By analysing intelligence-gathering reform legislation this article discusses access to justice for communications interception by the intelligence and security services. In the aftermath of the Snowden revelations, sophisticated oversight systems for bulk communications surveillance are being established across the globe. In the Netherlands prior judicial consent and a binding complaint procedure have been established. However, although checks and balances for targeted communications interference have been created, accountability mechanisms are less equipped to effectively remedy indiscriminate interference. Therefore, within the context of mass communications surveillance programs, access to justice for complainants remains a contentious issue.
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The hospitality industry contributes significantly to global climate change through its high resource consumption and emissions due to travel. As public pressure for hotels to develop sustainability initiatives to mitigate their footprint grows, a lack of understanding of green behavior and consumption of hotel guests hinders the adoption of effective programs. Most tourism research thus far has focused on the ecotourism segment, rather than the general population of travelers, and while research in consumer behavior shows that locus of control (LOC) and guilt can influence guests’ environmental behavior, those factors have not been tested with consideration of the subjective norm to measure their interaction and effect on recycling behavior. This study first examines the importance of internal and external LOC on factors for selecting hotel accommodation and the extent of agreement about hotel practices and, second, examines the differences in recycling behavior among guests with internal versus external LOC under levels of positive versus negative subjective norms and feelings of low versus high guilt.
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Human rights groups are increasingly calling for the protection of their right to privacy in relation to the bulk surveillance and interception of their personal communications. Some are advocating through strategic litigation. This advocacy tool is often chosen when there is weak political or public support for an issue. Nonetheless, as a strategy it remains a question if a lawsuit is strategic in the context of establishing accountability for indiscriminate bulk data interception. The chapter concludes that from a legal perspective the effect of the decision to litigate on the basis of the claim that a collective right to group privacy was violated has not (yet) resulted in significant change. Yet the case study, the British case of human rights groups versus the intelligence agencies, does seem to suggest that they have been able to create more public awareness about mass surveillance and interception programs and its side-effects
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Brand Positioning is an English translation of an exceptionally well-renowned Dutch textbook, which provides a practical approach to analysing, defining and developing a brand’s positioning and strategy.Divided into three key parts, the book works step-by-step through the creation of an effective marketing strategy, combining an academic approach with the strategic and operational guidelines, tools and techniques required. Unlike other textbooks, it has a unique focus on the relationship between branding, marketing and communications, exploring brand values, brand identity and brand image, and analysing how these can be transformed into a successful positioning strategy, using international case studies, examples and practical exercises.This textbook will be core reading for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of marketing strategy, branding, marketing communications and consumer behaviour. It will also be of great value to marketing and communications professionals looking to develop and maintain their company’s brand.Erik Kostelijk is Associate Professor of Marketing at the Amsterdam School of International Business of the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands. He has teaching, research and professional experience in China, USA, Lithuania, France, Spain and Italy. He is the designer and author of the Value Compass, a method to assess the influence of values on branding.Karel Jan Alsem is Professor in Marketing at Hanze University of Applied Sciences in Groningen, the Netherlands, and is Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. He is also a brand consultant. He has published in several academic journals and has written multiple marketing books, including Applied Strategic Marketing (Routledge, 2019).
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Communities of Practice (CoPs) are social learning systems that can be, to a certain extent, designed. Wenger (1998) proposes the following paradox; “ no community can fully design the learning of another, but at the same time, no community can fully design its own learning” (p:234). My interpretation of Wenger’s statement is that learning environments such as CoPs need to be facilitated in their learning processes, but not their specific design. Approaching CoPs this way allows for the design of interventions that facilitate learning processes within a CoP rather than regulate them. However, empirical studies on facilitating internal processes of CoPs are sparse – most work is anecdotal. This means that one needs to look to other fields for guidance in order to discover how to facilitate CoPs in their learning. This paper describes part of a larger research project that asks the question whether communities of practice can be instituted in higher professional educational organizations as an effective method to facilitate participant learning (professional development) and stimulate new knowledge creation in the service of the organization. Using a more pragmatic approach to cultivating CoPs (Ropes, 2007) opens the possibility to use different theoretical perspectives in order to find and ground interventions that can facilitate learning in CoPs and which are typically used in organizational development trajectories based on learning (de Caluwe & Vermaak, 2002). In this paper I look at how theories of human resource development, workplace learning and social constructivism conceptualize learning and what type of environments promote this. I then map out community of practice theory along these fields in order to come to a synthesized conceptual framework, which I will use to help understand what specific interventions can be used for designing CoPs. Finally I propose several interventions based on the work done here. The main question I consider here can be formulated as follows; ‘what insight can Human Resource Development theories, Workplace Learning theories and Social Constructivist learning theory give in order to design interventions that facilitate internal processes of communities of practice?’
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A culture change within an organization may be of importance in this turbulent world. An assessment of the current and desired cultural profiles can help estimate as to whether any changes are required. In this study the organizational culture of a housing association was examined from both the staff’s and external stakeholders’ perspectives. How does the current culture compare with the desired culture? Do the external stakeholders perceive the organization’s culture in a similar way? Do the staff’s and external stakeholders’ perceptions coincide with the organization’s intended image? The results demonstrate that the external stakeholders’ perceptions of the organizational culture in this case study are similar to those of the organization’s staff.
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In this presented study, we measured in situ the uplink duty cycles of a smartphone for 5G NR and 4G LTE for a total of six use cases covering voice, video, and data applications. The duty cycles were assessed at ten positions near a 4G and 5G base-station site in Belgium. For Twitch, VoLTE, and WhatsApp, the duty cycles ranged between 4% and 22% in time, both for 4G and 5G. For 5G NR, these duty cycles resulted in a higher UL-allotted time due to time division duplexing at the 3.7 GHz frequency band. Ping showed median duty cycles of 2% for 5G NR and 50% for 4G LTE. FTP upload and iPerf resulted in duty cycles close to 100%.
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This paper lays the groundwork for building a communication model that will help cultivate communities of practice through the use of strategic communications. Theoretical models describing communities of practice in organizational knowledge generation typically have three main actors; the individual, the community and the organization. These models usually mention the necessity for their interaction, but are never specific about how this should be done. Furthermore, there has been little research on how communication processes can affect the relationship between the three actors in the model. This paper proposes that the interaction between the community, the individual members of the community and the organization must be facilitated and promoted through specific strategic communications in order to guarantee the success of the community. Topics such as knowledge sharing, knowledge building and organizational learning are looked at through a communication perspective.
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Positioning is hot. Not only in the realm of consumer goods manufacturers, but also for other companies, institutions, governments and even individual persons. An explosion of good quality products on the market and targeted media and advertising campaigns has led to an increasing interest from organizations as to how to strategically position their brand. Up to now, only a few books on positioning were published. Positioning the Brand picks up the gauntlet with an approach based on two fundamental choices: Firstly, the book was written from the perspective of the brand manager, and has therefore been shaped as a practical roadmap. Secondly, this book advocates a new stance on positioning, teaching the reader to look from the inside-out, instead of adopting the usual outside-in methodology. This inside-out approach departs from an analysis of the corporate identity, enabling better fulfilment of external positioning, and ensuring internal support. This book is intended for (future) managers, marketing professionals and communication professionals responsible for the commercial success and reputation of a brand. The contents have a practical set-up, reinforced by engaging examples, and enable the reader to individually complete a positioning process.
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Community energy can be conceptualized as a social movement, which aims to develop a sustainable, democratic, and localist energy system. Community energy organizations often take the form of cooperatives and strive for a high level of participation at the neighborhood level. Recently, community energy initiatives took on the challenge to develop neighborhood heating projects, which are citizen-led and sustainable. District heating (DH) projects are characterized by costly investments, a substantial overhaul of local infrastructure, and large installations for heat production. Furthermore, specialized technical knowledge is needed for the design of DH-systems.In the Netherlands, we studied four cases where local energy cooperatives developed such citizen-led neighborhood heating projects. Our primary research question is what constitutes a citizen-led or citizen-supported DH-project? We focus on four themes: first, the internal organization of the CH-project; second its outreach to local citizens; third, the role of technical knowledge and technology choices; fourth, the changing role of municipalities in the local energy transition.We developed a theoretical framework that consists of three main networks: the internal network, constituted by the local energy initiative itself and its surrounding neighborhood; the external network, which is comprised of local and regional governments as well as private companies; and the material network, referring to technological and physical aspects.In the discussion, we situate our findings against a broader European background. We conclude that a democratic structure, transparency of decision making, and a high level of activities to involve the neighborhood are key success factors. Nevertheless, the development of a community DH-project is a time-consuming process that takes a high toll on the participants. We observed that the remunicipalization trend is emerging in the Netherlands. Regarding technology choices, we found that the DH-initiatives became quite knowledgeable on technical issues and stimulated the application of new technologies such as small-scale aquathermal energy. However, in some cases the choice for a low-cost solution led to concessions to the sustainability of the proposed solutions.
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