فصلنامه راهبرد فرهنگ
پیاپی 10-11 (تابستان و پاییز 1389)

The issue of culture, as one of culture-making elements, gains more significance in the institution of higher education. It is about four decades now that the “university culture” has found a special place in foreign works and different scholars have discussed this complicated issue through their own approach. However, despite this significance, the university culture has not yet drawn the attention of domestic researchers. As a result, there is a shortage of theoretical literature in domestic works on recognition and explanation of this phenomenon, which requires an organized study of foreign works. Aiming at eliminating this fault, the present paper is an attempt, through typology, which is a basic method in theorization, to topically review the cultural researches in higher education, analyze and classify them in seven types. In the next step, on the basis of presuppositions of each theory regarding university culture, they are classified in three categories, integration, differentiation, and fragmentation, using the Martin’s “meta-theoretical framework”. The main achievements of this research are: to shed light on the research lacunas in this field in domestic research; and to offer a “conceptual framework” for better and more comprehensive understanding of cultural complexities in higher education. The said framework would be useful for different cultural researches and also for university managers.

Over the past two decades some benevolent people, as part of the body of society, by donating money for construction of schools, have contributed to the development of educational places and facilities. The present paper is an attempt to study the meanings and interpretations of the benevolent donors of the charitable act of school building. Through a ethnographical method and by using interview and grounded theoretical analysis, the processes, interactions and consequences of school building of the donors have been constructed. The “charitable contributive orientation” is the main core of grounded theory that has integrated a set of existing contexts, actor’s strategies and consequences of the adopted strategies.

Discipline in organization is an important subject, especially in human resource management. This subject also has twofold importance in educational institutions. The present research is an attempt to study the performance of university student discipline committees and their compatibility with transcendental discipline. The present study was conducted on the basis of Grounded Theory through nine deep interviews with the secretaries of committees of Tehran major universities. After preparing the model of conduct of discipline committees, its compatibility with Transcendental Discipline model as an Islamic model was assessed. The results show that the existing model of committees’ performance is to a great extent influenced by behavioural, cognitive and progressive models of discipline. Beside the existing rules and regulations, some of the following measures would help get closer to Islamic discipline model: changing in approaches to discipline concept from control to direction, attention to reward, introduction of role models and epitomes on the side of dealing with violations, training the students with skills to prevent violation, recommending the students to observe virtue and self-discipline.

Theoretical approaches to and practical strategies for concepts such as cultural engineering or social engineering have developed in the Western civilization and have been explained within the framework of social thoughts of Western thinkers. Therefore, they are among new concepts in Iranian academic society. The present paper is a comparative study to determine the conceptual status and theoretical approaches to them in Iran and the world. Hence, the theoretical approaches to cultural engineering and social engineering can be classified into positive, negative and neutral in the world and consequently in Iran. This will facilitate the identification of their intellectual foundations, methods of argument, ideological approach and their theorization base. In the next step, it will become possible to discuss the whatness, whyness and possibility or impossibility of social engineering and cultural engineering. Some suggestions have been given at the end of the article.

In articulating his utopia, Farabi allocates a special place to artists. Next to the divine rulers, artists enjoy a rank equal to orators and religious leaders. The following arguments shed light on the reasons for this stratification: 1 – In Farabi’s viewpoint, the public do not have proper understanding of intelligible matters or are not acquainted enough with intelligible happiness. 2 – At the same time, the highest level of happiness is not that of sensational, imaginary or illusive one, rather it is intelligible happiness superior to which is not conceivable. 3 – So, intelligible truths and happiness should be envisaged somehow to/for the people to help them achieve a happy life. Prophets and their successors, i.e. rulers of utopia, who have realized the intelligible truths through their faculty of speech and definite evidences, transfer these truths to people's imagination through imaginary and convincing methods. The artists of the utopia, on the side of the orators, who promote intelligible truths through convincing methods, try to promote rational happiness and the revealed teachings through imagery or imagination. The artists are able to establish relations between different societies and cultures, for they can introduce a constant, unique truth through images and allegories and also can depict revealed happiness in the language of different communities and cultures.

The present paper focuses on studying dimensions of the theory of incompatibility of Iranian national culture with collective work and teamwork. Attempts have been made to study the effect of characteristics of Iranian national culture on teamwork through using historical, social and cross-cultural approach and a survey and then the related model has been depicted. The statistical population of the survey included the people of three great car manufacturing, commercial and power plant companies. The findings of cross-cultural studies show that Iranian culture is suitable for teamwork, acknowledged by the findings of the survey showing a high level of collectivism and inclination towards teamwork in a sample consisting of 576 people. The following factors have positive effects on inclination towards teamwork: gender egalitarianism, performance orientation, institutional collectivism at the value level, expected organizational climate for teamwork and readiness for teamwork, while other factor such as uncertainty avoidance at the practice level, supervisory jobs, and high educational level leave a negative impact on teamwork. Therefore, within the analytical framework of the present research, the main share of the explanation for low level of teamwork in the country goes to noncultural (structural), managerial, and behavioural factors at national, organizational and individual levels.

Since long time back, investigation about relationship between art and ethics has been among the most fundamental theoretical issues of art. Among the main factors for the significance of this issue, mention may be made of the astonishing effect of art and artistic works on human emotions and feelings, it’s unique power to idea to action, and consolidation of ethical doctrines and even deepening of ethical perceptions. There are different theories explaining the relationship between the two. Some theories (the most important of which is discussed in this paper) emphasizes the moral function of art and consequently its limitation to some constraints as well asits role in deepening ethical beliefs and perceptions. Other theories, under the influence of emergence and advent of “personal art” in the modern world (which is the result of resorting to reason and separation-based science, leading to notions such as art for art), either emphasize on the separation of ethical and aesthetic aspects of artistic works or speak of its decline. The main focus of this paper is to discuss the significance and role of art in cultural transcendence of a society. Hence, the above mentioned theories have been critically studied and based on rational arguments emphasis has been laid on a theory in which ethical and humane values have a pivotal role.

Entrepreneurs play a very important role in economic progress and create great developments in the field of production and services in organizations. The present paper is an attempt to study the effects of six personal variables on entrepreneurship in the Mazandaran Province. According to the definition of the Global EntrepreneurshipMonitoring, there are 1511 entrepreneurs in Mazandaran province out of which 291 were chosen as the sample for the present study. The data collection tool was a related questionnaire which passed factor analysis, with a 0.91 level of internal consistency? The collected data related to the six variables were analyzed using a path analysis regression model (structural equation modeling). The findings showed that the above-mentioned factors explain entrepreneurship and affect it directly,indirectly, and also internationally. The highest degree of effect belongs to internal locus of control. Other factors affecting entrepreneurship are respectively ambiguity tolerance, independence at work, need to progress, motivation, and risk taking. Finally, based on these results, some suggestions have been given on how managers can improve entrepreneurship process by heeding these six personal factors.

The present study is an attempt to study the ethical intelligence of the students of state universities in Tehran. A total of 369 students from Amirkabir, Tarbiat Modaress, Tarbiat Moallem, Shahid Beheshti and Sharief Technical Universities were randomly selected. The required data was collected with the help of MCI questionnaire to examine 10 factors and 40 variables. The present research is a descriptive survey using single sample t test, Friedman test, and Spearman test of correlation to analyze the data. The findings of the study indicate that moral competencies such as consistently with principles, values and beliefs, telling the truth, standing up for what is right, keeping promises, taking responsibility for personal choices, admitting mistakes and failures, embracing responsibility for serving others, actively caring about others, ability to forgive one’s own mistakes and ability to forgive others’ mistakes were above average. Friedman’s test results show that there is a significant difference between moral intelligence factors. Furthermore, the results of correlation test demonstrate a significant positive relationship between age and level of education with ethical intelligence.

Attempts have been made in the present paper to analytically study the level of rationality and logicality of Persian proverbs. Moreover, the influence of teachings of logics and reflection of the concepts and principles of this discipline on Persian proverbs have been studied as well. The findings of the present paper indicate that sagacious, meticulous composers of proverbs were not unaware of or heedless to principles of logics; this awareness and insight might have been due to their Godgiven intellect though. Moreover, some principles of logic have entered the books of proverb either intact or with slight alteration. Some of the proverbs indirectly connote to the comprehension of a logical principles by their earl inventors.Much of these proverbs have some educational, but non- argumentative, values. Hence, it is suggested that the users would not use them in their daily arguments related to social and political issues. The findings of the present study indicate that the early coiners of the proverbs tried to issue general rules while avoiding particular ones. The proverbs were classified from logical point of view to make their analysis easier.