Main drivers of human capital,learning and performance

The aim of this study was to show the relationships between the enablers for knowledge creation and human capital (HC); the effect of HC on feedback and feedforward; and the influence of these learning flows on organizational performance. To achieve this, we developed a novel theoretical model of relationships and tested this model empirically. We quantitatively test this model using data from firms in the Spanish biotechnology sector. Results show strong relationships between HC and enablers for knowledge creation (redundancy, trust, and autonomy); HC and learning flows (feedback and feedforward); and learning flows and organizational performance. The originality of this study lies in linking—theoretically, empirically, and through a novel model—independent theories of HC, learning, and knowledge creation.     

Organizational Justice Across Cultures: A Systematic Review of Four Decades of Research and Some Directions for the Future

This review aims to provide an overview of the main frameworks and findings of cross-cultural organizational justice research and some directions for future research. We systematically reviewed the literature and analysed 74 papers, which include more than one country, from the justice receiver perspective. We contribute to the literature in two ways. First, our analysis of methodological aspects highlights some limitations: most studies compare two countries, mainly China and the USA; cross-cultural equivalence checks are rare; and most studies do not directly measure culture, rather tend to use collectivism and power distance as post hoc explanations of country differences. Second, we offer a broad view of country differences by investigating contextual effects that go beyond national values. Our analysis of the influence of sociocultural influence levels shows that culture, socioeconomic development, organizational, situational, and individual characteristics interact to predict the development of and reactions to (in)justice across countries. A greater integration of levels is important for the advancement of research. Across cultures, more positive justice perceptions are related to positive outcomes, but are achieved differently, so organizations should be aware of sociocultural influences on employees’ perceptions of justice.     

Writing Workshops for First Year Law: my contribution as an applied linguist

“Law schools should focus more on teaching writing – not some Procrustean monstrosity called ‘legal writing,’ but the ordinary techniques of constructing a sentence and telling a story” writes Roosevelt in his review of Divergent Paths: The Academy and the Judiciary by Posner. The Australian Threshold Learning Outcome expects law graduates to be effective, appropriate and persuasive as communicators when interacting with both legal and non-legal persons. We also know that embedding learning outcomes or graduate attributes throughout a programme encourages progressive learning. Furthermore, the whole of degree curriculum design undertaken from a shared perspective reflects industry and student requirements better than individual subjects can. In the absence of any whole of degree curriculum, the semester-long series of Writing Workshops for First Year Law (WWFYL) was created. Building on the success of past collaboration (Curró and Longo), WWFYL reflect a move away from a solitary, silent teaching culture to open sharing of practice. The widening participation and skills agendas remind us of the need to focus on the integration of academic literacies into law. If law is language, can applied linguistics make a contribution to the literacy needs of students from diverse linguistic backgrounds? As an applied linguist, my objective is to raise awareness of the elements and features of legal writing and demystify the specialised discourse and textual features. In this paper I present my theoretical framework borrowed from socio-constructivist theories, focusing on how students learn specific subject matter in particular contexts: “a teaching and learning process that makes transparent the practices and discourses of the subject area” (D. Warren, “Curriculum Design in a Context of Widening Participation in Higher Education” (2002) 1 Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 85, p. 88). Two snapshots of my classroom discourse demonstrating the practical application of my teaching are presented, as well as evaluation data supporting my approach.     

Disappearing nature? Agribusiness,biotechnology and distance in Argentine soybean production

A recent trend identified in the agro-food literature is that financialization in the global food system is further increasing the distance between farm and plate as well as abstracting physical commodities into market derivatives. How does food, a basic material need, become a commodity, a financial asset divorced from its physical form? This contribution explores the growing distance and abstraction of food from farm using Argentina's soy model as a case study. I explore the various drivers of distancing across the soy value chain in Argentina, including industrialization, globalization, corporatization and finance. I argue that the push for technological innovation by large-scale agribusinesses, in articulation with financial sector involvement, are both an example of and are instrumental in the process of distancing and abstraction identified in the agro-food literature. This paper also highlights how, despite agribusiness efforts to ‘displace’ and ‘disappear’ nature, these processes are never fully accomplished. I thus reflect on the socio-ecological contradictions that arise from the processes of distancing and abstraction which accompany the financialization of the corporate food system under neoliberal globalization.     

Congressional Voting on Term Limits

Between 1990 and 1995,twenty-three states unilaterally imposedterm limits on their own delegations toCongress. In 1995 the House ofRepresentatives defeated a constitutionalamendment that would have limited the termsfor all of Congress. Only weeks later, theSupreme Court struck down the individualstate laws. In 1997 the House againbrought the issue to a vote, which alsofailed. This paper models congressionalvoting on term limits with a simple gamewithin an interest-group theory withlegislators as imperfect agents ofconstituents. The game foremost predictsthat members from term-limited states wouldbe more likely to support term limits inthe first vote but no more likely on thesecond vote. The empirical section employsprobit, multinomial logit, and orderedprobit maximum likelihood estimations toconfirm the stated hypotheses. Among otherresults, in particular both the joint andconditional probability of a `yea' on thefirst vote and a subsequent `nay' on thesecond vote is higher for members fromstates that had unilaterally self-imposedterm limits. The results are robust tomodel specification, estimator, andalternative sampling. Implications areproposed in the concluding comments.     

The 14/2007 Law on Biomedical Research: comments on ethical and scientific aspects]

The Spanish Law on biomedical investigation is analyzed from the scientific and ethical points of view. In the author's opinion, some terms used in the text in order to avoid ethical and legal conflicts are not right from the biological point of view.     

From corruption to extortion: Conceptualization of post-communist corruption

Moral outrage and lack of comparison distorts the understanding of the natureand politically determined functions of governmental corruption in post-communist transition. As post-communist societies move towards open market systems and corruption is no longer limited to the public sector, politics is transformed into a potent tool for illegal transactions. The political structureitself creates corrupt practices that become a structural feature of transition societies. This article offers first a critical discussion of both moral theories of corruption and the thesis that posits a link between corruption and democracy deficit in post-communist countries. Subsequently, it sketches a neo-functionalist approach that puts corruption in a specific social context.With respect to East/Central Europe, corruption is presented as a betrayal ofpublic trust that serves specific requirements of an emerging ``extortioniststate.' These requirements relate to the expansion of extortion opportunitiesand their institutionalization into a semblance of a Tule of law system.     

Outstanding ethical-legal issues on biobanks. An overview on the regulations of the Member States of the Eurobiobank project.

EuroBiobank (EBB) was created in 2001. This is a network of European biological banks made up by 7 member States. The purpose of the network is to ease the access to the biological resources of the human being in patients who suffer uncommon diseases. This study deals mainly with the ethical-legal debate that has arisen in those States, as well as the existing legal regulation and the proposed recommendations for its possible solution. Likewise, there is a special mention about the informed consent, the possible use in the future of the samples in relation to its commercial use as industrial property rights and to Directive 2004/03 that was adopted by the European Parliament 31 March, 2004.