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1 – 10 of 81Lise Justesen and Ursula Plesner
The purpose of this paper is to inspire a different way of thinking about digitalization and organizational change by theorizing simultaneity as an alternative to the otherwise…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to inspire a different way of thinking about digitalization and organizational change by theorizing simultaneity as an alternative to the otherwise dominant root metaphor of sequence in the literature on digitalization and organizational change.
Design/methodology/approach
The theoretical argument is based on a reading of central contributions to the literature on digital technology and organizational change, and particularly inspired by the work positing a constitutive entanglement of technology and organization. We argue for an extension of this line of thinking with a reading of Latour’s notion tonalities. The relevance of the theoretical argument is demonstrated through an illustrative empirical example of the phenomenon digital-ready legislation.
Findings
The paper identifies sequence as a root metaphor in the organization and digital change literature. It develops a simultaneity view and illustrates its relevance through the example of digital-ready legislation, pinpointing how technological, organizational and legal elements are attuned to one another at the same time rather than in sequence.
Practical implications
The sequentiality view has dominated the change management research, which has travelled from research into practice. The simultaneity view has the potential to offer a new approach to planning change, with a focus on the simultaneous alignment of, e.g. legal, organizational and technological elements.
Originality/value
The paper offers an alternative to dominant views on digitalization and organizational change, drawing on an overlooked notion in Latour’s scholarship, namely tonalities. This has potential to qualify the entanglement thesis and develop simultaneity as a new metaphor for understanding digital change.
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Narongdej Phanthaphoommee and Sunida Siwapathomchai
This article seeks to provide a fresh perspective on the methodological approach to studying caregiving in a transnational context by analysing, local caregiver’s lifeworld…
Abstract
Purpose
This article seeks to provide a fresh perspective on the methodological approach to studying caregiving in a transnational context by analysing, local caregiver’s lifeworld, informal interpreting/translation and professional communication with foreign retirees.
Design/methodology/approach
This project explores the complex and multifaceted meanings of everyday objects through diffractive vignettes to illuminate the communicative entanglements that arise between caregivers and foreign retirees receiving care in Thailand. To identify intra-actions in caregiving, we collected data through informal interviews, observations and various artefacts before combining them in a group of potential communicative relationships by creating a narrative summary of situations.
Findings
Communicative relationships in the vignettes are multidimensional, with diverse logics underlying choices, rapport formation and communication effectiveness. This premise also illuminates how caregivers perceive and intra-act with their accommodation strategies, considering trust, comfort and comprehension. Our findings were also discussed with the concept of communication accommodation theory.
Originality/value
As an extension of the post-humanist approach to the diffractive reading of vignettes, this study sees its value in studying agent-related informal translation/interpreting and human-to-human relationships.
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Hatice Nuriler and Søren S.E. Bengtsen
Institutional framings of doctoral education mostly do not recognize the existential dimension of doctoral experience. This paper aims to offer an expanded understanding of…
Abstract
Purpose
Institutional framings of doctoral education mostly do not recognize the existential dimension of doctoral experience. This paper aims to offer an expanded understanding of experiences of doctoral researchers in the humanities with the concept of entangled becoming. This concept is developed through an existential lens by using Søren Kierkegaard’s philosophy – particularly his emphasis on emotions such as passion, anxiety and despair – and Denise Batchelor’s derived concept of vulnerable voices.
Design/methodology/approach
The conceptual framing is used for an empirical study based on ethnographic interviews with 10 doctoral researchers and supplementary observational notes from fieldwork at a university in Denmark. Two of the interview cases were selected to showcase variation across lived experiences and how doctoral researchers voice their entangled becoming.
Findings
Common experiences such as loneliness, insecurity(ies), vulnerability(ies) or passion for one’s research were identified across the interviews. On the other hand, this study shows that each doctoral journey in the humanities envelops a distinct web of entanglements, entailing distinct navigation, that makes each case a unique story and each doctoral voice a specific one.
Originality/value
Combining an existential philosophical perspective with a qualitative study, the paper offers an alternative perspective for doctoral education. It connects the humanities doctoral experience to the broader condition of human existence and the sophisticated uniqueness of each researcher’s becoming.
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Verena Stingl, Lasse Christiansen, Andreas Kornmaaler Hansen, Astrid Heidemann Lassen and Yang Cheng
The introduction of robots as value-adding “workers” on the shop floor triggers complex changes to manufacturing work. Such changes involve highly entangled relationships between…
Abstract
Purpose
The introduction of robots as value-adding “workers” on the shop floor triggers complex changes to manufacturing work. Such changes involve highly entangled relationships between technology, organisation and people. Understanding such entanglements requires a holistic assessment of contemporary robotised manufacturing work, to anticipate the dynamically emerging opportunities and risks of robotised work.
Design/methodology/approach
A systematic literature review of 87 papers was conducted to capture relevant themes of change in robotised manufacturing work. The literature was analysed using a thematic analysis approach, with Checkland’s soft systems thinking as an analytical framework.
Findings
Based on the literature analysis, the authors present a systemic conceptualisation of robotised manufacturing work. Specifically, the conceptualisation highlights four entangled themes of change: work, organisation of labour, workers’ (experiences) and the firm’s environment. Moreover, the authors discuss the complex patterns of interactions between these objects as relationships that defy straightforward cause–effect models.
Practical implications
The findings draw attention to complex interactions between robotisation and manufacturing work. It can, therefore, inform strategic decisions and support projects for robotisation from a holistic perspective.
Originality/value
The authors present a novel approach to studying and designing robotised manufacturing work as a conceptual system. In particular, the paper shifts the focus towards crucial properties of the system, which are subject to complex changes alongside the introduction of robot technology in manufacturing. Soft systems thinking enables new research avenues to explain complex phenomena at the intersection of robotisation and manufacturing work.
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Chu-Le Chong, Siti Zaleha Abdul Rasid, Haliyana Khalid and T. Ramayah
This study investigated the relationships among big data analytics capability (BDAC), low-cost advantage, differentiation advantage, market and operational performance…
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigated the relationships among big data analytics capability (BDAC), low-cost advantage, differentiation advantage, market and operational performance underpinning the resource-based view (RBV) and the entanglement view of sociomaterialism (EVS) theories.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 191 responses from members of the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers were analysed using a structural equation modelling approach.
Findings
This study has conclusively demonstrated that BDAC is indeed a resource bundle comprising human skills, tangible and intangible resources. This study found that BDAC positively influences competitive advantage and firm performance. The differentiation advantage was found to be a key factor in explaining market performance. Theoretically, both RBV and EVS could be used to link BDAC, differentiation advantage and market performance to explain superior firm performance.
Research limitations/implications
First, the sample is restricted to the manufacturers in Malaysia. Second, a single independent variable, BDAC, is used as a higher-order capability to influence competitive advantage, and thus, superior firm performance. Third, this study uses a self-reported survey, which means that only one respondent from each firm answered the questions. Fourth, this study excludes the focused strategy as it aims to investigate the competitive strategy used in the broader industry environment, rather than in a specific segment pursuing a focused strategy.
Practical implications
First, BDAC is a valuable, rare, inimitable and non-substitutable tool for manufacturers to enhance their firm performance. Second, BDAC is crucial for manufacturing firms to reduce costs and differentiate themselves. Third, a low-cost advantage may not help manufacturers achieve greater market and operational performance.
Originality/value
The relationship among BDAC, low-cost advantage, differentiation advantage, market and operational performance within manufacturing industry is empirically tested.
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This paper aims to offer an approach to cyborg composing with artificial intelligence (AI). The author posits that the hybridity of the cyborg, which amalgamates human and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to offer an approach to cyborg composing with artificial intelligence (AI). The author posits that the hybridity of the cyborg, which amalgamates human and artificial elements, invites a cascade of creative and emancipatory possibilities. The author critically examines the biases embedded in AI systems while gesturing toward the generative potential of AI–human entanglements. Drawing on Bakhtinian theories of dialogism, the author contends that crafting found poetry with AI could inspire writers to problematize the ideologies embedded into the corpus while teasing apart its elisions or contradictions, sparking new forms of expression at the interface of the organic and the artificial.
Design/methodology/approach
To illustrate this approach to human–AI composing, the author shares a found poem that she wrote using ChatGPT alongside her reflection on the poem. The author reflects on her positionality as well as the positionality of her artificial interlocutor, interrogating the notion of subjectivity in relation to Bakhtinian dialogism and multivocality.
Findings
Weaving tales of resilience in harmony or tension with AI could unravel threads of possibility as human writers enrich, deepen or complicate AI-generated texts. By composing with AI, writers can resist closure, infiltrate illusions of objectivity and “speak back” to AI and the dominant voices replicated in its systems.
Originality/value
By encouraging students to critically engage with, question and complicate AI-generated texts, one can open avenues for alternative ways of thinking and writing, inspiring students to imagine and compose speculative futures. Ultimately, in animating assemblages of the organic and the artificial, one can invite transformative possibilities of being and becoming.
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Ouided Dehas, Laidi Babouri, Yasmina Biskri and Jean-Francois Bardeau
This study aims to deal with both the development and mechanical investigations of unsaturated polyester matrix (UPR) composites containing recycled polyethylene terephthalate…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to deal with both the development and mechanical investigations of unsaturated polyester matrix (UPR) composites containing recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) fibers as new fillers.
Design/methodology/approach
UPR/PET fibers composites have been developed as mats by incorporating 5, 8, 13 and 18 parts per hundred of rubber (phr) of 6-, 10- and 15-mm length PET fibers from the recycling of postconsumer bottles. The mechanical and physical properties of the composites were investigated as a function of fiber content and length. A significant increase in stress at break and in ultimate stress (sr) were observed for composites reinforced with 5 and 8 phr of 15-mm length PET fibers. The Izod impact strength of UPR/mat PET fiber composites as a function of fiber rate and length showed that the 5 and 8 phr composites for the 15-mm length PET fiber have the optimal mechanical properties 13.55 and 10.50 Kj/m2, respectively. The morphological study showed that the strong adhesion resulting from the affinity of the PET fiber for the UPR matrix. The ductile fracture of materials reinforced with 5 and 8 phr is confirmed by the fiber deformation and fracture surface roughness.
Findings
This study concluded that the PET fiber enhances the properties of composites, a good correlation was observed between the results of the mechanical tests and the structural analysis revealing that for the lower concentrations, the PET fibers are well dispersed into the resin, but entanglements are evidenced when the fiber content increases.
Originality/value
It can be shown from scanning electron microscopy micrographs that the fabrication technique produced composites with good interfacial adhesion between PET fibers and UPR matrix.
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Cristina Mele and Tiziana Russo-Spena
In this article, we reflect on how smart technology is transforming service research discourses about service innovation and value co-creation. We adopt the concept of technology…
Abstract
Purpose
In this article, we reflect on how smart technology is transforming service research discourses about service innovation and value co-creation. We adopt the concept of technology smartness’ to refer to the ability of technology to sense, adapt and learn from interactions. Accordingly, we seek to address how smart technologies (i.e. cognitive and distributed technology) can be powerful resources, capable of innovating in relation to actors’ agency, the structure of the service ecosystem and value co-creation practices.
Design/methodology/approach
This conceptual article integrates evidence from the existing theories with illustrative examples to advance research on service innovation and value co-creation.
Findings
Through the performative utterances of new tech words, such as onlife and materiality, this article identifies the emergence of innovative forms of agency and structure. Onlife agency entails automated, relational and performative forms, which provide for new decision-making capabilities and expanded opportunities to co-create value. Phygital materiality pertains to new structural features, comprised of new resources and contexts that have distinctive intelligence, autonomy and performativity. The dialectic between onlife agency and phygital materiality (structure) lies in the agencement of smart tech–enabled value co-creation practices based on the notion of becoming that involves not only resources but also actors and contexts.
Originality/value
This paper proposes a novel conceptual framework that advances a tech-based ecology for service ecosystems, in which value co-creation is enacted by the smartness of technology, which emerges through systemic and performative intra-actions between actors (onlife agency), resources and contexts (phygital materiality and structure).
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The purpose of this paper is to report on a study into the lived experience of skin picking disorder (SPD) and to explore the psychological impact of the disorder.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to report on a study into the lived experience of skin picking disorder (SPD) and to explore the psychological impact of the disorder.
Design/methodology/approach
Researchers employed a qualitative phenomenological approach, using Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA).
Findings
The study found that the sense of shame, common among participants, led to self-stigma, hiding, concealing and avoidance. Shame of SPD also interplayed with and compounded the shame of loneliness.
Research limitations/implications
Limitations included a lack of a longitudinal component to the work. This is deemed important, as both the SPD and the experience of loneliness can shift over time as circumstances change, and individuals develop strategies for coping or, conversely, experience a worsening of the condition and the shame, loneliness and social isolation it can induce.
Practical implications
This study draws attention to the complex nature of both SPD and loneliness. It highlights how those living with the disorder are reluctant to seek help, resulting in low rates of treatment access and distrust in health providers.
Social implications
As SPD is little understood, it can be erroneously deemed a “choice”; seldom discussed as a condition, it can lead to exclusion and withdrawal. The sense of shame of both appearance and behaviour interplays with and compounds the shame of loneliness and can force the individual into a further cycle of withdrawal and isolation.
Originality/value
While research suggests SPD should be acknowledged as a public health issue, research and literature is still relatively limited, and there are no qualitative phenomenological studies as yet that report on the lived experience of SPD.
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Sarah Jerasa and Sarah K. Burriss
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become increasingly important and influential in reading and writing. The influx of social media digital spaces, like TikTok, has also shifted the…
Abstract
Purpose
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become increasingly important and influential in reading and writing. The influx of social media digital spaces, like TikTok, has also shifted the ways multimodal composition takes place alongside AI. This study aims to argue that within spaces like TikTok, human composers must attend to the ways they write for, with and against the AI-powered algorithm.
Design/methodology/approach
Data collection was drawn from a larger study on #BookTok (the TikTok subcommunity for readers) that included semi-structured interviews including watching and reflecting on a TikTok they created. The authors grounded this study in critical posthumanist literacies to analyze and open code five #BookTok content creators’ interview transcripts. Using axial coding, authors collaboratively determined three overarching and entangled themes: writing for, with and against.
Findings
Findings highlight the nuanced ways #BookTokers consider the AI algorithm in their compositional choices, namely, in the ways how they want to disseminate their videos to a larger audience or more niche-focused community. Throughout the interviews, participants revealed how the AI algorithm was situated differently as both audience member, co-author and censor.
Originality/value
This study is grounded in critical posthumanist literacies and explores composition as a joint accomplishment between humans and machines. The authors argued that it is necessary to expand our human-centered notions of what it means to write for an audience, to co-author and to resist censorship or gatekeeping.
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