This paper examines post-communist managerial ethics during the emergence and transition of charismatic leadership in two privately owned media holdings in Russia and Kyrgyzstan. These media holdings were bootstrapped in the 1990s and 2000s by people without management experience and connections. This paper argues that Weberian charismatic leadership was a necessary leadership style to start a private business for people without links to elite networks. However, once firms establish themselves on the market, charisma fades and yields itself to a legal-rational (...) leadership style. In particular, the paper compares and contrasts the managerial ethics issues arising from the loyalty-based leader–follower relations in the charismatic leadership phase and the legal-rational phase of a firm’s development and maturation. While the legal-rational phase brings positive changes to workload management and employees’ rights for vacation and p/maternity leave, task delegation remains an unsolved issue. Ambiguous career advancement criteria of the legal-rational phase replace rapid career progression of junior and middle managers during the charismatic phase. By examining the dynamics of managerial ethics transformation, this study adds to the literature on post-communist leadership, management and governance. Recommendations are provided for privately owned firms on how to advance managerial ethics to attract and retain qualified talent. (shrink)

This paper defends the possibility that meaningful learning can be supported by the Internet. Responding to Hubert Dreyfus’s neo-Kierkegaardian contention that the Internet inhibits and does not support meaningful learning, we argue that it is a valuable tool for learning that can promote the development of intellectual expertise without the accompanying atrophy of personhood that Dreyfus believes is a prominent effect of extensive engagement with the Internet. Additionally, we argue that a conflation of practically ultimate commitments and epistemically ultimate commitments (...) underlies Dreyfus’s conception of unconditional commitments that constitutes the core of his critique of the possibility of meaningful learning on the Web. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of personality traits on academic performance. Furthermore, this study also aims at exploring the effects of virtual experience and emotional intelligence between personality traits and academic performance of the students. The findings imply that personality traits are the strong predictors of better academic performance. However, several personality traits do not have a positive impact on the academic performance. The study further suggests that students who have emotional abilities and virtual experience (...) are more likely to perform well in their academics. The population of this research consists of students in various colleges and universities in developing regions. Thus, the sample consists of bachelor's and master's students. Existing scales are adopted with minor changes to make it more suitable and understandable within the study context. A total of 319 questionnaires were distributed. Among these 365 questionnaires, 234 questionnaires were received and further used for the purpose of data analysis. This shows an encouraging response from the targeted sample. Education and productivity of the students are influenced by their personality as well as their emotional intelligence abilities. The findings imply that being extrovert is a strong predictor of student achievement and should be prioritized in intervention strategies. This personality feature is responsible for performance in addition to virtual learning experience. Despite its low overall relative value, agreeableness is a significant driver of student achievement. Along with ability and aptitude assessments, personality evaluations might be utilized as a secondary screening tool to identify adolescents at risk of underperformance and academic performance failure. Therefore, learning emotional skills would be beneficial to cope the modern challenges of the competitive educational environment. Virtual experience and being emotionally sound can help students to learn quickly and to be more adaptive into the new world of digitalization. The conclusions of the current study have significant consequences for educators and policymakers. They must accept that boosting emotional intelligence levels through teaching or training is a significant objective of contemporary education. The emotional intelligence abilities of the students related to culture may be shown in a variety of ways, from expectations toward students to interpersonal interactions with students, and from teaching techniques to evaluation methods. (shrink)

As soon as the economy of Kazakhstan is highly resource‐oriented despite numerous efforts to change the structure of the national economy, constant assessment of the scientific and innovation sphere of the country is actual and important. By way of qualitative, quantitative, comparative, and descriptive analysis 13 indicators related to science and innovations were investigated to define the level of scientific and innovative development in Kazakhstan. Science and innovation in Kazakhstan are under‐financed and state‐based financing of innovative activities seems to be (...) ineffective, and the innovations are still unprofitable. The scientific human capital is affected by “brain drain,” when best graduates go into business or leave the country to build careers in better financial conditions. Eight indicators are found to be universal and comparable for various countries, and can be applied with the purpose of defining the level of scientific and innovative development of a country or countries. The results of the study can be applied by governmental officials for developing policies related to science and innovations. The methods, set of indicators, and findings of the study can be used by other researchers for investigating and comparing the level(s) of scientific and innovative development in other country or countries. (shrink)