The purpose of this paper is as follows: locate our moral compass framework (Bowden and Green, 2014) within the moral development literature; demonstrate how the framework can be…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is as follows: locate our moral compass framework (Bowden and Green, 2014) within the moral development literature; demonstrate how the framework can be used to analyse complex system-wide problems; and propose change in doctoral education.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper shows the analysis of transcripts of 50 interviews with doctoral students and supervisors. Four scenarios, each a composite derived primarily from the interview data, were analysed using the framework, complemented by reference to the moral development literature.
Findings
The structure of the framework and meaning of the constructs’ collective morality, moral advocacy and moral mediation are elaborated and further explained through the analysis of the four scenarios, showing how the framework can contribute to resolution of complex system-wide problems and how they facilitate moral development within a multi-level system. Six proposals for change in the doctoral education system, at the individual, organisational and national levels, are derived from those analyses.
Originality/value
The use of our moral compass framework to analyse the four scenarios demonstrates its applicability to real situations and its complementarity with the moral development literature. The paper also shows that the framework is more powerful and of broader impact than the moral development models published to date. The changes proposed for the doctoral education system, based on the moral compass framework and its application to the four scenarios, have the potential to change practice in ways that benefit everyone involved in the system – candidates, supervisors, management and government personnel.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of the paper is to design and explain a moral compass framework that informs decision-making by those engaged in shaping the doctoral education and supervision…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to design and explain a moral compass framework that informs decision-making by those engaged in shaping the doctoral education and supervision environment.
Design/methodology/approach
The research involved analysis of transcripts of 50 interviews with a range of doctoral students and supervisors. The framework was derived from the integration of the transcript analysis with a range of theoretical constructs: Rittel and Webber’s (1973) “wicked” problems; Bowden’s (2004) capability for the unknown future; Baillie et al.’s (2013) threshold capability development; liminality (Meyer and Land 2006); mindfulness (Langer and Moldoveanu, 2000; Green and Bowden, 2012); as well as our interpretation of moral compass and collective morality.
Findings
Although applicable to a wide range of contexts, with broader, potentially universal implications for professional life, the framework is explained using the doctoral education system as example, and supervisor and candidate experiences as illustration. It relates individual decision-making to notions of collective morality and moral development within a multi-level system, through moral advocacy and moral mediation, activities identified as necessary at all levels of the doctoral system.
Originality/value
Our framework demonstrates the need for developing awareness of the multi-factorial nature of the wicked problems that arise in doctoral education and the requirement to address such problems across all levels – individual, organisational and national. We identified the central importance of a new construct – collective morality and the way that moral advocacy and moral mediation can contribute to resolution of such wicked problems in doctoral education and supervision.
Details
Keywords
Month after month we bring forward additional evidence of the injury resulting from the use of chemical “preservatives” in food, while the Authorities feebly hesitate to give…
Abstract
Month after month we bring forward additional evidence of the injury resulting from the use of chemical “preservatives” in food, while the Authorities feebly hesitate to give specific legal effect to the recommendations of the Departmental Committee which made such a complete inquiry into this question. The evidence upon which those recommendations were based has been fully corroborated by a number of different observers. FERE and others have shown that, as regards boric acid and borax, even when administered in the smallest medicinal doses, there is always the risk that these drugs may aggravate, or even produce, renal diseases. These observations have been confirmed by the work of Dr. CHARLES HARRINGTON, an account of which has been recently published. Twelve cats were fed on the same food; six were treated with borax, one had no preservative, and five were given a preservative which had no apparent effect. The experiment extended over a period of 133 days, the quantity of borax given averaging about 0.5 grms, per diem. Three of the borated cats soon became ill, and one died at the end of six weeks. On the termination of the experiment the cats were all killed, and upon examination it was found that the organs of the six cats which had not taken borax were in perfectly sound and healthy condition, while the others, with one exception, were all suffering from nephritis. Of course, instances are recorded in which patients have been treated with borax and boracic acid with apparently no injurious result, but as a general rule these experiments have been of too short duration to allow of the desired information being arrived at, and the results must therefore be regarded as inconclusive and unreliable. It is perfectly evident that the kidneys may be for a short time quite capable of eliminating many objectionable substances, but the long‐continued use of such bodies, as Dr. HARRINGTON'S researches clearly indicate, sets up an inflammatory condition of the kidneys which, of course, interferes with the effective performance of their proper functions, and lays the foundations for complications of the most serious nature.
Review of O’Brien, D. P., & Creedy, J. (Eds.). (2010). Darwin's clever neighbor: George Warde Norman and his circle. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. ISBN: 978-1848445574. $165.00.
Abstract
Review of O’Brien, D. P., & Creedy, J. (Eds.). (2010). Darwin's clever neighbor: George Warde Norman and his circle. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. ISBN: 978-1848445574. $165.00.
G. Srikanthan and John Dalrymple
The paper attempts to synthesise the features of the model for quality management in education based on the approaches spelt out in four well‐articulated methodologies for the…
Abstract
The paper attempts to synthesise the features of the model for quality management in education based on the approaches spelt out in four well‐articulated methodologies for the practice of quality in higher education. Each methodology contributes to different views of education from the learners’ and the institution's perspectives, providing elements for the model. The thrust of the model is a “transformative” approach to bring about a fundamental change in students’ understanding. In the opinion of the authors the four approaches lend themselves to be synergistically combined to form the elements of the model, which establishes the basis for quality in education in universities. This provides a prima facie validity for the synthesis of a model. A more comprehensive specification for a model for quality could be developed based on an extensive study of educational research literature.
Details
Keywords
All over the world, it seems to me, it is becoming recognised that attitudes towards business, industry and work, are crucial determinants of a community's prosperity. It also…
Abstract
All over the world, it seems to me, it is becoming recognised that attitudes towards business, industry and work, are crucial determinants of a community's prosperity. It also seems that every country puts its own twist on the topic. It has to be recognised that the complex of attitudes towards business, meaning, largely, free‐enterprise manufacturing, although important, is not the sole determinant of prosperity. Some countries are favoured by good fortune denied to others. Global situations change to the extent that some countries suddenly find their assets of more value than they were at an earlier stage. For instance, in comparison with France, England is over four times more densely populated; France can feed itself and provide a surplus of food for export. In the Common Market it has found the means of marketing the surplus, or a large part of it. Britain can scarcely feed half of its population, and to feed the rest of it has to exchange the products of its factories for food. These same factories have to import the majority of the raw materials they process, which means that, as a nation, we have to allocate even more of our factory production to exchange for these raw materials. To Britain, for reasons such as these, the production of her factories is crucial to the attainment of any reasonable standard of living. Now, these basic economic facts are not secret: in some form or another they are well‐known to Mr Average Citizen, certainly to Mr Average Teacher or Mr Average University Lecturer or Professor. There is, however, in British society, this immense paradox: that, Japan apart, out of all the advanced nations Britain is the one most dependent for prosperity on the success of her industry and business and yet large sections of her populace have attitude sets which can accurately be described as anti‐business: they are not merely critical of business but are actually hostile. Putting it bluntly and again, with the arguable exception of Japan, that nation most in need of a pro‐business attitude set has the least favourable one. The problem is not new nor is the recognition of it. For as long as I can remember this feature of British life has been a recurrent talking point. Men like Lord Bowden, Principal of UMIST, who move freely between education, industry and government, have made it the central theme of their public utterances for a generation and more. But I can see no improvement, for all their effort. The attitude is most pronounced and is most serious in the world of education where it comes to a head. It is most serious because it ensures that every generation of young people is impregnated with the disease at an early age, before it can have the opportunity of judging for itself. Lord Bowden has, over the years, explained how this estrangement between the worlds of business and education can be traced back to the circumstances in which the industrial revolution came about in Britain. The Industrial Revolution owed nothing to the universities or to men formally educated in the traditional institutions. At that time the universities were at their lowest ebb and such educated men as contributed to industrial and technological innovation were the products of the dissenting academies, which no longer exist. The universities and industry started off at loggerheads and remarkably little has happened since to heal the wounds. British universities were unbelievably hostile to the establishment of departments of business and management: it was not until the late 1960s that this started to change with the establishment of university management departments and business schools. The importance of the universities in this connection stems from the fact that in Britain the universities set the standard, the pace and the very ethos of education not only for themselves but for all levels below. In other countries it is different: in the USA, for example, the dominant influence in schools is the local community. From the universities the attitude has spread to all branches of education with the possible exception of some technical colleges, though not all. But it appears in other quarters as well: the public pronouncements of Britain's present Chancellor of the Exchequer, as with those of most of his Cabinet colleagues, show the most appalling ignorance of the most elementary facts of business. We start our study of this problem facing Britain with a demonstration of the attitude in operation. By kind permission of the editor of Times Educational Supplement, we reproduce an article published in that journal, dated 16 April 1976. The author is Professor Maurice Peston, Professor of Economics at Queen Mary College, University of London. We follow this by comment upon it by Professor C H Dobinson, who first called our attention to Professor Peston's article. We invite readers to contribute to this study either by commenting on these two articles or by independent contributions dealing with other aspects.
The purpose of this paper is to explore issues related to a recent article by Bradley Bowden published in QROM titled “Empiricism, and modern postmodernism: a critique”. The…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore issues related to a recent article by Bradley Bowden published in QROM titled “Empiricism, and modern postmodernism: a critique”. The argument presented here is that antagonism between different sub-communities undertaking work related to the “historic-turn” in management and organization studies (MOS) should give way to greater acceptance of different “phenomenal” concerns and different methods of research.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is based on a critical reading and interpretation of relevant texts. This paper critiques recent work by Bradley Bowden. These are then used as a starting point for a discussion of the different ways in which historical research is practiced in MOS.
Findings
The central interpretation developed is that despite many strengths, there are both interpretative and argumentational limitations to Bowden’s criticism that the historic-turn in MOS is postmodernist in nature. In pointing to the varieties of historical research and interpretation in the field, this paper calls for greater and more sympathetic understanding between the different related sub-fields that are interested in history in relation to management and organization.
Research limitations/implications
This paper concludes by calling for more historical work that deals with historiographical and theoretical issues, rather than a continuation of methodological debates that focus on antagonisms between different methods of undertaking historical research to the exclusion of advancing the creation of new historical knowledge, however constructed.
Originality/value
This paper articulates a pluralistic and ecumenical vision for historical research in relation to management and organization. The primary contribution is therefore to attempt to dissolve the seeming assumption of dialectical antagonism between different but related sub-communities of practice.
Details
Keywords
Peter Gibbings, John Lidstone and Christine Bruce
This chapter extends the phenomenographical research method by arguing the merits of engineering the outcome space from these investigations to effectively communicate the…
Abstract
This chapter extends the phenomenographical research method by arguing the merits of engineering the outcome space from these investigations to effectively communicate the outcomes to an audience in technology-based discipline areas. Variations discovered from the phenomenographical study are blended with pre- and post-tests and a frequency distribution. Outcomes are then represented in a visual statistical manner to suit the specific target audience. This chapter provides useful insights that will be of interest to researchers wishing to present findings from qualitative research methods, and particularly the outcomes of phenomenographic investigations, to an audience in technology-based discipline areas.