Why are the Pentagon and the CIA in Hollywood?

The CIA and the U.S. Department of Defense are both engaged in programs to influence the content of movies produced by Hollywood studios. Although they claim their only purpose in these ventures is to guarantee the accuracy of how military and intelligence activities are conducted, it is clear that their agenda goes beyond that goal. Their true aims include ensuring that movies project a positive image of the relevant government agencies. However, the CIA and DoD differ in their understanding of what constitutes good publicity. Films scrutinized and supported by military agencies are primarily evaluated according to whether they provide a vehicle for showing the technical and organizational competence of the Pentagon. To that end, films based on comic book characters or extraterrestrial invaders are viewed positively because they show the war‐fighting capacity of the military without having to name any actual enemy. The CIA, by contrast, prefers to support films that enable citizens to develop a stronger sense of patriotism in a world of moral ambiguities. As a result, the CIA is much less fearful of revealing the dark side of its undertakings, as long as a given movie presents a story that shows the value of the CIA in protecting the security of the nation.     

Bandit Heroes: Social,Mythical, or Rational?*

Bandits steal from their fellow men. Yet they are regularly subjects of folksongs, novels, and movies. In these outlets they are presented as folk heroes despite their crimes. Sociological explanations for this phenomenon based upon Eric Hobsbawm's concept of the “social bandit” and psychological explanations based upon myth building have been brought forth to explain the seeming contradiction. We propose an alternative explanation for the bandit hero phenomenon. We argue that bandits, acting solely in their own self‐interest, unintentionally provide valuable services to societies under the rule of a predatory government. We identify three separate mechanisms by which bandits benefit society that do not necessarily hinge upon class struggles or historical dialectics. The social benefits that bandits generate form the foundation for their positive reception.     

The Historical Roots of CIA‐Hollywood Propaganda

The ability to use movies that tell persuasive stories is a powerful tool, particularly if it is consciously used to legitimize war, assassination, and illegal activities and to undermine the core principles of democracy. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the U.S. military have made use of that tool for almost a century, starting with the War Department's quiet support for the movie Birth of a Nation in 1915 and continuing for a century, including such recent CIA‐supported products as Homeland, The Agency, The Recruit, and many less likely movies and television shows. During World War II, this sort of propaganda was openly distributed, since there was a widespread consensus in support of that war. However, state‐sponsored propaganda in the form of Hollywood movies continued throughout the Cold War up to the present. The production of movies that completely distorted the political meaning of George Orwell's and Graham Greene's novels were important examples of this practice. CIA involvement was covert, since the target audience was the American public and the ideological perspective being propagated often ran counter to democratic ideals. This article recounts the history of the process by which Americans came to accept the ideas continuously promoted by the government, often without knowing that their favorite movies and television shows had been vetted or even altered by agents of the CIA or the Pentagon. Since these practices violate federal laws, the public at least has a right to know that we are being subjected to this sort of propaganda and how much tax money is spent to produce entertaining forms of disinformation.     

Workplace Practices of Japanese and Australian Multinational Corporations Operating in Singapore,Malaysia and Indonesia

This article addresses occupational health and safety and equal employment opportunity in Australian and Japanese multinational corporations (MNCs) in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. the author is concerned with how practices in these MNCs are affected by local conditions in the countries and examines the practices which occur, why different practices occur between countries and how practices interact with local political, cultural and social constraints. the article examines how MNCs adjust to prevailing workplace practices in Southeast Asia. It concludes that MNCs use some workplace practices employed in Australia as well as adapting their workplace practices to those which they either perceive to exist on a cultural and social level or are regulated by legislation in the host country.     

Collective Acceptance, Social Institutions, and Social Reality

ABSTRACT . The paper presents an account of social institutions on the basis of collective acceptance. Basically, collective acceptance by some members of a group involves the members’ collectively coming to hold and holding a relevant social attitude (a “we‐attitude”), viz. either one in the intention family of concepts or one in the belief family. In standard cases the collective acceptance must be in the “we‐mode,” viz. performed as a group member, and involve that it be meant for the group. The participants must be collectively committed to what they have accepted. Social institutions are taken to be norm‐governed social practices introducing a new social and conceptual status on the practices or some elements involved in those practices. This requires that some of the involved norms be constitutive norms as opposed to merely “accidentally” regulating ones. A classification of social institutions is presented. The account is broader in scope than is Searle’s.     

The Structure of Federal Water Resources Policy Making

A bstract . Federal water resources programs and policies are often developed haphazardly in response to crises. Hence, they lack breadth, coordination, and comprehensiveness. Problems lie in the structure of the development process in which federal construction agencies play a major part. Having these agencies do the economic evaluations when development opportunity dwindles tempts them to compromise the accuracy and integrity of the evaluations. The problem is aggravated by intense pressure from local beneficiaries due to biased federal financing and reimbursement policies. Efforts by Congress to correct the situation are partially offset by entrenched agency thinking and practices. Rigorous enforcement of the National Environmental Policy Act and Council on Environmental Quality Interim Guidelines , revision of cost-sharing formulae and financing and reimbursement policies, improved flexibility of agency leadership, recruitment of new talents and ideas to agency ranks, and adjustment of agency orientation are needed for comprehensive planning to achieve social goals.     

Community Inclusion under Systemic Inequality: How For-Profit Businesses Pursue Social Purpose

In countries where systemic inequality is pervasive, purposeful businesses that assume wider societal responsibilities try to counteract its effects by including marginalized social groups in their value creation processes. While current research documents a variety of business approaches for community inclusion, the nature, drivers and effectiveness of these inclusionary practices are not fully understood. We develop and empirically validate a framework of community inclusion that explicates the mechanisms through which purposeful businesses generate civic wealth – or economic and social benefits – to disadvantaged community groups. We differentiate between commercial practices that recast existent firm-centric processes towards creating value for marginalized groups and collaborative practices that aim to devise novel, participatory processes for engaging marginalized groups. Analysis of primary data from a sample of 430 small businesses in seven African countries confirms that the effect of social purpose on civic wealth is partially mediated by the two inclusionary practices. Businesses are more likely to extend the scope of their inclusion through collaborative practices when they receive favourable external validation and when institutional voids are low. We contribute to the literature by documenting the role of social purpose in motivating the pursuit of community-level goals and by unpacking the specific inclusionary practices used to achieve them.     

HRM implementation by multiple HRM actors: a social exchange perspective

Abstract

In this study, we understand HRM implementation as a social process that depends on the social exchange relationships between line managers and both HRM professionals and employees. As such, we offer a fresh approach to understanding HRM implementation by concentrating on the social exchange among HRM actors. We do so by investigating to what extent these exchange relationships influence HRM implementation, as reflected in employees’ perceptions of the presence of HRM practices and their affective commitment. We collected multilevel data from two sources (line managers and employees) and in two phases in a Dutch engineering firm, and obtained fully matched manager – employee information from 75 employees and 20 line managers. Our results show that employees perceive a larger number of HRM practices when they have a good relationship with their line managers and when their line managers are motivated to implement HRM practices. Line managers, in turn, reciprocate perceived support from the HRM department with greater motivation to implement these practices. We conclude that because HRM actors engage in social interactions, HRM practices will be implemented at the organizational level because employees perceive the presence of HRM practices and then reciprocate this with affective commitment.     

PREFIGURATIVE INFRASTRUCTURE: Mobility,Citizenship, and the Agency of Objects

This article examines the unsanctioned installation of infrastructure for walking and cycling as a site of possibility. In contrast to accounts of everyday urbanism that see in these kinds of interventions possibilities for a politics in which the state subsides, I find instead an effort to reclaim the state for more progressive purposes. I focus on groups calling themselves transformation agencies and departments of transformation to argue that DIY infrastructure is deployed on city streets not as an effort to subvert or supplant city authorities, but instead as prefigurative performances of city–citizen relationships ‘as if’ they were otherwise. Exploiting the plurality and contingency of the state and its legal forms, objects are installed to show how quickly things could be different, and sometimes they succeed in prompting significant shifts. Through guerrilla paint and pop-up posts, transformation agencies work prefiguratively to imagine and enact forms of citizenship that are not centred on automobility.     

中国最优价值工程实践研究(英文)

价值工程是一种有效的降低产品、系统或服务的成本并提高其价值的管理方法,在过去的50年中,它被广泛地用于许多国家.自1978年这一方法引入中国大陆以来,已广泛地用于各种领域,并取得了显著的效益,然而,近年来,中国大陆的许多企业面临着从计划经济向市场经济转换的种种困难.价值工程的应用大为衰弱了,许多价值工程团体业很少活动.有很多原因影响了价值工程的应用,例如,没有一个清楚的价值工作的基准,就是其中的一个重要原因.因此,广泛地考察国际的价值工程实践,建立一个中国的最优价值工程珠基准,开发一个能够用于市场经济的最优价值工程实践的架构,就显得十分紧迫了,本文是香港研究资助理事会的资助的一个项目的成果,在调查研究国际价值工程经验的基础上,本文尝试性地探讨了上述问题.     

A healthy bottom line and quality patient care: can they coexist?

In summary, it is the writer's opinion that a healthy bottom line and quality patient care can coexist. With today's economic pressures and with more and tighter controls and regulations being imposed by the government and regulatory agencies, providers (especially hospitals) need to be cost efficient and cost effective. Will the cost-containment measures necessary to maintain a healthy bottom line reduce the quality of patient care? They needn't. In point, such measures might actually increase the quality of care by avoiding wasteful clinical practices. Quality patient care comprises three basic elements: value, service, and compassion. To omit any one of these ingredients is to remove the quality from patient care. Should this happen, no cost-containment measure will be enough to sustain a hospital. Financial accountability is essential; quality care is imperative. Blended together thoroughly, they are the recipe to survival--for the hospital and for the patient.     

Edward Snowden,Frenemy of the State

The Edward Snowden whistleblowing event is a calculated spectacle of pseudo‐dissidence that has more in common with Hollywood‐produced propaganda than with genuine whistleblowing. This article presents evidence that Snowden has lied on a number of occasions, calling his credibility into question. Nothing that Snowden has revealed was truly a secret, since several previous whistleblowers had reported, since 2002, about illegal mass surveillance of American citizens by the National Security Agency. Snowden's most striking difference from other NSA whistleblowers is the warm embrace from mainstream media, which has made him a celebrity. The 1998 theatrical film Enemy of the State contained the same sorts of revelations offered by Snowden, and imparts a number of messages to its audience about the security state that are strikingly similar to recurring messages in the Snowden Affair. Since that movie was made with assistance from the CIA these similarities are important to considering how authentic and socially useful his whistleblowing is. It seems evident from Snowden's support for the renewal of the Patriot Act (now the Freedom Act), that he objectively serves the interests of the surveillance state, rather than the public it spies upon.     

Human Resource Management In Building Societies: Making the Transformation?

Ed Snape, Tom Redman and Adrian Wilkinson examine the implications of the changing competitive environment for the management of staff in building societies. In particular, they draw on the results of a detailed case study to discuss attempts to introduce policies and practices associated with ‘HRM’. the conclusion is that the competitive pressures which led to the demand for these policies and practices may also make their successful implementation especially dificult. Ed Snape is a Lecturer in the Department of Human Resource Management at the University of Strathclyde, Tom Redman a Lecturer at Teesside Business School, and Adrian Wilkinson a Lecturer at the Manchester School of Management (UMIST).     

Economic Systems, Child Rearing Practices and Personality Development

A bstract . Traditional Weberian theory posits that the values inherent in particular religious ideologies give rise, at least in some societies, to attitudes predisposing individuals towards a particular type of economic organization. In conjunction with this, McClelland postulates that socialization practices mediate and inculcate religious values in such a way that certain economic attitudes and behavior patterns emerge in adulthood; certain practices result in a motivational predisposition such as need achievement. However, recent research indicates that, in evolving societies, the economic-ecological variables strongly influence the types of child rearing practices used and the parentally-instilled values and ideology. Thus, personality predispositions and personal values depend, to a large extent, upon the economic structure and occupational roles of the society. As society increases in social-structural and technological complexity , the relationship between personal values and the economic institution becomes reciprocal.     

Workplace Dignity: Communicating Inherent,Earned, and Remediated Dignity

Extant research on dignity at work has revealed conditions that contribute to indignity, employees’ responses to dignity threats, and ways in which employees’ inherent dignity is undermined. But while dignity – and specifically indignity – is theorized as a phenomenon subjectively experienced and judged by individuals, little research has privileged workers’ own perspectives. In this study, working adults reveal how they personally experience and understand meanings of dignity at work. I describe three core components of workplace dignity and the communicative exchanges through which dignity desires commonly are affirmed or denied: inherent dignity as recognized by respectful interaction, earned dignity as recognized by messages of competence and contribution, and remediated dignity as recognized by social interactions and organizational practices that conceal the instrumental and unequal nature of work. Based on theoretical insights drawn from examining the relationships between these components, I argue that workplace dignity is a phenomenon theoretically distinct from human dignity.     

Why Local Social Forums Emerge Where They do: Beyond Diffusion,Geographical Appropriation

Social forums are, quintessentially, a transnationally mobile institutional enterprise. Since the first World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 2001, thousands of local initiatives have emerged all over the world. Yet we know very little about the diffusion processes involved. This article examines nine local social forums (LSFs) in two societies (France and Québec) in order to understand how social forums (SFs) spread throughout or within each territory. Aside from the usual factors, such as the presence or absence of an initiator, favorable political opportunity structure and access to resources, I consider the geography of appropriation, with an emphasis on the dimensions of place (where the forums are organized), and scales of action built by activists. First, I show that, as proposed in the social movement literature, SFs spread from the global South to the global North as a direct result of activists willing to reproduce within their localities that which they have seen and experienced on a larger scale. Political opportunity structures and access to resources appear relevant to understanding the longevity of LSFs and their capacity to be more or less encompassing experiences. But beyond these ‘usual suspects’, the geographical appropriation of social forums is an important consideration that helps us understand the specific diffusion of LSFs in each national territory. In Québec, the region is perceived as a ‘given’ by activists and becomes the relevant scale of collective action, while in France, scale building is at stake and LSFs are used as a tool to escape the centralization of the main national organization in the field of global protest.     

Neo-colonial philanthropy in the UK

UK philanthropic foundations are being subjected to greater scrutiny in how they address racial inequality with their funding distribution, yet the deeper critical question of whether these foundations perpetuate racial inequality in their very ethos, practices and existence remains unanswered. These foundations provide over £6.5billion of grants annually to the charitable sector, hold substantial power and influence over social movements and justify their charitable status by stating that they are addressing issues such as poverty and inequality. Yet many private foundations were built on a Victorian paternalistic model of gracious benefactor and grateful beneficiary and against the historical context of empire-building, slavery and colonialism which embedded ideas about ‘race’ within philanthropy. Furthermore, delineation between the deserving and undeserving poor connected with these formulations of race, to position subjects of colonies inequitably within this charitable paradigm and reinforce stereotypes. At the time, this formed the justification for the expansion of missionary or colonial philanthropy overseas which was the biggest philanthropic cause of the pre first world war era and which can be traced back as the basis for the ‘white saviour complex’ exhibited today within UK foundations, as they continue to operate a colonial social architecture. This inherent and unchallenged colonial social architecture used for grantmaking and funding distribution imbues processes and practices with the same ethos and principles exhibited by colonialism, resulting in a ‘neo-colonial philanthropy’, the tenets of which are identified and explored. In addition, as racial inequality remains one of the most critical issues of our time, it is asserted that foundations will need to understand the historical context of the UK’s colonialist history in order to recognise the link with racial disparities exhibited in communities today. This direct connection together with their own inbuilt colonial architecture necessitates an urgent conversation for Foundations about whether reparative or restorative justice is a more effective operational paradigm and the long term solution needed to address neo-colonial philanthropy or the ‘Empires new clothes’.     

Purchasing practices in small- to medium-sized enterprises: An examination of strategic purchasing adoption,supplier evaluation and supplier capabilities

The benefits that can be derived from effective purchasing have long been recognised in the management literature. Despite a growing body of research on purchasing practices in small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), a number of key issues remain under-examined. We investigate SME purchasing practices in terms of (1) the degree to which purchasing is regarded as a ‘strategic’ activity by SMEs, (2) the use of supplier evaluation systems by SMEs and (3) the supplier capabilities emphasised by SME buyers. Through a survey of UK SME managers, we find that purchasing practices varied greatly across SMEs. Purchasing formality is generally low with limited evidence of purchasing being employed strategically and with many firms not undertaking formal supplier evaluations. In terms of supplier capabilities, we find that SMEs differ in the capabilities they prioritise, with three distinct groups evident. These groups are labelled ‘holistic’, ‘process’ and ‘logistics’ based on the supplier capabilities they emphasise. These three groups of firms also differed in terms of the emphasis they placed on strategic purchasing, supplier evaluation, technological focus and how they compete in their main markets, but not in terms of firm size or number of suppliers utilised. The implications of these findings are discussed and areas meriting future research are proposed.     

Do transformational-oriented leadership and transactional-oriented leadership have an impact on whistle-blowing attitudes? A longitudinal examination conducted in US federal agencies

The benefits of effective leadership practices have often been examined. However, little is known about how these practices impact the perceptions of agency employees regarding whistle-blowing. For instance, only two cross-sectional studies were found to examine an association between transformational leadership (the most often studied leadership practice) and whistle-blowing attitudes. To extend these studies, we examined the relationship between transformational-oriented leadership behaviours and whistle-blowing attitudes using panel data. The findings revealed that transformational-oriented leadership increased the extent to which employees in agencies felt they could disclose wrongdoing without facing retaliation. Transactional-oriented leadership was also found to have a positive effect on these whistle-blowing behaviours; however, the effect size was smaller. The implications of these findings are thoroughly discussed in the article.     

Collisions: Negotiating tensions in a shared marketplace

Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) operate within marketing systems comprising broader networks of individuals, groups, and/or entities linked through shared participation in economic exchanges. These systems include diverse constituents with varied goals and orientations. Inherently, tensions arise as NPOs, for‐profit firms, and other social actors pursue differing agendas, often competing for finite resources. In this paper, we report the results of an ethnographic study, which examines one community's efforts to alleviate these tensions as they occur in a downtown business district. The area is noted for its economic vitality and diversity, but struggles to accommodate the needs of the homeless population and the social service agencies who maintain a presence there. Relationships between multiple constituencies erode as the business community seeks to displace both the social service agencies and the individuals they serve. The community in this study moved through thematic stages of problem solving associated with contentious social issues. They sought to use a bridging organization by forming a local homeless task force. An apparent breakdown occurred when the task force was unable to articulate integrative values and a vision for the community as a whole. The study illustrates the importance of establishing a set of shared values and vision and emphasizes the importance of the establishment of bridging organizations with power and authority to negotiate and implement changes. It challenges the utilization of sociospatial and relational mechanisms, which are designed to physically shift the homeless from the area.