A Vocation as Politics: Work and Popular Theology in a Consumer Culture

The idea of vocation or a calling is particularly salient in much business motivational literature and popular Christian self-help books alike. Promoted is the idea of vocation that glosses over issues stemming from political power in the corporate workplace in order to given meaning to workers in spite of working conditions. In this form, vocations are unable to engage one\u27s working life in ways that they can and should. I argue that recent trends in academic theologies of vocation as well as the role of consumer culture combine to allow the ascendancy of this form of the idea. I support this claim with an analysis of the relationship between consumer culture and business. I locate Rick Warren\u27s concept of purpose contained in The Purpose-Driven Life as the functional equivalent of the idea of vocation that serves to distance the idea from the material workplace through its interplay with the mechanics of consumer culture. Utilizing selective theological sources and José Casanova\u27s work concerning public religions, I finally contend that the idea of vocation that resists wholesale commodification can express a latent political quality to combat particular unjust social norms that regulate the corporate work world

Establishing a core outcome set for peritoneal dialysis : report of the SONG-PD (standardized outcomes in nephrology-peritoneal dialysis) consensus workshop

Outcomes reported in randomized controlled trials in peritoneal dialysis (PD) are diverse, are measured inconsistently, and may not be important to patients, families, and clinicians. The Standardized Outcomes in Nephrology-Peritoneal Dialysis (SONG-PD) initiative aims to establish a core outcome set for trials in PD based on the shared priorities of all stakeholders. We convened an international SONG-PD stakeholder consensus workshop in May 2018 in Vancouver, Canada. Nineteen patients/caregivers and 51 health professionals attended. Participants discussed core outcome domains and implementation in trials in PD. Four themes relating to the formation of core outcome domains were identified: life participation as a main goal of PD, impact of fatigue, empowerment for preparation and planning, and separation of contributing factors from core factors. Considerations for implementation were identified: standardizing patient-reported outcomes, requiring a validated and feasible measure, simplicity of binary outcomes, responsiveness to interventions, and using positive terminology. All stakeholders supported inclusion of PD-related infection, cardiovascular disease, mortality, technique survival, and life participation as the core outcome domains for PD

The Effect of Tax Authority Monitoring and Enforcement on Financial Reporting Quality

This paper examines the relation between tax enforcement and financial reporting quality. The government, due to its tax claim on firm profits, is de facto the largest minority shareholder in almost all corporations. Therefore, the government, like other shareholders, has an interest in the accurate reporting of (taxable) income and preventing insiders from siphoning corporate funds to obtain private benefits. We hypothesize and find evidence that higher tax enforcement by the tax authority has a positive association with financial reporting quality. Further, we find that this association is generally stronger when other monitoring mechanisms are weaker. Our evidence is consistent with the predictions from the Desai, Dyck, and Zingales (2007) theory that the tax authority provides a monitoring mechanism of corporate insiders. Our paper also adds to the literature on the determinants of financial reporting quality and how the relation between accounting standards and reporting outcomes depends on country-level institutions.University of Michigan. Harry Jones Endowment for Earnings Quality Researc

Toward reliable ensemble Kalman filter estimates of CO 2 fluxes

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/95036/1/jgrd18220.pd

Christianity as Public Religion::A Justification for using a Christian Sociological Approach for Studying the Social Scientific Aspects of Sport

The vast majority of social scientific studies of sport have been secular in nature and/or have tended to ignore the importance of studying the religious aspects of sport. In light of this, Shilling and Mellor (2014) have sought to encourage sociologists of sport not to divorce the ‘religious’ and the ‘sacred’ from their studies. In response to this call, the goal of the current essay is to explore how the conception of Christianity as ‘public religion’ can be utilised to help justify the use of a Christian sociological approach for studying the social scientific aspects of sport. After making a case for Christianity as public religion, we conclude that many of the sociological issues inherent in modern sport are an indirect result of its increasing secularisation and argue that this justifies the need for a Christian sociological approach. We encourage researchers to use the Bible, the tools of Christian theology and sociological concepts together, so to inform analyses of modern sport from a Christian perspective