Bhaskar's philosophy supports society via a process of homeostasis to resist socioecological system disintegration by developing its values and ethics in response to endogenous and exogenous change. To the contrary, positivist (first generation) and hermeneuticist (second generation) approaches to systems theory have distorted humanity's mechanism of homeostasis because, amongst other things, they disallow the use of facts to guide values/actions. Since acting on knowledge is, ceteris paribus, a given in Bhaskar's approach, resolving socioecological system problems involves correcting the method of (...) homeostasis (our method of finding knowledge and acting on it) rather than correcting the consequences of the failure of homeostasis (the poorly informed action or inaction). This is reminiscent of Gandhi's approach to social transformation in which we trust the means to arrive at appropriate ends and it releases activists from having to be keepers of the moral high-ground or having to try to change people's behaviour. (shrink)

This research draws on complexity theory to provide an alternative conceptualization of issue management. We use six dynamics of complexity drawn from complex adaptive systems—equipoise, turbulence, sensitive conditions, bifurcation, attractor emergence, and symmetry breaking—to develop a metaphorical framework that describes what occurs during various periods of issue activity and what propels issues from one period of activity to another. We illustrate the framework with a case study of the pharmaceutical industry response to the HIV/aids pandemic in Sub-Saharan Africa. The article (...) concludes with a discussion of the additional affordances this framework provides to extend and compliment issue life cycle models. (shrink)

A philosophy of management that incorporates the big picture of human experience, all levels, and degrees of awareness in relationship with the world, will better develop and sustain an environment conducive to creative contributions that meet organizational goals. Quantum physics reveals the nature of reality to be connection and creativity engaged in a process of actualizing possibilities. Human beings participate in this process of actualization, as both observer-creator and experiencer of the universe through multiple domains of knowing – a collaborator (...) in Alfred North Whitehead’s panexperientialism. Whitehead’s God of process, the primordial field of creative possibilities, and the consequent nature which holds all the experiences of every actualization, supports human consciousness, as it self-actualizes by engaging and integrating the experience of external and internal events and their effects on awareness. Through understanding the participatory nature of consciousness with God and the world as experienced, deep meaning emerges for human life. Tapping into this deeper meaning through a philosophy of management that acknowledges the full human experience, including the embedded spiritual connection to the creative energy that is God, strengthens an organization’s vision, mission and contributions to a community. This brief overview traces a path toward a preliminary framework for a philosophy of management based on God and the ideas of connection, creativity and process. (shrink)

Supervision is widely acknowledged as influencing the quality of postgraduate theses, and thus, by implication, of postgraduates. Despite this, the literature on conducting research offers little guidance in respect of managing the supervision relationship. This paper opens a window onto the relationship – and particularly the power relationship – between a particular supervisor of postgraduate research, Howard, and his Master’s student, Ray. It draws on research that explores how contemporary influences in the university domain intersect with individual agency and with (...) power relations to produce knowledge on two levels: the thesis as an extrinsic product of processes of education, and the person as an intrinsic product of processes of learning.Selections of Michel Foucault’s insights are used to explore the notion of power and how it operates through rules of discourse to construct knowledge and identity. Accordingly, the research describes and tracks the functioning of two discourses pivotal to Howard and Ray’s experience of supervision: anarchic educational leadership discourse, and humanistic discourse. The research on which the paper is based is constructivist, and as such it is underpinned by the assumption, or rather belief, that the discursive construction of reality is mediated by individual agency. In order to analyse how power operates between individuals, and between them and their broader educational contexts, a conceptual tool capable of accommodating manifest strategic processes – identified along a positional continuum as ‘push’,’ allow’ and ‘pull’ – was devised.The case study yields several thematic correlations in interpersonal and institutional power. These are: the significance of supervisor-student matching; links between expectations, abilities, the way participants negotiate power, and the quality of professional and pastoral care they experience; the impact of personal affinity on supervision; and the influence of ontology on thesis-as-product and person-as-product. (shrink)

The role of uncertainty within an organization’s environment features prominently in the business ethics and management literature, but how corporate investment decisions should proceed in the face of uncertainties relating to the natural environment is less discussed. From the perspective of ecological economics, the salience of ecology-induced issues challenges management to address new types of uncertainties. These pertain to constraints within the natural environment as well as to institutional action aimed at conserving the natural environment. We derive six areas of (...) ecology-induced uncertainties and propose ecology-driven real options as a conceptual approach for systematically incorporating these uncertainties into strategic management. We combine our results in an integrative investment framework and illustrate its application with the case of carbon constraints. (shrink)

This paper summarized the findings of a qualitative study that examines the perceptions of ethical leadership held by those who perceived themselves to be ethical leaders, and how life experiences shaped the values called upon when making ethical decisions. The experiences of 28 business executives were shared with the researcher, beginning with the recollection of a critical incident that detailed an ethical issue with which each executive had been involved. With the critical incident in mind, each executive told the personal (...) story that explained the development of the values he or she called upon when resolving the ethical issue described. The stories were analyzed through the use of constant comparison, which resulted in the development of two models: (1) a framework for ethical leadership illuminating valued aspects of ethical leaderships and the value perspectives called upon when making ethical decisions, and (2) a model explaining how the executives’ ethical frameworks developed. The paper concludes with a brief discussion on virtue ethics, experiential learning, and human resource development. (shrink)

Can we fruitfully apply creative ecology practices in the world of industrial production? Enter the crealectic method for innovation and self-innovation, aiming at fostering creative long-term thinking and acting. The crealectic method proposes five steps: Step 1—Resetting (doing tabula rasa); Step 2—Crealing (reconnecting with the “Creal”); Step 3—Profusing (letting ideas pour out without censorship); Step 4—Compossibilizing (connecting compatible ideas); Step 5—Realizing (understanding and making real). I describe a pilot test of the method within the Research and Development unit of Vattenfall, (...) a Swedish power company dedicated to fossil-free energy production. (shrink)

We propose conscious awareness as a mechanism for creating “shared value”; a form of value that Porter describes as putting social and community needs before profit. We explore the mechanism empirically in an entrepreneurial context and find that spiritual practices increase conscious awareness which, in turn, shapes entrepreneurial intentions and venture characteristics focused on shared value.

This paper is an inspired address by the author to engage in a momentous battle for character and human values in life and worklife. The keynote of the author's exposition on values-centred manage ment is the concept of dharma. Here the Indian ideal of dharma is compared to and contrasted with the Western notion of integrity. While integrity is based on the human virtues of wholeness, goodness and having the courage and self-discipline to live by the inner truth, dharma gives (...) a radically different orientation to any human endeavour by upholding the notions of spirit, rightness, and fearlessness. There is also a distinction between individual dharma and organizational dharma, which the author defines as the organization's inner law. In the concluding part of the paper, the author crystallizes the wisdom contained in the Bhagavad Gita and asserts that hidden away in our inner nature is the law, the writ of our life that enables us to transcend the purposelessness of pomp, power, property and pedigree towards a more meaningful human existence. (shrink)

Our society is changing at a pace hardly imagined a century, even a few decades ago. The role of education is crucial in helping prepare our young people to both cope with and take responsibility for shaping these changes in ways consistent with the values of a free society. To this end, four overarching themes for change in curriculum are examined: the competencies and attitudes needed to understand and engage in systems thinking; the development of self and inter-personal knowledge and (...) skills; understanding of the connectiveness of knowledge; and the ability to think critically. (shrink)

A rapidly growing body of scholarship shows that we can gain new insights into theories and policies by understanding and increasing their systemic structure. This paper will present an overview of this expanding field and discuss how concepts of structure are being applied in a variety of contexts to support collaboration, decision making, learning, prediction, and results. Next, it will delve into the underlying structures of logic that may be found within those theories and policies. Here, we will go beyond (...) Toulmin’s logics of claim and proof that have not proven useful for advancing the social sciences and focus on five structures of “causal logic.” The results suggest a useful and more comprehensive approach to developing deeper understanding of our conceptual systems such as theory and policy. (shrink)

In response to increasing calls to realize more potential from diversity in organizations, Frances Hesselbein, CEO of Peter Drucker Leadership Institute, challenged management scholars to enrich the understanding of diversity. Her challenge contains descriptive and normative elements, and extends beyond learning only "about" others, toward "diversifying oneself." With this purpose in mind, this two-stage study develops a framework of divergent learning. The first stage describes a philosophical foundation grounded in literature that orients its key concepts toward divergent learning. The second (...) stage adds a layer of practical insights, gathered from professionals in eight different fields, providing channels of access and application within organizational contexts. (shrink)

Understanding spirituality may serve as a foundation for developing new approaches to managerial action, organizational learning, social change and leadership. This article explores this phenomenon by hermeneutically tracing the demise and reawakening of spiritual entrepreneurship in Western life over the past 200 years. Spiritual aspects of entrepreneurial organizations are also framed via the lens of critical management theory as reflected in literature spanning four social epochs: federalist reality, the Industrial Revolution, disciplinary society, and the post-industrial milieu. The resulting themes highlight (...) the interconnectedness and reciprocal influences between social reality and spiritual leadership in Western entrepreneurial enterprises. Drawn from the author's doctoral research (Jue 2004), the article suggests a need for reintegrating spiritual leadership among post-modern organizations and entrepreneurial firms in the achievement of more sustainable futures. (shrink)

This article presents theory and practical experiences related to classroom pedagogy focusing on spirituality and wholeness - the spiritually whole-system classroom. In it, spiritual principles help create a learning community founded on the experience of wholeness. The spiritually whole-system classroom allows participants the opportunity of "being connected with one's complete self, others, and the entire universe" in order to serve a meaningful, broader purpose. This type of transformation engages heads, hearts, spirits, and hands in the pursuit of a more enlightening (...) experience of human organizing. The article concludes with a critically reflective discussion of spiritual applications to management education and practice. (shrink)

Power and leadership are typically theorized as exercises of sovereignty in the western tradition of thought. This essay takes up Michel Foucault’s challenge to escape the ‘spell of monarchy’ in our thinking in order to move beyond sovereign models of power. Interdisciplinary scholarship on complex adaptive systems provides fertile ground for this endeavor, illustrating the dynamics of post-sovereign power and opportunities for post-sovereign leadership. Viewing human organizations as complex adaptive systems helps us to theorize leadership without over-simplifying its nature or (...) exaggerating its potential. It also undermines the prevailing identification of sovereign power as the only antidote for anarchy. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to introduce a model of value-based leadership. The model is based on tensions among values, interests, and power ; and tensions that take place within and among citizens, workers, and leaders. The VIP-CWL model describes the forces at play in the promotion of value-based practice and formulates recommendations for value-based leadership. The ability to enact certain values is conditioned by power and personal interests of communities, workers, and leaders of organizations. People experience internal conflicts (...) related to VIP as well as external conflicts related to disagreements with the CWL. Value-based practice is predicated on the ability to alleviate these tensions. Leaders have 4 main roles in promoting value-based practice: clarify values, promote personal harmony among VIP, enhance congruence of VIP among CWL, and confront people and groups subverting values or abusing power to promote personal interests. (shrink)

Leadership is the art of discovering and expressing one's inborn nature. It is a natural response, a way of being and doing within reality that creates a powerful influence on one's community toward greater degrees of peace and harmony on the individual and communal levels. In this paper, I use Chuang Tzu's philosophy (in its 1968 translation by Burton Watson) about the nature of reality and how one finds inner peace and harmony within themselves in order to demonstrate why it (...) is the self-realized individual who is the best candidate to non-coercively influence one's community into sounding more like a symphony, rather than a cacophony. (shrink)

This paper contrasts the model of the teacher-pupil relationship implied by instrumental 'new' era values currently being imposed on schools with that implied by a more ancient but highly relevant conception of education which is concerned with the search for personal meaning and the development of authentic understanding. It is argued that there is a significant 'poetic' dimension to the latter in which the learner's own engagement with things is celebrated and the teacher's role is essentially receptive-responsive both towards the (...) learner and the living traditions in which things receive their significance. It is suggested that the 'poetic' provides an important orientation, not just with respect to how teachers interact with children, but also with respect to the larger institutional context in which this interaction is situated. (shrink)

How do we explain organized complexity in human affairs? The most common model explain s human organization as the outcome of rational design; order in human affairs arises from the intentions, plans, and orders of those in charge. For organizational complexity on vast scales, this model is insufficient, misleading, and potentially disastrous. An alternative model, based upon self-organization within complex systems, is developed and applied to the tobacco industry.Leaked documents and public testimony point to widespread distortion of information within the (...) tobacco industry. The model developed herein describes such behaviors as emergent outcomes, not reducible to or sufficiently explained by individual fraud and deliberate deceit. Critics of the tobacco industry often fail to appreciate the role of self-organization in complex systems. They presume rational design. Consequently, they imply more intentional deceit, deliberate planning, and conspiracy than needed to explain the distortions that actually occurred. (shrink)

This paper proposes a new organizational metaphor, the ‘Biophilic Organization’, which aims to counter the bio-cultural disconnection of many organizations despite their espoused commitment to sustainability. This conceptual research draws on multiple disciplines such as evolutionary psychology and architecture to not only develop a diverse bio-cultural connection but to show how this connection tackles sustainability, in a holistic and systemic sense. Moreover, the paper takes an integrative view of sustainability, which effectively means that it embraces the different emergent tensions. Three (...) specific tensions are explored: efficiency versus resilience, organizational versus personal agendas and isomorphism versus institutional change. In order to illustrate how the Biophilic Organization could potentially provide a synthesis strategy for such tensions, healthcare examples are drawn from the emerging fields of Biophilic Design in Singapore and Generative Design in the U.S.A. Finally, an example is provided which highlights how a Taoist cultural context has impacted on a business leader in China, to illustrative the significance of a transcendent belief system to such a bio-cultural narrative. (shrink)

Although entrepreneurial success is usually attributed to astute financial management in the growth of economic capital, entrepreneurs may also utilize additional sources of inner guidance, creating both tangible and intangible value. This article framed one such source as spiritual capitalism, the juxtaposition of personal spirituality and marketplace dynamics. The soul's currency, or love, is characterized as a manifestation of flow in the entrepreneurial start-up process, which elicits spiritual congruence, harmonious relationships and personal fulfilment. Personal experiences as a Wall Street investment (...) banker and entrepreneur are discussed in exploring methods of leveraging inner guidance and appropriately pursuing material abundance. Participants discussed the demarcation between traditional and spiritual entrepreneurship, and exercises demonstrated how to: identify and value spiritual assets, create spiritual capital, mitigate inhibitors to flow, and harness inner guidance. (shrink)

This paper is about an academic as well as cultural journey of affirmation. Imbued with Western knowledge, I was nearly swayed to alter my beliefs and core assumptions towards a modern world view. I was referred to an article by Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese which significantly assuaged the tensions of seemingly opposing values rooted in two different world views. I realized now that in many ways, Tui Atua’s publications on Samoan wisdom, culture and philosophy had the effect of a gentle (...) wind tapping my shoulder. The articles reaffirmed my sense of heritage and strengthened my resolve to sustain, perpetuate and be guided by my Samoan values of alofa and faaaloalo . I am committed to apply them in all that I do. This is my story. (shrink)

In the midst of greed, corruption, the economic crash and the general disillusionment of business, current conceptions of leadership, organizational values, and authenticity are being questioned. In this article, we fill a prior research gap by directly exploring the intersection of these three concepts. We begin by delving into the relationship between individual values and organizational values. This analysis reveals that the “value fit” approach to creating authenticity is limited, and also indicates that a deeper exploration of the nature of (...) values and the role of leadership is necessary. More specifically, we propose that organizational values should be viewed as an opportunity for ongoing conversations about who we are and how we connect. Through this type of dialogue which we define as “value through conversation”, we can create what we call poetic organizations. A typology of four interconnected values each of which forms a foundation for the critical questioning and inquiry that might be found in poetic organizations is developed. We suggest that this conceptualization offers a new and dynamic approach for thinking about the relationships between leadership, values, and authenticity and has important implications for both research and practice. (shrink)

In 2017, the Faculty of Theology celebrates its centenary at the University of Pretoria. Celebrating a centennial is as much as looking back as looking forward. In a changing world with changing paradigms how does one remain relevant? Different challenges and expectations presented to tertiary institutions of education in a new dispensation puts all concerned with higher education in South Africa under pressure. The question addressed in this article is how will a Faculty of Theology remain relevant to such an (...) extent that it is continued to be viewed as desirable to have such a faculty present at a university, participating in the academic process and simultaneously continues to contribute to the well-being of the South African society. The author suggests the following guidelines for consideration. In order to remain relevant for the next couple of hundred years the Faculty of Theology should engage contextually with society, practise interdisciplinary Theology, engage in interreligious dialogue while still remaining connected to faith communities. A paradigm of post-foundationalism enables Theology to exercise Theology in a relevant and meaningful manner. (shrink)