Designing education for life on earth

Designing, viewed broadly as the human capacity to link thought and action, has meaning and value in the world that transcends its material associations. Given the nature and urgency of current socioeconomic and ecological problems, the creative, generative concept of design must be made more accessible and useful. Accordingly, my intent is to dispel prevailing, narrow, specialist impressions of design and to advance in the public mind a larger concept that can influence deliberations and behavior in society-at-large. One of today's most critical areas of need, and one where I think design can make a particularly significant contribution, is education. A critical task for such design-based education is enabling people to design an ecologically and economically sustainable future.     

Environmental terrorism: a critique

As terrorism once again makes news headlines and attracts renewed attention from scholars, the usage of terms related to terrorism may well outpace the development of sound conceptualization of these themes. A case in point is environmental terrorism about which a small body of literature has already been written. The objective of this paper is to examine the theme of environmental terrorism by applying critiques of the more developed but similarly problematic area of environmental security. Three critiques of environmental security literature argue that there is insufficient clarity on how natural resources are linked to conflict, that the term ‘environment’ is not sufficiently clear as a guide to or boundary of a research area, and that the term ‘security’ prioritizes a realist, state-centric perspective that provides a limited perspective on relationships between natural resources and conflict. In this paper, the theme of environmental terrorism is subjected to parallel critiques as a way to examine the usefulness of this concept. Environmental terrorism, as a label, may be only partially helpful as a guide to future research that would also be aided by context-specific examinations of vulnerable natural resource and energy systems.     

Resources and conflict in the Caspian Sea

The management of resources can shape or alleviate conflict. This article examines the case of the Caspian Sea as littoral states vie for oil fields in the transboundary water body. These five states have promoted conflicting proposals for the division of Caspian resources and are staking their claims through a mix of diplomatic efforts, international agreements, commercial contracts and militarization. Geoeconomic power has not fully surpassed more traditional, military control of territory in this context which continues to be complex on several geopolitical scales.     

Book Reviews

Ian Chalmers and Vedi R. Hadiz (eds) (1997), The Politics of Economic Development in Indonesia, Routledge, London, pp. xxx + 269. A$155.00.

Geoff Forrester (ed.) (1999), Post-Soeharto Indonesia: Renewal or Chaos? Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, and KITLV Press, Leiden, pp. 373. Cloth: S$49.90/US$32.90; paper: S$29.95/US$19.95/A$29.95.

Corden, Max (1999), The Asian Crisis: Is There a Way Out?, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, pp. 82. S$19.90/US$12.90.

Karl D. Jackson (ed.) (1999), Asian Contagion: The Causes and Consequences of a Financial Crisis, Westview Press, Boulder CO, pp. xvi + 312. Cloth: US$75.00; Paper: US$30.00.

H.W. Arndt and Hal Hill (1999), Southeast Asia's Economic Crisis: Origins, Lessons and the Way Forward, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, pp. 192. Cloth: S$66.90/US$44.90; paper: S$28.00/US$17.90/A$29.95.

Manuel F. Montes (1998), The Currency Crisis in Southeast Asia: Update, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, pp. xl + 62. Cloth: S$36.00 /US$24.00; paper: S$25.90/US$17.90.     

ONLINE FREE MARKETS AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN THE MUSLIM WORLD

For centuries, networks of free exchange enabled populations of the Islamic world to thrive. Today, by contrast, the largest Muslim countries lag in international measures of economic freedom. At this critical time, hundreds of online markets for 'telework' are bringing global business opportunities within reach of many in the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds alike. Individuals with internet access can directly engage in the global online economy without having to wait for the results of domestic policy liberalisation or needing to relocate in search of higher wages.     

Transformational Leadership and Organizational Innovation: The Roles of Internal and External Support for Innovation*

Leadership has been suggested to be an important factor affecting innovation. A number of studies have shown that transformational leadership positively influences organizational innovation. However, there is a lack of studies examining the contextual conditions under which this effect occurs or is augmented. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the impact of transformational leadership on organizational innovation and to determine whether internal and external support for innovation as contextual conditions influence this effect. Organizational innovation was conceptualized as the tendency of the organization to develop new or improved products or services and its success in bringing those products or services to the market. Transformational leadership was hypothesized to have a positive influence on organizational innovation. Furthermore, this effect was proposed to be moderated by internal support for innovation, which refers to an innovation supporting climate and adequate resources allocated to innovation. Support received from external organizations for the purposes of knowledge and resource acquisition was also proposed to moderate the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational innovation. To test these hypotheses, data were collected from 163 research and development (R&D) employees and managers of 43 micro‐ and small‐sized Turkish entrepreneurial software development companies. Two separate questionnaires were used to collect the data. Employees' questionnaires included measures of transformational leadership and internal support for innovation, whereas managers' questionnaires included questions about product innovations of their companies and the degree of support they received from external institutions. Organizational innovation was measured with a market‐oriented criterion developed specifically for developing countries and newly developing industries. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the hypothesized effects. The results of the analysis provided support for the positive influence of transformational leadership on organizational innovation. This finding is significant because this positive effect was identified in micro‐ and small‐sized companies, whereas previous research focused mainly on large companies. In addition, external support for innovation was found to significantly moderate this effect. Specifically, the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational innovation was stronger when external support was at high levels than when there was no external support. This study is the first to investigate and empirically show the importance of this contextual condition for organizational innovation. The moderating effect of internal support for innovation, however, was not significant. This study shows that transformational leadership is an important determinant of organizational innovation and encourages managers to engage in transformational leadership behaviors to promote organizational innovation. In line with this, transformational leadership, which is heavily suggested to be a subject of management training and development in developed countries, should also be incorporated into such programs in developing countries. Moreover, this study highlights the importance of external support in the organizational innovation process. The results suggest that technical and financial support received from outside the organization can be a more important contextual influence in boosting up innovation than an innovation‐supporting internal climate. Therefore, managers, particularly of micro‐ and small‐sized companies, should play external roles such as boundary spanning and should build relationships with external institutions that provide technical and financial support. The findings of this study are especially important for managers of companies that plan to or currently operate in countries with developing economies.     

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE,EMPLOYMENT, AND DIVORCE*

Conventional wisdom suggests abused women get caught in a cycle of violence and are unable or unwilling to leave their spouses. We estimate a model of domestic violence to determine who abuses, who is abused, and how women respond to abuse via employment and divorce. In contrast to conventional wisdom, abused women are 1.7–5.7 times more likely to divorce. Employment before abuse occurs is found to be a significant deterrent. For men, witnessing violence as a child is a strong predictor of abusive behavior: re‐socializing men from violent homes lowers abuse rates by 26%–48%.