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1 – 10 of 420Linda Talley and Samuel Temple
The purpose of this paper is to address the relationship between a leader’s use of nonverbal immediacy (specific hand gestures) and followers’ attraction to the leader. This study…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to address the relationship between a leader’s use of nonverbal immediacy (specific hand gestures) and followers’ attraction to the leader. This study provides initial evidence that certain hand gestures are more effective than others at creating immediacy between leaders and followers.
Design/methodology/approach
In an experimental study, participants (male=89; female=121) were shown one of three videos of an actor, as leader, using three positive hand gestures, three defensive hand gestures, and no hand gestures, which have not been previously operationalized (and were grouped arbitrarily by the experimenter). Three hypotheses were tested using a 3×2 ANOVA (by group and gender) for main and interactional effects.
Findings
The independent variable, positive hand gestures (M=2.4), was perceived by participants as more immediate than the other two independent variables, defensive hand gestures (M=−19.2) or no hand gestures (M=−21.6). Analysis of data indicate that participants perceived leaders with no hand gestures and defensive hand gestures to be distant or non-immediate and the leader with positive hand gestures to be more immediate or attractive.
Research limitations/implications
This study is limited as a pilot study establishing differences between specific hand gestures for the first time.
Practical implications
The research provides initial evidence that the hand gestures arbitrarily defined as “positive” create more immediacy between the followers and the leader than usage of “negative” gestures and no gestures.
Social implications
The current research can act as a motivator for leaders to fast forward relationships with followers through the use of specific hand gestures.
Originality/value
The results suggest the possibility that some hand gestures are more effective than others.
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The diversity of ideas and information is central to the meaning of libraries—we enshrine it, and too frequently that is the word—in our Library Bill of Rights and other…
Abstract
The diversity of ideas and information is central to the meaning of libraries—we enshrine it, and too frequently that is the word—in our Library Bill of Rights and other documents. This diversity of ideas is more than a passive concept, not just one of defending materials already in our collections, though that is a basic and important role for librarians and one that we are reminded of by Drake, Fairhope, and Kannawha counties. But to support this intellectual freedom we all need to actively promote the widest possible range of opinions, of concepts, of expression. And to do this we need more than the output of Gulf & Western, the Columbia Broadcasting System, Mattel, or Times Mirror. If these names seem unfamiliar in library work to some of you, perhaps you know them through their subsidiaries, Golden Books, Pantheon, and Simon & Schuster.
Kelum Jayasinghe and Teerooven Soobaroyen
The purpose of this paper is to examine how the Buddhist and Hindu people in non‐Western societies perceive rational accountability practices in religious organizations, through…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how the Buddhist and Hindu people in non‐Western societies perceive rational accountability practices in religious organizations, through their respective religious “spirit” and “beliefs” and in combination with broader structural elements of the society.
Design/methodology/approach
The interpretive tradition of research, i.e. ethnography based on two in‐depth cases from Sri Lanka (a Buddhist temple) and Mauritius (a Hindu temple) is adopted for the data collection. The data are analysed using grounded theory methods and procedures.
Findings
In non‐Western Buddhist and Hindu societies where people's lives are bound by a high religious “spirit” the accountability system in the religious organisations is largely visible as an informal and social practice rather than a stakeholder‐oriented rational mechanism. It is found that the rational accountability mechanisms are “sacredised” by the Buddhist and Hindu religious “spirit” and subsequently, the accountability systems and religious activities are both influenced by the “structural elements” of trust, aspirations, patronage and loyalty relations, social status, power and rivalries. The accountability practices implemented in these organisations are perceived by the people as being no more than “ceremonial rituals” aimed at strengthening the temple's righteous and prudent image to the religious society.
Research limitations/implications
The paper raises the issue that accountability practices in community, grassroots‐based non‐profit organisations are not mere reporting of “facts” relating to economic activities and a “neutral system” giving reasons for the conduct of its leaders. Instead, they initiate new forms of accountability systems and reproduce structural conditions.
Originality/value
This is one of the first field studies which examine perceptions of accountability within a Hindu and a Buddhist context, as influenced by the religious “spirit” and internal belief systems of the devotees. Previous studies have mostly focused on Judeo‐Christian or Islamic denominations.
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Sustainable development in support of cultural heritage has become one of the major issues on UNESCO’s agenda. As policy documents are issued, heritage environmental…
Abstract
Sustainable development in support of cultural heritage has become one of the major issues on UNESCO’s agenda. As policy documents are issued, heritage environmental sustainability, local stakeholders’ development and participation and heritage in cases of interregional conflict are the situations they analyze. As such, policy documents will be employed as guidelines for past and future UNESCO World Heritage site registrations. They have been used for the present study of sustainable development within mostly Thai cultural heritage context, with a few cases relating to Cambodia due the lack of research on this topic in the region. Employing qualitative method analysis, most of the heritage sites studied here suffer from a lack of protection against encroachment, natural elements and, more rarely, overuse. Furthermore, the implementation of heritage management plans sees local stakeholders excluded from any participation in the heritage they live in, which may cause conflicts in Southeast Asia.
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Gareth R. T. White, Robert Allen, Anthony Samuel, Dan Taylor, Robert Thomas and Paul Jones
This chapter explores social enterprises as an alternative and addition to traditional entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs). It reviews the substantial social enterprise literature in…
Abstract
This chapter explores social enterprises as an alternative and addition to traditional entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs). It reviews the substantial social enterprise literature in order to identify the myriad of competing tensions constraining development and success of social EEs in areas of significant poverty and economic deprivation. Following this, the findings of several contemporary and novel studies are discussed. These collectively evidence ways social enterprises are overcoming the seemingly immutable constraints they operate under. In particular, the Social Enterprise Places initiative has been highly effective in supporting the development of flourishing social EEs in many locations in the UK. However, the growth of social enterprises, both in number and economic importance, presents further challenges that social enterprise owners and managers will have to contend with. Consequently, these organisations and their allied ecosystems require continued structural, financial and skills support.
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Gareth Reginald Terence White, Anthony Samuel, Ken Peattie and Bob Doherty
The paper aims to critically review the increasingly taken-for-granted view of social enterprise (SE) as inherently paradoxical and tackles the research question as follows: are…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to critically review the increasingly taken-for-granted view of social enterprise (SE) as inherently paradoxical and tackles the research question as follows: are the tensions experienced by SE and social entrepreneurs (SEnt) actually paradoxical and if not, what are the implications for theory and practice?
Design/methodology/approach
A paradox theory (PT) approach has been utilized to explore the implications, validity and helpfulness of the paradox perspective in understanding and managing the tensions that are inherent in SE.
Findings
Conceptualizing the primary tension of doing social good through commercial activity as a paradox is argued to be a limiting misnomer that conspires to reify and perpetuate the tensions that SE and SEnt have to manage. Drawing upon PT, the findings of the paper reconceptualize these tensions as myths, dilemmas and dialectics, which are subsequently used to develop a more complete ontological framework of the challenges that arise in SE and for SEnt.
Practical implications
Reconceptualizing the “inherent paradoxes” of SE as either dilemmas or dialectics affords a means of pursuing their successful resolution. Consequently, this view alleviates much of the pressure that SE managers and SEnt may feel in needing to pursue commercial goals alongside social goals.
Originality/value
The work presents new theoretical insights to challenge the dominant view of SE as inherently paradoxical.
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Hilary Downey and John F. Sherry, Jr
Sacrifice, integral to gift giving, remains unexplored and undertheorized in marketing. This paper aims to address this shortfall by analyzing the dynamics of sacrifice and…
Abstract
Purpose
Sacrifice, integral to gift giving, remains unexplored and undertheorized in marketing. This paper aims to address this shortfall by analyzing the dynamics of sacrifice and theorizing how it serves as an engine of the gift chimney.
Design/methodology/approach
The ethnographic investigation of public ceremonial gift giving in sectarian Northern Ireland describes and interprets the complex nature of the gift.
Findings
The authors show that sacrifice is a plausible mechanism of the gift chimney and that the co-occurrence of monadic, dyadic and systemic giving in the same ritual acts as an accelerant.
Social implications
The authors analyze how public ceremonial gift giving induces sectarian communities to risk convocation, enabling them to exorcize trauma sustained at one another’s hands and to build a platform for future cross-community cohesion in a context of ineffective institutional efforts.
Originality/value
Sacrifice propels circulation of the gift, creating a social bond between antagonists whose ethos of mutuality depends upon ritualized reciprocal recognition of entangled loss.
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One of the major exams of leadership skills of a leader is the challenge of managing conflicts within the organization or within society he heads. Perhaps, this is the biggest…
Abstract
Purpose
One of the major exams of leadership skills of a leader is the challenge of managing conflicts within the organization or within society he heads. Perhaps, this is the biggest challenge especially when there is a situation of external threat on that society. In this situation when the leader who is unable to maintain internal cohesion, then the danger is that it will accelerate the breakdown in make it easier for the external enemy to destroy that society. The purpose of this paper is to explore how Jewish tradition, using formative ancient stories, tried to teach us how a leader should behave in a crisis, and how not to behave.
Design/methodology/approach
In this article, the author wants to show how Jewish tradition, using formative ancient stories, tried to teach us how a leader should behave in a crisis, and how not to behave. The rabbis of the Jewish tradition, that had written the Babylonian Talmud, reviewed the defeat of the Jewish people, in 70th as a failure of the leaders. Through the stories that tried to show us the responsibility of leadership, they pointed out the weaknesses of the leaders and saw them as the main person responsible for the loss occurred, when Jerusalem fell. In contrast, other stories show us how other leaders, deserved to overcome a major crisis and come out stronger.
Findings
The author wants to show how stories reveal three models of leadership: a weak and cowardly leadership that enables the growth of terrorist leadership, extreme and dogmatic leaders against tolerant leadership, leadership of nonviolent revolution. The situations in which leadership is being tested are varied. At the time of a great crisis of society at risk, during the siege of Jerusalem, one of the stories takes place precisely in the house, between two people, with the presence of leaders, to show the social disintegration among the common people, and the failure of leaders to build a moral society.
Practical implications
The positive example of overcoming the crisis and conflict, occurs after the destruction of Jerusalem in the Beit Midrash of the survivors in Yavneh. Perhaps the trauma of destruction leads the leaders to resolve the conflict in a nonviolent way.
Originality/value
The author tried to extract from the Jewish tradition the right model for managing crisis and conflict. The sages reflected on the serious crises that had happened to the Jewish people and they claimed that the leadership was the main cause of the failure.
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MY MAIDEN NAME was Lamb and this, I think, was the tenuous thread that first drew me towards Charles Lamb when I was in my teens. His letters and essays were compulsory reading at…
Abstract
MY MAIDEN NAME was Lamb and this, I think, was the tenuous thread that first drew me towards Charles Lamb when I was in my teens. His letters and essays were compulsory reading at school as a background study to the Romantic poets. My heart warmed to Lamb because of the revelation of his personality in his writings and for the glimpses he gave of his contemporaries, seeming to welcome the reader into the charmed circle of his friends. If I had been restricted to a classroom study of the Tales from Shakespeare, with which his name is first associated in the minds of many readers, I might never have gone on to discover the warmth of his humanity and the sparkle of his humour that glow from his letters and essays. In this year of the 200th anniversary of his birth I hope that many readers will turn back to these writings to renew acquaintance with Charles Lamb as I have done and find the same endearing qualities that won my affection in adolescence.