New perspectives on East Asian leadership in the age of globalization: local grounding and historical comparisons in the Asia Pacific region

ABSTRACT

Many management and leadership studies have traditionally been dominated by Western theories, perspectives and cases. Non-Western leadership requires additional caveats in arriving at generalizations. The theoretical trap of conceiving Asian corporations either as irrelevant concerning leadership effectiveness or as maintaining only culturally determined leadership derives from the lack of historical understanding of Asian cases. Our collection used both historical and contemporary cases of Japan, South Korea and China to show that these Asian economies have tried to some extent balance their traditional norms and values of leadership with those from the West. A key to understanding Asia is that all three countries have historically pursued leadership mandates in running both public and private corporations, although ‘corrupt’ leadership practices were also rampant during different historical periods. Further studies of leadership in non-Western cases are necessary to devise methodological and theoretical alternatives to Western-centric perspectives. In our collection, we analysed how a dynamic and evolutionary view of leadership fared in its attempt to clarify some of the conundrums surrounding East Asian leadership. From our results, it is indicated that historical and comparative methods must accompany any analysis of leadership.     

THE THOMBO TREASURE. COLONIAL POPULATION ADMINISTRATION AS SOURCE FOR THE HISTORICAL DEMOGRAPHY OF EARLY MODERN SRI LANKA

During their occupation of Sri Lanka (1640–1796) and following Sinhalese and Portuguese practices, the Dutch created an elaborate registration of people, estates, and labour services. The administrative records known as the thombos are incomparable in their level of detail, yet they have hardly been used for the purposes of demographic or economic history. This article describes the challenges involved in ‘decoding’ the thombos, that is, reconstructing the meaning of particular variables in the light of the prevailing legal pluralism in which Sinhalese common law and Roman-Dutch law co-existed uncomfortably. It also summarises research findings from a pilot study involving about two hundred small villages in Colombo province. Finally, it sketches research horizons, as the thombo ‘treasure’ holds great prospects for (comparative) studies into family systems and the impact of colonial rule on fertility and mortality.     

“市民社会”及其在《资本论》中的逻辑地位(一)——兼与沈越教授商榷马恩著作的翻译问题

市民社会在马克思著作中具有两类四种含义,应基于马克思独特的思维方法把握不同含义之间的内在关系。作为资产阶级意识形态核心理念的"市民社会",与所谓普世价值密切相关,它是马克思理论集中批判的对象。如果说马克思具有某种市民社会理论的话,也只能看成基于唯物史观把握资本主义生产内在机理的理论。应从原则高度明确反对将两种性质的市民社会理论有意无意地混淆起来的做法。沈越教授将市民社会臆想为没有阶级属性的永恒的"中产阶级"社会。认为西方经济学、西方哲学等只是这种没有阶级属性的市民的意识形态,不具有资产阶级性质,应该不加批判地原原本本地"拿来"。他还试图通过个别德文词的辨析,一方面将苏俄马克思主义和中国既有的马克思主义理论贴上"伪马克思主义"的标签,另一方面把马克思理论整体性地改造成没有阶级属性的意识形态意义上的市民社会理论。实质上是有意识地将马克思理论与西方意识形态混为一谈。     

科技文化软实力生成和发展的多维视角分析

提高国家软实力需要注重科技文化的建设。科技文化软实力的生成和发展表现为在历史、当今与未来三维视域互动中的有形资产(科学理论、科技成果等)向无形资产(科学精神、软实力等)转化,无形资产又推动有形资产发展的过程。提升科技文化软实力需要将科技的创新与传统科技文化进行融合,实现传统科技文化的转型,长远来看,需要增强科技文化传播影响力,提高国民科技文化素质,提升科技文化保障水平。     

Moral Memory: Why and How Moral Companies Manage Tradition

Recent research on the role of ethics in the organizational culture literature found practically the whole literature reduced to a debate between ethical rationalism and ethical relativism. The role of the past in the form of tradition to maintain and improve moral reflection is completely missing. To address this gap in the literature on the level of practice, the concepts of moral memory and moral tradition are applied to data on 22 companies that have long-standing moral practices. In this way, the practice of moral traditions can be explored with recent conceptual advances and a list of best practices delineated. Moral memory is the recollection of and attachment to the succession of past events and experiences that maintains moral tradition. Moral tradition is the continuing transmission and reception of related moral themes through multiple generations of employees. It is found that companies that maintain moral traditions tend to develop “family” cultures with considerable compassion for workers as persons who have non-economic needs and rights. These companies also temper the role of leadership, insisting that leaders are responsible for and are evaluated by the company’s moral traditions. Finally, moral traditions are essential mechanisms through which companies paradoxically both stimulate and limit competitive behavior. Steven P. Feldman is Associate Professor of Management Policy, Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University. Over the last decade, Dr. Feldman’s research has explored the role of moral memory and moral tradition in the ethical aspects of organizations. His book, Memory as a Moral Decision: The Role of Ethics in Organizational Culture (2002), found that the emotional and cognitive aspects of memory to be key in establishing moral organizational cultures. The moral importance of the past in the present has received little attention in the literature on organizational culture. Winner of the Distinguished Lectureship in Business Ethics from the American Fulbright Program, Dr.␣Feldman will be carrying out research on ethical issues in American-Chinese business relations in Shanghai in 2007.     

以史促论 以论带史 史论结合——宗廷虎先生修辞学史与修辞史研究论析

宗廷虎先生的修辞学史与修辞史研究注重史论结合,取得了丰硕的成果。作为学术史,宗著表现为：史料丰富,搜罗详尽;视域宽广,所涉及的理论范畴丰富;取舍精到,主次分明,将最有理论价值的遗产介绍给学术界。表现在理论上的特征是：全局笼罩,将理论的触角深入到历史阐述的各要素中;现代阐释,以新的理论成果、新的理论框架对历史遗产作出符合原意的解释;卓识独见,表现出许多独创性学术洞见。     

Schools Out: Adam Smith and Pre-disciplinary International Political Economy

In this article, I argue that invocations of Adam Smith in international political economy (IPE) often reveal the influence therein of a disciplinary ontological disaggregation of economic and non-economic rationality, which I claim is obscured by the tendency to map its complex intellectual contours in terms of competing schools. I trace the origins of the disciplinary characterisation of Smith as the founder of IPE's liberal tradition to invocations of his thought by centrally important figures in the perceived Austrian, Chicago and German historical schools of economics, and reflect upon the significance to IPE of the reiteration of this portrayal by apparent members of its so-called American and British schools. I additionally contrast these interpretations to those put forward by scholars who seek to interpret IPE and Smith's contribution to it in pre-disciplinary terms, which I claim reflects a distinct ontology to that attributed to the British school of IPE with which their work is often associated. I therefore contend that reflection upon invocations of Smith's thought in IPE problematises the longstanding tendency to map its intellectual terrain in terms of competing schools, reveals that the disciplinary ontological consensus that informs this tendency impacts upon articulations of its core concerns and suggests that a pre-disciplinary approach offers an alternative lens through which such concerns might be more effectively framed.     

列宁新经济政策理论中的“以退为进”策略及其当代启示

列宁的新经济政策是在“战时共产主义”政策弊端逐渐暴露、苏维埃政权面临着严重危机之时所采取的果断措施。在战时共产主义政策失败的前提下,列宁采取“以退为进”的迂回策略,创造性地提出了新经济政策思想。这不仅为经济文化落后国家建设社会主义提供了新的道路,也为中国的社会主义建设提供了借鉴。     

Has the “CEO effect” increased in recent decades? A new explanation for the great rise in America's attention to corporate leaders

We introduce a new explanation for one of the most pronounced phenomena on the American business landscape in recent decades: a dramatic increase in attributions of CEO significance. Specifically, we test the possibility that America's CEOs became seen as increasingly significant because they were, in fact, increasingly significant. Employing variance partitioning methodologies on data spanning 60 years and more than 18,000 firm‐years, we find that the proportion of variance in performance explained by individual CEOs, or “the CEO effect,” increased substantially over the decades of study. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of this finding. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.