Search results

The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical lens on digital servitization (DS) for future research purposes. By developing a multilevel framework that helps structure and untangle its complexity, the authors aim to increase understanding into the persistent challenge of DS.

Building on a problematization approach, critical incident technique was applied to a comparative, longitudinal, multiple-case study in which DS journeys from one Italian and one Belgian manufacturing firm were analyzed.

Analysis revealed that different levels and elements of the multilevel framework were simultaneously involved in the identified critical incidents. This huge interconnectedness severely challenged the DS journeys. Managerial (un)responsiveness played a central role in the organizational outcome for both firms.

The authors answer the call for a more holistic approach toward DS. A multilevel framework is provided to be employed by future researchers and practitioners alike. A mid-range theory for DS and propositions for future research are developed.

The purpose of this study is to apply a corpus-assisted analysis of keywords and their collocations in the US presidential discourse from Clinton to Trump to discover the meanings of these words and the collocates they have. Keywords are salient words in a corpus whose frequency is unusually high (positive keywords) or low (negative keywords) in comparison with a reference corpus. Collocation is the co-occurrence of words.

To achieve this purpose, the investigation of keywords and collocations is generated by AntConc, a corpus processing software.

This analysis leads to shed light on the similarities and/or differences amongst the past four American presidents concerning their key topics. Keyword analysis through keyness makes it evident that Clinton and Obama, being Democrats, demonstrate a clear tendency to improve Americans’ life inside their social sphere. Obama surpasses Clinton as regard foreign affairs. Clinton and Obama’s infrequent subjects have to do with terrorism and immigration. This complies with their condensed focus on social and economic improvements. Bush, a republican, concentrates only on external issues. This is proven by his keywords signifying war against terrorism. Bush’s negative use of words marking cooperative actions conforms to his positive use of words indicating external war. Trump’s positive keywords are about exaggerated descriptions without a defined target. He also shows an unusual frequency in referring to his name and position. His words used with negative keyness refer to reforming programs and external issues. Collocations around each top content keyword clarify the word and harmonize with the presidential orientation negotiated by the keywords.

Limitations have to do with the issue of the accurate representation of the samples.

This research is original in its methodology of applying corpus linguistics tools in the analysis of presidential discourses.

The media has even been very critical of some East Asian countries’ use of digital contact-tracing to control Covid-19. For example, South Korea has been criticised for its use of privacy-infringing digital contact-tracing. However, whether their type of digital contact-tracing was unnecessarily harmful to the human rights of Korean citizens is open for debate. The purpose of this paper is to examine this criticism to see if Korea’s digital contact-tracing is ethically justifiable.

This paper will evaluate Korea’s digital contact-tracing through the lens of the four human rights principles to determine if their response is ethically justifiable. These four principles were originally outlined in the European Court of Human Rights, namely, necessary, proportional, scientifically valid and time-bounded (European Court of Human Rights 1950).

The paper will propose that while the use of Korea’s digital contact-tracing was scientifically valid and proportionate (albeit, in need for improvements), it meets the necessity requirement, but is too vague to meet the time-boundedness requirement.

The Covid-19 pandemic has proven to be one of the worst threats to human health and the global economy in the past century. There have been many different strategies to tackle the pandemic, from somewhat laissez-faire approaches, herd immunity, to strict draconian measures. Analysis of the approaches taken in the response to the pandemic is of high scientific value and this paper is one of the first to critically engage with one of these methods – digital contact-tracing in South Korea.

This paper aims to propose the phenomenography as an approach that may contribute to the organizational studies based on the practice perspective, considering that it analyzes the phenomenon through the practitioner’s view and experience.

It is a theoretical essay about phenomenography as a theoretical-methodological perspective, considering its concept, its relation with practice theories and how its theoretical-methodological approach is capable of bringing a new perspective over the organizations, in the practice perspective.

The phenomenographic method, together with the practice perspective, enables mapping, identifying, describing and relating all the different ways by which an organization, in each one of its structuring dimensions, is effectively experienced. It argues that aspects such as the phenomenographic interview, the second-order perspective, the collective conceptions stated in the outcome space and their relations, the complexity of hierarchy and the abductive theorization about the emerging concepts of collective perceptions form, all together, an alternative and promising theoretical approach to analyze the entanglement between action and the material dimension that constitutes the organizational practices.

The phenomenographic outcome space may become a catalyst of a theorization about practices, which is capable to modify them or modify the way they are understood.

It discusses the possibility of phenomenography to theorize from the agents’ collective consciousness.