A Qualitative Study on Informal Roles Assumed in Academic Organizations

This study aims to identify the informal roles that academics play and display in academic organizations, to identify situations where informal roles emerge in academic organizations, and to evaluate the informal role determinants and the results of informal roles in terms of academic staff, students, institution, and society. It was designed as a phenomenological study, which is one of the qualitative research designs. The data were collected by reviewing the related literature, consulting expert opinions, and employing a semi-structured interview form after it was piloted first; and then the data were coded by using the interpretive phenomenological approach. The study group consists of 23 volunteer academics working at Süleyman Demirel University. The interpretive phenomenological analysis revealed four themes: situations where informal roles emerged, their determinants, the informational roles undertaken/displayed, and the results of displaying informal roles. On the one hand, academics take some positive roles such as mentoring, acting like a family member, inspiring others, supporting others academically and socially, sharing information, being a opinion leader, contributing to society, and enlightening the society. On the other hand, academics were also found to play some negative roles that involve indifference, abuse, unethical behavior, slacking, tyranny, academic selfishness, academic arrogance, positioning themselves in ivory towers, and mongering hope. Academics' personality traits were identified to be the most important determinants of informal roles, and institutional/academic relations, being a member in the same political, religious group, or being from the same hometown were found to lay the ground for informal roles. The positive informal roles assumed in academic organizations resulted in creating a culture of sharing, spiritual pleasure, increase in student success, and socialization of the academic. However, the negative informal roles performed in academic organizations resulted in individual inefficiency, loss of motivation in students, uneasiness in the organization, and isolation from the society.

Sociology from the Global South and the Global North: Systematising Characteristics and Relations

The article defines characteristics and relations between sociology from the Global South and the Global North, depicted in the literature. Despite the variety of research on the topic, studies of Northern and Southern sociology lack definite description of regional sociologies and their (unequal) relations as well as clear indicators used to assign countries to either region in terms of sociology that still uses classical geopolitical division. On the basis of research of knowledge production and academic relations between Southern and Northern sociology, the author defines main issues of discussion and specific characteristics of these regional sociologies and systematises them under one model. The model reflects four main areas of confrontation between sociology from the North and the South: origin and historical development; research orientation and capabilities; recognition and influence on the global scale; research cooperation and flow of knowledge. In addition, the article presents the alternative model for the recently emerged resistant Southern sociology. In the further research the model can be used to define understudied issues, (re)assign countries concerning sociology and investigate the actual characteristics of Southern and Northern sociology in comparison to the ones presented in the research.

What, Me Worry? Research Policy and the Open Embrace of Industry-Academic Relations

The field of research policy has conducted extensive research on partnerships between industry and academics and concluded that such collaborations are generally beneficial. Such a view stands in stark contrast to the literature in the philosophy of science which almost wholly finds such collaborations corrosive to scientific inquiry. After reviewing the respective literatures, I propose explanations for these polarized views which support the claim that both disciplines have only a partial vantage point on the effects of industry-funded science. In closing, I outline how the research agendas of each discipline might remediate their respective shortcomings.

«Everyday practices» in the «history of everyday life»: how the method works

The article analyzes the modern methodological paradigm within the boundaries of the theory of the history of everyday life and its methods associated with the concept of everyday practices (tactics, strategies) on the example of studying the everyday history of the bourgeois class. Despite the seeming peacefulness of the history of everyday life approach, in its epistemological field, academic relations associated with the struggle of traditionalists and postmodernists, supporters of descriptive history of everyday life and followers of discourse analysis, as well as researchers working with material within the boundaries of developments of linguistically oriented historiography. Research reflection in modern conditions is also associated with the historian's moral choice: to continue to study great dates, events, names, or to shift research optics towards a little-known, unremarkable person, torn from the jaws of time by just an accidental written document that caught a moment of his life. Ethical research reflection, asserting that the little man is the same equal creator of history, like his great contemporary, is associated with methodological ethics, which does not allow formalizing the methodological approach, formulating in the introductory part of the work those principles that are not implemented in practice in research. This article does not so much polemize with respect to the methodological approaches of modern Russian historiography, as it suggests not to follow the fashion, but, taking into account the specifics of the source base, to apply those methods that work, that is, they help to compose a kind of explanatory model of history, those related to the scientific interests of a particular researcher. In this regard, the German school of the history of everyday life A. Ludtke represents that analytical explanatory model of the past, which allows the little man to be made not only the creator of history, but also responsible for all its events.

Academic mobility or the Russian style networking?

Academic mobility facilitates interactions of different scientific schools and collectives, influences formation of academic relations and indirectly affects positions of universities in academic rankings. Mobility helps establish networks of professional contacts, and that might have a positive impact on the level of research, allowing efficient academic collaboration, access to results of different studies and collected data. Mobility is an important issue not only for universities, but also for researchers because their collaboration with the colleagues and participation in joint projects characterize them for other members of the academic community, and that increases the value of academic networking. However, the way of evolution of the institution of networking raises various questions about the objectivity of the recruiting process and advantages that some candidates get over their rivals. The purpose of this article is identification and analysis of those factors that force the institution of mobility in the Russian academic reality to work against general social interests and the interests of universities.

Academic Relations Between Debrecen and Vienna: Exemplified By Eduard Böhl and Sándor Venetianer

The study seeks to investigate the relationship between Theological Faculty of Debrecen Reformed College and the Protestant Theological Faculty at University of Vienna. The counter-movements against modern, or so-called liberal theology brought Eduard Böhl from Vienna and Ferenc Balogh into a shared theological camp. The former followed the German-Dutch confessionalist Pietist of Reformed faith the letter became the leading figure of New-Orthodoxy movement of Debrecen. Both professors were keen on educating and training students with a view to respect and love the traditional doctrines, faith expressions of the church. Their endeavoured to put their students into significant jobs where influence could be exerted. This paper shows light on how Böhl sought to manage a former student, Sándor Venetianer’s carreer so as to continue the kind of theology that the famous professor of dogmatics also promoted.

A Quiet Success

The EU–China Higher Education Cooperation Program (1997–2001) in European studies and social sciences was a pioneer as well as a milestone in the field of higher education cooperation between the European Union and China. It promoted academic exchanges among scholars, expanded European Studies in China, and furthered the internationalization of Chinese universities. Many of the beneficiaries of the project would go on to distinguished and influential careers. Less well known and less visible than physical joint ventures such as the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), this project nonetheless laid a foundation for contemporary European Studies in China and for the growth of mutually beneficial academic relations between China and the European Union. The product of a “golden era” of EU–China relations, it is unlikely to be duplicated in the future.