Search results

Given the multiplying and intensifying global systemic crises (ecological, financial, etc.), the question of revolution resurfaces. The paper addresses a crucial dimension of this question: the issue of revolutionary leadership. Two exemplary leaders are analysed: Jesus of Nazareth and Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara. The key purpose of the analysis is to show how these ‘pure-hearted’ leaders were ‘paradoxically’ willing to employ ‘dirty hands’, which in this context denotes revolutionary violence. Consequently, while peaceful approaches to structural transformation are obviously preferable, revolutionary violence should remain an ethical option.

Key findings advanced by the article include: (i) confirmation of the reasonableness of remaining actively open to the option of an ethical revolutionary violence; (ii) recognition that revolutionary love involves a dimension of hate; and (iii) confirmation that Jesus was a political revolutionary.

The paper is innovative and valuable in several respects: (i) it dares to broach the question of revolution; (ii) it shows how ‘the ethical’ may be inclusive of ethical violence; (iii) it challenges mainstream perceptions of Jesus as strictly a religious/apolitical figure, recalling and foregrounding his radical political dimension.

The punctuated equilibrium model (PEM) is an influential model of organizational change that can both advance theory and guide managerial action. However, with the exception of Romanelli and Tushman’s (1994) study of minicomputer firms, the core assertion of the PEM – that fundamental organizational change would occur through brief, discontinuous, and simultaneous changes in all domains of organizational activity and not through incremental and asynchronous changes – has not been tested in longitudinal, large-sample research. We examined the event histories of 50 bank holding companies in the U.S. between 1975 and 1995, replicating Romanelli and Tushman’s test of the PEM in a less turbulent industry environment. Additionally, we examined the consequences of organizational transformation on subsequent firm performance, an aspect of the PEM that has seldom been studied. We found that both revolutionary and non-revolutionary change patterns were common means to accomplish organizational transformation. We also found that the installation of a new top executive not previously affiliated with the company and major shifts in the regulatory environment increased the likelihood of revolutionary transformation. Whereas severe performance declines before transformation decreased the likelihood of organizational transformation, the occurrence of revolutionary transformation did not significantly influence subsequent organizational performance.

The purpose of this chapter is to study the correlation of evolutional and revolutionary transformations in a socio-economic system in the conditions of the formation of an information economy by taking the example of modern Russia.

To distinguish these transformations by studying the information economy, based on the materials of reports and recommendations of the OECD and the World Bank, the indicators that show macro-economic transformations in a socio-economic system in the conditions of formation of an information economy and their control values that correspond to evolutional and revolutionary changes were determined. During the research, the authors used the method of comparative analysis for comparing the values of the indicators in modern Russia with the control values of the indicators that show macro-economic transformations in the socio-economic system in the conditions of the formation of an information economy and classify the corresponding transformations as evolutional and revolutionary. The information and analytical basis includes the materials of the reports of the Higher School of Economics, the OECD, the World Bank, the International Telecommunication Union, the World Wide Web Foundation, the Digital single market, the INSEAD, the WIPO, and the Cornell University.

As a result, it is concluded that the planned transformations in a socio-economic system in the conditions of formation of information economy by implementating the optimization model of this process have an evolutional characteristic. Herein, certain transformations have a revolutionary nature.

The authors determine that the largest revolutionary transformations are due for 2022–2025. However, their classification is caused not by high rate of growth of the indicators’ values but by their achievement of control values. Therefore, the largest socio-economic shifts in the economic system in the modern Russia due to the formation of an information economy will take place in 2019–2022. Hence, in this period, an anti-crisis management of this process should be conducted.

Three successful uprisings in mid-2003 – in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan – introduced the notion of the ‘colour revolution’, usually understood as an organised unarmed public uprising aimed at replacing a discredited regime with a more democratic government. Careful examination shows that, besides these cases and the overthrow of the Milosevic regime in Yugoslavia in 2000, eight more cases could be added to the list of colour revolutions, making it possible to investigate characteristic features of the phenomenon and to evaluate the trend of failure in attempts at revolution since 2005. In a deviation from classical models, economic grievances are found to have little bearing on public mobilisation for revolutionary causes; external influences, on the other hand, have considerable impact. In the second half of the 2000s, Russia's assertive counter-revolutionary stance prevailed over the United States’ declining capacity and the diminishing gravitation of the EU, so all revolutionary attempts failed, including the April 2009 unrest in Chisinau, Moldova. Analysis of such characteristics of ‘colour revolutions’ as close correlation with elections, non-violent strategies of opposition and implicit connection with ‘frozen conflicts’ despite the absence of any ethno-nationalist agenda makes it possible to arrive at a more precise definition of the phenomenon and to identify several potential revolutionary situations. The economic recession that began in late 2008 will inevitably transform the social context of ‘colour revolutions’, which might become less controllable and more violent.

This chapter examines why the political collapse of Russia and Germany in the end of the First World War resulted in massive expropriation of private property in Russia and consolidation of private property in Germany. This historical divergence is explained by the different measure of coercive capacities of the provisional governments and, consequently, their different ability to withstand the assault of the radical Left during the periods of turbulent political transitions. The measure of coercive capacities was determined primarily by support of the army, which, in turn, was contingent upon the provisional governments’ decisions to negotiate peace and exit the war.

We advance theory of how founder identity affects business model (BM) design during new venture creation and contribute to the cognitive perspective on BMs. We look at BM design as a longitudinal process involving a variety of cognitive work that is co-shaped by the founder identity work. Based on an in-depth nine-year process study of a single venture managed by three founders, we observed that a novelty-centered BM design resulted from cognitive work co-shaped by founder identity construction and verification processes. Yet, more remarkably, we noted that founder identity verification decreased over time and observed a process that we labeled “identity-business model decoupling.” It meant that the founders did not alter their founder identity but, over time, attentively grew self-aware and mindfully disengaged negative identity effects to design an effective BM. Our results provide a dynamic view on founder identity imprinting on ventures’ BMs and contribute to the identity, BM, and entrepreneurship literatures.

This article examines the evolution and the nature of indigenous women’s rights activism in post-conflict Guatemala. I analyze the work of the Organización de Mujeres Mayas de Kaqla, which has developed a type of women’s rights activism that is firmly rooted in Mayan cosmovisión and in women’s direct experiences. Building on their experience in the revolutionary movements of the war period the women of Kaqla seek to localize the allegedly universal discourse of women’s rights and to use it as a resource for change. I apply the perspectives of social movement spillover and of localizing human rights respectively to structure the findings, and argue that both perspectives can be insightful in understanding certain dimensions of this multi-faceted kind of activism, but that there are certain dynamics which these perspectives fail to grasp. I ask how the case of Kaqla can enrich both our understanding of how social movements can adapt to changing environments, and of how transnational discourses can become localized. The analysis also highlights the North-South power dynamic and suggests that processes of discursive adaptation are not fundamentally open.

This chapter examines the dynamic of state-society interaction during the events of the winter 2013–2014 Ukrainian Maidan Revolution. Using a new dataset, containing responses from the activists of the dissent movement, the study uncovers the “tipping point” at which revolutionaries were much more likely to support violent tactics. The study adds to the scholarly debate on repression-dissent, showing that social interpretation of state repression is essential in affecting social support for political violence. In addition to the theoretical contribution, this article presents the first systematic scholarly account of the repression-dissent dynamic of the 2013–2014 Ukrainian revolution, implementing original empirical and interview data.