A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balanceeconomics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary toman′s finding the good life and society enduring…
Abstract
A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balance economics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary to man′s finding the good life and society enduring as a civilized instrumentality. Looks for authority to great men of the past and to today′s moral philosopher: man is an ethical animal. The 13 essays are: 1. Evolutionary Economics: The End of It All? which challenges the view that Darwinism destroyed belief in a universe of purpose and design; 2. Schmoller′s Political Economy: Its Psychic, Moral and Legal Foundations, which centres on the belief that time‐honoured ethical values prevail in an economy formed by ties of common sentiment, ideas, customs and laws; 3. Adam Smith by Gustav von Schmoller – Schmoller rejects Smith′s natural law and sees him as simply spreading the message of Calvinism; 4. Pierre‐Joseph Proudhon, Socialist – Karl Marx, Communist: A Comparison; 5. Marxism and the Instauration of Man, which raises the question for Marx: is the flowering of the new man in Communist society the ultimate end to the dialectical movement of history?; 6. Ethical Progress and Economic Growth in Western Civilization; 7. Ethical Principles in American Society: An Appraisal; 8. The Ugent Need for a Consensus on Moral Values, which focuses on the real dangers inherent in there being no consensus on moral values; 9. Human Resources and the Good Society – man is not to be treated as an economic resource; man′s moral and material wellbeing is the goal; 10. The Social Economist on the Modern Dilemma: Ethical Dwarfs and Nuclear Giants, which argues that it is imperative to distinguish good from evil and to act accordingly: existentialism, situation ethics and evolutionary ethics savour of nihilism; 11. Ethical Principles: The Economist′s Quandary, which is the difficulty of balancing the claims of disinterested science and of the urge to better the human condition; 12. The Role of Government in the Advancement of Cultural Values, which discusses censorship and the funding of art against the background of the US Helms Amendment; 13. Man at the Crossroads draws earlier themes together; the author makes the case for rejecting determinism and the “operant conditioning” of the Skinner school in favour of the moral progress of autonomous man through adherence to traditional ethical values.
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James E. Schrager and Albert Madansky
The purpose of this paper is to apply the cognitive research of Herbert Simon to business strategy decisions, to begin a discussion of the emerging field of Behavioral Strategy.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to apply the cognitive research of Herbert Simon to business strategy decisions, to begin a discussion of the emerging field of Behavioral Strategy.
Design/methodology/approach
Research on cognition, memory and expertise are organized, with the aim of enlightening the process of business strategy development.
Findings
The authors select four insights from Simon's work to form an integrative framework of decision making and apply this to illuminate existing approaches to schools of strategy thought and practice.
Research limitations/implications
This paper should lead to research on how to advance the process of solving strategic problems, in both practice and theory. The most important limitation is that much additional research lies ahead, as this is a foundational view.
Originality/value
This paper is the first to recognize the potential for application of Simon's cognitive research to the practice of strategic decisions.
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Stephen Brown and Christopher Hackley
Simon Cowell, the impresario behind The X Factor, a popular television talent show, has often been compared to P.T. Barnum, the legendary nineteenth century showman. This paper…
Abstract
Purpose
Simon Cowell, the impresario behind The X Factor, a popular television talent show, has often been compared to P.T. Barnum, the legendary nineteenth century showman. This paper aims to examine the alleged parallels in detail and attempts to assess this “Barnum reborn” argument.
Design/methodology/approach
Putative parallels between the impresarios are considered under the aegis of two long‐standing, if contentious, historical “theories”: time's cycle and the great man thesis.
Findings
Seven broad similarities between the showmen are identified: vulgarity, hyperbole, rivalry, publicity, duplicity, liminality and history. In each case, the arguments pro and con are explored, as is humanity's propensity to personify.
Originality/value
In accordance with the iconic literary critic Harold Bloom, who “strikes texts together to seek if they spark”, this paper strikes two celebrated showmen together to generate historical sparks.
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Tony Simons and David L. Corsun
The World of Concrete trade show organizers negotiate a block of approximately 30,000 rooms with a different location each year. The case was developed through interviews with the…
Abstract
The World of Concrete trade show organizers negotiate a block of approximately 30,000 rooms with a different location each year. The case was developed through interviews with the trade show director. The issues under negotiation include the room rate, cancellation clauses, and amenities for the conference organizers and VIPs. The case is written for a negotiations course and may be used in two ways: as an intermediate exercise for refining student skills at information management and integrative bargaining or as a fairly advanced exercise about appropriate preparation for major negotiations.
Susan G. Michie, Robert S. Dooley and Gerald E. Fryxell
This study attempts to move beyond the “congruence assumption” surrounding top management team (TMT) demography by exploring the intervening processes that link TMT diversity and…
Abstract
Purpose
This study attempts to move beyond the “congruence assumption” surrounding top management team (TMT) demography by exploring the intervening processes that link TMT diversity and organizational performance.
Design/methodology/approach
Using Fiol's concept of unified diversity and employing an information processing perspective of strategic decision‐making, this article proposes a model that incorporates both moderating and mediating influences; and then tests the hypotheses using data from specific strategic decisions faced by 85 top‐level decision‐making teams within the health care industry.
Findings
Evidence was found to support the expectation that goal consensus moderates the relationship between informational diversity and decision quality within the management teams. In addition, team member collaboration was found to partially mediate this effect. Research limitations/implications – The retrospective nature of the data collection captured the essence of the decision‐making process over time, but future research using longitudinal designs that include different types of industries is needed to confirm the validity of the findings.
Practical implications
The practical implications of this study point towards a need for managers to set in motion both divergent and convergent thinking during the strategic decision‐making process. The findings indicate that if managers want to reap the benefits of teams with members from different functional and educational backgrounds, they must instigate some aspect of shared framing among team members, such as consensus on broad organizational goals.
Originality/value
This research identified relevant contingency and mediating variables that help to explain the equivocal results of previous studies attempting to link top management team demography to organizational performance.
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Melinda Waters, Linda Simon, Michele Simons, Jennifer Davids and Bobby Harreveld
As neoliberal reforms take hold in the vocational education and training (VET) sector in Australia, there is renewed interest in the quality of teaching practice. However, despite…
Abstract
Purpose
As neoliberal reforms take hold in the vocational education and training (VET) sector in Australia, there is renewed interest in the quality of teaching practice. However, despite the value of practitioner inquiry to the quality of teaching in schools, scholarly practice in higher education, and established links between the quality of teaching and outcomes for learners and between practice-based inquiry and pedagogic innovation in VET, the practices has received little attention. The purpose of this paper is to explore the value of a college-wide culture of scholarly activity to learners, enterprises, VET institutions, educators and the national productivity agenda.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on the education literature, empirical examples of scholarly activity drawn from the authors’ experiences of working with VET practitioners, this paper asks what constitutes research and inquiry in VET, why should these practices be integral to educative practice and what value do they bring to the sector? In addressing the questions, the authors explore how research and inquiry is defined in the literature and draw on three empirical examples of scholarly activities to provide a national, institutional and individual view. A discussion about the value of scholarly activities to VET stakeholders and how the practices might be fostered and sustained concludes the paper.
Findings
The paper concludes that practice-based scholarly activities in VET cultivate rich potential for renewed and innovative pedagogies that improve outcomes for learners, respond to industry demands for innovative skills, build “pedagogic capital” for VET institutions, enrich the knowledge base of policy makers and build resilience and professionalism. The authors conclude by positioning VET educators as scholars in their own right along a continuum of scholarly activity and posing the proposition that when valued, scholarly activities are practices for new times that will build a strong and vibrant profession for the future.
Research limitations/implications
This paper brings together the authors’ experiences of working with VET practitioners as the authors engage in scholarly activities. While each vignette was drawn from a formal research project in each case, the paper itself was not structured around a formal research activity, although a small survey was undertaken for vignette 1. This poses limitations to the findings of the study. However, the purpose of the paper is not to be conclusive but to forward an argument for more scholarly activity in VET in order to promote further research and debate.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the current debate in Australia about the quality of teaching in VET and the sectors’ capability to produce “work-ready” graduates. It brings to the fore the value of scholarly activity for educators, learners, industry and communities, VET institutions and the broader national innovation agenda. As such, it has relevance to all VET stakeholders, most particularly policy makers, leaders and practitioners in VET.
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Mark Simon, Susan M. Houghton and G.T. Lumpkin
The entrepreneurs’ ability to identify opportunities can lead to wealth creation and competitive advantage. Often, however, opportunities that are innovative may defy up-front…
Abstract
The entrepreneurs’ ability to identify opportunities can lead to wealth creation and competitive advantage. Often, however, opportunities that are innovative may defy up-front analysis suggesting that the entrepreneurs may have had somewhat inaccurate perceptions and need to refine their ideas after the ventures are started. This paper therefore focuses on mitigating the negative impact of early misperceptions through the use of learning-oriented information processing systems to refine opportunities post starting a venture. Specifically, it suggests that an experienced and heterogeneous top management team and a decentralized, organic structure enhance the system's ability to gain knowledge from acting on early misperceptions and may even form the basis for a distinctive capability that leads to competitive advantage.
David F. Hardwick and Leslie Marsh
Purpose/problem statement – Two highly successful complex adaptive systems are the Market and Science, each with an inherent tendency toward epistemic imperialism. Of late…
Abstract
Purpose/problem statement – Two highly successful complex adaptive systems are the Market and Science, each with an inherent tendency toward epistemic imperialism. Of late, science, notably medical science, seems to have become functionally subservient to market imperatives. We offer a twofold Hayekian analysis: a justification of the multiplicity view of spontaneous orders and a critique of the libertarian justification of market prioricity.
Methodology/approach – This chapter brings to light Hayekian continuities between diverse literatures – philosophical, epistemological, cognitive, and scientific.
Findings – The very precondition of knowledge is the exploitation of the epistemic virtues accorded by society's manifold of spontaneous forces, a manifold that gives context and definition to intimate, regulate, and inform action. The free-flow of information is the lifeblood of civil (liberal) society. The commoditization of medical knowledge promotes a dysfunctional free-flow of information that compromises notions of expertise and ultimately has implications for the greater good.
Research limitations/implications – While we accept that there are irresolvable tensions between these epistemic magisteria we are troubled by the overt tampering with the spontaneous order mechanism of medical science. The lessons of Hayek are not being assimilated by many who would go by the adjective Hayekian.
Originality/value of chapter – On offer is a Hayekian restatement (contra the libertarian view typically attributed to Hayek) cautioning that no one spontaneous order should dominate over another, neither should they be made conversable. Indeed, we argue that the healthy functioning of a market presupposes institutions that should not answer to market imperatives.