been rethinking traditional answers to the question: What does it take to be a good company? We approach this question in two novel ways. We offer a normative answer, grounded in virtue ethics, by introducing a threefold typology of organizational forms. The moral goodness of each form depends on the congruence between its purpose and virtues. But we also offer a positive answer in the form of a processual model which traces corporate goodness to its empirical antecedents and consequences. The model defies a view of organizations as innately good or evil, but rather portrays virtue as the sediment of a value infusion process. We predict that if managers succeed in establishing in their organizations the kind of virtues necessary to support collective moral agency, they can expect to reap gains like enhanced effectiveness and legitimacy. However, when they neglect their moral responsibilities, the result will likely be organizational demise.Stakeholder theory;Corporate performance;Business ethics;Normative theorizing;Organizational goodness;Virtue ethics;Positive theorizing

    Offices of Goodness: Influence Without Authority in Federal Agencies

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    Inducing governmental organizations to do the right thing is the central problem of public administration. Especially sharp challenges arise when “the right thing” means executing not only a primary mission but also constraints on that mission (what Philip Selznick aptly labeled “precarious values”). In a classic example, we want police to prevent and respond to crime and maintain public order, but to do so without infringing anyone’s civil rights. In the federal government, if Congress or another principal wants an executive agency to pay attention not only to its mission, but also to some other constraining or even conflicting value—I will call that additional value, generically, “Goodness” that principal has several choices. Congress can somehow impel the agency to try to seed the constraining value widely throughout its ranks—for example, by using supervision tools or incentives to get many agency employees to pay attention to Goodness. Or Congress can empower some other federal organization more closely aligned with Goodness to play an augmented role in the agency’s affairs. This Article provides the first theoretical account of an important third approach: furthering Goodness by giving it an institutional home, a subsidiary agency office I call an “Office of Goodness.” Offices of Goodness have often been created by Congress when it has sought to instill in particular agencies values that are important to the moving Members but less than central to the agencies; presidents, too, have created them for a variety of political ends

    Model of leadership characteristics in addressing construction challenges

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    Failure of construction projects could be attributed from several challenges that emerged along the construction processes. These challenges are categorised as resources allocation, time, cost, quality, safety, project complexity, changes, uncertainties, and communication. It requires several approaches to handle these challenges and one of it is to have good quality of leadership that not rely on their authority. A study has shown that poor leadership contributed 67% to the project’s failure. Hence, this study was intended to develop relationship between leadership characteristics with construction challenges in avoiding project failure. This study was carried out based on quantitative approach that involved questionnaire survey using face-to-face technique with selected respondents at managerial level of G7 Contractor Company. The survey has resulted with 117 valid responses. Results from the survey analysis were applied to develop PLS-SEM relationship model which consisted of 43 leadership characteristics which are categorised into 4 groups and 9 construction challenges which is categorised into single group. The model was statistically validated with Goodness-of-Fit (GoF) value of 0.349 which is categorised as medium validating power. Based on the developed model, the most influential leadership characteristic group in handling the construction challenges is smart decision. While the most challenging construction challenges is safety management. To ensure that the model is applicable to the Malaysia construction industry, expert verification by selected construction experts was conducted and found that majority of the experts agreed on the model outcomes thus indicate that the model is suitable to the industry. Hence, it can be concluded that the study has uncovered the importance of leadership characteristics and its relationship with the construction challenges which fills the gap of study on Malaysia construction industry

    Addressing the challenges of modeling the scattering from bottlebrush polymers in solution

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    Small‐angle scattering measurements of complex macromolecules in solution are used to establish relationships between chemical structure and conformational properties. Interpretation of the scattering data requires an inverse approach where a model is chosen and the simulated scattering intensity from that model is iterated to match the experimental scattering intensity. This raises challenges in the case where the model is an imperfect approximation of the underlying structure, or where there are significant correlations between model parameters. We examine three bottlebrush polymers (consisting of polynorbornene backbone and polystyrene side chains) in a good solvent using a model commonly applied to this class of polymers: the flexible cylinder model. Applying a series of constrained Monte‐Carlo Markov Chain analyses demonstrates the severity of the correlations between key parameters and the presence of multiple close minima in the goodness of fit space. We demonstrate that a shape‐agnostic model can fit the scattering with significantly reduced parameter correlations and less potential for complex, multimodal parameter spaces. We provide recommendations to improve the analysis of complex macromolecules in solution, highlighting the value of Bayesian methods. This approach provides richer information for understanding parameter sensitivity compared to methods which produce a single, best fit

    Contracts to Communities: A Processual Model of Organizational Virtue

    Get PDF
    In the face of systemic challenges to corporate legitimacy, scholars and managers alike have been rethinking traditional answers to the question: What does it take to be a good company? We approach this question in two novel ways. We offer a normative answer, grounded in virtue ethics, by introducing a threefold typology of organizational forms. The moral goodness of each form depends on the congruence between its purpose and virtues. But we also offer a positive answer in the form of a processual model which traces corporate goodness to its empirical antecedents and consequences. The model defies a view of organizations as innately good or evil, but rather portrays virtue as the sediment of a value infusion process. We predict that if managers succeed in establishing in their organizations the kind of virtues necessary to support collective moral agency, they can expect to reap gains like enhanced effectiveness and legitimacy. However, when they neglect their moral responsibilities, the result will likely be organizational demise

    A carrot isn't a carrot isn't a carrot : tracing value in alternative practices of food exchange

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    Questions of value are central to understanding alternative practices of food exchange. This study introduces a practice-based approach to value that challenges the dominant views, which capture value as either an input for or an outcome of practices of exchange (value as values, standards, or prices). Building on a longitudinal ethnographic study on food collectives, I show how value, rather than residing in something that people share, or in something that objects have, is an ideal target that continuously unfolds and evolves in action. I found that people organized their food collectives around pursuing three kinds of value-ideals, namely good food, good price and good community. These value-ideals became reproduced in food collectives through what I identified as valuing modes, by which people evaluated the goodness of food, prices and community. My analysis revealed that, while participating in food collectives in order to pursue their value-ideals, people were likely to have differing reasons for pursuing them and tended to attach different meanings to the same value-ideal. I argue that understanding how value as an ideal target is reproduced through assessing and assigning value (valuing modes) is essential in further explorations of the formation of value and in better understanding the dynamics of organizing alternative practices of food exchange.Peer reviewe

    Joy Beyond the Walls of the World: How Christianity Ably Explains the Moral Facts

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    I argue that Christianity ably explains the moral facts of moral goodness, intrinsic human value, moral rationality, and moral transformation. Chapter 1 provides an explanation of the thesis, a historical overview of the moral argument, a defense of the method, a critique of William Lane Craig’s deductive argument, and a response to some challenges to abduction from a Christian worldview. In chapter 2, I explain how Christianity ably explains moral goodness. I first give some reason to think God should be identified with the Good, following Robert Adams. Next, I summarize some of the issues related to moral goodness. Then, I argue that being loving is an important way of being good. The Bible and Christian reflection upon revelation rightly understand God as consistent with the good. Finally, I suggest that given the importance of love to the good, the specifically Christian understanding of God as a single God in three persons powerfully accounts for this. Chapter 3 argues that the Christian worldview strongly affirms the intrinsic value of human beings because they are made in “the image of God.” I offer a functional account over an ontological one, suggesting that the functional account includes the ontological one and offers an even higher view of human value. Second, I show that the incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity in Jesus of Nazareth implies a high view of intrinsic human value, both because of the function of the incarnation and the ontological implications for human beings. In chapter 4, I argue that Christianity ably explains moral rationality because it provides a plausible account of how morality and self-interest are reconciled and because of the natural connection between morality and rationality on the Christian view. Specifically, I develop the idea that the Great White Throne judgment is not about moral rationality, but about the choice between life and death and that moral rationality is only ensured once one enters into life with God. In the penultimate chapter, I argue that Christianity ably explains why there is a moral gap and how to overcome it. Specifically, Christianity offers a realistic depiction of human incapacity. It also reinforces and heightens the moral demand. Finally, Christianity explains how we can overcome the moral gap by addressing moral guilt through God’s forgiveness and through the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit, who graciously cooperates with man in his moral transformation. Finally, I consider the practical import of the moral argument on offer, suggesting it has a potentially eternal consequence and transformative power. I also clarify the force of the argument, proposing that it is more suggestive than coercive

    An Ordinal factor analysis of requirements and challenges of information and communication technology system to train private agricultural insurance brokers in Iran

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    This study was conducted to identify challenges and requirements of an information and communication technology (ICT) system to train brokers. Using the ordinal factor analysis, the challenges and requirements have been classified into six factors (Human, Organisational, Technical,Social, Financial, and Legal) and four factors (instructional,technical, organisational, and cultural) respectively. Finally a conceptual framework is presented for the challenges and requirements of the ICT training system

    DistancePPG: Robust non-contact vital signs monitoring using a camera

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    Vital signs such as pulse rate and breathing rate are currently measured using contact probes. But, non-contact methods for measuring vital signs are desirable both in hospital settings (e.g. in NICU) and for ubiquitous in-situ health tracking (e.g. on mobile phone and computers with webcams). Recently, camera-based non-contact vital sign monitoring have been shown to be feasible. However, camera-based vital sign monitoring is challenging for people with darker skin tone, under low lighting conditions, and/or during movement of an individual in front of the camera. In this paper, we propose distancePPG, a new camera-based vital sign estimation algorithm which addresses these challenges. DistancePPG proposes a new method of combining skin-color change signals from different tracked regions of the face using a weighted average, where the weights depend on the blood perfusion and incident light intensity in the region, to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of camera-based estimate. One of our key contributions is a new automatic method for determining the weights based only on the video recording of the subject. The gains in SNR of camera-based PPG estimated using distancePPG translate into reduction of the error in vital sign estimation, and thus expand the scope of camera-based vital sign monitoring to potentially challenging scenarios. Further, a dataset will be released, comprising of synchronized video recordings of face and pulse oximeter based ground truth recordings from the earlobe for people with different skin tones, under different lighting conditions and for various motion scenarios.Comment: 24 pages, 11 figure

    Social Economic Factors Affecting Consumption of Sweet Potato Products: An Empirical Approach

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    The objective of the study was to analyze factors affecting consumption of value added products of sweet potato. The study was conducted in Shinyanga rural and Mwanza urban. Using cross sectional design, the study employed individual interviews, focused group discussions; review of relevant practical documents and discussions in data collection from a total of 200 surveyed households. Data collected was summarized using Statistical Package of Social Science (SPSS) windows versions 18.0.Analyses of the factors hypothesized to influence the consumption of sweet potatoes was carried out using multiple regression analysis. The goodness of fit of the model which is high as measured using coefficients of determination (R2). The higher value of R2 suggests that variables included in the model explained about 73% of the variations in the dependent variable. The F –Value is significant, indicating that the explanatory variables were statistically significant in explaining variation in the dependent variable. Furthermore, Variation Inflation Factor confirms absence of serious collinearity problem. Similarly, Durbin Watson test confirms the absence of autocorrelation. Furthermore, the data revealed that the sizes of land owned and education level are highly statistically significant at (p < 0.01) and statistically significant (p < 0.05) respectively. Hence there is need for farmers to increase the land area for sweet potatoes production to medium scale. Regarding to sweet potato prices it was found to vary from one node to another. However, there are a number of challenges facing the development of the sweet potato industry in Tanzania. The chronic shortage of seed is the most important challenge that needs to be dealt with (33.1%). Others were lack of capital (26.8%) unpredicted weather and pests/insect attack were the most critical challenges facing the subsector. Keywords: Sweet potato, value added products, consumption, Michembe, Matobolw
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