The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: A Study of the Organization through the Lens of Popular Films of the Western World

This chapter examined portrayals of the morality of organizations using the lens of Western films. The work explored six decades of film, analyzing the organizational contexts and their agents, in order to understand filmmakers’ and audiences’ perceptions of organizational settings. In order to examine the organization as an entity within film, this chapter provided a content analysis of plot summaries from a purposefully selected body of top grossing box office films spanning 60 years. The plot summaries constituted a strong basis for identifying the characteristics of the organization as they are largely descriptive in nature and as such do not offer any evaluation or analysis of the film. Any assumptions about the character of organizations (or their members/employees) are unconscious, and as such they constitute a verbal description of what competent observers would say has occurred within the film. The plots were coded to reveal perceptions of positive, neutral, or negative organizational contexts and actions. This approach exposed the filmmakers symbolic placing of the organization in order to provide backdrops for the narrative. The plot analysis revealed that throughout the decades there has been a sophisticated portrayal in film of the role of the organization and the agents therein. A generally negative view of organizational contexts was demonstrated, with only religion and education shown as positive within the films selected. It was recognized that there would be value in extending this research to analyze a larger body of works. The selection criteria resulted in a wide but not comprehensive corpus of film genres. The body of works was sufficient to reveal the complexity of attitudes to organizational values and delivery which has evolved through time. Different selection criteria and more substantial narrative text could serve to confirm these results. Further implications for future research were discussed. While in the real-life sphere, there has been an emphasis on organizational standards and “corporate governance” delivering ethical exemplars, the film contexts highlight the complexities of delivering trusted organizations. The reality that there remains the potential for organizational corruption is well understood by the general public and clearly depicted within the film world. The conceptual contribution is original as limited work has been conducted on the organizational context in films. This work revealed the possibility of using this approach to further develop a greater understanding of perceptions of organizations

Effect of different restoration techniques and cavity designs on cuspal deflection of posterior teeth restored with resin composite inlays

Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of different restoration techniques (immediate dentin sealing (IDS) restoration techniques) and cavity designs on the cuspal deflection of posterior teeth that were restored with resin composite inlays. Methods: Sixty caries-free extracted maxillary premolars were selected and equally divided into two experimental groups. Group D1: MOD cavities were prepared. Group D2: MOD cavity with gingival steps. Each group was subdivided to three subgroups (n=10) and restored as follows: inlay without IDS; inlay with IDS and adhesive system; inlay with IDS and adhesive system and low-viscosity resin. Cuspal deflection was measured with a micrometer. One-Way Analysis of Variance ANOVA was used to analyze the results. Results: Cavity design D1 showed the lowest cuspal deflection compared to cavity design D2. In group D1; Inaly without IDS showed the highest significant cuspal deflection (9.85 μm) followed by Inaly+IDS+Low viscosity resin (7.16 μm). The lowest value was obtained for Inaly + IDS group (4.76 μm) with significant difference between all tested restoration techniques. In group D2; Inaly without IDS showed the highest significant cuspal deflection (14.7 μm) followed by Inaly + IDS + Low viscosity resin (11.69 μm). The lowest value was obtained for Inaly + IDS (9.59 μm) with a significant difference between all tested restoration techniques. Conclusion: IDS and Protect Liner F allowed less cuspal deflection comparable with traditional technique. However, IDS restoration techniques did not decrease the cuspal deflection in case of more extensive loss of dental structure in the premolar teeth

Energy, Capital as Power and World Order

Until late, the subject of energy and its importance for capitalism and the constitution and reconstitution of world order has been sorely overlooked in the international political economy (IPE) literature. Indeed, only two of the major textbooks in IPE have chapters on energy. This is also true of the literature known as classical political economy. With few exceptions, the main questions that animated the classics such as the origins of the wealth of nations and the distribution of wealth are somehow disconnected from the production and consumption of energy. Marginal exceptions granted, there is little acknowledgement that the last three centuries of uneven and combined “progress” and “development” have anything to do with the exploitation of coal, oil and natural gas. However, if recent scholarship is any indication, this appears to be changing both within IPE and within other academic fields such as geography, sociology and environmental studies. In this emergent literature, we can find an argument that energy should not be treated as auxiliary to our analysis of the global political economy but essential to understanding and interpreting its emergence, transformations and future trajectories. Since fossil fuels make up an overwhelming share of global energy production and consumption I will mainly concentrate of non-renewable fossil fuels and aim to provide a critical political economy approach to energy, capitalism and world order by using the capital as power perspective. This is certainly not the only approach that we could take, but it is the one I find most revealing and convincing. To make this argument, I have divided the article in the following way. First, I concisely survey why energy is important for our theorizations of the global political economy as well as for understanding the practices of everyday life. With this background information in place, I briefly review how mainstream and critical accounts have approached the question of energy and the global political economy and demonstrate how the capital as power approach is distinctive for its focus on capitalization and social reproduction. In the second section, I will consider the power of the oil and gas firms in shaping and reshaping social reproduction and how there are strong indicators to suggest that renewable forms of energy cannot presently -- and likely never will -- replace fossil fuels and perpetuate energy intensive modes of living centuries into the future. Moreover, because of the entrenched power of oil and gas firms and their connection with affluent social reproduction, transitioning to less carbon intensive modes of social reproduction are being stalled. I conclude the article by discussing the relationship between energy, violence and world order