Defining Capitalism

This article aims to incorporate the essential features of capitalism in an operational definition that identifies capitalism per se (pure laissez‐faire capitalism), and clearly excludes variations such as welfare capitalism and crony capitalism. By concisely highlighting the fundamental structures and mechanisms of capitalism, this essential definition facilitates defences of it that are more robust than those ordinarily offered. It also clarifies the relation between capitalism and phenomena with which it is frequently associated, and suggests a straightforward way of identifying and measuring the extent of capitalism in mixed economies.     

Substantial effect of voluntary policy interventions on aircraft ground handling safety

Managing safety and health matters require comprehensive policy intervention to change the existing culture in the ground handling operations and reducing the safety performance outcomes. This study aims to investigate the relationship between safety culture and safety performance outcome with voluntary policy intervention as the moderating effect of the relationship. The study employed a quantitative method through a survey instrument, which was participated by 423 ground handling workers from six international airports in Malaysia. The results indicated seven hypotheses in direct relationships have positive association between safety culture and safety performance construct. While for moderator relationships, there were five hypotheses found to be statistically significant and supported. The presence of voluntary policy interventions were found to be beneficial or detrimental elements for the insignificant relationships of the study. The ground handling organisation is expected to utilise these results by strengthening their organisation safety culture and prioritise safety and health matters over demand and cost.     

Unconscious Processes of Organizing: Intergroup Conflict in Mental Health Care

A critical but overlooked issue in Weick’s seminal work, The Social Psychology of Organizing (1969/1979), concerns ‘the heat’ of organizing processes, namely, the underground emotional processes underpinning the organizing of conflictual work relationships. We present a qualitative case study of psychiatric agencies mandated by public policy to collaborate but instead engaged in persistent conflict despite its deleterious effects on their working relationship and on the wellbeing of the clients they intended to serve. To explain these conflictual features of organizing, we integrate Weick’s organizing theory with systems psychodynamics to deepen the understanding of emotions in organizing, specifically the motivational forces underpinning sensemaking and actions between interacting psychiatric agencies. This integration of theories reveals a critical feature of the relationship between the conscious and unconscious organizing processes: When a threat is involved, sensemaking and action are overtaken by social defences, resulting in dysfunctional organizing of the primary task. Drawing on these findings, we enrich Weick’s seminal work by developing a model that portrays organizing as the ritualized interaction of emotions, sensemaking and behavioural responses.     

Genetically modified organisms and the age of (Un) reason? A critical examination of the rhetoric in the GMO public policy debates in Ghana

Using narrative policy analysis we examined the adversarial rhetoric of claims-makers in their bid to undermine alternative and conflicting accounts of GMOs as environmental and human health risk and to forestall any challenges to the scientific authority of the technological deterministic account of the GMO policy debates in Ghana. The study shows that the GMO discourse was built with the rhetorical frames of smallholder farmer vulnerability and entitlement used in the account it contradicts, thereby legitimating its own appeal for responsive remedies. Civil society claims attacked GMOs as discriminatory and as an environmental and human health risk. Government and scientists engaged in unsympathetic counter rhetorical strategies in hopes of debunking or neutralizing the claim made by civil society. In other words, Government and scientists were denying the claim that GMO was discriminatory and posed significant human health risk, as well as the call to action to do something about GMOs. Civil society adapted the counter rhetoric of insincerity, claiming that scientists had some kind of “hidden agenda” behind their claim, such as eagerness to just earn money from their patents on GMOs. It is imperative that communication on GMOs includes the underlying assumptions, the uncertainties and the probabilities associated with both best and worst case scenarios. This is a necessary condition to minimise misinformation on GMOs but may be insufficient to completely erase conspiracy theories from the minds of the public especially when scientists and government are perceived to be biased towards multinational corporations that are ostensibly preoccupied with making profits.     

心理健康教育视域下的校园文化景观教学——以福建商业高等专科学校为例

在校园文化建设中,景观建设是其基本内容。商专校园文化景观贯穿继承与弘扬"闽商精神"的根本理念,将几大文化板块相融通,构造出丰富多彩的内容。探讨校园文化景观与心理健康教育的关系,结合相关的基础理论,分析校园文化景观对心理健康教育的多重积极作用,使心理健康教育的情境化教学方式落到实处,有益于心理健康教育的良性发展,对深化高校心理健康教育的多样化途径的认识与理解也有借鉴作用。     

健康APP持续使用意愿研究——电子健康素养和确认度的影响

智能手机的普及促使健康APP得到普遍应用，但存在健康APP下载之后用户对其使用率低的普遍现象，为此分析健康APP持续使用意愿的影响因素十分有必要。在健康APP、信息系统持续使用等相关文献的研究基础之上，结合健康APP用户使用行为特征，在ECM-IS中引入电子健康素养，构建健康APP的持续使用意愿模型，主要分析电子健康素养和确认度对持续使用意愿的影响机制。另外给出模型中变量的定义和相关假设，为后续实证研究奠定理论基础。     

Optimal Retirement with Increasing Longevity

We develop an optimizing life‐cycle model of retirement with perfect capital markets. We show that longer healthy life expectancy usually leads to later retirement, but with an elasticity less than unity. We calibrate our model using data from the US and find that, over the last century, the effect of rising incomes, which promote early retirement, has dominated the effect of rising lifespans. Our model predicts continuing declines in the optimal retirement age, despite rising life expectancy, provided the rate of real wage growth remains as high as in the last century.