Search results

Soil quality is in decline in many parts of the world, in part due to the intensification of agricultural practices. Whilst economic instruments and regulations can help incentivise uptake of more sustainable soil management practices, they rarely motivate long-term behavior change when used alone. There has been increasing attention towards the complex social factors that affect uptake of sustainable soil management practices. To understand why some communities try these practices whilst others do not, we undertook a narrative review to understand how social capital influences adoption in developed nations. We found that the four components of social capital – trust, norms, connectedness and power – can all influence the decision of farmers to change their soil management. Specifically, information flows more effectively across trusted, diverse networks where social norms exist to encourage innovation. Uptake is more limited in homogenous, close-knit farming communities that do not have many links with non-farmers and where there is a strong social norm to adhere to the status quo. Power can enhance or inhibit uptake depending on its characteristics. Future research, policy and practice should consider whether a lack of social capital could hinder uptake of new practices and, if so, which aspects of social capital could be developed to increase adoption of sustainable soil management practices. Enabling diverse, collaborative groups (including farmers, advisers and government officials) to work constructively together could help build social capital, where they can co-define, -develop and -enact measures to sustainably manage soils.

Technology increasingly features in intimate relationships and is used by domestic violence perpetrators to enact harm. In this chapter, we propose a theoretical and practical framework for technology-facilitated harms in heterosexual relationships which we characterize as digital coercive control. Here, we include behaviors which can be classified as abuse and stalking and also individualized tactics which are less easy to categorize, but evoke fear and restrict the freedoms of a particular woman. Drawing on their knowledge of a victim/survivor's experiences and, in the context of patterns and dynamics of abuse, digital coercive control strategies are personalized by perpetrators and extend and exacerbate “real-world” violence.

Digital coercive control is unique because of its spacelessness and the ease, speed, and identity-shielding which technology affords. Victim/survivors describe how perpetrator use of technology creates a sense of omnipresence and omnipotence which can deter women from exiting violent relationships and weakens the (already tenuous) notion that abuse can be “escaped.” We contend that the ways that digital coercive control shifts temporal and geographic boundaries warrant attention. However, spatiality more broadly cannot be overlooked. The place and shape in which victim/survivors and perpetrators reside will shape both experiences of and response to violence. In this chapter, we explore these ideas, reporting on findings from a study on digital coercive control in regional, rural, and remote Australia. We adopt a feminist research methodology in regard to our ethos, research processes, analysis, and the outputs and outcomes of our project. Women's voices are foreground in this approach and the emphasis is on how research can be used to inform, guide, and develop responses to domestic violence.

Since its inception, helping behavior has been viewed as a cooperative and affiliative behavior with prudent employee involvement. The paradox of employee involvement, however, implies that helping behavior can be intrusive and obstructive. The primary purpose of this article is to conceptualize helicopter helping as an intrusive and obstructive type of discretionary workplace behavior. In addition, the authors discuss possible antecedents and consequences of helicopter helping.

To conceptualize helicopter helping, the authors utilized the ABI/INFORM Global, Academic Search Complete, Business Source Complete, PsycARTICLES and JSTOR Archive Collection databases focusing on the helping behavior and helicopter parenting research. In particular, the authors applied the hovering nature of helicopter parenting to the conceptualization of helicopter helping exhibited by an employee in the organization. Additionally, the authors discuss antecedents and consequences of helicopter helping by integrating the bright and dark side of helping behavior research.

The authors conceptualize helicopter helping as an employee's excessive involvement in and interference with coworkers' task environment. Based upon the conceptualization of helicopter helping, the authors further propose that the need for achievement, Type-A personality, group rewards, high-performance group norms, a hierarchy organizational culture and strong social ties are possible antecedents of helicopter helping. Furthermore, the authors suggest that helicopter helping can result in reduced organization-based self-esteem, general self-efficacy, group creativity and innovation, quality of social-exchange relationships, learning and development and increased organizational vulnerability.

This article is one of the few studies exploring helping behavior from an intrusive and invasive perspective. Theoretically, the authors advance the dark side of helping behavior literature. Drawing upon the propositions, the authors offer some managerial recommendations that help managers mitigate the intrusive and obstructive type of helping in the organization.