<p>The purpose of this project is to explain the transformation of Japanese corporate law in the last three decades. The data is collected in the field study in Japan between May 2005 and June 2006. This project shows that the chaning dominant policy paradigm that defines the nature of a corporation and its relationship with the society in the policy field has indispensable impact on corporate legislation. Before the mid 1990s Japanese corporate legislation was dominated by bureaucrats in Ministry of Justice and the community of law scholars; they saw a corporation as a special association that has profound impacts on social order. The economic crisis in 1990 and the diffusion of the U.S. economic thinking among young generation of economic bureaucrats led to the regime shift of corporate legislation. After 1997, corporate legislation was dominated by economic bureaucrats who saw a corporation as a nexus of contracts whose only relationship with society is producing wealth. This shift significantly changed the course of corporate legislation. First, the paradigm shift brought different regulatory schemes for corporate finance. Before the mid 1997, corporate finance was seen as a source of turbulence and was strongly restrained. After the paradigm shift in 1997, corporate finance was perceived as a positive way to raise shareholder value by economic bureaucrats. Therefore, the course of legislation shifted to substantial deregulation. Second, the paradigm shift also brought significant change to the regulations for governance structure. Before 1997, a corporation was seen as an association composed of stable shareholders. Therefore, the solution to managerial misconducts was to strengthen internal democracy. After 1997 because the perception of a corporation had shifted to a nexus of contracts that are constantly negotiated in financial markets, the solutions to managerial misconducts were to strengthen board independence and information disclosure. Third, before 1997 corporate restructuring was seen as an important event that entails complicated procedural requirements to protect shareholders and creditors. After 1997 because corporate restructuring was treated as a tool to enhance economic efficiency by economic bureaucrats, a variety of restructuring schemes were deregulated.</p> / Dissertation

How "social change organizations" balance organizational imperatives with progressive, or "principled," values is a dilemma commonly addressed in the sociological literature (cf. Minkoff, 2002; Ostrander, 2004). This challenge is particularly important where organizations are undergoing a process of change (Kelley et al., 2005). However, few studies have used internal working conditions as a dynamic on which to measure this balance. Thus, using the internal dynamics of two contemporary human rights organizations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as a means of understanding these challenges, the broadest objective of this dissertation is to understand how organizations with principled values do or do not construct "exemplary" workplaces (Lofland, 1996). Changes to the gendered nature of the organizations are examined as a specific indicator of this exemplary behaviour. Using new institutionalist literature as a guide, I demonstrate the ways in which isomorphic pressures shaped human rights organizations throughout the 1990s. Specifically, I show that Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch shared a shifting institutional environment, including political climate favourable toward the human rights discourse, increased attention from media, increased pressure to professionalize, the need to present themselves as legitimate and accountable, and the need to respond to competitive pressures. I found that as both organizations responded to these pressures and opportunities in their institutional environment, they adapted internal structures, strategies, and behaviours. The result was increased hierarchy, competition between employees, performance pressures, and emotionally repressive workplace norms. Moreover, men and women often experienced these changes differently. The investigation of two organizations, however, revealed that this connective chain was also shaped by the specific histories, structures, and cultures of each organization.

<p> The status of wisdom in leadership discourse has been elevated as organizations seek solutions to multidimensional challenges that have led to corporate collapses and the derailment of leaders. The study of wisdom has ancient foundations but its measurement as an organizational leadership construct is relatively new. Recent research has led to the view and operationalization of wisdom as an attribute integrating the cognitive, affective, and reflective dimensions of human performance and behavior (Ardelt, 2003). </p><p> This quantitative study explored correlations between wisdom and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) at the individual level of analysis. The hypothesized association was examined using data collected on wisdom as conceptualized by Ardelt (2003) and OCB as defined by Organ (1988). Respondents (<i> n</i>=193) were selected from an online panel of leaders from organizations across America and invited to complete Ardelt's (2003) three-dimensional wisdom scale (3D-WS) and the OCB scale (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Moorman, &amp; Fetter, 1990) for analysis of the conjectured relationship. </p><p> Results indicated that leader wisdom, as defined in the integrative approach, and leader OCB have a significant and moderately strong positive correlation. Implications include the need for a proper value of the role of both concepts for leadership and organizational practices. The measurement of wisdom is crucial in organizations and more research is recommended in future studies. </p>

<p> The notion of core versus peripheral entities can be found in a variety of disciplines. Common among various conceptualizations of core versus peripheral entities is the differentiation of power among countries, industries, and subunits. Yet, little research has examined the notion of core versus peripheral positions at the individual level. The purpose of my dissertation was to provide a unified definition of core versus peripheral positions in an organization. In short, core positions were defined as those that possess non-replaceable and critical resources with which an organization achieves its goals and missions, but without which many other organizational activities will stop immediately. To sum, employee position was assessed by criticality, non-substitutability, pervasiveness, and immediacy. </p><p> My dissertation also explored the advantages associated with being in core positions, including higher work, pay, and job security satisfaction, affective commitment, job involvement, power, job security perceptions, in-role performance, and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs), lower work stress and burnout, and fewer physical health complaints, as well as a disadvantage related to core positions, i.e., work overload. Last, I examined experienced meaningfulness (i.e., the work being done is meaningful) and perceived organizational worth (i.e., the organization values employee contributions) as the mechanisms explaining why core position linked to outcomes. </p><p> Study 1 with samples from the U.S. demonstrated the reliability and the convergent, discriminant, and incremental predictive validity of the core versus peripheral position scale. Surprisingly, non-substitutability was not significantly related to criticality and negatively related to pervasiveness and immediacy. Study 2 with samples from various Chinese organizations cross validated the core versus peripheral position scale. I used structural equation modeling to examine an integrated model. The best-fitting model indicated that being in a core position linked to perceived organizational worth, which, in turn, resulted in experienced meaningfulness, which, in turn, led to work, pay, job security satisfaction, affective commitment, job involvement, job security perception, in-role job performance, OCBs, stress, burnout, health complaints, but not to power and work overload. Finally, I discussed theoretical implications of the findings regarding organizational psychology in general and positive organizational scholarship in particular, and practical implications for organizations and employees.</p>

<p> This study examines the effect of the pursuit of self-esteem on an employee's ability to thrive in the workplace. At the heart of this study is a perceived disconnect between the apparent costs of pursuing self-esteem as described by Crocker and Park and the ability to thrive in the workplace as described by Spreitzer, Sutcliffe, Dutton, Sonenshein, and Grant. The findings of this study suggest that criticism, difficult feedback, and other forms of negative recognition elicit a pursuit response&mdash;a mechanism whereby an individual attempts to mitigate the negative recognition and replace it with positive recognition, thereby increasing one's self-esteem. This pursuit of self-esteem can, in turn, have an effect on one's ability to thrive in the workplace. However, the nature of the effect depends in part on how the individual goes about pursuing self-esteem and the conditions for thriving present in the workplace. Pursuit mechanisms that support thriving conditions can help one thrive at work while mechanisms that work against thriving conditions can be a barrier to thriving. Finally, the data suggested that factors such as performance, retention, and productivity may drop when employees use pursuit mechanisms that work against thriving conditions.</p>

Abstract Researchers have found that increasing rates of ratification of international human rights treaties do not necessarily imply actual improvement of human rights practice. This discrepancy raises questions about the state's intention to ratify treaties and the impact of ratification on the development of human rights commitments. While most scholars agree on the state's instrumental objective in ratifying treaties, they are still far from being able to make conclusions on the impact of ratification. This thesis moves forward to explain the reasons why ratification does not always translate into implementation, and to specify the conditions under which the state is likely to implement the treaty it has ratified. Such an explanation is absent from qualitative case studies that do not go beyond the observation that ratification has equipped human rights activists with a legal foundation. Some empirical quantitative studies provide a better explanation on the factors that likely contribute to treaty implementation, but the lack of data has impeded such studies from offering a detailed mechanism of treaty implementation. Meanwhile, the literature on state compliance to international treaties in fact only offers a partial explanation. They largely share the same opinion on the pivotal role of international factors—such as powerful democratic countries, international norms, the UN, and transnational activists—in the process of treaty implementation. This thesis compares the implementations of three human rights treaties in Indonesia. Adopting a power perspective, it finds that the idea of human rights is a contested concept, which is resisted and simultaneously pushed by those interested in the application of these norms. In fact, a human rights treaty would be adequately implemented only if it goes in the same direction with the interest of a strong state or a state with high capacity to rule. This / RésuméDes chercheurs ont trouvé qu'un taux augmentant de ratification des traités de droits de l'homme internationales n'implique pas nécessairement une amélioration de la pratique des droits de l'homme. Cette divergence relève des questions à propos de l'intention de l'état de ratifié des traités et l'impact de ratification sur le développement aux droits de l'homme. Alors que la plupart des chercheurs sont d'accord sur objectif instrumental dans la ratification des traités, ils sont encore loin de pouvoir conclure sur l'impact de la ratification.Cette thèse se propose d'expliquer les raisons pour lesquelles la ratification ne se traduit pas toujours en implémentation, et de préciser les conditions sous lesquelles l'état inclinerait à implémenter le traité ratifié. Une telle explication est absente des études de cas qualitatives qui ne font qu'observer que la ratification a équipé les activistes des droits de l'homme d'une fondation légale. Quelques études empiriques quantitatives proposent une meilleure explication sur les facteurs qui contribuent probablement à l'implémentation de traité, mais le manque d'information a arrêté l'étude d'offrir un mécanisme détaillé sur l'implémentation de traité. La littérature sur l'agreement des états aux traités internationaux en fait seulement offre une explication partielle. Malgré les différences, ils partagent largement une même opinion sur le rôle important des facteurs international—comme les forts pays démocratiques, les normes internationales, les Unions unis, et les activités transnational—dans le procès d'implantation du traité.Cette thèse propose que l'idée des droits de l'homme est un concept conteste, qui est résiste et simultanément encourage par ceux qui trouvent intérêt a l'application de ces normes. Adoptant une perspective de pouvoir, cette thèse trouve plutôt qu'un traite de droit humain$

Women have advanced in Canada since the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in 1970. This Commission made 167 recommendations to redress documented inequalities and inequities. Six pertained directly to the full integration of women in the Canadian Forces (CF). In 1989, a Canadian Human Rights Tribunal instructed the CF to "fully integrate" women. Removing these gender-specific barriers in the Canadian military signifies a major step toward equality. Few nations allow women unrestricted access to all military occupations. Since these legislative policies, the evidence indicates that the CF has been slow and unsuccessful to meet demands (Davis, 1994; Chapstick, Farley, Wild, & Parkes, 2005; O'Hara, 1998a, 1998b; Tanner, 1999). The present study examines the everyday soldiering experiences of Canadian female soldiers as a step toward an increased understanding of gender and the CF.This research utilises both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Quantitatively, statistics reveal tangible information regarding women's success (e.g., earnings equality). Qualitatively, the focus rests on the examination of ruling texts and female soldiers' life experiences as a means to explicate current institutional practices and the culture of soldiering. Using this multi-method comparative approach, the story of women's integration emerges as varied. Quantitative results show that Non-Commissioned Member (NCM) female soldiers succeed relatively well. Yet, to do soldiering work, women give up on having a family, whereas men can do both. Female soldiers in the Officer class face more challenges; they do not earn as much as their male colleagues, and unlike them, they also face difficulties in maintaining both military work and family life. There has been progress, but the military is a governmental body publically controlled, thus, findings reveal insufficient efforts for such an agency. Although the military ideology is underpinned by obedience to orders, the CF did not obey fully the order to integrate women. Given the lengthy delay since the commission, and the moral and legal pressure that followed (human rights decision, employment equity act), the achieved results are mediocre. Such findings do not bode well for women in companies and organisations that do not fall under the employment equity act. / La vie de soldat dans les Forces canadiennes: un point de vue sexospécifique!Les femmes ont parcouru beaucoup de chemin depuis la Commission royale d'enquête sur le statut de la femme au Canada qui, en 1970, formulait 167 recommandations visant à corriger des inégalités et iniquités connues. De celles-ci, six portaient plus particulièrement sur l'intégration complète des femmes aux Forces canadiennes. En 1989, un tribunal canadien des droits de la personne ordonnait aux Forces canadiennes de procéder à l'intégration complète des femmes. L'élimination de ces barrières sexospécifiques représente une étape importante dans l'atteinte de l'égalité au sein de l'armée. Peu de nations peuvent se vanter en effet d'offrir aux femmes un accès libre à tous les métiers militaires. Il appert toutefois que les Forces ont peiné, voire échoué, à satisfaire aux exigences de ces politiques législatives (Davis, 1994; Chapstick, Farley, Wild et Parkes, 2005; O'Hara, 1998a, 1998b; Tanner, 1999). La présente étude examine la vie quotidienne de soldates canadiennes afin d'approfondir les questions liées au genre au sein des Forces canadiennes.Une approche quantitative et qualitative a été privilégiée. D'un point de vue quantitatif, les statistiques fournissent des renseignements matériels sur les avancées réalisées par les femmes (p. ex., l'équité en matière d'emploi). D'un point de vue qualitatif, l'étude des textes des décisions et d'expériences vécues par des soldates permettent de mieux comprendre les pratiques institutionnelles et la culture de l'armée. L'approche comparative et multiméthode permet de dresser un portrait inégal de l'intégration des femmes. Les résultats quantitatifs montrent que les femmes militaires du rang réussissent relativement bien. Par contre, pour exercer leur métier de soldat, les femmes doivent renoncer à avoir une famille, un choix que les hommes n'ont pas à faire. Pour ce qui est des femmes sous-officières, les défis sont plus nombreux : elles gagnent moins que leurs collègues masculins et, contrairement à ceux-ci, éprouvent des difficultés à équilibrer activités militaires et vie de famille.

This thesis analyzes some of the social and organizational aspects involved in the production of microarray data through a case study of regulatory practices. It investigates a new blend of skills and expertise involved in biomedical regulation, and examines bottom-up standards initiatives in genomics from a sociology of science perspective. When the first published microarray experiment appeared in 1995, it carried with it a host of questions, opinions, visions, and disputes. With the development of further experiments, the comparability of results became an urgent issue to resolve. The massive datasets generated by each experiment were deemed too complex for single-handed assessment, leading to the involvement of public databases, curators, scientific journals, commercial investors, and other biomedical actors in the quest to stabilize the significance of microarray data. By 2001, the first of many standards initiatives was launched, orchestrating new connections of skills and tasks, and forming a socio-technical network of commitments that was intended to carry microarray data to the realm of scientific objectivity and widespread clinical usage. This thesis is based upon observational and interview data with microarray researchers, as well as primary scientific texts in the field of genomic science. Since widespread experimentation with microarray data began in the early 2000's, these data have led to a blending of professional cultures. My goal was to investigate how these new professional cultures coordinate and activate social networks, articulating them with regulation in order to turn a technological device into a fully ‘working' scientific instrument, i.e. one that delivers consensually agreed upon scientific evidence. I argue that microarray technology was an early, unstable genomic technology that became largely sustained by new forms of concerted social action. / Cette thèse analyse certains des aspects sociaux et organisationnels impliqués dans la production des données des biopuces grâce à une étude de cas des pratiques de réglementation. La thèse examine l'émergence d'une nouvelle articulation des compétences et de différents types d'expertise mobilisés par la régulation biomédicale. En utilisant les notions et les outils de la sociologie des sciences, la thèse se centre sur les initiatives « à partir de la base » visant à standardiser les techniques de la génomique. Les résultats de la première expérience utilisant des biopuces ont été publiés en 1995, et ils ont soulevé une foule de questions, opinions, débats et controverses. Avec l'adoption de cette nouvelle technologie par un nombre croissant de laboratoires, la comparabilité des résultats est devenue un problème urgent à résoudre. L'évaluation du déluge de données générées par chaque expérience a été jugé trop complexe pour en laisser la responsabilité aux seuls chercheurs ayant conduit l'expérience, ce qui a mené au développement de bases de données publiques et à l'implication croissante d'un ensemble d'acteurs (éditeurs de revues scientifiques, compagnies commerciales, et d'autres protagonistes de la recherche biomédicale) pour solidifier le statut et la fiabilité des données des biopuces. En 2001, une première série d'initiatives de standardisation a été lancée afin d'établir de nouvelles interfaces entre les différentes tâches et compétences impliquées dans la performance des expériences avec les biopuces, et jeter ainsi les bases d'un réseau sociotechnique permettant de qualifier les données comme étant scientifiquement objectives et pouvant donc donner lieu à des utilisations cliniques. La thèse est basée sur des données d'observation et des entrevues avec les chercheurs utilisant des biopuces, ainsi que sur l'analyse des publications scientifiques dans le domaine de la génomique. L'usage des biopuces s'étant répandu au début des années 2000, l'utilisation croissante de cette technique a donné lieu à un mélange de cultures professionnelles, impliquant, notamment, des biologistes, des bioinformaticiens, des statisticiens et des cliniciens. Mon objectif était d'examiner comment ces différentes cultures professionnelles, dont certaines (notamment les bioinformaticiens) encore en émergence, ont créé, coordonné et mobilisé des réseaux sociaux via la régulation et la réglementation, afin de transformer un dispositif technologique au statut incertain en un instrument scientifique reconnu comme fiable, c'est à dire capable de produire des faits scientifiques de façon consensuelle. Ma thèse centrale est que la technologie des biopuces dont le statut initial était instable a pu être traduite en une technologie génomique stable grâce au déploiement de nouvelles formes d'action sociale concertée.

<p> Abstract This inductive, qualitative research study explore the construct of authentic leadership within the context of organizational leadership as demonstrated within the Matthew 3:11 &ndash; 5:48 pericope. Using the Matthew 3:11 &ndash; 5:48 pericope as a foundation for authentic leadership, this study seeks to answer the following research question: How does the pericope within the Christian sacred text that describes Jesus' baptism, temptations, subsequent start of ministry, and initial teachings as found in Matthew 3:11 &ndash; 5:48 contribute to our current understanding of how organizational outcomes are affected by leader morality when applied from within the intrapersonal, interpersonal, developmental, and pragmatic perspectives of authentic leadership? This research followed the exegetical foundation as described by Robbins (1996a, 1996b), and focused primarily on the frameworks associated with intertexture analysis and social and cultural texture analysis. Nine themes emerged from the data, suggesting the authenticity of Jesus was further enhanced through the intrapersonal perspective, the interpersonal perspective, the developmental perspective, and the pragmatic perspective. Specifically, the nine themes identified the following aspects of authentic leadership: (a) use of traditions, regulations, and pre-existing laws, (b) recitation of traditions, regulations, and pre-existing laws, (c) reconfiguration of traditions, regulations, and pre-existing laws, (d) use of reference, allusion, and echo to build authenticity as a leader, (e) use of social knowledge and its use in establishing authenticity, (f) use of reformist discourse to emphasize different authentic leadership approaches, (g) the concept of ascribed honor and its importance to authentic leaders, (h) the concept of challenge-response and its use in authentic leadership, and (i) the concept of purity and its role in authentic leadership. A discussion about the research findings and their implications to the contemporary organizational leadership context is included. This research also addresses the limitations of this study, as well as provides guidelines pertaining to possible future research related to the topic of authentic leadership studied from within a Christian worldview.</p>

<p> This study examined organization development (OD) practitioners' perspectives on the relative importance of the five domains of a neuroscience-based motivation framework that categorizes common issues that trigger <i> toward</i> or <i>away</i> responses in the brain. The SCARF Model's five domains include Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness (Rock, 2008). This study sought to understand if practitioners' perspectives are in line with existing research and ultimately to identify the most effective practices that provide the highest level of benefit relative to reducing threat responses and increasing rewards. The first phase of this study employed an online survey using pairwise comparison, or forced choice, of each domain on a weighted scale. This methodology required explicit choices be made among each of the SCARF domains in order to answer a single question: Active management of which reward/threat trigger poses the greater benefit to a change effort, and by how much? The survey methodology resulted in a prioritization by 48 OD practitioner respondents that depicts the magnitude of each domain's benefit and ultimately implies that active management of the highest ranking domain (Fairness) offers significantly greater benefit than the other four. The second phase of this study included interviews of eight OD practitioners during which the survey results were presented. This phase of the study discovered a dominant theme of communication as a means of threat trigger mitigation and reward trigger maximization for all of the SCARF domains.</p>