Contemporary debates on decolonising knowledge production, inclusive of research on Africa, are crucial and challenge researchers to reflect on the legacies of colonial power relations that continue to permeate the production of knowledge about the continent, its peoples, and societies. Yet these are not new debates. Sixty years ago, Ghana’s first president and pan-Africanist leader, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, highlighted the importance of Africa-centred knowledge. Similarly, in the 1980s, Claude Ake advocated for endogenous knowledge production on Africa. But progress has been (...) slow at best, indicated by the enduring predominance of non-African writers on African issues within leading scholarly journals. Thus, we examine why decolonisation of knowledge production remains so necessary and what can be done within the context of scholarly research in the humanities and social sciences. These questions are addressed at two levels, one more practical and one more reflective . At both levels, issues of power inequalities and injustice are critical. At the practical level, the asymmetrical power relations between scholars in the Global North and South are highlighted. At a deeper level, the critiques of contemporary African authors are outlined, all contesting the ongoing coloniality and epistemic injustices that affect knowledge production on Africa, and calling for a more fundamental reorientation of ontological, epistemological, and methodological approaches in order to decolonise knowledge production. (shrink)

Trust features prominently in a number of policy documents that have been issued in recent years to facilitate data sharing and international collaboration in medical research. However, it often remains unclear what is meant by ‘trust’. By exploring a concrete international collaboration between Denmark and Pakistan, we develop a way of unpacking trust that shifts focus from what trust ‘is’ to what people invest in relationships and what references to trust do for them in these relationships. Based on interviews in (...) both Pakistan and Denmark with people who provide blood samples and health data for the same laboratory, we find that when participants discuss trust they are trying to shape their relationship to researchers while simultaneously communicating important hopes, fears and expectations. The types of trust people talk about are never unconditional, but involve awareness of uncertainties and risks. There are different things at stake for people in different contexts, and therefore it is not the same to trust researchers in Pakistan as it is in Denmark, even when participants donate to the same laboratory. We conclude that casual references to ‘trust’ in policy documents risk glossing over important local differences and contribute to a de-politicization of basic inequalities in access to healthcare. (shrink)

It has been quite a year so far(!) and as the wenches we are, we have been taking our time to collect our thoughts and reflections before sharing them at the start of this issue of the journal. In this editorial we think through the COVID-19 pandemic and its devastating effects on the world, on our lives and on our editorial processes. We renew our commitment to improving our operations as a journal and its health along with our own as (...) we deploy wench tactics to restore, sustain and slow down to negotiate this new reality, this new world. We conclude with an introduction to the fascinating contents of this issue along with a collaborative statement of values on open access as part of a collective of intersectional feminist and social justice editors. Through all of the pain and suffering we focus our gaze on hope: hope that we can come through this global crisis together engaging in critical conversations about how we can be better and do better as editors, academics and individuals for ourselves, our colleagues and our journal. (shrink)

It has been three years since we held the Feminism, Legality and Knowledge seminar to respond to our developing frustrations and excitement around feminist legal studies and academic publishing. In the wake of our 25th anniversary in 2018, we critically reflect further on our original intention to stock up on decolonising techniques to mix feminism, legality and knowledge whilst building on previous consideration of our self-proclaimed ‘international’ status. These reflections are prompted by editorial board members’ experiences as participants in the (...) Cardiff Law and Global Justice Centre’s British Academy-funded Global South Socio-Legal Writing Workshops in Accra, Nairobi and Recife in 2018. Following an explanation of the concerns with academic publishing that have prompted this reflection, we provide a narrative of our experiences in each of the three workshops exploring the lessons learned and their impact on our practice as editors and scholars in feminist legal studies. We finish with a renewal of our commitment to decolonise our minds and practices by continuing to struggle to earn the label ‘international’ for the journal now and in future. A brief introduction to the contents of this issue of FLS follows the reflection. (shrink)

Old stories, rather than being a means to shorten the long winter nights or make children's eyelids heavy, were the hidden treasures of peoples’ social and psychological history. They contained, more than anything else, archetypal motifs which were expressed through various symbols. One such old stories was SamakAyyar which appeared in the north-eastern region of the Iranian plateau. The initial narrators of SamakAyyar were most probably the Aryan branch of the Indo-Aryan settlers. The fact that Aryans were neighbouring the Hindu (...) cultures on the one hand, and the common ancestors as well as ideas of the two nations on the other, resulted in the footprints of Buddhist beliefs and Hindu rituals in this story. The influence of these beliefs can clearly be observed in the description of the buildings which appear in the story.Suchbuildings become sacred due to their association with the story plot, i.e. the journey from childhood to maturity. Whether a prison, palace or a castle, the structural image of these buildings, generally and frequently, resemble the Hindu temple. It seems as though such similarity follows the same sense as that in the construction of sacred buildings, especially Hindu temples. The inner journey, moving in circular directions, and the relationship between heaven and earth are instances of this holy meaning. Such concepts are discussed in the analysis of the symbolic meaning of the buildings in the story. (shrink)

Background Moral distress is a common challenge among professional nurses when caring for their patients, especially when they need to make rapid decisions. Therefore, leaving moral distress unconsidered may jeopardize patient quality of care, safety, and satisfaction. Aim To estimate moral distress among nurses. Methods This systematic review and meta-analysis conducted systematic search in Scopus, PubMed, ProQuest, ISI Web of Knowledge, and PsycInfo up to end of February 2022. Methodological quality of included studies was assessed using the Newcastle Ottawa checklist. (...) Data from included studies were pooled by meta-analysis with random effect model in STATA software version 14. The selected key measure was mean score of moral distress total score with its’ 95% Confidence Interval was reported. Subgroup analyses and meta-regressions were conducted to identify possible sources of heterogeneity and potentially influencing variables on moral distress. Funnel plots and Begg’s Tests were used to assess publication bias. The Jackknife method was used for sensitivity analysis. Ethical consideration The protocol of this project was registered in the PROSPERO database under decree code of CRD42021267773. Results Eighty-six manuscripts with 19,537 participants from 21 countries were included. The pooled estimated mean score of moral distress was 2.55 on a 0–10 scale [95% Confidence Interval: 2.27–2.84, I2: 98.4%, Tau2:0.94]. Publication bias and small study effect was ruled out. Moral distress significantly decreased in the COVID-19 pandemic versus before. Nurses working in developing countries experienced higher level of moral distress compared to their counterparts in developed countries. Nurses' workplace (e.g., hospital ward) was not linked to severity of moral disturbance. Conclusion The results of the study showed a low level of pooled estimated score for moral distress. Although the score of moral distress was not high, nurses working in developing countries reported higher levels of moral distress than those working in developed countries. Therefore, it is necessary that future studies focus on creating a supportive environment in hospitals and medical centers for nurses to reduce moral distress and improve healthcare. (shrink)

The subject of the study is the consideration of modern trends in the study of fine art, in particular Russian portrait and narrative painting of the beginning of the XXI century. The object is scientific works related to various fields of the humanities, namely: art history, aesthetics, anthropology, sociology, philosophy, psychology, etc. Using their material, it is possible to show not only the difference in approaches to understanding the essence and role of the image of a modern person in the (...) art process, but also to demonstrate the specifics of the artistic interpretation of this figurative system in the context of art criticism, cultural and philosophical issues. Such a study allows us to systematize existing ideas about the peculiarities of the development of anthropological subjects in the mainstream of contemporary fine art in modern Russia, to identify the main directions. The main methodological basis of the study was a systematic approach that allowed us to consider contemporary Russian art as a single system. This helped to compare the approaches of modern researchers analyzing the place and role of the human image in it. Through the postmodern paradigm of perception and interpretation of anthropological topics, to identify the essential features of the ideas of Russian scientists. Methods of art historical analysis were also used. The starting point of the research is that at the moment in Russian science there is a body of art history and cultural studies devoted to the development of contemporary art in the country. However, there are no works summarizing the existing experience of scientists and defining the main directions of scientific thought. In light of this, the scientific novelty of the article lies in expanding the understanding of the methodological apparatus necessary for the analysis of the anthropological trend in the visual arts of our time, which is a promising path for future research in this area. The most demanded conceptual philosophical and historical-cultural foundations for the analysis and solution of practical problems in the field of contemporary art in relation to the representation of the human image are identified. Empirical research material has been collected and analyzed. (shrink)

Construction cost estimation is one of the essential processes in construction management. Project cost is a complex engineering problem due to various factors affecting the construction industry. Accurate cost estimation is important in construction management and significantly impacts project performance. Artificial intelligence models have been effectively implemented in construction management studies in recent years owing to their capability to deal with complex problems. In this research, extreme gradient boosting is developed as an advanced input selector algorithm and coupled with three (...) AI models, including random forest, artificial neural network, and support vector machine for cost estimation. Datasets were gathered based on a survey conducted on 90 building projects in Iraq. Statistical indicators and graphical methods were used to evaluate the developed models. Several input predictors were used, and XGBoost highlighted inflation as the most crucial parameter. The results indicated that the best prediction was attained by XGBoost-RF using six input parameters, with r-squared and the mean absolute percentage error equal to 0.87 and 0.25, respectively. The comparison results revealed that all AI models showed good prediction performance when applied to datasets affected by more than two parameters. The outcomes of this research revealed an optimistic strategy that can help decision makers select the influencing parameters in the early phases of project management. Also, developing a prediction model with high precision results can assist the project’s estimators in decreasing the errors in the cost estimation process. (shrink)

As science focuses exclusively on the physical, it seems to assume that the brain has a key role in the origin if not also the constitution of our consciousness; and thus the destruction of the brain, the nervous system, and the body makes it pointless or even absurd to think of any personal consciousness after death. But one need not be convinced by this. However, any effort to investigate a possible post-mortem life depends on forming a coherent conception of what (...) such a life could be. Can we speak, without incoherence or contradiction, of a person continuing to exist after death in a disembodied state? Our concern in this study lies here. Based on Lund’s view, we will present and defend an argument that one can conceive of a self who is fully embedded in the natural world and deeply embodied in a physical organism, and yet could have a rich variety of experiences in an afterworld encountered after death. In this theory, the close association of the mental and the physical is due to a causal connection - a connection that fails to establish that the physical brings the mental into existence and is compatible with theories that the source of consciousness is not in the brain. (shrink)

The effect of arousal safety has been analyzed on purchase intention, then attitude towards the advertisement and attitude towards the brand have been incorporated as intervening variables between the relationships. The interaction effect of self-monitoring and message arguments have also been taken in to consideration for better understanding of the consumer’s response. The data has been gathered from 206 respondents by using purposive sampling method. The research instrument was comprised of summated rating/additive scale and semantic differential scaling. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (...) has been applied after the application of preliminary tests on the data. Structure Equation Modeling and moderation and mediation analysis have also been applied to test the hypotheses. Arousal safety in the advertisements shape consumers response and it proved to be a fully mediated model. Self-monitoring also probes the relationship. Message arguments haven’t had any affect as moderator, hence can be used as a focal predictor. The study is a starting point for future research to provide a coherent methodology for capturing the necessary data, processing the underlying information and evaluating the effects of arousal safety in advertisements. The study extends the field of advertising in the direction of arousal safety effects. In comparison to previous research, empirical evidence on the arousal safety in television advertising and purchase intention in relation with moderating and mediating variables is provided. (shrink)

Understanding why individuals opt out of living donation is crucial to enhancing protections for all living donors and to identify modifiable barriers to donation. We developed an ethical approach to conducting research on individuals who opted out of living kidney donation and applied it in a small-scale qualitative study at one US transplant centre. The seven study participants had varied reasons for opting out, the most prominent of which was concern about the financial burden from lost wages during the postoperative (...) period. Several reported feeling alone during their decision-making process. Although no participants used an alibi, a centre-provided statement of non-eligibility to donate, all believed that centres should offer alibis to help preserve donor autonomy. Given the complexity of participants' decisions and the emotions they experienced before and after deciding not to donate, we suggest approaches for independent living donor advocates to support this population. This study demonstrates that research on individuals who opt out of donation is feasible and yields valuable insight into methods to improve the evaluation experience for potential living donors. (shrink)

This study aims to investigate the awareness and perception level of bioethical issues among pre-service science teachers at one of the Malaysian Education Institutions. A total of 67 respondents studying science major and science elective were involved. A questionnaire based survey with an alpha Cronbach of approximately 0.93 was used. Data were analysed using SPSS version 22. The results showed that the average awareness and perception level were =4.218±0.758 (very high level) and =3.991±0.923 (high level), respectively. There was a statistically (...) significant difference according to religion and course. Cloning showed the highest awareness level followed by organ donation, genetic modification, stem cells, abortion, gene therapy, gene screening and euthanasia. Overall, the findings indicated that pre-service science teachers were aware of the existence of bioethical issues. However, the authorities may implement bioethical issues more firmly in the future to increase pre-service science teachers’ awareness and perception level. (shrink)

Kebahagiaan adalah tema abadi yang selalu dibicarakan manusia. Banyak filosof yang membicarakan kebahagiaan, dihitung dari zaman Yunani kuno hingga zaman filosof muslim. Al-Farabi, seorang filosof muslim di masa awal, menawarkan pandangan menarik tentang kebahagiaan: Negeri Utama sebagai pondasi meraih kebahagiaan. Kebahagiaan didefinisikan sebagai kebaikan tertinggi yang membuat manusia terlepas dari alam materi dan hidup bersama dengan makhluk non-materi selama-lamanya. Negeri Utama yang diumpamakan dengan sebuah tubuh, memiliki pemimpin yang telah mencapai kesempurnaan manusiawi. Melalui pemimpin itulah, masyarakat Negeri Utama berusaha secara (...) kolektif membangun negerinya demi mencapai kebahagiaan yang hakiki. Tulisan ini meneliti literatur yang ada, demi memberikan sebuah pandangan yang baik tentang kebahagiaan perspektif al-Farabi. Diharapkan, tulisan ini bisa menjadi jendela bagi yang lain dalam meneliti tema ini. (shrink)

Responses to COVID-19 have been characterized by rapid border closures that have transformed the pandemic from a crisis of health to a crisis of mobility. While Canada was quick to implement border restrictions for non-citizens like refugees and asylum seekers, exemptions were made for some migrant groups like temporary workers. The pandemic marked a departure from who is considered worthy of admission to Canada. In fact, the border through restricted and securitized measures has filtered desirable versus non-desirable migrants, creating a (...) hierarchy among migrants within Canada’s immigration system by categorizing groups into those deserving versus non-deserving of admission. Deeply embedded societal discrimination and structural inequalities means that COVID-19 has exacerbated the vulnerabilities of migrant groups more than others. COVID-19 has placed an uneven burden on refugees who face increased border restrictions, significant health and safety risks, and limitations in accessing human rights. This paper documents the challenges, social and economic impacts, and exacerbated vulnerabilities border closures have imposed on refugees, asylum seekers and temporary migrants. We assess the many challenges that COVID-19 has created at the intersection of border studies, security resilience and human rights. We employ the conceptual frame of security resilience to critically analyse the dynamics of how and why border strategies have restricted migrant groups in times of crisis and amounted to an unjustified weakening of refugee rights. Finally, we argue that social resilience, which is rooted in rights-based strategies, not only ensures that societies are prepared to meet external shocks and disruptions, but that policy responses mitigate societal discrimination and inequalities. We highlight these strategies as effective mechanisms for reconciling both public health concerns and the rights of migrants to create more cohesive societies in times of crisis. (shrink)

Accurate and reliable prediction of Perfobond Rib Shear Strength Connector is considered as a major issue in the structural engineering sector. Besides, selecting the most significant variables that have a major influence on PRSC in every important step for attaining economic and more accurate predictive models, this study investigates the capacity of deep learning neural network for shear strength prediction of PRSC. The proposed DLNN model is validated against support vector regression, artificial neural network, and M5 tree model. In the (...) second scenario, a comparable AI model hybridized with genetic algorithm as a robust bioinspired optimization approach for optimizing the related predictors for the PRSC is proposed. Hybridizing AI models with GA as a selector tool is an attempt to acquire the best accuracy of predictions with the fewest possible related parameters. In accordance with quantitative analysis, it can be observed that the GA-DLNN models required only 7 input parameters and yielded the best prediction accuracy with highest correlation coefficient and lowest value root mean square error. However, the other comparable models such as GA-M5Tree, GA-ANN, and GA-SVR required 10 input parameters to obtain a relatively acceptable level of accuracy. Employing GA as a feature parameter selection technique improves the precision of almost all hybrid models by optimally removing redundant variables which decrease the efficiency of the model. (shrink)

The study investigates the effect of board characteristics and firm performance on disclosure tones by considering DICTION five master variables namely activity, optimism, certainty, realism and commonality tones using a sample of 779 annual reports of GCC listed firms (2012 to 2018). Disclosure tones of the sampled GCC firms were measured through corporate narrative disclosures by DICTION 7.0 software. Then, the ordinary least square regression analysis was conducted. The main findings of the study show that firm performance has a significant (...) effect on disclosure tones in terms of activity, optimism, certainty, and realism tones except for commonality reported tone. Board characteristics have different effects on the five disclosure tones. The study offers a unique contribution to accounting literature as it is one of the first studies in the Gulf region that seeks to examine the relationship between disclosure tones and firm performance as well as board governance. (shrink)

The application of recycled aggregate as a sustainable material in construction projects is considered a promising approach to decrease the carbon footprint of concrete structures. Prediction of compressive strength of environmentally friendly concrete containing recycled aggregate is important for understanding sustainable structures’ concrete behaviour. In this research, the capability of the deep learning neural network approach is examined on the simulation of CS of EF concrete. The developed approach is compared to the well-known artificial intelligence approaches named multivariate adaptive regression (...) spline, extreme learning machines, and random forests. The dataset was divided into three scenarios 70%-30%, 80%-20%, and 90%-10% for training/testing to explore the impact of data division percentage on the capacity of the developed AI model. Extreme gradient boosting was integrated with the developed AI models to select the influencing variables on the CS prediction. Several statistical measures and graphical methods were generated to evaluate the efficiency of the presented models. In this regard, the results confirmed that the DLNN model attained the highest value of prediction performance with minimal root mean squared error. The study revealed that the highest prediction performance could be attained by increasing the number of variables in the prediction problem and using 90%-10% data division. The results demonstrated the robustness of the DLNN model over the other AI models in handling the complex behaviour of concrete. Due to the high accuracy of the DLNN model, the developed method can be used as a practical approach for future use of CS prediction of EF concrete. (shrink)

Air temperature prediction can play a significant role in studies related to climate change, radiation and heat flux estimation, and weather forecasting. This study applied and compared the outcomes of three advanced fuzzy inference models, i.e., dynamic evolving neural-fuzzy inference system, hybrid neural-fuzzy inference system, and adaptive neurofuzzy inference system for AT prediction. Modelling was done for three stations in North Dakota, USA, i.e., Robinson, Ada, and Hillsboro. The results reveal that FIS type models are well suited when handling highly (...) variable data, such as AT, which shows a high positive correlation with average daily dew point, total solar radiation, and negative correlation with average wind speed. At the Robinson station, DENFIS performed the best with a coefficient of determination of 0.96 and a modified index of agreement of 0.92, followed by ANFIS with R2 of 0.94 and md of 0.89, and HyFIS with R2 of 0.90 and md of 0.84. A similar result was observed for the other two stations, i.e., Ada and Hillsboro stations where DENFIS performed the best with R2: 0.953/0.960, md: 0.903/0.912, then ANFIS with R2: 0.943/0.942, md: 0.888/0.890, and HyFIS with R2: 0.908/0.905, md: 0.845/0.821, respectively. It can be concluded that all three models are capable of predicting AT with high efficiency by only using DP, TSR, and WS as input variables. This makes the application of these models more reliable for a meteorological variable with the need for the least number of input variables. The study can be valuable for the areas where the climatological and seasonal variations are studied and will allow providing excellent prediction results with the least error margin and without a huge expenditure. (shrink)

Temporal epistemic logics are known, from results of Halpern and Vardi, to have a wide range of complexities of the satisfiability problem: from PSPACE, through non-elementary, to highly undecidable. These complexities depend on the choice of some key parameters specifying, inter alia, possible interactions between time and knowledge, such as synchrony and agents' abilities for learning and recall. In this work we develop practically implementable tableau-based decision procedures for deciding satisfiability in single-agent synchronous temporal-epistemic logics with interactions between time and (...) knowledge. We discuss some complications that occur, even in the single-agent case, when interactions between time and knowledge are assumed and show how the method of incremental tableaux can be adapted to work in EXPSPACE, respectively 2EXPTIME, for these logics, thereby also matching the upper bounds obtained for them by Halpern and Vardi. (shrink)

Currently, although the implementation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and its incorporation into business strategies is emphasised widely in developed countries as a key to sustainable growth and economic profitability, this term is still new to the Vietnamese market because of the low awareness of the importance of CSR practices, which leads to the failure of many firms. Since Vietnamese firms do not prioritise CSR implementation, Vietnam is experiencing an increasing shortage of skilled employees owing to a lack of (...) motivation. Therefore, this study examines the relationship between the corporate strategic objective (CSO), CSR practices and employee commitment, to provide recommendations to enhance motivation. This study used a quantitative approach and data from a questionnaire delivered to 869 enterprises in 2019 in Vietnam. Results suggest that the CSO had direct and indirect effects on employee commitment through the mediation of CSR practices. (shrink)

In this paper we consider distributive modal logic, a setting in which we may add modalities, such as classical types of modalities as well as weak forms of negation, to the fragment of classical propositional logic given by conjunction, disjunction, true, and false. For these logics we define both algebraic semantics, in the form of distributive modal algebras, and relational semantics, in the form of ordered Kripke structures. The main contributions of this paper lie in extending the notion of Sahlqvist (...) axioms to our generalized setting and proving both a correspondence and a canonicity result for distributive modal logics axiomatized by Sahlqvist axioms. Our proof of the correspondence result relies on a reduction to the classical case, but our canonicity proof departs from the traditional style and uses the newly extended algebraic theory of canonical extensions. (shrink)

In late March of 2020, a new hashtag, #FilmYourHospital, made its first appearance on social media. The hashtag encouraged people to visit local hospitals to take pictures and videos of empty hospitals to help “prove” that the COVID-19 pandemic is an elaborate hoax. Using techniques from Social Network Analysis, this case study examines how this conspiracy theory propagated on Twitter and whether the hashtag virality was aided by the use of automation or coordination among Twitter users. We found that while (...) much of the content came from users with limited reach, the oxygen that fueled this conspiracy in its early days came from a handful of prominent conservative politicians and far right political activists on Twitter. These power users used this hashtag to build awareness about the campaign and to encourage their followers to break quarantine and film what is happening at their local hospitals. After the initial boost by a few prominent accounts, the campaign was mostly sustained by pro-Trump accounts, followed by a secondary wave of propagation outside the U.S. The rise of the #FilmYourHospital conspiracy from a single tweet demonstrates the ongoing challenge of addressing false, viral information during the COVID-19 pandemic. While the spread of misinformation can be potentially mitigated by fact-checking and directing people to credible sources of information from public health agencies, false and misleading claims that are driven by politics and supported by strong convictions and not science are much harder to root out. (shrink)

This paper argues that the principles of spiritual traditions provide normative ‘standards of goodness’ within which practitioners evaluate meaningful work. Our comparative study of practitioners in the Buddhist and Quaker traditions provide a fine-grained analysis to illuminate, that meaningfulness is deeply connected to particular tradition-specific philosophical and theological ideas. In the Buddhist tradition, meaningfulness is temporal and rooted in Buddhist principles of non-attachment, impermanence and depending-arising, whereas in the Quaker tradition, the Quaker testimonies and theological ideas frame meaningfulness as eternal. (...) Surprisingly, we find that when faced with unethical choices and clashes between organizational normativity and spiritual normativity, Buddhist practitioners acknowledge the temporal character of meaningfulness and compromise their moral values, whereas in contrast, Quaker practitioners morally disengage from meaningless work. Our study highlights how normative commitments in different spiritual traditions can influence different levels of adaptability in finding work meaningful and stresses the central importance of normative commitments in meaningful work. Our study concludes with practical implications and future pathways for inter-disciplinary research. (shrink)

Algebraic work [9] shows that the deep theory of possible world semantics is available in the more general setting of substructural logics, at least in an algebraic guise. The question is whether it is also available in a relational form.This article seeks to set the stage for answering this question. Guided by the algebraic theory, but purely relationally we introduce a new type of frames. These structures generalize Kripke structures but are two-sorted, containing both worlds and co-worlds. These latter points (...) may be viewed as modelling irreducible increases in information where worlds model irreducible decreases in information. Based on these structures, a purely model theoretic and uniform account of completeness for the implication-fusion fragment of various substructural logics is given. Completeness is obtained via a generalization of the standard canonical model construction in combination with correspondence results. (shrink)

This paper argues in favor of a hybrid conception of identity. A common conception of identity in datafied society is a split between a digital self and a real self, which has resulted in concepts such as the data double, algorithmic identity, and data shadows. These data-identity metaphors have played a significant role in the conception of informational privacy as control over information—the control of or restricted access to your digital identity. Through analyses of various data-identity metaphors as well as (...) philosophical accounts of identity, we argue in favor of a hybrid conception of identity that emphasizes the relations between the ‘real’ and the ‘digital’. A hybrid conception of identity—where the digital is an aspect on par with social relations, self-understanding, and values—ultimately calls for an understanding of privacy as the right to influence one’s own identity. (shrink)

As a transitional economy, Vietnam has undergone tremendous changes over recent decades within a ‘fusion’ context that blends both traditional and modern values from its complex history. However, few studies have explored how contemporary issues in the context of Vietnam have brought both obstacles and skillful initiatives to managerial approaches to doing business. We draw on the concepts of social trust and institutional theory to explore how informal institutions such as religious forces can contribute to the development of individual trust (...) and whether individuals are willing to extend trust beyond familial networks. We contribute to the notion of a moral conception of trust by exploring how Buddhism in particular has initiated distinctive managerial approaches in the context of Vietnam, in response to dilemmas of social trust. Our findings highlight that as an informal institution, engaged Buddhism yields significant impact on the formation of social trust. We carried out in-depth interviews in Vietnam with 33 organizational leaders who were Buddhist practitioners, using thematic analysis to elucidate our findings and arguments. The study reveals how the incorporation of Buddhist principles has fostered context-sensitive, non-extreme, and reflexive managerial approaches to enhance morality as a response to social trust issues. (shrink)

Organizational leaders are eager to unlock the creative potential of followers. Yet, there is growing evidence that creativity can also have a dark side within organizations. Building on research linking creativity and unethical behavior, we develop the construct of creative unethicality—behavior that is both unethical and novel. We draw on social exchange theory to develop a model that identifies both why and when creative unethicality emerges within organizations. Specifically, we investigate the exchange dynamics through which creative support provided by empowering (...) leaders facilitates creative unethicality under conditions of high performance pressure. Across two multi-wave, multi-source field studies with employee-coworker and leader-subordinate dyads and an experimental study with a novel unethicality measure in a business simulation, we find convergent support for our theoretical model. These findings have important theoretical and practical implications for fostering creativity in organizations without simultaneously facilitating creative unethicality. (shrink)

Following the eclectic itineraries of ‘Near East’ expert, R. M. Graves, this article tells a story of an ongoing Nakba (catastrophe) of small and large legal decisions. Without reducing the human catastrophe of the event of the Nakba (the 1948 Palestinian forced exodus), it engages with it as a legal event that crosses (in this story at least) from Cairo to Jerusalem, from the League of Nations’ era (1920–1946) to the United Nations’ era (1945–), from the governance of labour and (...) gender, to labour partition, and finally to the governance of municipalities through law and expertise. Graves’ relationship to both Cairo and Jerusalem was materialized through different forms of affective legal governance. Graves, who in his own dichotomous words was ‘neither a Zionist nor an anti-Semite’, managed Jerusalem across national lines in the wake of the UN Partition Plan (1947), and as the old empire was withdrawing right before Jerusalem itself became a site of the catastrophe—right before the Nakba. (shrink)

COVID-19 has affected millions of people around the globe. People's mental health, especially those of nurses, has been primarily affected by the fear of this virus. More focus has been paid to vaccination and treatment of the virus, but less attestation has been given to addressing the mental health of people affected by the virus. Empirical studies show that different external factors are not easily manageable and controllable by the individual. This study preliminarily explores the connection between fear of COVID-19 (...) and secondary traumatic stress in nurses. Further, it examines the moderating effects of occupational self-efficacy on the relationship between fear of COVID-19 and secondary traumatic stress. Data for the study was collected from the nurses of six large hospitals in Karachi, Pakistan. The final analysis was performed on 243 samples. Studies on COVID-19 suggest that increased occupational self-efficacy decreases fear and its impact. This study offers insights for managers to develop stress management programs and provide proper training and counseling sessions to the nurses to motivate them emotionally. Theoretically, this study broadens the understanding of the theory of emotions by using the pandemic as a stressor. Future studies may explore different roles of occupational self-efficacy and study its influential role in managing different kinds of emotions explained by the theory of emotions. Managers at the workplace could design different self-efficacy training for nurses to increase their self-motivation to fight different types of stress they face at the workplace. (shrink)

This study explores the role of an informal institution—engaged Buddhism—in leadership responses to issues of bribery at the firm level in the context of Vietnam. In-depth interviews were carried out in Vietnam with 26 organizational leaders who were Buddhist practitioners. The leaders expressed a Buddhist-enacted utilitarian approach based on three context-associated mechanisms: karmic consequences, community and social well-being, and total detachment. These mechanisms manifest in leadership approaches based on the Middle Way, Skillful Means, and Emptiness. They are involved in forming (...) leaders’ perceptions about bribery issues and their enacting of contextual approaches to balance organizational means and ends in tackling ethical issues associated with bribery. The study also sheds light on moral struggles involved in the process of shaping and enacting a Buddhist-enacted utilitarian approach. (shrink)