Search results

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to research on the impact that the creation of value theory has on professional, organizational, and economic performance. However, a special emphasis is on explicating the theoretical foundation of the concept.

This paper is based on a hermeneutic study of the relationship between value creation and managing economic resources. The paper traces the value creation concept to its roots from the foundation of Western Civilization through the value theory of Adam Smith and up to recent technological age advancements in value theory.

Since its emergence the value concept has been explicated in an abundance of literature. However, there has been very little in regards to explanations detailing the theoretical underpinnings of the concept. According to John Stuart Mill, attempts to apply value theory will fail (due to misinformation or inaccurate information) without inclusiveness of the full scope of what is relevant for social science and social economic research.

Although studies on organizational behavior encompass the economic aspects of research economic research tends to be narrower in scope making it difficult to verify some value claims in economic terms. This is especially true in terms of making claims in regards to the connection between economic value theory, social value theory, the Philosophy of Economics, and the Philosophy of Science.

The study introduces a theoretical framework for integrating the value added and value creation concepts as a strategy for increasing shareholder benefits, stakeholder capital, and social capital.

The paper explains how the value creation concept contributes to an increase in wealth, prosperity, flourishing by drawing from a technological age approach to value creation.

The paper fills the void in the literature regarding the theoretical framework of the concept thus undergirds claims about its practical benefits by clarifying its theoretical framework.

This chapter explores the challenges presented to public organizations by neoliberal thinking and the acceptance of the neoliberal capitalist agenda. Demonstrably, severe economic, political, and social dislocations are the result. Nevertheless, neoliberal influence remains and intensifies. We argue that this counterintuitive result is not grounded in either instrumental or theoretical merit but in the creation and dissemination of certain identifiable memes. The chapter proceeds with a critical examination of current neoliberal memes, an appraisal of their impact on government, society and economics, and the derivation of alternative memes from a Smithian perspective on political economy. Based on this critique and the derived memes, the chapter offers suggestions for a pragmatic cultural and administrative praxis that promise not only to moderate the influence of neoliberal memes and to mitigate tendencies for the propagation of new disadvantageous memeplexes, but also to avert the problems associated with the traditional distrust of government agencies and their top-down, disengaged, technical, and expert-driven solutions.

The paper surveys selected standpoints in the Polish humanities that are visibly critical toward neoliberal assumptions and claims of economics. The resources used in the text are: Andrzej Szahaj’s philosophical postulates and assertions; Tadeusz Kowalik’s view; criticism and postulates of social economics articulated by the quarterly magazine Nowy Obywatel (The New Citizen). The purpose of this paper is to construct a possibly cohesive picture of this type of criticism by indicating important similarities between the approaches mentioned above, its strongest arguments, philosophical premises and political inclinations.

A conceptual synthesis and interpretation of theoretical standpoints and its philosophical premises, a comparative analysis of the text/content of the magazine (The New Citizen).

Each of the three standpoints discussed in the paper proves to be an interesting example of social economics. It is also symptomatic that they share a similar, critical attitude toward the way in which the transformation of the Polish economy from a socialist to a capitalist system had been carried out. The transformation is thereby interpreted as a process that is not accomplished at all from the point of view of the ideals of social justice and integrity.

The popularization of Polish normative views of economics taking into account the problem of social justice, and the possible transformation of the way in which economic problems are publicly understood in Poland.

The discussion of non-standard interpretations of Polish transformation and its effects that undermine and challenge neoliberal ideology in economics.

Neoliberalism’s global scale crisis has been most acute in Africa, in terms of economic welfare, human suffering, ecological damage, and policy sovereignty. Social opposition to the first rounds of dissent was quelled during the 1980s, and export-led growth strategies finally appeared to pay off when, during 2002–2011, commodity prices soared and “Africa Rising” became the watchword. However, as commodity prices plateaued during 2011–2014 and then crashed, authoritarianism has revived. The reimposition of neoliberal policies, a new round of unrepayable foreign debt (in part associated with Chinese-funded infrastructure), and renewed austerity are all bearing down. From internal elite circuits, this threatens to unleash a well-known combination of neoliberalism, neopatrimonialism, and repression by authoritarian leaders. New rounds of protests, often arising as a direct result of these economic catalysts, were witnessed in some of the most famous sites of struggle such as Tunisia and Egypt in 2011, Nigeria in 2012, and South Africa at various points in recent years. Ongoing strife has also brought intense pressure on governing regimes in Algeria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cote d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Senegal, Sudan, Togo, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, leading to major political reforms and even changes in regimes. This chapter examines the dynamics of this process to expose the neoliberal foundations of rising authoritarianism accompanied by repression – and resistance – across the African landscape.

Enterprise education (EE) is a growing educational phenomenon. Despite its proliferation globally, there is little critical research on the field. In particular, the ideological potential of EE has been ignored by education scholars. This paper is the first to review the history of the Enterprise New Zealand Trust (ENZT) (known as the Young Enterprise Trust from 2009), as the largest and oldest organisation for the delivery of EE in New Zealand. It examines the activities of the ENZT and its networks in the context of the ascent of neoliberalism including its cultural manifestation in the form of a national “enterprise culture”. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the precise nature of the proximity between the ENZT and neoliberal ideology.

This paper uses document analysis, internet searches and interviews to reconstruct aspects of the history of the ENZT. Historical examination of the ENZT is in part obstructed by a lack of access to direct source material prior to the 1990s, as publications and materials of the ENZT are only available in archives from the early 1990s. The ENZT was, however, important to broader historical networks and actors, such as employer associations and think tanks, who left behind more robust records. Unlike the ENZT itself, these actors are given significant attention in literature which can be drawn upon to further enhance understandings of the ENZT and its relationship to neoliberalism.

This paper reveals that the ENZT has been a major conduit for enterprise culture and neoliberalism since its inception. It has been explicitly concerned with the development of enterprise culture through activities targeting both school students and the general public. Its educational activities, though presented in non-ideological terms, were designed to inculcate students in neoliberal or free market capitalist principles, including amenability towards private ownership of goods and services, private investment, private finance of public projects, free markets and free trade. These findings might serve to encourage critical attitudes among researchers and policy actors as to the broader ideological role of EE on a general scale.

EE on the whole requires closer examination by critical education researchers. The overwhelmingly majority of existing research is concerned with enhancing the practices of EE, while deeper questions regarding its ideological implications are ignored. Perhaps as a result, EE as a conceptual category lacks definitional clarity, as researchers and policy actors grapple with its meaning. If it can be established that EE schemes are not merely “neutral” or non-ideological educational projects, but rather are serious purveyors of ideology, this should have implications for future research and particularly for policy actors involved in the field. A review of the history of the ENZT may be illuminative in this respect, as it reveals the organisation’s record of deliberate political or ideological messaging.

This paper is the first to review the history of the ENZT as the largest provider of EE in New Zealand. EE has become a global phenomenon in recent decades. Non-existent in New Zealand before the 1970s, it is now a staple of the school system, its principles enshrined in the national curriculum document. Within a decade of the ENZT’s inauguration in 1986, eight out of ten secondary schools were using its services. Despite this, the ENZT is all but absent from existing historical literature. Analysing the history of the ENZT allows for enhanced understanding of an important actor within New Zealand education, whose history has been overlooked, as well as provides insight into the broader ideological implications of EE.

This article aims to critically explore current forms of neoliberalism and their impact upon the moral economy. The authors examine how the dominant neoliberal political economy impacts upon three overlapping registers: individual subjectivity, national reconstructions and organizational transformations. These three registers are fashioned by, and subsequently help to reproduce, the contours of the prevailing politico-economic system. The market-driven ethic of neoliberalism, however, is diametrically opposed to that of a moral economy concerned with universalism and equality in meeting human need.

This is a conceptual theoretical piece.

The result is that the latter have been replaced by competitive individualism as societies reconstruct themselves in the image of the market place. This profound cultural shift is well known, but in this article, the authors will claim that it has in turn had a profound impact upon individual subjectivities and the key institutions and organisations that have long formed the basis of the Western social democratic consensus.

It is original because it theorises the impact of neoliberalism on organisations.

This research note focuses on the quest to move beyond the poverty paradigm in researching, planning, and developing distressed urban neighborhoods. It is based on the notion that the poverty paradigm hides more than it reveals about the positionality of people in neoliberal society. It argues that low incomes and joblessness are structural components of neoliberal economies. Therefore, they cannot be eliminated without making fundamental changes in the way that neoliberalism operates. Thus, in a neoliberal society, with a small, passive government, both low incomes and joblessness will grow over time, especially among blacks, Latinos, and immigrants of color. Within this context, the distress found in inner-city neighborhoods is a product of failed urban institutions and the lack of investments in such places. However, there are no laws of socioeconomic development that say low income and joblessness must equate with living in distressed neighborhoods, where dilapidation, crime, and violence are characteristic features of the landscape. This reality is a public policy decision. Therefore, it can be changed by altering the investment strategy in distressed community and by radically transforming the institutions operating in these communities. If this happens, it will be possible to produce communities where low-income workers live in energetic places where they enjoy a high quality of life and standard of living. In such regenerated neighborhoods, it will also be possible to develop innovative strategies that put the jobless to work.