Environment and Social Psychology

Tribes are known for their close proximity with the nature all over the world. They use natural resources as part of their survival while protecting these as part of their duties and obligations. Thus the concept of nature-man–spirit is very ancient as both biological diversity and cultural diversity are directly related to the origin of many tribes in India who personify their origin from some plants and trees protecting them as sacred grooves. The present paper seeks a critical note on the relationship of biodiversity, traditional knowledge and rights of tribes in India.

Moving from Barnesmoore’s (2016) theorization of humans as beings with the potential for conscious (epistemological) evolution, this article argues that a revolution in the ideas by which (‘world view’ in which) we conceive of potential practice must necessarily precede a revolution of academic and social practice (that theory necessarily precedes practice). Revolution must be rooted in revolutionary ideas and cannot be facilitated by practices that rise from (are rationalized within) the hegemonic essence (ideas, axioms and logics) of the regime against which revolution is being waged.

This study focuses on the mental health and the role of resilience in Mexican refugees in the El Paso, Texas border region who experienced acts of violence, extortion, kidnapping, torture, arson, or other traumatic events in Mexico. This is an exploratory study that uses using mixed methods. We gathered data using: the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire and the O’Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale. We conducted extended interviews with adult participants (n=30) who escaped from the violence in Mexico to El Paso. Surprisingly, results did not show evidence of post- traumatic stress disorder. On the contrary, participants were highly resilient. Among the major themes that emerged from the interviews, cultural components identified by the participants consisted of: support to families (familism), the ability to talk to others about their own experiences (personalism), the idea that they have no control over their situation (fatalism), and putting things in God’s hands (faith), which mediate the effects of the experienced violence.

Despite ongoing crisis and recession, mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are used by companies to reinforce and sustain their place in business world. Regardless of M&As popularity, though, the successful integration of employees’ merging partners and the effective management of the relationships between them and with their merged organization, remains a major challenge not frequently considered during merger process.

In this respect and related to the above, the present paper by critically reviewing new research within M&As, attempts to provide a comprehensive integrative review based on the essentials and implications of the social psychological theories of group processes and intergroup relations as represented by the Social Identity Approach (SIA) and related to intergroup structure, fairness, legitimacy and leadership procedures, accompanied by the description of the knowledge-based view (KBV) of M&As which focuses on knowledge integration and capabilities transfer during post-combination. In that way, it aims to reflect on pre-and post-M&A important contextual and process merger success factors (i.e. micro-behavioural and macro-organization/strategy perspectives). Also, based on significant insights drawn from empirical findings discussed, our review seeks to translate them into practical implications for organizational practice and explore promising issues and directions that could expand our understanding and managing of merger integration efficiently.