Identity Drift:The Multivocality of Ethical Identity in Islamic Financial Institution

In today’s neo-liberalist world, Islamic financial institutions (IFIs) face many difficulties combining contemporary financial thinking with Islamic, faith-based principles, on which their day-to-day operations ought to be based. Hence, IFI are likely to experience shifts/changes in organizational and ethical identity due to tensions that the combination of these principles invokes. We present an in-depth case study that focuses on these shifts in a major European based IFI across a 14-year period. We conceptualize identity change as drift, highlighting the multivocal nature of identity construction. The ethico-faith principles that were meant to serve as living codes of ethics guiding the IFI’s organizational culture, operational processes, and strategy formation turned out to mainly have been discursively rationalized to respond to regulatory, market and institutional imperatives. The company is aware that it needs to engage in a continuous dialogue with those who set these requirements. Its ethico-faith principles may consequently be adapted quite radically, especially in periods of turmoil and takeover, as we show across the analysed time period. The paper provides valuable insights for faith-inspired organizations to reflect on the extent to which they wish to engage in the discursive justification and legitimization of current market hegemonies, whilst they actively encourage their managers to behave ethically as well

Maroon Archaeology Beyond the Americas: A View From Kenya

Archaeological research on Maroons—that is, runaway slaves—has been largely confined to the Americas. This essay advocates a more global approach. It specifically uses two runaway slave communities in 19th-century coastal Kenya to rethink prominent interpretive themes in the field, including “Africanisms,” Maroons’ connections to indigenous groups, and Maroon group cohesion and identity. This article’s analysis demonstrates that the comparisons enabled by a more globalized perspective benefit the field. Instead of eliding historical and cultural context, these comparisons support the development of more localized and historically specific understandings of individual runaway slave communities both in Kenya and throughout the New World

Paraphilia and Paraphilic Disorders

Paraphilias are conditions characterized by atypical sexual interests, with hundreds of forms arising from any type of human experience, affecting individuals of all kinds of orientations and even different gender identities. Current psychiatric diagnostic classifications do not consider the presence of paraphilia as a pathological condition unless these atypical sexual thinking, desires, and conducts generate subjective distress, compromise individual’s sexual functioning, and increase the risk of the personal damage or the risk of damage to others. Against this background, this chapter presents the current clinical description and psychiatric diagnostic approach to paraphilic disorders, their epidemiology, and etiopathophysiological factors as well as treatment strategies of one of the most misunderstood groups of psychiatric disorders

How Could You be so Gullible? Scams and Over-Trust in Organizations

International audienceTrust is a key ingredient of business activities. Scams are spectacular betrayals of trust. When the victim is a powerful organization that does not look vulnerable at first sight, we can suspect that this organization has developed an excessive trust, or over-trust. In this article, we take over-trust as the result of the intentional production of gullibility by the scammer. The analysis of a historically famous scam case, the Elf “Great Sniffer Hoax,” suggests that the victim is made gullible by the scammer through a range of seduction and protection maneuvers that prevent the victim from developing doubts and suspicions. An integrated framework of the production of gullibility in organizations is proposed in order to further our understanding of over-trust. We discuss how these insights might be extended, beyond the case of scams, to more ordinary contexts of business activities.La confiance est un ingrédient clé des activités commerciales. Les escroqueries sont des trahisons spectaculaires de confiance. Quand la victime est une puissante organisation qui ne semble pas vulnérable au premier abord, on peut penser que cette organisation a développé une confiance, ou confiance excessive. Dans cet article, nous prenons le dessus sur la confiance en tant que résultat de la production intentionnelle de crédulité par l’escroc. L’analyse d’un cas d’escroquerie historiquement célèbre, le «Grand renifleur canular», indique que la victime est rendue crédule par l'escroc à travers une série de manœuvres de séduction et de protection qui empêchent la victime de développer des doutes et des soupçons. Un cadre intégré de production de crédulité dans les organisations est proposé afin de faire avancer notre compréhension de la confiance excessive. Nous discutons de la façon dont ces informations pourraient être étendues, au-delà du cas des escroqueries, à des contextes d'activités commerciales

New insights into the robe of PML in tumour suppression

The PML gene is involved in the t(15;17) translocation of acute promyelocytic leukaemia (APL), which generates the oncogenic fusion protein PML (promyelocytic leukaemia protein)-retinoic acid receptor alpha. The PML protein localises to a sulmuclear structure called the PML nuclear domain (PML-ND), of which PML is the essential structural component. In APL, PML-NDs are disrupted, thus implicating these structures in the pathogenesis of this leukaemia. Unexpectedly, recent studies indicate that PML and the PML-ND play a tumour suppressive role in several different types of human neoplasms in addition to APL. Because of PML's extreme versatility and involvement in multiple cellular pathways, understanding the mechanisms underlying its function, and therefore role in tumour suppression, has been a challenging task. In this review, we attempt to critically appraise the more recent advances in this field and propose new avenues of investigation