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This study aims to explore Indian online shopping via the concept of shopping orientations.

Surveys were collected from 536 consumer panel members. Online shopping segments were identified by using a two‐step process that clustered respondents in terms of the similarity of their scores across four shopping orientations.

Three segments were identified: value singularity, quality at any price, and reputation/recreation. The quality at any price and reputation/recreation segments were the predominant online shoppers. Although their orientations toward shopping differed, their behaviour, web site attribute ratings, and demographics were very similar except for occupation (managerial versus clerical, respectively). The finding that the value singularity segment is not the pioneer online shopper in India contrasts with the early online shoppers in the USA, who were often motivated by price.

This is the first empirical study to use shopping orientation research in the Indian marketplace. It is also among the first to link shopping orientations with a wide complement of correlates. Research should continue to track the development of this emerging market.

Besides revealing that the orientations of Indian consumers are not price‐based, the relatively unfractionated factor analysis solutions for shopping orientations and web site dimensionality suggest that, in the emerging Indian economy, consumer conceptualizations of shopping have not yet undergone full elaboration. Thus, this cross‐sectional study could be extended with longitudinal research to reveal how Indian consumers' perceptions of the marketplace change with market development and growing consumer sophistication.

Although online shopping in India is on the verge of rapid growth, relatively little is known about most aspects of Indian consumer behaviour. This study begins to build a foundation of knowledge of Indian online shopping.

An ensemble is an intermediate unit of work between action and activity in the hierarchical framework proposed by classical activity theory. Ensembles are the mid‐level of activity, offering more flexibility than objects, but more purposeful structure than actions. The paper aims to introduce the notion of ensembles to understand the way object‐related activities are instantiated in practice.

The paper presents an analysis of the practices of professional information workers in two different companies using direct and systematic observation of human behavior. It also provides an analysis and discussion of the activity theory literature and how it has been applied in areas such as human‐computer interaction and computer‐supported collaborative work.

The authors illustrate the relevance of the notion of ensembles for activity theory and suggest some benefits of this conceptualization for analyzing human work in areas such as human‐computer interaction and computer‐supported collaborative work.

The notion of ensembles can be useful for the development of a computing infrastructure oriented to more effectively supporting work activities.

The paper shows that the value of the notion of ensembles is to close a conceptual gulf not adequately addressed in activity theory, and to understand the practical aspects of the instantiation of objects over time.

This paper aims to illustrate how a company's current 24‐hour e‐mail culture impacts on employees' lives outside of their contracted working hours. There are two objectives of the study – first, to calculate the average time spent on work e‐mails by employees per day outside of working hours and, second, to identify what impact e‐mail had on employees' work‐life balance by addressing three research questions. These questions aims to focus on the relationships between: employees' thoughts about company culture and their belief that their work is dependent on them checking their e‐mails outside of working hours; employees' urges to check e‐mails out of working hours and their belief that spending time on e‐mails outside of work means they are neglecting their social life; and employees sending e‐mails out of office hours and their expectation of a quick reply or action.

A case study approach was taken. Employees from a multinational service organisation were invited to complete an online questionnaire and a seven‐day diary so as to collect qualitative and quantitative data about their use of e‐mail.

Data were analysed with respect to respondents' gender, role and length of service in the organisation and discussed with respect to the current literature.

Although the limitations of exploring a single organisation are recognised, it is likely that some of the insights and lessons generated by the study will be transferable to other organisational settings.

This study identified some short‐term recommendations as to how a particular company could limit the negative impact that e‐mails have on its employees' lives outside of contracted working hours. In addition, this study will also raise awareness of the pervasion of work‐related communications into employees' personal lives and, hopefully, trigger further research into the long‐term psychological and sociological effects of a 24/7 communication culture.

There are two novel aspects to this study: the use of diaries as a method of data collection and the notion of exploring e‐mail use “out of hours”.

This chapter provides the foundation for the book. The objective of this chapter is to outline the theme of the book and to provide the context for the chapters that follow. Disaster recovery is a challenge for governments and for affected communities, families, and individuals. It is a challenge, because recovery from catastrophic disasters can be much more complicated and elusive than what can be addressed by national and international aid organizations given the time and other resources. The short literature review provides the research context, and the overview of the book describes each of the chapters briefly.

This case study analyzes Countrywide Financial’s responses to its recent financial crisis and illustrates the use of communication theory and image restoration strategies by utilizing several crisis response frameworks. The study uses a critical analysis methodology to examine the communication strategies employed by Countrywide, a large mortgage lending company in order to attempt to restore its image. The authors look at excerpts from media stories, carefully examine the language used by company representatives in response to the banking crisis, and categorize the corporate communications into various strategies as defined in the crisis communication literature. Countrywide faced several crisis situations during the period of this study, including the subprime mortgage crisis, public criticism of its CEO’s executive compensation package, allegations of insider trading, and financial difficulties. Corporate responses are critical in determining what amount of damage is done to the firm’s image during a crisis. Countrywide responded to these situations most often using the strategies of image bolstering, reducing the credibility of its accuser, and minimizing the crisis (Benoit, 1995). Through these communications, the company attempted to appear well established and untarnished. It also criticized the media, the courts, and the regulators in an attempt to reduce their credibility. Countrywide made no deliberate attempt to admit fault or to take measures to prevent the problem from reoccurring.

In this design case, a participatory approach to visualizing a complex computational pipeline was adopted, with the goal of exploring what benefits might be derived when groups of people visualize complex information for themselves.

Several visualization artifacts were developed to support collaborative process at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO). Researchers adopted a participatory approach, engaging directly in LIGO activities and drawing together explicitly codified data from the LIGO computational pipeline as well as structural knowledge tacitly held by project scientists. Both sources of information were critical to producing meaningful visualizations and progressing design and research efforts.

This design case revealed several benefits realized when individuals or groups visualize information for themselves, especially improved communication and enhanced understanding of complex systems of information.

This design case demonstrates how cooperatively creating visualizations can enhance understanding and support group activities and goals. It is also a call to move beyond data, technologies, and techniques to introduce more human‐centered approaches within visualization scholarship.

This chapter reviews the study of individual differences in information behaviour; those differences which are not due to demographic factors such as age, gender, education or occupation, but rather to personality factors and to learning and thinking styles. It examines studies of patterns in information behaviour and of personality and similar factors in groups of information-focused occupations, as well as studies which have explicitly sought to relate information behaviour to such factors. The aim of the chapter is to assess how far we have come in being able to identify and measure ‘information style’, a quality different from any other categorisation of personality or of intellectual styles. If this goal were achieved, it would be a valuable concept for the academic study of information-related behaviours, as well as being of practical usefulness for the design of information systems and services, the evaluation of the effectiveness of such systems and the training of users. It could also allow a tailored provision of information, particularly for creative or innovative purposes.

To present which properties of social systems can be used in studying and determining their broadly defined security. A core concept of security is to be developed into a typology of attributes of security of social systems.

The interpretation of security has become one of the most important challenges of theory of international relations and of related areas. Unfortunately, theory only follows the processes and provides descriptions and interpretations. Explanations are rare or superficial. Predictions or normative approaches, essential for security considerations, are mainly embedded either in ideological discourse or in common sense conclusions. A broadly defined systems thinking is applied as an instrument allowing for enhancement of methodology of security research in dealing with complex social phenomena.

It may not be expected that systems thinking could provide all the answers to the questions arising in security theory and policy. At the same time, it can be shown how strongly the discourse on a broadly defined security, not only in international relations, has been influenced by systems thinking.

It is but an introductory survey study and includes omissions and simplifications that have to be explained in detail in further studies.

An introduction to the further research on the links between systems thinking and discourse on broadly defined security of individuals and social systems.

Allows systems specialists to avoid simplifications in understanding social systems and at the same time helps security specialists to avoid abuses and trivialization of systems thinking.

The purpose of this article is to describe multi‐tasking behaviour in the workplace; to link its cause to the increasing prevalence of low‐cost information and communications technologies and to the changing organizational structures that have evolved to meet the demands and opportunities of these technologies.

This article is a presentation of the current literature on multi‐tasking behaviour among knowledge workers with a selective bibliography addressing empirical research into the behavioural, managerial and technological aspects of this phenomenon. It then expands to comprehensive coverage of the literature on past and current thinking about task structuring, strategies for coping in a multi‐tasking environment and the changing nature of work and organizations, which fuels the need to multi‐task in response to these changes.

Among knowledge workers, multi‐tasking behaviour appears to be an inevitable consequence of the presence of increasingly easy access to information. Despite the detrimental effect that multi‐tasking has on specific task completion, the paradox is that this does not seem to have an effect on overall organizational productivity. For the USA at least, an average 4 per cent growth rate over the past several years of the late twentieth and early twenty‐first centuries shows that productivity has increased in tandem with an increase in multi‐tasking behaviour and information technologies.

Multi‐tasking behaviour needs to be understood in the context of its manifestation as a variable that is at least partially dependent on the existence of relatively “cheap” information. In essence, in an information economy, task completion by knowledge workers to a set deadline may be counterproductive to the interests of the organization as a whole. This article describes certain strategies that can be used to minimize the harmful aspects of continuous task switching and to maximize the returns to experience that multi‐tasking can bring to an organization.

Multi‐tasking behaviour and its link to complexity theory may lead to a new understanding of organizations as highly fluid and variable entities that are impossible to design or maintain centrally and yet whose goals lead to the moment by moment creation of micro‐organizational structures that accomplish tasks in a manner that engages the full resources of knowledge workers.