Non-material Values Research Articles

The optimisation of technological processes on basis of technological efficiency analysis

Technological process is a basic determinant of correctness of industrial company's functioning on the market. Analysis conducted in this thesis includes hypothetical and technological processes of producing typical machine pieces. Within their scope also the non-material parameters of technological process have been taken into account, which resulted from arts of applied samples and projecting of the technological process. One has worked out an application that allows analysing the efficiency of technological process in aspect of non-material values and has used neural networks to verify particle indicators of quality of a process operation. Indicators appointment makes it possible to evaluate the process efficiency, which can constitute an optimisation basis of particular operation. As a result of this analysis gained data enabled to optimise the technological process by estimating influence of the analysed parameters on the whole of process and optimisation conducting of any process. [Received 19 November 2005; Accepted 25 January 2007]

Wykorzystanie metod programowania neurolingwistycznego (NLP) w kształtowaniu kultury organizacyjnej biblioteki

Neuro-linguistic programming is one of many methods used in the West to influence people’s attitudes towards work, their way of thinking and the motivation to work. Its originality stems from the fact that the method appeals in the main to non-material values such us: service orientation, social usefulness of one’s work, the sense of duty and satisfaction it gives, the resulting feeling of one’s high self-esteem. The NLP is included in the broadly-understood organizational culture applied in a given firm or an institution. The author maintains that thus understood neuro-linguistic programming can find its application in modem library practice and significantly improve modernization processes within its organizational culture.

The political economy of a productivist agriculture: New Zealand dairy discourses

The New Zealand dairy industry faces political and commercial pressure to improve its environmental performance on the one hand while maintaining economic efficiency and commercial competitiveness in a global marketplace on the other. The growing scale and intensity of dairy production have caused significant cumulative environmental impacts. The industry response to political pressures for improved environmental performance has involved a narrow focus on water quality and pasture management. It is consistent with an approach which seeks to maintain size and industrial leverage in the face of global trade competition. This paper explores the productivist constructions of environmental management by the New Zealand dairy industry in the context of global economic competition and notes an alternative response inspired by an ethic of sustainability. It suggests that despite global pressures of economic competition, it is possible to incorporate non-material values into farm management provided these are recognised and rewarded.

The non-material cost of bandwagoning: The Yugoslav crisis and the transformation of Russian security policy

The decision to balance against or bandwagon with the United States is heavily influenced by non-material values, especially the perceived status and prestige of the major powers. As a test case, this essay examines the nexus between the US, Russia, and Yugoslavia during the early 1990s. Russia's initial pro-Western foreign policy gave way to a new grand strategy emphasizing Russia's great power status and the independence of its foreign policy. Heavily influenced by non-material values, especially the perceived status and prestige of major powers, the Kremlin's initial, pro-Western foreign policy was deemed unacceptable by a broad spectrum of Russian foreign policy elites not primarily because of perceived threats to Russian security interests, but rather because its Western alignment was seen as incompatible with Russia's desired status as a great power. The emphasis on balancing against the United States continues to this day, corresponding to discontent with the unipolar international system. Why did Russian grand strategy change? What were the long-term effects for Russo-American relations? What, if anything, can the United States do to avoid future balancing behaviour in the other major powers?

"A Dynamic, Not a Static Conception": The Conservation Thought of Roderick Haig-Brown

As the foremost conservationist in British Columbia from the late 1940s to the late 1960s, the internationally known fishing writer, magistrate, and naturalist Roderick Haig-Brown (1908-1976) fought conservation battles and promoted ecological ideas during a period of aggressive industrial expansion into the province'sresource frontier. This article explores Haig-Brown's conservation ideas and argues that they defy the often sharp categorization by historians of the philosophies underlying conservation and environmentalism. It identifies and discusses three phases in his conservation thought: the modern sportsman ethic, critical resourcism, and ethical conservation. Although he was born and raised in England, Haig-Brown developed his philosophy in the particular social, cultural, political, and environmental context of the mid-century Pacific Northwest. Subsequent readings of Haig-Brown as simply a romantic conservative ignore the dynamic quality of his ideas as they changed during his career. Like the American ecologist Aldo Leopold, Haig-Brown transcends the earlier, utilitarian conservation ideas and the ethical, nonmaterial values associated with environmentalism. This examination of his ideas suggests that the analysis of these movements as ideologically distinct or linearly developed obscures the importance of local variants and historical context.

Risks and chances to market recreational and environmental goods and services — experience from 100 case studies

The main objective of the research project is to develop market solutions and strategies for various forest outputs, which are considered to be not, or hardly, marketable. The phenomenon of ‘public goods’ is considered under dynamic conditions, in which marketability is rather a matter of product and framework development than of objective circumstances. Solutions were found on the basis of 98 case studies, field developments in cooperation with forest landowners and on literature studies. The RES products are mainly offered at market-oriented prices. With the broad field of services the creative possibilities with regard to the height and the mode of price-incline are much larger in comparison to mass products. Market development depends on contracting ability and existing transaction organization. The relationship between the character of products and the chosen form of contracting and distribution is shown on the basis of transaction–cost theory. Household surveys show that the acceptability of pricing can be quite high, depending on the kind of offer. In this context, it is important to differentiate between public opinion and specific user-group opinions. Finally, some basic ideas are presented on how the marketability of hardly marketable or so-called public goods can be improved. In this context, the market aspect of non-material values, the conditions of market development, the complexity of products and the human factor in marketability are discussed.

Mapping the Norwegian Political Space

This research note reports the results of an expert survey on party positions in Norway in 1998. This was a partial replication of the 1989 survey conducted by Laver and Hunt (1992). The survey results are used to describe important aspects of Norwegian party competition, including issue ownership and the dimensionality of the Norwegian political space. These results indicate that important elements of the centre-periphery cleavage are now much more aligned with the overall left-right dimension than was the case in 1989. The convergence of positions of the Socialist Left and Center parties is not surprising, given the extensive cooperation between them during the 1994 campaign debate on EU membership. The emphasis on non-material values in the 1997 campaign further contributed to the importance of moral issues for the second dimension in Norwegian politics. The mismatch between traditional party alliances and current party positions has made the process of government formation quite problematic.

Values, Ethics, and Attitudes Toward National Forest Management: An Empirical Study

This study measures environmental values and ethics and explores their relation ships to attitudes toward national forest management. The principal research methods were literature review and a survey of Vermont residents concerning man agement of the Green Mountain National Forest. Descriptive findings suggest respondents (1) favor nonmaterial values of national forests, (2) subscribe to a diversity of environmental ethics, including anthropocentric and bio-/ecocentric, and (3) support emerging concepts of ecosystem management. Environmental values and ethics explain approximately 60% of the variation in attitudes toward national forest management.

Nature Conservation in England and Germany 1900–70: Forerunner of Environmental Protection?

Nature plays a significant role in the discussion for and against modernism, which got under way from the late eighteenth century onwards. The rationalists of the Enlightenment considered not only human nature, but also the whole uncultivated realm of nature beyond, that of the animals and plants, as wild and dangerous. It should, according to them, be tamed for the benefit of mankind and put to use. Thus they laid the ideological foundations that made possible the unrestrained exploitation of natural resources for the free development of the market and specifically for industrialisation, ie for material and ideological modernisation processes. The Romantics, on the other hand, emphasised the importance of non-material values. In their view the inherent and irretrievable beauty of nature should not be sacrificed on the altar of utilitarianism. A century later the critics of unrestrained economic modernisation expanded on the Romantics' view. They criticised the ‘tumours’ of industrialisation, urbanisation and materialism, advocating greater preservation of the wilderness and, indeed, of agrarian land and the rural way of life. For them, such things were not just symbols of originality, beauty and health, but were also part of the ‘national character’. They were unique treasures, unlike replaceable material interests. Nature, as a source of raw materials, became a multifunctional cultural heritage. ‘Materialism’ and the idea of progress, the central characteristics of modernisation, were challenged by criticism of civilisation and by historicism. Thus the basic cultural and political camps were established, but also the decisive ideological preconditions for the emergence of a nature conservation movement.

Freiwillige, gezielte Reproduktionsbeschränkung beim Menschen - ein Widerspruch zur modernen Evolutionsbiologie?

In western industrialized countries it is widespread to limit individual reproduction voluntarily and deliberately. This phenomenon of minimizing reproduction conflicts with the maximization of biological fitness, expected on the basis of sociobiology. Some positions and attitudes of demography and sociobiology that appear to be contradictive are critically discussed, and with several examples it is expounded that we are dealing with misunderstanding rather than inconsistencies in many cases. The majority of misunderstandings can be put down to an inadequate differentiation between proximate and ultimate levels of causation. However, proximate interpretations of the problem of minimizing reproduction from a sociobiological perspective are frequently unsatisfactory. Therefore, the demographic model of "competing pleasures of life" (Konkurrenz der Genüsse) was connected with evolutionary biology. Combining demographic and biological aspects reveals that human striving for material and non-material values (pleasures of life), originally was highly adaptive and fitness-enhancing as behaviors to acquire resources and secure social status. Not until a society offered a variety of behavioral and consumer alternatives and simultaneously sophisticated methods of contraception these behavioral patterns dissociated from their function of survival and became independent.

Making foster care possible: A study of 307 foster families in Victoria

Why in times of economic hardship do some families continue to offer to help others in the form of foster care? Can an understanding of foster families improve the targeting of foster programs? This paper presents findings from a study of more than 300 foster families from seven foster care agencies throughout urban and rural victoria. The families who currently choose or are chosen to foster are most likely to be dual parent, stable and settled Australians with an active connection and commitment to their local community and to family life and children. They do not appear to be motivated principally by rational monetary incentives but rather by a mixture of a belief in the benefits of family experiences, a strong desire to have and nurture children, a willingness to share tasks as a family unit, to both give and receive support and a conviction to be of service to others. It is concluded that foster families are not only child and family centred, they are part of active and reciprocal family and community networks that focus upon the needs of children and non-material family values.

The Soviet Executive

The role of the state and the political system under socialism is exceptionally great. The condition of the economy and culture and the betterment of the people's well-being depend on them to an enormous degree. All social wealth and material and nonmaterial values are the product of the creative labor of all the people. But the success and effectiveness of this labor are to the maximum degree determined by its social organization, by the level of management of various aspects of social life. Therefore, society and all its members are keenly interested in the effective work of the state apparatus and the mechanism for governing the nation.

Requirements, Consumer Demand, and a National Economic System for Satisfying Them

Marxist economic science proceeds from fact that subjective needs of people for one or another product, service, or nonmaterial value are determined by their objective living conditions, which are associated with process of social reproduction. The formation of concrete requirements is conditional upon production of material goods and subsequently upon their reflection in form of corresponding aspirations. In imagery of Karl Marx, the object of art - something similar occurs with any other product - creates a public that understands art and that is capable of enjoying beauty. Production therefore produces not only an object for subject but also a subject for object.(1).

The Role of the Working Class of the USSR in Supplying Managerial Personnel for Socialist Industry (1917-1936)

The socialist revolution awakened the many millions of the working population to creative activity and placed at the helm of government the true creators of all material and non-material values. The prophetic words of the proletarian hymn: "We who have been naught, we shall be all," have been realized. In the annals of the heroic achievements of the working class of the USSR, one of the most important places is occupied by the history of the establishment of Soviet economic managerial personnel. Step by step, while breaking down the ferocious resistance of the deposed classes and employing the technical knowledge of the bourgeois specialists, the most advanced workers, led by the Communist Party, learned to master the exceedingly complex art of managing industry.

5. Public Personnel Selection and Value Theory

A positive relation probably holds between tenure and efficacy of public servants, and preferences for non-material values. A test along these lines would provide government service with a screening tool.