Search results

The Austrian school developed a specific kind of economic analysis. Mises′ place in this school of thought and his praxeological point of view is discussed. His philosophical stance and its methodological implications are then considered.

This paper aims to account for the crafting of the constellation of brand and consumer values around an everyday product, that of bottled water. This paper situates the exponential growth of this market in its historical and cultural context, paying particular attention to the fostering of the “social conditions of possibility” for this product in the French market. The socio-historical context and the interplay of stakeholders to the respondents’ understanding and uses of bottled water, highlighting the importance of a range of factors that made this market and product resonate with their requirements, are linked.

This account responds to the call for more engagement with social theory in marketing and consumer research (Brownlie and Hewer, 2011). It also connects with recent scholarly pleas for a displacement of the consumer from the center of our analytic attention (Askegaard and Linnet, 2011; Holt, 2012). It does so by using the social praxeology approach associated with Pierre Bourdieu to study the affirmation and sedimentation of the practices surrounding the consumption of bottled water in France.

Influential institutional actors invoked discourses of purity, nature and health, juxtaposing these with the risks of tap water consumption. These were cemented by the influence of pediatricians who encouraged changes in family drinking habits which translated into long-term shifts in consumer behavior. By contrast to studies of different contexts, our respondents were greatly enamored by the materiality of the products themselves, using these in innovative ways for aesthetic pursuits. The social praxeology approach uncovers how brand and consumer value have been constructed in the French bottled water market.

This study is based on the historical development and growth of the market for bottled water in France. It would be a valuable exercise to investigate other contexts to determine whether the strategies of symbolic competition, especially the use of expert intermediaries rich in cultural capital that can be identified, are reflected elsewhere.

Bottled water producers will have to confront the issue of the resource-intensiveness of their products. This feature stands in marked contrast to the symbolic capital and points of differentiation that producers have weaved around bottled water. Such contradictions will be exposed by actors in other fields (e.g. the environmental movement). This can be expected to have an impact on the consumption and viability of this market in future.

This paper uses a philosophical framework – social praxeology – to chart the development, affirmation and exponential growth of the bottled water market. Via a combination of historical re-construction and empirical research, it highlights the interactive relationships between government, producers and consumers, uncovering brand and consumer value creation.

Explicates and analyses selected economic methodologies: praxeology, positivism and institutionalism. Praxeology is a rationalistic methodology which utilizes deductive logic to deduce conclusions concerning economic behavior from postulates, which are self‐evident truths, but praxeologists deny that empirical verification is either necessary or desirable. Positivism is a methodology which combines deductive rationalism as a method of deriving substantive hypotheses and inductive empiricism as a method of verifying these hypotheses. Institutionalism is a pragmatic methodology which is based on an empirical epistemology and which utilizes inductive logic to formulate economic policy and to solve practical problems. Concludes that institutionalism is more empirically relevant than either praxeology or positivism, and that, therefore, institutionalism is superior to the other methodologies.

To make decisions has long been considered an art more than a science. Today the area has been formalized under the name of praxeology and includes the use of computers as decision aids. In this paper some basic decision models are analysed together with some psychological phenomena often connected to them. Managerial problems and needs are examined and related to available computer decision support. The military command, control, communication, and intelligence structure is presented and compared to the corresponding civilian framework. The conclusion was that computer support in decision making now is firmly established among middle level decision makers. Top level managers, on the other hand, were found to derive no major benefit from such systems. Here good intuition, good guesses and a certain feeling for the task were the most important tools.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify definitions in economics.

To apply the insights of Austrian economics to terms widely used in the profession.

The authors find that the Austrian approach brings clarification to communication.

The authors know of no other such attempt. Therefore this paper presumably has some originality.

The major purpose is to provide a philosophic basis for the study and practice of educational administration. An explicit assumption is that logical, propositional thought is a desirable prelude to action. Reason, which is defined as an organic harmony of impulses, is related to administration via three levels of discourse: 1) philosophic values (WHY), 2) hypothetico‐deductive theory (HOW), and 3) observed behavior (WHAT). The first level is defined by the discursive thought of the moral philosopher Santayana. His definition of rational ethics provides a foundation for administrative‐organizational theory in general, and the concept of bureaucracy in particular. The second level includes Weber's pure‐type structural model that has rationality as its dominant characteristic. The third level, administrative practice, or praxeology, is portrayed as a derivative of rational thought. Current approaches, including systems analysis and program budgeting, are rooted in the union of the logic of Santayana's ethics and Weber's structural model for human groupings.

The aim of this paper is to show that there is need for revitalization of the normative branch of political economy. The first part of this paper will deal with some methodological reservations against a participation of economists in a rational discussion of normative issues. The second and third parts will outline the approaches and problems of two unconventional schools of thought in present‐day economics which make attempts to strive for a reconciliation of positive and normative economics.

The purpose of this paper is to shed critical light on micro‐finance.

This scheme is managed from an economic perspective.

Micro‐finance comes to us as a left wing attack on the free enterprise system; as such, it ought to be opposed by all freedom lovers, at least in its present format. Other baggage weighing it down is, if not absolute fraud, then, what might well be considered at least serious chicanery. A further criticism is the cult‐like behavior now surrounding it. However, is micro‐finance per se necessarily fraudulent? Can it only be favored by critics of laissez faire capitalism? What of micro‐finance shorn of all such encumbrances? Should it then be supported? No. Even the Platonic Ideal of micro‐finance has serious difficulties. This claim is a matter of prudential judgment, not praxeology. But, even a pure‐as‐the‐driven‐snow variety of this scheme still violates the economic concepts of specialization and division of labor, an appreciation of the infant industry fallacy, and several other basic building blocks of the dismal science. There are other better ways to “cure poverty” than this misbegotten scheme. This one, paradoxically, exacerbates impoverishment by placing investment resources in hands less capable of making it grow than would otherwise be the case.

It would be unwise to invest in or support this scheme.

Society should instead rely upon free enterprise banking, the occupy movement to the contrary notwithstanding.

It takes a minority position on this very popular institution.

In order to answer this question, it will first be necessary to distinguish between political and economic correctness on the one hand, and then between Austrian and mainstream economics on the other.

The purpose of this paper is to present French Didactique des Mathématiques (DM) to the Lesson Study (LS) community.

This theoretical paper presents the origins of DM in the Theory of Didactical Situations (TDS) by Brousseau. It elaborates about didactical engineering, fundamental situation and other fundamental concepts. It briefly presents other Didactique theories: the theory of conceptual fields, the anthropological theory of the didactic, the joint action theory in didactics and the double approach. It considers importance of the (TDS) and influences over teaching of mathematics. This paper finishes by highlighting the ways Didactique and LS could contribute to each other in a profitable dialogue.

The paper contrasts DM with some LS main features. It highlights the parallels despite fundamental differences in the initial goals of the perspectives. It shows that these differences could lead to productive dialogue by producing more practice-oriented forms of didactical engineering for the first and making teachers’ principles for lessons more explicit for the latter.

The paper presents a very quick overview of the parallels between DM and LS. Additionally, this paper gives many accessible references in English for the reader to explore Didactique further.