Although growing numbers of researchers are studying the role of social engagement in ubiquitous technologies and applications, few frameworks have been proposed that attend to the lived experience of the individual and social dynamic within which it is intimately enmeshed. We present empirical insights using grounded theory from data gathered during a 102-day walk of the second author around Wales. This study inductively developed a substantive social engagement framework of the Walking experience that appears to be simple and flexible. The main aim of this paper is to present the developed framework, where even apparently 'solitary' walking is set within a rich technical and social matrix. The primary characteristics of this framework, namely accuracy of social judgements, accountability of decisions and actions, enhancing self-esteem, and satisfying intrinsic motivation goals, are in line with social user experience and show promise of being useful in ubiquitous technologies, regardless of user activity.
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Metaphor is one of the important discursive themes in organizational literature (Grant et al.,2001). Metaphors play an important role in the discourse within organizations as well as in theorizing about organizations. This empirical paper focuses on the latter by analysing the role of metaphor in the development of theoretical concepts – in particular the concept of social capital – through the means of quantitative content analysis. Some authors argue that metaphors should be avoided in organizational theory (Bourgeois and Pinder, 1983; Tinker, 1986). Others see metaphors as valuable creative tools for developing new theories and insights (Weick, 1989). Morgan (1997) has shown that many theories about organizations can be ‘reordered’ (Keenoy et al., 2003) into a particular metaphorical view of organizations, showing the metaphorical bases of organizational theorizing. Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 1999) go even further, presenting compelling evidence from cognitive science indicating that metaphors are inescapable because they are the basis for our abstract reasoning. There is a debate about the way metaphor works (Black, 1993; Cornelissen, 2005; Heracleous, 2003; Keenoy et al., 2003; Lakoff and Johnson, 1999; Marshak, 2003; Oswick et al. 2002, 2003; Tsoukas, 1991;) especially about whether metaphor is simply a matter of comparison highlighting the analogies in the source and target domain, or whether a metaphor does more then that. In the paper we take the latter position and adopt Lakoff and Johnson’s (1999) model of cross-domain mapping. This model states that not only similarities and features are transferred from the source to the target domain but that the target domain often gets its structure from the source domain. The metaphorical mapping from the source to the target domain can be rich and complex because metaphors have many ‘entailments’. Entailments are the connotations of the metaphor that transport meaning from the source to the target domain. Furthermore, the application of conceptual metaphor often happens out-of-awareness (Lakoff and Johnson, 1999; Marshak, 2003). It is part of the unconscious mental operations concerned with conceptual systems, meaning, inference, and language. We can recognize the unconscious use of metaphor in organizational theorizing by looking at the literal meaning of organizational concepts and statements (Andriessen, 2006).
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To improve people’s lives, human-computer interaction researchers are increasingly designing technological solutions based on behavior change theory, such as social comparison theory (SCT). However, how researchers operationalize such a theory as a design remains largely unclear. One way to clarify this methodological step is to clearly state which functional elements of a design are aimed at operationalizing a specific behavior change theory construct to evaluate if such aims were successful. In this article, we investigate how the operationalization of functional elements of theories and designs can be more easily conveyed. First, we present a scoping review of the literature to determine the state of operationalizations of SCT as behavior change designs. Second, we introduce a new tool to facilitate the operationalization process. We term the tool blueprints. A blueprint explicates essential functional elements of a behavior change theory by describing it in relation to necessary and sufficient building blocks incorporated in a design. We describe the process of developing a blueprint for SCT. Last, we illustrate how the blueprint can be used during the design refinement and reflection process.
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Many global challenges cannot be addressed by one single actor alone. Achieving sustainability requires governance by state and non-state market actors to jointly realise public values and corporate goals. As a form of public-private governance, voluntary standards involving governments, non-governmental organisations and companies have gained much traction in recent years and have been in the limelight of public authorities and policymakers. From a firm perspective, sustainability standards can be a way to demonstrate that they engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) in a credible way. To capitalise on their CSR activities, firms need to ensure their stakeholders are able to recognise and assess their CSR quality. However, because the relative observability of CSR is low and since CSR is a contested concept, information asymmetries in firm-stakeholder relationships arise. Adopting CSR standards and using these as signalling devices is a strategy for firms to reduce these information asymmetries, by revealing their true CSR quality. Against this background, this article investigates the voluntary ISO 26000 standard for social responsibility as a form of public-private governance and contends that, despite its objectives, this standard suffers from severe signalling problems. Applying signalling theory to the ISO 26000 standard, this article takes a critical stance towards this standard and argues that firms adhering to this standard may actually emit signals that compromise rather than enhance stakeholders' ability to identify and interpret firms' underlying CSR quality. Consequently, the article discusses the findings in the context of public-private governance, suggests a specification of signalling theory and identifies avenues for future research.
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The role and ethics of professionals in business and economics have been questioned, especially after the financial crisis of 2008. Some suggest a reorientation using concepts such as craftsmanship. In this article, I will explore professional practices within the context of behavioural theory and business ethics. I suggest that scholars of behavioural theory need a strategy to deal with normative questions to meet their ambition of practical relevance. Evidence-based management (EBMgt), a recent behavioural approach, may assist business ethics scholars in understanding how professionals infer ‘evidence’ to make decisions. For a professional, ethical issues are an integral part of decision-making at critical moments. As reflective practitioners, they develop insights related to ethical concerns when collecting and assessing evidence within decision-making processes.
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This study examines the motives of employees to engage in workrelated social media use – i.e. the use of personal social mediaaccounts to communicate about work-related issues. The theory ofplanned behavior (TPB) was used to explain this behavior.Because social media can enable users to express theiridentities, social identity expressiveness and self-identityexpressiveness were added to the TPB model. Through an onlinequestionnaire, using purposive sampling technique, 514 Dutchemployees were asked about their social media use and motivationto do so. We used structural equation modelling (SEM) to testour hypotheses. Results indicate that these identity constructsenhance the predictive ability of the TPB. As such, workrelationsocial media use is likely to take place spontaneouslyrather than deliberately and consciously planned.
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Vergelijkende Europese studie in opdracht van Kees van Aken, toenmalig directeur van de opleiding Social Work i.o. van de Hogeschool Zuyd, naar welke verschillende varianten er mogelijk zijn als er gesproken wordt over een Internationale Bachelor Social Work - Maastricht. Op welke manieren zijn er in Europa reeds internationale bachelors zijn ontwikkeld. Het onderzoek moet een overzicht van enkele blauwdrukken van een Internationale Bachelor Social Work opleveren, om mede op basis daarvan een keuze te maken voor een (eventueel meerdere) voor Hogeschool Zuyd wenselijke variant(en) daarvan in Maastricht. Er is vergelijkend Europees onderzoek gedaan naar de verschillende filosofieën en organisatievormen van curricula International Social Work zoals die op verschillende Hogescholen en Universiteiten in Europa functioneren. Met name zijn “good practice” ervaringen onderzocht en met elkaar vergeleken, om op basis daarvan een aantal varianten helder te krijgen voor de opdrachtgever.
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This article shows that business ethics is not capable of explaining the responsibility of limited organized collectives such as chains, sectors and industries. The responsibility of the pharmaceutical industry to make AIDSblockers available for patients in Africa is an example of such a sector responsibility. By using system theory it is possible to understand responsibility at the level of a social system. The Integrative Social Contract Theory has been extended to determine this system’s responsibility.
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As part of my PhD research, I investigate the factors of student success and the influence of the use of social media by first year students in higher education. For this I use the insights provided by the highly influential and leading integration theory of Tinto and diminished the amount of variables by only using the best predictive ones. Hereby, avoiding the capitalization of chance and establishing a more easy to use model for teachers and management. Furthermore, I enriched the model with the use of social media, in particular Facebook, to better suit students’ contemporary society in the developed world. Principal component analysis on Facebook usage provided different integration/engagement components, which I coined peer-engagement and knowledge engagement. Both consisted of various purposes of Facebook use (information, education, social and leisure) and the use of different pages amongst students. To uncover if these latent variables play a significant role in student success or if Facebook is a multi-distracting platform, two models were compared using structural equation modeling with SPSS AMOS; one with and one without the peer-, and knowledge engagement variables. The fit of both models are compared using the normed fit index (NFI), the comparative fit index (CFI), the Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) and the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA). In addition, the direct influence and indirect influence of all variables are compared to provide a better insight into what kind of influence social media can have upon student success.
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By having a healthy and happy social life, social needs are fulfilled. When social needs are not fulfilled, loneliness and social isolation can occur, which have negative consequences for one’s physical and mental health. Social technology, technology that enables social interaction, can be a resource to fulfil the social needs of older people. In this study, we aimed to learn what role social technology plays in the social life of older people. We held 15 interviews with people aged over 70 who regularly use some form of social technology. Our results indicate that social technology plays different roles in the lives of older people. It strengthens the existing social relationships and social structures. It also brings depth and fun to the social contacts of older people and in this way, enriches their social lives. Social technology also gives a sense of safety and peace of mind to the older people themselves but also to their network members. However, there are barriers in the use of social technology. The older people struggled with using social technology and feel that social technology sometimes stands in the way of real human contact. In supporting and facilitating people’s relationship with others, a community and society, technology helps fulfil older people’s need for connectedness, meaningfulness and independence. However, the relationship with independence is ambiguous. Their life experience gives older people a thoughtful way of looking at social technology and the role it plays in their lives
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