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To reflect on the matter of self‐consciousness.
Abstract
Purpose
To reflect on the matter of self‐consciousness.
Design/methodology/approach
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.
Findings
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.
Practical implications
We human beings can become more aware of our responsibility in the design of robots that imitate us.
Originality/value
Reflects on what makes us humans special, on subjective experience, and on the world we bring forth.
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The purpose of this paper is to present the construct of social intra-organizational connection (SIC). This construct reflects the extent to which a focal actor believes his…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present the construct of social intra-organizational connection (SIC). This construct reflects the extent to which a focal actor believes his alters present behaviors of social inclusion in relation to himself. This assessment compares the ego’s expectations of being included and the behavior of inclusion performed by those alters with whom the actor has more frequent interactions. The effects of this construct are tested in the organizational domain regarding the intention to leave, in the domain of co-workers regarding cooperation and in the family domain regarding work–family conflict.
Design/methodology/approach
The survey data were collected from 380 Brazilian workers.
Findings
The results confirmed the effects of SIC in the relational domain of the organization through the variation in the focal actor’s intention to leave. In the sphere of coworkers, the effects of SIC were found in the variation of the degree of cooperation. In the family sphere, SIC had an influence upon the intensity of the work–family conflict.
Originality/value
The research indicates that the behavior of making direct contacts and more frequent interactions by the focal actor extends to other relational spheres through the transitions of the organizational member between the domains of organization, coworkers and family. This paper draws attention to the need to consider the local networks, both within and beyond the organization, and their effects on each other.
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Mary FitzPatrick, Richard J. Varey, Christian Grönroos and Janet Davey
The purpose of this paper is to present a framework – the Relationality Framework – for elaborating relational behaviour, in response to calls to address the ontological…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a framework – the Relationality Framework – for elaborating relational behaviour, in response to calls to address the ontological weaknesses identified in the extant value and value creation literature.
Design/methodology/approach
The social philosophical understanding of interaction as an organic mode of social organisation, upon which the Relationality Framework is based, supersedes the economistic (mechanistic) understanding of interaction as a means of connecting otherwise independent actors. In foregrounding the relationality of interaction, the authors are inspired by Grönroos and Voima’s (2013) conceptualisation of spheres of value generation to conceptualise the intersubjective dynamics and domains invoked in direct interaction.
Findings
The Relationality Framework identifies distinct relational concepts that build on service logic’s specificity and conceptualisation at the level of direct interactions between service providers and customers. In particular, this paper develops the concept of “relationality” using the three domains in any interaction of I, Other and We.
Originality/value
The Relationality Framework provides sound conceptual support for extending the theoretical and practical analysis of the value creation processes of the customer and of the firm and for the purposeful management of relationships to enhance value creation by both.
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Estimating the sizes of query results and intermediate results is crucial to many aspects of query processing. All database systems rely on the use of cardinality estimates to…
Abstract
Purpose
Estimating the sizes of query results and intermediate results is crucial to many aspects of query processing. All database systems rely on the use of cardinality estimates to choose the cheapest execution plan. In principle, the problem of cardinality estimation is more complicated in the Extensible Markup Language (XML) domain than the relational domain. The purpose of this paper is to present a novel framework for estimating the cardinality of XQuery expressions as well as their sub‐expressions. Additionally, this paper proposes a novel XQuery cardinality estimation benchmark. The main aim of this benchmark is to establish the basis of comparison between the different estimation approaches in the XQuery domain.
Design/methodology/approach
As a major innovation, the paper exploits the relational algebraic infrastructure to provide accurate estimation in the context of XML and XQuery domains. In the proposed framework, XQuery expressions are translated into an equivalent relational algebraic plans and then using a well defined set of inference rules and a set of special properties of the algebraic plan, this framework is able to provide high‐accurate estimation for XQuery expressions.
Findings
This paper is believed to be the first which provides a uniform framework to estimate the cardinality of more powerful XML querying capabilities using XQuery expressions as well as their sub‐expressions. It exploits the relational algebraic infrastructure to provide accurate estimation in the context of XML and XQuery domains. Moreover, the proposed framework can act as a meta‐model through its ability to incorporate different summarized XML structures and different histogram techniques which allows the model designers to achieve their targets by focusing their effort on designing or selecting the adequate techniques for them. In addition, this paper proposes benchmark for XQuery cardinality estimation systems. The proposed benchmark distinguishes itself from the other existing XML benchmarks in its focus on establishing the basis for comparing the different estimation approaches in the XML domain in terms of their accuracy of the estimations and their completeness in handling different XML querying features.
Research limitations/implications
The current status of this proposed XQuery cardinality estimations framework does not support the estimation of the queries over the order information of the source XML documents and does not support non‐numeric predicates.
Practical implications
The experiments of this XQuery cardinality estimation system demonstrate its effectiveness and show high‐accurate estimation results. Utilizing the cardinality estimation properties during the SQL translation of XQuery expression results in an average improvement of 20 percent on the performance of their execution times.
Originality/value
This paper presents a novel framework for estimating the cardinality of XQuery expressions as well as its sub‐expressions. A novel XQuery cardinality estimation benchmark is introduced to establish the basis of comparison between the different estimation approaches in the XQuery domain.
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Ville Eloranta, Marco Ardolino and Nicola Saccani
This study aims to enhance the theoretical foundations of servitization research by establishing a theoretical connection with complexity management. The authors develop a…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to enhance the theoretical foundations of servitization research by establishing a theoretical connection with complexity management. The authors develop a conceptual framework to describe complexity management mechanisms in servitization and digital platforms' specific role in allowing synergies between complexity reduction and absorption mechanisms.
Design/methodology/approach
A theory adaptation approach is used. Theory adaptation introduces new perspectives and conceptualization to the domain theory (servitization, with a focus on the role of digital platforms) by informing it with a method theory (complexity management).
Findings
This study provides four key contributions to the servitization literature: (1) connecting the servitization and complexity-management terminologies, (2) identifying and classifying complexity-management mechanisms in servitization, (3) conceptualizing digital platforms' role in servitization complexity management and (4) recognizing digital platforms' complexity-management synergies.
Originality/value
This study highlights that by using digital platforms in servitization and understanding the platform approach more thoroughly, companies can gain new capabilities and opportunities to manage and leverage complexity.
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Chongchong Zhao, Chao Dong and Xiaoming Zhang
The integration and retrieval of the vast data have attracted sufficient attention, thus the W3C workgroup releases R2RML to standardize the transformation from relational data to…
Abstract
Purpose
The integration and retrieval of the vast data have attracted sufficient attention, thus the W3C workgroup releases R2RML to standardize the transformation from relational data to semantic-aware data. However, it only provides a data transform mechanism to resource description framework (RDF). The generation of mapping alignments still needs manual work or other algorithms. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to propose a domain-oriented automatic mapping method and an application of the R2RML standard.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, materials science is focussed to show an example of domain-oriented mapping. source field concept and M3B2 (Metal Materials Mapping Background Base) knowledge bases are established to support the auto-recommending algorithm. As for the generation of RDF files, the idea is to generate the triples and the links, respectively. The links of the triples follow the object-subject relationship, and the links of the object properties can be achieved by the range individuals and the trail path.
Findings
Consequently based on the previous work, the authors proposed Engine for Metal Materials Mapping Background Base (EM3B2), a semantic integration engine for materials science. EM3B2 not only offers friendly graphical interfaces, but also provides auto-recommending mapping based on materials knowledge to enable users to avoid vast manually work. The experimental result indicates that EM3B2 supplies accurate mapping. Moreover, the running time of E3MB2 is also competitive as classical methods.
Originality/value
This paper proposed EM3B2 semantic integration engine, which contributes to the relational database-to-RDF mapping by the application of W3C R2RML standard and the domain-oriented mapping.
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Nikta Hatamizadeh, Mohammad Ahmadi, Roshanak Vameghi and Mohammad Ali Hosseini
This paper aims to clear ambiguities regarding the definition of intellectual capital and its components in the evaluation of rehabilitation organizations.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to clear ambiguities regarding the definition of intellectual capital and its components in the evaluation of rehabilitation organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
A preliminary definition of intellectual capital and its three domains of human, relational and structural capital and separate lists of proposed components for each domain was developed based on the results of a previous study. Fourteen experts in rehabilitation, health management and management engaged in Delphi rounds to reach agreed-upon definitions. Their ideas on relevance and the measurements of each proposed component in the assessment of intellectual capital in rehabilitation organizations were gathered by a questionnaire.
Findings
Intellectual capital was defined as “The capital that emerges from the interaction of human resources’ ‘ability to think’ and to ‘create ideas’ with ‘a favorable internal and external organizational environment’ (including the managerial, social, structural, and physical environment, as well as communication between the inside and outside of the organization).” This capital is expected to gradually increase with further education, skills training and the gaining of experience by staff and managers. Also, the further development of intra-organizational structures and inter-relations with the market will empower the organization to adapt to continually changing circumstances, leading to competitive value and profit. Finally, a list of 101 proposed components was agreed upon in the evaluation of intellectual capital in rehabilitation organizations.
Originality/value
This paper may lead to the development of measurement tools and ultimately to planning effective programs to increase intellectual capital in rehabilitation organizations.
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Modern organic metaphors for society have run parallel to the very idea of sociology as a science, starting with Comte and Spencer's use of the term “social organism” (Comte…
Abstract
Modern organic metaphors for society have run parallel to the very idea of sociology as a science, starting with Comte and Spencer's use of the term “social organism” (Comte, 1830–42; Spencer, 1897). These metaphors provide a self-renewing source of debate, analogies, and disanalogies. Processes of social regulation, conservation, growth, and reproduction provoke an irresistible epistemic resonance and make us lose little time in offering explanations resembling those of biological regulation, conservation, growth, and reproduction. The phenomenon has not been restricted to metaphor-hungry social scientists: the final chapter of W. B. Cannon's The wisdom of the body (1932) is called “Relations of biological and social homeostasis.” Attempts to apply a modern theory of living organisms — the theory of autopoiesis (Maturana & Varela, 1980) — to social systems are but the latest installment in this saga. Despite the appeal of the organic metaphor, there are good reasons to remain skeptical of these parallels. “Because every man is a biped, fifty men are not a centipede,” says G. K. Chesterton (1910) ironically in his essay against the medical fallacy. Doctors may disagree on the diagnosis of an illness, he says, but they know what is the state they are trying to restore: that of a healthy organism (implying, admittedly, a rather unproblematic concept of health). In social systems, a “social illness” confronts us with precisely the opposite situation: the disagreement is about what the healthy state should be.