Place attachment,residential satisfaction,and life satisfaction: Traditional and renewed kibbutz

Economic crisis in the early 1980s, followed by heavy debt, challenged the existence of the kibbutz. In order to prevent disintegration, rigorous privatization-related economic and structural reforms were implemented. In this study, we evaluate if these transformational changes affected the perception and emotional ties of kibbutz members. Specifically, we examined differences between traditional and renewed kibbutz in terms of life satisfaction, place attachment, and residential satisfaction. The results indicated that members of the renewed kibbutz reported higher levels of place attachment than those of the traditional kibbutz. However, no significant differences were observed for residential satisfaction and life satisfaction. Moreover, place attachment and residential satisfaction were significantly associated with life satisfaction. Finally, kibbutz type moderated the indirect effect of residential satisfaction on life satisfaction through place attachment.     

Juggling resistance and compliance: The case of Israeli ultra-orthodox media

In an attempt to examine how resistant discourses are constructed in a highly conservative society, this article presents four discursive forms of resistance used by an Israeli ultra-orthodox Jewish magazine juggling between compliance and resistance in its attempt to subvert hegemonic rabbinical authority. These resistance forms are: cushioning, discursive hybrids, explicit provocation and trivializing. Based on a qualitative content analysis of 229 articles published in the weekly magazine Mishpacha (Family), the study seeks to contribute to the existing literature on resistance in and around organizations by exposing the complex and heterogeneous nature of discursive resistance in authoritarian-religious environments. Furthermore, the paper offers a glimpse into the ways that a social group within a religious society resists authority though without shattering its ideological basis.     

Varieties of multi-stakeholder governance: selecting legitimation strategies in transnational sustainability politics

Multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) are often referred to as the ‘gold standard’ of private governance. However, existing MSIs vary strongly in their institutional designs and the ways in which they use inclusiveness, procedural fairness and, expert-based strategies to create legitimacy for their rules. This article investigates these institutional choices. It reviews arguments about demand from legitimacy-granting audiences, isomorphic pressures, and the role played by institutional entrepreneurs, and intergroup bargaining. It explores these mechanisms in an empirical investigation of the formation of three MSIs in the field of sustainable agriculture. Its findings advance our understanding of the conditions under which MSIs adhere or depart from normative ideals of democratic governance.     

Corporate corruption of the environment: sustainability as a process of compromise

A key response to environmental degradation, climate change and declining biodiversity has been the growing adoption of market principles in an effort to better value the social good of nature. Through concepts such as ‘natural capitalism’ and ‘corporate environmentalism’, nature is increasingly viewed as a domain of capitalist endeavour. In this article, we use convention theory and a pluralist understanding of social goods to investigate how the social good of the environment is usurped by the alternate social good of the market. Through analysis of interviews with sustainability managers and corporate documentation, we highlight how organizational actors employ compromise to temporally settle disputes between competing claims about environmental activities. Our findings contribute to an understanding of the processes of empirically grounded critique and the under‐theorized concept of compromise between social goods. Rather than protecting the environment, the corporate promotion of sustainability facilitates the corruption of the social good of the environment and its conversion into a market commodity.     

Making sense of sustainability through an individual interview narrative

This paper closely examines how a particular individual makes sense of sustainability and how detailed analysis of enactments of sustainability at the individual level can contribute to understanding organisational-level enactment of sustainability practices. Taking a narrative approach, this paper selects and analyses one interview to understand how that person is responding to sustainability initiatives in her organisation. The findings suggest that the complex processes of meaning construction that underpin the enactment of sustainability involve identity validation, narrative support and reduction of polysemy. The paper argues that to boost the chances of success when implementing sustainability, organisations need to establish discursive space to engage with and support these three processes of sense-making. Methodologically, the paper demonstrates how a single interview/narrative can be analysed to progress the understanding of a complex, ambiguous and paradoxical problem like sustainability.     

Supporting the sustainability of Mad Studies and preventing its co-option

Mad Studies is emerging as a new force in ‘mental health’ discourse and developments. Given the way in which other would-be progressive developments associated with attempts to include experimental knowledge in this field, such as ‘recovery’ and ‘peer support’, have been subverted, this article considers whether it is possible for Mad Studies to avoid this. Drawing on developments in Disability Studies and in relation to the social model of disability, we explore what can be done in order to safeguard the distinctiveness of Mad Studies and foster its unique contribution.     

The Symbolic Type Revisited: Semiotics in Practice and the Reformation of the Israeli Commemorative Context

Revisiting Grathoff's theory of symbolic type (ST), we examine the personal evolution and commemorative work of Tsipi Kichler, a cultural entrepreneur and founder of an alternative Israeli Holocaust museum/geriatric center. As hybrid product of Israeli social cleavages, Kichler exteriorizes her paradoxical vision in the museum aiming to reform Holocaust‐related discourse and practice. Early biographical positioning and resultant contradictions become translated into resistant commemorative performance where serious humor deconstructs the binaries of life/death and past/present. We consider the implications of the ST's self‐referential closure to interaction, and the transformative potential of the alignment of cultural entrepreneurs' personal memory with collective memory.     

Metasystem transitions in human organizations: a route towards global sustainability

Abstract

This article deals with the problem of understanding the relations between viability and sustainability in the context of social metasystem transitions occurring in a global environment. To this aim the subject of Organizational Synergetics is introduced. A refinement of Stafford Beer's viable system model is proposed and the distinction is made between local sustainability and global sustainability, the latter seen as an undecidable property of the global system comprising both the system in focus and its environment. Finally, based on the concept of a viable holonic network, a strategy and a general heuristics for attaining global sustainability are proposed.     

Climate,class and culture: political issues as cultural signifiers in the US

Since the 1970s, social scientists have argued that general pro‐environmental attitudes have diffused throughout American society, rendering socio‐demographics largely irrelevant in predicting support for such issues. The public reaction to the issue of climate change, however, is an exception to this narrative. While media bias, ideological framing, and business influence are often invoked to explain public apathy, I argue that ignoring class and culture in determining why climate change is so divisive is a potentially significant oversight. Using the cultural theory of Bourdieu, I examine how the conception of and reaction to climate change varies with economic and cultural capital using data from 40 interviews of Boston‐area respondents. The results suggest that climate change may indeed be a ‘classed’ issue – both in how the respondents conceive of it in the first place, and how they speak of social class in the context of it. The results suggest that social scientists should go beyond rational‐choice and media framing explanations, to take two prolific examples, in exploring how disagreements on the importance of climate change persist in the US.     

Between the Social and the Personal: Israeli Male Gay Parents,Surrogacy and Socio-Political Concepts of Parenthood and Gender

This work focuses on the effects of dominant concepts of parenthood and gender on gay men who became parents through surrogacy. Based on the analysis of 39 in-depth, semistructured interviews with gay fathers, we show that gay fathers' parenting experiences are shaped by the heteronormative discourse on parenthood, yet they resist its gendered attributes. Gay parenthood is revealed as confronting the social concepts on parenthood, in particular on motherhood, and their socio-political meanings. The tension between the social concepts and the participants' perceptionsy leads them to confront their social environment and to construct alternative discourse to the social discourse of parenthood and gender, suggesting that gay parenthood subverts under existing concepts of parenthood, gender and their meanings within the state.     

Gender,social change,and the professions: The case of pharmacy

This paper examines the nature of increasing female entry into the profession of pharmacy. Using data from a survey of Ontario pharmacists, it compares the work experiences and career paths of 668 men and women in the profession. In terms of hours worked, where they work, and the nature of the work that they do, we found considerable differences between males and females that are becoming increasingly pronounced as more women enter the profession. These findings are then discussed in terms of available theories of gender, professions and social change.     

From Generation to Generation: Intergenerational Relations in the Kibbutz

The first kibbutzim were established at the beginning of the twenetieth century. This short history allows us to trace the outline of generations. The second generation followed the practices of the founders, but without their ideological dedication. The third generation did not accept the kibbutz lifestyle, and many left. Those who stayed implemented changes, which ensured the continuity of the community, but at the cost of abandoning some original kibbutz values. Since the turn of the century, the youngest generation has been returning, but now to a different kibbutz, one based on principles that meet their needs while ensuring the sustainability of the community.     

Asian urban sustainability in the era of globalization

The process of achieving urban sustainable development is uncharted. We only know that plans should address the economic, environmental and social health of the city and this task can only be accomplished by approaching each of these issues at different scales. For rapidly developing world cities, “sustainability” is becoming an increasingly elusive objective, in part, because of impacts by forces beyond their borders. Using the Asia-Pacific region as a case study, a framework relates regional transnational flows to the state of the urban environment and the social conditions of linked rapidly developing cities. The “functional city system” within the Asia-Pacific increasingly is both the engine of urban growth and the force behind differentiating urban environmental and social issues. At the same time, while globalization forces have been particularly strong within cities in the Asia-Pacific, local factors also play a crucial role in urban development. Globalization driven growth has not translated into a single path of development, rather localities have demonstrated contextually specific paths.     

Negotiating Sustainability: Climate Change Framing in the Communications,Energy and Paperworkers Union

Environmental problems are often reduced to a catch‐22 that portrays sustainability‐oriented policies as disastrous for resource sector workers. Despite efforts by many industry leaders to frame climate change in “jobs versus environment” terms, the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP) has supported ambitious greenhouse gas reduction policies. Using interviews with union members and staff, this study examines CEP's climate change framing. It finds that CEP extended the environmental justice master frame to define its response to climate change, neutralize anti‐Kyoto rhetoric, and work with the environmental movement. CEP's framing was accomplished through negotiation processes that continue to unfold as members work out the union's positions relative to their own values, experiences, and interpretations of what is possible. These findings suggest sustainability can be understood as an emergent, localized, and contested social order, and point to “self‐negotiation” in longer‐term social change struggles as a potential area of further study.     

Engagement with sustainability at the International Labour Organization and wider implications for collective worker voice

Sustainability objectives have been recognized by the ILO primarily in terms of the impact of environmental protection in the form of “just transition” and “green job” initiatives. Arguably, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) now offer richer scope for ILO engagement with social sustainability. This can be attributed to the prominent recognition of “decent work” in SDG 8 and the need for “responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels” in SDG target 16.7. This article examines how the ILO could further promote collective worker voice in the context of debates over a sustainable “future of work”, particularly considering to whom voice is given and how it is exercised.     

Financial capacity and sustainability of ordinary nonprofits

This article divides financial issues into capacity and sustainability in two time frames: long and short. Long term emphasizes maintaining services; short term emphasizes resiliency. An organization's long‐term financial capacity is sustainable if its rate of change is sufficient to maintain assets at their replacement cost. A key contribution of this study is a sustainability principle that gives managers short‐term budget surplus targets needed to achieve this objective. The formulas are applied to national data to give a picture of the sector and establish benchmarks for “normal” practice. “Ordinary nonprofits” are active public charities without endowments that are not primarily membership associations or grant makers.     

Case study for evaluating campus sustainability: nitrogen balance for the University of Minnesota

American ecologists recently began to address the ecology of cities. Concurrently, higher education institutions have developed sustainability education programs and instituted sustainability policies and projects. This paper draws together these two disparate areas by examining the nitrogen (N) budget of the Twin Cities campus of the University of Minnesota. We addressed the question: what were the annual inputs, outputs and internal cycles of N on the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus? We found that 508 Mg N yr-1 were brought into the campus and 494 Mg N yr-1 were emitted from the University of Minnesota campus. The largest N inputs were abiotic fixation (conversion of N₂ to NO_x by combustion) and food for humans and animals. The largest N output was NO_x, followed by wastewater. Our results expand the understanding of the ecology of institutions within an urban area and provide an opportunity for improving urban ecology education and environmental policy at educational institutions.     

Professions in periods of social change: the case of architectural discourse and design

This article examines how professions behave in periods of social change. The article considers whether professions take positions vis-à-vis broader social discourse, and explores the relationship between the professions’ positions and those of the government. The article examines these questions through the case of the Israeli architectural profession’s behavior after the 1967 war in both the newly occupied territories, over which Israeli control is under dispute among Israeli Jews, as well as the pre-1967 areas, in which Israeli sovereignty enjoys a consensus among Israeli Jews. The article traces both design and construction activities, as well as the discourse that followed in their wake. The article’s conclusion is that changes in professional discourse are a way to understand the profession’s position regarding a given set of social changes. We argue that the transition from an inward-facing professional discourse to an outward-facing professional discourse that addresses the larger society is both an indication of that profession’s condition as well as the condition of the social group to which it belongs.     

The role of corporate social responsibility in strong sustainability

The aim of this paper is to analyze to what extent corporate social responsibility (CSR) contributes to strong sustainability, i.e. to what extent the use of natural resources and the environment is possible, given the current level of economic activity. We therefore examine responsibilities that corporations should take in order to fulfil the requirements of strong sustainability. Based on current CSR practices and theory as well as on businesses motivations regarding environmental and social investments, we will introduce the role of corporations in influencing consumption patterns. Furthermore, we will attempt to answer to what extent responsible corporate behaviour is determined by the current economic system.