Loyalty is a strategic tool to win in competitive and growth markets. It is important to identity other variables to predict and build loyalty. The author examined effects of value and social identity on loyalty. Using 253 students from one economics faculty as subjects, the results revealed that value and social identity are the very significant predictors of loyalty. Based on the regression analysis, it can be known that social identity is a better (...) predictor than value is .  . (shrink)

Cultural practices and artifacts, in their multiple and varied forms, are grounded on values, which are so deeply internalized by people that usually remain in the background, as taken-for-granted guides for interpretations and decisions in everyday life. Shaping individual moral horizons is at the core of socialization processes, through which older generations aim to disseminate their culturally established values to the new ones, making use of suggestions mainly implicit in daily experiences and interactions. Despite the strength of these processes of (...) cultural canalization, people find particular ways of positioning and interpreting social suggestions, drawing singular life trajectories and developing themselves as unique beings. This is truthful also in case of highly institutionalized settings like the military, in which people play in many forms an agentic role in their own development, being prepared to perform their professional duties in very complex and challenging activity contexts. This book is an invitation to dive deeper into human experiences lived in the military through qualitative and in-depth approaches, observing their affective qualities, the meanings they acquire and how they shape individuals' identities, fostering the development and try-out of specific ethical and moral values. The present work can contribute to research and professional practice in fields related to human development, social processes, education and people management in the military, as well as in other institutional contexts, especially by highlighting the affective, meaningful and moral-ethical dimensions of cultural experiences. (shrink)

Prior studies focused on consumer satisfaction and loyalty have brought undeniable benefits to luxury brand marketing but are not sufficient to ensure a long-lasting and profitable customer-brand relationship in the new setting. Brand identity provides a valuable exploration of this issue. However, the current measurement of brand identity is relatively simple, and there is no clear answer to what factors encourage brand identity development. This study attempts to address this gap by dividing the brand identity structure from a multi-dimensional (...) perspective, considering the role of luxury consumer perceived value and brand information quality in shaping the brand identity. Data was gathered by an online questionnaire survey from Chinese consumers who had purchased luxury jewelry, employing regression methods for analysis. The results show that four predictors representing luxury consumer perceived value all have a significant impact on the brand’s social identity and personal identity. In addition, brand information quality also positively moderates the relationship between the luxury consumer perceived value and the brand’s social identity. This study opens new horizons for considering dimensions other than the satisfaction or intention to use, expanding the applications of brand identity in a new context. The results contribute to increasing the awareness level of brand identity for luxury brand practitioners and offering them a new method of market strategy. (shrink)

The need to fill three gaps in ethics research in a business context sparked the current study. First, the distinction between the concepts of “ethical” and “legal” needs to be incorporated into theory building and empiricism. Second, a unifying theory is needed that can explain the variables that influence managers to emphasize ethics and legality in their judgments. Third, empirical evidence is needed to confirm the predictive power of the unifying theory, the discernable influence of personal and organizational variables, and (...) the importance of the issue to the managers in determining their emphasis on the ethical and legal values of their judgments. Focused on these needs, the current research combines social identity theory with empirical findings from business ethics research. This theory building initiative framed hypothesis-driven research to investigate the influences on managers’ emphasis on ethical and legal values in making business judgments. An empirical research study was conducted involving 252 practicing managers who judged 12 newsworthy business events. Data was collected on the managers’ individual factors, on the groups that influence their judgments, and on the importance that the managers place on ethics and legality in judging the 12 scenarios. The research findings contribute to theory development (1) By successfully utilizing a blended extension of social identity and issue-contingent theories to understand managers’ judgments, and (2) By providing evidence on the relationships between the perceived importance of an issue and the emphases managers place on ethical and legal values in their judgments. The analysis of the data was extended to provide insights on the needs of employers to tailor management training on legal and ethical decision-making. The participating managers were clustered according to their emphases on Ethical Importance and Legal Importance in judging business situations. Analysis of Variance was then combined with Scheffé Multiple Comparison Tests to assess whether the factors derived from a blended extension of social identity and issue-contingent theories were significantly different across the clusters. The product of this analysis is unique sets of attributes that describe each cluster of managers, and provide an empirical basis for determining training priorities. Finally, the carefully constructed and thoroughly tested 12 research scenarios that form the core of the survey instrument enable their redeployment in subsequent research and their use by practicing executives who wish to compare data provided by their managers to results from the study participants. (shrink)

A single evolved psychological mechanism, social identity, may help explain the development of salient sex differences in aggression. Bearing children automatically provides a basis for positive social identity for females. Masculine identity is more problematic, especially where the range of possible cultural roles is small. Ethnohistorical data provides insight into the overlap between masculine values and warrior values.

In The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt claims that liberals have a narrower moral outlook than conservatives—they are concerned with fairness and relief of suffering, which Haidt sees as individualistic values, while conservatives care about authority and loyalty too, values concerned with holding society together. I question Haidt’s methodology, which does not permit liberals to express concerns with social bonds that do not fit within an ‘authority’ or ‘loyalty’ framework and discounts people who support liberal positions but do (...) not self-ascribe as liberals. I also argue that of the six ‘moral foundations’, fairness and relief of suffering are more fundamental values than authority and loyalty, which are virtues only if their objects are worthy. Moral education programs must also encourage students to recognize some values as more urgent than others, and permit inquiry into the actual reasons for political behavior other than professed value commitments. (shrink)

Moral foundations theory has provided an account of the moral values that underscore different cultural and political ideologies, and these moral values of harm, fairness, loyalty, authority, and purity can help to explain differences in political and cultural ideologies; however, the extent to which moral foundations relate to strong social ideologies, intergroup processes and threat perceptions is still underdeveloped. To explore this relationship, we conducted two studies. In Study 1, we considered how the moral foundations predicted strong (...) class='Hi'>social ideologies such as authoritarianism and social dominance orientation as well as attitudes toward immigrants. Here, we demonstrated that more endorsement of individualizing moral foundations was related to less negative intergroup attitudes, which was mediated by SDO, and that more endorsement of binding moral foundations was related to more negative attitudes, which was mediated by RWA. Crucially, further analyses also suggested the importance of threat perceptions as an underlying explanatory variable. Study 2 replicated these findings and extended them by measuring attitudes toward a different group reflecting an ethnic minority in the United States, and by testing the ordering of variables while also replicating and confirming the threat effects. These studies have important implications for using MFT to understand strong ideologies, intergroup relations, and threat perceptions. (shrink)

We examine the extent to which multiple social identities are associated with enhanced health and well-being in retirement because they provide a basis for giving and receiving social support. Results from a cross-sectional study show that retirees ( N = 171) who had multiple social identities following (but not prior to) retirement report being (a) more satisfied with retirement, (b) in better health, and (c) more satisfied with life in general. Furthermore, mediation analyses revealed an indirect path (...) from multiple social identities to greater satisfaction with retirement and better health through greater provision, but not receipt, of social support to others. These findings are the first to point to the value of multiple group membership post-retirement as a basis for increased opportunities to give meaningful support to others. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications for the management of multiple identities in the process of significant life transitions such as retirement. (shrink)

The prosperous development of online education in the digital age harvested countless consumers. Education for sustainable development is an important proposition for both academic community and practitioner, however, current little studies have shed light on Sustainable Consumption Behavior in online education industry. The Consumer Value Theory and Social Identity Theory as theoretical basis linked with the field of Sustainable Consumption Behavior. This study is to further investigate the role of consumer value and social identity in the relation to (...) Sustainable Consumption Behavior. Putting forward suggestions from this study to online education providers toward sustainable development.MethodData on the impact of personal value on SCBOEI through a survey method with 552 valid students as respondents are collected from higher education institutions in China. A structural equation modeling approach is employed in this study for data analysis.ResultsThe result shows at the level of excellent model fit as indicated by all indicators: X2/DF = 1.053. The results showed that, through social identity, functional value, emotional value, and social value influence the variance of SCBOEI. The finding reveals that both theories can explain the SCBOEI of higher education students by showing that functional, social, and emotional values as well as social identity are powerful predictors of the Sustainable Consumption Behavior. The proposed model highlights the mediating role of social identity between SCBOEI and the three values. The functional, emotional, and social values influence SCBOEI directly and through social identity.ImplicationsThe study significantly contributes to market promotion, college students, education planning, and teaching. Online education market personnel and college students can better understand the significance of sustainable development aspect of online education. Teaching and learning activities help lead students to SCBOEI by shaping their values and identities while paying more attention to quality education, knowledge sharing, and social equality. (shrink)

Transmodern ethics establishes moral norms on liberal, pluralist and pragmatic principles. We see a comeback of the negation morals, however not of ontology-anchored morals, as is the case of the God who picks favourites or of the jealous God paradigm, and not even of morals anchored in a contractualist perspective, as is the case in the modern period. The preferred focus is on the value of positivism, of cooperation as a source of efficiency, of personal enrichment, be it cultural, spiritual, (...) or moral, derived from the access to alterity. Tolerance as an ethical value is legitimised by a new, utilitarian humanism. The ethical construction of identity revolves around the value of loyalty to a tradition, a dogma, a mentality, and by extension to any coherent system liable to generate a sense of belonging. Postindustrial ethics uses for instance the value of loyalty as a strategy in marketing, organisational development, political propaganda etc. The policies used in order to increase the loyalty of a shop's customers, the employee's loyalty for the company she works for, the supporter's loyalty to his team, are the translation in layman terms of the loyalty ethics that in spiritual terms was one of the foundations of orthodoxy as loyalty to the tradition of the holy fathers. The values of equality, liberty and fraternity have been more than that, as they have laid the foundations of the modern society. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The principle of nationality is widely believed to be philosophically disreputable and politically reactionary. As defined here, it embraces three propositions: national identities are properly part of personal identities; they ground circumscribed obligations to fellow‐nationals; and they justify claims to political self‐determination. To have a national identity is to think of oneself as belonging to a community constituted by mutual belief, extended in history, active in character, connected to a particular territory, and marked off from others by its members’distinct (...) traits. Such identities are inevitably partly mythical in nature, yet they answer a pressing modern need, the maintenance of solidarity in large, anonymous societies. They are allied to no particular political programme. They do not require the suppression of minority cultures within the political community. They do not justify a secessionist free‐for‐all. Nor finally does recognition of the role of sentiments in constituting national communities commit us to a subjectivist view of social obligations. Philosophers should recognise the value of these loyalties even if they cannot be rationally grounded in a strong sense. [1]. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rhetoric, Narrative, and the Lifeworld: The Construction of Collective IdentityAlan G. GrossAt the beginning of King Lear, at the point of ceding his throne to his three daughters, Lear asks each for a public acknowledgment of her love. Goneril and Regan flatter their father with effusive declarations, but Lear’s youngest, and his favorite, Cordelia, refuses to do so:I love your Majesty According to my bond; no more or less...................... (...) Good my lord, You have begot me, bred me, lov’d me; I Return those duties back as are right fit, Obey you, love you, and most honour you. Why have my sisters husbands, if they say They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed, That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry Half my love with him, half my care and duty. Sure I shall never marry like my sisters, To love my father all.(1936, 1.1.94–107) [End Page 118]Furious, Lear disinherits his daughter.Cordelia’s speech is remarkable only in its articulation of what Lear should have known; its dramatic impact is a consequence of Lear’s reaction to his daughter’s argument for divided loyalty that is based on a string of commonplaces that are part of the lifeworld that Lear and his daughter—and every other person in the play—inhabit. Any part of this lifeworld may be thematized, of course; it may be brought out into the open as a topic of discussion. That is what Cordelia does; under duress, she shifts from what Jürgen Habermas calls communicative action to a level he calls discourse, a level that reveals the relationship between the personal and the social as well as their underlying cultural presuppositions. Because Lear refuses to grasp the obvious, the narrative progress of the play is temporarily interrupted and permanently veers off course. Although on occasion we can thematize aspects of our lifeworld, the lifeworld as a whole cannot be subject to scrutiny; it is the totality of certainties, skills, practices, and interpretative frames that we take for granted as we each find our way in the everyday worlds that form the changing horizons of our experience. I take it for granted that too many cooks spoil the broth; telephoning is a skill I do not puzzle over; waiting patiently in line is a social behavior I practice without thinking; with no special effort, I interpret the intimacy of a couple’s relationship by the way they publicly behave toward each other.The lifeworld, a concept initiated by Edmund Husserl and elaborated by Alfred Schütz, Martin Heidegger, and Jürgen Habermas, has been largely neglected by rhetorical theorists and critics. It is the purpose of this paper to show that remedying this neglect opens up fruitful avenues of critical practice and theory. I proceed, first, by defining the lifeworld. Next, I shift perspectives: I analyze how collectivities make sense of their lives by telling stories about themselves grounded in their lifeworld values. It is in the lifeworld’s role in storytelling that, I claim, Aristotle’s Rhetoric becomes an important part of the picture. This is because the Rhetoric is, at bottom, a theory of the way lifeworld values enter into the public sphere. This characterization of the Rhetoric permits us to reconcile two important instantiations of the lifeworld, Habermas’s and Aristotle’s, a reconciliation in which communicative action becomes a special case of rhetorical interaction. Finally, from the perspective of the lifeworld, I reflect on the significance of an exemplary case of the construction of collective identity, the Selma march. [End Page 119]Defining the LifeworldEdmund Husserl’s The Crisis of the European Sciences contains the first explicit philosophical analysis of the lifeworld as “the world that is constantly pregiven, valid constantly and in advance as existing.... Every end presupposes it; even the universal end of knowing it in scientific truth presupposes it, and in advance” (1970, 382). Because the lifeworld is presupposed in everyday communication, it can be entered only by disciplined reflection: “Contemplation is privileged to the extent that it reveals the structures of the world and has them as theme” (1973, 65). Although the lifeworld... (shrink)

Loyalty is a much-discussed topic among business ethicists, but this discussion seems to have issued in very few clear conclusions. This article builds on the existing literature on the subject and attempts to ground a definite conclusion on a limited topic: whether, and under what conditions, it makes sense for an employee to offer loyalty to his employer. The main ways in which loyalty to one’s employer can contribute to human flourishing are that it makes the employee (...) more trustworthy and therefore more valuable as an employee; makes it easier to form authentic relationships in other areas of the employee’s life; expands the employee’s field of interests and gives her or him a richer identity; provides greater motivation for the employee’s work; makes it possible to have a greater unity in the employee’s life; improves the performance of the organization for which the employee works; contributes to the protection of valuable social institutions; and, in so far as many employees share an attitude of loyalty towards the organization which employs them, it becomes possible for this organization to become a true community. Last, but not the least, loyal relationships have an inherent value. The article also reviews the main arguments that have been offered against employee loyalty and concludes that none of them offers a reason why it would be inappropriate in all cases for an employee to be loyal to her or his employer. The force of these arguments depends on the specific attributes of the organization for which the employee works. The main conclusion of the article is that while being a loyal employee involves risk, it has the potential to contribute significantly to the employee’s fulfilment. The main challenge for employees is to identify employers who are worthy of being loyal to. (shrink)

This study investigated how the social identities assumed by individuals as part of their professional roles influence the nature and use of a range of rationalizations for their corruption or the corrupt acts of others. Thirty senior Indonesian public servants were interviewed about the causes and factors that perpetuated corruption during the Suharto era, and how they rationalized corrupt behavior within the role of being a civil servant. Findings revealed that corruption was routine and embedded in the daily activities (...) and administrative structures of Indonesian public servants. Rationalizing ideologies that supported corruption included a denial of responsibility, social weighting and an appeal to higher loyalties. Central to these rationalizations were explanations around the low levels of civil service salaries, poor accountability, and corrupt leadership at senior levels of the government. However, the expression of these rationalizations varied across three social or role identities of the Indonesian civil servant: the professional civil servant, the collegial civil servant, and the corrupt civil servant. The implications of these findings for interventions in organizations in developing countries are discussed. (shrink)

Although there are studies verifying that strategic entrepreneurship is positively related to the risk resistance and performance of enterprises, it is unclear how enterprises can implement effective strategic entrepreneurial activities in dynamic situations. This research aims to explore why and how the entrepreneur’s social identity influences and drives firm’s strategic entrepreneurial activities. In this study, it applied case study method to interview a technology-based family firms that have effectively conducted strategic entrepreneurial activities to meet challenges, and uses grounded theory (...) for data analysis. The research finds that the social identity of entrepreneurs actively promotes the strategic entrepreneurial activities of enterprises; sustainable leadership mediates the relationship between social identity and strategic entrepreneurship; at different stages of enterprise development, entrepreneurs dynamically adjust their social identity types to enhance sustainable leadership; through the focus and extension of technological advantages, sustainable leadership ensures that enterprises can promote the implementation of strategic entrepreneurial behavior by disintegrating and integrating the value chain. This study explores the strategic entrepreneurship path of family firms and also provides new insights for future research on the strategic entrepreneurship and sustainable growth of such firms. (shrink)

Introduction. Regardless of the perturbations and transformations of the external, a person realizes himself and presents himself to others in the direction of the so-called subjectivity. The topic of subjectivity, including the social identity of the subject, is widely represented in modern academic discourses. However, already in the first decade of the XXI century in the context of social and humanitarian reflections on the subject, the idea of the so-called digital subject was raised. In comparison with its biosociocultural (...) counterpart, the digital subject occupies a specific position, a position between the real world of physical objects and the information space. Therefore, reflections on the social identity of a modern person are brought into the digital space, into those of its variants where the digital subject “dwells” and creates narratives about himself. The definitions of “social identity” and “digital subject” proposed in the article will be taken as basic. The purpose of the article is to identify and analyze the key variants of social identity that are presented today in the Internet. Methods. The study is based on general scientific methods, analysis and synthesis, induction, deduction, abstraction. The analysis of variants of social identity in the Internet was carried out primarily on the basis of content analysis, the method of interpretation and a systematic approach. Scientific novelty of the study. The article presents options for designing social identity in the digital space, e-mail and instant messengers, contextual advertising, social networks; the specifics of designing in each of the named options are analyzed. Results. The exposition of options for designing social identity on digital material opens up a spectrum of different forms of being a subject in the Internet. To the greatest extent, these forms are associated with the communicative nature of a person. Increasingly, the social subject is turning to digital communication options, which include instant messengers, social networks and e-mail. It seems that in the 21st century, when the Internet has its own specific signs, including emoji, the so-called literacy qualification, the ability to communicate via the Internet, is available to anyone. At the same time, the real subject not only leaves its unique imprint on the network; the information he receives from the Internet leaves its mark on his decisions, in a series of diverse elections, from a grocery store to a political leader. Conclusion. In modern academic reflections on the specifics of human existence in the Internet, the idea of a digital subject has taken shape. In the discourses of domestic and foreign researchers, the digital subject is usually represented as a prefabricated construct. It has a connection with the real subject and social groups, but its origin is ideological. According to its purpose, it carries some idea that inclines the real subject to make just such a decision, not another. Hence, digital research acquires epistemological value, more precisely, the search and analysis of options through which a person realizes his identity in the network. (shrink)

Beginning with a narrative about social reactions to my own temporary disfigurement, I note that an individual’s disfigurement can affect others by making them feel unsettled and unsafe. The contemporary approach to disfigurement, exemplified in the practice of cosmetic surgery, focuses on changing the disfigured individual. In contrast, ancient priestly rituals in Israelite culture focus on reintegrating the individual into the community. I compare and contrast the two approaches, noting the value of reintegration rituals, but also recognizing their insufficiency (...) in several contemporary situations. (shrink)

AbstractAdvances in precision agriculture, driven by big data technologies and machine learning algorithms can transform agriculture by enhancing crop and livestock productivity and supporting faster and more accurate on and off-farm decision making. However, little is known about how PA can influence farmers’ sense of self, their skills and competencies, and the meanings that farmers ascribe to farming. This study is animated by scholarly commitment to social identity research, and draws from socio-cyber-physical systems research, domestication theory, and activity theory. (...) This conceptualization of PA within these theoretical perspectives helps to render visible how big agricultural data and machine learning algorithms can affect meaning, doing, and being for US farmers. Through analysis of data from six focus group discussions and follow-up surveys with stakeholders across the PA value chain, this paper shows that PA tools can necessitate farmers to learn and develop new competencies such as flying drones and interpreting yield maps. At the same time, PA can shape new meaning of farm work and new expectation about a ‘good farmer’, changing what it means to be a ‘successful’ farmer from someone who is not only a data observer or data gatherer but also validators of PA models by using their local knowledge of agronomic and environmental phenomenon. We conclude that PA can alter social expectations about farming by reorienting the role of farmers. Policymakers and agriculture extension and outreach programmers can develop more socially relevant PA knowledge and innovation if they can attend to both new and traditional ‘good farmer’ identities. (shrink)

This article is an exercise in the transposition of certain approaches in analytic philosophy to issues concerning business value and identity in business. We examine the notion of business value and several accounts of value that have been offered in the literature. Luciano Floridi’s formal logical account of a business is introduced and applied as a first step towards a logical framework of business value. Peter Peverelli has claimed that Chinese business identity is accounted for in terms of competitors, administration (...) levels, hierarchical structures, and those government agencies with jurisdiction over enterprises (viz. regulators). It is argued that this quadripartite method of identification cannot be fully generalized to all businesses in any geographical location since distinct businesses can exist which have the same competitors, administration levels, hierarchical structures, and governed by the same government agencies. In such a case the distinguishing features of the businesses are the job descriptions or duties of the employees. Hence job descriptions or duties play an important role in the identification of businesses. It turns out that the identification of business according to the job descriptions of employees has less in common with Peverelli's approach and more in common with Bang, Cleemann, and Drucker's notion of business value understood in terms of the technical and the social "as processes and as outputs of production”. (shrink)

Discussions of diversity tend to paint a mixed picture of the practical and epistemic value of diversity. While there are expansive and detailed accounts of the value of cognitive diversity, explorations of identity diversity typically focus on its value as a source or cause of cognitive diversity. The resulting picture on which identity diversity only possesses a derivative practical and epistemic value is unsatisfactory and fails to account for some of its central epistemic benefits. In response, I propose that collective (...) virtue epistemology offers theoretical models that can further our understanding of the benefits of diversity. And I offer a case study to illustrate how this approach could be used to explore the logic of the identity diversity bonus. (shrink)

Based on the assumption that consumers will reward firms for their support of social programs, many organizations have adopted corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices. Drawing on social identity theory, a model of influence of CSR on loyalty is developed and tested using a sample of real consumers. Results demonstrate that CSR initiatives are linked to stronger loyalty both because the consumer develops a more positive company evaluation, and because one identifies more strongly with the company. (...) Moreover, identity salience is shown to play a crucial role in the influence of CSR initiatives on consumer loyalty when this influence occurs through consumer-company identification. A strong identifier is not necessarily in a constant state of salience, but activating identity salience of a particular consumer social identity (a company) will affect consumer reactions to product stimuli, increasing consumer loyalty. (shrink)

Does the way we think about our personal self-complexity affect how we accept others? Researchers have offered various conceptualizations of how individuals manage their complex identities, while others have identified links between cognitive complexity and acceptance of outgroups. This paper integrates the two bodies of work by positing a route by which personal identity conflicts may lead to cognitive and cultural pluralism. For individuals committed to multiple identities perceived as conflicting, the intra-psychic experience of value conflicts may lead to a (...) recognition of self-complexity, which is then transposed from the personal domain to the social one and expressed as a pluralistic attitude towards others. This argument find support in a study of Israeli Jewish Orthodox psychoanalytic therapists who belong to what they perceive as non-pluralistic religious groups, yet express value pluralism, which they attribute to their complex identities. One of the educational implications of this study is that facilitating engagement with internal complexity, multiple identities and personal value conflicts may promote pluralistic thinking for individuals in religious societies. (shrink)

In this essay, I develop the concept of episodic value, which describes a form of value connected to a particular object or individual expressed and delivered through a narrative. Narrative can bestow special kinds of value on objects, as exemplified by auction articles or museum collections. To clarify the nature of episodic value, I show how the notion of episodic value fundamentally differs from the traditional axiological picture. I extend my discussion of episodic value to argue that the notion of (...) episodic value readily incorporates the role of narratives into the construction of identity in personal and social contexts. My main contentions are twofold. First, events or experiences from our personal narratives are episodically valuable insofar as they contribute to shaping our narrative identities. Second, when engaged in a collective action, we write a joint narrative with other participants that confers special meanings on the actions of each participant. (shrink)

The main goal of this paper is to prove the thesis that the attempts to transpose the cultural differentiation into the social and economical universalism and globalism must lead to repressive psychosocial totalitarianism on a large scale. Modern human sciences and politics tend to classify the individual in respect to his adaptive efficiency in interactive relation with programmed environment and to qualify him according to given imposed criteria of social functionalism. The correctly socialized individual is expected to be (...) an exchangeable functional unit assessed according to its usefulness in performing a set of particular tasks, despite his cultural background being considered as a second-rate factor, which may affect the social acceptance and correctness of his behavior. However, no community is an exact representation of society because it is held together not by functions but by the values aswell as the forms of their actualization and implementation into the common organization and their way of life. The community is not a contract upon which society is based. The identity of the individual must not be removed from the culture of the community in which he lives and from its constitutive values. It is also rooted in the past and history of striving for self-determination and cultural as well as personal subjectivity. Without these significant cultural and historical components the individual identity is nothing but an operational, programmable algorithm of functional living unit assigned to perform short-term utilitarian tasks. This approach stands in contradiction to the Aristotelian concept of wellbeing and happiness considered as striving for the common good of spiritual values by individuals as well as by human communities. Any extensive and effective civilization neglecting the higher values of moral, symbolic and religious sense of the individual, must face totalitarianism or extinction. (shrink)

The article deals with the mythological creativity of G.R.R. Tolkien as a socio-cultural phenomenon associated with the values of European culture. The author proceeds from the hypothesis that the myth is the embodiment of social identity, this function it retains after the loss of its ideological functions. The revival of literary mythology in the XIX-XX centuries there is an attempt to update this feature of the myth. The success of the literary myth is due to the fact that he (...) was able to absorb and Express the basic values of society. Tolkien’s work is one of the successful examples of the literary embodiment of socially significant values, combining both traditional values and value formations characteristic of the modern era. The article shows that Tolkien’s work has organically absorbed the pagan basis, the Christian attitude, and the values characteristic of the XX century. Pagan heroic principle, Christian mercy, the idea of freedom, democracy-all this is organically intertwined in the works of Tolkien, their success is due to the harmony of the whole range of social attitudes represented in the European consciousness of the mid XX century. Currently, the decline in interest in Tolkien is a reflection of the change of value preferences of European culture. (shrink)

With the advent of the 21st century, the way characters and identities interact under the influence of dominant powers has brought a new world into existence, a world dubbed by Manuel Castells as the ‘Fourth World’. Within the Castellsian theoretical matrix of the Fourth World and politics of identity, the present study seeks to investigate the true nature of the futuristic world Margaret Atwood has created in the MaddAddam trilogy. The trilogy literarily reflects a global crisis that ultimately leads to (...) dystopia and the destruction of the human race: what remains of humanity is a small group of survivors who must struggle to conserve what remains of humanity. Identity as the main determining factor in the Fourth World represents personal and public privileges, characteristics, and means of differentiating oneself from others. The Fourth World and its political peculiarities reflect contemporary powers, i.e. the power of the network society, network communication and media. Humankind, in this wheel, is just a toy in the hands of an intelligence broker. What exactly happens to human and semi-human characters in Atwood’s trilogy is the result of Fourth World structures and values, and how they shape and reconstruct identities to lead the world toward fabricated truths and values, and terminate in dystopia. (shrink)

Goffman’s (1959) dramaturgical identity theory requires modification when theorising about presentations of self on social media. This chapter contributes to these efforts, refining a conception of digital identities by differentiating them from ‘corporatised identities’. Armed with this new distinction, I ultimately argue that social media platforms’ production of corporatised identities undermines their users’ autonomy and digital well-being. This follows from the disentanglement of several commonly conflated concepts. Firstly, I distinguish two kinds of presentation of self that I collectively (...) refer to as ‘expressions of digital identity’. These digital performances (boyd 2007) and digital artefacts (Hogan 2010) are distinct, but often confused. Secondly, I contend this confusion results in the subsequent conflation of corporatised identities – poor approximations of actual digital identities, inferred and extrapolated by algorithms from individuals’ expressions of digital identity – with digital identities proper. Finally, and to demonstrate the normative implications of these clarifications, I utilise MacKenzie’s (2014, 2019) interpretation of relational autonomy to propose that designing social media sites around the production of corporatised identities, at the expense of encouraging genuine performances of digital identities, has undermined multiple dimensions of this vital liberal value. In particular, the pluralistic range of authentic preferences that should structure flourishing human lives are being flattened and replaced by commercial, consumerist preferences. For these reasons, amongst others, I contend that digital identities should once again come to drive individuals’ actions on social media sites. Only upon doing so can individuals’ autonomy, and control over their digital identities, be rendered compatible with social media. (shrink)

The new narcissist is haunted not by guilt but by anxiety. He seeks not to inflict his own certainties on others but to find a meaning in life. Liberated from the superstitions of the past, he doubts even the reality of his own existence. Superficially relaxed and tolerant, he finds little use for dogmas of racial and ethnic purity but at the same time forfeits the security of group loyalties and regards everyone as a rival for the favors conferred by (...) a paternalistic state. His sexual attitudes are permissive rather than puritanical, even though his emancipation from ancient taboos brings him no sexual peace. Fiercely competitive in his demand for approval and acclaim, he distrusts competition because he associates it unconsciously with an unbridled urge to destroy. Hence he repudiates the competitive ideologies that flourished at an earlier stage of capitalist development and distrusts even their limited expression in sports and games. He extols cooperation and teamwork while harboring deeply antisocial impulses. He praises respect for rules and regulations in the secret belief that they do not apply to himself. Acquisitive in the sense that his cravings have no limits, he does not accumulate goods and provisions against the future, in the manner of the acquisitive individualist of nineteenth-century political economy, but demands immediate gratification and lives in a state of restless, perpetually unsatisfied desire. (shrink)

Social conflicts of ever widening scope have in recent years emphasized the importance of the problem of the relation of facts and values. This problem has received increasing attention from researchers and theorists in both the physical and social sciences. A number of interesting but by no means compatible solutions have been proposed.Perhaps the simplest and most striking is the position of Carnap, Russell, and others, that value sentences, such as “A ought not to kill B” or “Killing (...) is evil” are merely commands or expressions of wish and, as such, are emotional ejaculations or expletives but not statements which have any theoretical sense or enter into science. On this view the problem of the relation of fact and value statements is meaningless, or at least is not worth considering further. (shrink)

Education fundamentally focuses on 'individuals', whose human value is rooted in the expression of 'self-identity'. This process is influenced by their social rank and linguistic culture, and within varied discourses and ideological communities, different 'self-identity values' emerge. This applies to all individuals, whether they are citizens or women, and encompasses complex social metaphysical questions. For instance, how do we define social identities such as poverty, disability, privilege, or femininity? 'Intuition' and 'common sense' often fail in such definitions, (...) especially in recognizing exceptions like gender identification, which challenges the distinctions between biological sex and gender identity. The paper analyzes 'Social Historical Structuralism' and ' Performative Theory' to see if they address the challenges of 'Essentialism'. It assesses both pluralism and monism and the autonomy of the 'true self' in educational philosophy's core concepts, grounded in the philosophy of self-identity. This study starts from female community perspectives, addressing women's disadvantaged status in social and linguistic structures and the impact of individualism on gender mainstreaming. This paper concludes by re-evaluating monistic approaches and considering the equitable recognition of community members' autonomy, underscoring the importance of self-identity in educational philosophy amidst the growing influence of identity politics in Western education. -/- Keywords: Self-Identity and Educational Philosophy, Social Metaphysics, Class and Identity, Ideology and Autonomy . (shrink)

I first argue that there is no problem about how to justify partialities (though there is a difficulty in justifying impartialities). Then I consider the role of consent in justifying rights and duties, using voluntary associations as a case in which consent has an important but limited role in doing so, a role determined and circumscribed by evaluative considerations. The values explain why consent can bind and bind one to act as one does not wish to do and even as (...) one judges to be ill advised. That opens the way to an explanation of how value considerations relate to non-voluntary membership in socially constituted groups, generating rights and duties that to a considerable extent are independent of the individual’s aims and preferences. -/- . (shrink)

In this conceptual paper, we draw on social identity theory as a means to bridge individuals’ memberships in social groups with value creation in stakeholder networks defined by a socio-economic issue. To address recent calls for microfoundations of stakeholder theory, we introduce a reconceptualization of stakeholders as social groups to examine how value is defined and interpreted in intergroup processes embedded in an issue-based stakeholder network. We establish a theoretical model of value creation that links individuals’ identification (...) with stakeholder groups to intergroup trust, co-operation, and value creation. Specifically, we argue that the salience of preexisting social identities causes harmful tensions in stakeholder relationships that negatively impact value creation. We then propose that the development of a more inclusive stakeholder identity overcomes these negative intergroup consequences in multistakeholder settings. We discuss the impact on value creation of four stakeholder identity representations based on the salience of specific and superordinate stakeholder groups. The paper concludes with implications of our theoretical model for both research and practice related to value creation in issue-based stakeholder networks. (shrink)

This second companion volume on engineering studies considers engineering practice including contextual analyses of engineering identity, epistemologies and values. Key overlapping questions examine such issues as an engineering identity, engineering self-understandings enacted in the professional world, distinctive characters of engineering knowledge and how engineering science and engineering design interact in practice. -/- Authors bring with them perspectives from their institutional homes in Europe, North America, Australia\ and Asia. The volume includes 24 contributions by more than 30 authors from engineering, the (...) social sciences and the humanities. Additional issues the chapters scrutinize include prominent norms of engineering, how they interact with the values of efficiency or environmental sustainability. A concluding set of articles considers the meaning of context more generally by asking if engineers create their own contexts or are they created by contexts. -/- Taken as a whole, this collection of original scholarly work is unique in its broad, multidisciplinary consideration of the changing character of engineering practice. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Through an interdisciplinary literature review, this propositional paper explores the emergence and unfolding of professionals’ moral identity conflicts involving important but contrasting values. Building on the exemplary case of physicians’ professional-religious dilemmas in End-of-Life circumstances, we develop a multilevel model of professional-personal identity conflict dynamics in ethically-charged situations in which we integrate individual-level mechanisms with organizational-level boundary conditions, namely peer social support and ethical climate, in relation to psychological well-being. Our conceptual model contributes to the ethics, identity and (...) human behavior literature by advancing suggestions of how professionals may prevent or/and resolve moral conflicts concerning also other identities and contexts. (shrink)

The following volume is published on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the establishment of the Institute for Axiological Research in Vienna – the first European Institute for the advanced philosophical and interdisciplinary study of values – and is divided in two parts. The first one treats specific problems of women's struggle for rights, freedoms, and recognition, and moves successively to thematically broader methodological and hermeneutical approaches of the phenomena of exclusion and the possibilities of social integration, which (...) are discussed in the second part. Although the defended positions of the essays in the present volume are different from those of Habermas, they should be conceived in relation to the main issues of what he calls the "the postmetaphysical age." Hence, the authors ask such core axiological questions as: How do we think today of community, praxis and values in front of the old and new problems of injustice, oppression and exclusion? How should we consider personal and group identity in the contexts of social and cultural diversity, of world view pluralism and incommensurable lifeworlds, lifestyles and values? Moreover, what is the meaning of the key concept of "European values," can it offer a real basis for integration or does it serve rather as a new form of "dictatorship" and exclusion of otherness? (shrink)

_A rediscovery of patriotism as a virtue in line with the core values of democracy in an extremist age__ “Like you perhaps, I still regard myself as an extremely patriotic person. Which is why I so admired [this book].... __It explained my emotion to me, as it might yours to you." —David Brooks, _New York Times___ “Smith superbly illuminates the distinctiveness of the American idea of patriotism and reminds us of how important patriotism is, and how essential to making America (...) better.”—Leslie Lenkowsky, _Wall Street Journal__ The concept of patriotism has fallen on hard times. What was once a value that united Americans has become so politicized by both the left and the right that it threatens to rip apart the social fabric. On the right, patriotism has become synonymous with nationalism and an “us versus them” worldview, while on the left it is seen as an impediment to acknowledging important ethnic, religious, or racial identities and a threat to cosmopolitan globalism. Steven B. Smith reclaims patriotism from these extremist positions and advocates for a patriotism that is broad enough to balance loyalty to country with other loyalties. Describing how it is a matter of both the head and the heart, Smith shows how patriotism can bring the country together around the highest ideals of equality and is a central and ennobling disposition that democratic societies cannot afford to do without. (shrink)

This study explores the relevance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as an element of the corporate identity of Spanish financial institutions. Specifically, it aims to analyze the CSR actions developed by financial entities through the analysis of all the available information disclosed in their websites. A content analysis applied to 82 banking institutions, followed by different quantitative analyses, reveals the multidimensionality of CSR. Findings show that, while the number of entities institutionalizing CSR values as core elements of their identities (...) is still reduced, most organizations disclose CSR information to construct communicated identities and legitimate behaviours. Besides, these dimensions are classified depending on the stakeholder the action is aimed to, and that entities favour the generation of distinctive identities through the implementation and communication of more visible CSR actions like those involving their customers or the community. In any case, results indicate that organizations with certain characteristics are more likely to construct distinctive identities through CSR activities and to establish ethical and social values within their corporate statements and cultures. (shrink)

Values research generally confirms that personally held values influence an individual's decision processes and behavior. Yet this academic research often is limited to the individual or organizational level of analysis. This study utilizes social identity and personal values theories to search for the presence of superordinate identities emerging at the meso level from six different industries. The six selected industries—accounting, banking, construction, education, energy, and manufacturing—represent a mix of highly respected and disrespected industries, as well as industries that have (...) an ethical professional association and those that do not. Results provide evidence of meso‐level superordinate identities, distinguishing managers' personal value orientations from a generalized population, and across the six selected industries. Implications emanating from this research for the human resource practitioners and academic scholars are discussed. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between truth and loyalty as it pertains to epistemic issues within contemporary Western politics. One now familiar concern is how an increasing number of people determine their beliefs according to what demonstrating loyalty to their group requires instead of the facts of an independent and objective reality, as a proper concern for truthfulness demands. Whereas “they” base their beliefs on what is required to demonstrate loyalty to their group, “our” beliefs are justified (...) by facts and evidence. Such contrasts pit loyalty and truth as necessarily antagonistic. This paper gives us further reason for thinking that putting loyalty against truthfulness at some very general or conceptual level is deeply misguided. More significantly, it seeks to show that the more helpful contrast to make is between those who are loyal to identities that value truthfulness in such a way that there are no other parts of that identity which are not revisable if they come into conflict with truth, and those who are loyal to identities that subordinate truth to other ends or goals. Acknowledging this allows us to better appreciate various aspects of how the relationship between truth and loyalty is playing out in contemporary politics. Chief among these is how our own commitment to truthfulness is itself embedded in a particular identity, an identity that we not only often fail to acknowledge as such but which necessitates us thinking harder about the ways in which it might itself sustain the dynamics of conflict and contestation, antagonizing those who do not share it and driving them farther away from the truthfulness we extol. (shrink)

SCOTT A and WILSON L. Nursing Inquiry 2011; 18: 40–49 Valued identities and deficit identities: Wellness Recovery Action Planning and self-management in mental healthWellness Recovery Action Planning (WRAP) is a self-management programme for people with mental illnesses developed by a mental health consumer, and rooted in the values of the ‘recovery’ movement. The WRAP is noteworthy for its construction of a health identity which is individualised, responsibilised, and grounded in an ‘at risk’ subjectivity; success with this programme requires development of (...) an intensely focused health lifestyle. We draw on Bourdieu and Giddens to argue that what is being developed is a ‘reflexive health habitus’, which is not equally accessible to all social groups, and is in tension with WRAP’s recovery-orientated aims. However, it is understandable that such a programme developed in mental health, because people with mental illness are highly stigmatised as ‘a risk’ and viewed as in need of risk management. By developing their own form of self-monitoring ‘at risk’ identity, mental health consumers are, paradoxically, able to construct themselves as ideal health citizens and no longer a risk, thus re-entering the moral community. We conclude by suggesting some changes to WRAP practice. (shrink)

Values are numerous, interrelated and hard to discern in professional practice. This article reports on key findings from research into locating professional values within health social work practice in Aotearoa New Zealand. The research explores how 15 health social workers experience and negotiate value demands when working with newborn infants. A staged methodology underpinned by constructivist grounded theory was utilised to generate theoretical knowledge through two phases of semi-structured individual interviews. The research firmly located health social workers (...) practice in the middle ground of a complex, tension-ridden practice environment with health social workers courageously striving to balance competing requirements. Within a health model influenced by neoliberal policy, key tensions related to challenges faced due to professionals oversimplifying social circumstances in risk-laden situations. This resulted in issues of judgements, bias and racism being a central concern for the participants’ social work practice. Despite these tensions, the place of social justice as a primary organising value was affirmed by the research. A stronger focus on the profession’s values would strengthen the collective voice of health social workers and their identity, in order to better address the systemic drivers of health inequities. (shrink)

Using a historical and biographical perspective, this paper examines the structural elements and cultural signs of contemporary social events and problems in Turkey in order to understand their basic features. Hermeneutics is used in order to understand contemporary Turkey by way of its historical background and prominent biographies. Two basic epic texts were interpreted using Gadamarian hermeneutics with the help of key concepts such as gaza1 and gaza cult. Semiotics is used to examine key concepts as binary opposites. Dialectics (...) is used to understand these concepts as the unity of binary opposites coexisting at the same time and place. It is concluded that the contemporary cultural values and biographies explored are linked to their historical past and Islam seems to be more influential on hybrid identities than on ethnic status. (shrink)

The purpose of the article is to study the value orientations of student youth in the context of the transformation of national identity and national consciousness in the conditions of Russian armed aggression. The empirical basis of the article was formed by the results of the authors’ sociological research ‘Transformation of National Identity and Consciousness Among Student Youth of Ukraine Under the Influence of Russian Military Aggression’, conducted by employees of the Social Expertise Department of the Institute of Sociology (...) of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, and the secondary analysis of the annual sociological monitoring ‘Ukrainian Society: Public Opinion in Ukraine After 10 Months of War’. The authors empirically confirm the fact of a sharp increase in national consciousness among student youth, who demonstrate a high level of readiness to serve their country, take an active part in public life, and want to be useful to their country during the armed struggle against the aggressor country. In the conclusions, the authors state that in the Ukrainian youth environment among students, a new type of national self-identification is widespread, the basis of which is the interdependence of norms of thinking and ideas about origin. (shrink)

One source of tension within and between modern nation states derives from conflict between individual and cultural rights. Modern democracies have been built on ideas of individual liberty whose extensions to the rights of culturally distinctive groups to survival and acceptance can create normative and political conflict. Such tensions raise questions about the role of the state, the underlying theory legitimising liberal states, and the social aims of education. Philosophical aspects of such conflicts are explored in Kevin McDonough and (...) Walter Feinberg’s excellent volume, Citizenship and Education in Liberal-Democratic Societies: Teaching for Cosmopolitan Values and Collective Identities. The philosophical issues hinge on how individuals and groups are conceived, as well as how liberty and loyalty are understood. Most of the essays address these concepts in pragmatic rather than essentialist ways, suggesting that how these issues are conceived is itself an important part of the problem, or its resolution. I conclude by suggesting that all of these doctrines are faiths, the problem being to create conditions so that they, or their elements, can be accepted or rejected reasonably in the light of their social consequences. (shrink)

The article is dedicated to the problems of European political identity and European identity as a whole conception and as a foundation for European integration. Before 24 February 2022, European political identity had been in crisis. The contradictions between the EU member states seemed to be hardly resolvable. The Russian aggression against Ukraine gave a strong impetus to the formation of European identity. However, it is still a negative incentive for unity and solidarity rather than cohesion around positive values, as (...) well as from the outset the European integration was caused by devastating World War II as a negative experience, which should never be repeated. The text makes use of methods peculiar to the philosophical sciences, i.e. critical textual analysis, historical-analytical and comparative methods. (shrink)

In this article I discuss the history of Italian Jews from the Emancipation to the racial laws of 1938 and their present-day attitudes to Judaism and the State of Israel. My aim is to suggest how the policy of social integration enabled Italian Jews to construct a new identity without losing their ancestral heritage. The example of Italian Jewry is relevant to understanding the growing need in today‘s European Union—now comprising 27 countries with different languages, cultures, and values—of revising (...) the concept of national identity and of exploring ways of constructing a new European identity. (shrink)

In this article, I provide a philosophical analysis of the nature and role of perceived identity threats in the genesis and maintenance of fanaticism. First, I offer a preliminary definition of fanaticism as the social identity-defining devotion to a sacred value that demands universal recognition and is complemented by a hostile antagonism toward people who dissent from one’s group’s values. The fanatic’s hostility toward dissent thereby takes the threefold form of outgroup hostility, ingroup hostility, and self-hostility. Second, I provide (...) a detailed analysis of the fears of fanaticism, arguing that each of the three aforementioned forms of hostile antagonism corresponds to one form of fear or anxiety: the fanatic’s fear of the outgroup, renegade members of the ingroup, and problematic aspects of themselves. In each of these three forms of fear, the fanatic experiences both their sacred values and their individual and social identity as being threatened. Finally, I turn to a fourth form of fear or anxiety connected to fanaticism, namely the fanatic’s anxiety of and flight from the existential condition of uncertainty itself, which, at least in some cases, ground the fanatic’s fearfulness. (shrink)

Driven by privacy-related fears, users of Online Social Networks may start to reduce their network activities. This trend can have a negative impact on network sustainability and its business value. Nevertheless, very little is understood about the privacy-related concerns of users and the impact of those concerns on identity performance. To close this gap, we take a systematic view of user privacy concerns on such platforms. Based on insights from focus groups and an empirical study with 210 subjects, we (...) find that (i) Organizational Threats and (ii) Social Threats stemming from the user environment constitute two underlying dimensions of the construct Privacy Concerns in Online Social Networks . Using a Structural Equation Model, we examine the impact of the identified dimensions of concern on the Amount, Honesty, and Conscious Control of individual self-disclosure on these sites. We find that users tend to reduce the Amount of information disclosed as a response to their concerns regarding Organizational Threats. Additionally, users become more conscious about the information they reveal as a result of Social Threats. Network providers may want to develop specific mechanisms to alleviate identified user concerns and thereby ensure network sustainability. (shrink)

Customers’ declining receptivity to conventional marketing tools has been a challenge for convenience stores. To overcome this, retailers are turning to social media as a new, potent marketing tool for creating business prospects and encouraging direct customer interaction. However, it is still unknown how social media marketing affects the shifts in customer behavior. This paper expands on the relationship of “loyalty program + virtual community experience → perceived value → customer loyalty” in the traditional convenience store (...) scenario, refining the variables of virtual community experience, perceived value, and customer loyalty. It also compares the effectiveness of different LP design structures and explores the mediation impact of program loyalty and the moderation effect of alternative attractiveness. The results demonstrate the superior performance of LPs with an expiry policy and differential returns and highlight the importance of enhancing members’ virtual community experiences in fostering customer perceived value and loyalty. The results also show the minor negative moderation impact of community group buying and prove that emotional value significantly impacts customer loyalty. Still, the social value does not affect program loyalty. The recommendations are offered, such as designing growing-oriented and periodical zeroing LPs, as well as using new social media marketing tools to empower traditional marketing techniques and constructing a “convenience store + community group buying” model. The findings have substantial theoretical and practical implications for traditional convenience stores in properly implementing loyalty and social media marketing tactics to maximize customer value and loyalty with a limited budget. (shrink)