Le Bureau international des poids et mesures fait partie en 1940 des quelques organisations intergouvernementales dont le siège est en zone occupée. Pendant toute la durée de la guerre, il est soumis à la pression du Militärbefehlshaber in Frankreich (MbF), le commandement militaire allemand, et entretient des relations continues avec le gouvernement de Vichy et de nombreuses institutions françaises. Cette contribution a pour ambition d’apporter une vue d’ensemble sur l’histoire de cette organisation sous l’Occupation en analysant son fonctionnement (...) et ses points d’appui dans ce contexte particulier. Elle examinera la trajectoire de son directeur, Albert Pérard (1880-1960), et de son réseau, les stratégies déployées pour s’adapter aux contraintes de la période et plus généralement pour maintenir une coopération scientifique à l’échelle internationale dans un monde fracturé par la guerre et une Europe sous domination nazie. Quelles conséquences de la « parenthèse Vichy » peuvent-elles être identifiées au niveau institutionnel et sur la construction des carrières de ses figures emblématiques? (shrink)

The paper focuses on the notion of disability in the documents of selected international organisations. The social model approach to disability has been implemented since the second half of the 20th century and consequently such terms as ‘invalid’, ‘madman’, ‘dumb’, ‘cripple’, ‘paralytic’, ‘the lame’ or ‘the blind’ were removed from the literature, legal acts, or documents of international organisations. Notions like ‘disability’, ‘disabled person’, or ‘a person with disability’ are considered ‘politically correct’ now. It is worth (...) highlighting however that great emphasis is put to replace the term ‘a disabled person’ with the term ‘a person with a disability or disabilities” as the latter notion does not refer to the person’s characteristics with one adjective only, hence it does not stigmatize him/her either. The trend is reflected in the terminology used in the documents and acts introduced at the international level. Nevertheless, there are still a lot of difficulties with translation into other languages, which is also the Polish case. (shrink)

Contemporary semantic description of logic is based on the ontology of all possible interpretations, an insufficiently clear metaphysical concept. In this article, logic is described as the internal organization of language. Logical concepts -- logical constants, logical truths, and logical consequence -- are defined using the internal syntactic and semantic structure of language. For a first-order language, it has been shown that its logical constants are connectives and a certain type of quantifiers for which the universal and existential quantifiers form (...) a functionally complete set of quantifiers. Neither equality nor cardinal quantifiers belong to the logical constants of a first-order language. (shrink)

Ce volume contient les actes d'un double colloque qui s'est tenu a Louvain-la-Neuve et a Poitiers en mai 2013 pour celebrer le bicentenaire de la Science de la logique de Hegel et qui a reuni quelques-uns des meilleurs specialistes internationaux du philosophe allemand. La thematique autour de laquelle s'organise la reflexion est celle de l'identite: la logique speculative de Hegel, pivot du systeme tout entier, est-elle en fin de compte foncierement identitaire, une fabrique d'identite, ne creusant la difference que pour (...) mieux l'assimiler, ou bien faut-il entendre autrement, de facon plus creative et originale, la maniere dont elle articule identite et difference? Telle est la question decisive que selon diverses perspectives - historique, systematique, critique - les contributions de ce volume s'attachent a creuser. (shrink)

AbstractCorruption is one of the most intractable problems that the world is faced with and its reported impact is widespread and pervasive. Since the mid-1990s, international efforts to combat this problem expanded significantly, driven by the involvement governments, international financial institutions and non-governmental organisations. The objective of this article is to use Michel Foucault’s work in a critical analysis of the international fight against corruption. This analysis is centred on Foucault’s concept of governmentality, as well as (...) his notions of knowledge, power and ethics. The primary focus is on the role played by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and Transparency International in the proliferation of international anti-corruption discourse and practices. Furthermore, South Africa will be used as a case study to unpack the historical and contextual factors that play a role in the legitimisation of corruption. As will be shown in this assessment, without adequately understanding the local factors that stimulate corruption and the other societal characteristics that serve to compound its pervasiveness, internationally driven anti-corruption initiatives have limited scope for success. Corruption will persist where there is a lack of resonance between international anti-corruption ideals and local norms, values and ideologies. (shrink)

Bergson Professeur rassemble les actes d'un colloque international qui s'est tenu a Paris, a l'Ecole Normale Superieure, en novembre 2010. On y trouve les contributions des meilleurs bergsoniens contemporains sur un theme habituellement peu traite : le role exact des cours de Bergson et des notes de cours relativement a ses ouvrages publies. Ce volume vient ainsi combler un manque dans les publications academiques sur Bergson, puisqu'il permet de restituer, dans le sillage des travaux engages il y a deux (...) decennies par Henri Hude, ce qui est trop souvent considere comme la part la moins importante de sa philosophie. En tentant de faire entendre de nouveau la voix vivante du professeur Bergson, ce travail ne rend donc pas seulement un hommage au maitre admire par tous ses auditeurs, il nous fait entrer, comme par effraction, dans l'atelier ou, a n'en pas douter, furent mises au point plusieurs des grandes trouvailles d'un genie philosophique. (shrink)

Le Bureau international des poids et mesures fait partie en 1940 des quelques organisations intergouvernementales dont le siège est en zone occupée. Pendant toute la durée de la guerre, il est soumis à la pression du _Militärbefehlshaber in Frankreich_ (MbF), le commandement militaire allemand, et entretient des relations continues avec le gouvernement de Vichy et de nombreuses institutions françaises. Cette contribution a pour ambition d’apporter une vue d’ensemble sur l’histoire de cette organisation sous l’Occupation en analysant son fonctionnement (...) et ses points d’appui dans ce contexte particulier. Elle examinera la trajectoire de son directeur, Albert Pérard (1880-1960), et de son réseau, les stratégies déployées pour s’adapter aux contraintes de la période et plus généralement pour maintenir une coopération scientifique à l’échelle internationale dans un monde fracturé par la guerre et une Europe sous domination nazie. Quelles conséquences de la « parenthèse Vichy » peuvent-elle... (shrink)

International development policies inevitably encounter a conflict in their implementation, representing the gap between universal goals and grass-roots practice. The aim of this study was to explore and understand the significance of this gap, and to apply knowledge management principles as a lens to suggest bridging solutions. The research focuses on non-governmental organisations, which are a sub-section of the civil society. The study was unique as it took a Southern perspective—the views and experiences of policy-makers, practitioners and beneficiaries (...) in Kenya form the basis of the empirical research. Consequently, the research and its findings provide some answers as to how systems of knowledge can be aligned with the core values of organisational and societal culture in order to positively influence international stability. (shrink)

International organisations are actors capable of bearing moral responsibilities and ought to be accountable for their failures in doing so. However, we should understand these responsibilities and respond to their failures in the light of fuller considerations about morality and the common good. The article argues that the international community should ensure victims are attended to, but also that defaulting institutions may themselves need rehabilitation for different kinds of international common purposes to be achievable. Further, the (...) ways in which both goals are agreed and undertaken must recognise multiple perspectives, else the possibilities for durable peaceable cooperation internationally will be damaged. Even in a world of plural views, we can find sufficient proximity on matters of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to move toward further agreement. Drawing on Braithwaite, Rawls, and Sunstein, the article argues we should search out and build on such ‘islands of agreement’ on wrongs in international life and on mutually respectful ways of responding to them. (shrink)

In this third article on the role of international comparative practices in the formation of national health care systems I discuss a familiar group of systems-builders--medical professional organisations--and so focus on some early comparisons undertaken by organised groups of doctors. So far in this series I have argued that any attempt to make international comparisons--whether in the 19th-century or today--is bound to be based on a 'characteristically national' understanding. Not infrequently such an understanding finds its clearest expression (...) in the very act of undertaking practical tasks like 'comparing'. Dependent on whether comparisons are carried out by individuals privately, collectively by larger groups within the medical profession, or by government agencies the descriptions of 'national characteristics' (of medical organisation, institutional formation, clinical practice, research, public health and education) will differ in emphasis. -/- The examination of collective professional attempts at international comparison can enhance our understanding of the cultural distinctions that were incorporated by emerging national medical professions. This process can show which aspects of foreign medical systems were deemed pertinent, and also reveals methodology. What did such collective endeavours add to the more biographically coloured comparisons undertaken by the individual mid-century authors I discussed in part II of this series? (shrink)

This paper reviews the origins of organisational economics and critically examines its influence on business-school scholarship and pedagogy in the eighties and nineties and argues three points. First, it is useful to analyse the infiltration of economic ideas about internal organisation of firms into organisational science within the context of the methodology of scientific research programmes. Second, the adoption by management theorists of organisational economics as part of a new science of organisations represented a significant change in research style (...) within business schools and may have contributed to practices that came under heavy criticism in the last decade. Third, the influence of economic ideas on management science represented not only an infusion of methods and models, but an infusion of ideology as well, raising important philosophical questions concerning the development of management science. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become an increasingly significant managerial concept, yet the manager as an agent of corporate bureaucracy has been substantially missing from both the analytical and conceptual literature dealing with CSR. This article, which is both interpretative in nature and specific in reference to the U.K. cultural context, represents an attempt at addressing this lacuna by utilising qualitative data to explore the perceptions of managers working in corporations with developed CSR programmes. Exploring managerial perceptions of motives for (...) CSR initiatives, methods of stakeholder engagement, organisational integration of CSR and its impact on managerial work, this study concludes that an instrumental approach dominates, which indicates an external-internal organisational paradox in the design and execution of CSR initiatives. (shrink)

The vision and mission statements of 24 environmental organisations were analysed under the premise that the language used in these statements reflects and influences the priorities of their operation. A dominant perspective, hinging on the concept of 'sustainable development', merged the profile of government agencies and non-governmental groups. The language reflected an utilitarian ethics: the environment was more generally portrayed as resources than as nature. Aesthetic remarks were exceptional, even among groups focusing on wildlife. Despite a broadly claimed link (...) between human welfare and habitat viability, environmental issues were not broadly referred to by humanitarian organisations, while conservation groups comply with societal priorities and needs. Organisational statements seem more concerned about political legitimation by audiences with specific expectations than about articulating purposes with internal structural consequences or goals that advocate change or reflect organisational uniqueness. (shrink)

Monograph on the historical evolution of women's rights from 1902 to 1978 - describes various campaigns for achieving civil rights for women, rights for political participation, equal opportunities for the woman worker, etc., and considers the contributions made to the emancipation of women by the international alliance of women (interest group), the League of Nations, the UN (role of UN) and other international organizations, the international women's year, etc. ILO mentioned. Bibliography pp. 312 to 314, chronology of (...) major events and photographs. (shrink)

Credible and well-functioning governance is crucial for the value creation of firms. Recently, private sectors have undergone substantial changes by focusing on good governance as a tool to enhance value, reputation, and image. The primary features of firms with good governance include greater emphasis on accountability practices, proper implementation of a corporate integrity system, and sound internal controls in place to avoid risk and to ensure policy and procedures that are complied. Government linked companies (GLCs) as the backbone of the (...) Malaysian Government have been harshly criticised for not being able to create value(s) despite receiving high priority in the process of getting government projects. Therefore, this study aims to examine the role of good governance systems, which are reflected through accountability systems, corporate integrity systems, and internal control systems towards value creation of Malaysian GLCs. This study collected primary data based on a set of questionnaire survey among 100 GLCs in Malaysia. Based on the regression analysis, this study found that corporate integrity systems and internal control systems were vital elements in ensuring value creation in GLCs. (shrink)

This paper critically revises the organisational account of teleology, which argues that living systems are first and foremost oriented towards a goal: maintaining their own conditions of existence. It points out some limitations of this account, mainly in the capability to account for the richness and complexity of biological systems and their purposeful behaviours. It identifies the reason of these limitations in the theoretical grounding of this account, specifically in the too narrow notion of closure of constraints, focused on self-production. (...) It proposes to ground an organisational account of biological teleology in the capability of living system not just to produce and replace their parts, but to control their own internal dynamics and behaviours in such a way as to maintain themselves. This theoretical framework has two advantages. It better captures the distinctive features of biological organisations and consequently the richness and active nature of their purposeful behaviours. By doing so, it makes it possible to apply this framework beyond minimal theoretical models to real biological cases. (shrink)

As universities are increasingly called by their national governments for a more entrepreneurial management of public research results, they started to develop internal structures and policies to take a proactive role in the commercialisation of university research. For the first time, this paper presents a detailed chronicle of how country-level reforms on Intellectual Property Rights were translated into organisation-level mechanisms to regulate university-patenting activity. The analysis is based on the complete list of patent policies issued between 1993 and 2009 by (...) the population of Italian universities. Our evidence suggests that universities first dealt with legislative changes on IPRs by enacting isomorphic behaviours, then by creating a community of practices, and finally by leveraging on such community to influence government reforms on IP-related matters. We discuss our results in the light of institutional theory and public policy. (shrink)

The book provides an overview of how international law is today constructed through diverse macro and microprocesses that expand its traditional subjects and sources, with the attribution of sovereign capacity and power to the international plane (moving the international toward the national). Simultaneously, national laws approximate laws of other nations (moving among nations or moving the national toward the international), and new sources of legal norms emerge, independent of states and international organisations. This expansion (...) occurs in many subject areas, with specific structures: commercial, environmental, human rights, humanitarian, financial, criminal, and labor law contribute to the formation of postnational law with different modes of functioning, different actors, and different sources of law that should be understood as a new complexity of law. (shrink)

Organisational Ethics could be more effectively taught if organisational agency could be better distinguished from activity in other group entities, and defended against criticisms. Some criticisms come from the side of what is called “methodological individualism”. These critics argue that, strictly speaking, only individuals really exist and act, and organisations are not individuals, real things, or agents. Other criticisms come from fear of the possible use of alleged “corporate personhood” to argue for a possible radical expansion of corporate rights (...) e.g. to claim a right to vote. Others say that if corporate businesses were persons, and judged as such, they would be sociopaths (Bakan 2004). Large corporate businesses are one kind of organisation, and if organisations were allowed to claim to be full persons, this would mean that the latter criticisms were valid. The proposed account goes between the horns of the above dilemma: impersonal aggregates or full persons. It avoids both the reductive individualism and expansive, full personhood account. It gives grounds for attributing and distributing praise and blame to organisations as whole complex entities, and to their parts. Primarily, responsibility belongs to Board incumbents within them, on the basis of their goals; their direction of the acts of the other main internal role incumbents, managers and staff, and enablers, in the role structure; their own ethical decision methods; the impact of their acts on external stakeholders like end-users, other players in the practice or local community, and on the state. These factors are picked out on the basis of a theory of meaning Aristotle’s theory of analogy of attribution, some architectonic features of his Philosophical Anthropology; and Neo-Aristotelian Virtue Ethics (NAVE). The paper expounds a quasi-person model of organisations, (QPM), previously described in this journal (Ardagh 2011, 2012, 2013). This model identifies functional similarities at three levels, between capacities within natural persons (NPs) on the one hand and the roles/ incumbents within the structure of organisational artificial/quasi-persons (APs on the other). In each entity, we find an architectonic direction, sub-ordered operational entities, and enablers (a DOE structure) in a communicative structure or reporting chain of authority. The common elements between natural persons (NP) and artificial persons (AP) and their ethically relevant attributes are captured in an acronym –GRAEOS. Both persons and organisations have a “top” entity capable of having/choosing worthwhile ethically permissible goals, G; of architectonically directing the use of capacities/repertoires or incumbents in designed architectonic roles, R, within a DOE-type structure, well or badly; of using ethical decision making procedures, E; of execution of good choices for the person or organisation in action, A, with good or bad impacts on others, or with others, O, in the context practice or domain; and of having good relations with the law and the state, S. Application to the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, and public sector organisations, is briefly discussed to illustrate the potential to deal with short or long case study narratives. (shrink)

The current SARS-CoV-2 crisis raises questions about the challenges faced by nation states and international organisations in offering a coordinated international response to the pandemic, and reveals the great vulnerability of European countries, which are implementing lockdown measures and imposing restrictions on international travel, for the most part on a unilateral basis. Such measures run counter to the prevailing approach of the previous two centuries that developed an international public health space. This article examines the (...) measures adopted by European states in order to contain 19th-century cholera pandemics, which took shape through the development of an international maritime quarantine system, based primarily on the implementation of national regulations and local decision-making. This regime was quickly viewed as ineffective and out of step with liberal ideas that urged a “laissez-faire” approach to public health matters. In its stead, a long-term trend developed towards easing quarantine measures. Nation states supported the internationalisation of the fight against pandemics, which chiefly consisted of externalising quarantine measures to the East in order to eliminate them in Europe. This process was based on a subtle dialectical relationship between the construction of an international public health space and the affirmation of state sovereignty, and continued into the 20th century with the progressive creation of international institutions responsible for advancing global health. (shrink)

A countless variety of stakeholder approaches are referenced by management scholars and practitioners, with theories on stakeholders divided into normative and descriptive categories and managerial and instrumental theories. This paper addresses the normative stakeholder approach and evaluates its strengths and weaknesses in the context of a new framework. We argue that stakeholder theory arose from a philosophical and scientific tradition where the object of scientific analysis was divided into constituent parts that made them easier to understand and to analyse. Although (...) this process of ‘reduction to the minimum’ is powerful and has worked very well in the past, we argue that the excessive emphasis on elemental parts, while ignoring the whole, runs the risk of overlooking the actual nature of organisation:environment relationships. Moreover, this traditional stakeholder approach can overlook change as a fundamental variable in management processes. The specific contribution of this paper is integrating stakeholder theories with an organisation:environment approach grounded in niche-construction and specie preservation. Doing so allows stakeholder theory not only to embrace human agency as part of a broadened evolutionary dynamic but also to incorporate within this view an improved understanding of the co-evolutionary processes of organisation:environment relationships and the nature of change. In this proposed niche-construction framework, stakeholders are explicitly identified as integral actors in, and co-creators of, organisational-environmental change. (shrink)

This book provides a comprehensive new introduction to the study of international diplomacy, covering both theory and practice. The text summarises and discusses the major trends in the field of diplomacy, developing an innovative analytical toolbox for understanding diplomacy not as a collection of practices or a set of historical traditions, but as a form of institutionalised communication through which authorised representatives produce, manage and distribute public goods. The book: traces the evolution of diplomacy from its beginnings in ancient (...) Egypt, Greece and China to our current age of global diplomacy; examines theoretical explanations about how diplomats take decisions, make relations and shape the world; discusses normative approaches to how diplomacy ought to adapt itself to the twenty-first century, help remake states and assist the peaceful evolution of international order. In sum, Understanding International Diplomacy provides an up-to-date, accessible and authoritative overview of how diplomacy works and ought to work in a globalising world. This new textbook is essential reading for students of international diplomacy, and highly recommended for students of crisis negotiation, international organisations, foreign policy and international relations in general. (shrink)

Process physics2 is, like all physics, a model of reality. However, unlike traditional substance-based versions, process physics implements many process philosophical concepts, perhaps most notably, the notion of internal relations. It argues that the universe can best be understood in terms of selfreferential semantic information that is remarkably similar to mathematical stochastic neural networks research in biology. It argues that information patterns generate new information through causal efficacy and, ultimately, internal integration, generating self-organising patterns of relationships. These patterns or relations (...) have an intrinsic value inherent in their self-actualisation and thereby experience a subjective unity in response to influences from the totality of their past. The result is an internally related self-organising stream of experiences that provides a defining essence objectively distinguishable in abstraction and as exhibiting all the characteristics of a quantum space and quantum matter. In process physics, therefore, quantum phenomena emerge where no prior assumption regarding their existence is made or prescribed at the start. Rather, they are internally generated as an inherent feature of an experientially becoming reality, growing in size over time and thus having an observable key feature — i.e. a ‘defining essence’ — of an expanding universe. Reality itself is now understood — and modeled — as having a primitive form of self awareness. By this we mean that it has, in the process philosopher Alfred North Whitehead’s words, prehensions of other actualities as objects in terms of their ‘provocation of some special activity within the subject’.3 In more biologically complex information systems these ultimately lead to experiential integration as conscious discrimination of contrasts in prior experiences. Reality is, ultimately, not about the identification of isolated individuals through externality, but related individuals through internality. The purpose of this paper is to arrive at a point whereby we might apply these ultimate principles of reality to management. To do this, we shall start by considering Whitehead’s own renderings of management issues, before turning to the use management studies has or has not made of his work. In the light of this discussion, we shall question the principle of deconstructive postmodernism that underpins this body of work. We shall then ask whether and to what extent Whiteheadian principles might help explain organisations as ‘event fields’ 4 within which ‘persons-in-communities’5 reside. This will then allow us to consider organisations in terms of a process reinterpretation of physics. In so doing, we shall uncover a final contradiction, between Whitehead’s understanding of organisation and his principles concerning the application of metaphysics, to which we shall at least indicate a solution. (shrink)

The paper presents Professor Janusz Kuczyński’s life as well as his intellectual and organizational activities, his achievements as a publisher and his efforts to establish an environment of followers of his special kind of universalism.

It has been argued amply that alternative theoretical approaches to the corporate governance phenomenon can be a valuable complement to the mainstream economic approach. However, such approaches are largely embryonic and empirical studies based on more organisationally oriented theory are few and geographically limited. The purpose of the present article is to discuss the value of organisationally oriented approaches to corporate governance as a complement to more traditional economic approaches. This is accomplished by discussing the findings of an empirical study (...) on Swedish shareholder activism in the light of institutional sociology. The study demonstrates how the preferences and actions of investors are institutionally determined, and not only influenced by regulation and law, but also by moral obligations, societal expectations and relational ties. Thus, the study demonstrates the value of complementing economic explanations with more institutionally and organisationally oriented accounts, in order to better understand shareholder activism in particular, and corporate governance in general. (shrink)

Throughout history, international health collaboration gradually came into being to counteract the emergence of new diseases. This process went through five stages.:1) Quarantine regulations were established for maritime commerce to safeguard public health. 2) Scientific data were studied to understand the causes of infectious diseases and their modes of transmission; a single solution to the problem was not sufficient because of the diversities of the various factors triggering these diseases. Furthermore, defensive and protective measures adopted in Europe were inadequate (...) after the colonial expansion of European countries. 3) If 19th century international health politics were defensive, the aim in the 20th century was to fight infectious diseases and to eradicate them. This third phase saw the rise of international institutions. These agencies aimed at favouring better health organization in individual countries. 4) The World Health Organization was founded, the aim being to fight existing epidemics, little importance being given to 'emerging diseases'. 5) A series of new infectious diseases and the reemergence of old diseases (a consequence of major ecological changes) that were thought to be eradicated revealed the need for continuous surveillance. (shrink)

The article aims to analyse the motivation and perception of security among the members of pro-defence organisations in Poland. The multidimensionality of threats and challenges in the area of national and international security necessitates the use of all forces and means. This also applies to using the potential, interest, and involvement of specific people within the state security system. In the case of Poland, a large role is played by numerous pro-defence organisations with many members, including young (...) people. In the last few years, a large number of events with a direct impact on the sense of national and international security have occurred. This article attempts to perform a comparative analysis by considering the perspectives in 2018 and in 2022, which are based on an original survey of a selected group of respondents. (shrink)

The issue of communicated accountability is particularly important in Faith-Based Charity Organisations as the donated funds and use of those funds are often meant to fulfil religious obligations for the well-being of society. Integrating Stewart’s (1984) ladder of accountability with the Statement of Recommended Practice guidance for charities, this paper examines communicated accountability practices of Muslim and Christian Charity Organisations in England and Wales. Our content analysis results indicate communicated accountability to be generally limited, focusing on providing basic (...) descriptive information rather than judgement-based information. Our interviews with trustees and preparers of Trustee Annual Reports in Muslim Charity Organisations identified the reasons being due to high donor trust and consequently weak demand by stakeholders for the latter type of information, as well as internal organisational issues related to the organisational structure and culture, lack of internal professional expertise and high accountability cost. (shrink)

Issu d'un colloque international organisé à l'Université Paris I, en janvier 2003, dans le cadre du Centre d'Histoire des Systèmes de Pensée Moderne, cet ouvrage consacré aux Pensées métaphysiques de Spinoza vise à ouvrir les ...

Understanding and managing trust is a critical competency for organisations that take their ethical values seriously. Organisations need to know how trust is won, developed and sustained, and also what to do when that trust is threatened or has broken down. This Report helps organisations understand what trust is and how it is established at the interpersonal and organisational level. It outlines strategies for building and sustaining a resilient reputation for organisational trustworthiness and, through the use of (...) case studies, illustrates good and poor practice in repairing internal trust after an organisational failure. (shrink)