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1 – 10 of 10Ilkka Koiranen, Aki Koivula, Anna Kuusela and Arttu Saarinen
The study utilises unique survey data gathered from 12,427 party members. The dependent variable measures party members’ in-party commitment and is based on willingness to donate…
Abstract
Purpose
The study utilises unique survey data gathered from 12,427 party members. The dependent variable measures party members’ in-party commitment and is based on willingness to donate money, to contribute effort, the feeling of belonging in the party network and social trust in the party network.
Design/methodology/approach
In this article, we study how different extra-parliamentary online and offline activities are associated with in-party commitment amongst political party members from the six largest Finnish parties. We especially delve into the differences between members of the Finnish parties.
Findings
We found that extra-parliamentary political activity, including connective action through social media networks and collective action through civic organisations, is highly associated with members’ in-party commitment. Additionally, members of the newer identity parties more effectively utilised social media networks, whilst the traditional interest parties were still more linked to traditional forms of extra-parliamentary political action.
Originality/value
By employing the sociological network theory perspective, the study contributes to ongoing discussions surrounding the impact of social media on political participation amongst party members, both within and beyond the confines of political parties.
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Huiwen Shi and Lok Ming Eric Cheung
While most language departments of the university offer service-learning (SL) subjects based on language teaching, such as “Teaching Chinese as a Second Language in Local Schools”…
Abstract
Purpose
While most language departments of the university offer service-learning (SL) subjects based on language teaching, such as “Teaching Chinese as a Second Language in Local Schools” and “Serving the Community through Teaching English,” this paper aims to argue that teaching students to teach language(s) is yet to be the best strategy to serve the service recipients.
Design/methodology/approach
SL is widely understood as an experiential learning pedagogy that integrates academic focus, reflection and community service and is shown to be impactful. In Hong Kong, the first university that has made SL a graduation requirement is the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (the University). Considering this, new SL courses have proliferated over the past decade. Adopting a narrative inquiry approach, this paper examines personal narratives from a new SL subject aiming to raise awareness of refugees in Hong Kong. The data includes students’ reflective journals, co-created personal narratives and podcasts and semi-structured interviews.
Findings
This paper finds that crafting and recording narratives of shared experiences deepens cultural understanding, cultivates empathy and facilitates language learning in a genuine setting.
Social implications
Ultimately, this paper advocates a well-designed SL that combines language, content and technology as a powerful, transformational experience for both college students and service recipients.
Originality/value
This paper focuses on a brand new SL course, “Storytelling for Understanding: Refugee Children in Hong Kong,” offered in Semester 1, 2022–2023. The subject was developed by the two authors from a language division affiliated to the University. The deliverables were podcast recordings, co-authored and co-edited by the students and the children.
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Ingo Pies and Vladislav Valentinov
Stakeholder theory understands business in terms of relationships among stakeholders whose interests are mainly joint but may be occasionally conflicting. In the latter case…
Abstract
Purpose
Stakeholder theory understands business in terms of relationships among stakeholders whose interests are mainly joint but may be occasionally conflicting. In the latter case, managers may need to make trade-offs between these interests. The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of managerial decision-making about these trade-offs.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper draws on the ordonomic approach which sees business life to be rife with social dilemmas and locates the role of stakeholders in harnessing or resolving these dilemmas through engagement in rule-finding and rule-setting processes.
Findings
The ordonomic approach suggests that stakeholder interests trade-offs ought to be neither ignored nor avoided, but rather embraced and welcomed as an opportunity for bringing to fruition the joint interest of stakeholders in playing a better game of business. Stakeholders are shown to bear responsibility for overcoming the perceived trade-offs through the institutional management of social dilemmas.
Originality/value
For many stakeholder theorists, the nature of managerial decision-making about trade-offs between conflicting stakeholder interests and the nature of trade-offs themselves have been a long-standing point of contention. The paper shows that trade-offs may be useful for the value creation process and explicitly discusses managerial strategies for dealing with them.
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The concept of “participation” has become a buzzword in contemporary public governance models. However, despite the broad and significant interest, defining participation remains…
Abstract
Purpose
The concept of “participation” has become a buzzword in contemporary public governance models. However, despite the broad and significant interest, defining participation remains a debated topic. The aim of the current study was to explore how participants perceived and interpreted the meaning and scope of participation.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is part of a four-year (2019–2022) longitudinal research project investigating stakeholder participation in the context of developing and establishing a strategic regional plan in Region Skåne in southern Sweden. The research project has a qualitative approach and uses interviews with different stakeholder groups such as municipal politicians and public officials and a survey as empirical material.
Findings
The authors developed a participation spectrum including eight types of participation: to be open, to be informed, to be listened to, to discuss, to be consulted, to give and take, to collaborate and to co-create. The authors also identified four different purposes of participation: creating a joint network, creating a joint understanding, creating a joint effort and creating a joint vision. The spectrum and the purposes were related through four characteristics of participation, i.e. involvement, interaction, influence and empowerment.
Research limitations/implications
The study rests on a single case, and so the results have limited transferatibility.
Originality/value
Researching participation in terms of the participants' perceptions contributes a new perspective to the existing literature, which has commonly focussed on the organizers' perceptions of participation. Moreover, in order to clarify what participation meant to the participants, the study puts emphasis on untangling this from the why question of participation.
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This article examines curatorial practices, both traditional and digital, in the Guizhou Provincial Museum’s ethnic exhibition to assess their effectiveness in representing ethnic…
Abstract
Purpose
This article examines curatorial practices, both traditional and digital, in the Guizhou Provincial Museum’s ethnic exhibition to assess their effectiveness in representing ethnic minority cultures, fostering learning and inspiring curiosity about ethnic textiles and costumes and associated cultures. It also explores audience expectations concerning digital technology use in future exhibitions.
Design/methodology/approach
A mixed-methods approach was employed, where visitor data were collected through questionnaires, together with interviews with expert, museum professionals and ethnic minority textile practitioners. Their expertise proved instrumental in shaping the design of the study and enhancing the overall visitor experience, and thus fostering a deeper appreciation and understanding of ethnic minority cultures.
Findings
Visitors were generally satisfied with the exhibition, valuing their educational experience on ethnic textiles and cultures. There is a notable demand for more immersive digital technologies in museum exhibitions. The study underscores the importance of participatory design with stakeholders, especially ethnic minority groups, for genuine and compelling cultural representation.
Originality/value
This study delves into the potentials of digital technologies in the curation of ethnic minority textiles, particularly for enhancing education and cultural communication. Ethnic textiles and costumes provide rich sensory experience, and they carry deep cultural significance, especially during festive occasions. Our findings bridge this gap; they offer insights for museums aiming to deepen the visitor experiences and understanding of ethnic cultures through the use of digital technologies.
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María-Soledad Ramírez-Montoya and May Portuguez-Castro
The challenges facing 21st-century society are becoming increasingly complex, requiring the development of new citizen competencies. This study aims to validate an educational…
Abstract
Purpose
The challenges facing 21st-century society are becoming increasingly complex, requiring the development of new citizen competencies. This study aims to validate an educational model focused on developing complex thinking in higher education students. Current educational models lack future-ready competencies, necessitating the emergence of new models to guide future generations toward the common good.
Design/methodology/approach
This was an adaptation of the causal-layered analysis (CLA) applied to 415 participants from higher education institutions in Mexico, Panama and Spain. Sessions were designed to present the proposed educational model and explore participants’ perceptions of its significance and contributions to future education.
Findings
Key findings include the following: participants perceived complexity as difficult and challenging; causes of problems were linked to outdated educational models requiring replacement by those that develop students’ competencies; participants envisioned changes that would develop individuals capable of understanding and transforming society; and participants recognized the model’s transformative potential, offering a novel proposal for 21st-century education.
Originality/value
This research sought to gather opinions from different stakeholders using the CLA methodology, providing a deep understanding of participants’ perspectives on the proposed solution.
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Anna-Leena Kurki, Elina Weiste, Hanna Toiviainen, Sari Käpykangas and Hilkka Ylisassi
The involvement of clients in service encounters and service development has become a central principle for contemporary health and social care organizations. However, in…
Abstract
Purpose
The involvement of clients in service encounters and service development has become a central principle for contemporary health and social care organizations. However, in day-to-day work settings, the shift toward client involvement is still in progress. We examined how health and social care professionals, together with clients and managers, co-develop their conceptions of client involvement and search for practical ways in which to implement these in organizational service processes.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical case of this study was a developmental intervention, the client involvement workshop, conducted in a Finnish municipal social and welfare center. The cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) framework was used to analyze the development of client involvement ideas and the modes of interaction during the intervention.
Findings
Analysis of the collective discussion revealed that the conceptions of client involvement developed through two interconnected object-orientations: Enabling client involvement in service encounters and promoting client involvement in the service system. The predominant mode of interaction in the collective discussion was that of “coordination.” The clients' perspective and contributions were central aspects in the turning points from coordination to cooperation; professionals crossed organizational boundaries, and together with clients, constructed a new client involvement-based object. This suggests that client participation plays an important role in the development of services.
Originality/value
The CHAT-based examination of the modes of interaction clarifies the potential of co-developing client-involvement-based services and highlights the importance of clients' participation in co-development.
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Fernanda Cigainski Lisbinski and Heloisa Lee Burnquist
This article aims to investigate how institutional characteristics affect the level of financial development of economies collectively and compare between developed and…
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to investigate how institutional characteristics affect the level of financial development of economies collectively and compare between developed and undeveloped economies.
Design/methodology/approach
A dynamic panel with 131 countries, including developed and developing ones, was utilized; the estimators of the generalized method of moments system (GMM system) model were selected because they have econometric characteristics more suitable for analysis, providing superior statistical precision compared to traditional linear estimation methods.
Findings
The results from the full panel suggest that concrete and well-defined institutions are important for financial development, confirming previous research, with a more limited scope than the present work.
Research limitations/implications
Limitations of this research include the availability of data for all countries worldwide, which would make the research broader and more complete.
Originality/value
A panel of countries was used, divided into developed and developing countries, to analyze the impact of institutional variables on the financial development of these countries, which is one of the differentiators of this work. Another differentiator of this research is the presentation of estimates in six different configurations, with emphasis on the GMM system model in one and two steps, allowing for comparison between results.
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Claudio Marciano, Alex Fergnani and Alberto Robiati
The purpose of this study is to propose an innovative and efficient process in urban policy-making that combines a divergent and creative method with a convergent and strategic…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to propose an innovative and efficient process in urban policy-making that combines a divergent and creative method with a convergent and strategic one. At the same time, the purpose is also to propose a useful innovation to enforce the usability of both methods. On the one hand, mission-oriented policies run the risk of being overly focused on the present and of not being able to develop preparedness in organization. On the other hand, scenario development has the reverse problem it often does not point out how to use scenario narratives to inform and devise short-term strategic actions.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper proposes an innovative methodological approach, the mission-oriented scenarios, which hybridizes Mazzucato's mission-oriented public policy framework with Jim Dator's Manoa school four futures method. The proposed methodological innovation emerges from a urban foresight academic-led project carried out in the context of the Metropolitan City of Turin, Italy, where a first application of the mission-oriented scenarios was tested on six different focal issues (from reindustrialization to cultural policies) and the scenario narratives were used as sources for the grounding of 12 missions and 48 strategic actions towards 2030.
Findings
Mission-oriented scenarios can contribute to the generation of more sustainable and inclusive urban public policies. This methodological proposal is based on an original mix of knowledge exchange procedures borrowed from methodological approaches with different backgrounds: the mission-oriented and the archetypal scenarios. Their conjunction could support the formulation of ambitious yet pragmatic policies, giving a plurality of actors the opportunity to act and establish fruitful and lasting partnerships.
Originality/value
The paper reconstructs one of the first urban foresight projects carried out in a major Italian city by two prestigious universities and exposes a methodological innovation resulting from reflection on the strengths and weaknesses of the project, which opens the door to the development of a new scenario technique.
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Ricardo Chalmeta and Adriana M. Barbeito-Caamaño
This study aims to contribute to the field of computer systems for sustainability research. It proposes a framework for sustainability awareness using online social networks…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to contribute to the field of computer systems for sustainability research. It proposes a framework for sustainability awareness using online social networks (OSNs) by analyzing major research streams of the current state of knowledge and different bibliometric variables, and identifies a future research agenda in the field.
Design/methodology/approach
The preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analysis (PRISMA) methodology, content analysis and bibliometric tools were employed to identify, select, collect, synthesize, analyze and evaluate all research published on sustainability awareness using OSNs to provide complete insight into this research area.
Findings
This study proposed a framework comprising four categories for sustainability awareness using OSNs. These four categories are: the key factors to success, analysis of existing tools, proposal of new methods, approaches and theoretical frameworks, and case examples. In addition, this study synthesized the future research challenges for each category of the proposed framework.
Originality/value
Fostering sustainability awareness and sustainable behavior using OSNs is a growing area of research that seeks cultural change in society to achieve sustainable development. Through OSNs, people can discover and become aware of the consequences of unsustainable practices and habits in society, and learn how to develop sustainable behavior.
Peer review
The peer review history for this article is available at https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR
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