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The work connects classic theories of selfing to the COVID-19 pandemic to make fresh connections between pandemic-induced trauma to the self and digital resources. This research introduces the concept of the “traumatized self” emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic in relation to digital disadvantage and digital hyperconnectivity. From Cooley’s original “looking glass self” to Wellman’s “hyperconnected” individualist self, social theories of identity work, and production of the self have a long and interdisciplinary history. In documenting this history, the discussion outlines key foci in the theorizing of the digital self by mapping how digital selfing and identity work have been treated from the inception of the internet to the epoch of the pandemic. The work charts the evolution of the digital selfing project from key theoretical perspectives, including postmodernism, symbolic interactionism, and dramaturgy. Putting these approaches in dialogue with the traumatized self, this research makes a novel contribution by introducing the concept of digitally differentiated trauma, which scholars can employ to better understand selfing processes in such circumstances and times.

This chapter explores the development of social science visualizations as cultural objects within art worlds. The research examines artworks as social science visualizations to show the importance of conducting analysis within distinctive social, institutional, and cultural environments. To make these arguments, the chapter outlines some of the key features of art worlds as they have been analyzed by cultural sociologists and anthropologists. We point out how cultures of reception and institutional intermediaries, such as museums, have historically shaped the construction of artworks, which are never produced or interpreted in a vacuum. The chapter closes with a call to expand both the application of social science visualizations and our understanding of such visualizations as subject to similar art world dynamics. Such visualizations, it is argued, constitute key components of social research practice increasingly oriented toward a digitally connected public hungry for visual interpretations of contemporary social developments.

We argue that a fundamental issue regarding how to search and how to switch between different cognitive modes lies in the decision rules that influence the dynamics of learning and exploration. We examine the search logics underlying these decision rules and propose conceptual prompts that can be applied mentally or computationally to aid managers’ decision-making.

By applying Multi-Armed Bandit (MAB) modeling to simulate agents’ interaction with dynamic environments, we compared the patterns and performance of selected MAB algorithms under different configurations of environmental conditions.

We develop three conceptual prompts. First, the simple heuristic-based exploration strategy works well in conditions of low environmental variability and few alternatives. Second, an exploration strategy that combines simple and de-biasing heuristics is suitable for most dynamic and complex decision environments. Third, the uncertainty-based exploration strategy is more applicable in the condition of high environmental unpredictability as it can more effectively recognize deviated patterns.

This study contributes to emerging research on using algorithms to develop novel concepts and combining heuristics and algorithmic intelligence in strategic decision-making.

This study offers insights that there are different possibilities for exploration strategies for managers to apply conceptually and that the adaptability of cognitive-distant search may be underestimated in turbulent environments.

Drawing on insights from machine learning and cognitive psychology research, we demonstrate the fitness of different exploration strategies in different dynamic environmental configurations by comparing the different search logics that underlie the three MAB algorithms.

Faculty play a unique role in universities performing duties along the three fronts of teaching, research and service. While it might be teaching that contributes most to the bottom line of a small university, it is often research by which faculty merit is judged. This study explores the relationships between role ambiguity, role conflict and commitment (affective, normative and continuance) as mediated by job satisfaction among faculty members.

A sample of 133 faculty members at a US-accredited university in Lebanon served as the basis for this study. The faculty members completed a survey covering scales on role ambiguity, role conflict, commitment and job satisfaction in addition to demographic variables.

We find that a decrease in role ambiguity strengthens affective and normative commitment but weakens continuance commitment. Structural equation modeling indicates that job satisfaction partially mediates the relationship between role ambiguity and affective commitment, while not mediating the relationship between role ambiguity and normative and continuance commitments. Similar findings hold for job satisfaction as a mediator in the relationship between role conflict and commitment.

Based on statistical modeling, this work (1) puts forth a revised scale for organizational commitment tailored to academia and (2) provides guidance to higher education institutions in terms of the differential impacts on faculty commitment that stem from reducing role-ambiguity versus role-conflict. Managerial recommendations focus on improving normative and affective commitment through the design of policies to reduce role conflict among faculty.

A primary urban destination can be accessed through its regional periphery. Thus, while a city centre may be the primary attraction, by approaching it from and through the periphery, suburbs can become part of the place and marginalised people as part of the destination from a more holistic perspective. Tourists who are more attuned to the various layers of the transformation of a destination may be more attentive visitors and might empathise and engage with the lives and survival of others when given an opportunity to reflect on other elements of the destination beyond the central area. As part of a field trip to Rome, the Chair of Tourism of the Catholic University Eichstätt-Ingolstadt explored the inequalities at the periphery of Rome as a destination with undergraduate students from the Faculty of Mathematics and Geography. The results show that a holistic impression and deep understanding of a destination can only be gained by visiting both: its centre and its periphery. Moreover, the centre and periphery of a destination can then be compared in terms of, for example, poor or rich, well kept or unkempt, or native or migrant. However, these comparisons should not be used to look at poverty or similar factors, but to develop an awareness of differences and to look behind the typical tourist zones of a destination. In this case, we suggest that tourist routes can be key in providing a more holistic experience in an historic city.