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To reflect on the matter of self‐consciousness.

The purpose is achieved through the process of answering four questions presented to me by Heinz von Foerster in the course of our many conversations.

It is not possible to understand the nature of self‐consciousness without understanding the operation of human beings as living systems that exist as emotional languaging living systems: self‐consciousness is a manner of living.

We human beings can become more aware of our responsibility in the design of robots that imitate us.

Reflects on what makes us humans special, on subjective experience, and on the world we bring forth.

This article is a contribution to the development of a comprehensive interdisciplinary theory of LIS in the hope of giving a more precise evaluation of its current problems. The article describes an interdisciplinary framework for lis, especially information retrieval (IR), in a way that goes beyond the cognitivist ‘information processing paradigm’. The main problem of this paradigm is that its concept of information and language does not deal in a systematic way with how social and cultural dynamics set the contexts that determine the meaning of those signs and words that are the basic tools for the organisation and retrieving of documents in LIS. The paradigm does not distinguish clearly enough between how the computer manipulates signs and how librarians work with meaning in practice when they design and run document mediating systems. The ‘cognitive viewpoint’ of Ingwersen and Belkin makes clear that information is not objective, but rather only potential, until it is interpreted by an individual mind with its own internal mental world view and purposes. It facilitates further study of the social pragmatic conditions for the interpretation of concepts. This approach is not yet fully developed. The domain analytic paradigm of Hjørland and Albrechtsen is a conceptual realisation of an important aspect of this area. In the present paper we make a further development of a non‐reductionistic and interdisciplinary view of information and human social communication by texts in the light of second‐order cybernetics, where information is seen as ‘a difference which makes a difference’ for a living autopoietic (self‐organised, self‐creating) system. Other key ideas are from the semiotics of Peirce and also Warner. This is the understanding of signs as a triadic relation between an object, a representation and an interpretant. Information is the interpretation of signs by living, feeling, self‐organising, biological, psychological and social systems. Signification is created and con‐trolled in a cybernetic way within social systems and is communicated through what Luhmann calls generalised media, such as science and art. The modern socio‐linguistic concept ‘discourse communities’ and Wittgenstein's ‘language game’ concept give a further pragmatic description of the self‐organising system's dynamic that determines the meaning of words in a social context. As Blair and Liebenau and Backhouse point out in their work it is these semantic fields of signification that are the true pragmatic tools of knowledge organ‐isation and document retrieval. Methodologically they are the first systems to be analysed when designing document mediating systems as they set the context for the meaning of concepts. Several practical and analytical methods from linguistics and the sociology of knowledge can be used in combination with standard methodology to reveal the significant language games behind document mediation.

The purpose of this paper is to study what motivates small businesses to engage in collective action, especially in high-tech industry.

Application domain is smart living industry, in which installation companies offer ICT-enabled solutions for smart home services. A survey was conducted among 140 small/medium installation companies in smart living industry which are members of a major Dutch branch organization. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to model and analyse data from the survey.

The paper found that different types of motivations do not significantly increase the collective orientation of small businesses. Moreover, the current involvement of small companies in smart living projects is not directly related to their collective orientation.

The lack of collaboration is resulting in market fragmentation and lack of technological interoperability. The paper advise policy makers to provide selective incentives to stimulate collaboration and to facilitate knowledge sharing on best practices and collective business cases.

The motivational factors for collective action between small businesses in high-tech sectors have rarely been studied. Although many studies addresses collective action issues on an individual level, the literature lacks an integration of existing theories into a set of testable hypotheses that aim at motivators and inhibitors of inter-organizational collective action.

A research project exploring emerging student needs explored six aspects of student life: living, learning, working, playing, connecting and participating. Living is explored here. Increasing numbers of empowered students are actively considering the long-term effects and values in their decision-making that could drive a shift towards a more student-centric educational approach. This paper aims to summarize two scenarios about the Living domain from the Student Needs 2025+ project and highlights implications for the future of higher education.

A modified version of the University of Houston’s “Framework Foresight” method was used to explore the future of six aspects of future student life.

Values shift: the introduction of more postmodern values in the student body will change their dynamic not only as a group but also as individual patterns of consumption and behavior. Technology is a double-edged sword: as an important variable of the social system, technological developments come with unintended consequences that will impact apparently distant areas of the system, like health and personal wellbeing. Lack of long-term vision: students today are not trained to make decisions considering long-term consequences; instead, they would rather choose instant rewards.

In terms of research limitations, the paper is focused on the needs of students and does not purport to be an exhaustive analysis of all of the issues influencing higher education. It views the future of higher education through the lens of students and their emerging needs.

The paper is intended for educators, researchers and administrators to provide insight on how the needs of students and their key customers are evolving.

This piece explores student life in its totality as way to more accurately identify student needs in the future.

With the majority of people living in cities it has become increasingly important to examine the relationship between the qualities and characteristics of an urban setting and the perceived satisfaction of its users. Discourses on Quality of Urban life (QOUL) show that the preponderance of existing empirical studies and measurement frameworks have been developed based on Western case studies or standards. Rapid urbanisation of cities in Africa and Asia, however, has dramatically impacted the use of space, and in many cases has resulted in intense urban transformations that impacted communities. This prompts questions about the quality of life (QOL) of residents and the liveability of their environments. Thus, this research argues that although there are many aspects of urban life that are pan-cultural, there are also culture specific features that make urban life unique in each city or setting. Consequently, QOUL studies should balance universal values and context-specificities. Following identification and critique of QOUL models, the paper calls for a new model to examine context specificities. The model aims to highlight the important role that context and culture play in urban life while underscoring the relevant core dimensions of QOUL studies.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of key demographics (i.e. gender, age, education and income) on the rich Muslim consumers’ Domains of Living (DoL). DoL were broken down into being, belonging and becoming domains. Relationship between the DoL and luxury consumption behavior (LCB) was analyzed as well. Being domain included elements that indicated who one is and how one defines the self; belonging domain linked an individual to his/her environment; and becoming domain referred to the set of social activities that an individual performed.

A questionnaire-based survey was conducted to get insights into the LCB of affluent Muslim consumers and how these insights related to key demographics and DoL. The researched population was Qatari consumers who were buying luxury products and belonged to a high-income bracket. Stratified sampling method was considered appropriate because the key objective of the study was to generalize the results across the affluent Qatari population. Stratification of the population was primarily done through the selected demographic variables. This research survey, conducted in Qatar, resulted in the collection of 213 usable questionnaires. General Linear Model Multivariate Analysis and Multiple Regression Analysis were used to establish the goodness of fit and to test the proposed hypotheses.

Results indicated that there were significant LCB differences between the genders, age groups, income levels and educational background. Furthermore, there was a significant association between the three DOLs and LCB. There were indications that for affluent Qatari Muslims, consumption of luxury products had become a socially accepted norm. Fulfillment of luxury needs did not isolate rich Muslims from their family and friends or made them unhappy about luxury consumption. This behavior could be related to high levels of affluence among Qataris that makes acquisition of luxury products easy and not effort or time intensive.

Islamic luxury markets need to adopt an appropriate balance of global (considering global luxury trends) and local (based on cultural, social and religious forces) marketing strategies to engage rich Muslim consumers.

This paper presents LCB from the perspective of affluent Muslim consumers within the context of DoL and through the lens of key demographic variables.

With Singapore having the fifth fastest aging population in the world, the implications associated with such as a phenomenon have finally placed the elderly on the Singapore Government's national agenda in 1999. As the elderly constitute an increasing proportion of Singapore's population, it is pertinent to address their needs and concerns, which have direct impacts on their well‐being and quality of life. Also studies the context of a multi‐racial society. Evaluates the quality of life of the elderly in Singapore in terms of their overall life satisfaction as well as their perception of the importance and satisfaction towards the 17 domains of life identified. Using a five‐point Likert scale, reveals that the elderly in Singapore are generally satisfied with their quality of life, which is significantly influenced by three demographic variables. While the elderly perceive personal health condition, family ties and public safety to be more important, they tend to be more satisfied with family ties, public safety and public transportation, and are less satisfied with arts and culture as well as leisure and recreation facilities that are available in Singapore. Therefore suggests that the quality of life of the elderly in Singapore is more likely to be determined by its socio‐cultural context rather than along racial lines.

A research project exploring the emerging student needs explored six aspects of a student’s life: living, learning, working, playing, connecting and participating. The aspect of “working” is explored in this paper, considering how the spread of and advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and automation might reconfigure work, and asking what the implications of shifts in how we engage in and complete work mean for student needs. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the two scenarios about the working domain from the Student Needs 2025+ project and highlight implications for the future of higher education.

A modified version of the University of Houston’s “Framework Foresight” method was used to explore the future of six aspects of future student life.

Among the various findings of the research, the most important was the critical uncertainty as to what extent will AI, automation and general advancements in technology reshape work. These technologies are actively transforming how work is accomplished and how it is organized. Given the importance of work as a central organizing principle for many, this transition adds great uncertainty to the critical skills that students will need in the future, as well as calling into question how the other five research domains (learning, playing, connecting, participating and living) are organized. The research also found that students and those entering the workforce can expect increased levels of competition for steady work within a company. Based on the current trajectory of trends and changes, it will be increasingly challenging to climb a “career ladder”, and credentials will be even more important in terms of gaining entry into the employment market.

In terms of research limitations, the paper is focused on the needs of students and does not purport to be an exhaustive analysis of all the issues influencing higher education. It views the future of higher education through the lens of students and their emerging needs.

The paper is intended for educators, researchers and administrators to provide insight on how the needs of students, their key customers, are evolving.

This research explores student life in its totality as way to more accurately identify student needs in the future.

This qualitative study is grounded on in-depth interviews with 30 Western women self-initiated expatriate (SIEs) currently living and working in the UAE. When selecting the interviewees, the author used purposeful sampling to ensure a diverse sample of interviewees with respect to nationality, age, gender and occupation.

The present study, drawing on boundary theory, aims to investigate the work–life balance (WLB) of Western women SIEs regarding how these women construct and manage the borders between the non-work and work lives in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The results demonstrate that women SIEs experience conflicts and enrichment during overseas employment. Both directions – the impact flowing from working life to personal life and vice versa – were significant. Different career and life phases appeared to be crucial to these experiences. The study also found that some women SIEs in the UAE experience high pressure in the WLB approaches, which are primarily impacted by the specific work–life environment in the UAE. Mostly, work–life boundaries are culturally and socially induced. Hence, many women SIEs encounter disparities between the robust work–life separations in the home country compared to the host country; women SIEs, therefore, need to relax the boundaries to adapt to the competitive work–life environment in the UAE.

The present study contributes to research on work–life boundary management approaches in local settings, such as UAE, by analyzing cross-cultural and individual dimensions. Moreover, although women are still a minority among SIEs, the number of women is increasing. As prior studies have mainly focused on male SIEs, more research is required focusing specifically on women with overseas jobs. The present study endeavors to fill this research gap.

The purpose of this paper is to show how modularity manifests in a service context, more specifically in the provision of care and services to independently living elderly.

Four case studies provide insight into the specification of relevant components and their subsequent assembly into a customized package of care and services.

In all cases, component specification and package construction take place in two phases: partly before and partly during care delivery. Early client involvement allows for a combination of standard components that have a lower level of customization, whereas late client involvement allows for adaptation of these components resulting in a higher level of customization. The paper proposes that modularity theory should distinguish between the creation of modular offerings in care provision versus their creation in goods production, since the findings are the exact reverse of the state‐of‐the art knowledge in manufacturing modularity.

The empirical part of this paper is limited to providers of elderly care and services in The Netherlands and is exploratory in nature. However, the newness of care and service modularity justifies the exploratory research approach.

This paper offers elderly care organizations in‐depth understanding of their complex and multi‐faceted specification process. The insights help both care and service providers to make well‐considered decisions as to what level of client involvement to allow and the type of modularity to apply.

This paper contributes to the emerging literature on service modularity.