Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper argues that within the NLRA’s statement of employee rights is a vision of values that have the power to transform our society. This paper maps out a campaign that can be waged to transform our society into one built on these NLRA values of industrial and social democracy, solidarity, social and economic justice, fair wages and working conditions, equality, and industrial and social peace. These values have the potential to reinvigorate the labor movement and save the soul of this country. Indeed, unless we transform the values of our wider society unions, collective action, and solidarity cannot survive.

Publication Type: Paper (prepared oral presentation)
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Most studies on the complexity and framing of media texts explore their impact on the attitudes and values of audiences. It is rare to find studies that explore the interreltions of these two text characteristics- frames and text complexity- in order to better understand sources of text complexity. Via content analysis, we identify, value frames used in newspaper editorials covering conscientious objectors from the right and left wings of the Israeli political spectrum and compare between them. We use the frames and value tradeoffs identified in the text to examine the extent to which Tetlock’s value pluralism model holds for media content. By connecting between the use of value frames, value tradeoff and complexity in journalistic content, we offer a new direction to the research of value frames and their impact on media discourse. The analysis demonstrates the dominance of three value-frames: the conscious frame (mosty used in support of left wing objectors); the social structure frame (mostly used in support of right wing objectors); and the democratic frame (mostly used in order to utterly oppose conscientious objection). A complex response is created when editorial writers refer to the supporting frame then refutes it with their own.
The findings are discussed in the context of Gamson’s model for activist -government relations and the cherished values in Israel's divided society. Furthermore, regression analysis finds evidence to support the influence of value tradeoff on complexity.
Complexity is also influenced by the attitude of the writer and the text frame.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: As a case study, The Body Shop provides an opportunity to explore the significance of (charismatic) leadership and the role of personal values and ethics to corporate identity theory. It enables an investigation of the leader?s value commitments and ethics as, in a certain sense, constitutive of the organization, its position, its distinctiveness, and its success. Data from this chronological case study consisted of narratives which were collected through extensive textual analysis and an in-depth interview with Anita Roddick and Body Shop Directors. The narrative analysis progressed through three distinct levels, beginning with a thematic analysis and moving ultimately to a critical-interpretive approach that drew especially on concepts from rhetorical criticism and critical narrative analysis. The analysis revealed that Roddick?s ability to think in narrative terms allowed her to construct The Body Shop?s identity in the form of life stories. Because the practical nature of storytelling incorporates theories of the Self, Roddick achieved coherence by preserving and rendering permanent, key moments in both her personal and organizational development, and presenting them as part of a lived narrative. Not only did these stories shape Roddick?s identity, they attempted to strategically position the identity of the organization in the minds of internal audiences. But as The Body Shop identity evolved so too did its leadership and image. In fact, more recent changes at The Body Shop leave one asking whether the recent sale of The Body Shop has shed a new light on the ethics of corporate identity and responsibility.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Educational research and identity research focusing on college students have investigated many aspects of college students, the college experience, and their affects on students’ grade point averages (GPA), degree aspirations, and school-related behaviors (student engagement). Focus has been more on the impact of the university on students rather than the ways students influence their own outcomes and student engagement behaviors. Students possess different goals and reasons for attending a university and it is these goals that influence their behaviors. By using identity theory as a framework, I show how one’s student value-orientation as a student identity influences one’s engagement behaviors, GPA, and degree aspirations. This suggests that one’s values can be conceptualized as higher level identities that act to influence one’s behaviors at a lower level.

Publication Type: GIFTS
Abstract: This " Values Auction" demonstrates the fact that individuals do not value the same things the same way as others and that fact profoundly influences interpersonal communication. A basic cause for relationship conflict is differences in what people hold important. Individuals do not necessarily perceive the same reality as those with whom they interact. This activity points up some of those differences in a dramatic and personal manner.