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Embedded Nature (embedded + nature)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences66%
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting33%

Selected Abstracts

How our worldviews shape our practice

CONFLICT RESOLUTION QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2009
Rachel M. Goldberg
This article reviews research on the effect of a conflict resolution practitioner's worldview on practice. The results revealed patterns connecting worldview frames with differing uses of power. Forty-three environmental and intercultural practitioners were interviewed, and narrative and metaphor analysis was used to reveal key worldview orientations in their practice stories. The results are correlated in continuums and "profiles" of the worldview orientation. The findings strengthen previous work questioning the effects of the traditional neutrality stance, deepen fieldwide arguments for the embedded nature of worldview and culture, and describe new methods that reveal some of the dynamics between worldview and practice. [source]

Institutional Bricolage, Conflict and Cooperation in Usangu, Tanzania

IDS BULLETIN, Issue 4 2001
Frances Cleaver
Summaries This article draws on research in Tanzania to explore the socially embedded nature of institutions for common property resource management and collective action. The article challenges the design principles common in resource management literature and explores instead the idea of ,institutional bricolage' - a process by which people consciously and unconsciously draw on existing social and cultural arrangements to shape institutions in response to changing situations. The resulting institutions are a mix of ,modern' and ,traditional', ,formal' and ,informal'. Three aspects of institutional bricolage are elaborated here: the multiple identities of the bricoleurs, the frequency of cross-cultural borrowing and of multi-purpose institutions, and the prevalence of arrangements and social norms which foster cooperation, respect and non-direct reciprocity over life courses. [source]

Global Order, US Hegemony and Military Integration: The Canadian-American Defense Relationship

INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY, Issue 4 2008
Bruno Charbonneau
This article argues that the contemporary IR literature on global order and American hegemony has limitations. First, the critical discourse on hegemony fails to adequately examine the deeply embedded nature of regularized practices that are often a key component of the acceptance of certain state and social behaviours as natural. Second, much of the (neo)Gramscian literature has given primacy to the economic aspects of hegemonic order at the expense of examining global military/security relations. Lastly, much of the literature on global order and hegemony has failed to fully immerse itself within a detailed research program. This article presents an historical sociology of Canada-US defense relations so as to argue that the integrated nature of this relationship is key to understanding Canada's role in American hegemony, and how authoritative narratives and practices of "military integration" become instrumental and persuasive in establishing a "commonsensical" worldview. The effects of such integration are especially clear in times of perceived international crisis. Our historical analysis covers Canada's role during the Cuban missile crisis, Operation Apollo after 9/11, and the current war in Afghanistan. [source]

On the global distribution and dissemination of knowledge

INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE JOURNAL, Issue 195 2009
Nico Stehr
Our article centres on the question in the sense in which it may be possible to speak of global knowledge, in the first instance. Is it the necessary outcome and the intellectual mark of an age of globalising knowledge societies or is the global demand for the dissemination of knowledge systems trying to answer universally perceived problems? What changes occur to knowledge as it travels and for whom does its globalisation yield benefit or harm? Knowledge must be differentiated from mere information and its locally embedded nature poses serious challenges to opportunities and obstacles for its horizontal and vertical dissemination. Further, global worlds of knowledge raise questions over the ownership of knowledge. Intellectual property claims should be discussed with reference to opposing views, such as those concerning the thesis of knowledge's self-protective character. Some political and certain idealistic conceptions regard knowledge as common property par excellence. While trade in services and products as well as the digital communications revolution are identified as major vehicles for the dissemination of knowledge, it is yet an open question as to whether they will result in the unhindered dissemination of knowledge or in concentrating it. The second section of the article overviews and introduces the articles in this volume. [source]

SUPPLIER INNOVATIVENESS AND THE ROLE OF INTERORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING IN ENHANCING MANUFACTURER CAPABILITIES

JOURNAL OF SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT, Issue 4 2008
ARASH AZADEGAN
Manufacturers increasingly rely on innovation from their suppliers to improve the cost, quality, and timeliness of their products. Manufacturing capabilities are enhanced by supplier innovativeness directly, because of the embedded nature of the supplied component, and indirectly, as the manufacturer learns from its suppliers. We use organizational learning theory to develop a conceptual model of learning factors that act as contingencies and magnify the effect of supplier innovativeness. First, we argue that a manufacturer's absorptive capacity, its ability to learn and use external knowledge, positively moderates the impact of supplier innovativeness on the manufacturer's performance. Second, we examine how different combinations of manufacturer,supplier learning styles lead to relatively more or less interorganizational learning, contingent upon whether the outsourcing is design versus manufacturing oriented. Our model can help managers consider knowledge transfer as part of their supplier selection criteria. [source]

"A World where Action is the Sister of Dream": Surrealism and Anti-capitalism in Contemporary Paris

ANTIPODE, Issue 5 2004
Jill Fenton
In discussing the lifestyle and practices of the Paris group of the contemporary surrealist movement, this paper contributes to debates within economic and political geography that seek to develop the imagining of alternatives to neoliberal globalisation through practices of resistance, and spaces of political and policy engagement. The everyday life of the surrealist movement, in combining creativity with progressive choices and radical economic practices that oppose capitalism, while intellectually investigating ideas of revolution, a different society and utopia, suggests a perspective that contributes to the imagining of such alternatives. This paper outlines the deeply embedded nature of surrealist activity in opposing capitalism and illustrates, as one member of the surrealist group suggests, in quoting Baudelaire, surrealism's insistence for a world in which "action is the sister of dream". The paper further contributes to discussion on the role of academics in facilitating spaces of political engagement. [source]