How do work motivations and sector perceptions differ between graduate students at prestigious Business Schools and Public Policy in Asia? Where do Asia’s future business and government leaders want to work, and why? To answer these questions, we compare Asian Master of Business Administration students with Master of Public Policy and Master of Public Administration students from three leading Schools based in Singapore through a survey study and a series of seven focus groups. Our findings indicate that work motivations, sector (...) perceptions, and career preferences differ between both groups but slightly less so than between their Western counterparts. Moreover, future Asian leaders equally value being successful while many view government as bureaucratic and prone to cronyism regardless of degree program and employment preference. We discuss how our findings may advance a more robust management and leadership research agenda for Asia. (shrink)

This study reports on the hierarchy of organizational values in public and private sector organizations in Slovenia and the Netherlands. We surveyed 400 managers in Slovenia and 382 in the Netherlands using an identical questionnaire on the importance of a selection of values in everyday decision making. In Slovenia, impartiality, incorruptibility, and transparency were rated significantly higher in the public sector, while profitability, obedience, and reliability were rated more important in business organizations. In contrast, in the Netherlands, 11 values differed (...) significantly between the sectors. Thus, a greater value congruence exists between the sectors in Slovenia than in the Netherlands, with a larger “common core” of values in Slovenia (14) compared with the Netherlands (9), just as we hypothesized. Historical and cultural developments, such as the communist rule in Slovenia and the different influences of the Protestant work ethic in both countries, led to more similarities between business and government organizations in the “new” EU member state, Slovenia. (shrink)

How do work motivations and sector perceptions differ between graduate students at prestigious Business Schools and Public Policy in Asia? Where do Asia’s future business and government leaders want to work, and why? To answer these questions, we compare Asian Master of Business Administration students with Master of Public Policy and Master of Public Administration students from three leading Schools based in Singapore through a survey study and a series of seven focus groups. Our findings indicate that work motivations, sector (...) perceptions, and career preferences differ between both groups but slightly less so than between their Western counterparts. Moreover, future Asian leaders equally value being successful while many view government as bureaucratic and prone to cronyism regardless of degree program and employment preference. We discuss how our findings may advance a more robust management and leadership research agenda for Asia. (shrink)

This study reports on the hierarchy of organizational values in public and private sector organizations in Slovenia and the Netherlands. We surveyed 400 managers in Slovenia and 382 in the Netherlands using an identical questionnaire on the importance of a selection of values in everyday decision making. In Slovenia, impartiality, incorruptibility, and transparency were rated significantly higher in the public sector, while profitability, obedience, and reliability were rated more important in business organizations. In contrast, in the Netherlands, 11 values differed (...) significantly between the sectors. Thus, a greater value congruence exists between the sectors in Slovenia than in the Netherlands, with a larger “common core” of values in Slovenia (14) compared with the Netherlands (9), just as we hypothesized. Historical and cultural developments, such as the communist rule in Slovenia and the different influences of the Protestant work ethic in both countries, led to more similarities between business and government organizations in the “new” EU member state, Slovenia. (shrink)

El presente trabajo se propone esclarecer en qué medida el principio establecido por Kant en la Fundamentación de la metafísica de las costumbres constituye un conocimiento. Se mostrará que, al reconstruir la caracterización kantiana de conocimiento práctico, podemos luego examinar de qué manera aquella obra se trata justamente de alcanzar ese tipo de conocimiento. Tal investigación se ve justificada, por un lado, porque ayudaría a comprender el lugar sistemático de la obra en cuanto en ella hay un conocimiento necesario para (...) la ciencia ética y, por otro lado, iluminaría cierto aspecto del debate contemporáneo respecto de si acaso la filosofía moral de Kant es realista o antirrealista en alguna de sus variantes. Para aquello es necesario comenzar por aclarar qué entiende Kant por conocimiento práctico, y luego ver cómo esto se realiza o no en dicha obra, finalmente bosquejaremos los posibles rendimientos filosóficos que esto logra en relación con otras aproximaciones contemporáneas a la filosofía moral de Kant. (shrink)

Abstract:Since Homeric times, psychotherapy has been an essential part of the medical act. Initially, the word of physicians had a magical character. Plato rationalizes this in many of his dialogues. In "Charmides," he dives deeper into this matter and proposes to apply it to every disease. Analysing this dialogue has fundamental consequences for psychotherapy: 1) Remedy and epodé (charm) must be applied in every doctor–patient relationship. 2) The body can only be healed if the soul is cured first by a (...) charm. Patients must "offer" their souls to the physician, which implies the need for confidence and the unavoidable asymmetry which characterize doctor–patient relationships. 3) The openness of the patient's soul to the physician and the physician's "beautiful speech" to the patient will enable the latter to reach the state of sophrosyne (temperance), the condition of the possibility of true health. In the discussion of the meaning of sophrosyne, Socrates questions every one of the disciples' propositions and concludes that the only thing one can be sure of is that sophrosyne is a way of searching for virtue (areté). Later, in Theaetetus, Plato adds another element: temperance is a homoiosis theó, that is, the assimilation of patient with God. With this, Plato seals the ethical character of psychotherapy forever. (shrink)

First, I would like to thank Dr. Phillips for his generous words about the potential interest of my work. He speaks about the fact that it is "insightful" and thought-provoking ("it offers us much to think about"). In his comment Dr. Phillips reviews the main moments of the evolution of treatment by words in the Greek world and he focuses on Plato's Dialogue Charmides, whose analysis is the center of my article. He even quotes some parts of the dialogue, which (...) I mention too, although in a different translation. He rightfully underlines the moment in which Socrates tells Charmides: "And the soul... my dear friend, is cured by means of certain charms, and these charms consist of beautiful words. It is a result of... Read More. (shrink)

Throughout the career of the renowned sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, who passed away on January 9, 2017, a strand of the utopian impulse continued to manifest itself in his work. From his early socialist orientation to his later, more humanistic expressions and his analysis and critique of the liquid modern society, a development poignantly described by Michael Jacobsen in an article in this journal in 2004,1 Bauman's sociology was driven by seeking possibilities and alternatives to the society that he described and (...) explained, a quest for hope in the long term in a situation that justified pessimism in the short and middle term. His utopianism was not an attempt to sketch a blueprint of another society but an impulse... (shrink)

Los escritos sobre la contemplación y la Trinidad en Ricardo de San Víctor ponen de relieve la importancia que tienen las ideas de imagen y de reflejo especular en su pensamiento. Para el victorino, la belleza invisible se hace reconocible en la belleza de lo visible, principalmente en el hombre, creado a imagen y semejanza de Dios. Eso explica la relevancia que otorga al conocimiento propio en el camino de la contemplación: en la medida en que el hombre profundiza en (...) el conocimiento de sí puede descubrir, como en un espejo, la imagen de Dios. Siguiendo cuanto dice Ricardo en el Liber exceptionum, en el Beniamin minor, en el Beniamin maior y en el De quatuor gradibus violentae caritatis, se presentará el papel de la imagen y el espejo como claves interpretativas de sus enseñanzas sobre el ascenso contemplativo hacia la Trinidad. (shrink)

Se plantea la pregunta de si efectivamente el delirio es idéntico a la irracionalidad,como se ha postulado desde la Ilustración. Se hace una breve síntesis de la forma como ha sido concebida la locura desde la Antigüedad Clásica hasta nuestros días. De esta revisión es importante destacar cómo el carácter absoluto del "ego cogito" de Descartes hace impensable la locura como posibilidad humana y abre el camino a su conceptualización como enemiga de la razón, vale decir, como irracionalidad. Como argumento (...) en favor a la tesis contraria al racionalismo, se menciona el sentido biográfico de la locura, ejemplificado en figuras literarias, como Edipo, Ofelia y Don Quijote. Lo común a todas estas vidas que terminan en la locura es un afán desmedido por permanecer en lo ilusorio, en el autoocultamiento, de tal modo que cuando una circunstancia los obliga a ver su propia verdad transforman "una realidad imposible en una posible irrealidad", vale decir, enloquecen. Ahora bien, tanto en las figuras literarias como en los esquizofrénicos de la práctica diaria, encontramos que el desborde se produce no hacia lo irracional y dionisíaco, sino exactamente en la dirección opuesta: hacia lo apolíneo y racional. La tesis de que en la base de la locura habría un exceso y no una falta de racionalidad, tratamos de demostrarla a través del análisis de dos casos paradigmáticos, en los que aparece tematizada la entrega al dominio absoluto de la razón como capacidad analítica y sintética y a la razón como luz que saca a los objetos cognoscibles desde las sombras. El delirio sería, entonces, el producto de un imperio sin contrapeso de la razón,entendida ésta ya sea como "ratio" o como "logos". (shrink)

Johannes Kinker (1764–1845) who tried to promote Kantian philosophy in different ways, was also interested in the phenomenon of language. His general language theory is presented in Inleiding eener Wijsgeerige Algemeene Theorie der Talen, published in 1817. An impression of that theory is given in this paper. Some important questions arise, viz. whether Kinker was influenced by others; whether his theory was an original one and what the place of the theory is in the linguistic situation of the eighteenth and (...) the beginning of the nineteenth century. (shrink)

There is a claim that clinical ethics support services (CESS) improve healthcare quality within healthcare organisations. However, there is lack of strong evidence supporting this claim. Rather, the current focus is on the quality of CESS themselves or on individual learning outcomes. In response, this article proposes a theoretical framework leading to empirical hypotheses that describe the relationship between a specific type of CESS, moral case deliberation and the quality of care at the organisational level. We combine insights from the (...) literature on CESS, organisational learning and quality improvement and argue that moral case deliberation causes healthcare professionals to acquire practical wisdom. At the organisational level, where improving quality is a continuous and collective endeavour, this practical wisdom can be aggregated into morisprudence, which is an ongoing formulation of moral judgements across cases encountered within the organisation. Focusing on the development of morisprudence enables refined scrutinisation of CESS-related quality claims. (shrink)

This paper criticises the view that, according to Marx, “productive forces” determine “relations of production” and that the growth of the former basically determines the course of history. The particular version of this account discussed is that to be found in G.A. Cohen’s Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence. The main part of this criticism in:-volves a presentation of what, it is suggested, was in fact Marx's conception of "productive forces", "relations of production" and their relations, and an identification (...) of class-struggle as the primary factor at least for the historically significant periods with which Marx was concerned. (shrink)

Severe obesity has been associated with reduced performance on tests of verbal memory in bariatric surgery candidates. There is also some evidence that bariatric surgery leads to improved verbal memory, yet these findings need further elucidation. Little is known regarding postoperative memory changes in the visual domain and how patients subjectively experience their everyday memory after surgery. The aim of the current study was to repeat and extend prior findings on postoperative memory by investigating visual, verbal, and self-reported everyday memory (...) following surgery, and to examine whether weight loss and somatic comorbidity predict memory performance. The study was a prospective, observational study in which participants underwent cognitive testing at baseline, 1 and 2 years after bariatric surgery. Repeated measures analyses of variance revealed significantly poorer visual and verbal memory performance at the 1-year follow-up, with performance subsequently returning to baseline levels after 2 years. Verbal learning and self-reported everyday memory did not show significant postoperative changes. Memory performance at 1 year was not significantly predicted by weight loss, changes in C-reactive protein levels or postoperative somatic comorbidity. The study demonstrated poorer visual and verbal memory performance at 1-year follow-up that returned to baseline levels after 2 years. These findings are in contrast to most previous studies and require further replication, however, the results indicate that postoperative memory improvements following bariatric surgery are not universal. Findings suggest that treatment providers should also be aware of patients potentially having poorer memory at 1 year following surgery. (shrink)

We live in turbulent times, our world is changing at accelerating speed. Information is everywhere, but wisdom appears in short supply when trying to address key inter-related challenges of our time such as; runaway climate change, the loss of biodiversity, the depletion of natural resources, the on-going homogenization of culture, and rising inequity. Living in such times has implications for education and learning. This book explores the possibilities of designing and facilitating learning-based change and transitions towards sustainability. In 31 chapters (...) contributors from across the world discuss (re)emerging forms of learning that not only assist in breaking down unsustainable routines, forms of governance, production and consumption, but also can help create ones that are more sustainable. The book has been divided into three parts: re-orienting science and society, re-connecting people and planet and re-imagining education and learning. This is essential reading for educators, educational designers, change agents, researchers, students, policymakers and entrepreneurs alike, who are concerned about the well-being of the planet and convinced of our ability to do better. The content and related issues can be discussed on the blog by editor Arjen Wals: Transformative learning. 'We are living in times of incertitude, complexity, and contestation, but also of connectivity, responsibility, and new opportunities. This book analyses the consequences of these times for learning in formal, non-formal, and informal education. It explores the possibilities offered by the concept of sustainability as a central category of a holistic paradigm which harmonizes human beings with Earth. To change people and to change the world are interdependent processes - this book contributes to both.' Moacir Gadotti, Director of Paulo Freire Institute, São Paulo, Brazil 'I hope you share my excitement about the innovations for sustainability that this book catalogues and analyses. While the ecological news is grim, the human news is not. Even in a time of accelerating change, people are showing their enormous capacities to learn, adapt, restore and protect.' From the Foreword by Juliet Schor, author of ‘True Wealth: how and why millions of Americans are creating a time-rich, ecologically-light, small-scale high-satisfaction economy’ 'This book implies a ‘culture of critical commitment’ in educational thinking and practice - engaged enough to make a real difference to social-ecological resilience and sustainability but reflexively critical enough to learn constantly from experience and to keep options open in working for a sustainability transformation.' From the Afterword by Stephen Sterling, Professor of Sustainability Education, Centre for Sustainable Futures, Plymouth University, United Kingdom. (shrink)

Kolbe and de Melo-Martin (2023) provide a much needed reflection on the methods by which we measure moral distress. Their analysis, however, gives off the impression that the measures of moral dist...

This review discusses Zygmunt Bauman’s Retrotopia, published shortly after the renowned sociologist’s death, in the light of his engagement with the thought of Pope Francis during the last years of his life. It traces some of the main themes of this engagement, and addresses its role and importance in the context of the book as well as in the aims of Bauman’s sociology as a whole. As the insecurities and anxieties of liquid modernity in our increasingly violent world lead many (...) to give up on the effort of building a better future and turn towards the ‘retrotopia’ of an ideal past, a crucial sign of hope is found in the words of Pope Francis. In his efforts as a sociologist, Zygmunt Bauman seeks to redirect our gaze to the future and to engage in dialogue, understood as the art of living together. (shrink)

In his very interesting paper Harry Kunneman argues for an alternative view on voluntary work which not so much stresses the economic aspect but primarily its existentially meaningful aspect. To underpin this, Kunneman makes use of a broad range of hermeneutical, social-philosophical, complexity theoretical, biological and other ideas. This multipolar structure of the article might also prove to be its very weakness, because the rich train of thought remains highly abstract. This could be overcome by using examples and casuistry to (...) elucidate and specify the many distinctions in the article. (shrink)

"This comprehensive volume - containing 27 chapters and contributions from six continents - presents and discusses key principles, perspectives, and practices of social learning in the context of sustainability. Social learning is explored from a range of fields challenged by sustainability including: organizational learning, environmental management and corporate social responsibility; multi-stakeholder governance; education, learning and educational psychology; multiple land-use and integrated rural development; and consumerism and critical consumer education. An entire section of the book is devoted to a number of (...) reflective case studies of people, organizations and communities using forms of social learning in moving towards sustainability. 'This book brings together a range of ideas, stories, and discussions about purposeful learning in communities aimed at creating a world that is more sustainable than the one currently in prospect....The book is designed to expand the network of conversations through which our society can confront various perspectives, discover emerging patterns, and apply learning to a variety of emotional and social contexts.' From the Foreword by Fritjof Capra, co-founder of the Center of Ecoliteracy. 'Joining what is so clear and refreshing in this book with the larger movements toward a critically democratic and activist education that is worthy of its name, is but one step in the struggle for sustainability. But it is an essential step if we are to use the insights that are included in this book.' From the Afterword by Michael Apple, author of 'Educating the ""Right"" Way: Markets, Standards, God, and Inequality'.". (shrink)

To prevent ordinary people from being harmed by natural language processing (NLP) technology, finding ways to measure the extent to which a language model is biased (e.g., regarding gender) has become an active area of research. One popular class of NLP bias measures are bias benchmark datasets—collections of test items that are meant to assess a language model’s preference for stereotypical versus non-stereotypical language. In this paper, we argue that such bias benchmarks should be assessed with models from the psychometric (...) framework of item response theory (IRT). Specifically, we tie an introduction to basic IRT concepts and models with a discussion of how they could be relevant to the evaluation, interpretation and improvement of bias benchmark datasets. Regarding evaluation, IRT provides us with methodological tools for assessing the quality of both individual test items (e.g., the extent to which an item can differentiate highly biased from less biased language models) as well as benchmarks as a whole (e.g., the extent to which the benchmark allows us to assess not only severe but also subtle levels of model bias). Through such diagnostic tools, the quality of benchmark datasets could be improved, for example by deleting or reworking poorly performing items. Finally, in regards to interpretation, we argue that IRT models’ estimates for language model bias are conceptually superior to traditional accuracy-based evaluation metrics, as the former take into account more information than just whether or not a language model provided a biased response. (shrink)

We are grateful for the thoughtful replies to our article. 1 We are especially encouraged that all respondents agree that it is of value to develop a theoretical framework which helps to study how clinical ethics support services (CESS) induce individual and organisational learning. We have focused on the relations between moral case deliberation (MCD), organisational learning and quality improvement from a predominantly sociological perspective. The goal of our theoretical framework was to establish hypotheses which allow for empirical evaluation of (...) the relation between CESS and quality of care. Two major concerns seem to underly the commentaries: the framework (1) lacks a normative standard which allows for ethical justification of the outcome of repeated MCD, 2 and (2) the focus on morisprudence does not sufficiently emphasise the need for ‘structured, consistent, and facilitated processes for fair and robust moral case deliberation’. 3 In other words, it... (shrink)

Het milieuprobleem is inmiddels tot een van de ernstigste bedreigingen van de moderne samenleving uitgegroeid. Toch lukt het maar moeilijk om een effectief milieubeleid van de grond te krijgen. De reden daarvan, zo is de stelling van dit boek, is dat de milieucrisis met de inrichting van het sociale bestel als zodanig samenhangt. Het brengt met andere woorden algemene kenmerken van dat systeem tot uitdrukking. Te noemen zijn dan onder meer de mateloosheid van de moderne cultuur (sneller, meer, groei), de (...) kijk op de natuur als vooral een inventaris van grondstoffen, een uiterlijk welzijnsbegrip en een losgeslagen economie. De conclusie is dan dat binnen het bestek van zo'n cultuur de transitie naar een duurzame samenleving een uitzichtloze zaak is. Maar dat daarvoor de overgang naar een ander type maatschappij nodig is. Het boek geeft daarvoor een aantal voorzetten."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Background: Debates over legalisation of physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia often warn of a “slippery slope”, predicting abuse of people in vulnerable groups. To assess this concern, the authors examined data from Oregon and the Netherlands, the two principal jurisdictions in which physician-assisted dying is legal and data have been collected over a substantial period.Methods: The data from Oregon comprised all annual and cumulative Department of Human Services reports 1998–2006 and three independent studies; the data from the Netherlands comprised all four (...) government-commissioned nationwide studies of end-of-life decision making and specialised studies. Evidence of any disproportionate impact on 10 groups of potentially vulnerable patients was sought.Results: Rates of assisted dying in Oregon and in the Netherlands showed no evidence of heightened risk for the elderly, women, the uninsured , people with low educational status, the poor, the physically disabled or chronically ill, minors, people with psychiatric illnesses including depression, or racial or ethnic minorities, compared with background populations. The only group with a heightened risk was people with AIDS. While extralegal cases were not the focus of this study, none have been uncovered in Oregon; among extralegal cases in the Netherlands, there was no evidence of higher rates in vulnerable groups.Conclusions: Where assisted dying is already legal, there is no current evidence for the claim that legalised PAS or euthanasia will have disproportionate impact on patients in vulnerable groups. Those who received physician-assisted dying in the jurisdictions studied appeared to enjoy comparative social, economic, educational, professional and other privileges. (shrink)