Magister Commercii - MCom / The term organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) was first explored by Bateman and Organ (1983) to refer to particular behaviours that may benefit an organisation and gestures that cannot be enforced by means of formal role obligations nor be elicited by contractual guarantee of recompense. Organ (1988) proposes that OCB may have a positive impact on employees and organisational performance. Incumbents who are experiencing satisfaction from performing their jobs are likely to be better ambassadors for the organisation and be committed to their organization (Buitendach, 2005). Silverthorne (2005, p. 171) considers job satisfaction to be important for effective organisations and defines job satisfaction as "... a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one's job". Previous research indicates that individuals are most likely to go beyond their formal job requirements when they are satisfied with their jobs or committed to their organisations, when they are given intrinsically satisfying tasks to complete, and/or when they have supportive or inspirational leaders. Research into Organisational Citizenship behaviour (OCB) has primarily focused on the effects of OCB on individual and organisational performance. Several empirical studies report that OCB produces various tangible benefits for employees, co-workers, supervisors and organisations in a variety of industries (Ackfeldt & Leonard, 2005). It essentially refers to prosocial organisational behaviour that goes beyond what is expected in role descriptions. Bolino, Turnley and Niehoff (2004) claim that three basic assumptions have characterised OCB research. Firstly, they argue that OCB research stemmed from non-self-serving motives such as organisational commitment and job satisfaction. Moreover, they maintain that OCB has led to a more effective functioning of organisations and finally that OCB benefited employees by making organisations more attractive to work in. Murphy, Athansou and King (2002) reported positive relationships between OCB and job satisfaction. Chiu and Chen (2005) investigated the relationship between job characteristics and OCB and recommend that managers enhance employees' intrinsic job satisfaction to promote the display of OCB. Most research studies have investigated OCB as an outcome variable with job satisfaction as one of its antecedents. Although the majority of researchers contend that OCB is an outcome of job satisfaction, some research indicates that the two variables can function as antecedents or consequences or there may well be a reciprocal relationship between the two variables. This study endeavours to elucidate the factors that are postulated to produce job satisfaction and organisational citizenship behaviour, based on a sample of 133 employees in a retail organisation in the Western Cape. The results indicate that there are significant relationships between biographical characteristics and job satisfaction, between the dimensions of OCB and job satisfaction and between the job satisfaction dimensions and OCB. / South Africa

The cultural ascendency of Athens during the fifth century BC involved the production of works of tragedy. Among the purposes of tragedies was the moral education of Athenian society. The democratic organization of Athens meant that the polis was predicated upon the political and social contributions of adult, citizen men. Given these features, it is all the more striking that male suicide, so apparently destructive of these goods, is mainly depicted positively throughout Attic tragedy. The presence of these moments in the tragedies suggests that the Athenians intended to model positive meaning through these representations. The aim of this study is to show how the framing of male suicide in tragedy mimicked Athenian ideals of civic duty and civic pride that were the products of an increasing cultural hegemony during the Peloponnesian War. The findings of this thesis will demonstrate that the Athenians engaged with the issues of government, self-sacrifice, and social contribution through the performances of male suicide at the City Dionysia. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA) / During the Peloponnesian War in the fifth century BC, the ancient Greek city of Athens produced a number of works of tragedy. These plays were part of Athens’ cultural ascendancy during this period, and were intended to contribute to the moral education of Athenian citizens. As this citizen body was made up of adult men, it is striking that one seemingly destructive aspect of Greek tragedy, that of male suicide, is depicted positively throughout the surviving plays. This thesis will demonstrate that the ancient Athenians portrayed male suicide in a particular way in tragedy in order to glorify cultural ideals of civic duty and civic pride during this period.

Thesis advisor: M Cathleen Kaveny / This dissertation examines the question of whether a politics of the common good remains possible within contemporary democratic societies, characterized by deep pluralism, division, and contention. To engage this question, it draws on the moral and theological framework of the Catholic common good tradition, and employs that framework to identify, analyze, and theorize a real, practical exemplar of common good politics: the democratic tradition of community organizing founded by Saul Alinsky. By placing these two traditions of practice and theory in sustained dialogue for the first time, this study contributes toward a new understanding of each, while developing an original constructive account of the “politics of the common good.” Chapter 1 introduces Catholic common good theory as a framework of ethical analysis and assesses its current state of development. It argues that while contemporary Catholic thinkers have articulated a rich moral vision of the common good, and reconceived it in democratic terms, they have struggled to adequately account for the role of power conflict in political life. Chapter 2 places the Catholic common good tradition in dialogue with the Alinsky tradition. Analyzing the life, work, and methodology of its controversial founder, Saul Alinsky, it traces his deep relationship to the Catholic church and shows how he sought to embody the Catholic tradition’s vision of the common good in democratic practice, while imbuing it with a greater degree of political realism and attentiveness to power. Chapter 3 offers a historical and ethical analysis of Alinsky-style community organizing as a practice and dynamically developing tradition of democratic politics. Drawing on Alasdair MacIntyre’s practice theory, it shows how organizing forms the moral virtues, practical skills, and political institutions needed to promote the common good in a democratic society. It also further articulates the Alinsky tradition’s historical and intellectual relationship to the Catholic tradition. Chapter 4 examines how community organizing exemplifies a democratic form of political prudence. Reconstructing Thomas Aquinas’s theory of prudence, and employing it to analyze two real case studies of organizing campaigns, it develops a constructive account of political prudence as the virtue that enables morally principled and pragmatically effective collective action for the common good in the public realm. Chapter 5 synthesizes the results of the preceding chapters. It argues that prudent political action, and not merely public deliberation, is the social process by which to promote the common good, social justice, and social solidarity in a democratic society. Integrating key insights from both the Catholic tradition and the Alinsky tradition, it clarifies the role of power conflict in the pursuit of the common good, and identifies further areas for theoretical development. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

The dominant construction of democracy on a global scale is in the liberal tradition. It is evident in the criteria which constitute democratic barometers in organisations like Freedom House, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations and the World Trade Organisation. This study seeks to provide a third-order analysis of liberal democratic consolidation theory in order to highlight that its theoretical discourse and underlying structure is not necessarily compatible with the cultural values of the non-Western world using a critical discourse analysis. Democratic consolidation in the non-Western world may not necessarily mirror the theoretical model of liberal democratic consolidation. Given the hegemonic position of liberal democracy‘s criteria and its dominant discourse and role as a barometer of democracy, this study focuses on democratic consolidation in this tradition. It is primarily due to the perceived inability of non-Western states to consolidate their democracies in the liberal democratic tradition and by default, construct thriving liberal democracies. Present theories of liberal democratic consolidation theory deal with governmental, political organisational and societal aspects of liberal democracy. The level of change these theories propagate is all encompassing, and consequently one cannot merely study one aspect of liberal democratic consolidation theory, but needs to analyse the paradigm as a whole in order to explore its metatheoretical structure. It is in this light that the study conducts an appraisal of liberal democratic consolidation theory. The critique developed in this study is aimed at addressing a disparity that currently exists within contemporary consolidation of liberal democracy theory, namely a failure of producers of liberal democratic discourse to understand the philosophical and ideological undertone of liberal democratic consolidation‘s understructure. The study does not seek to conceptualise alternative criteria of democratic consolidation in the non-Western context, but focuses on liberal democratic consolidation theory, to demonstrate that its criteria is not necessarily an appropriate barometer to measure democracy in the non-Western world. / Political Sciences / D.Litt. et Phil. (African Politics)

The dominant construction of democracy on a global scale is in the liberal tradition. It is evident in the criteria which constitute democratic barometers in organisations like Freedom House, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations and the World Trade Organisation. This study seeks to provide a third-order analysis of liberal democratic consolidation theory in order to highlight that its theoretical discourse and underlying structure is not necessarily compatible with the cultural values of the non-Western world using a critical discourse analysis. Democratic consolidation in the non-Western world may not necessarily mirror the theoretical model of liberal democratic consolidation. Given the hegemonic position of liberal democracy‘s criteria and its dominant discourse and role as a barometer of democracy, this study focuses on democratic consolidation in this tradition. It is primarily due to the perceived inability of non-Western states to consolidate their democracies in the liberal democratic tradition and by default, construct thriving liberal democracies. Present theories of liberal democratic consolidation theory deal with governmental, political organisational and societal aspects of liberal democracy. The level of change these theories propagate is all encompassing, and consequently one cannot merely study one aspect of liberal democratic consolidation theory, but needs to analyse the paradigm as a whole in order to explore its metatheoretical structure. It is in this light that the study conducts an appraisal of liberal democratic consolidation theory. The critique developed in this study is aimed at addressing a disparity that currently exists within contemporary consolidation of liberal democracy theory, namely a failure of producers of liberal democratic discourse to understand the philosophical and ideological undertone of liberal democratic consolidation‘s understructure. The study does not seek to conceptualise alternative criteria of democratic consolidation in the non-Western context, but focuses on liberal democratic consolidation theory, to demonstrate that its criteria is not necessarily an appropriate barometer to measure democracy in the non-Western world. / Political Sciences / D.Litt. et Phil. (African Politics)

This thesis explores the politics of community in five Shakespearean comedies: The Comedy of Errors (1594), The Merchant of Venice (1596-8), Measure for Measure (1603-4), The Tempest (1611) and The Two Noble Kinsmen (1613). The idea of community addresses many issues usually thought to belong to 'high politics'. Thinking about this topic therefore enables us to articulate a notion of the political firmly grounded within the functioning of the commonwealth at a local level and as a state of interpersonal relations. This thesis has three key aims. Firstly, it argues that the plays highlight the responsibility of all community members, no matter their gender or status, in shaping and contributing to their political environment by displaying civic virtue, working to obtain justice and influencing their ruler's behaviour. By so doing, it focuses on the processes of civic engagement and the political implications of everyday life within a community which have often been neglected in readings of Shakespeare's work thus far. Secondly, this thesis illustrates the inseparability of ethics and politics. It demonstrates throughout that relationships between individuals within a community can have widereaching implications, whether that be in terms of the existence of trust between friends, family members or fellow citizens; the importance of consent existing between subjects and ruler; or the ability of fellow-feeling to confer a sense of agency upon subjects. Lastly, it contends that Shakespeare's assessment of the commonwealth in his comedies, with its emphasis on civic values and on the relationship between the community and the individual, remains attuned to Aristotelian and Ciceronian thought, in contrast to the Tacitean influences critics have detected in the darkness and scepticism of his tragedies and histories. Shakespeare's comedies therefore question the commonly accepted paradigm in early modern intellectual history that Tacitus' prominence increased greatly in the intellectual climate of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, while Aristotle's and Cicero's diminished. Moving away from the predominant focus on the tragedies and histories in analyses of Shakespeare's political thought, this thesis foregrounds the significance of citizenship, the household and friendship and reassesses the role of the comedies in Shakespeare's thinking about politics.

This dissertation analyses the coup d’état and the instrument of government of 1809 as an interpretative framing process. By close examination primarily of official sources it focuses on how political actors utilized the components of the existing political culture in order to legitimise their actions. The results show that the regime transition of 1809 was a contingent process. Actors competed to define concepts such as “citizen”, “patriotism” and “public opinion” in order to legitimise different political claims. This process served to strengthen the role played by the concept of public opinion as a source of authority in the language of politics. The dissertation also addresses how the regime transition of 1809 relates to the historical epoch known as the Age of Revolution. Experiences from the French Revolution in particular were crucial to the debate on the prospects for constitutional change in Sweden. The study shows that the constitutional committee took a reformist stance based on the concepts of civic virtue and enlightenment, thereby rejecting demands for an enhanced national representation. Instead they argued for gradual constitutional change and believed that the constitution should serve as an instrument to educate the public in the virtues of citizenship. Grounded in the so-called "cultural turn" taken by studies of politics in recent decades, the analysis has borrowed from studies of social movements the concepts of interpretative framing. In analyzing differences and oppositions between various interpretative frames, concepts from discourse analysis has been used, particularly those that emphasize discourse contingency. Extra-discursive conditions in the process of interpretation have been analyzed by means of the concept of possibility structures. This has chiefly involved taking into consideration the degree of repression and actors' differing access to what Bourdieu has termed "institutional authority".

No description available.

As a classical scholar and prominent founding father, James Wilson was at once statesman, judge, and political thinker, who read Cicero as an example worthy of emulation and as a philosopher whose theory could be applied to his own age. Classical reception studies have focused on questions of liberty, civic virtue, and constitutionalism in the American founding, and historians have also noted Wilson’s importance in American history and thought. Wilson’s direct engagement with Cicero’s works, however, and their significance in the formulation of his own philosophy has been long overlooked. My thesis argues that Wilson’s viewpoint was largely based on his readings of Cicero and can only be properly understood within this context. In the first two chapters of my thesis I demonstrate that Wilson not only possessed a wide-ranging knowledge of the classics in general, but also that he borrowed from Cicero’s writings and directly engaged with the texts themselves. Building upon this foundation, chapters three and four examine Cicero’s perspective on popular sovereignty and civic virtue, situate Wilson’s interpretations within contemporary discussions of Roman politics, and analyse the main ways in which he adapts Cicero’s arguments to his own era. Wilson retains a broader faith in the common people than seen in Cicero’s opinions, and he abstracts from Cicero a doctrine of sovereignty as an indivisible principle that is absent in the text; nevertheless, Cicero’s conception of a legitimate state and his insistence on the role of the people provided the foundation for Wilson’s thought and ultimately for his legitimization of the American Revolution. At the same time, like Cicero, Wilson views the stability of the state as resting in the personal virtue of the individual. While his enlightenment philosophy imparts optimism to his conception of the good citizen, his definition of virtue closely follows that of Cicero. As the final chapter of my thesis concludes, their individual interpretations of these theories of popular consent and virtue were instrumental in forming Cicero’s and Wilson’s justifications of civil disobedience.

With the liberalisation of the society and education in the Western Countries, new development horizons have emerged thus altering our expectations from the younger generation and our vision of human fulfilment and happiness. As Dewey stressed, the current advance of technology and democratic ways of life results in the unprecedented rate and speed of changes and ‘it is impossible to foretell definitely just what civilization will be twenty years from now. Hence it is impossible to prepare the child for any precise set of conditions. To prepare him for the future life means to give him command of himself; it means so to train him that he will have the full and ready use of all his capacities’ (Dewey, 1897, p.77). This prompted many educational policies in Western Countries to resort to character education as a long-term solution to the tensions between the demands on the child to succeed in tougher market-led society and the necessity to foster a democratic citizen of the globalised world (The US Partnerships in Character Education Program, 1994; Strategic Plan, 2002; Character Education Framework, 2019).  However, the recurring instances of school violence and shooting (Schaeffer, 1999, p. 2), and the turmoil of incessant military conflicts around the world expose the failure of current policies to foster a modern ‘self’ that would sustain the humanity rather than just democracy, thus making the current goals and priorities sensitive to criticism.    This paper takes on the topic of character education in liberal school setting and views it in a broader sense as part of formation of the modern ‘self’ in liberal society as opposed to traditional Aristotelian reading through virtue ethics and moral character. By studying the current character education policies in the USA, UK, European Union and Sweden, the first chapter of the thesis demonstrates the instrumentality of character education and prioritising educating for citizenship and democratic values. This paper sets to contest this approach to character education and proposes to adopt the idea of The Love of the World advanced as the guiding principle of education by Naomi Hodgson, Joris Vlieghe and Piotr Zamojski in their Manifesto for a Post-Critical Pedagogy (2017) as opposed to ‘educating for….’ formular predominant in the policies. The Manifesto offers the banner but does not elaborate on the content and how to attain the goals. The aim of this thesis is to commence to fill this gap. Carefully laying out the concepts of conservative, liberal and critical theories of education related to character formation, this paper analyses their strengths and week points and consolidates in ‘My Creed’ section what it considers the worthwhile postulates that would help to design character education governed by The Love of the World. Resorting to the educating power of literature I address the question of ‘How to foster character in liberal schooling of today’ when the child and what is good in the world replace the current slogans of educating for citizenry and democracy.