This article looks into the process of searching for new forms of legitimacy among firms through corporate discourse. Through the analysis of annual sustainability reports, we have determined the existence of three types of rhetoric: (1) strategic (embedded in the scientific-economic paradigm); (2) institutional (based on the fundamental constructs of Corporate Social Responsibility theories); and (3) dialectic (which aims at improving the discursive quality between the corporations and their stakeholders). Each one of these refers to a different form of legitimacy (...) and is based on distinct theories of the firm analyzed in this article. We claim that dialectic rhetoric seems to signal a new understanding of the firm's role in society and a search for moral legitimation. However, this new form of rhetoric is still fairly uncommon although its use is growing. Combining theory and business examples, this article may help managers and researchers in the conceptualization of how firms make sense of their role in society and what forms of differentiation they strive for through their rhetoric strategies. (shrink)

This paper develops a media theoretical extension of the communicative view on corporate social responsibility by elaborating on the characteristics of network societies, arguing that new media increase the speed and connectivity, and lead to higher plurality and the potential polarization of reality constructions. We discuss the implications for corporate social responsibility of becoming more polyphonic and sketch the contours of “communicative legitimacy.” Finally, we present this special issue and develop some questions for future research.

The paper introduces the communication view on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), which regards CSR as communicatively constructed in dynamic interaction processes in today’s networked societies. Building on the idea that communication constitutes organizations we discuss the potentially indeterminate, disintegrative, and conflictual character of CSR. We hereby challenge established mainstream views on CSR such as the instrumental view, which regards CSR as an organizational instrument to reach organizational aims such as improved reputation and financial performance, and the political-normative view on CSR, (...) which highlights the societal conditions and role of corporations in creating norms. We argue that both the established views, by not sufficiently acknowledging communication dynamics in networked societies, remain biased in three ways: control-biased, consistency-biased, and consensus-biased. We discuss implications of these biases and propose a future research agenda for the communication view on CSR. (shrink)

Scholars are divided over the question of whether managerial aspirational talk that contradicts current business practices can contribute to corporate social responsibility. In this conceptual article, we explore the rhetorical dynamics of aspirational talk that either impede or foster CSR. We argue that self-persuasive CSR rhetoric, as one enactment of aspirational talk, can attract attention and scrutiny from organizational members. Continued adherence to this rhetoric, however, creates and perpetuates tensions that lead to a vicious circle of disengagement. A virtuous circle, (...) by contrast, requires a shift toward an agonistic rhetoric that transcends tensions by rearticulating aspirations in concurrence with situated understandings of responsible corporate practice. Our arguments contribute to a better understanding of how communication becomes constitutive of CSR and address the debate on decoupling between talk and action. (shrink)

El cálculo proposicional se basa proposiciones que son tautologías, antilogías y de tipo contingente, construidas con las operaciones de disyunción, conjunción, y negación, así como con el llamado condicional material para trasladar los enunciados condicionales. Con todo ello se obtiene una estructura de álgebra de Boole, que permite equiparar el cálculo proposicional al cálculo algebraico booleano. En parte, la simplificación conceptual que se obtiene resulta de ser el orden parcial del álgebra equivalente a la afirmación del condicional material. Además, con (...) tal metodología cabe ver qué partes del cálculo proposicional clásico pueden trasladarse, aun con limitaciones, a estructuras más débiles y, a la vez, más generales, como son los ortoretículos no booleanos o las álgebras de De Morgan.El cálculo proposicional trata con la deducción. Por ello, el artículo lo desarrolla a partir de un operador de consecuencias en el sentido de Tarski. Ampliado el modelo deductivo, es fácil ver otras consecuencias que las usualmente consideradas en los textos elementales; en particular, se analizan cuatro esquemas de razonamiento deductivo típicos y, entre ellos, se presta especial atención a los usuales Modus Ponens y Modus Tollens. En el caso de las estructuras algebraicas de conjuntos ‘borrosos’, ninguna es de álgebra de Boole ni siquiera de orto-retículo y sólo cabe trabajar, en algunos casos, con álgebras de De Morgan-Kleene. Por lo tanto el cálculo proposicional ‘fuzzy’ debe construirse de acuerdo con la estructura algebraica que corresponda en cada caso y una vez elegida como representación del condicional una función que verifique el Modus Ponens. (shrink)

Summary 1898 marked a crucial point in the end of the nineteenth-century Spanish crisis. The military defeat ending the Spanish-American War was seen as proof that the country was in terminal decline. With the ideals of regeneration spreading throughout Spanish society, the State became more interested in supporting and sponsoring science and technology, as well as in creating a modern educational system. The resulting reforms reflected this strong interest in scientific education, and consequently, the first decades of the twentieth century (...) saw a turning point in the development of science and technology in Spain. Some recent papers have discussed various initiatives taken by Spanish governments, particularly in the creation of new official institutions. Such institutions played an important role in the development of science and technology, but their activity in the promotion of scientific education was very limited. However, other governmental initiatives were taken in order to develop this area, particularly focusing on the acquisition of scientific instruments. Scientific instruments were needed not only to improve Spanish scientific research but also to improve the teaching of experimental sciences. These instruments were specifically adapted for use by students. This paper aims to present some of the lesser-known individuals and firms who, in the new social and cultural context, provided scientific instruments for educational centres in order to meet the increasing demand for this material in Spanish educational institutions during these years. (shrink)

Should clinicians ask women to donate or even sell their eggs for stem cell research? Enucleated ova are crucial in somatic cell nuclear transfer technologies, but risky for women's health. Until comparatively recently, very few commentators debated the ethical issues in egg donation and sale, concentrating on the embryos status. The unmasking of Hwang Woo Suk, who used over 2,200 ova in his fraudulent research, has finally brought the question of ova donation and sale into prominence. In this article we (...) offer an international comparison of recent responses to this crucial question and suggest that the levels of risk are too imprecise to enable women to give meaningful informed consent for egg extraction. What we do know of the risks also indicates that they are too high and that potential donors or sellers are not being fully informed of their extent, raising disturbing ethical issues concerning commodification, deception, coercion, and exploitation. (shrink)

ABSTRACTMoral pride has been found to be a positive component of moral life. Nevertheless, this emotion has been the object of little attention and hardly any studies focus on gender differences in this regard. Is this emotion more intense in girls than in boys? Five studies on authentic moral pride, with sample groups in different age ranges and using different measures, were carried out to answer this question. When significant or marginally significant differences were observed, they were always in favor (...) of girls, but were fairly small. In the discussion, these results are interpreted in light of the feeling rules about pride in general and a series of guidelines are suggested for children’s education. (shrink)

This article is a theoretical and empirical exploration of the meaning that accompanies contractual agreements, such as the End-User License Agreements that participants of online communities are required to sign as a condition of participation. As our study indicates, clicking “I agree” on the often lengthy conditions presented during the installation and updating process typically permits third parties to monitor the digitally-mediated actions of users. Through our small-scale study in which we asked participants which terms of EULAs they would find (...) agreeable, the majority confirmed that they simply clicked through the terms presented to them without much knowledge about the terms to which they were agreeing. From a research ethics standpoint, we reflect upon whether or not informed consent is achieved in these cases and pose a challenge to the academic research community to attend to the socio-technical shift from informed consent to a more nebulous concept of contractual agreement, online and offline. (shrink)

I argue that a particular restricted version of the Principle of Indiference is a consistent, indispensible tool for guiding our probabilistic judgements.

Manuel Castells: un elogio emocional e inofensivo de las movilizaciones de protestaCuatro observaciones preliminares sirven para enmarcar una lectura crítica de la obra reciente de Manuel Castells, Redes de indignación y esperanza. En primer lugar este género de elogio exaltado e inofensivo de las movilizaciones de protesta actuales en el mundo ha dado lugar en muy poco tiempo a una amplia literatura, pero también ha suscitado no pocas críticas, ya que se trata por general de estudios y traba..

AntecedentsPrevious research on citizens’ reactions after terrorist events has shown that positive reactions can also emerge alongside pain and horror. Positive emotions have been widely associated with an abstract style of thinking. In the context of the Paris terrorist attacks in 2015, we explored Spanish citizens’ positive reactions – empathic concern, positive emotional climate, and esteem for humanity – and examined the relationships of these responses with an abstract style of thinking.MethodA longitudinal study was designed involving an online questionnaire that (...) was administered 10 days, 3 weeks, and 2 months after the attacks.ResultsEmpathic concern and personal distress toward Parisians decreased from the weeks following the attacks to 2 months later, with empathic concern always being more intense than personal distress. Emotional climate was perceived as more hostile than positive, although positive feelings persisted. People reported moderately positive esteem for humanity. Individuals with a more abstract style of thinking reported greater empathic concern, a more positive emotional climate, and more esteem for humanity.ConclusionsOur results support and extend previous research showing that abstraction enhances people’s resilience, even under traumatic circumstances such as those surrounding a terrorist attack. (shrink)

Building upon a recent call to renew actor-network theory for educational research, this article reconsiders relations between technology and educational theory. Taking cues from actor-network theorists, this discussion considers the technologically-mediated networks in which learning actors are situated, acted upon, and acting, and traces the novel positions of creative capacity and participation that emerging media may enable. Whereas traditional theories of educational technology tend to focus on the harmonization of new technologies with extant curricular goals and educational practices, an educational (...) theory of technology looks to novel forms of technologically-mediated learning experience—from production pedagogies to role play in the virtual—to make visible the surprising relations, techniques, and opportunities that emerging media, and their attendant social contexts, may offer educational research. (shrink)

Essays by some of the world's leading educators provide a revolutionary portrait of new ideas and developments in education that can influence the possibility of social and political change. The authors take into account such diverse terrain as feminism, ecology, media, and individual liberty in their pursuit of new ideas that can inform the fundamental practice of education and promote a more humane civil society. The book consolidates recent thinking just as it reflects on emerging new lines of critical theory.

This paper provides an overview, prepared by Robert Castel himself, of his last book, La montée des incertitudes. It describes how a new regime of capitalism has weakened and sometimes destroyed forms of social organization that had been established at the end of industrial capitalism. It discloses three main ongoing transformations: Labour market deregulations – in the sense of questioning both the right to work and the employment statute, and advances in insecurity; The reconfiguration of protective measures – in the (...) sense of the restriction of rights and a rapid rise in social insecurity; The paths of disaffiliation – or how it is that some categories of individuals find themselves destabilized and threatened with social invalidation in this new conjuncture. (shrink)

Civil law jurisdictions have more than others effectively resisted the commodification of gestation capacities, relying on the old Roman aphorism mater semper certa est (‘it is always certain who t...

In this paper, I will argue for the relevance of certain distinctive features of messaging systems, namely those in which data can be sent and received asynchronously, can be sent to multiple simultaneous recipients and is received as a “potentially infinite” flow of unpredictable events. I will describe the social technology of the stock ticker, a telegraphic device introduced at the New York Stock Exchange in the 1860s, with reference to early twentieth century philosophers of synchronous experience, simultaneous sign interpretations, (...) and flows of discrete events. Then, I will show how the ticker’s data flows developed into the 1990s-era technologies of message queues and message brokers, which distinguished themselves through their asynchronous implementation of ticker-like message feeds sent between otherwise incompatible computers and terminals. These latter systems’ characteristic “publish/subscribe” communication pattern was one in which conceptually centralized flows of messages would be “published,” and for which “subscribers” would be spontaneously notified when events of interest occurred. This paradigm—common to the so-called “message-oriented middleware” systems of the late 1990s—would re-emerge in different asynchronous distributed system contexts over the following decades, from “push media” to Twitter to the Internet of Things. (shrink)

Before broaching our main subject, and exploring why, among all disorders of the mind, obsessive-compulsive disorders have a place apart, I would like to start from a dilemma that is well-known to historians interested in mental disorders. According to one approach, a mental illness X is considered as a bona fide or ‘genuine’ illness if, and only if, it originates from a disturbance of the brain. Its neurobiological form is in this case considered as invariant, whatever cultural veneer might give (...) it a different aspect in accord with historical and local settings. The assumption is that this veneer does not, properly speaking, have any deep grounding in reality... (shrink)

8 March, now known as International Women’s Day, is a day for feminist claims where demonstrations are organized in over 150 countries, with the participation of millions of women all around the world. These demonstrations can be viewed as collective rituals and thus focus attention on the processes that facilitate different psychosocial effects. This work aims to explore the mechanisms involved in participation in the demonstrations of 8 March 2020, collective and ritualized feminist actions, and their correlates associated with personal (...) well-being and collective well-being, collective efficacy and collective growth, and behavioral intention to support the fight for women’s rights. To this end, a cross-cultural study was conducted with the participation of 2,854 people from countries in Latin America and Europe, with a retrospective correlational cross-sectional design and a convenience sample. Participants were divided between demonstration participants and non-demonstrators or followers who monitored participants through the media and social networks. Compared with non-demonstrators and with males, female and non-binary gender respondents had greater scores in mechanisms and criterion variables. Further random-effects model meta-analyses revealed that the perceived emotional synchrony was consistently associated with more proximal mechanisms, as well as with criterion variables. Finally, sequential moderation analyses showed that proposed mechanisms successfully mediated the effects of participation on every criterion variable. These results indicate that participation in 8M marches and demonstrations can be analyzed through the literature on collective rituals. As such, collective participation implies positive outcomes both individually and collectively, which are further reinforced through key psychological mechanisms, in line with a Durkheimian approach to collective rituals. (shrink)

Les mathématiques telles qu’elles se sont développées entre 1935 et 1970 jouent un rôle très important dans La Méthode. Ce rôle est explicite en ce qui concerne la logique, plus implicite en ce qui concerne la théorie du contrôle, l’incertitude, et certaines notions vues hors du champ mathématique et particulièrement probabiliste . Sur un exemple de résultats récents de la logique mathématique, la correspondance de Curry-Howard et les travaux de Jean-Louis Krivine nous montrent la pertinence des idées et des intuitions (...) d’Edgar Morin concernant la logique, la réalité et le cerveau.Mathematics as they are developed between 1935 and 1970 played a very important role in the method. This role is explicit with respect to the logical, implied regarding control theory, uncertainty, and some notions out of the field and especially mathematical probability . On a recent example of results of mathematical logic, the Curry-Howard correspondence and the work of Jean-Louis Krivine show the relevance of the ideas and insights of Edgar Morin on logic, reality and brain. (shrink)

Las personas expuestas a acontecimientos traumáticos tales como desastres naturales, desastres provocados por otros seres humanos, secuestro, tortura, atraco, violación, accidentes, etc., incrementan el riesgo de desarrollar distintos trastornos psicológicos como el trastorno por estrés agudo, el trastorno por estrés postraumático (TEPT), el trastorno de pánico, la depresión, la ansiedad generalizada y el abuso de sustancias.

Reflective capacity is integral to core healthcare professional practice competencies. Reflection plays a central role in teacher education as reflecting on teaching behaviours with critical analysis can potentially improve teaching practice. The humanities including narrative and the visual arts can serve as a valuable tool for fostering reflection. We conducted a multinational faculty development workshop aiming to enhance reflective capacity in medical educators by using a combination of abstract paintings and narratives. Twenty-three family physicians or physicians-in-training from 10 countries participated (...) in the workshop. Qualitative assessment of the workshop showed that the combined use of art and narrative was well received and perceived as contributing to the reflective exercise. Participants generally felt that viewing abstract paintings had facilitated a valuable mood transformation and prepared them emotionally for the reflective writing. Our analysis found that the following themes emerged from participants’ responses: narratives from different countries are similar; the use of art helped access feelings; viewing abstract paintings facilitated next steps; writing reflective narratives promoted examination of educational challenges, compassion for self and other, and building an action plan; and sharing of narrative was helpful for fostering active listening and appreciating multiple perspectives. Future research might include comparing outcomes for a group participating in arts–narrative-based workshops with those of a control group using only reflective narrative or in combination with figurative art, and implementing a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods of assessment. (shrink)

Social identity is a factor that is associated with well-being and community participation. Some studies have shown that ethnic identity goes along with empowerment, and that interaction between the two leads to greater indices of well-being and community participation. However, other works suggest a contextual circumstance may condition the nature of these relations. By means of a cross-sectional study, we analyzed the relations of social identification and collective psychological empowerment with personal well-being, social well-being and community participation in a sample (...) of Basques. A total of 748 Basques participated. Individuals who were highly identified or fused with Basque speakers and who were highly empowered showed higher indices of well-being and of community participation than non-fused individuals with low empowerment. The results also suggest that social identification offsets the negative effects of perceiving the group as a linguistic minority. Collective psychological empowerment proved to be an especially relevant factor that needs to continue to be explored. (shrink)