Search results

Global cycles of leadership and hegemony have repeated since 1492, leaving to history Dutch, British, and now declining US hegemonies. Theoretical models (Chase‐Dunn and Rubinson 1977; Hopkins and Wallerstein 1979; Arrighi 1994), historical narratives (Wallerstein 1974, 1980, 1989; Kennedy 1989), and statistical analyses (Modelski and Thompson 1988; Boswell and Sweat 1991) portray the cycle of hegemony as a fixed dynamic inherent to the world‐system. Can we expect the future to be any different?

This paper aims to analyze the Egyptian revolution as an anti-systemic movement. It illustrates how Egypt’s position in the world-economy has affected its political economy orientation and led to the marginalization of critical masses, who launched the revolution.

The paper follows Wallerstein’s world-system analysis focusing on the anti-systemic movement concept. The paper analyzes the Egyptian case based on Annales school’s longue durée concept, which is a perspective to study developments of social relations historically.

The Egyptian revolution was not only against the autocratic regime but also against the power structure resulting from the neoliberal economic policies, introduced as a response to the capitalism crisis. It represented the voice of the forgotten. The revolution was one of the anti-systemic movements resisting the manifestations of the capitalist world-economy.

This paper aims at proving that the Egyptian revolution was an anti-systemic movement; which will continue to spread as a rejection to the world-system and to aspire a more democratic and egalitarian world. The current COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating the crisis of the world-system.

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the facticity of the dominant construction of black professionals as job hoppers that derail workforce reforms in corporate South Africa particularly in leadership roles.

Historical literature review was conducted to trace the genesis of the alleged racialised job hopping phenomenon. Melissa Steyn’s (2015) idea of Critical Diversity Literacy was also applied to critically examine the implicit power dynamics, strengths, limitations and biases involved in the construction, valorisation, circulation and contestation of this dominant narrative.

The authors found the popular racialised job hopping phenomenon to be an overgeneralisation that lacks credible evidence. It ignores multiple variables that are crucial in studying employee turnover behaviour.

The paper is conceptual. It is mainly based on critical literature reviews. Empirical studies could be undertaken within this domain in the future to confirm or disconfirm some of the findings of this paper.

These allegations are emblematic of the endemic systemic racism in South Africa’s corporate labour market that remains an enclave of whiteness.

Race is a highly contentious phenomenon and a major field of social inequality. Black bodies confront numerous challenges that undermine their human rights and opportunities to participate meaningfully in society and the economy. This paper calls for organisations to play an active role in healing racial divisions and building social cohesion by critically examining, challenging and changing discourses that propel inequality.

By addressing one of critical socio-economic and political issues confronting the world’s most unequal society, the paper hopes to stimulate healthy debate that can bring real change for marginalised groups in workplaces.

This article aims to examine how non-governmental organisations (NGOs)' narratives portray the vulnerability of workers in global clothing supply chains during the COVID-19 crisis.

The research analyses the rhetoric in global clothing retailers' and NGOs' counter-rhetoric during the first seven months of 2020.

During this period, retailers employed rhetorical strategies to legitimise irresponsible actions (corporate hegemony prevailed), while NGOs embraced forms of counter-rhetoric trying to delegitimise the retailers' logic, stressing the role of neoliberalism in worsening the situation.

The authors contribute to the literature by providing new insight into the consequences of COVID-19 for retailers' neoliberal practices and the livelihood of workers in global supply chains. Findings of this study extend authors’ knowledge about retailers' COVID-19 measures: These have contributed to the plights of workers working for their supply factories in the global South.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the loss of moral capital incurred by an organization from indifferent or deferential followers of bad leaders. Despite the proliferation of codes of conduct and ethics and compliance programs throughout the business community, the prevalence of malevolence and malfeasance in organizations continues to rise. While a good deal is known about bad leadership, far less is known about bad followership.

The paper draws on recent and seminal research from moral theory, organizational behavior and clinical and social psychology, in analyzing and responding to the collusion and passivity of followers.

The paper provides critical insights into the complementary relationship between bad leadership and followership, and agues that followers in particular have a serious moral case to answer for their complicity. Suggestions are offered for strengthening their capacity to respond.

Although research on followership is growing, it is still comparatively newer and more slender than on either management or leadership. Much less is known about the moral behavior of followers, and even less so in relation to its contribution to organizational mischief. Drawing attention to the moral dimension of this facet of organizational deviancy represents both the novelty and limitation of this paper. A more comprehensive account of the immorality of followers awaits further investigation.

The paper offers a way of invoking and strengthening private conscience as an effective countermeasure against corporate crime and corruption.

Wrongdoing is a fact of organizational life. However, it is not confined to life in organizations, and similar dynamics apply in situations where its impact is both low (non-violent) and high (physically violent). Bystanders are faced with the same moral questions whenever the context demands an active response.

While both workers and bosses may engage in unethical and unlawful behavior, neither would succeed without followers. Strategies designed to curtail their support serve to reduce the incidence of crime and corruption in the office and elsewhere.

Recent sociological research highlights the growth of military expenditures in hi-tech, capital-intensive armaments and technology. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of these capital-intensive expenditures on two related health outcomes: under-five mortality and life expectancy.

This research utilizes a series of cross-national panel models estimated for a diverse sample of developed and less-developed countries from 1975 to 2000.

The authors find that hi-tech military expenditures increase under-five mortality and reduce life expectancy over the period studied, by reducing the number and type of soldiers able to take advantage of increased health-related resources obtained in the military and indirectly, by increasing income inequality, which negatively impacts these health outcomes.

This cross-national study should be supplemented by case studies to better understand the processes being examined.

The increase in capital-intensive military expenditures found worldwide reduces the total number of soldiers in the military and raises their enlistment requirements. This makes it difficult for people with limited human capital to take advantage of the military’s traditional pathway for upward mobility. New pathways for mobility will have to be developed to avoid the creation of a new permanent underclass.

There are significant social policy implications for the findings. Hi-tech military expenditures have a significant negative impact on the short- and long-term health outcomes of children and adults, in both developed and less-developed countries, which must be addressed by public policy planners.

This is one of a handful of sociological studies on the impact of military establishment on society. These findings highlight the importance of “bringing the military back in” to the forefront of sociological research.