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In this article we consider how cultural resources rooted in religion help to constitute and animate people working in industrialized societies across both religious and nonreligious domains. We argue that redemptive self-narratives figure prominently in the symbolic constructions people attach to their experiences across the many domains of human experience; such redemptive narratives not only can shape their identities and sense of life purpose, they inform their practices and choices and animate their capacity for action. To consider how redemptive self-narratives can provide a basis for agency in organizations, we analyze and compare the career narratives of a retired Episcopal Bishop and a celebrated CEO.

This chapter argues that aspiring hegemons face a wide array of complex and distinct military challenges. Managing scarce military resources requires a subtle and complex global strategy that is likely to generate cognitive overload for the political system. As a result of cognitive overload, aspiring hegemons are likely to flail around, rapidly shifting from one global strategy to another. Such strategic flailing will occur independently of whether or not the economy is in crisis, though clearly economic crisis will exacerbate the tendency towards strategic incoherence. The chapter examines U.S. global strategy since the end of the Cold War, looking at the focus on “rogue regimes,” a growing concern with “global chaos,” worry about the rise of a peer competitor (China), and the debates about the root causes of, and best strategies to mitigate, terrorism. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the role of culture and notions of national identity and their role in the formulation of grand strategy.

We examine whether variations in the most fundamental aspects of state corporate income tax regimes affect state economic activity as measured by personal income, gross state product, and total non-farm employment. We focus on a variety of statutory components of state corporate income taxes that apply broadly in most U.S. states and for most multi-state corporate taxpayers. Our econometric strategy consists of a series of fixed effects panel regressions using state-level data from 1996 through 2010. Our results reveal important interaction effects of tax rates and policies, suggesting that policy makers should avoid making decisions about tax rates in isolation. The results demonstrate a relatively consistent negative economic response to the combination of high tax rates with throwback rules and heavy sales factor weights. Combined reporting has no discernible effect on personal income, GSP, or employment after controlling for tax rates, apportionment, and throwback rules. In an effort to gauge the relative impacts of tax policies on the location of economic activity, we also estimate alternative models in which each state’s economic activity is measured as a share of the national economic activity in each year. Statistically significant effects for tax rates, apportionment formulas, and throwback rules in the shares models suggest that at least some of their impact involves the movement of activity across state lines, thereby leaving open the possibility of a zero-sum game among the states.

Procedures can be categorized as certain surgeries based on their necessity and outcomes while others are classified as uncertain surgeries based on these areas. To account for this variance, policies such as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) call for health care providers to engage in shared decision making (SDM) with patients to ensure they are informed of treatment options and asked their preferences. Yet, gender may influence the decision-making process. Thus, this project examines the decision process and how gender impacts patients’ participation in decisions to undergo certain surgeries compared to uncertain surgeries.

This research project analyzed data from the National Survey of Medical Decisions 2006–2007 which surveyed the medical decisions of US residents 40 and older.

First, the data reveals that women felt more informed having uncertain surgeries compared to men. Second, patients were less likely asked their preference for surgery when undergoing certain surgeries compared to uncertain surgeries. Third, compared to men, women having uncertain surgeries were less likely to make the final decision to have surgery, compared to sharing the final decision with health care providers.

Due to the sample size, this project could not perform three-way interactions between gender, race, and surgery type.

Gender influences the level patients feel informed having uncertain surgeries. Though policy calls for SDM, health care providers are less likely to ask patients their preference for surgery regarding certain surgeries, relative to uncertain surgeries. Gender impacts the final decision-making process regarding whether patients should have uncertain surgeries.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on higher education (HE) across the globe, including in Bangladesh. The Bangladeshi HE system is going through an abrupt transition and transformation to cope with the crisis. This chapter is based on data collected from teachers and students of Bangladeshi public and private HE institutions regarding teaching and learning during the COVID-19 lockdown. In Bangladesh, some universities switched to online distance teaching and learning quickly during this period, and others lagged behind in this regard. Teachers and students from both groups of public and private universities participated in the study, including those who attended online teaching and learning activities and those who did not participate. This chapter highlights both teachers’ and students’ perspectives regarding students’ future preparedness for participating fully in the changing landscape of HE, especially technology-enhanced teaching and learning. Understanding these perspectives of teachers and students is important to address the digital divide and social justice issues in the policy and practice. Within the HE sector in Bangladesh, it is especially vital while transforming its education system and adapting emerging technologies to address the challenges of education in future emergencies.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, teacher education in Qatar, similar to many countries around the world, witnessed a succession of disruptions to the way it operated. The disruption continued throughout much of 2020, and the need to adapt to arising changes and concerns permeated all aspects of teacher education, particularly the practicum experience. The chapter presents our attempt to investigate the influence of an adapted practicum experience which was based on the synthesis of qualitative evidence (SQD) model on the development of six student teachers’ technology knowledge and skills. Using a qualitative case study research design, we collected data from multiple data sources, including pre–post-interviews and weekly reflection logs. Quantitative data collected from a pre–post-administration of the SQD survey and TPACK (Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge)-practical survey were used to triangulate the qualitative data. Findings from the thematic analysis and descriptive statistical analysis revealed evidence for participants’ increased TPACK-practical knowledge and skills, specifically in the domains of practical teaching and curriculum design. However, an emerging theme revealed that participants considered technology before pedagogy during instructional design. Findings also revealed two challenges to participants’ further development, namely working within a restricted learning environment and experiencing limited mentoring opportunities. We illustrated several implications for the design of the practicum experience and the required institutional support within the context of continued disruption to education and thereafter.

This chapter explores geopolitics, garbage cans, the need for interdisciplinary insight, and the lures and limitations of one-sided mono-disciplinary conceptual models in understanding strategic decision making. We argue that a combination of the garbage can model and Nathan Leites’ psycho-cultural approach to decision making might be useful in giving insights for events and for organizational behavior. As a decision making case, we consider the 1941 decision of the Empire of Japan to declare war on the Allied Powers. We find that there could be useful lines of integration between the garbage can framework and other perspectives in geopolitical decision making. In using a historical example to illustrate the possible integration, we argue that there are inherent limits to single-model decision making approaches. Developing interdisciplinary frameworks for understanding foreign policy decision making may lead to better insights in real-world processes and seems like a step in a fruitful direction.

We conjecture that there are five stages to academic entrepreneurship: motivation, governance, selection, competition, and performance. The process of academic entrepreneurship originates with the motivation of faculty, universities, industry, and government to commercialize knowledge that originates within the university setting. The model conceptualizes that the governance and competitiveness of the commercialized knowledge moderate the mode selection and ultimately the performance of academic entrepreneurship. The conceptual and empirical support for the model are derived from a theory-driven synthesis of articles related to academic entrepreneurship.