BEWILDERMENT AND THEREAFTER: Some Reflections in Response to Lee Yearley

The following reflections were originally an oral response to issues raised in Lee Yearley's presentation in May 2009 at Harvard Divinity School. As written here, they follow upon his oral and now written comments, highlighting key issues and points for development, drawing on this respondent's expertise in comparative and Hindu studies.     

Defining, Measuring, and Comparing Organisational Cultures

La littérature portant sur la culture des organisations souffre d'un manque manifeste d'enquêtes extensives débouchant sur des études comparatives. Afin de rendre plus comparables les cultures organisationnelles, nous proposons une définition et une série de dimensions. La culture organisationnelle renverrait aux perceptions communes des pratiques de travail dans le cadre des unités constitutives des organisations. A l'examen d'études empiriques, les cinq dimensions suivantes nous sont apparues: autonomie, orientation externe, coordination interdépartementale, orientation vers les ressources humaines et orientation vers le développement. L'utilisation de cette définition et de ces dimensions générales devrait faciliter la comparaison des cultures organisationnelles et l'accumulation de résultats.
Within the body of organisation culture literature, there is a conspicuous absence of large-scale studies reporting on comparative studies. In order to increase comparability of organisational cultures we propose a definition and a set of dimensions. Organisational culture is defined as shared perceptions of organisational work practices within organisational units. On the basis of empirical studies we discerned the following five dimensions: autonomy, external orientation, interdepartmental coordination, human resource orientation, and improvement orientation. Use of this definition and a set of such generic dimensions would facilitate the comparison of organisational cultures and the accumulation of research findings.     

Hearing a Still-Ticking Bomb Argument: A Reply to Bufacchi and Arrigo

My aim in this paper is to demonstrate that the recent anti-Ticking Bomb argument offered by Bufacchi and Arrigo is unsuccessful. To adequately refute the Ticking Bomb strategy, I claim, requires carefully addressing both policy questions and questions involving exceptional conduct.     

Cognitive-behavioral stress management intervention decreases the prevalence of depression and enhances benefit finding among women under treatment for early-stage breast cancer.

The authors tested effects of a 10-week group cognitive-behavioral stress management intervention among 100 women newly treated for Stage 0-II breast cancer. The intervention reduced prevalence of moderate depression (which remained relatively stable in the control condition) but did not affect other measures of emotional distress. The intervention also increased participants' reports that having breast cancer had made positive contributions to their lives, and it increased generalized optimism. Both remained significantly elevated at a 3-month follow-up of the intervention. Further analysis revealed that the intervention had its greatest impact on these 2 variables among women who were lowest in optimism at baseline. Discussion centers on the importance of examining positive responses to traumatic events--growth, appreciation of life, shift in priorities, and positive affect-as well as negative responses.     

A Cylindrical Model of Communication Behavior in Crisis Negotiations

This article integrates existing theoretical perspectives on message content and negotiator motivation to formulate a comprehensive definitional model of the interrelationships among communication behaviors in crisis negotiation. A sample of 189 nuclear dialogue spans were transcribed from 9 resolved cases of hostage negotiation and each utterance coded at the level of thought units across 41 behavioral variables. Results of a nonmetric, multidimensional scaling solution provided clear support for the hypothesized cylindrical structure of communication behavior, revealing 3 dominant levels of suspect‐negotiator interaction (Avoidance, Distributive, Integrative). At each level of the structure, interactions were found to modulate around 3 thematic styles of communication (Identity, Instrumental, Relational), which reflected the underlying motivational emphasis of individuals' dialogue. Finally, the intensity of communication was found to play a polarizing role in the cylinder, with intense, functionally discrete behaviors occurring toward the boundary of the structure.