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Drawing on world society and policy analysis literatures, the purpose of this paper is to examine the uneven diffusion of family planning programs in the developing world and the subsequent consequences for child health. The study begins by assessing the effect of world society ties on countries' commitment to and capacity for family planning programs. It then examines the impact such programs have on child health inputs and survival.

This paper uses a cross‐national, quantitative study design on a sample of less developed countries.

Countries' world society embeddedness is a robust predictor of their institutional commitment to and capacity for family planning programs. Such program efforts are also shown to have a significant impact on child survival rates, mediated by reduced fertility and higher rates of childhood immunization.

Future research should further explore the way in which such programs contribute to and/or serve as a foundation for health infrastructure in developing countries.

This study points to the child health benefits associated with building capacity in family planning programs. Practitioners should take care to appropriately adapt global policy models to local needs and circumstances while allowing local control.

This paper contributes to a growing body of literature on the role of world society (international nongovernmental organization) networks in spreading development policies and programs in the developing world. Going one step further, it assesses the actual impact of one such policy program on children's health.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate discourses on globalisation and world society and to disclose the commonalities and differences of both scientific debates. In particular, it draws attention to theoretical concepts of globalisation and world society. This is considered fruitful for comprehending the complex mechanisms of sociological theory-building in a globalised world.

The article first contextualises the multi-dimensionality and ambiguity of globalisation. It then reflects on the consequences of globalisation for socio-scientific considerations. The third part of the paper highlights scientific discourses on world society and globalisation, especially illustrating the commonalities and differences of both debates. In the concluding remarks of the article, discourses on world society are presented as a seismograph of contemporary socio-scientific debates encountering processes of globalisation.

The paper does not simply present scientific discourses as isolated from a globalised world, but discloses the challenges of socio-scientific disciplines facing the global frame of reference for research. To balance the research analyses of scientific discourses, those on globalisation and world society are illustrated.

The interplay between discourses on globalisation and those on world society is rarely reflected upon in publications. This paper provides insights into how, on the one hand, scientific debates on globalisation and on world society act together as part and parcel of the overall global frame of reference for research, yet it also shows, on the other hand, how different the discourses are. Furthermore, it highlights the prospective role of socio-scientific disciplines in a globalised world.

A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balance economics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary to man′s finding the good life and society enduring as a civilized instrumentality. Looks for authority to great men of the past and to today′s moral philosopher: man is an ethical animal. The 13 essays are: 1. Evolutionary Economics: The End of It All? which challenges the view that Darwinism destroyed belief in a universe of purpose and design; 2. Schmoller′s Political Economy: Its Psychic, Moral and Legal Foundations, which centres on the belief that time‐honoured ethical values prevail in an economy formed by ties of common sentiment, ideas, customs and laws; 3. Adam Smith by Gustav von Schmoller – Schmoller rejects Smith′s natural law and sees him as simply spreading the message of Calvinism; 4. Pierre‐Joseph Proudhon, Socialist – Karl Marx, Communist: A Comparison; 5. Marxism and the Instauration of Man, which raises the question for Marx: is the flowering of the new man in Communist society the ultimate end to the dialectical movement of history?; 6. Ethical Progress and Economic Growth in Western Civilization; 7. Ethical Principles in American Society: An Appraisal; 8. The Ugent Need for a Consensus on Moral Values, which focuses on the real dangers inherent in there being no consensus on moral values; 9. Human Resources and the Good Society – man is not to be treated as an economic resource; man′s moral and material wellbeing is the goal; 10. The Social Economist on the Modern Dilemma: Ethical Dwarfs and Nuclear Giants, which argues that it is imperative to distinguish good from evil and to act accordingly: existentialism, situation ethics and evolutionary ethics savour of nihilism; 11. Ethical Principles: The Economist′s Quandary, which is the difficulty of balancing the claims of disinterested science and of the urge to better the human condition; 12. The Role of Government in the Advancement of Cultural Values, which discusses censorship and the funding of art against the background of the US Helms Amendment; 13. Man at the Crossroads draws earlier themes together; the author makes the case for rejecting determinism and the “operant conditioning” of the Skinner school in favour of the moral progress of autonomous man through adherence to traditional ethical values.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the curriculum developments of civic education in three emerging Chinese societies: China and two Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macao, which are increasingly under the impacts of globalisation in this information world.

The analytical method is used and the following are identified: active and global civic education-related learning units and key themes and main contents in official curriculum guidelines and updated textbooks related to civic education.

A major finding is that elements of both active and global citizenship, such as participation in the community and understanding about the world and thus forming multiple identities, can be found alongside their emphasis on enhancing national citizenship. Thus, ideas of global citizenship and multiple levels of citizenship from local, national to global start to develop in these three Chinese societies.

The implications of such findings of both active and global citizenship, as well as multiple identities, found in these three Chinese societies could be huge for informing civic literature and sociological point of views, in particular, pointing to the next generations receiving a broadened and transcended notion of multiple levels of citizenship, apart from local and national citizenship.

The significance of this paper is that it argues that ideas of active citizenship in terms of community participation and global citizenship have been found in China, Hong Kong and Macao civic education curriculum and textbooks because of the expectations placed on students to compete in a globalized world, though national citizenship and patriotic concerns have been primary concerns. Globalisation makes the world society by impacting on these three Chinese societies for active and global citizenship, though they still retain their particular curricular focusses.

This article reports a wide range of complementary or antinomic insights into the multi‐layered globalizing process, in an attempt to understand its causes and significance. Different perceptions and assessments of its far‐reaching consequences all over the world are picked out. The ambiguity of the high‐technology revolution with potential transition from material to time values is contrasted with the self‐destructive bases of self‐interest policies, and the flagrant defeat of the modern economy among those excluded from planetary society. While on the surface it seems to be only a change of relations between the finance sphere and the “real economy”, the more comprehensive and penetrating cognition of recent occurrences reveals a questioning of human values. New forms of social relationships will need to be imagined to define what human worth is.

To provide a systems explanation of world wars as civilizational phenomena with a special focus on the cold war defined as an interaction war between two parties which cannot communicate with each other.

As a theoretical framework for this analysis an elaborated version of Luhmann's systems theory is used which discusses the relationship between systems and media. The method is defined as a third‐order cybernetics which entails first‐order observations, second‐order observation of observers, and finally their mutual observations as being observed.

Identifies the east‐west ideological conflict as a conflict within the world system of society by which the system is at war with itself. This “self” is considered as comprising two parts: self and other. The one is identified as an autopoietic system and the other as an allopoietic system, each struggling for the status of system and for the transformation of the other into its medium. The traditional understanding of the history of the European civilization as having one single ancestor is challenged.

It is not an exhaustive analysis but rather an outline of a theory whose purpose is to define the source of international and intranational confrontations.

The approach can be developed further and used for the analysis of the war on terrorism and the relationship between political system and social movements.

The paper offers an innovative systems perspective on world wars with a special focus on the cold war which promises to overcome the difficulties which their analysis with traditional sociological theories at present encounters.

The purpose of this paper is to deepen the understanding of tensions between old and new in the emerging global society driven by information and communication technology (ICT); and to argue that creation of a theory of this society would contribute in the easing of these tensions.

The methods used in this paper are mostly analytical, descriptive, and qualitative. An analysis of the creation and development of ICT from a mathematical discipline of computer science to a universal tool and a driving force of the emerging global society, a development which is paralleled by the commercialization of ICT, is followed by two case studies illustrating the tensions between old and new and the role ICT plays in them. One case is centered on the challenges of traditional models of education by new, ICT‐friendly approaches, like the Multiple Intelligences Theory; the other addresses tensions between old and new that in many societies presently take the form of tensions between local/national and global.

A claim is formed that the existing tensions between old and new are closely linked to the tensions between the two most common forms of society, inclusive (egalitarian) and exclusive (elitist).

The paper will help understand some of the reactions to the process of globalization. It can serve as a tool for assessment and prediction regarding this process. Lastly, the paper contains a justification of merit in the creation of a “grass root” theory of an ICT‐driven global society built on a universally accepted ethical foundation.

Takes a general systems approach to reconceptualize and interconnect existing theories of alienation in community and in society. Alienation is viewed as a generic term for different types of information processing disturbances of human individuals, conceived as autoietic, self‐steering and self‐referential systems. In considering the possible relationships between alienation and the community‐society continuum, regarded as a controversial and complex one, a third element, complexity itself, which exerts its influence, is introduced. The main focus is on the different kinds of alienated response that may be evoked by relatively simple versus relatively complex environments. Discusses the idealized concept of the community and describes the negative effects of idealization. Finally, addresses the question of what type of community is still feasible in the highly complex society.

The purpose of this paper is to illuminate Peter Drucker's management theory by exploring German theological concerns which constituted his unique approach in management theory.

To uncover the secularized German theological roots in Drucker's work, the paper juxtaposes his writings from his 60‐year‐long career with prior cultural interpretations of German scholarship.

The analysis shows that German secularized theological concerns surrounding the fall of modernity influenced Drucker's oeuvre, leading him to advocate “the meaningful organization” as a pragmatic solution to the ills of modern society. While Drucker's ideas evolved over the years, the paper shows that his agenda to promote meaningful organizations in an otherwise totalitarian‐prone, alienated, rationalized and meaningless era remained consistent. This interpretation suggests that Drucker believed that management had moral duties in a Nietzschean godless world. The paper shows that these themes continued structuring Drucker's corpus in three domains: the information revolution, corporate social responsibility, and the role of organizations in the third sector.

The paper reveals that Drucker was driven by deep cultural codes that proscribed many of his observations and suggested remedies. Hence, it calls for similar unearthing of the historical roots of management theory and practice.

In this paper a novel interpretation of Drucker's work is introduced. Extending work highlighting Drucker's spiritual roots, the paper demonstrates that the German secularized theological conception of the downfall of modernity was a constant lens through which Drucker saw the world, and that this historical backdrop was the motivating spur in his attempt to save it from another catastrophe. Given the entrenchment of Drucker's ideas in today's management practices and theories, it is imperative to understand these German moral and theological predispositions.

The purpose of this research is to seek to understand and explain the non‐governmental organisation (NGO) and its location in civil society in order to provide a basis for future research work. The paper aims to explore and develop understandings of accountability specifically in the context of the NGO and then extend these insights to the accountability of all organisations.

The paper is framed within a theoretical conception of accountability and is primarily literature‐based. In addition secondary data relating to the issues of concern are collated and synthesised.

The research finds that the essence of accountability lies in the relationships between the organisation and the society and/or stakeholder groups of interest. The nature of this relationship allows us to infer much about the necessary formality and the channels of accountability. In turn, this casts a light upon taken‐for‐granted assumptions in the corporate accountability and reminds us that the essence and basis of success of the corporate world lies in its withdrawal from any form of human relationship and the consequential colonisation and oppression of civil society.

The principal implications relate to: our need to improve the analytical incisiveness of our applications of accountability theory; and the possibility of the accounting literature offering more developed insights to the NGO literature. The primary limitations lie in the paper in being: exploratory of a more developed understanding of accountability; and a novel excursion into the world of the NGO and civil society – neither of which feature greatly in the accounting literature.

These lie in the current political struggles between civil society and capital over appropriate forms of accountability. Corporations continue to avoid allowing themselves to be held accountable whilst civil society organisations are often accountable in many different and informal ways. Ill‐considered calls from capital for more oppressive NGO accountability are typically, therefore, hypocritical and inappropriate.

NGOs are introduced in a detailed and accessible way to the accounting literature. The concept of accountability is further developed by examination of relationships and channels in the context of the NGO and, through Rawls' notion of “closeness”, is further enriched.