dissertation com feb 2011 (3 résultats)

Taschenbuch. Etat : Neu. Neuware - The idea that the solitary thinker, using pure reason, can unlock the deepest mysteries of reality is certainly an exciting one. The rationalist dream began with Parmenides of Elea and became the epistemological foundation for the greatest metaphysical systems ever constructed. This thesis traces the complete historical development of this neglected epistemology and inaugurates a radical new appraisal of its method. The new clarity provides fresh insights into traditional puzzles like the Cartesian Circle and whether Plato had a secret esoteric doctrine. A new positive re-evaluation of a doctrine thought to have been refuted by Kant and the positivists will provide interest for students, philosophers and those interested in the history of ideas.

Taschenbuch. Etat : Neu. Neuware - This qualitative study explores how middle managers who thrived during Hurricane Katrina used their workplace social support systems. An emphasis was placed on identifying the sources and types of support received before, during, and after the Katrina crisis.Significant challenges exist today for organizations on the basis of societal, political, environmental, and technological trends. Among those trends are predictions of greater numbers and intensities of weather-related crises triggered in part by global weather pattern shifts and global warming. These challenges create a compelling need for leaders to effectively plan for and manage crises to assure organizational survival. Middle managers, in particular, play a critical role in terms of planning for and recovering organizational functioning after a crisis. Yet relatively little is known about how they subjectively experience adversity and receive social support in the workplace. This study draws upon three bodies of literature including thriving, social support and crisis management.The participants in this study were 14 middle managers employed by organizations in the greater New Orleans area impacted in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina. Industries represented include health care, higher education, seaports, and defense contracting. Participants were nominated by a senior leader in their organization based on criteria for thriving. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews about participants' experiences before, during and after the Katrina crisis and the types of social support they received from each of five workplace sources. After identifying two core experiences for each participant, the data were coded and analyzed to determine the workplace sources and type of received social support. Sixteen themes were identified that explained how participants received support from leaders, peers, subordinates, other internal as well as external supports. Four support patterns were identified based on the most important source of support for the participants. These support source patterns included a peer-focused, leader-focused, subordinate-focused and leader-external focused. Role modeling was identified as a source of received support for some participants as well as the role of work teams in providing social network support. Practical implications of the study findings were identified along with suggestions for future research.

Taschenbuch. Etat : Neu. Neuware - The thesis has one main focus, the purity laws of a religious group in Europe, an original piece of research never done before in the UK. The thesis uses diasporic theories of identity; theories of women and the body; theories of women, their bodies and patriarchal religion and theories of women, purity and pollution in religion, to explain why European Zoroastrian women continue to support six of the purity laws of Zoroastrianism in the year 2003. Purity and pollution are at the heart of the Zoroastrian religion and the research demonstrated that Zoroastrians belief in and knowledge of the six purity laws was strong in 2003.Zoroastrians are a diasporic religious group whose modern origins are in Iran and the sub-continent of India. They have been visiting and settling, from the sub-continent, in Europe, and especially in London, in small numbers since the middle of the nineteenth century.There have been three quantitative surveys of the Zoroastrian community in Europe, in 1976, 1985 and 2003, with each survey building on the last one. Thus, the analytical, quantitative research leading up to the thesis covers a period of nearly 30 years. In the 2003 survey, new questions, never posed before in academic research, were asked about six of the Zoroastrian purity laws, which yielded data for the main focus of the thesis. The women support the six purity laws more than the men and the majority of both women and men affirmed four of the purity laws and rejected two of them.The conclusion of the thesis is that the six Zoroastrian purity laws examined in this research are used in the creation of a hybrid, immanent and liminal religious identity and in some cases ethnic identity, by the women of the European Zoroastrian community; purity laws are known about and matter to these women in Europe in 2003.