Ideological Currency Research Articles

Historicising the Monstrous: Georges Bataille’s ‘Les écarts de la nature’ (1930), Pronatalism and French Eugenics in the Interwar Period

Abstract In 1930, six teratological illustrations of children, victims of infant mortality or stillborn, appeared in the avant-garde magazine Documents. Nuancing the deconstructionist reception of the journal, this essay historicises Documents’ ‘monstrous’ children, returning them to the visual culture of interwar France to reinterpret their criticality. Once resituated within such an image economy, the avant-garde strategy that emerges hinges not on an ability to displace signification but on the legibility of an anxiety-laden motif, radically repurposed. Indeed, permeated by fears of impending depopulation, the image of the infant occupied charged territory in Third Republican France. Consequently, French eugenicists too anchored their rhetoric in this anguished terrain. When Documents intervened in France’s longstanding obsession with the child, its ideological currency was agitated. The political programme that it upheld was subverted. As Georges Bataille joyously announced alongside the teratological illustrations, all eugenics proved was that each ‘individual’, unable to meet its ultra-utopian ideals, is ‘a monster’.

Toward a Shared Ideological Currency: Ideological Affective Polarization & the Changing Structure of Ideology in the U.S.

Much scholarly attention has focused on partisan affective polarization, a growing animosity between Democrats and Republicans in the mass public. Less notice has been given to affective polarization among the ideological teams, liberals, and conservatives. Yet, we suggest that given ideology’s particular influence in U.S. politics, ideological affective polarization has important and distinct consequences. We begin by offering evidence that ideological affective polarization both exists and has increased sharply in recent years. We theorize that this shift alters the way individuals come to form attachments to ideological identities, as well as the structure and tenor of ideology in the United States.

Going above and beyond for your Beliefs: the Effects of Ideological Psychological Contract Breach and Fulfillment on pro-Social Rule Breaking

Ideological psychological contracts (PC) describe perceived obligations that relate to an organization’s mission, values, and principles, and they relate closely to employees’ self-concept. The ideological currency is prevalent across various professions and organizations. In this study, we argue that employees engage in corrective behavior (i.e., pro-social rule breaking; PSRB) in response to large discrepancies between obligated and delivered ideological inducements (i.e., ideological PC breach). We measure breach obligated and delivered ideological inducements separately to examine their different effects on PSRB. Based on prior theoretical models, we examine core self-evaluation (i.e., CSE) and include perceptions of ideological PC breach and fulfillment as antecedents of PSRB, as well as the role of CSE in the relationship between perceptions of ideological PC breach and fulfillment and PSRB. Our results suggest that PSRB negatively relates to both the breach and fulfillment continua, and delivered ideological inducements relates more strongly to PSRB than obligated ideological inducements. Moreover, CSE does not moderate the relationship between ideological PC breach and fulfillment and PSRB. These results further our understanding of how ideological PCs shape employees’ behavior. By examining the moderating role of CSE, we advance the PC literature by showing that ideological PC breach and fulfillment perceptions are better antecedents of PSRB than CSE.

Sustainability and ideology-infused psychological contracts: An organizational- and employee-level perspective

In this paper we explore sustainability-based ideology-infused psychological contracts (IPCs) from both organizational and individual-level perspectives. Better knowledge about how and when IPCs operate and the role of the organization's human resource management in that process is beneficial to firms that wish to capitalize on the positive outcomes resulting from IPCs while avoiding the creation of ideological obligations that they are unable or unwilling to meet (Rousseau & McLean Parks, 1993; Thompson & Bunderson, 2003). Organizations may show they care, through sustainable HRM strategies, and encourage ideological currency exchange in order to recruit and retain quality employees, increase organizational commitment, increase citizenship behaviors, strengthen identity, increase job satisfaction, and maintain a positive public perception and reputation. On the other hand, if an organization fails to fulfill an IPC it may lead to negative behaviors and consequences. We extended our arguments beyond the individual-level focus common to psychological contract theory, to include firm-level context. In doing so, we explain how an organization's efforts towards being more sustainable can connect employees to the organization through their IPCs, and moreover, through their IPCs, employees can connect to corporate goals. Finally, we advance current theory by exploring the underlying motivations that drive organizations and individuals to develop IPCs.

Psychological Contracts: Past, Present, and Future

We provide a review of psychological contract research, beginning with past conceptualizations and empirical evidence. We tailor this retrospective look by reviewing the antecedents and outcomes associated with psychological contract breach and discussing the dominant theoretical explanations for the breach-outcome relationship. This synthesis of past evidence provides the foundation for reviewing the present emerging and developing themes in psychological contract research. This discussion is organized around the expansion of resources exchanged and the antecedents of contract breach and outcomes, moving beyond reciprocity as an underpinning explanation. We highlight the practical implications of research to date on psychological contracts and end with directions for future research to include the need for greater attention given to ideological currency, employee health, polycontextual approaches, the role of psychological needs, and post-breach/violation.

Ideological Currency in the Psychological Contracts of Corporate Manufacturing Employees

Previous research on employee psychological contracts has focused on three different types of expectations that workers have of their employers: transactional exchange of economic currency, relational exchange of socioemotional currency, and, more recently, covenantal exchange of ideological currency. This last type of currency, however, has been studied almost entirely in nonprofit workplaces among employees in helping professions (e.g., healthcare, education) who hold advanced degrees. Although not explicit in the extant literature, the implication of such is that expressions of ideological currency may be limited to certain types of professions. In the present study, we therefore analyzed both white and blue-collar employees’ ideological expectations in a corporate, for-profit, manufacturing environment. Using 1492 responses to an open-ended question received from an email survey, we found that 36% contained an expression of ideological currency, with an additional 44.8% possessing a possible expression of ideological currency. Comparisons of these expressions reveal many similarities between white and blue-collar employees within this organization as well as between these employees and those found in the published literature from workers in other industries. We discuss the implications of these findings for theory and future research.

Visual representations of poverty

In spite of revolutionary advances in technology, the history of photography has been plagued with the same questions, with photographs proving problematic on more than one level. Two central and interrelated questions are recurrent. Firstly, to what extent do photographs provide ‘objective’ renderings of reality? And secondly, if visual representation is not an objective and disembodied process, how is it mediated by culture, reflecting and reinforcing wider societal beliefs. This is echoed in the choice of subject matter, editing and framing of narratives, with photographs becoming a kind of ideological currency. This paper questions ‘Western’ portrayals of Africa, focusing on photographic representations of the Kroo Bay slum in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Finding itself in a post-conflict situation and positioned between different actors who recognise the currency of photographs, the community is caught in a kind of proxy war. Whether consciously or not, whichever party can effectively manage how it is represented is in a position of relative authority to engage with and reinforce particular narratives—which may culminate in a strengthening of their own relative position in the form of increased donations and greater access. Representation, thus, eclipses reality and what we are left with are mere images of the truth. The end result in such a scenario is the further entrenchment of the status quo.

Ideological currency in psychological contracts: the role of team relationships in a reciprocity perspective

This study focused on the role of ideology in psychological contracts, which has been a neglected theme in psychological contract research. A study among Dutch middle managers in education revealed that ideological psychological contract fulfillment explained additional variance in relation to employee obligations toward the organization. Moreover, it was found that team relationships moderated the relations between some aspects of employer contract fulfillment and employee obligations, but no significant interactions were found between employer ideological fulfillment and team relationships in relation to employee obligations.

Research into the psychological contract: Two Australian perspectives

Despite their increasing relevance, employees' psychological contracts have attracted little research attention in Australia. The present paper presents two studies, which examined the psychological contracts of specific cohorts of professional employees and those in a managerial career track. The first study was an in-depth qualitative investigation of research scientists in an Australian public sector research organisation. They were found to have a strong professional affiliation and had developed psychological contracts that were best understood by reference to the ‘ideological currency’ of the scientific community. The second study was a quantitative examination of 156 MBA students at an Australian university, and how their psychological contracts could be related to perceptions of the contextual variables of organisational justice, perceived organisational support and external employability. Organisational justice and perceived organisational support were found to be related to the nature of the psychological contracts measured, but perceptions of external employability were not.

The Consuming Visions of Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-century Anarchists: Actualising Political Violence Transnationally

Pre-First World War anarchists blamed industrial society for denying its working class the share of the good life that was its due. Their critiques of their contemporary ‘regime of consumption’ were more than marginal to their views of a society they saw as upholding distributive injustice with the means of state violence. They conceived of a bourgeois system that had to be consumed and attacked with its own weapons: political violence. Hence the tactics of ‘propaganda by deed’ and ‘direct action’, the power of dynamite and later on syndicalist organisation appeared as appropriate means to overcome state-centred capitalist society and to usher in alternative ‘regimes of consumption’ based on cooperative or communist models allowing the producers to enjoy the fruits of their labour. Two of the most prominent German adherents of such visions, Johann Most and Wilhelm Hasselmann, were prompted to adopt the transnational propaganda of anarchist terrorism by their experience of state repression, exile and a series of terrorist events they associated themselves with. Siegfried Nacht, whose attitudes were heavily influenced by French syndicalism, sought to transfer older traditions of violent class struggle to the realm of economic terrorism. All their attempts at actualising political violence transnationally were marked by a desire to overcome weakness and the gap that separated visions of revolutionary acts and future societies from the starkly contrasting reality of their increasingly isolated and marginal political positions. The intellectual nexus between ‘political economy from below’ and contemporary practices of violence is crucial for understanding anarchist terrorism. Enemy images of parasitic consumers based on dichotomies between justified producer-consumers and criminal exploiter-consumers were part and parcel of its ideological currency. In countries with revolutionary trade union tactics the boycott is given emphasis and rendered more effective by the boycotting crowd threatening and damaging the goods, stockrooms and factories owned by those being boycotted, by smashing windows, by throwing stink bombs into department stores, which will chase away the clientele, sometimes even by smashing up and setting fire to the stockrooms. (Siegfried Nacht, Die direkte Aktion, 19071)

Let?s be professional about this: ideology and the psychological contracts of registered nurses

This study explores whether there is evidence of an ideological component in the psychological contracts of professional employees, as well as evidence of credible supporting commitments by their employer. Fundamental changes in the employment context have prompted many individuals to seek a closer alignment between themselves and their work, as well as with the organizational and broader societal contexts. For many professional employees identification with their professional ideology is a significant factor in producing such an alignment. The study uses an exploratory qualitative approach to analyse interview data collected from a sample of registered nurses employed in an Australian public hospital. The analysis identifies psychological contract terms best understood by reference to an ideological currency. It also suggests that the organization is perceived as obligated to provide credible support for that professional contribution, and the perceived lack of such support has significant impacts. The findings raise doubts about the utility of the concept of a psychological contract that recognizes only economic and socio-emotional exchanges for understanding the psychological contracts of professional employees.

The psychological contract of knowledge workers

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore whether the concept of psychological contracts underpinned by relational/transactional exchanges provides an adequate description of knowledge workers' contracts.Design/methodology/approachThe research approach uses interviews with ten scientists from within a pre‐eminent Australian scientific research and development organization, the Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).FindingsThe research strong evidence of an ideological currency within the psychological contract for this set of knowledge workers.Practical implicationsThe research raises questions over the role of normative occupation‐specific beliefs about work, and the sharing of common currency elements by individuals in the same organization within the same occupation. The analysis lends support to calls in the literature for a reconsideration of the transactional/relational interpretative framework that underpins the psychological contract.Originality/valueThis exploratory study lends support to calls in the psychological contract for the reconsideration of the cognitive‐perceptual definition of the concept and its transactional/relational interpretative framework.

The rebel, the lady and the ‘anti’: Femininity, anti-feminism, and the Victorian woman writer

Synopsis Anti-feminist journalists and women writers had a crucial role in contributing to the feminist debate in Victorian Britain. As an organized political movement Victorian anti-feminism significantly post-dated the rise of anti-feminist literature in the mid-century, which was born in response to first-wave feminism; it was not until half a century later, in the 1890s and 1900s, that campaigns such as the ‘Appeal against Women's Suffrage’ (1891) and political organizations like the National Women's Anti-Suffrage League (1908) came into being. Anti-feminist journalism and fiction thus had more in common with its feminist counterpart than with any distinct political movement from which it might have arisen. This raises the question of how productive the binary category ‘feminist/anti-feminist’ is in ascribing ideological currency to Victorian women's writing. Certainly the boundaries between feminist and anti-feminist positions were more permeable and fluid than might be assumed in the twenty-first century. In Victorian women's fiction, the figure of the woman rebel was invoked by feminists as much as by writers like Eliza Lynn Linton, Margaret Oliphant, and Mary Ward who, while distancing themselves from the political demands of first-wave feminism, promoted a measure of female independence in both private and public life. Dedicated feminist writers and political activists like Sarah Grand and Elizabeth Robins, on the other hand, could at times embrace distinctly anti-feminist positions. What unites feminist and anti-feminist writing of the Victorian period is its central concern with questions of femininity, each side laying claim to ‘authentic’ as opposed to the other camp's ‘artificial’, flawed, corrupted or unsexed femininity. This marked emphasis on femininity signals deep-felt ambivalences in the writers' identities frequently rooted in conflicting personal and professional roles. Thus Arabella Kenealy, a physician as well as a writer, depicted medical women as sexual neuters, and yet invested them with enormous physical strength and moral authority. In this article we will investigate the concept and performance of femininity as the central battleground between ‘feminist’ and ‘anti-feminist’ positions in order to explore the question of categorization that arises for any anthologizer—or digitizer—of Victorian women writers' (anti-)feminism.

Violations of Principle: Ideological Currency in the Psychological Contract

We recommend the inclusion of “ideological currency” in the psychological contract perspective in order to broaden the range of employee-organization exchanges that the perspective can accommodate. We differentiate ideological currency from other forms of exchange currency and develop a model that articulates the conditions under which the breach and violation of ideology-infused psychological contracts will likely occur. We conclude by considering the opportunities and challenges implied by the inclusion of ideology in the psychological contract.

Violations of Principle: Ideological Currency in the Psychological Contract

Violations of Principle: Ideological Currency in the Psychological Contract

The capitalism/socialism debate in East Asia

I S the capitalism/socialism debate obsolete with respect to East Asia? No empirical work hoping to inquire into the fortunes of capitalism or socialism in East Asia can progress until those concepts are related firmly to their ideological context. I shall argue that there are good grounds for supposing that that context radically alters perceptions of capitalism and socialism, and hence of any East Asian debate involving them. I see the question as having two layers. It poses a question for a social scientist as to the worth of certain explanatory tools for understanding East Asian society. Simultaneously it is a question about the East Asian uses of, and meaning to be attached to, capitalism and socialism as ideological currency. These two layers are distinct, but closely connected. My main thrust will be to argue that since capitalism and socialism do not have their standard Western meanings in East Asian ideological debate, they are inappropriate as explanatory tools--at least for the moment.