Resource integration, as it relates to value creation, has recently been a key aspect of the discussions about service-dominant (S-D) logic. However, the majority of research pays relatively little explicit attention to the process of theorizing and the epistomological and ontological assumptions upon which the theorizing process is based. This article addresses these issues. The processes that relate to theorizing and developing strong theory are discussed. We then examine how to conceptualize ‘resources’ and ‘resource integration’ following differing ontological and epistemological assumptions that guide the theorizing process. Research recommendations to help navigate through the finer details underlying the theorizing process and to advance a general theory of resource integration are developed.

This study is unique considering the location (Africa) and the industrial setting (Gold Mining) from which the research was studied as reward systems had mostly been studied in the North-American and European settings. Thus, the study  considered  rewards from the perspective of the African and its natural resource industries such as the gold mining industry.   The methodology employed in the study was based on a case study approach at Golden Star (Bogoso/Prestea) Limited (GSB/PL) with a population size of 1029 employees combining both qualitative and quantitative data obtained through a questionnaire survey of a 278 sample size and structured interview with the Human Resources and Administration Manager. Thus, the method of data collection represents methodological triangulation and the data obtained from the study represents a primary source of data.   The study revealed that all the three generational groups (Baby Boomers, GEN Xers and   GEN Yers) places higher emphasis or priority on financial incentives (high salary and bonuses) over any other incentives when respondents were asked to indicate the reward they prefer most. But when rewards were considered as a total package profile, greater number of  the baby boomers placed more emphasis or priority on packages with highly flexible pension benefits, long term job security and high internal promotions eventhough the salary and bonus components of the packages (profile) were not that attract. The GEN X and GEN Y groups still maintained their reward package profile preferences based on  high financial incentives, training and learning opportunities, personal growth and career advancement.   The study revealed that aside the high preferences for financial incentives such as high salary and bonuses by all the generational groups, few of the  GEN X and GEN Y also exhibited other preferences such as high personal growth, flexible work schedule, attractive company policy and administration, career advancement, working environment, job security and praises and recognition of which the baby boomers did not indicate any preferences or interest.   The study revealed that all the three generational groups (Baby Boomers, GEN X and GEN Y) consider high salary and bonuses as factor which causes employee dissatisfaction when not satisfied or available but when they are satisfied or available also do not motivate or cause satisfaction and thus  confirming Herzberg Two-Factor theory that  factors such as salary or remuneration, job security, working conditions and company policies  only prevent employee dissatisfaction.   The study revealed that all generational groups (baby boomers, GEN X and GEN Y) consider high salaries and bonuses as factor which could lead to lack of satisfaction and motivation of the employee in his current role or position when not available or satisfied and thus this finding confirm the traditional belief that pay is prime, or in some cases the only source of motivation but contradict Herzberg claim that  pay (high salaries and bonuses) is only an extrinsic factor and that when is available or satisfied, pay does not bring satisfaction and motivation but rather prevents dissatisfaction.   The study revealed that GSB/PL rewards systems basically comprises of extrinsic rewards such as high salary levels (pay increases), a bonus scheme,  training  and learning opportunities, job security, Stock options, Retirement/Pension benefits such as social security and provident fund,  promotions,  attractive company policies and administration, praises and recognition, good working environment, flexible work schedule,  Long service awards and benefits such as housing, Health insurance, Vacation/Annual leave benefits, transportation/bussing service, messing (provision of meals to employees only when at work), and educational benefits (for employees dependants).   The study also revealed that the design and implementation of GSB/PL reward systems involves four distinct phases: assessment, design, execution and evaluation phases.   In the end, a suitable conclusion was drawn and a number of recommendations proposed to be implemented by the mining company in safeguarding the interest of both employees and the employer.

DUBOVEC, M.: Difference of ontological difference in thinking of Martin Heidegger (Master's thesis) Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Humanities, Institute for philosophy and religious studies. Supervisor: doc. Mgr. Aleš Novák, Ph.D. The aim of master's thesis consists in explication of ontological difference in Martin Heidegger's thinking. For this purpose is used a dual method of interpretion of difference in the concept of ontological difference. First it is the issue of the difference as such. For the understanding of this idea it is analyzed the text Onto-Theological Constitution of Metaphysics. The second interpretation od difference concentrate on different understanding of ontological difference. The text Basic Problems of Phenomenology is presented as the opposite one, in which the ontological difference is connected with the temporality. The last part of master's thesis concerns the text On the essence of ground. With this the concept of transcendence is introduced as a subject in which the explication of ontological difference leads. Key words: ontological difference, onto-theology, ecstatic-horizontal temporality, Temporality, transcendence, understanding of Being

La maitrise de la complexité croissante tant de nos organisations socioéconomiques que de nos systèmes et infrastructures technologiques, impose des systèmes informatiques de plus en plus intégrés. L’organisation de nos sociétés avancées ne pourrait plus se développer dans des conditions raisonnables sans le support des technologies de l’information. Les différents systèmes d’information s’intègrent ainsi de plus en plus en un maillage informationnel formant ainsi un système de systèmes qui se complexifie de jour en jour et de ce fait devient de plus en plus vital. Ces systèmes des systèmes doivent répondre à deux types d’objectifs : i) la réalisation d’un système par l’intégration de systèmes offerts par différents fournisseurs, ii) l’interopération de systèmes déjà en service en vue d’obtenir des propriétés nouvelles dues à leur coopération, généralement avec une augmentation d’efficacité. Ces objectifs et cette complexité ne peuvent être appréhendés par une démarche purement analytique. C’est pourquoi nous avons préconisé à travers cette thèse une solution de système de systèmes basée sur un graphe d'interopérabilité construit sur une comparaison hiérarchique ontologique. La mise en œuvre de cette approche à travers l’utilisation d’une plateforme d’agents mobile permet une recherche dynamique de services visant à satisfaire au mieux les critères de qualité exigés par l’utilisateur. / Mastering the increasing complexity of our socio-economic organizations and technology infrastructure requires more and more integrated information systems. The organization of our advanced societies could no longer grow on reasonable terms without the support of information technology.The different information systems belongs more and more to an informational meshing, forming in this way a complex system of systems which is getting complex day after day and because of that is becoming increasingly vital.This system of systems must meet two objectives: i) implementation of a system by integrating systems offered by different providers, ii) interoperation of systems already in use in order to obtain new properties due to their cooperation, usually with an efficiency increase.These objectives and this complexity can be grasped by a purely analytical approach. That is why we have advocated throughout this thesis a solution of system of systems based on an interoperability graph built on a hierarchical ontological comparison (foundation of trust). The platform of mobile agents associated with this system will implement a dynamic search of services which tries to satisfy the quality criteria required by the user.

The issue of human trafficking is, as stated by the EU, a crime that alters the fabric of our society and is a severe violation of human rights. However, the migration crisis within the EU has fueled a rise of the right across the continent. This rise reflects feelings of anxiety amongst citizens towards migration and resulting in hardening migration policies, increasing the vulnerability of migrants. It is this duality this study aims to understand by the introduction of ontological security. To understand the reality of victims, a qualitative content analysis revealed the ontological (in)securities of victims. Overall, they feel a lack of control and autonomy. This lack of control becomes highly visible in regards of obtaining a residence permit. The ontological (in)security felt by victims in this aspect, might be due to the ontological insecurity of the EU and its member states. The anxiety created by migration needs to be managed, resulting in an ambiguous policy. As found through a qualitative content analysis, the EU indicates a differentiation in EU victims and non-EU victims. This ambiguity is a result of the balancing act between the EU’s ontological security and the anxieties of its member states.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This thesis applies the ontological turn to the war fiction of veteran authors, Kurt Vonnegut and Tim O’Brien. It argues that some veteran authors desire to communicate truth through fiction. Choosing to communicate truth through fiction hints at a new perspective on reality and existence that may not be readily accepted or understood by those who lack combat experience. The non-veteran understanding of war can be more informed by entertaining the idea that a multiplicity of realities exists. Affirming the combat veteran reality—the post-war ontology—and acknowledging the non-veteran reality—rooted in what I label “pre-war” or “civilian” ontology—helps enhance the reader’s understanding of what veteran authors attempt to communicate through fiction. This approach reframes the dialogic interaction between the reader and the perspectives presented in veteran author’s fiction through an emphasis on “radical alterity” to the point that telling and reading such stories represent distinct ontological journeys. Both Kurt Vonnegut and Tim O’Brien provide intriguing perspectives on reality through their fiction, particularly in the way their characters perceive and express morality, guilt, time, mortality, and even existence. Vonnegut and O’Brien’s war experiences inform these perspectives. This does not imply that the authors hold an identical perspective on the world or that combat experience yields an ontological understanding of the world common to every veteran. It simply asserts that applying the ontological turn to these writings, and the writings of other combat veterans, reveals that those who experience combat first-hand often walk away from those experiences with a changed ontological perspective.

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Students and consumers of psychological science are routinely taught that the scientific approach used in psychological research facilitates its providing the most accurate information about human behavior. Because this approach to knowledge acquisition is supposed to be based on objective evidence and systematic reasoning rather than the biased interpretation of other approaches, these other approaches are often marginalized as being inferior. Critics of these claims assert that psychological science is subject to biases just as other approaches are and that the philosophy of naturalism not only pervades, but is also hidden and largely unquestioned in mainstream psychology. This study examines this claim, beginning with a dialectical contrast between naturalistic and non-naturalistic cultures to concretize practical features of naturalism and non-naturalism. It then uses those features to frame an in-depth analysis of introductory psychology textbooks where a compendium of the important settled principles and findings of all major sub-areas of the discipline should be found. Results show that naturalistic features are to be found throughout all the sub-areas of psychology and that non-naturalistic features are absent or marginalized in the texts.

[pt] A presente tese visa analisar como questões relacionadas ao meio ambiente - em especial, às mudanças climáticas - interagem com os entendimentos locais acerca da segurança, em comunidades que se mostram profundamente afetadas por esses problemas e que, ao mesmo tempo, encontram-se profundamente excluídas dos debates teóricos de segurança. Em meio aos Estudos de Segurança Internacional (ESI), a crise climática persiste em ser analisada a partir de uma dinâmica estadocêntrica, militarizada e de nós x outros. Quando não é esse o caso, os desafios ambientais são enquadrados a partir de uma lógica de segurança humana, animada por um entendimento moderno e liberal acerca do que a segurança deveria ser e, portanto, desconsiderando entendimentos e necessidades locais. (Shani, 2017). Ao focar em narrativas não-científicas sobre segurança, esta tese visa expor as contingências dos discursos hegemônicos verificados em meios aos ESI que, longe de se mostrarem racionais e fundamentados em uma descrição autêntica da realidade, contribuem para agravar os desafios enfrentados por alguns indivíduos, como os Marshalleses. Animados pelos discursos racionais promovidos por pensadores realistas e dos estudos estratégicos, durante a Guerra Fria, as Ilhas Marshall se tornaram palco de testes de 67 armas termonucleares. Tais armas – consideradas pelos teóricos e pelos policy-makers como fonte de poder e como meio legítimo de se obter segurança – vaporizaram ilhas, forçaram a evacuação permanente de comunidades, romperam com a organização social matriarcal e baseada na posse de terras característica das Ilhas Marshall e com os laços ancestrais entre indivíduos e seus atóis. Mais recentemente, o arquipélago e seus habitantes se mostram novamente em risco, dessa vez, não pelas práticas de segurança das superpotências, mas por uma ameaça não intencional e despersonalizada. As mudanças climáticas se caracterizam como a mais recente forma de intervenção, sendo precedidas por uma longa lista de práticas coloniais e violentas direcionadas ao arquipélago. Como uma nação constituída por atóis, é muito provável que, como resultado dos efeitos climáticos, as Ilhas Marshall se tornem inabitáveis ainda ao longo deste século. Para os Marshalleses, tal cenário significaria uma perda incomensurável em termos territoriais, espirituais e culturais. Ao analisar casos como o das Ilhas Marshall, a tese busca explorar quais novos significados e racionalidades de segurança podem emergir, ou se tornar mais proeminentes, face aos desafios trazidos pela mudança do clima. Desta forma, a teoria da segurança ontológica é apresentada como um marco teórico fértil para analisar casos em que o que parece em risco não é apenas a segurança física de estados nacionais, indivíduos e ecossistemas, mas também a preservação de espaços sociais e materiais e de um senso de continuidade biográfica. (Giddens, 1990) A partir deste movimento crítico, busca-se enfatizar outros modos de se refletir e de se vivenciar a (in)segurança, de modo a lançar luzes sobre como o significado deste conceito mostra-se indissociável dos contextos políticos, culturais e emocionais em meio aos quais os discursos de segurança emergem. / [en] This thesis seeks to analyze the ways through which issues related to the environment, especially climate change, interact with local conceptualizations of security in communities which are severely threatened by these problems and, at the same time, profoundly excluded from security studies debates. Within International Security Studies (ISS), the climate crisis persists in being analyzed through state-centered, militarized and us x others dynamics. When this is not the case, environmental challenges are placed within a human security logics, animated by a modern and liberal understanding of what is supposed to be secure and thus, disregarding the role of local understandings and needs. (Shani, 2017) By focusing on non-scientific security narratives, I expect to unveil the contingencies of the hegemonic discourses within ISS that, rather than being rational and based on an authentic description of reality, contribute to aggravating the security challenges faced by some individuals, such as the Marshallese. Animated by rational security discourses promoted by realist and strategist thinkers, during the Cold War, the Marshall Islands was turned into a testing ground for 67 thermonuclear weapons. The bombs - considered by security theorists and policy-makers both as a source of power and as a legitimate way to obtain security – vaporized islands, forced the permanent evacuation of entire communities, disrupted the Marshallese land-based matrilineal organization and their ancestral ties to their atolls. Nowadays, the Marshallese archipelago and its inhabitants are once again being challenged: not by the military security goals of superpowers, but by an unintended and depersonalized threat. Climate change is the latest form of intervention, being preceded by a long list of other colonial and violent practices. As a low-lying atoll nation, it is very likely that the Marshall Islands will become inhospitable until the middle of the century as a result of the deteriorating climate effects. For the islanders, it will represent an immeasurable loss of territorial, spiritual and cultural references. In relying on cases such as the Marshallese, I aim to explore what new meanings and rationalities of security can emerge, or become more prominent, in the face of the challenges brought on by climate change. With this aim, the ontological security theory is presented as an insightful framework for the analysis of these cases where, what seams at risk is not only a physical survival of states, individuals and ecosystems, but also the preservation of a stable social and material environment of action and a sense of biographical continuity. (Giddens, 1990) With this critical move, I seek to emphasize other ways of thinking and experiencing (in)security; thus, enlightening how the meaning of this concept is undissociated from the political, cultural and emotional contexts from which security discourses emerge.

[pt] Parece haver uma propensão humana à ficção. Uma propensão não apenas a ficcionalizar, mas também a submergir em ficções as mais variadas. Metamórfica como os mitos e próxima ao rumor que criou as cosmogonias mais antigas, a ficção é a raiz do erro mas também o começo de toda produção de pensamento. Wolfgang Iser compreende essa propensão ao outramento como um pressuposto antropológico básico. Em seus trabalhos teóricos, Ricardo Piglia entende a ficção como via prioritária para se pensar a política. Partindo do encontro dessas concepções, esta tese apresenta uma investigação acerca das múltiplas relações entre ficção, política e metafísica, privilegiando a literatura e seu embate com o desconhecido. Em uma escrita que alia especulação teórica e investigação fabuladora, a análise dessas relações tem como percurso as concepções históricas acerca do conceito de ficção; a literatura que é atravessada pelo excesso (como as divindades, a violência, o erotismo, o horror cósmico e demais experiências desestabilizadoras); a possível obsolescência do realismo burguês frente ao Antropoceno; as contribuições que a chamada virada ontológica pode trazer não somente para o conceito de ficção, mas também para a compreensão da experiência literária como um todo; e, por fim, as forças fictícias (termo que Piglia retira de Paul Valéry) que atravessam o socius, conduzindo ou não à servidão. Os ensaios que compõem esta tese são animados por uma vontade fúngica, trançando alianças demoníacas entre diferentes pensadores e oxidando as barreiras que mantinham separadas e estanques a ficção, a política e a metafísica. / [en] There seems to be a human penchant for fiction. A propensity not only to fictionalize, but also to submerge in the most varied fictions. Metamorphic like myths and close to the rumor that created the oldest cosmogonies, fiction is the root of error but also the beginning of all production of thought. Wolfgang Iser understands this propensity for otherness as a basic anthropological assumption. In his theoretical works, Ricardo Piglia understands fiction as a priority way to think about politics. Starting from the meeting of these conceptions, this thesis presents an investigation about the multiple relations between fiction, politics and metaphysics, privileging literature and its clash with the unknown. In a writing that combines theoretical speculation and fabulous investigation, the analysis of these relationships takes as its route the historical conceptualizations about the concept of fiction; literature that is crossed by excess (such as divinities, violence, eroticism, cosmic horror and other destabilizing experiences); the possible obsolescence of bourgeois realism in the face of the Anthropocene; the contributions that the so-called ontological turn can bring not only to the concept of fiction, but also to the understanding of literary experience as a whole; and, finally, the fictitious forces (a term that Piglia takes from Paul Valéry) that cross the socius, leading or not to servitude. The essays that make up this thesis are animated by a fungal will, weaving demonic alliances between different thinkers and oxidizing the barriers that kept fiction, politics and metaphysics separated.