Rituals in organizations

This article integrates material from the study of rites, rituals, and ceremonies to apply these constructs to the study of organizations. A brief history of the study of the constructs is offered. Theories concerning the components, types, and functions of rites, rituals, and ceremonies are described, followed by a survey of field research in organizations that applies these theories. Conclusions about the current state of knowledge in the field are followed by implications for future study.

This paper points to a rather strange asymmetry in the study of ritual: even if the ritual has been defined in the literature as essentially the place of action (in contrast to representations or beliefs), most research by sociologists and anthropologists has been aimed at the study of symbols and meanings, not of the practical way the ritual is carried out. This applies even to the study of political rituals. Starting from a procedural or morphological approach to meaning and action, this paper attempts instead to analyze a specific ritual event, the political oratory in a party congress, as a way of doing things together. The speech of the former leader of Pds, Massimo D'Alema, at the Congress of 1997 is examined, with careful analysis of the way the orator responded to applause. It is shown that this kind of ritual elicits two ways of participating, emotional and rational, and that any meaning attached to the event is rooted in the way it is performed by the orator and by the addressees-participants

The article concerns issues relating to family rituals, discussing them both from the theoretical findings, results of research and psychological functions, as well as therapeutic applications. After discussing the modern range of the concept of ritual, more than 60-year history of psychological research on family rituals in the world, mostly in the US, and the status of such research in Poland are presented. The existing definitions, classifications and attempts of operationalization of family rituals as well as research methods, including the structure of rituals and experiences gained from participation are discussed. In the final part the authors deal with psychological functions of family rituals.

During the past decade, archaeological studies conducted in the Seymareh River catchment area have provided invaluable findings for analytical investigations and, thus, gaining insights into various fields such as pottery, architecture, and multifarious cultural artefacts. Amongst the most significant of such archaeological findings are cemeteries with their cultural implications, which provide researchers—and particularly archaeologists—with an ample amount of knowledge on various aspects of ancient peoples’ lives, including the ideological, social, and economic structures and patterns of their societies. This article reports a study conducted on Cham Papi Cemetery, located in the middle of the Seymareh River catchment area. The said cemetery was discovered in the years 2014-2015 in the course of archaeological investigations, upon which researchers embarked upon exploratory endeavours aimed at identifying different cultural horizons and circumstances of this area during the proto-historic and historic periods. The main purpose of the study was to identify various habitat patterns and life circumstances in the Kaferi Strait (Tangeh Kaferi) during the proto-historic period by investigating the structures of the graves and the remnants of the human skeletons detected in this cemetery. Based on the existing evidence as well as the evaluations conducted through initial assessment of pottery exhibits, observation, documentation, and investigation of the environmental features, a purposeful excavation was initiated in 2017. The primary results concerning the remnants of this cemetery included an accurate map of the cemetery and a recognized style of grave structures and burial rituals in the Bronze Age. The pottery exhibits showed that Cham Papi Cemetery had been founded in the third millennium B.C., and it had been in use up until the beginning of the first millennium B.C. This article aims to present a summary of the key findings about the architectural structures as well as the cultural and anthropological features of Cham Papi Cemetery.

Because of the remote past, and insufficient literature, opinions were widely divided regarding the ancient rites of ”Di” and ”Xia” in all the past dynasties. The scholars of Eastern Han Dynasty were good at proper division into chapters and sentences and explanatory notes in ancient books, and were able to gather the advantages of classical style prose and modern style prose; however, Zheng Zhong, Zheng Xuan, and Wang Su had same or different opinions about ”Di” and ”Xia,” and they laid particular stress on diverse points. In Tang and Song Dynasties, the scholars adopted the attitude of correction and criticism for the theories of Han Dynasty, yet the exposition of each school was still varied. Hence, the interpretation of ”Di” and ”Xia” became more complicated.In Qing Dynasty, with the development of academic activities during the period under the reign of Emperor Qianlong and Emperor Jiaqing, the scholars followed and inherited the theories of Han Dynasty, there was the so-called tradition of domestic discipline and specialty, the study of rites had become a specialized scholarship, and the climate of texture research of study of rites took shape; generally speaking, the scholars that researched the study of rites could trace back the ancient classics, and take textual criticism as the approach of study. Hu Peihui of Jixi inherited the school of Anhui and the knowledge of family legacy, and he was objective at researching the study of rites; on the whole, he learned from Zheng Xuan to explain the classics; however, he still did make a lot supplement, textual criticism and mistake correction on Zheng's theory. Therefore, his method of citing ”examples” to research the study of rites is worthwhile to explore.In Hu's book of ”Q & A of Di and Xia,” he started from the textual research of system of ceremonial forms, institutions, decrees and regulations, inspected and made a survey of the examples of ancient classics repeatedly, and commented on Zheng Xuan's argument, desiring to present a reasonable argument of ancient rites of ”Di” and ”Xia.” The dissertation took three dimensions to expound the rite theory of ”Di” and ”Xia” in ”Q & A of Di and Xia,” namely, the definition of ”Di” and ”Xia,” putting ”Di” and ”Xia” into practice in accordance with the interval of the time, and the examination of ancient theory of Zheng Xuan; moreover, he added the opinions of several Confucianists in Qing Dynasty as indirect evidence to deliberate the similarities and dissimilarities. Generally speaking, Hu's observation for ”Di” and ”Xia” were distinct from the knowledge of Confucianists in Qing Dynasty and previous dynasties; he learned from Zheng Xuan, yet rebutted Zheng Xuan's theory, and his opinions were partially same as or different from the ancient theory; his intention of positioning ”Di” and ”Xia” actually has an unique value, and it may establish and prepare a theory for academic circles.

Venus rising, Furies raging: bodies redressed in contemporary visual art

There are numerous reports concerning Tibetan birth customs. In recent years, several scholars have also explored the fertility of Tibetan women living in high altitudes and the nutrition, growth and development of Tibetan newborn babies. Nevertheless, few scholars have engaged in thorough study of Tibetan childcare rituals. Tibetan childcare rituals provide solutions to various problems that parents and newborns may encounter prior to conception, during pregnancy and after childbirth. Focusing on a variety of childcare rituals that are collected in bKra shis 'dod 'jo, a text compiled by the famous rNying ma scholar Mi pham rnam rgyal (1846-1912) in 1908, this article investigates how the Tibetans, by way of implementing specific rituals, achieve the purpose of obtaining desirable offspring, e.g. through successful pregnancy, determining the sex of the fetus, rearing children, and so on.In total, there are four types of childcare rituals collected in bKra shis 'dod 'jo: rituals beseeching pregnancy, rituals beseeching a male fetus, rituals protecting children, and other similar rituals. The prerequisites and the methods of implementation of these four types of rituals are discussed. Through summarizing and analyzing the descriptions of these childcare rituals, this article explores the attitude of the Tibetans toward newborns, including the preferences, taboos, beliefs and social values regarding the continuation of life. bKra shis 'dod 'jo has presented a complete framework for diverse childcare rituals that are generally used among the Tibetan people. Its contents have not only vividly depicted the Tibetan values on giving birth and rearing children, but also opened a window for readers to explore the rich connotations of Tibetan birth culture.

The Impact of Hajj satisfaction and Hajj investment on Islamic Religious Commitment: The Case of Indonesian Hajj

Knowledge is organised into disciplines, each with its own limited perspective on reality and study methods. There is a fundamental difference between natural sciences based on a positive and descriptive approach and social sciences that are characterised by a normative drive. Theories elaborated by social scientists are always influenced by the values and subjective views of the researchers and, at the same time, policies derived from these same theories affect and modify reality. In the field of management studies, there are two main approaches: i) the scientific management approach, primarily developed in North America, that attempts to apply quantitative methods similar to those of the natural sciences to the study of organizations; ii) the approach developed in Central Europe and inspired by institutional theories. Due to historical reasons, in the North American approach, the concepts of management sciences, the principles of efficiency and organizational rational functioning have been, mainly and almost exclusively, applied to firms, the institutions of modern economy aimed at producing wealth. This approach has given birth to the model of Business Schools. In recent years, with the progressive application of management principles to other kinds of institutions, such as public administrations and non-profit organizations, this model has evolved and has often been identified with the new designation of School of Management. On the contrary, since the beginning of the 20th century, the European tradition in management sciences has developed theories and proposed best management practices applicable to different kinds of institutions (families, firms, public administrations, non-profit organizations). Until a few years ago in Italy there was a clear distinction between Universities in which the “institutional” European approach was prevalent and the non University School of management system in which scientific management and its application to the different organizational functions were prevalent. Nowadays, the two approaches appear to converge thanks also to the increasing number of young researchers and scholars educated internationally.

Despite highlighting the implications of resource over utilization and scarcity on social systems, recent studies under explore the impact of environmental stress on culture. Specifically, further research is needed to understand the importance of natural resources for ritual practices. This study utilizes structural ritualization theory to analyze historical periods characterized by ecological degradation and deritualization. The period examined corresponds to the former and latter Han Dynasties, a moment in time that saw the first universal history of China written and where discussion of ritual appears prominently in historical documents. In addition to primary texts, secondary sources are used to examine deritualization and the continuity, abandonment, and emergence of new ritual practices. The results demonstrate that despite periods of resource unavailability social rituals survive. By tracing the introduction of Chinese ceramics and burial practices into the Korean peninsula and Japan, we see the strategies human communities employ when they can no longer obtain needed materials to practice specific rituals. Key words: Structural ritualization, environment, dark ages, ritual.

Work-related stress has the potential to increase the risk of chronic stress, major depression and other non-communicable diseases. Organizational stress monitoring usually applies long-term self-report instruments that are designed in a retrospective manner, and thus, is obtrusive, time-consuming and, most important, fails to detect and predict short-term episodes of stress. To ad- dress this shortcoming, we apply design science research with the goal to design, implement and evaluate a stress management service for knowledge workers (stressOUT) that senses the degree of work-related stress solely based on mouse movements. Using stress theory as justificatory knowledge, we implemented stressOUT that tracks mouse movements and perceived stress levels randomly twice a day with the goal to learn features of mouse movements that are related to stress perceptions. Results of a first longitudinal field study indicate that mouse cursor speed is negatively related to perceived stress. Future work is discussed.

This study examines the function of rites performed by the Balinese in Lambodijaya village District of Lalembuu Southern Konawe in welcoming the Day of Silence. The objective of this study was to determine and to describe the process of implementation and functions of welcoming Nyepi ritual of Balinese in that region. This study applied a qualitative approach. Therefore, the process of data collection was done by means of field research. The data collected through in-depth interviews and observation. The ritual process consists of several stages, that are: a) the preparation for the ritual which includes the manufacture of ogoh-ogoh, manufacture ritual offerings; b) the implementation process of the ritual that consists of a series of specific rituals such as: Melasti ritual, mecaru ritual, panca sembah ritual, and pengrupukan. The ritual in welcoming the Day of Silence is a ritual that has many functions. Each stage of the ritual has their respective functions. Melasti ritual serves to cleanse the impurities present in humans, as well as cleaning stuff of temple in order they would be given strength or grace by God to live a life in subsequent years. Mecaru ritual is believed to be a harmonization of environmental ritual that human life can be balanced and buta kala, so the buta kala did not disturb people. Panca sembah ritual serves as a request for the maintenance of life, gets grace, salvation, and forgiveness of God. While pengrupukan serves to expel spirits that exist in the home environment and the rural environment, so that the people live in peace and harmony. Keywords: functions, rituals, Nyepi

In the media and research, Islam is often described as an amplifier of crime and a trigger for radicalization in criminal milieus. However, street criminals becoming religious is a social phenomenon that mostly deters crime. In the nexus where street culture meets Islam, Islamic rituals work as a resource of desistance. Informed by ritual studies and lived religion, this study explores the ritual practices of 25 Muslim men with a criminal background to provide new insights into the function of religious rituals for a specific social group. The participants’ experiences with street crime were shaped by hedonism, violence, and distress; they selected and performed Islamic rituals with the potential to change their lives. Their ritual practices, which I refer to as ‘desistance rituals’, were explicitly embodied, emotionally charged, and collectively performed and operated as a means of self-discipline, resocialization, and social recognition.

The justification of the notion of invisible hand entails the modeling of market coordination mechanisms to spell out how dispersed individuals act and interact in the market to finalize a resource allocation that is optimal in some sense. Walras (1900) for the first time provided such a formulation, in which the market coordination was modeled as an informationally decentralized communication process between a fictitious auctioneer and economic agents. This approach to modeling market coordination mechanisms has been widely applied to economic analyses, becoming the mainstream tradition of constructing general equilibrium models. For example, neoclassical economists have applied it to the analysis of resource allocation in environments with given networks of division of labor. Recently, the new classical economists, represented by Yang and Ng (1993), Sun, Yang and Yao (2004), Sun, Yang and Zhou (2004), etc., have also applied it to the analysis of individuals' decisions on labor specialization and the detemination of division of labor in human societies. The present thesis shows, while the Walrasian tradition is technically acceptable in the neoclassical models, it is less acceptable in the new classical model as the model is incomplete in the sense that the stability of the equilibrium can, analytically, be neither verified nor falsified. The thesis shows that the cause of this issue, brought up in the new classical model, is the non-single-valuedness of the aggregate excess demand function. To overcome this problem, the thesis proposes to abandon the Walrasian tradition and formalize the market coordination mechanism as an evolutionary game process in which individuals test and seek their fittest roles in the social network of division of labor through repeating real actions such as production and trading. These real actions are trials and errors through which people can obtain necessary information for them to revise their strategies so that the society can eventually reach the optimal state of resource allocation. It is shown in a simple model that such a dynamic process, when satisfying certain properties, can coordinate dispersed individuals' decisions with regards to labor specialization. This ensures an efficient network of division of labor and the required properties can be easily realized when individuals in the economy revise their strategies according to some ordinary rules. These analyses result in an evolutionary theory of division of labor. The thesis further applies the evolutionary theory of division of labor to a puzzle of economic history: the bifurcation in growth between China and Western Europe. The economic growth model proposed in this thesis shows that the separation of scientific research from material production, which resulted in the appearance of professionalized scientists in human societies, has significant impact on knowledge creation and economic growth. As a result, knowledge accumulation and economic growth in a civilization can be influenced by the dynamic process of the separation of scientific research from other productive activities. The bifurcation in economic growth between different civilizations, such as the rise of Europe and the fall-behind of China, can thus be explained by the differences in exogenous factors, such as the natural and geographic environments, between civilizations, for different natural and geographic environments had fostered different evolutionary processes of division of labor.

L’esperienza docente descritta e analizzata in questo articolo è stata portata a termine con 52 studenti frequentanti il Corso di Laurea in Scienze della Formazione dell'Università di Barcellona, anno accademico 2017-2018. Le docenti applicano all’aula di Didattica della Storia una programmazione basata sull’apprendimento teorico e pratico del metodo storico e l’analisi ed interpretazione delle fonti primarie. Gli studenti hanno potuto sperimentare il rapporto dei contenuti sostanziali della conoscenza storica con quelli procedurali e metacognitivi, esercitandosi su tre aspetti dell'analisi euristica: descrizione, classificazione e valutazione dei criteri di autenticità delle fonti; contestualizzazione; comprovazione della variabilità di narrative possibili. Così, le docenti hanno disegnato un percorso didattico che ha inciso sulla concezione dei futuri insegnanti e la loro comprensione della storia come disciplina e come materia.