Search results

1 – 10 of over 2000
Article
Publication date: 13 February 2009

Juan E. Ugarriza

The aim of this article is to apply a re‐worked definition of ideology in order to account for cultural and political dimensions of contemporary armed conflicts.

3955

Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this article is to apply a re‐worked definition of ideology in order to account for cultural and political dimensions of contemporary armed conflicts.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper analyzes communiqués, press releases, magazines, pamphlets, speeches, interviews and other communicational media produced by insurgent organizations in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Colombia, particularly in the post‐Cold War, in order to assess the characteristics of their ideological platforms. The extensive use of these primary sources aims at revealing the way the organizations see themselves, and how important ideological warfare is in their overall strategy.

Findings

In the post‐Cold War, and even in the early twenty‐first century, armed guerrillas persisted in linking their armed struggle to ideological platforms, though in more flexible versions. Nationalism, fundamentalism and socialism are functional to their tactics and strategies, and have tangible effects at strategic and tactical levels.

Research limitations/implications

Three sample cases have been revised exhaustively, but that methodology impedes the examination of a wider spectrum of post‐Cold War insurgent organizations, which may balance the results here presented. However, the high relevance of the ideological component in contemporary armed conflicts, as shown in the Afghan, Congolese and Colombian cases, demonstrates the need for further academic works on this topic.

Practical implications

Re‐defining ideology, as the paper proposes, turns it into a powerful conceptual tool to be used in academic research, given that precisely the absence of comprehensive categories of analysis has prevented scholars from providing a full picture of the political and cultural dimensions of contemporary armed conflicts.

Originality/value

As economic‐focused researches on armed conflicts have dominated the field since the 1990s, the paper underlines the need for scholars to approach a broader scope in peace studies.

Details

International Journal of Conflict Management, vol. 20 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1044-4068

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 24 October 2008

Robert Westwood and Gavin Jack

This paper seeks to present an analysis of the historical emergence of international business and management studies (IBMS) within the context of the post‐World War II USA. It…

1804

Abstract

Purpose

This paper seeks to present an analysis of the historical emergence of international business and management studies (IBMS) within the context of the post‐World War II USA. It seeks to show how certain conditions of this time and place shaped the orientation of foundational IBMS texts and set a course for the subsequent development of the field.

Design/methodology/approach

The approach is primarily conceptual. The paper pursues both a historical analysis and a close reading of foundational texts within IBMS. It first examines the key conditions for the emergence of IBMS including: the internationalization of the US economy and businesses; the Cold War and perceived expansion of Soviet interests; and finally decolonisation processes around the world. These are interrelated aspects of a commercial‐military‐political complex, which simultaneously enabled and constrained the emergence of IBMS scholarship. The paper moves on to link these conditions to two seminal IBMS texts.

Findings

The paper reveals the localised and particular conditions that surrounded the emergence of IBMS and how IBMS was constituted to serve particular and localised interests associated with those conditions.

Originality/value

The paper's originality and value lie in a unique historical and discursive analysis of the conditions for the emergence of IBMS that were, in part, instrumental in the development of the field. It thus responds to calls for a “historical turn” in International Business scholarship.

Details

Critical perspectives on international business, vol. 4 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1742-2043

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 26 September 2008

Patricia Genoe McLaren and Albert J. Mills

The purpose of this paper is to explore the idea that the ideal manager is a social construct that is a product of the context within which it exists. The context chosen to…

1452

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the idea that the ideal manager is a social construct that is a product of the context within which it exists. The context chosen to illustrate this idea is that of the first two decades of the Cold War (1945‐1965) in the USA.

Design/methodology/approach

The methodology used is an analysis of 17 management textbooks published between 1945 and 1965 in the USA.

Findings

The analysis of the textbooks shows a typification of the ideal manager as an educated male who wielded authority effectively and accepted social responsibility. These four characteristics can all be tied to the social and political context of the early Cold War years.

Research limitations/implications

Limited by its focus on management theory in the USA during the early Cold War era, and a selection of textbooks based on available resources. Future research could analyze the ideal manager construct during social and political contexts other than the Cold War, and across other social formations (e.g. the UK, Canada, France, etc.).

Practical implications

Practical implications apply to both organizations and academic institutions. Management educators should be attempting to use textbooks that present management theory in a problematic way and organizations should be aware of the impact of social and political context on the construct of the manager in order to determine the qualities and characteristics that are most needed today.

Originality/value

The paper looks at the ideal manager as a social construct, rather than an ideal that was created void of outside influence and assumed to be ideal for all contexts. It also uses the context of the Cold War period, which has been a neglected context in management research.

Details

Journal of Management History, vol. 14 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1751-1348

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 11 January 2008

Bert Spector

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how popular culture in general and movies in particular both reflected and shaped public attitudes to newly emerging corporate giants in…

1081

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how popular culture in general and movies in particular both reflected and shaped public attitudes to newly emerging corporate giants in the 1950s; to demonstrate how that view was itself shaped by political context and prevailing American ideology.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper rests on a content analysis of 11 corporate films released in the USA between 1954 and 1960.

Findings

Studying corporate movies during the 1950s lends an appreciation of the salience of understanding the political/cultural context of business history. The movies also reflected Cold War realities: the constraints imposed by an anti‐communist blacklist, and the belief – hope, perhaps – that capitalist corporations would stand as a bulwark against the alien ideology of Communism.

Research limitations/implications

The films studied are all US‐made. Studying films from later decades might also lend additional perspective.

Originality/value

The paper demonstrates the value of considering political context and ideology in understanding business history.

Details

Journal of Management History, vol. 14 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1751-1348

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 21 March 2024

Keshav Krishnamurty

This paper aims to study the origin story of Harvard Business School’s involvement with the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad to study the reasons for the spread of…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to study the origin story of Harvard Business School’s involvement with the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad to study the reasons for the spread of American management education. It introduces both the explicit influence of Cold War politics and Indian development imaginaries to the export of American management thought in the early 1960s.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper relies on archival research for its primary source material, drawing upon rich archives of documents found at the Baker Library of Harvard Business School.

Findings

Harvard’s role in Ahmedabad was explicitly influenced by the Cold War anti-communist foreign policy of the USA, but did so opportunistically and contrary to the Ford Foundation’s (FF) original plans. Vikram Sarabhai, who was a key player in the Indian national imaginary of development, invited Harvard on his own initiative and forced the foundation to follow his interests rather than being a mere “subaltern.”

Research limitations/implications

This paper could additionally add to the historical debate about the scope and periodization of the Cold War and the role of non-state actors.

Originality/value

This paper covers new ground in exploring the early connection between the Indian development imaginary and business education. It concludes that the export of hegemonic US management education was not successful during Cold War, and the FF was not as dominant as it was made out to be.

Details

Journal of Management History, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1751-1348

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 September 2017

Siu Keung Cheung

During the centennial anniversary of Xinhai Revolution in 2011, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television…

Abstract

Purpose

During the centennial anniversary of Xinhai Revolution in 2011, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television supported the production of 1911 for celebrating such an important event that lead to the rise of the Republic of China in the contemporary Chinese history. This paper aims to reflect upon this film in relation to China’s propagation of “Greater China” for the Empire-building project.

Design/methodology/approach

By scrutinizing the film text and following the strait controversies over the film, this paper demonstrates how the Chinese Communist agents employed the coproduction model with Hong Kong for globalizing a cinematic discourse of Greater China in part of their Empire-building project.

Findings

The study challenges how contemporary Chinese history is ideologically and politically manipulated for advancing the Chinese Communist propaganda over Taiwan. The overall objective is to reflect upon the longstanding historical divergences that stand on the current geopolitical envision and strategy of China for reunification.

Originality/value

This paper provides an interdisciplinary reflection upon the intricate post-Cold War politics in part of the contemporary Chinese cinema under the China–Hong Kong coproduction model. The findings advance novel and timely insights into China’s current envision and strategy for reunification.

Details

Social Transformations in Chinese Societies, vol. 13 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1871-2673

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 23 September 2019

Yael Frish

The chapter presents an analysis of the decision-making process of leaders on issues of nuclear armament and nuclear disarmament, through four case studies. The first, pertaining…

Abstract

The chapter presents an analysis of the decision-making process of leaders on issues of nuclear armament and nuclear disarmament, through four case studies. The first, pertaining armament, is South Africa, with a focus on Pieter Willem Botha, former prime minister and president of South Africa. The second deals with former Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi’s nuclear armament decision. The third case study investigates the decision of former president of South Africa, F. W. De Klerk, on nuclear disarmament. The fourth and final case study uncovers Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s nuclear disarmament decision.

Using the Applied Decision Analysis (ADA) method historical decisions have been analyzed in this chapter for the purpose of identifying each leader’s ‘decision code’. Specifically, were these decisions based on rational calculations or were they influenced more by cognitive decision processes?

By revealing a ‘decision code’ using a reverse engineering of the decision processes, I conclude that the three leaders placed high importance on security and geopolitics. By analyzing different dimensions and processes that impacted their decision processes, it is evident that while armament decision utilizes the poliheuristic decision rule, disarmament decisions abide by rational calculations.

Details

How Do Leaders Make Decisions?
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78743-394-6

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 28 November 2022

Soonbae Kim

While in Art Spiegelman's non-fiction narrative Maus (1980–1991), the voice of the mother Anja is silenced, Eunsung Kim's non-fiction graphic narrative My Mother's Story (2020…

Abstract

While in Art Spiegelman's non-fiction narrative Maus (1980–1991), the voice of the mother Anja is silenced, Eunsung Kim's non-fiction graphic narrative My Mother's Story (2020) revives a mother's voice that has been hardly heard in the history of Korean literature and culture. Just as the narrative in Maus is based on the interview between a son and his father, who has survived the Holocaust or the concentration camp in the Second World War, in My Mother's Story, a mother in her eighties tells the story of her entire life to her daughter. The writer's mother underwent Japanese colonization, the Korean War and the following years of industrial modernization, migrating from one place to another throughout her life. By visualizing a woman's personal memory, which has been forgotten for quite a long time, the Korean graphic narrative incorporates the subjective and subaltern voice into history. Thus, appropriating Michel Foucault's notion of subjectivation, which generally refers to the construction of the individual subject, I would argue that this visualization or revitalization of the silenced voice of the old woman can be called a process of ‘resubjectivation’, or reconstruction of the marginalized and thereby discarded subject of an aged woman in Korea. But this essay is not exactly a comparative study, paralleling the two different graphic narratives together. Instead, it focuses on uncovering ontological meanings of the feminine narrative in Korean culture as the process of resubjectivation involves not only the recovery of an individual woman's lost voice, but it is also related to the retrieval of a lost cultural legacy.

Book part
Publication date: 28 January 2022

Issau Camacoza

The foreign intervention in Libya in 2011, legitimized by the Security Council Resolution 1973, whose veto is a privilege of solely five most powerful countries (at least from…

Abstract

The foreign intervention in Libya in 2011, legitimized by the Security Council Resolution 1973, whose veto is a privilege of solely five most powerful countries (at least from post-1945 war standpoint), not only reveals that same practice of the past still valid in international affairs today but also results in overthrowing Gaddafi regime, and most importantly in destabilizing a once stable nation, which can now be seen as a failing state.

Details

The Impact of Foreign Interventions on Democracy and Human Rights
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80117-341-4

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 9 August 2022

Martin Blum

Underpinned by Henri Lefebvre's notion of the production of space with its triad of spatial practice, lived space and conceived space, this project traces the history of East…

Abstract

Underpinned by Henri Lefebvre's notion of the production of space with its triad of spatial practice, lived space and conceived space, this project traces the history of East German urban modernism through its trajectory of change from an ambitious socialist project via market-driven failure, to its revival as creative space. The physical manifestations of East German urban modernism are its large-scale residential estates with their ubiquitous high-rise buildings, assembled from precast concrete elements, or plates, lending them the vernacular German name Plattenbauten. In terms of their design, planning, construction and scope, these buildings and their locations were once part of a large, government-driven experiment in urban modernism: in the reconstruction of the country after World War II, residential estates were designed from scratch to be proof of a new, progressive, idealistic and somehow ‘better’ post-war Germany and were one of the most visible manifestations of urban modernism in Germany. After the German unification, however, many of the housing estates from the 1970s to 1980s fell into disrepair: many buildings were demolished and the remaining ones frequently became social and economic trouble spots. In the latest and (almost) ironic twist, however, the history of urban modernism changed direction once more: after more than 20 years of neglect, the Plattenbau has been rediscovered as much needed affordable and, due to its unique engineering, easily adaptable creative living, working and commercial space.

Details

Moving Spaces and Places
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80071-226-3

Keywords

1 – 10 of over 2000