The Psychodynamic Limits of Fractured Relationships: When Emotional Tensile Strength is Broken

The Special Session will address factors that lead to the disintegration of once strong partnerships and alliances and outline the psychodynamic limits that lead to fractured relationships. Behavioral constructs employed in a psychiatric medicine setting will be discussed relative to their heuristic value in strategic relationship management setting. Further, the concept of emotional tensile strength will be explored

Internal Marketing Implications of Workplace Bullying: The Integration of Multiple Perspectives

This special session will highlight marketing, behavioral, leadership, and legal perspectives of workplace bullying behavior and how such behavior can negatively affect an individual’s wellbeing and adversely impact an organization’s welfare. The discussion will be couched within an internal marketing framework with special emphasis on strategic implications. Behavioral aspects of those who bully and the impact that their behavior can have on their targets will be given special consideration. Also, various leadership issues that arise in workplace environments with respect to workplace bullying will be explored. Further, an overview of the legal ramifications of workplace bullying will be integrated into the discussion. Additionally, theory advancement and applied research development will be discussed as a means to stimulate additional study of the bullying phenomena. It was during the 1970s that the internal marketing concept emerged. Over time various firms gradually acknowledged the value of internal marketing programs. This adoption of internal marketing initiatives was possible because many firms recognized that internal marketing strategies were a complementary prerequisite for many external marketing efforts. The application of the IM philosophy embraced the marketing concept as it applied to employees within an organization. Under this philosophy, firms sought to recruit and retain talented people who would aspire to build and sustain relationships with customers. Although well-planned visions, missions, products, processes, and procedures were critical to such initiatives, these managerial tools have not necessarily sufficient in assuring an IM-driven environment. The panel members submit that it is also imperative to consider the impact that specific types of personal and organizational behaviors can have on internal marketing outcomes. In so doing, there is a need to recognize and acknowledge negative behaviors that can hamper, or worse yet, sabotage potential individual and group accomplishments that are in keeping with marketing goals. Many times organizations have explicitly stated the adoption of the internal marketing philosophy, The reality is, however, that workplace bullying is one form of negative behavior that may simultaneously exist even in light of noble mission statements, employee appreciation proclamations, and IM programs that declare the adherence to civil actions in a supportive work environment. In the extreme, the disconnections between explicit messages of communications and implicit messages of actions can be flagrant. The severing of organizational communications from organizational actions may manifest itself as transparent duplicity, inherent dishonesty, and disruptive affronts. In severe cases, malfeasance may thrive. The panel members will encourage audience discussion for the purposes of identifying theoretical and applied research issues and for suggesting potential research directions. Further, the SMA audience will be specifically invited to share their insights relative to IM leadership issues and bullying in the workplace. Also, panelists will encourage discussions of workplace bullying within academic settings with an emphasis on structural solutions. Questions and perceptions concerning behavioral issues will be welcomed

What Can Business Leaders Learn from Medical Misdiagnoses?

Mistakes of diagnoses are often topics in medical schools, hospitals and medical practices. These errors can range from the minor and inexpensive to the harmful and costly. According to Johns Hopkins University researchers, devastating errors can lead to permanent damage or death for as many as 160,000 patients yearly. Diagnostic errors, however, may be becoming more preventable as many health-care providers are turning to a number of innovative strategies that are addressing the complicated web of errors, biases, and oversights. Included in innovative changes in medicine are the methods of managing patients’ records through electronic means. These modernizations are often touted as part of an overall plan to provide better health care delivery which in turn will lead to more efficient and effective health outcomes. But with any automation, there are potential downsides, such as information overload. In comparison, business analytics has become a very popular and growing field of operational research with application to many areas of business. Just as in medicine, it is the mission of “big data” to provide targeted and precise information to enhance the probability of making more effective and efficient decisions. Medicine and business have many overlapping concerns around the collection, analysis, and distribution of data. Bringing these professionals together, albeit they work in different contexts, has the possibility for advancing interdisciplinary insights around major decision-making issues that are paramount to both groups. Additionally, many medical professionals are in an ongoing effort to cut down on errors of misdiagnoses through the improvements in communication. Common biases have been identified that can exacerbate physicians making an incorrect diagnosis. For example, last year Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia established a Critical Thinking Program that aims to help identify and analyze critical thinking biases. Physician Pat Crosberry, a researcher on the role of cognitive error in diagnosis, developed a list of 50 different types of biases that lead to diagnostic error. Businesses are often involved in strategic diagnostic research and misdiagnoses in this context are always a concern too. An interdisciplinary discussion of these issues will be discussed by panelists

“At ‘Amen Meals’ It’s Me and God” Religion and Gender: A New Jewish Women’s Ritual

New ritual practices performed by Jewish women can serve as test cases for an examination of the phenomenon of the creation of religious rituals by women. These food-related rituals, which have been termed ‘‘amen meals’’ were developed in Israel beginning in the year 2000 and subsequently spread to Jewish women in Europe and the United States. This study employs a qualitative-ethnographic methodology grounded in participant-observation and in-depth interviews to describe these nonobligatory, extra-halakhic rituals. What makes these rituals stand out is the women’s sense that through these rituals they experience a direct con- nection to God and, thus, can change reality, i.e., bring about jobs, marriages, children, health, and salvation for friends and loved ones. The ‘‘amen’’ rituals also create an open, inclusive woman’s space imbued with strong spiritual–emotional energies that counter the women’s religious marginality. Finally, the purposes and functions of these rituals, including identity building and displays of cultural capital, are considered within a theoretical framework that views ‘‘doing gender’’ and ‘‘doing religion’’ as an integrated experience