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Aha! experiences are often very well recalled. The idea of insight leaving an indelible mark on memory was put forward by the Gestalt psychologists, yet has remained under-studied. This chapter provides an overview the existing empirical evidence for an insight memory advantage and possible explanations for why insight enhances memory. Several studies have focused on the phenomenological aspect of insight by showing that solutions associated with Aha! experiences are remembered better than those without, even after delays of up to two weeks. Confidence (i.e., a metacognitive reaction) and pleasure (i.e., an affective reaction) were also shown to play a role. On the other hand, there could also be a potential association between solution processes involving restructuring (i.e., the cognitive aspect of insight) and better memory. At present a clearer role is seen for the phenomenological effects of insight experiences on memory, but more work is needed that explores both phenomenological and cognitive aspects of insight in the same studies.
This chapter posits a prepared mind as key to later insight experiences. Following Wallas's (1926) four-stage model, preparation through failures experienced during initial solution attempts anticipates opportunities. At the time of impasse, solvers can predict necessary solution qualities by thinking through failed attempts at a more abstract level. These predictive features (Johnson & Seifert, 1994) describe needed resources, missing information, and solution characteristics, and are “seeded” into memory with the unsolved problem. Later, during incubation, attended features in the current context spontaneously retrieve the unsolved problem from memory, called opportunistic assimilation. This conscious reminding of the unsolved problem is the experience of sudden insight (Aha!). The surprised solver must then puzzle through why the current contextual features brought the problem back to mind and, in the process, restructure the old and new representational pieces into a novel solution. In this account, the insight process depends on effortful thinking during both preparation and illumination, but the incubation stage involves the simple process of associative memory as the source of insight experiences.
This contribution takes stock of the growing research on deindustrialization from a gender perspective. Much of the work in deindustrialization studies is rooted in local studies, within single national contexts. This article provides a perspective that cuts across case studies and national historiographies. It reviews findings on the implications of deindustrialization for working-class masculinities and considers the extent to which research has privileged a focus on white masculinity in crisis (a theme which is more present in some national contexts than others). The article goes on to show how a more complex and nuanced understanding of gender, class, and race is emerging. It highlights women workers’ experience of deindustrialization and considers the ways in which deindustrialization is associated with a restructuring of gender relations. Acknowledging some of the limitations of the current state of research, the article points to a number of potential avenues for further enquiry.
Southern Pomo (Pomoan, California) displays a process of rhythmic vowel deletion (syncope) reflecting two mutually incompatible metrical structures. This phenomenon, called metrical incoherence, can be derived by an ordered sequence of independent subgrammars, that is, strata. Metrical incoherence is under-attested crosslinguistically, and the stratal models of phonology necessary to generate it have been criticised for predicting counter-typological phenomena. Nevertheless, the Southern Pomo data cannot be generated in more restrictive frameworks. This article argues that overgeneration is a necessary property of the phonological component, and that metrical incoherence is rare because it is difficult to learn. In Southern Pomo, this difficulty appears to have caused grammatical competition and restructuring: a second pattern of syncope, occurring in only a limited context, suggests that learners have reanalysed the grammar as having consistent metrical structure across the derivation. This work thus supports the proposal that diachronic change – and therefore typology – is constrained by extragrammatical factors.
Chapter 12 is the story of Iraqi reparations imposed after the Gulf War. The rise in Iraqi indebtedness was a consequence of global geopolitical trends in the 1980s, when political lending trumped solvency concerns. It allowed Iraq to obtain financing on terms more favourable than offered by the US government. Reparations were a consequence of the end of the Iran–Iraq War when Iraq invaded Kuwait. Reparations were imposed by a UN Resolution with a direct enforcement mechanism to take money from oil revenues. I use oral history sources to trace how Iraqi debt was restructured after the US invasion in 2003. The restructuring was permeated by politics to inflict harsh terms on creditors at the Paris Club, at a time when creditor-friendly restructurings were the norm. Despite its apparent success, however, in going for a politically expedient deal at the Paris Club, I argue the restructuring missed an opportunity to enshrine a doctrine of odious debt in international law. All debt was written off, except war reparations, which were paid in full through sanctions and war. They proved to be senior to all other debt and did not enter the sovereign debt restructuring.
Chapter 3 discusses sovereign debt theory and practice. It goes through the history of sovereign debt and how the current theories of borrowing and lending developed in the 1980s. I argue that countries want to be part of global society, and that means they sometimes repay unsustainable debt. The chapter dives into why countries might default, when they might default, how often countries have defaulted, and what the economic and political costs are. I then describe what happens when countries need to restructure their sovereign debt, both in theory and with a practical guide for the process. Finally, in another technical section, I describe a sovereign debt model. The model explains when countries should have no willingness to repay their debt. It allows me to characterise a set of stylised macroeconomic facts that usually accompany sovereign debt defaults. The default set that comes out of the model states when countries should default. These facts and default set (not part of the technical section) are used in Chapters 6, 8, and 10. Chapter 3 is the last overview chapter; the rest are case studies.
Past decades have shown an increase in research into employee responses to organizational change (OC). However, little attention has been paid to the impact of the type of change. Different types of change are likely to affect change recipients’ learning and well-being in a different way. Our study aimed to identify OC types and investigate whether these are differentially associated with employee responses. Exploring OC types, two dimensions were distinguished and combined: a qualitative axis representing the prevalence of innovation; and a quantitative axis distinguishing between growth and decline. In a representative sample of private sector employees from a longitudinal survey, cluster analyses identified six OC types. We investigated whether these OC types are differentially associated with active workplace learning and emotional exhaustion. Results indicated that active learning is stimulated by OC types characterized by innovation/growth, while OC types characterized by decline and restructuring without innovation are associated with higher emotional exhaustion. In conclusion, various OC types revealed differential effects on employee personal development and well-being.
In this article, we study how political parties located on the right of the political spectrum adapt to changing electoral and political constraints. Drawing on the concept of policy feedback, we turn to the politics of social policy in the province of Quebec to show that the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), a right-wing party, embraced a more centrist strategy than the preferences of its electoral base would suggest. The CAQ has rejected the austerity policies associated with the previous government and has favoured social policy expansion rather than tax cuts or a quicker return to balanced budgets. We then explore the reasons for this move toward the centre. Our evidence suggests that self-reinforcing feedback effects from existing policies shape public opinion and electoral strategies, which contribute to moderating the actions of this right-wing governing party.
“The Political Economy of Oil” examines the vital role petroleum oil plays in the sociopolitical and economic formation and sustenance of Nigeria, highlighting its paradoxical nuances. The oil produced in the Niger Delta contributes immensely to the nation’s GDP yet has caused so much underdevelopment and destruction. While the oil produced is a mechanism of state cohesion, it is also a cause of division; the Niger Delta society suffers the untoward extraction and exploitation of the petroleum resource. Therefore, individuals and groups in the Niger Delta states have consistently positioned themselves to be both a threat to stability and an asset for securing peace in a constantly shifting terrain. The dependency has created a rentier state in which all problems are resolved through a patronage network funded by crude oil. Maintaining this network and diversifying the country’s economy are opposing goals. A seismic shift is required in the state’s sociopolitical calibration to stem the tide that is drowning individual and collective efforts to change the economic realities and social narratives that are weighing down the region. As this undisputable issue continues to linger in Nigeria, it requires a careful observation and analysis of nuanced issues to be fully understood.
This paper advocates the theory of 'Complex Dynamic Systems', developed in the sciences as a suitable framework for the understanding of the evolution of varieties and uses of English through time and space. After looking into earlier applications of this theory in linguistics, it surveys core properties of such systems and illustrates their relevance by applications to specific processes of change in the history of English. It then investigates processes of lexicosemantic diffusion and syntactic restructuring in World Englishes within this framework, trying to document its applicability.
This paper describes and analyzes data from a number of Modern Iranian dialects spoken in Khorasan in the east of Iran which are unusual among the other Western Iranian languages in that they have grammaticalized a split tense-sensitive alignment in indexation, compared to other Iranian languages whose indexation splitness is sensitive to both tense and transitivity. These dialects are the former dialect of Birjand in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the present-day dialect of Ferdows, Khanik, and Se-Ghal’e. The findings are put in the context of the available data from the Classical Persian texts to show that the tense-sensitive splitness mentioned above is traceable in those texts. A number of external factors are discussed which seem to have been influential in the restructuring of the split-alignment of the former dialect of Birjand into a uniformly nominative-accusative alignment in terms of indexation as observed in the present-day dialect of Birjand. It is proposed that this restructuring is an instance of simplification. The three other dialects cited above are endangered in the sense that they can undergo the same kind of restructuring as happened to the dialect of Birjand.
Infinitival constructions have been central in Germanic for several reasons and they have been at the core of theory-building syntactic research. This paper presents an overview of two research areas— exceptional case marking (ECM) and restructuring. While in-depth discussions of these rich topics are not possible, we aim to highlight some of the major discoveries and remaining puzzles. The first part of the chapter discusses the distinction between control and ECM and provides an overview of the distribution of ECM in six Germanic languages (English, Icelandic, Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch, and German). The second part of the paper summarizes phenomena falling under the rubric of restructuring. Although the literature on restructuring has focused predominantly on German and Dutch, phenomena showing sensitivity to restructuring have also been observed in the Mainland Scandinavian languages. Finally, in the last part we combine the observations regarding ECM and restructuring and suggest a possible connection.
Downsizing as a systematic reduction of employees is frequently utilized in order to increase productivity, efficiency, profitability, and competitiveness of organizations. As a strategy of choice for many firms around the world, downsizing produces far-reaching financial, organizational, and social consequences. Despite the large body of literature, there is inconclusive evidence as to whether downsizing is effective and whether it generates the widely anticipated benefits. Employee downsizing as a change management strategy has been actively adopted for more than three decades. This downsizing article presents a phase typology of job cutting including three distinct phases and three levels of argument. As a conceptual paper, it aims to examine, update, and extend Littler and Gandolfi's (2008) seminal work. The research paper culminates with a discussion of current downsizing practices, and posits that the downsizing phenomenon has remained a popular restructuring.
After nearly three decades of corporate restructurings and reorganizations, the modern firm has continued to resort to reduction-in-force (RIF) strategies. This article presents an overview and a brief historical analysis of some of the most popular RIF concepts that have been adopted by companies and governmental agencies on a global scale since the late 1970s. The research found that most RIF tools have their root in the core-periphery model. While some of the more ‘classic’ RIF strategies have remained popular, the paper showcases two contemporary practices, the traditional (non-selective) layoffs and stealth layoffs, that currently impact the corporate landscape. A discussion of modern-day restructuring and RIF practices is timely given the high levels of layoffs currently occurring in the global automotive, retail, and finance-related industries. In this paper, a particular focus is placed on presenting practical implications of the conduct of RIF for the firm, the managers, and the individual employees.
This article addresses three questions concerning authority relations (personal relations with superiors) in transitional China. First, can superiors retain an organizational unit in order to save a protege's job? Second, has instrumental usage of particularistic relations, or guanxi, lost its importance? Third, has ‘principled particularism’, an integration of political loyalty and authority relations, continued to impact careers? Based on first-hand survey data, I find that state-owned enterprises in which managers had closer authority relations were less likely to be sold or discontinued, and close authority relations also reduced the likelihood of career blockage (demotion/lay off). The significant interactive effect of party membership and authority relations revealed the continuation of ‘principled particularism’. The study underlines institutional continuity during rapid social change, renders insights into the processes of organizational restructuring, and depicts the relational base of formal organizations.
Divestitures, understood as the parent company's disposal and sale of assets, facilities, product lines, subsidiaries, divisions and business units, are emerging as a central topic of research in several areas. Yet our understanding of these operations is still limited. For example, it is still not clear whether divestitures are merely a reflection of the economic cycle, a means to correct or reverse previous strategic decisions, or a proactive strategic option. Integrating literature in finance, strategy, and organisational behaviour, this paper offers a comprehensive picture of divesting modes, antecedents, mechanisms and outcomes of divestitures. It integrates empirical findings and theoretical contributions into a researchable whole, in order to identify common themes and gaps in existing research. The final objective of this analysis and review is to propose meaningful avenues for future research to improve knowledge on divestitures.
The purpose of this article is to show that Norwegian has complex predicates, in which two verbs are reanalyzed as one predicate in a monoclausal structure, comparable to complex predicates that have been proposed for other languages. The central evidence comes from the construction called the long passive, in which the subject of the first verb is typically the patient of the second verb. Norwegian long passives often have passive morphology on both verbs, and I consider this a case of verbal feature agreement. The article also discusses evidence for complex predicates from active sentences.
This article provides a historical overview of the factors leading up to debt crises and the default mechanisms used by governments to solve them, ranging from repudiation and restructuring to inflation tax and financial repression. The paper also analyses the Spanish governments’ graduation to responsible public debt management under democracy and the last debt crisis starting in 2010. After analysing the evolution of the outstanding public debt, budget deficits, the Spanish economy's ability to borrow, the central government's debt affordability and the profile of public debt, the article concludes that the Spanish case confirms the main hypotheses of concerning international debt crises: short-term borrowing enhanced the risk of a debt crisis; insolvency problems arose when governments were unwilling or unable to repay debt; debt crises took place after large capital inflows; most outright defaults ended up being partial defaults; public debt level became unsustainable when it rose above 60-90 per cent of GDP; default trough inflation became commonplace when fiat money displaced coinage; financial repression was used as a subtle type of debt restructuring; and defaults endangered the creditworthiness of the Spanish Finance Ministry and forced disciplined fiscal policies.
This paper examines the contract interpretation strategies adopted by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) for its credit derivatives contracts in the Greek sovereign debt crisis. We argue that the economic function of sovereign credit default swaps (CDS) after Greece is limited and uncertain, partly thanks to ISDA's insistence on textualist interpretation. Contract theory explanations for textualist preferences emphasise either transactional efficiency or relational factors, which do not fit ISDA or the derivatives market. We pose an alternative explanation: the embrace of textualism in this case may be a means for ISDA to reconcile the competing political demands from state regulators and its market constituents. We describe categories of contracts susceptible to such political demands, and consider when and why textualism might be the preferred response.