Loyalty as a Virtue and as a Value

When loyalty binds: Examining the effectiveness of group versus personal loyalty calls on followers’ compliance with leaders’ unethical requests

Cover-ups of unethical actions are undesirable and often costly. However, existing theory is unclear on when and why some cover-ups are punished less severely by in-group third parties compared to out-group third parties. Drawing on theories of attribution and social identity, we theorize that the punishment of cover-ups by in- and out-group third parties depends on the type of cover-up: specifically, whether individuals conceal their own unethical transgressions (personal cover-ups) or the unethical transgressions of another individual (relational cover-ups). By highlighting this distinction, we hypothesize and find across three studies that in-group third parties punish relational—but not personal—cover-ups less severely than out-group third parties. Moreover, we theorize and find support for the mediating role of perceptions of group loyalty. Our theory and results reveal the ways in which different forms of cover-ups can escape severe punishment, and offer important theoretical contributions for research on unethical behavior, social identity, and loyalty.

This paper attempts to investigate the effect of ethical sales behavior on customer loyalty in the context of sales representatives of Procter & Gamble (P&G) at Metro Cash & Carry (MCC) supermarkets toward customers. The result of this study is expected to be applicable in fast-moving-consumer-good (FMCG) industry. The applied model in this paper includes four concepts of ethical sales behavior, customer trust, customer commitment, and customer loyalty. Questionnaires were used to collect data through phone survey. Cronbach alpha, Exploratory Factor Analysis, Confirmatory Factory Analysis, and Structural Equation Modeling were used to analyze data collected from 203 customers who are retailers or traders buying P&G products at MCC system. In addition, multiple group analyses regarding gender and purchasing power were also performed. Furthermore, qualitative interviews were also conducted with five (5) customers purchasing P&G products to understand customer response with unethical sales behavior. The results show that there is only indirect impact of ethical sales behavior on customer loyalty through customer trust and customer commitment as mediating variables. Customer commitment has direct effect on customer loyalty, but customer trust only influences customer loyalty through customer commitment. No difference in gender or purchasing power is found regarding the impact of ethical sales behavior on customer loyalty.

This chapter focuses on the concepts of loyalty and military professionalism of Russian Private Military Companies (PMSCs) related to military oaths of office.It aims to explore whether such an oath, recently exploited by the Russian leadership, will keep Putin safe from attempted mutinies like Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin's coup attempt in late june 2023.The chapter explores and discusses military professionalism in relation to concepts of loyalty as well as the military oath as a speech act.Subsequently, the question of what loyalty is for PMSCs is explored.Against this theoretical backdrop, the role and functionality of (horizontal and vertical) loyalty of private military companies in Russia and Prigozhin's attempted military coup is analysed and discussed.

Twelve Infallible Men: The Imams and the Making of Shi‘ism

Matthew Pierce’s first book, Twelve Infallible Men: The Imams and the Making of Shi‘ism, is a unique scholarly work about Ithnā Ash‘arī Shī‘ism and the development of communal identity. His main argument in this book is that the Shi‘a religious identity was shaped over time based on collective social memory and specific biographical depictions of spiritual leadership centered on the sacredness of the Prophet Muhammad and his family, the ahl al-bayt. While much scholarship on Shi‘ism is centered on the topics of succession, theological doctrines, or the specific rituals of ‘Ashura, Pierce focuses instead on how love and devotion towards the imams and the ahl al-bayt developed. His scholarly inquiry was piqued by his experience in the shrine city of Qum, Iran, where he was a resident and scholar of an inter-faith dialogue program from 2003-2006. There he observed firsthand the personal devotional lives of Twelver Shi‘as who cultivate personal connections and relationship with the imams through devotional ritual, seeking intercession, pilgrimages to shrines, mourning their suffering, and seeking their guidance. In Twelve Infallible Men this system of piety and devotion is traced to five early biographical figures. His primary source material was biographical works, in particular the five collective biographies of the imams written between 943-1150 CE: The Establishment of the Inheritance (Ithbāt al-waṣiya), attributed to al-Masʿūdī; Proofs of the Imamate (Dalāʾil al-imāma), attributed to Ibn Jarīr; The Book of Guidance (Kitāb al-irshād), by al-Mufīd; Informing Humanity (Iʿlām alwara), by al-Ṭabrīsī; and Virtues of the Descendants of Abū Ṭālib (Manāqib Āl Abī Ṭālib), by Ibn Shahrashub. Through his thematic and comparative analysis of these five sources Pierce traces the origin of communal remembrance and the Shi‘i system of piety utilizing the methodology of collective 57 memory studies. Throughout his text he notes broader religious rhetorical trends related to the geographic area and time period, such as the martyrdom narrative in early Christianity and the influence of miraculous stories to confirm saintly status, amongst others. In this way, Pierce situates the Shi‘i narrative within a wider milieu that speaks to sociological developments and broader religious experiences. The selected texts were all produced during the ‘Abbasid reign that was established by utilizing the legitimacy of ahl al-bayt as the source of proper Islamic leadership in their overthrow of the Umayyad regime. The ‘Abbasid era saw the development and emergence of Shi‘i scholarship and identity. Pierce could perhaps have given more historical context and analysis of anti-‘Alid sentiment (such as the institutionalized cursing of ‘Ali) during the Umayyad regime, as part of the development of sympathy and sorrow for the family of the Prophet. But one aspect of the Shi‘i narrative that Pierce analyzes in great depth throughout his work is the shared memory of suffering, primarily as demonstrated by the martyrdom of and the centrality of sorrow for the ahl al-bayt. In his analysis of narrative patterns and recurring symbols he is interested in revealing the needs of the believing community and what made these particular stories meaningful to them. The book is organized into five chapters. Crucial to this work is Pierce’s clarification of Sunni-Shi‘a disputes and the fluidity of how these identities developed and eventually solidified over time. He notes how this time period saw a variety of theological and jurisprudential debates, and the central aspects of what formalized into a Shi‘a identity, ritual, and concepts. The writings Pierce examines emerged during a period where Arabic literature was first taking shape and therefore demonstrate a process within the Islamic community at large of articulating specific narratives. The first chapter describes the canonization of the Twelve Infallibles. Pierce purposefully does not engage the polemics of the time, although these may have provided means to understand another facet of how the selected authors chose to craft their narrative. But he analyzes how the biographies of the imams became standardized over time—for example, how martyrdom was attributed to all of the imams after Mufīd’s writings and how Mufīd in particular set the standard for these narratives contributing to a coherent Shi‘a community with clear boundaries. In the second chapter Pierce explores the collective biographies’ central concern, namely the deaths of the Imams. Their tragic martyrdom becomes a theme in this genre of writing where suffering and grief comprise the proper Shi‘a response. Notably, Pierce also sheds light on the role of martyrdom in minority spiritual groups in the Near East. In this chapter Pierce also begins his gendered analysis, which is a highlight throughout the work, bringing in the tropes of the treacherous wife and the vulnerable bodies of the imams. These characterizations make the earlier narratives circulated, especially in Mufid’s writing, now unthinkable. Furthermore, emotional performances of grief and weeping emerge as demonstrations of piety, as well as being associated with political rebellion. Pierce explores how this emotional performance was in distinct contrast to the proto-Sunni traditionalists’ emphasis on controlling grief. The third chapter revolves around the themes of suffering and betrayal that permeate the biographies. Pierce investigates the arc of sacred history for Shi‘is as evidenced by their afflictions and the denial of their rights, which feature as central literary motifs in these primary sources, along with the symbols of suffering and outsiders. He discusses how the imams emerge as a distinctive type, as too do their betrayers. This chapter also features important events in Shi‘i history: the events of Ghadir and the martyrdom of Husayn in Karbala, a pivotal story in the Shi‘a community, but one that did not take central stage until later in these collective biographies. Love and devotion to the ahl al-bayt become salvific mechanisms that draw upon performances of mourning. Pierce also explores how religious ritual developed along with the narratives in the biographies. He continues his exploration of gender tropes where the female body is the site of mistrust and fear, specifically in the example of ‘A’isha. A central point of his book, elaborated in this chapter, is how the boundaries of the community were conceptually paired with the imams’ bodies. The fourth chapter is a systematic exploration of masculinity as revealed through the imams’ vulnerable bodies and the idealization of male performance. Pierce describes how masculine ideals as envisioned by the biographers comprise the concepts of virtue, manliness, and group loyalty. He explores how the narratives describe the physical appearance, miraculous achievements, and heroics of the imams. The importance of maleheirs, courage, strength, and skill in weaponry are all gendered themes of the imams as characterized in the biographies. Pierce analyzes how these qualities render claims of their legitimacy as leaders, observing how their portrayals also exemplify refinement and self-control. With the exposition of miraculous knowledge and actions, Pierce describes how the imams find victory in the spiritual realms while having experienced loss in the physical world. This chapter also features an important discussion of Fatima in the collective biographies and a fascinating and unique description of her pious female embodied performance sanitized of all female bodily imperfections (most specifically, blood). This last part of chapter four leads into the final chapter, which explores birth narratives in the collective biographies. These narratives form a unique center around which Shi‘is could celebrate and demonstrate communal devotion; it also established a divine ordainment through the transmission of prophetic light to the imams. Pierce explains that a unique aspect of Shi‘i hagiography is how the biographers labor to establish the imams’ mothers’ purity and chastity. His analysis of the sanitized bodies and bodily functions of these mothers is of particular interest. Part of the unique function of the imam is the transmission of his leadership to his successor and is revealed in the way in which the imams occlude the mothers in nurturing and caring for their newborn. These birth narratives underscore the Shi‘i claims of divinely appointed and rightful spiritual leaders, giving evidence to the community of believers that the imams were clearly designated from birth. Pierce effectively explores the Shi‘i community of memory and how these biographers established communal boundaries. His exploration of these primary sources with attention to literary analysis and genre specific themes and symbols is distinctive, and brings a different perspective into Islamic studies. Pierce’s analysis of gender ideals is also elucidating and could be explored more deeply in future work. It is also worth noting that within the body of the text, he predominantly references women scholars in his and related fields. Pierce successfully establishes the case for the crafting and defining of socio-religious Shi‘i identity via biographical texts whose key themes include loyalty, mourning, and justice for rightful heirs who were pure, ideal, and miraculous men.
 Nicole Correri, M.Ed., M.A.Hartford Seminary

This paper summarizes medical ethics in the military profession to raise military leaders’ awareness of Military Medical Ethics (MME) and the ethical issues that may impact their medical services and personnel. First, it summarizes core concepts, including the four principles of medical ethics (autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice), the two legal frameworks for the use of military force in war, jus ad bellum and jus in bello, and the concept of dual loyalty. It then examines MME issues during conflict, in garrison healthcare, and during the COVID-19 epidemic. Finally, it concludes by arguing that MME is an important domain of military ethics that should be taught to military leaders to complement the detailed education of MME for military medical professionals.

Apocalypse perhaps.

sgVrEWs Donald Beecher, ed. Critical Approaches to English Prose Fic­ tion 1520-1640. Ottawa: Dovehouse Editions, 1998. 366. $16 paper. Publications of the Barnabe Riche Society, Volume 9. Publications of the Barnabe Riche Society, an ongoing series of modernized texts of Renaissance prose fiction in English, was inaugurated by Donald Beecher in 1992 with his own edi­ tion of Riche’s His Farewell to Military Profession. Many ed­ itors of texts in the series participated with others in a con­ ference organized by Beecher at Carleton University on 8-11 May 1997, from which fourteen of the sixteen original essays in Critical Approaches to English Prose Fiction 1520-1640 have been drawn. The collection does not systematically illustrate critical approaches, as its name implies, but it does weave a rich tapestry depicting fiction before the novel. Beecher’s interest in the nature of early modern writing and reading informs many selections. His introduction finds in Renaissance defences of fiction no middle ground between Horatian delight and instruction, the former encouraging writers to appeal to “the unbearable lightness of women,” the latter, to “the utilitarian sobriety of men.” His essay on A Margarite of America, a romance tragedy that Thomas Lodge probably com­ piled aboard ship by imitating remembered models, especially revenge plays, describes “split-field” story-telling and reading, which beneath “cathartic immediacy” recalls literary and m yth­ ical prototypes. In other essays on the writing process, Regina Schneider finds “the structural device of retrospective narra­ tive” the key to Sir Philip Sidney’s complex process of revis­ ing the Arcadia, and John Butler suggests that the authors of seventeenth-century fiction, while starting from types, were de­ veloping strategies to give depth to their characters, who some­ times “have pasts,” “forget their ideality” when overcome by emotion, or change over time. ESC 28,2002 ESC 28, 2002 Women are studied as writers, readers, and characters. Julie D. Campbell examines intertextually Sidney’s Arcadia, Lady Mary W roth’s Urania, Anna Weamys’s Continuation of the Ar­ cadia, and the salon rituals of the aristocratic literary circles for which they were written. For Joseph Khoury the gossips’ speeches in the misogynist fabliaux of The Bachelor’s Banquet paradoxically demonstrate the failings of men and illustrate suc­ cessful strategies by which women resist their domination. To Goran V. Stanivukovic, the eroticism of Emanuel Ford’s Ornatus and Artesia and other popular prose romances promotes a new humanist ethics of male self-mastery leading to compan­ ionate marriage. Issues of audience foreground the economic realities that produced prose fiction in this period. Arthur F. Kinney ex­ amines the commercial appeals of authors and printers to the literate middle class; Roger Pooley studies prefaces addressed to different groups of readers of prose fiction ranging across most classes and both genders; and Richard Baskin analyzes Thomas Deloney’s appeal to the rising middle-class and his dif­ ficulties with the authorities, eased in his prose fiction by humor that covers the fissures between his simultaneous attack on and reinforcement of the social hierarchy. In contrast to these unex­ ceptionable summaries of current critical thought is Carmine Di Biase’s speculative, and sometimes strained, argument that in Greenes Vision, a dream dialogue with Chaucer and Gower, the fashionably repentant Robert Greene renounces the euphuism of his romances for the plain style soon to be revealed in his cony-catching pamphlets. Denying accusations that he wrote the anonymous, bawdy Cobler of Caunterburie, a work remi­ niscent of The Canterbury Tales, Greene nevertheless speaks through Chaucer to classify his readers. Greene associates eu­ phuism with both the “gravest” readers, puritanical critics rep­ resented here by the moralizing euphuism of Gower, and the “youngest and wantonnest” readers, the newly literate middle class that bought his euphuistic romances. He rejects them for those “wisest” readers who see the difference between his eu­ phuism and the lively colloquialism of The Cobler. Thomas Nashe’s The Unfortunate Traveller evokes three richly complex readings. Jennifer Turner sees Nashe as affirm­ ing his satirical art for the cheap print market not only by im­ 118 REVIEWS itating Pietro Aretino but also by characterizing Jack W ilton as a “spare page blown about Europe...