Core Social Institutions Research Articles

Re-purposing Universities: The Path to Purpose

As the extent of damage to environmental systems from our business-as-usual activity becomes ever more alarming, Universities as core social institutions are under pressure to help society lead the transition to a sustainable future. Their response to the issues, that they themselves have helped reveal, has, however, been widely criticised for being wholly inadequate. Universities can be observed to engage with sustainability issues inad-hocways, with the scale of attention and commitment dependant mainly on the level of pressure exerted by stakeholders that works to overcome aspects of inherent inertia. Sustainability initiatives can therefore be regarded mainly as bolt-ons. This mirrors how other sectors, including businesses, have tended to respond. As the environmental and social crisis mounts and the window for adaptive change to ensure long-term wellbeing for all narrows, the pressure for deeper systemic change builds. It is in this context that transformation to a “purpose-driven organisation” has emerged as a systemic approach to change, enabling an organisation to align deeply and rapidly with society's long-term best interest and hence a sustainable future. Nowhere has this concept been taken forward more obviously than in the business sector. As business leadership towards purpose becomes more apparent, so the lack of action in this area by universities appears starker. In this paper we clarify what it means to be a purpose-driven organisation, why and how it represents a deep holistic response to unsustainability, and what core questions emerging from the business world university leaders can ask themselves to begin the practical journey to transform their institutions into purpose-driven universities.

Subjective Wellbeing and the Social Responsibilities of Business: an Exploratory Investigation of Australian Perspectives

While the past decade has brought growing interest in and focus on the subjective wellbeing of society, there have been few empirical studies that have explored the social responsibilities, roles, and contributions of business, despite the pervasiveness of businesses as one of the core social institutions of modern societies. Through a survey of 1319 Australians, this study examines public perspectives of the social responsibilities of business to enhance subjective wellbeing. The findings suggest that the public does believe that businesses have some social responsibilities for subjective wellbeing. Exploratory analyses suggest that support is stronger for less privileged segments of the Australian public, and that a greater degree of social responsibility is expected for high-proximity stakeholders (e.g., employees) than low-proximity stakeholders (e.g., customers). Further, business activities that enhance subjective wellbeing may translate into desirable instrumental outcomes relevant to business performance. While findings need to be confirmed in other samples and using alternative study designs, the results suggest that ongoing policy debates on the various social determinants of societal wellbeing might benefit from incorporating consideration of the roles and responsibilities of business.

CSR for Happiness: Corporate determinants of societal happiness as social responsibility

AbstractOver the past decade, societal happiness has increasingly been considered important to public policy initiatives globally, supported by interdisciplinary scholarly efforts spanning the social sciences, economics, and public health. Curiously, despite for‐profit corporations being core social institutions of modern societies, scant attention has been given to the social role and responsibilities of corporations in relation to societal happiness. In this article, we review and integrate research from positive psychology and related disciplines to examine happiness as a social outcome of corporate activity. We propose that corporations have a social responsibility to respect, preserve, and advance people's right to, and experience of, happiness—which we term CSR for Happiness. Within the existing literature, stakeholder happiness has generally been narrowly conceptualized in hedonic terms and has failed to consider the broader impacts of corporate activities on societal happiness. Drawing on advances in psychological theory and research, we provide a holistic conceptualization of happiness, which includes objective, subjective, hedonic, and eudaimonic dimensions of happiness. We offer an integrative conceptual framework, which includes the macro‐to‐micro and micro‐to‐macro pathways through which corporations directly and indirectly impact upon societal happiness. Finally, we consider implications of happiness research for the intersections of business and society.

From socialization to individualization: a new challenge for Portuguese religiosity

Catholic Christianity, the official religion of Portugal, has always played a central role in the formation of Portuguese religious identity, offering a medium through which people could express their beliefs collectively. In the last decades, however, and especially during the recent socio-economic crisis, Portuguese religiosity is going through a process of individualization, where new forms of spirituality have become an active part of people’s everyday religious practice. Based on ethnographic field research in Lisbon, this article investigates the new challenge Portuguese religiosity has to face, while it gradually becomes disengaged from religious tradition, namely Catholicism, as it is learned through core social institutions (family, school), and moves towards non-denominational trajectories. It furthermore shows how, through this process of individualization, traditional religious webs and ties are rendered obsolete, while a novel form of spiritual socialization is developed.

Offline: The meanings of Brexit

Slavoj Žižek, in his 2014 book Event, perhaps describes the way many (certainly 16 141 241) people feel about our present Brexit moment: “the effect that seems to exceed its causes…an occurrence not grounded in sufficient reasons”. For those who voted to remain, it has been tempting to let emotion take (back) control—shock, sadness, anger, recrimination, blame. A forlorn feeling that maybe xenophobia, intolerance, racism, extreme nationalism, and even violence have emerged as new national values in post-Brexit Britain. The Science Media Centre collected a round-up of rapid reactions from the UK's medical and scientific elite. Venki Ramakrishnan, President of the Royal Society, said, “we must make sure that research, which is the bedrock of a sustainable economy, is not short changed”. Paul Nurse, Director of the Francis Crick Institute, noted that Brexit, “is a poor outcome for British science and so is bad for Britain”. Robert Lechler, President of the Academy of Medical Sciences, called Brexit, “a very disappointing outcome for medical science”. Although understandable, these responses were dispiriting. The “surprising emergence of something new which undermines every stable scheme” (Žižek) surely demanded reflections that were less self-absorbed. The “insufficient” causes and reasons of last week's vote suggest uncomfortable truths. The divisions between old and young, north and south, and England/Wales and Scotland/Northern Ireland threaten the cohesion of not only our four nations but also communities up and down the land. What is the origin of discontent among those who voted to leave the European Union? In one word—unfairness. For those with fewer resources and in the face of unemployment, deindustrialisation, urban decay, rural poverty, and the excesses of globalisation, there was a strong sense that governments and political institutions (such as those of the European Union) had turned their backs on those they purported to serve. Many people feel forgotten at best, ignored at worst—humiliated, alienated, dispossessed, and culturally lost. Brexit was a triumph for direct democracy. It exposed the failure of representative democracy. The chief question now is what does the UK stand for? A clue might be found in Magna Carta, one of the founding documents of our country: “To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay, right or justice.” Brexiteers were protesting that they had indeed been denied “right or justice”. Here is where the UK's medical and science communities have a crucial part to play. Medicine and science embody values of solidarity and society. The purpose of both, through health and knowledge, is to build stronger and more resilient communities, to provide foundations for the fulfilment of hope and aspiration. Our task must be to defend the 800-year-old promise of “right or justice”. That means delivering the right to the very highest attainable standard of health. It means attacking the social, political, and economic determinants of inequality. It means investing in children and young people as the foundation for a sustainable future. It means improving daily living and working conditions throughout the life course. It means restoring as best we can some measure of unity across geographies and generations. This task will not be easy, since the arguments that underpinned the Brexit campaign are inimical to a strong cohesive society. The Brexit dogma thrives on division and conflict. Boris Johnson, a leader of the Leave campaign and a potential future Prime Minister, put it this way in 2013—”some measure of inequality is essential for the spirit of envy…that is, like greed, a valuable spur to economic activity”. Those who led the Brexit campaign seek to build a society based on envy, greed, and inequality. They see these attributes as “essential” prerequisites for national success. Science and medicine urge something very different. The National Health Service is a core social institution that makes equity and altruism central values in our society. The response to Brexit from our scientific and medical leaders should be to widen the circumference of their concerns, not implicitly endorse a philosophy of competitive greed that some Leavers wish to foster. Instead, we should be strengthening our associations across society, encouraging a less selfish and more generous spirit in our public words, and promoting a more constructive internationalism that recognises that there is a slowly emerging world society, one that will depend on our full participation and engagement.

Posting and transfer: key to fostering trust in government health services.

Appropriate deployment or posting and transfer (P&T) of health workers – placing the right people in the right positions at the right time – lies at the heart of fostering communities’ faith in government health services and cementing the role of the health system as a core social institution. The authors of this paper have been involved in an ongoing transnational dialogue about P&T practices and determinants. This dialogue seeks to call attention to the importance of P&T as a health system function; to urge donors and policy-makers working in health systems, HRH and public administration governance to consider how to address issues around P&T; and to suggest avenues and approaches to research.P&T is a vexed and unresolved issue in many low- and middle-income countries that requires, above all, political commitment to improving public sector services and to new thinking and research. It holds promise as a focal point for inter-disciplinary collaboration in research and implementation that can inform other areas in HRH and health systems strengthening. Innovative social science and management theorizing, and iterative, locally driven interventions that focus on establishing transparent professional norms and building the credibility of government administration, including the health services, are likely the way forward.

Strong Family, Weak State: Hegel’s Political Philosophy and the Filipino Family by Lukas Kaelin

Reviewed by: Strong Family, Weak State: Hegel’s Political Philosophy and the Filipino Family by Lukas Kaelin Arjan P. Aguirre lukas kaelin Strong Family, Weak State: Hegel’s Political Philosophy and the Filipino Family Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press 2012. 236 pages. In this novel usage of the “family” in Philippine politics and society, Strong Family, Weak State: Hegel’s Political Philosophy and the Filipino Family presents an interesting take on the complex yet often taken for granted interplay between and among the existing, and perhaps even the emerging, modern institutions in the Philippines today. The novelty of Lukas Kaelin’s work comes from his convincing application of Hegelian political theory on these modern institutions: family, civil society, and the state. Using Hegelian concepts, the book reflects on the conceptual openings and concrete opportunities for social change that can be considered in light of the centrality of Filipino “family” in modern Philippine society. The author, Lukas Kaelin, is a critical theorist and political philosopher. He was assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy of the Ateneo de Manila University from 2006 to 2008. He has written papers and commentaries on the Philippines, which cover topics such as the ethics of organ donation and the migration of nurses, and the family and political dynasties in the public sphere. In 2009 Kaelin became a research fellow at the Institute for Ethics and Law in Medicine of the University of Vienna. He is currently a visiting scholar at Stanford University. Kaelin begins his work by locating the “family” in today’s political theory of modern political order. With the apparent dominance of the Social Contract theory, he interrogates the common understanding of the Social Contract tradition of political order, which privileges individualism, freedom, and constitutionalism in the structure and practice of modern politics, by understanding the unique role of the “family” in the emergence, [End Page 587] dynamics, and outcomes of modern political order. Despite the recognition of some thinkers of the family’s role in structuring and laying the foundations of the state, he claims that the family “remains marginal and structurally insignificant” (12). The author uses Hegel’s political theory to engage and go beyond this Social Contract tradition by examining and understanding how social institutions shape norms or practices. Mindful of the inherent challenge that faces political theorists and philosophers—which speaks of the problem of applying one’s theory to reality—his study contrasts Hegel’s political theory with that of the modern Filipino family so that it “sets itself in the tradition of understanding ethical life in the context of concrete culture” (16). Kaelin saw the “family” in Hegel’s political theory as a core social institution that is both necessary for the “reproduction of society” and “ability to foster freedom” (19), and he uses this political theory as his framework to think about the Philippines in terms of the “strong family, weak state” thesis. The use of the Hegelian idealization of family, civil society, and state provides a philosophical grounding to the centrality of the Filipino family vis-à-vis the state. Readers will easily notice the structure of Kaelin’s application of Hegel’s political theory through two discussion points: first, the points of divergence between the empirical accounts of the twenty-first century Philippine case and the Hegelian conceptualization of a nineteenth-century European society; and, second, the points of convergence between the Filipino family–state–civil society relations and Hegelian thinking on family–state–civil society relations. For the first point, Kaelin’s creative conceptual comparison between contemporary Philippine society and Hegel’s depiction of nineteenth-century European society involves the identification and elaboration of the differences in the institutions, dynamics, and outcomes of these two social orders. His intent is to draw insights from their unique and distinct characteristics, features, and tendencies, which to him might be useful in coming up with new possibilities and conceptualizations for modern-day society. As he points out, we can identify seven more or less related points on which the Hegelian conception of social organization can be compared to the Filipino one. Almost all of them point to the different weight, arrangement and interaction of the...

Post-conflict health reconstruction: search for a policy

Despite increasing experience in health reconstruction in societies emerging from conflict, the policy basis for investing in the development of equitable and effective health systems in the wake of war remains unsettled. Consideration of post-conflict health reconstruction is almost entirely absent in donor policies on global health. Practically by default, health programmes are seen increasingly as an element of stabilisation and security interventions in the aftermath of armed conflict. That perspective, however, lacks an evidence base and can skew health programmes towards short-term security and stabilisation goals that have a marginal impact and violate the principles of equity, non-discrimination, and quality, which are central to sound health systems and public acceptance of them. A better approach is to ground policy in legitimacy, viewing health both as a core social institution and one that, if developed according to human rights principles, including equity, non-discrimination, participation and accountability, can advance the effectiveness and the quality of governance in the emerging state.

Reconstructing Leviathan: Emerging contours of the security state

This article develops an account of the current emergence of the security state as successor to the liberal welfare state. It is argued that the security state heralds a new type of authoritarianism which, beginning at the periphery and pre-occupied with the management of the marginalized and socially excluded, is gradually infecting the core social institutions, the criminal justice system in particular. The article considers three areas in which the security state is emerging—the transition from welfare to workfare and risk management; new measures to combat terrorism and organized crime; and the blurring of warfare and crime control. The article concludes by stressing the mutually reinforcing effect of these developments.

Post‐conflict health reconstruction: search for a policy

Despite increasing experience in health reconstruction in societies emerging from conflict, the policy basis for investing in the development of equitable and effective health systems in the wake of war remains unsettled.1 Consideration of post‐conflict health reconstruction is almost entirely absent in donor policies on global health. Practically by default, health programmes are seen increasingly as an element of stabilisation and security interventions in the aftermath of armed conflict. That perspective, however, lacks an evidence base and can skew health programmes towards short‐term security and stabilisation goals that have a marginal impact and violate the principles of equity, non‐discrimination, and quality, which are central to sound health systems and public acceptance of them. A better approach is to ground policy in legitimacy, viewing health both as a core social institution and one that, if developed according to human rights principles, including equity, non‐discrimination, participation and accountability, can advance the effectiveness and the quality of governance in the emerging state.

Conceiving a Culture of Life in a Century of Bones: G. K. Chesterton and Malcolm Muggeridge as Social Critics

Conceiving a Culture of Life in a Century of Bones:G. K. Chesterton and Malcolm Muggeridge as Social Critics Adam Schwartz (bio) Poet Jill Baumgautner Perez has aptly labeled the twentieth century "a century of bones." But it was also a century of converts. Particularly in Britain, prominent intellectuals defied prevalent post-Christian cultural trends to profess orthodox Christianity, and especially Roman Catholicism, persistently. Among the first to swim the Tiber was journalist G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936), who ended a lengthy spiritual sojourn by becoming a Roman Catholic in 1922. In the century's twilight, another "vendor of words," Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–90), similarly brought a protracted pilgrim's progress to its end by entering the Catholic Church in 1982. Besides their chosen occupations and prolonged conversions, these two authors' lives and work had other crucial affinities. In particular, both men were acute social critics, an aspect of their thought that has received little comparative attention.1 Yet this scholarly deficiency should be rectified, for there are striking resemblances in Chesterton's and Muggeridge's critiques of what they saw as their day's dominant mores. Specifically, each thinker combated what he considered the materialistic ethic he associated with modern capitalism, one both of them deemed at odds with traditional Christianity [End Page 50] and corrosive of the core social institution, the family, especially as manifested in the eugenic impulse. Both men, in turn, regarded orthodox Christianity (particularly Roman Catholicism) as a convincing counterstatement to such apparently regnant, if destructive, civilizational currents. Elucidating these likenesses in Chesterton's and Muggeridge's outlooks will thus not only deepen understanding of each writer's thought, but will also suggest that disquiet with the acquisitive society and its cultural repercussions was a consistent concern of British Christian converts across the twentieth century's span. Chesterton: Early and Consistent Critic Chesterton's criticism of capitalism began in boyhood. As early as age twelve, he condemned capitalist industry's purported exploitation of the poor.2 This sympathy led him to favor socialism as an alternative to capitalism by the mid-1890s, as he then regarded socialism as a "passionate protest and aspiration: it arises as a secret of the heart, a dream of the injured feeling. . . . The intellectual philosophies ally themselves with success and preach competition, but the human heart allies itself with misfortune and suggests communism."3 He asserted contemporaneously that this sense of solidarity is at the root of Christianity as well, claiming that both Christianity and socialism are grounded in "a feeling of sympathy with the disregarded: of defiant protection of the simple, the aggregate, the anonymous."4 As Chesterton moved closer to orthodox Christianity in the first decade of the 1900s, he became somewhat more critical of socialism, but he continued to censure capitalism and to place compassion for the common man at the core of his faith, as he would for the remainder of his career. Once Chesterton began integrating some central traditional Christian teachings, particularly the doctrine of original sin, into his political outlook, he gained a new basis for his distrust of capitalism. Orthodox Christianity confirmed his dissent from what seemed the [End Page 51] modern veneration of wealth and the wealthy. As he explained in 1908, "the whole modern world is absolutely based on the assumption, not that the rich are necessary (which is tenable), but that the rich are trustworthy which (for a Christian) is not tenable." The reason it was untenable for this Christian was the doctrine of the Fall. To Chesterton, all people are inclined to be self-seeking, but those with more earthly goods and power are especially tempted to worship those gifts rather than their Giver: "the whole case for Christianity is that a man who is dependent upon the luxuries of this life is a corrupt man, spiritually corrupt, politically corrupt, financially corrupt . . . to be rich is to be in peculiar danger of moral wreck."5 This general indictment of the evils of riches eventually led Chesterton to reprove the specific philosophy behind capitalism on similar grounds. He held that thinkers like Adam Smith presupposed people to be naturally sympathetic and hence inclined to use their talents for the common...

Collective Bargaining in the Twenty‐First Century: A Negotiations Institution at Risk

Collective bargaining, a core social institution, faces a fundamental transformational challenge. National survey data provide unique insights into the current status of the bargaining process — revealing challenges and opportunities. Awareness and use of interest‐based bargaining principles is widespread but complicated by underlying tensions between labor and management. The findings illustrate the value of conducting an institutional‐level analysis of a negotiations process.

Achieving the MDGs: Health systems as core social institutions

Lynn Freedman argues that strategies for meeting the MDGs should be premised on an understanding of health systems as core social institutions that help define the very experience of poverty and citizenship. MDG 5 on maternal mortality provides a strategic entry point for addressing health systems.

Transforming health systems to improve the lives of women and children

Ambitious quantitative goals for reducing mortality and increasing access to health interventions are nothing new to the areas of child maternal and reproductive health. They are the standard fare of global declarations and national 5-year plans. They come. They go. What makes the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) different? With health firmly embedded in this wider poverty-reduction initiative which has garnered unprecedented consensus and support from governments and multilateral organisations the global health community has a rare opportunity to break through to new ways of thinking about the obstacles now blocking improvements in the health of women and children and to translate that thinking into bold new steps to meet goals 4 and 5 (table). For the UN Millennium Project Task Force on Child Health and Maternal Health the potential breakthrough lies in putting health systems at the centre of MDG strategies and in addressing these systems not only as delivery mechanisms for technical interventions but also as core social institutions—as part of the very fabric of social and civic life. In high-mortality countries today especially for the poorest populations health systems are frequently the source of catastrophic costs humiliating treatment and deepening social exclusion. But a different way is possible. Health systems can be a vehicle for fulfilling rights for active citizenship and for true democratic development—poverty reduction in its fullest sense. (excerpt)

Internal Mobility and Labour Market Flexibility in Russia

IN TIIIS ARTICLE WE EXPLORE the changing character of internal mobility in Russian industrial enterprises over the period of reform. First we discuss the dualistic character of the Soviet labour market, review the evidence for the rigidity of the internal labour market and report survey data that indicate a significant increase in internal mobility in the period of reform. Next we review qualitative data, based on work history interviews, to characterise the changing forms of internal mobility from the perspective of employees. Then we review the same phenomena as aspects of managers' employment strategies. The article concludes that increased employment insecurity has reinforced rather than reduced the dualism of the Russian labour market, but that there has been a significant growth of multi-skilling and multi-tasking as line managers try to preserve the core of the labour collective in the face of financial and employment constraints and as workers seek to protect themselves from redundancy by acquiring a range of skills. The cost of this increase in flexibility is an intensification of labour, a degree of de-skilling, and the 'closure' of the labour market. Dual labour markets in the Soviet system of production The ideal in the Soviet period was for the worker to find a suitable workplace and then to remain in the same enterprise or organisation for his or her entire working life. This was an ideal for the party-state, since the enterprise was the core social institution and the primary locus of social integration and social control. It was the ideal for enterprise management, because it encouraged the formation of a socially integrated labour force and the development of job-specific and enterprise-specific skills, while seniority, and the benefits associated with it, provided an essential lever of informal managerial control. But it was also an ideal for the worker, for many of whom the workplace was their second home and their workmates a second family. Although this ideal was not fully realised, and the regime indulged in frequent breast-beating about the problems of high levels of labour turnover, in fact by the 1980s labour turnover in the Soviet Union was not excessive, and was heavily concentrated among young people, who would wander around in search of a suitable opening, and unskilled workers and workers in low-paid low-prestige industries, who would be constantly on the look-out for something better. The norm of stability was reinforced by a number of quite substantial incentives to