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This article approaches the possibilities of photo elicitation as a technique for social research in the landscape of technology-mediated instantaneous interpersonal communication.

This case study, which involved persons with prison experience in the process of returning to the community, demonstrates how participant-generated photographs made with mobile handheld electronic devices and the meanings participants have attached to them allowed the research to take a co-creative turn.

The data analyzed show the potential of photo elicitation to build a link between researcher and researched that empowers the latter with agency in designing the results and also throughout the research process as a whole, thus allowing the former to reach a deeper level of understanding of the research participants' social reality.

The research conducted showcases the possibilities of this technique to approach the field of emotions from the ethnography and how they can build knowledge – especially in the work with vulnerable populations in vulnerable contexts – and generate new categories of analysis.

In the context of constructing an integrated national strategic system, collaborative innovation among enterprises is the current social focus. Therefore, in order to find the interest relationship between multiple game subjects, to explore the influencing factors of collaborative innovation of civil-military integration enterprises. This paper constructs a collaborative innovation mechanism for military–civilian integration involving four game subjects (military enterprises, private enterprises, local governments, and science and technology intermediaries). It aims to solve and reveal the evolutionary game relationship among the four parties.

To explore the mechanism of military–civilian collaborative innovation involving four players, this study employs game theory and constructs an evolutionary game model for collaborative innovation with the participation of military enterprises, civilian enterprises, local governments, and technology intermediaries. The model reveals the evolutionary game patterns among these four entities, analyzes the impact of various parameters on the evolutionary process of the game system, and numerical simulation is used to show these changes more specifically.

The research findings demonstrate that active government subsidies promote cooperation throughout the system. Moreover, increasing the input-output ratio of research and development (R&D), the rate of technological spillovers, and the R&D investment of civilian enterprises all facilitate the tendency toward cooperation within the system. However, when the government chooses to actively provide subsidies, increasing R&D investment in military enterprises may hinder the tendency toward cooperation. Furthermore, central transfer payments, government punishment from the central government, and an increase in the information conversion rate of technology intermediaries may suppress the rate of cooperation within the system.

Most of the previous studies on the collaborative innovation of military–civilian integration have been tripartite game models between military enterprises, private enterprises, and local governments. In contrast, this study adds science and technology intermediaries on this basis, reveals the evolution mechanism of collaborative innovation of civil-military integration enterprises from the perspective of four-party participation, and analyzes the factors influencing the cooperation of the whole system. The conclusion of this study not only enriches the collaborative innovation evolution mechanism of military–civilian integration enterprises from the perspective of multiple agents but also provides practical guidance for the innovation-driven development of military–civilian integration enterprises.

This research aims to examine the US–China policy shift from Obama to Biden emphasizing the centrality of Taiwan question in the geostrategic competition with Beijing and its prospect if the US strategy remains unchanged.

A conceptual framework is outlined, illustrating how the US grand strategy is driven by the ideological foundation of Exceptionalism. The paper highlights the associated US policy changes that evolved from Obama to Trump and then Biden to advance Washington's strategic interests in its rivalry with China over Taiwan.

Biden's policy led to an escalating geopolitical competition with Beijing over Taiwan to maintain US supremacy. The Biden administration is more stringent than the previous administrations on the Taiwan question and there is the conviction that the USA must not back down on Taiwan because the alternative will be a retraction of US world primacy to Beijing. With Washington's persistent hegemonic strategy, the US–China confrontation over Taiwan seems inevitable.

The research highlights how the Biden administration managed a perpetuated Ukraine crisis and forged unprecedented high-level ties with Taiwan, indicating the administration's determination to exacerbate contentions with Beijing over Taiwan rather than de-escalate.

Military values/virtues are a subset of ethical values. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of military virtues on job performance, either directly, or indirectly through mediation by, loyalty, patience, respect, employee engagement, job performance, military ethics, courage, self-discipline, caring, military virtue, Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) employee engagement.

Military virtues were conceptualized as a collective construct, consisting of loyalty, courage, patience, respect, self-discipline and caring. Using a sample of 254 military officers in the SLAF, the authors measured the effect of military virtues on job performance. The first model was a direct measurement of the influence of military virtues on job performance. The second model measured the influence of military virtues on employee engagement, followed by measurement of the influence of employee engagement on job performance. Structural equation modeling was used in data analysis.

Both direct effects and mediated effects of military virtues on job performance were significant. However, the direct effect was stronger, suggesting that military virtues in and of themselves resulted in superior performance, more effectively, than by first increasing employee engagement with the task or the organization.

This may be an initial empirical examination of the effects of military virtues on job performance.

This paper aims to identify and evaluate the industrial heritage of the Safawi region, which has suffered from neglect and government dispossession. It proposes strategies for documenting and repurposing the Al-Safawi cinema, advocating for its transformation into a historical museum. Repurposing culturally significant structures as museums offers opportunities to address challenges, preserve heritage, promote sustainable urban development, improve local quality of life, and attract tourists.

Employing an inductive approach, this research uses qualitative methods, including detailed descriptive analysis, along with contemporary digital documentation tools such as RTC360 Laser Scanning, Digi Cad 3D, Autodesk Revit, AutoCAD, and Photoshop.

The study demonstrates that converting heritage buildings into museums requires minimal alterations to maintain authenticity and historical integrity. These findings provide valuable insights into architectural considerations that inform decision-making processes for museum projects, contributing to discussions on museum standards, practices, and adaptive reuse within the Jordanian context.

This study stands out for its use of advanced digital tools within the Jordanian context, representing a significant advancement in digital documentation practices. Few studies have explored the Safawi area and its heritage, making this research particularly innovative. By advocating for minimal alterations to preserve authenticity, it sets a valuable precedent for museum projects in the country, enhancing efforts in heritage conservation and cultural enrichment. This initiative highlights the evolving landscape of digital engagement in Jordan and its potential implications for cultural heritage management.

The paper explores the roles of involved organizations in the designation of Batu Arang in Gombak, Selangor, Malaysia, as the Coal Mining and Geological Heritage Site, the heritage significance selected as the elements of its designation and the challenges faced by the involved stakeholders during the designation process.

The primary research material is derived from the documentation review on the final draft of the Special Area Plan (RKK) of Batu Arang and the final draft of the Geopark Management Plan, field investigation on the heritage significances and interviews with the involved organizations: the Selayang Municipal Council (MPS), the State of Selangor Malay Custom and Heritage Corporation (PADAT) and the Village Community Management Council (MPKK) of Batu Arang.

This paper found that Batu Arang has the potential to be developed as an important heritage mining site and heritage tourism destination; however, many of the heritage significances are being demolished, invaded and abandoned due to human aggression or effects of nature. In addition, it reveals the roles of each involved organization, issues that occurred and challenges faced by the organizations during the designation process as a heritage site, namely in terms of management, property ownership and promotion.

The paper outlines that a heritage mining site like Batu Arang should be considered an important heritage as well as other heritage sites in Malaysia, and issues and challenges faced during the designation process should be discussed critically to ensure that these heritage significances will not be neglected and abandoned.

The a priori identification and development of army personnel competencies are necessary to enable effective and efficient responses to rapidly changing climate conditions. Accordingly, this study aims to identify the performance requirements of a military flood responder and the competencies (knowledge, skills and abilities) required to perform it.

Using an abductive approach, the authors conducted both secondary and primary research to generate a validated framework of performance criteria and competencies for army personnel responding to floods. This literature review integrated both the peer-reviewed academic literature and public sector grey literature. Using the critical incident technique, the authors then conducted semi-structured interviews with 15 members of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) who had previously been tasked with flood response operations. Participants were asked about the tasks required while conducting flood response operations. Interview transcripts were then content analysed to identify themes regarding those tasks, and the competencies needed to perform those tasks were then extracted and contrasted with the literature review findings. Inter-rater reliability for the analysis was established via iterative discussion between the two co-authors.

The primary data reinforced and expanded the list of performance expectations that the authors deductively identified from the integrated literature review, adding granularity to each. It also identified competencies (including both hard and soft skills) and highlighted previously neglected contextual antecedents of military flood response effectiveness.

though knowledge saturation was achieved from the 15 interviews conducted, further research with larger samples could more deeply ground the evidence discovered in this study. Nevertheless, the competencies identified in this paper could serve as a starting guide to staffing and/or training interventions targeted at improving these competencies for personnel responding to flood scenarios.

The theoretical findings also have immediate practical relevance to training for flood response operations. In particular, the subtle challenges in competency crossover from military operations to flood response operations may facilitate not only more efficient, targeted training (that could improve the effectiveness of army personnel involved in humanitarian roles), but could be applied to the selection of army personnel as well. This study may also help provincial/municipal operators and emergency planners by better communicating the strengths and limitations of army personnel in addressing civilian military cooperation for humanitarian operations. Thus, the findings of this research study represent an important first step in prompting attention to the strategic human resource planning studies required to make all responders more efficient and effective in their respective division of labour within the humanitarian domain.

Peering a little beyond these research findings, human-induced climate change is expected to continue increasing the frequency of such events (IPCC, 2021), and a timely, national force is likely to be increasingly required for Canadians impacted by major disasters stemming from natural hazards when local resources become overwhelmed. Yet, there is some concern from the CAF that increasing responsiveness to disaster operations will affect their military readiness (Leuprecht and Kasurak, 2020). One can indeed envision a paradox whereby the CAF is both a “force of last resort” while increasingly becoming a “first choice for domestic disaster and emergency assistance”. The practical implications from this research also suggest that military personnel, while fully capable of successfully conducting flood response operations, may become overburdened and less able to adopt yet greater capacity and training for other additional humanitarian work. Nevertheless, the competencies highlighted by participants can help inform the next flood response operation in Canada.

Most literature in the field of emergency response focuses on cooperation between civilian and military resources and other strategic-level themes. The findings address critical granularity missing at the operational and tactical levels of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief research. The authors also draw implications beyond the military context, including for local/regional governmental players (operators and emergency planners) as well as for volunteers in flood response roles.

This study aims to highlight the dimensions of the rivalry over the regional role between two regional powers in the Middle East, and the impact of local, regional and international pressures of the Syrian crisis on the role performance of the competing forces.

The study is based on using “the role approach” as an analytical frame to benefit by the application of the theory of role. This approach allows the possibility of linking various analytical levels, both in clarifying the relationship between internal and external factors and showing the interaction between elements of perception, abilities and behavior.

The international pressures shall remain governing the frame of competition among the roles of the regional powers, through determining the course of competition and its direct impact on its results.

This study examines the phenomenon of regional rivalry between two distinct and competing regional powers, in a turbulent environment in the wake of the Arab Spring crises, which created opportunities and challenges for regional powers, especially in Syria, where it intersected with the interests and policies of major and regional powers.

This historical example of the creation of the arms industry in the Connecticut River Valley in the 1800s provides new insights into the value of government venture capital (GVC) and government demand in creating a new industry. Since current theoretical explanations of the best uses of governmental venture capital are still under development, there is considerable need for further theory development to explain and predict the creation of an industry and especially those industries where failures in private capital supply necessitates governmental involvement in new firm creation. The purpose of this paper is to provide an in depth historical review of how the arms industry evolved spurred by GVC and government created demand.

This study uses abductive inference as the best way to build and test emerging theories and advancing theoretical explanations of the best uses of GVC and governmental demand to achieve socially required outcomes.

By observing this specific historical example in detail, the authors add to the understanding of value creation caused by governmental venture capital funding of existing theory. A major contribution of this paper is to advance theory based on detailed observation.

The relatively limited research literature and theory development on governmental venture capital funding and the critical success factors in startups are enriched by this abductive investigation of the creation of the historically important arms industry and its spillover into creating the specialized machine industry.

The main aim of this paper is to explore the influence mechanisms of perceived organizational politics (POP) on employee performance (EP). Drawing on the job demands-resources theory (JD-R), this paper investigates opportunistic silence (OS) as a mediating factor and job level as a moderating effect in the POP-OS-performance relationship.

This study’s data were collected from 203 employees working in Indian high-power distance organizations (HPDOs), such as the military, police and security forces. Mediation and moderation analysis were conducted using PLS-SEM, and the moderated mediation index was calculated using Hayes PROCESS Macro.

The results indicate that OS fully mediates the POP-performance relationship – specifically, POP as a job demand activates OS, which acts as an energy/resource depleting mechanism and further deteriorates task performance. Interestingly, the overall negative influence of POP and OS on EP was stronger for employees at lower job levels than those at senior job levels.

This paper offers a unique set of findings that enrich the understanding of factors responsible for employees’ performance in the highly political environments of HPDOs. By using the lens of JD-R theory, this paper draws attention towards the tendency of employees to indulge in self-serving behaviours like OS in politically charged contexts which is detrimental to their performance and may also undermine overall organization’s productivity. Furthermore, this paper also highlights the conditional effects exerted by job level in the unique nexus of POP, OS and EP.