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1 – 10 of 762Henna Syrjälä and Anu Norrgrann
Purpose: This chapter examines two rather extreme examples of non-human entities in home assemblage, interior objects, and companion animals, and how their agency appears…
Abstract
Purpose: This chapter examines two rather extreme examples of non-human entities in home assemblage, interior objects, and companion animals, and how their agency appears distributed with human consumers in assembling home. The authors aim at drawing conceptual contrasts and overlappings in how agency expresses itself in these categories of living and non-living entities, highlighting the multifaceted manifestations of object agency.
Methodology/Approach: This chapter employs multiple sets of ethnographically inspired data, ranging from ethnographic interviews and an autoethnographic diary to three types of (auto-)netnographic data.
Findings: The findings showcase oscillation of agency between these three analytic categories (human, non-human living, and non-human non-living), focusing on how it is distributed between two of the entities at a time, within the heterogeneous assemblage of home. Furthermore, the findings show instances in which agency emerges as shared between all three entities.
Originality/Value: The contribution of this chapter comes from advancing existing discussion on object agency toward the focus on distributed and shared agency. The research adds to the prevailing discussion by exhibiting how agency oscillates between different types of interacting entities in the assemblage, and in particular, how the two types of non-human entities are agentic. The research demonstrates the variability and interwovenness of non-human and human, living and non-living agency as they appear intertwined in home assemblage.
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Purpose: This chapter explores how organizations can influence the emotional climate surrounding change, and thereby encourage the emergence of positive rather than negative…
Abstract
Purpose: This chapter explores how organizations can influence the emotional climate surrounding change, and thereby encourage the emergence of positive rather than negative emotions. Despite growing literature, many companies struggle with postacquisition integration. In the last 3 decades, the discussion has turned toward how employees' emotions complicate the process. This chapter discusses those emotions, paying special attention to the emotional climate surrounding change. The focus is on examining how an organization's emotional climate influences employees' emotions following an acquisition.
Design/methodology/approach: The chapter takes the acquired company point of view, following a German–Finnish deal completed in January 2017 over 1 year. Data were collected through interviews (totaling 26), daily memo-like diaries (65 entries), and an employee satisfaction survey (56 respondents).
Findings: The findings reveal that employees are likely to have emotional reactions even when relatively little integration is intended. In addition, the surrounding emotional climate – whether positive or negative – is likely to trigger similarly valenced emotions. The theoretical contribution of this chapter lies in the introduction of emotional climate rather than organizational culture as a key factor for employees during the early integration period.
Practical implication: Particularly line managers have an important role in maintaining positivity. For positivity to dominate, organizations need to make the benefits of the deal and the future of the company clear to the employees.
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Patrick Blessinger and Charles Wankel
This chapter provides a broad overview of the practical applications of three technology-based teaching and learning tool: wikis, blogs, and WebQuests. These Web-based…
Abstract
This chapter provides a broad overview of the practical applications of three technology-based teaching and learning tool: wikis, blogs, and WebQuests. These Web-based communication tools allow teachers and students to increase student engagement by enhancing experiential type learning. A variety of studies is presented to demonstrate how these three types of collaborative technologies can be used as inquiry-based and reflection-based active learning tools to foster higher levels of effort and participation by students. This chapter presents a variety of perspectives about how to make the learning process for both instructors and teachers more engaging, more gratifying, and more personally meaningful. In doing so, these technologies serve as enabling technologies by promising new ways to increase academic engagement and motivation. The ultimate goal in using these technologies is to develop students as lifelong learners and to foster a high value for learning and the development of higher order thinking skills that grows over time. The experiential nature and authenticity of the activities that these technologies can be used for helps achieve this purpose. Of course, technology involves a constant evolution and new technologies will always appear in the future but this does not mean that they should be viewed as passing fads or not worthy of implementing. These tools can be viewed as opportunities to expand our definition and concept of teaching and learning in the modern, post-industrial era. To that end, this chapter explores the innovative use of these technological tools to better engage students and enhance the learning process.
Jean Wolf, Jeremy Wilhelm, Jesse Casas and Sudeshna Sen
Purpose — The Regional Household Travel Survey (RHTS) was a large-scale regional household travel survey that covered 28 counties in the New York, North New Jersey, and…
Abstract
Purpose — The Regional Household Travel Survey (RHTS) was a large-scale regional household travel survey that covered 28 counties in the New York, North New Jersey, and Connecticut regions (i.e., the New York City “megaregion”). Data collection for the survey began in October 2010 and concluded in November 2011.
The chapter discusses the multiple modes and methodologies used in the RHTS, and presents the participation rates and trip rates obtained using this multimodal approach.
Methodology/approach — This survey used a combination of web, telephone, and mail-out/mail-back methods to collect household and travel information from approximately 18,800 households. Ten percent of the sampled households participated in the survey by using wearable global positioning system (GPS) devices that collected detailed travel data which, in turn, were processed and presented back to the households in a GPS-based prompted recall interview administered by web or telephone. The GPS component was used to generate trip rate correction factors for the other 90% diary-based households.
Findings — This large regional survey was the first to use this specific combination of methods and technologies, and provides many insights into the success of targeted survey modes and methods for different population groups.
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Claude Weis, Christoph Dobler and Kay W. Axhausen
Purpose — The paper reports on a research project exploring new approaches for analysing travel demand induced by changes in generalised costs of travel and activity…
Abstract
Purpose — The paper reports on a research project exploring new approaches for analysing travel demand induced by changes in generalised costs of travel and activity participation. The description of the survey approach, which to our knowledge is novel in its application, reports descriptive analyses of the respondents' reactions to the changes implied in the household interviews.
Methodology — A sample of respondents were administered a 5 day travel diary, from which 1 day was selected for further analysis. Travel times for trips conducted that day were changed using predefined heuristics based on the household characteristics to attain significant changes in the generalised costs of the reported trips. Respondents were then presented with these hypothetical scenarios in face-to-face interviews. All household members were asked to state how the implied changes would have affected their activity scheduling on the specified day, i.e. to adapt their reported schedule to the new conditions.
Findings — The postulated induced travel effect could be observed, in that the modifications to the generalised costs of travel affect the respondents' travel patterns in general, and the number and durations of conducted out-of-home activities in particular. However, the predominant reaction to changing travel times is the adaptation of departure time, which does not directly interfere with trip generation. Indicators of the effects have been shown, and are quite weak as far as activity generation effects are concerned. The activities most likely to be re-planned are leisure activities and sojourns at the home location, as is consistent with expectations.
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Alessandra Scroccaro and Alessandro Rossi
In this chapter, we reflect on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on an Innovation and Entrepreneurship educational programme by comparing two editions of the Start-up Lab, a…
Abstract
In this chapter, we reflect on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on an Innovation and Entrepreneurship educational programme by comparing two editions of the Start-up Lab, a three-month hands-on laboratory organised at the University of Trento (Italy), focused on the development of entrepreneurial ideas by international students. The 2019 edition of the course, before the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak, was held in attendance, whereas the 2021 edition was held online. For the latter, the authors decided to introduce a self-directed learning approach, assuming it could better support remote teamwork and the acquisition of transversal skills. In this chapter, the authors critically question the effectiveness of remote working and the self-directed learning approach in innovation and entrepreneurship education programmes. The authors provide early evidence about some critical aspects of online and distance learning and teamwork, mostly related to self-efficacy skills, such as the ability to motivate others to work together and collaborative work. Despite the negative effects of distance working on some entrepreneurial skills, the authors demonstrate that the ability to reflect on learning experience is a driver for improving specific entrepreneurial and innovation skills. Students who have had the opportunity to reflect on their learning experiences feel more confident about becoming entrepreneurs or working in companies with a stronger entrepreneurial mindset.
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Peter M. Burns, Agnes Wrobel and Lyn Bibbings
Cyberethnographic accounts of behavior are just emerging as a legitimate and useful way of exploring new forms of communication including the digital co-presence found in cyber…
Abstract
Cyberethnographic accounts of behavior are just emerging as a legitimate and useful way of exploring new forms of communication including the digital co-presence found in cyber communities. The chapter represents the first known account of such a research approach applied to issues of climate change in online travel communities as manifested through travelblogs. The research undertook observations of five online websites where experiences are shared and issues discussed. This first round of findings revealed no discussions on the topic of travel and climate change, which the researchers imputed to mean a lack of interest in the topic. A further round of observations was conducted on a site with a more nuanced approach to travel (though not an overtly green site). This revealed sufficient data for frame analysis: budding green, ironic cynics, reluctant cynics, candourants, and rational cynics. The findings suggest that the tourism and climate change issue as seen by these tourists is confused, paradoxical, and cynical. The main conclusion is that there must be greater efforts in creating public understanding of science so as to change behavior in ways favorable to diminishing greenhouse gas emissions.
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Online Social Networking Sites (SNSs) such as Facebook and Twitter have become increasingly popular in the last decade. Each SNS varies somewhat, with different forms of…
Abstract
Purpose
Online Social Networking Sites (SNSs) such as Facebook and Twitter have become increasingly popular in the last decade. Each SNS varies somewhat, with different forms of expression, communication and customization. Different sites may have different priorities, methods of interacting, social features and definitions of what it means to be ‘social’ on their sites.
Methodology/approach
This paper reports on 2 months of exploratory observations and interviews with participants using two of the most popular SNSs; Facebook.com and Twitter.com. Paying attention to the modal nuances of the sites and their effect on social interaction and identity portrayal, the focus of analysis is upon how these two sites are interacted with as ‘stages’ for identity performances, and how the varying aspects of design and modality on these interactive sites can result in different multimodal identity performances and social interactions.
Findings
Data revealed that youth are adeptly able to negotiate the different modal options presented to them online, yet the temporal aspects presented by the design of the site, the differing definitions and priorities in the framing of identity presented by the SNSs, and the modal choices present across the two sites resulted in markedly differing presentations of identity to markedly differing audiences.
Originality/value
This research demonstrates the impact of modality and design on how we act and interact, and highlights that as Digital Sociologists and Researchers, we should be careful not to treat all Online SNSs the same, but pay attention to the plethora of nuances these sites offer as stages for identity performances.
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