For millennia, Buddhism as a contemplative science has been deeply concerned about solving the problems inherent to the “human condition,” as the Buddha calls it (Dalai Lama 2009), which include mo...

The Brundtland Report popularized the concept of sustainable development as meeting “the needs of the present without compromising the ability for future generations to meet their own needs.” Twenty years later a United Nations report argued that current development strategies are inadequate for achieving sustainable development beyond 2015. Any approach to sustainability requires the negotiation and reconfiguration of resources, the consideration of the different stakeholder perceptions to uncertainty and its communication and the continuous recognition of potential threats. This paper aims (...) to enhance current frameworks on sustainability and contribute to management decision making by drawing upon the teachings of the Sikh Gurus. The paper begins with a summary of the main challenges in implementing the sustainability agenda; it then discusses a number of common sustainability frameworks and draws out a set of common limitations. The teachings of the Sikh Gurus are then introduced to provide unique insights into how their understanding of the universe might contribute to some general lessons that can support current sustainability frameworks and related decision making. Next, the paper considers System Archetypes, and in particular the “Limits to Growth”, as mechanisms for gaining insight into the patterns of behaviours that underpin the potential for less unsustainable futures. The paper combines the sustainability frameworks and Sikh teachings to suggest an integrated whole systems approach, across time and space that can throw a new light on the nexus of sustainable development. (shrink)

The academic literature on unethical leadership is witnessing an upward trend, perhaps given the magnitude of unethical conduct in organisations, which is manifested in increasing corporate fraud and scandals in the contemporary business landscape. Despite a recent increase, scholarly interest in this area has, by and large, remained scant due to the proliferation of concepts that are often and mistakenly considered interchangeable. Nevertheless, scholarly investigation in this field of inquiry has picked up the pace, which warrants a critical appraisal of (...) the extant research on unethical leadership. To this end, the current study systematically reviews the existing body of work on unethical leadership and offers a robust and multi-level understanding of the academic developments in this field. We organised the studies according to various themes focused on antecedents, outcomes and boundary conditions. In addition, we advance a multi-level conceptualisation of unethical leadership, which incorporates macro, meso and micro perspectives and, thus, provide a nuanced understanding of this phenomenon. The study also explicates critical knowledge gaps in the literature that could broaden the horizon of unethical leadership research. On the basis of these knowledge gaps, we develop potential research models that are well grounded in theory and capture the genesis of unethical leadership under our multi-level framework. Scholars and practitioners will find this study useful in understanding the occurrence, consequences and potential strategies to circumvent the negative effects of unethical leadership. (shrink)

Organizations of all types are vulnerable to frauds. Banks contribute to a significant extent in a country’s economic development by generating a large part of revenue in the service sector. Deterrence of fraud is impossible without understanding it. The present study attempts to extract themes by highlighting the major areas of the bank fraud literature within a specific time frame of 2000–2019 and finding the research gaps citing the future scope for research. Post the review of existing literature, using thematic (...) analysis, two major themes were observed by the author, namely, “regulatory and compliance”–based studies and studies related to the “socio psychological” aspect of the literature. An examination of themes indicated that the popularity of the research areas shifted from accounting frauds or balance sheet frauds in early 2000s to areas such as cyber frauds and identity theft at the later decade. The present study paves way forward for future research on the bank customer’s vigilance, experiences and perspectives on frauds. Other significant areas of research include coping mechanisms with the various challenges faced by banks in marketing themselves after any major fraud occurrence. (shrink)

School-aged children often participate in school field trips, summer camps or visits at informal learning institutions like zoos and museums. However, relatively little is known about children’s memory and learning from these experiences, what types of event details and facts are retained, how retention varies across age, and whether different patterns are observed for different types of experiences. We aimed to answer these questions through a partnership with a local zoo. Four- to 10-year-old children participated in a weeklong summer camp, (...) during which they engaged in dynamic events, including visits to zoo animals. On the last day of camp, we elicited autobiographical event narratives for two types of experiences: a child-selected animal event and an experimenter-selected animal event. We coded event narratives for length and breadth using previously used autobiographical memory narrative coding schemes. In addition, we created a coding scheme to examine retention of semantic information. We report the types of autobiographical event details and facts children recalled in their narratives, as well as age group differences that were found to vary depending on the type of information and type of event. Through this naturalistic, yet controlled, study we gain insights into how children remember and learn through hands-on activities and exploration in this engaging and dynamic environment. We discuss how our results provide novel information that can be used by informal learning institutions to promote children’s memory and retention of science facts. (shrink)

Maternity is a ghastly and frightening proposition in Sophocles’s Antigone. This paper probes this startling motif, which unravels the “unhappy girl, child” of Oedipus through the psychoanalytic framework of Julia Kristeva’s theories of the symbolic, the semiotic, and the chora. The significance of a Kristevan reading of Antigone is twofold: Kristeva’s theory of the relationship between maternity and melancholia solves the mystery of Antigone’s irreparable sadness and unflinching affiliation with the dead. Second, Kristeva’s notions of the dual modalities of discourse, (...) the symbolic and the semiotic, and the importance of the chora, focus on evaluating the ominous consequences of the subjugation and destruction of the maternal body in the tragedy. (shrink)

The legal and moral validity of euthanasia has been questioned in different situations. In India, the status of euthanasia is no different. It was the Aruna Ramachandra Shanbaug case that got significant public attention and led the Supreme Court of India to initiate detailed deliberations on the long ignored issue of euthanasia. Realising the importance of this issue and considering the ongoing and pending litigation before the different courts in this regard, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of (...) India issued a public notice on May 2016 that invited opinions from the citizens and the concerned stakeholders on the proposed draft bill entitled The Medical Treatment of Terminally Ill Patients Bill. Globally, only a few countries have legislation with discreet and unambiguous guidelines on euthanasia. The ongoing developments have raised a hope of India getting a discreet law on euthanasia in the future. (shrink)

Gurunanda (aka Puneet Nanda) is a successful entrepreneur-turned-yogi. His business accomplishments earned him 2011's Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award and an active position with the Young Presidents Organization. However, 18-hour workdays filled with stress, poor eating habits and lack of exercise took a dire toll on his life and his health until he discovered yoga. His transformation (including a 40-pound weight loss) and his self-realization have been so profound that he is now committed to sharing the (...) power of yoga and yogic breathing across the globe, especially with people facing challenging, chaotic lifestyles. By focusing on positivity, simplicity and a judgment-free attitude, GURUNANDA'S HAPPY BREATH YOGA invites everyone to experience the energy, well-being and joy that comes from truly breathing."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

This book explores the epistemological and ethical issues at the foundations of environmental philosophy, emphasising the conservation of biodiversity. Sahota Sarkar criticises attempts to attribute intrinsic value to nature and defends an anthropocentric position on biodiversity conservation based on an untraditional concept of transformative value. Unlike other studies in the field of environmental philosophy, this book is as much concerned with epistemological issues as with environmental ethics. It covers a broad range of topics, including problems of explanation and prediction (...) in traditional ecology and how individual-based models and Geographic Information Systems technology is transforming ecology. Introducing a brief history of conservation biology, Sarkar analyses the consensus framework for conservation planning through adaptive management. He concludes with a discussion of directions for theoretical research in conservation biology and environmental philosophy. (shrink)

Hegel's Eurocentrism has become something of an elephant in the room, too obvious to merit discussion. The secondary literature on Hegel often concedes that many of Hegel's comments about the Orient are misguided and uninformed, and then declares that such remarks are of no consequence to his philosophy. However, recently, some scholars have contended that Hegel's view of freedom is fundamentally connected to his negative vision of the Orient and Africa. For example, Alison Stone asserts that Hegel's idea of freedom (...) is premised on his Eurocentrism and colonialism. Drawing on Peter Sahota's essay on Hegel and Hinduism, she argues that Hegel's idea of freedom as liberation from nature tends to exclude non-Western conceptions of freedom. If Stone's contention is true, there would be no way to, as she puts it, save Hegel from himself. I argue that we can move some way towards rescuing Hegel by noting how scholars from modern Asia incorporated some of Hegel's ideas to struggle against Eurocentrism. This essay will read Hegel's comments on the Orient in light of his larger philosophy and then examine how Japanese scholars, specifically Okakura Tenshin (1863–1913) construct what could be called a Hegel-inspired defense of the concept of Asia or the Orient. I claim that if one understands the excesses of Western life to be linked to a vision of freedom based merely on self-interest and pleasure, when scholars and activists from Asia question Western culture, they actually follow Hegel's insights. Okakura, who studied Hegel in college, rethought Asia as overcoming the abstract individualist freedom of the West and replacing it a more holistic, and partially, Hegelian form of freedom. (shrink)