Search results

The very contextual nature of most mitigating evidence runs counter to America’s individualistic culture. Prior research has found that capital jurors are unreceptive to most mitigating circumstances, but no research has examined the capital sentencing decisions of trial judges. This study fills that gap through a content analysis of eight judicial sentencing opinions from Delaware. The findings indicate that judges typically dismiss contextualizing evidence in their sentencing opinions and instead focus predominately on the defendant’s culpability. This finding calls into question the ability of guided discretion statutes to ensure the consideration of mitigation and limit arbitrariness in the death penalty.

This chapter presents an alternative model of industrial relations in which multiple spheres of labor policy coexist with varied political dynamics and contrasting outcomes. Despite evidence of wide public support for unionism and collective action, uneven patterns of voter participation, racial polarization, and political structures determine policies. Disparate historical trajectories also influence local variance. The unusual level of differentiation in US industrial relations ultimately derives from the constitutional regime: the absence of a nationally guaranteed right to vote and right to organize despite the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.

Purpose – Recent theoretical analyses examining the intersection of race, class, and gender have resulted in exciting new epistemological frameworks in the social sciences. However, feminist researchers have yet to articulate concrete strategies for capturing this intersectionality empirically.

Methodology – On the basis of ethnographic research conducted in Cuba, we build on previous feminist epistemological insights and begin to develop methodological strategies that can be used to capture the intersection of race, class, and gender in the context of cross-cultural research.

Findings – The major contribution of our work is the articulation of theoretical insights into methodological guidelines that can guide research both inside the United States, the site where much of this theorizing takes place, and beyond our borders.

Research limitations – The primary limitation of our research is the lack of collaboration with Cuban researchers. Given the political rancor between the United States and Cuba, and limitations on their academic freedom, is difficult to work with Cuban scholars without compromising their security. Cuban scholars who are critical of the state are fearful of potential reprisals.

Originality – Nonetheless, our work provides a unique analysis of how to capture the intersection of race, class, and gender empirically from a cross-cultural perspective.

This paper examines several common features that animate Stuart Scheingold's The Politics of Rights and The Political Novel. In exploring the affinities between these contrasting works, the paper takes up Scheingold's engagement with the cultural imagination – the legal imagination in The Politics of Rights and the literary imagination in The Political Novel – and shows how this engagement informs Scheingold's analysis of illusion, dualism, contingency, and agency.

Established educational leadership discourse has been dominated by Anglo‐American perspectives oblivious to the cultural diversity that characterizes the contemporary world. It has frequently privileged mono‐cultural, mainstream values which have meant indigenous and ethnic groups have suffered alienation, exclusion and disadvantage. Western‐led educational interventions in developing nations also frequently fail to acknowledge the rich cultural traditions of recipient societies and theories and practice are rarely appropriately scrutinized for “cultural fit”. The purpose of this paper is to construct a theory for leadership in intercultural contexts.

The article reviews how monocultural assumptions of colonial and national leadership cultures in the past were frequently inappropriate for the diverse populations they were intended to serve. The global era has witnessed the emergence of cross‐cultural theory and research paradigms to combat cultural blindness and develop cultural sensitivities. While applauding these developments, the epistemological assumptions that underlie such research are questioned. A case for more nuanced theory, which acknowledges complex interactions between agents from different cultures, is developed. This includes a call for more dynamic research tools based upon constructivist and phenomenological premises.

Cross‐cultural research has generated territorial maps that promote insight and mutual understandings. However, it relies upon essentialist stereotypes that mask the existence of complex sub‐cultures and dynamic forces of change within national cultures. Case study research which taps the subjective understandings of cultural actors is cited to reveal a more complex process of interaction between cultural agents.

This is a theoretical exploration, not an empirical report. It is limited by the scarcity of existing research in a fledgling field.

The article encourages researchers to move from observationally based, stereotypical portraits to more nuanced concepts of cultures as complex, multi‐layered and changing phenomena. It establishes the epistemological foundations for future research in inter‐cultural contexts.

The paper develops new directions for future theory and research.

This paper examines the social and ideological significance of selfies as a manifestation of networked culture and individualism. The aim is to illustrate the meaning and affordances of selfies by investigating their potential for (post)feminist empowerment.

The analysis entails an exploration of the form, content, and context of (post)feminist selfies. This includes a review of popular expressions of selfie-empowerment as well as an in-depth ideological analysis of several revealing case studies.

As a result, this paper identifies a (dis)empowerment paradox marked by a divide between material and affective conceptions of empowerment. According to this paradox, self(ie)-expressions may feel empowering to the individual(s) controlling the camera while concurrently conforming to hegemonic norms – a trend which is particularly pertinent to many networked selfies shared via social media. Accordingly, the paper concludes by critiquing the discourse of selfie-empowerment and considering the significance of cultural context in shaping meaning and ideology.

By addressing these implications in light of broader shifts toward networked individualism and post-feminism, this paper critically examines the ideological significance of selfies and demonstrates a need to reconsider what sociological perspectives can contribute to the study of selfies within the context of networked cultures.

The vigilante subgenre represents one of the more problematic trends in American action cinema, as it inherently boasts reactionary sentiments through the promotion of violence as an adequate means of asserting one's masculinity. As will be argued in this chapter, American vigilante films can be categorised into three distinct historical waves: the 1970s, the 2000s and the 2010s. The products of each wave present themes of masculinity relevant to their respective cultural period, specifically, anti-counterculture sentiments, post-9/11 anxieties and a growing cultural awareness of toxic masculinity. The third wave of vigilante films is particularly noteworthy in that it correlates with the prospective emergence of metamodernism, a cultural movement that, in contrast to postmodernism's use of apathy as response to trauma, opts for a cautiously optimistic return to metanarratives. Consequently, third wave vigilante films provide more deconstructive portrayals of vigilante figures through metamodernism's oscillation between irony and optimism. This chapter will outline the history of these three waves of vigilante cinema and provide textual analysis of Blue Ruin (2013) and You Were Never Really Here (2017), two third wave films that demonstrate self-reflexive portrayals of vigilante violence in correlation with metamodern masculinity. The results of these analyses indicate that vigilante films, and perhaps American action cinema in its entirety, are moving towards narratives that seek to challenge the more reactionary sentiments of films from years prior.

This paper uses Gramsci’s theory of hegemony to analyse the development of the public sector accounting profession and accounting practices in the UK since the nineteenth‐century. Three periods of hegemony and accounting development are identified and the relationship between the two phenomena is discussed. The analysis emphasises the non‐teleological development of the public sector accounting profession and accounting techniques and clearly places them within an ideological framework which is itself the outcome of a complex interrelation between economic crises, class interests and the state. The paper concludes that the public sector accounting professional body in the UK has played an important hegemonic role in constituting and reflecting ideologies and in reflecting the coercive and consensual approaches adopted by the state. The paper also sets an agenda for a research programme which looks at specific crises and hegemonies in more depth.

This paper aims to examine the interplay among forms of entrepreneurship and the gendered entrepreneurial divide. Using data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) and the World Values Survey (WVS), the authors investigate the likelihood that females will venture in the commercial entrepreneurial ventures versus social entrepreneurial ventures. The authors draw on the theoretical concept of hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity to explain gender variance in the organizational forms of commercial and social entrepreneurship. Specifically, the authors investigate whether pursuing an opportunity in a society that highly values ideologies of hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity impacts the probability of venturing in either of these kinds of organizations.

To test the hypotheses, the authors use GEM data from 2009 (n = 14,399) for nascent entrepreneurs and baby businesses owners in 55 counties. They also use the WVS to measure the ideologies of hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity at the country level. The authors estimate a logistic multilevel model to identify the drivers of social venturing over commercial venturing. Data are nested by countries, and the authors allow random intercepts by countries with a variance components covariance structure.

The findings demonstrate that there is a divide in entrepreneurial activity, as women entrepreneurs are more likely to start social ventures than commercial ventures. They also find that hegemonic masculinity decreases the incidence of social entrepreneurship, whereas emphasized femininity increases the incidence of social entrepreneurship. Moreover, the authors find evidence that women in societies with a strong view on hegemonic masculinity are less likely to pursue social organizational forms than male entrepreneurs are. Furthermore, in societies with strong views of emphasized femininity, the probability increases that female founders will pursue social organizational forms. The findings highlight the considerable impact of the gender ideologies on entrepreneurship.

Although the authors use the terms “gender” and “sex” in this paper interchangeably, they recognize that these two terms are not equivalent. For the purposes of this manuscript, the authors use a gender analysis approach activity based on biological sex to investigate empirical differences in entrepreneurial. The findings suggest that women ultimately, and unintentionally, are consenting to the practices and norms that reiterate the masculinity of entrepreneurship. In this way, the patriarchal ideologies of hegemonic masculinity and masculinization of entrepreneurship ultimately leave women unable to fully take up the identity of “woman” alongside that of “entrepreneur”. Future research can build upon our findings by applying a more nuanced view of gender via constructivist approaches.

The findings empirically demonstrate the gendered nature of entrepreneurial activity, leading to specific stereotypical female social organizational forms and male commercial organizational forms. Furthermore, the authors are able to provide theoretical explanations based on hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity to understand why social entrepreneurship appeals to women.