Framing Work Through a Socio-technical Ensemble: The Case of Butler Co.

The paper argues for conceptualizing technology as a socio-technical ensemble which emerges from the socio-political context of the organization. This perspective is used to inform a case study carried out within a consumer goods company, where the focus is upon the configuration of work and technology associated with the job of sales representative. It is argued that the acquiescence and compliance of the sales representatives are to be understood primarily on the basis of senior management's effective deployment of its power resource through 'enacting the environment', the configuration and utilization of the ensemble, and its employment strategy. 'Closure' and 'stabilization' had occurred, and the ensemble was operating on a number of levels.     

Tantra as episteme: A pedagogy of the future

In the face of the contemporary university's failure to escape from economic rationality and therefore create environments conducive to positive futures an alternative model of university is proposed. This is based on an episteme rooted in Tantra, a world view that allows for a multi-layering of discourse to occur in order to greatly extend the university's mandate as a cultural catalyst for future generations. It is argured that Tantra, which is situated in a resurgent indigenous consciousness, is both ancient and modern possessing as it does the deep wisdoms of this episteme while being energised with a liberatory ethic aimed at physical, social and spiritual emancipation from exploitative ideologies.     

General competitive equilibrium of the spatial economy : Two Teasers

The local indivisibility of space complicates general equilibrium analysis. Mazzoleni and Montesano (1984, p. 286), suggest that the usual reasoning of the non-spatial analyses of competitive equilibrium can be performed in the context of a commodity space that contains subsets of land. This space, however, lacks a linear structure, so it resists application of the usual reasoning. Two examples will show that Mazzoleni and Montesano's existence results are flawed.     

What Fraction of a Capital Investment is Sunk Costs?

To what extent are capital investments sunk costs? This question is addressed by examining the salvage values of discarded metalworking machinery. Even though such assets are expected to be non‐specific, many discarded assets are scrapped rather than sold on second‐hand markets. Econometric results suggest that firms can only expect to get back 20–50 percent of the initial price of a ‘new’ machine once it is installed. The results also indicate differences in value‐age profiles across firms, but provide only weak support for the hypothesis that salvage values are particularly low during recessions.     

Participation and division of labour: a West German case study

Motivation and productivity were increased when the traditional division of labour and surplus was modified to give workers extended tasks and profit-shares in firm Z. In X, traditional division of labour combined with worker-shareholding and formal, representative participation failed to improve motivation.     

Failures to Deliver,Short Sale Constraints,and Stock Overvaluation

Studying a large sample of publicly available data on failures to deliver, we find that stocks reaching threshold levels of failures become significantly overvalued. Where short sale constraints are especially binding, we report extreme overpricing and subsequent reversals. These findings support the overvaluation hypothesis, although the mispricing is likely to be difficult to arbitrage because of extreme shorting costs. In addition, threshold stocks with low short interest become more overvalued than threshold stocks with high short interest. This suggests that the level of short interest reflects supply‐side effects when the examination conditions on the difficulty of borrowing shares.     

Masculinising domesticity: an investigation of men’s domestic foodwork

Abstract

This study examines how men configure their gendered identity in relation to a traditionally feminised domain. Hegemonic masculinity is said to structure men’s dominance over women. We use the lens of hegemonic masculinity along with social fields of cultural production to understand new allocations of status capital in relation to gendered identity work. Sweden, a country permeated by an ideology of egalitarianism and having a history of high economic and symbolic incentives for the domestic field, has seemingly legitimised the domestic consumption field in the search for higher status. By exploring the transforming meanings of masculinity when men enter a traditionally feminine consumption domain in this particular cultural context, we identify how feminised masculinities are shaped into hegemonic masculinity. This in turn suggests that the currently most honoured way of being a man includes forms of masculinities that incorporate egalitarian relationships between men and women.     

A Cross-Cultural Examination of the Endorsement of Ethical Leadership

The western-based leadership and ethics literatures were reviewed to identify the key characteristics that conceptually define what it means to be an ethical leader. Data from the Global Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness (GLOBE) project were then used to analyze the degree to which four aspects of ethical leadership – Character/Integrity, Altruism, Collective Motivation, and Encouragement – were endorsed as important for effective leadership across cultures. First, using multi-group confirmatory factor analyses measurement equivalence of the ethical leadership scales was found, which provides indication that the four dimensions have similar meaning across cultures. Then, using analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests each of the four dimensions were found to be universally endorsed as important for effective leadership. However, cultures also varied significantly in the degree of endorsement for each dimension. In the increasingly global business environment, these findings have implications for organizations implementing ethics programs across cultures and preparing leaders for expatriate assignments. Christian J. Resick is Assistant Professor of Industrial and Organizational Psychology at Florida International University. His research is aimed at understanding how people interact with and influence various aspects of their work environments, including cultures, climates, leaders, and teammates along with the implications for various aspects of organizational behavior. A particular focus of Christian’s work examines ethical leadership and the critical linkages between leadership and organizational ethics. He received his Ph.D. from Wayne State University. Paul J. Hanges is a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Maryland and the head of the Industrial/Organizational Psychology program in the department. He is an affiliate of the Cognitive Psychology program and the R. H. Smith School of Business. Paul’s research focuses on three topics (a) social cognition, leadership, and cross-cultural issues; (b) personnel selection, test fairness, and racial/gender discrimination; and (c) research methodology. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of Applied Psychology and The Leadership Quarterly and is a fellow of the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology and the American Psychological Association. Marcus W. Dickson is Associate Professor of I/O Psychology at Wayne State University in Detroit. His research generally focuses on issues of leadership and culture (both organizational and societal), and the interaction of those constructs. He is a former Co-Principal Investigator of the GLOBE Project, and his work has appeared in Journal of Applied Psychology, Applied Psychology: An International Review, and The Leadership Quarterly, among others. Jacqueline K. Mitchelson is a doctoral candidate in Industrial and Organizational Psychology at Wayne State University. Her current research areas are leadership, organizational culture, individual differences and work-family conflict.