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1 – 10 of over 2000The purpose of this paper is to open a theoretical discussion on the preventive anti‐money laundering (AML) regime, both international and domestic in Russia, building theoretical…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to open a theoretical discussion on the preventive anti‐money laundering (AML) regime, both international and domestic in Russia, building theoretical assumptions on the role of epistemic community in the AML network in Russia.
Design/methodology/approach
The discussion is based on the analysis of the preventive pillar of the AML regime in Russia. Cognitive (or knowledge‐based) approach is used to study domestic AML regime and to reveal the main reason of the network deficiencies in Russia.
Findings
The paper argues that the representatives of banking community in Russia should play the role of epistemic community to foster better understanding of the context and purposes of the AML regime, thus, decreasing uncertainty, facilitating cooperation between the stakeholders, and eventually having a great influence on the quality of the AML regulations elaborated by the policy makers.
Research limitations/implications
The paper limits its scope to the study of money laundering (ML) prevention focusing on the financial institutions – banks – which play the most important role in Russian AML network.
Practical implications
The paper reveals the roles of the main actors of Russian AML regime play. The ineffectiveness of the regime could be eased by increasing communication and cooperation between the stakeholders. The formal compliance approach used by the regulator in the financial sector supervision has not been effective and should be reviewed with the shift to the reasonable judgment approach used by both supervisor and financial institutions to prevent ML in Russia.
Originality/value
Studies of the peculiarities of the AML legislation implementation in different countries is one of the helpful tools to measure the efficiency of the global AML regime.
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Senem Güney and James R. Taylor
The purpose of this paper is to explore the problem of reconfiguring epistemic boundaries and the authority relationships that these boundaries represent in corporate R&D. The…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the problem of reconfiguring epistemic boundaries and the authority relationships that these boundaries represent in corporate R&D. The authors focus the analysis on the mediation of this reconfiguration by project management tools, specifically the development plan and its subsidiary roadmaps and timelines.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors analyze discourse data from an ethnographic study to show in situ the communication about and through project management tools in collaborative project development. The concepts of organizational map and mapping from the perspective of the communicative constitution of organization (CCO) frame the close-up analysis of this communication.
Findings
The analysis reveals how the plan and its subsidiary texts participate in the negotiation and legitimation of epistemic ownership and authority for a collaborative strategy to be implemented. The authors illustrate the material agency of these texts in the objectification and prioritization of strategic choices in this implementation.
Research limitations/implications
To conclude, the authors discuss the significance of exploring the mapping function of supposedly mundane representational tools used in project management.
Originality/value
The originality of this study comes from applying the organizational map concept to demonstrate the politically charged materiality of project management tools in the discursive establishment of authority and accomplishment of corporate strategy.
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The research was undertaken to explore the role of the UK public library as a public sphere and the ways in which this role relates to the epistemic, community and political…
Abstract
Purpose
The research was undertaken to explore the role of the UK public library as a public sphere and the ways in which this role relates to the epistemic, community and political functions of public libraries.
Design/methodology/approach
A longitudinal, multi-location focus group approach was developed and deployed in three phases. Data were collected from 53 active public library users in a total of 24 focus groups conducted in eight different public library services in England and Scotland in 2015–2016 (Phase 1), 2016–17 (Phase 2) and 2017–18 (Phase 3). Data collected were transcribed and coded using NVivo 10- for thematic analysis.
Findings
The public library's role as public sphere aligns closely with its epistemic functions, adding a dimension to information services provision beyond access to “traditional” print and online sources. New information and knowledge emerge through the person-to-person interactions in public library space. Through such exchanges, the community function of public libraries is made evident, notably as a platform for citizens to participate actively in society, including its democratic processes.
Originality/value
Unlike much extant prior work on public library value dominated with accounts of societal and/or economic impact, w hich is frequently based on the analysis of quantitative data, here the fundamental epistemic value of public library services is demonstrated. This research also adds an important perspective to the domain of Information Society Studies where, to date, the place of the public library as public sphere has been treated as peripheral.
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Esben Houborg and Rasmus Munksgaard Andersen
The purpose of this paper is to map research communities related to heroin-assisted treatment (HAT) and the scientific network they are part of to determine their structure and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to map research communities related to heroin-assisted treatment (HAT) and the scientific network they are part of to determine their structure and content.
Design/methodology/approach
Co-authorship as the basis for conducting social network analysis with regard to degree, weighted degree, betweenness centrality, and edge betweenness centrality.
Findings
A number of central researchers were identified on the basis of the number of their collaborative relations. Central actors were also identified on the basis of their position in the research network. In total, 11 research communities were constructed with different scientific content. HAT research communities are closely connected to medical, psychiatric, and epidemiological research and very loosely connected to social research.
Originality/value
The first mapping of the collaborative network HAT researchers using social network methodology.
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Thembani Mbadlanyana, Nompumelelo Sibalukhulu and Jakkie Cilliers
The purpose of this article is to understand alternative African futures as an aid to improved decision‐making and action by governments and by other key agents and stakeholders.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to understand alternative African futures as an aid to improved decision‐making and action by governments and by other key agents and stakeholders.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors aim is to put the two concepts (“futures” and think tank) into context and explain how they are going to be used in this paper. The aim is not to engage on a prediction exercise about African futures but rather to understand, think about and explore long‐term trends and how they may impact on alternative African futures.
Findings
The journey towards a knowledge economy is a difficult one and the experiences elsewhere in the world show that governments on their own can not succeed without assistance from think tanks. This means that as African governments are trying to map out new visions for the future, think tanks can grab the opportunities provided by the current realities to continue playing a meaningful role in shaping African futures.
Originality/value
Africa's complex challenges demand the best of intellectual capacities. Think tanks are potentially one of the best‐suited organizations to develop innovative and advanced solutions to Africa's challenges. They have a special role to play in shaping African futures, both as knowledge providers and policy formulation partners.
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The purpose of this paper is to present findings on the way in which self-identified sadomasochist apply their information literacy skills, and to analyse those applications in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present findings on the way in which self-identified sadomasochist apply their information literacy skills, and to analyse those applications in the context of existing research on information literacies (IL).
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on the author’s two decades of ethnographic work within a national-level sadomasochist community, supplemented by interviews with 30 practitioners and an extensive literature survey.
Findings
Sadomasochists avoid the social stigma associated with their activities by developing highly refined ILs. Central among these is the ability to learn from other practitioners by reading and interpreting their actions as “texts.” They furthermore stockpile potentially useful information for later use. Their ILs not only make sadomasochists more skilled in their practices, but also provide them with safety.
Originality/value
By examining its subject community, the paper develops the ideas of embodied information literacy, currently strongly associated with workplace learning, to the hobby and lifestyle sectors, as it deals with a particularly corporeal set of ILs. This radical example allows scholars to conduct research on the ILs other communities of practice, in which the activities may be less obviously corporeal, but the literacies just as based on embodied interpretation and the reading of others’ activities as texts.
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Holly Mercer, Brian Rosenblum and Ada Emmett
The purpose of this paper is to describe the history of KU ScholarWorks, the University of Kansas' institutional repository, and the various strategies used to promote and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe the history of KU ScholarWorks, the University of Kansas' institutional repository, and the various strategies used to promote and populate it.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper describes how KU ScholarWorks came into being, and discusses the variety of activities employed to publicize the repository and encourage faculty to deposit their work. In addition, the paper discusses some of the concerns expressed by faculty members, and some of the obstacles encountered in getting them to use the repository. The paper concludes with some observations about KU's efforts, an assessment of the success of the program to date, and suggests some next steps the program may take.
Findings
The paper found that KU ScholarWorks has relied on a “self‐archiving” model, which requires regular communication with faculty and long‐term community building. Repository content continues to grow at a steady pace, but uptake among faculty has been slow. In the absence of mandates requiring faculty to deposit work, organizations running institutional repositories must continue to aggressively pursue a variety of strategies to promote repositories to faculty and encourage them to deposit their scholarship.
Originality/value
KU's experience will help other institutions develop institutional repositories by providing examples of marketing strategies, and by promoting a greater understanding of faculty behavior and concerns with regard to institutional repositories.
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Edwin Chng, Mohamed Raouf Seyam, William Yao and Bertrand Schneider
This study aims to uncover divergent collaboration in makerspaces using social network analysis to examine ongoing social relations and sequential data pattern mining to…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to uncover divergent collaboration in makerspaces using social network analysis to examine ongoing social relations and sequential data pattern mining to invesitgate temporal changes in social activities.
Design/methodology/approach
While there is a significant body of qualitative work on makerspaces, there is a lack of quantitative research identifying productive interactions in open-ended learning environments. This study explores the use of high frequency sensor data to capture divergent collaboration in a semester-long makerspace course, where students support each other while working on different projects.
Findings
The main finding indicates that students who diversely mix with others performed better in a semester-long course. Additional results suggest that having a certain balance of working individually, collaborating with other students and interacting with instructors maximizes performance, provided that sufficient alone time is committed to develop individual technical skills.
Research limitations/implications
These discoveries provide insight into how productive makerspace collaboration can occur within the framework of Divergent Collaboration Learning Mechanisms (Tissenbaum et al., 2017).
Practical implications
Identifying the diversity and sequence of social interactions could also increase instructor awareness of struggling students and having this data in real-time opens new doors for identifying (un)productive behaviors.
Originality/value
The contribution of this study is to explore the use of a sensor-based, data-driven, longitudinal approach in an ecologically valid setting to understand divergent collaboration in makerspaces. Finally, this study discusses how this work represents an initial step toward quantifying and supporting productive interactions in project-based learning environments.
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Kate Ruff, Pier-Luc Nappert and Cameron Graham
This paper aims to understand how social finance and impact measurement experts include stakeholders' voices in valuations of social and environmental impact.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to understand how social finance and impact measurement experts include stakeholders' voices in valuations of social and environmental impact.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper used the content analysis of an online discussion forum where experts discussed impact valuation approaches.
Findings
Many experts seek impact valuations that take into account the experiences of those whose lives are most affected. Ideally, these accounts need to be emic to (in the language of) those stakeholders, and polyvocal (representing many different stakeholders' voices). However, these experts also seek to effect systemic change by encouraging mainstream financial markets to use social and environmental valuations in their decision-making. These experts consider full plurality too complex to be useable by financial markets, so the experts argue in favor of etic valuations (stated in the language of investors), to appeal to mainstream finance, while endeavoring nonetheless to represent multiple stakeholders' voices. The authors identify two discursive strategies used to resolve this tension: effacing of differences between diverse stakeholders, and overstating the universality of money as a common language.
Social implications
The terms emic and polyvocal provide experts with nuanced ways to understand “stakeholder voice.” The authors hope these nuances inspire new insights and strategies and help the community with their goal of bridging to mainstream finance.
Originality/value
The paper presents a theoretical framework for describing plurality in impact valuations and examines the challenges of bridging from social finance, which seeks to give voice and representation to those whose lives are most affected, to mainstream finance.
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John van Breda, Josephine Musango and Alan Brent
This paper aims to improve the understanding of individual transdisciplinary PhD research in a developing country context, focusing on three individual PhD case studies in South…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to improve the understanding of individual transdisciplinary PhD research in a developing country context, focusing on three individual PhD case studies in South Africa.
Design/methodology/approach
Multiple-case method was used, and three completed transdisciplinary PhD research efforts undertaken at the Stellenbosch University were selected. They were coordinated through the TsamaHub, an inter-faculty platform at the University which organises educational modules for transdisciplinary research. Using actual research experiences and reflections of the three individual PhDs, the paper evaluates their work in terms of ontological, epistemological, methodological and methodical/methods aspects.
Findings
The central challenge to individual PhD researchers is engagement with non-academic actors to enable joint problem formulation, analysis and transformation. To overcome this, the paper suggests that developing individual epistemic relationships to build “transdisciplinary epistemic communities” should be considered for inclusion as an intentional aspect of transdisciplinary research design.
Research limitations/implications
“Transdisciplinary epistemic communities” is still a concept in its infancy and needs more work before it may be theoretically and practically useful.
Practical implications
Continuously guiding the individual transdisciplinary research process in a reflexive, recursive, transparent and equal manner is absolutely critical because transdisciplinary research cannot be done successfully if dominated by overly methods-driven approaches.
Originality/value
The discourse around transdisciplinary methodology has major implications for the design of individual PhD research. The paper provides recommendations to enhance the theory and practice of individual transdisciplinary PhD research.
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