Academic journals
Journals of Leadership and Organizational Studies
This journal collectively incorporates a number of articles. The authors of these articles have attempted to explain different facets of leadership and organizational studies that are applicable to present-day organizations. Among the major areas of concern that are addressed in this publication are the best approaches that an organization can employ to address leadership issues that are affecting its effective operation.
Some of the articles have come up with methods that could be used to identify a charismatic leader who would propel the organization to greater heights in attaining its endeavors. It has addressed issues of board room trust among board members, which is a critical aspect of the success of any organization. This journal is addressed to organization management as it has greatly differentiated the facets of leadership in an organization. It could also be used by middle and higher-level students studying organization management (Journals of leadership and organizational studies, 2011).
Organizational Studies
This journal was written and published to provide readers with great academic insights that would promote the perception they have towards organizations. It is evident that the majority of people lack proficient knowledge about organization management and therefore, this journal aims at promoting the understanding that people have with regard to how an organization runs and organized in order to meet that objective of their initiation and how in attaining those objectives they integrate into the society. This journal has combined a number of articles that were written from different regions of the globe.
It has integrated the areas of social sciences and organization management approaches from the classical point of view and this gives the journal plurality in its approach to organizational studies. The journal’s main audience is organizational management, but it could also be used by management students of all levels. This is applicable because the journal is inclusive of all organizational management aspects that can be studied thus bringing diversity into the issues that are addressed. This, therefore, gives it universality in the field of management because it has high impact articles that are addressing areas of concern in organizational studies (Organization Studies, 2011).
The Journal on Philosophy
The Journal of Philosophy is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal founded in 1904. The main idea of this journal is to publish articles devoted to philosophical themes, make people interested in philosophy, and especially in the relationships between philosophy with other specific disciplines. The Journal is limited in length, therefore the authors are to limit their articles to meet the requirement of the Journal which is 7,500 words for a paper (about 18 pages of a Journal).
The Journal of Philosophy does not publish the papers aimed at reacting to published information elsewhere. However, it allows for the publication of short responses to personally published material (5,000-word count limit, of 12 Journal pages). Unsolicited book reviews are not published as well. The editors are considering only the articles which correspond to the requirements and may rend a paper for revision (The Journal of Philosophy, 2011).
Philosophical Studies
Philosophical Study is an international peer-reviewed academic journal for philosophy composed in the analytic tradition. This journal was founded in 1950 by Herbert Feigl and Wilfrid Sellars. The main peculiarity of this journal is that it publishes exclusively analytic philosophy works. Only the papers which are extremely precise and precision are allowed for publication. 10,000 is a limit for authors’ works. If outside information is used, it should be cited. Plagiarized papers are not allowed for publication. The audience of the journal is a group of people interested in contemporary analytic philosophy and in formal techniques for solving philosophical problems (Philosophical Studies, 2011).
Professional / Academic Associations
The American Management Association
The American Management Association (AMA) has its headquarters in New York. It was started in the year 1923 and by then it was referred to as the National Association of Corporation Schools. After ten years of successful operation, it was re-branded into the American Management Association. AMA is an organization that deals with training management students and is also a consultant group in the area of organizational studies.
The organization is mandated by providing a number of educational programs on management in the various categories of goods and services delivering businesses, individuals, and government agencies. The organization’s scope of service delivery has a number of obligations. First, the organization is mandated with offering a number of business courses. These management development courses are all organized to provide managers with superior management skills and practices that are vital for any organization to be successful.
The American Management Association leads around the globe in the provision of management development strategies for its members. This mandate is achieved through continuous and rigorous training that incorporates training tools like workshops, seminars, assessments among others. It should be noted that AMA is a non-profit organization that is guided by a philosophy of assisting individuals and corporate to achieve their objectives through effective management strategies that are articulated around the association’s vision to be a leading competitive force in the market.
This body is a non-profit organization that makes its money through website advertisements and the provision of online articles at a price to interested buyers. The revenues that it is earned are used in meeting the organization’s obligations that have made it to be the leading organization in the globe on matters pertaining to the provision of good organizational skills to students of management. The achievements of this association are unparalleled by any other association in the provision of management training and consultancy issues on the planet (American Management Association, 2011).
The American Philosophical Association
The American Philosophical Association (APA) is a professional body in the United States of America that is mandated in helping people devoted to philosophy to collaborate. APA is considered to be the main professional organization of philosophers in the USA which is aimed at the following benefits. The members of this association are given an opportunity to subscribe to 5 issues per year of the Proceedings and Addresses of the APA and to 4 issues per year of the Jobs for Philosophers.
The members of the APA are eligible for taking part in competitions for numerous prizes and awards, for submitting personally written papers to Divisional Meeting Programs, and using the discounts in hotels at the Divisional Meetings. Moreover, the members of this association have an opportunity to subscribe to a number of philosophy journals. The assess to the association website is allowed only for members as to enter a website, a login and password are required. The sign-up option allows visitors to get much more information than those who come across the website. Finally, the members of the association have an opportunity to check the list of the approaching Conferences, Grants, and Fellowships, Seminars, etc. (American Philosophical Association, 2011).
The access to access to the APA Jobs for Philosophers is considered to be one of the main advantages of this association membership no matter which division is chosen. APA has three Divisions, Eastern, Central, or Pacific. The peculiarity of these divisions is that you can visit any meetings and conferences without specific differentiation between those, However, you are given an opportunity to vote only within your division. You can change your division, but not more than once a year.
Research Questions
Research questions in organizational studies
Ethics in the corporate world is one of the most actively and intensively researched areas in organization studies in the wake of the ever-increasing scandals in the corporate world and the rise of the corporate social responsibility outcries. It is evident that, with the drastic loss of ethical concerns in corporate practices, cheating is now becoming a culture as the market economy propelled the environment becomes the hub for these corporate entities to amass wealth.
It has been attested that ethics in corporate entities has attracted high interest from researchers who are interested in coming up with solutions to answer their queries. It is evident among the majority of the questions that are asked about corporate ethics aim at demanding that organizations be held accountable for the methods they employ in amassing their wealth. The arguments that are laid out in demanding that organizations are held accountable on the methods they amass their wealth is that they do not operate in a vacuum and therefore, they should be ethically liable.
The researchers have mainly asked questions that seek to answer whether the means that corporate entities use in getting their wealth really matters or the end need not be justified. A number of researchers have identified that holding corporations accountable for their actions by itself is not fool proof, but isolation. They hold that in order for businesses to thrive in society, they have to be autonomous. However, it should be noted that none of the two is free from the other in order for sanity is maintained in the corporate world that is the society and business must co-exist.
The two factors should be implemented elusively in the organization to hold it ethically responsible in the future. The researchers found out that the application of the two factors made sure that all the relevant stakeholders of any organization are all liable for their actions and thus propagating ethics in corporate administration. Therefore, all the stakeholders must assert their influence respectively in governing corporate (Sanwal, 2008).
Research questions in the philosophical discipline
Many specific questions are considered in the journals. However, much attention is paid to consciousness. Consciousness is considered from different angles and applied to various situations. Having considered the problems discussed in the recent articles in the mentioned academic journals, then the following ideas connected with consciousness were dwelt upon. Therefore, the works of four authors are going to be considered and the research questions stated there are presented.
Lane and Liang (2011) considered Sydney Shoemaker’s theory where we are “immune to error through misidentification relative to the first person pronouns” (p. 78) and argue the idea that this theory fails. The research is considered in the following sphere, the immune to error through misidentification is referred to as an understanding of self-consciousness and is rejected by being a tautology. “Does perception enable demonstrative thought only if it is conscious?” (Smithies, 2011, p. 5) is the question Smithies (2011) asks in this article.
The following hypothesis is going to be researched, “consciousness plays an essential epistemic role in explaining the capacity for demonstrative thought about an object by enabling the subject to form immediately justified beliefs about the object” (Smithies, 2011, p. 5). Weisberg (2011) asks a question devoted to the types of characterizations of consciousness and tries to prove that intrinsic and extrinsic characterizations of consciousness deserve attention.
This study is closely connected with the research conducted by Kidd (2011) who argues Weisberg’s (2011) vision of the self-representational approach. In the research, Kidd (2011) articulates “a self-representational theory of phenomenal consciousness according to which it is contingently impossible for self-representations tokened in the context of a conscious mental state to misrepresent their objects” (p. 361). Therefore, consciousness is one of the greatest mysteries of the surrounding world and more and more scholars try to reconsider the theories, argue those, and apply more and more fresh ideas with the purpose to understand the nature of consciousness and its relation to human actions and reaction.
Research Methods / Techniques
Research Methods Applied in Organizational Studies
An organizational study is a broad topic that encompasses a number of areas that can be studied. Therefore, the complexity and magnitude deluded by this topic castigate that the number of research methods that are employed in research work in this field is many. This study aims at identifying the consistency in the research methods that are used in the organizational studies research papers that have already been completed. It will identify the patterns in the research methods that are used in organization studies and thus provide future researchers with the objectivity of the most appropriate methods to use their research work in this field.
It is evident that organizational studies use quantitative methods as is the case in the majority of the social sciences research studies. This is due to the complexity of organizations propagated by their continuous dynamism in meeting and altering their goals whenever deemed appropriate. The researchers used multiple regressions, meta-analysis among others. These methods were used because they gave the researcher the opportunity to directly observe the area under investigation (Scandura, & Williams, 2000).
Research Methodology Applied in Philosophy
The authors of the articles considered above use various methods for implementing research and check the hypotheses they have already stated. Thus, Lane and Liang (2011) pay much attention to the literature review and detailed consideration of Sydney Shoemaker’s theory along with referring it to a personal understanding of the surrounding world. Personal observations are used. These authors also consider other research results, comparing g and contrasting those with the purpose to check whether immune to error through misidentification fails or not in various situations (Lane, & Liang, 2011).
The peculiarity of Weisberg’s research (2011) points out two ways of data consideration. While the intrinsic concept of consciousness is considered on the basis of the existing research results, the extrinsic concept is considered on the basis of the subject’s mental life and particular connections consciousness implements. Trying to argue Weisberg’s theory, Kidd (2011) pays attention to numerous theories which dwell upon the study. The comparative and contrast research method is used with the elements of logical considerations and inductive method of ideas investigation.
Thus, it should be concluded that even though the research questions are different, most authors and research conductors apply for comparative and contrasting analysis of the already stated theories with the purpose to reconsider the existing information and shed more light on the idea which has already been discussed for finding the truth.
Integration of Two Areas
Organizational Studies Discipline and the Philosophy Discipline
Interdisciplinary connections have been widely discussed. The idea that all disciplines are connected is true if those connections are carefully explored. The traditional understanding of the surrounding world states that organizational studies and philosophy are not interconnected. Philosophical concepts “touch upon the intermediate or virtual and, for this reason, only attain relative stability on a plane with other concepts” (Jones, & ten Bos, 2007, p. 64), while the concepts organizational studies, on the contrary, “maintain a direct link with everyday abstractions or common sense” (Jones, & ten Bos, 2007, p. 64). However, more innovative consideration of interdisciplinary relations has changed dramatically.
It is evident that interdisciplinary occurs in so many areas in the study of organization studies and philosophy. Jones, & ten Bos (2007) state that “sooner or later organization studies must enter an area where only the foolhardy dare to tread – the place where philosophy and social science meet” (p. 65). Organization studies borrow inspiration on issues regarding management and human behavior from popular philosophical work.
The field of philosophy has offered great and in-depth knowledge and insights into the field of ethics, human minds, and behavior and this knowledge is of great importance to the management of any organization and to the human resource department. It is evident that a number of classical works in the field of philosophy have been used to explain some cases of human behavior that are exhibited by the employees in the workplace. This dependency has played a pivotal role in creating a rapport between the two disciplines as it is conclusively evident that philosophy has played a great role in reinforcing contemporary organizational studies.
The management’s ability to fully utilize the potential of its human resources depends on its ability to fully understand the human mind and behavior with the objective of gaining insight on how it can ensure that the labor-capital wholeheartedly pursues the organization objectives. This evidently shows the inter-disciplinary interaction between organization studies and philosophy. It is evident that organizational studies encompass the study and application of human knowledge and this information is garnered from the field of philosophy.
The relationship that exists between these two distinct and interesting academic fields has made them be branded as sister-sister disciplines. This is so because the study of philosophy in industries along with other aspects of business is to maximize wealth creation, which is the cardinal objective for the formation of any business-oriented organization.
Relationship to Your Career Goals
The Ways Organizational Studies and Philosophy Relate to the Field of Health
The careers that are available in the health care industry are overwhelmingly great in number. The health care industry has so many facets that are articulated on one fundamental objective of maintaining good health for all human beings. This objective is only attainable via the interdependence of the health care industry with other disciplines. This study, therefore, aims at investigating the relation that exists between the various health care careers with philosophy and organizational studies.
Philosophy is a specific study that aims at understanding ethics as one of the fields of knowledge. Ethical problems considered within the philosophy discipline are sure to be applied to healthcare for many reasons. First of all, medical secrecy is a problem that relates to a philosophical understanding of morality, ethics, and values. Second, it is impossible to deal with mental illnesses without a strict philosophical perception of the surrounding world. More and more elderly people suffer from mental illnesses, apart from those who have problems at a more early age. Quante (2008) is sure that much attention should be paid to the philosophy of psychiatry as it explores many ethical problems that can be met in the discussed field.
Organizational study is a discipline that deals with people and their behavior at the workplace. Each structure, especially healthcare, should have a specific organizational structure to make sure that help is properly organized. Contemporary medical establishments would not be able to function appropriately without organizational studies discipline as the inability to structure the work, to organize people, to encourage and motivate them for performing their obligations, to delivering those with the duties, if organizational procedures were not followed.
References
American Management Association. (2011). About the American Management Association. Web.
American Philosophical Association. (2011). About American Philosophy Association. Web.
Jones, C., & ten Bos, R. (2007). Philosophy and organization. New York: Taylor & Francis.
Journals of leadership and organizational studies (2011). Sage Journals Online. Web.
Kidd, C. (2011). Phenomenal consciousness with infallible self-representation. Philosophical Studies, 152(3), 361-383.
Lane, T., & Liang, C. (2011). Self-consciousness and immunity. Journal of Philosophy, 108(2), 78-99.
Organization Studies. (2011). Sage Journals Online. Web.
Philosophical Studies. (2011). ISSN: 0031-8116.
Quante, M. (2008). What is a ‘new’ philosophy of psychiatry and why do we need it? Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, 11(4), 485-487.
Sanwal, S. (2008). Business Ethics in the World of Corporate Governance. Ezine Articles.
Scandura, T. A., & Williams, E. A. (2000). Research methodology in management: current practices, trends and implications for the future research. The Academy of Management Journal, 43(6), 1248-1264.
Smithies, D. (2011). What is the role of consciousness in demonstrative thought? Journal of Philosophy, 108(1), 5-34.
The Journal of Philosophy. (2011). ISSN: 0022-362X.
Weisberg, J. (2011). Misrepresenting consciousness. Philosophical Studies, 154(3), 409-433.