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1 – 10 of over 10000Michael G. Harvey, Milorad M. Novicevic, M.R. Buckley and Gerald R. Ferris
Attempts to document how different forms of ignorance may evolve in different organizational dialogues and become embedded in organizational context. Develops the four primary…
Abstract
Attempts to document how different forms of ignorance may evolve in different organizational dialogues and become embedded in organizational context. Develops the four primary forms of ignorance based on the research from social psychology, public opinion studies, legal studies, behavioral economics, and clinical psychology. The recognition of the historic interdisciplinary evolution of the concept of ignorance plays an important role in the knowledge economy and learning organizations. If management is not aware of the various latent forms of organizational ignorance, it is difficult to develop meaningful innovation programs for organizations in the twenty‐first century. Develops a framework to address the issue of “not knowing what one does not know” (i.e. ignorance of ignorance) that may be the biggest barrier for organizations to becoming an active participant in the knowledge economy.
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Xia Shu, Stewart Smyth and Jim Haslam
The authors explore the under-researched area of post-decision evaluation in PPPs (public–private partnerships), focusing upon how and whether Post-decision Project Evaluation…
Abstract
Purpose
The authors explore the under-researched area of post-decision evaluation in PPPs (public–private partnerships), focusing upon how and whether Post-decision Project Evaluation (PdPE) is considered and provided for in United Kingdom (UK) public infrastructure projects.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors’ research design sought insights from overviewing UK PPP planning and more focused exploration of PPP operational practice. The authors combine the extensive analysis of planning documents for operational UK PPP projects with interviews of different stakeholders in PPP projects in one city. Mobilising an open critical perspective, documents were analysed using ethnographic content analysis (ECA) and interviews were analysed using thematic analysis consistent therewith. The authors theorise the absence and ambiguities of PdPE drawing on the sociology of ignorance.
Findings
The authors find a long-standing absence and lack of PdPE in PPP projects throughout planning and operational practice, reflecting a dynamic, multi-faceted ignorance. Concerning planning practice, the authors’ documentary analysis evidences a trend in PdPE from its absence in the early years (which may indicate some natural or genuine ignorance) to different levels or forms of weak inclusion later. Regarding this inclusion, the authors find strategic ignorance played a substantive role, involving “deliberate engineering” by both public sector and private partners. Interview findings indicate lack of clarity over PdPE and its under-development in PPP practice, deficiencies again suggestive of natural and strategic ignorance.
Originality/value
The authors draw from the sociology of ignorance vis-à-vis accounting's absence and ambiguity in the context of PPP, contributing to an under-researched area.
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Beenish Shahzad, Muhammad Aqeel, Hifza Naseer, Muhammad Abdullah Khan, Nimra Fawad and Amna Tahreem
Ostracism is being socially ignored or excluded by others. Ostracism leads to serious psychological distress and health issues in the young adults being ostracized. However, there…
Abstract
Purpose
Ostracism is being socially ignored or excluded by others. Ostracism leads to serious psychological distress and health issues in the young adults being ostracized. However, there are no psychometrically designed instruments to measure this phenomenon in young adults. This study aims to develop a scale that measures ostracism efficiently and establishes the scale’s psychometric properties.
Design/methodology/approach
The research design used for the study is “a mixed-method study using non-experimental research with an exploratory sequential approach and instrument development design.” For the formation of the item pool, theoretical evidence was collected and focus group discussions were conducted. Afterward, content validity was established with the help of subject matter experts, followed by Velicer’s minimum average partial method and maximum likelihood factor analysis to form the instrument’s factorial structure.
Findings
Velicer’s minimum average partial method and maximum likelihood factor analysis made two factors as follows: ostracism experience and psychological effect. The instrument developed has a high value of alpha reliability i.e. a = 0.97 and a = 0.96, a = 0.92 for the subscales, respectively.
Research limitations/implications
The sample used for the research was enough to run the analysis, but future studies can go for a more extensive and more diverse sample. The sample was based solely on university students. The current research focused only on the target of the phenomenon, and the whole research process was conducted online because of the Covid-19 pandemic going on. The scale developed can be used in several settings to find out if the individual is being ostracized or not.
Practical implications
The scale’s most important implication is in the colleges and universities where young adults are found and face this problem daily. Likewise, psychologists can also use it in clinical settings. The other important implication of this scale is that it is opening a route to future research as different variables can be studied in ostracism such as depression, physical health and anxiety.
Social implications
Ostracism is a hidden evil in societies that is not usually talked about. When people are not given equal importance in groups or settings, it leads to serious psychological issues in those individuals. This scale will in the identification of the problem that will lead to a proper solution to this evil.
Originality/value
This work is original and not copied from anywhere. The research was conducted with the sole purpose of developing a scale on the ostracism experiences in young adults. The data is collected in the form of online surveys. The current scale is an attempt at developing a more reliable and valid scale that can be used in social settings.
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In the face of the enormous rise in digital fraud and criminality, resulting in diverse afflictions to millions of user-victims, emanating from users’ horizontal interactive and…
Abstract
Purpose
In the face of the enormous rise in digital fraud and criminality, resulting in diverse afflictions to millions of user-victims, emanating from users’ horizontal interactive and transactive exchanges on the internet, but due significantly to internet’s deregulation and anonymity, this study aims to showcase the need for a socially grounded self-regulation. It holds, that this is feasible and that it can be achieved through large scale, comprehensive digital communication education (DCE) programs.
Design/methodology/approach
The composite methodology of the study comprises four types of components, namely, analytic, exploratory-discursive, constructionist and propositional. The construction-creation element consists of the design of an original combinational research tool: triangular relational pattern (TRP). Through TRPs, researchers can locate the types of relations involved between three implicated entities, namely, the affliction, the culprit and the victim and can study them in-depth. Subsequently, based on the TRP, DCE programs are composed, which are, also, proposed to be deployed by educational authorities and digital civil society associations.
Findings
The created, applied here and proposed TRPs can be used by other researchers aiming to locate, map and analyze the variants of internet criminality and victimhood and their implications across the global frontierless world and in the digital human condition, educational purposes but also to create social cohesion.
Originality/value
The study offers two original contributions. The TRP as a significant relational research tool-grid. The DCE programs that are linked to the repertories of digital relations and can be introduced in the general education programs.
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Bingsheng Liu, Juankun Li, Dan Wang, Henry Liu, Guangdong Wu and Jingfeng Yuan
This study aims to develop a collaborative governance framework (CGF) to systematically investigate the impeding factors (IFs) in terms of the operational sustainability of PPPs…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to develop a collaborative governance framework (CGF) to systematically investigate the impeding factors (IFs) in terms of the operational sustainability of PPPs. It examines the transmission pattern (i.e. the way in which network members react to each other) of the IFs network.
Design/methodology/approach
Literature review and interview were adopted to identify the IFs. Then, with the data collected from the interview in China, the social network analysis and interpretive structure model were synergised to examine the chain reaction, driving and dependent powers, and hierarchical structure of the identified IFs.
Findings
The results reveal that the cognition, institutional, financial and participation aspects are key barriers confronted by PPP sustainability, and the government plays a leading role in controlling factors causing sustainability-related problems in PPPs. Weak government leadership and institutional environment were identified as the most fundamental reasons triggering a chain of IFs, while project governance and management activities act as bridge nodes that play an intermediary role in the IFs network.
Research limitations/implications
This research contributes to the literature on PPP governance by (1) bridging the literature gap through the development of CGF for explaining the governance of PPP sustainability with a holistic view that considers both macro environment and operational project processes; and (2) identifying the transmission pattern of IFs network which uncovers the underlying dynamics causing the unsustainable operation of PPPs.
Practical implications
This research provides practitioners with a list of key checkpoints for preventing failure escalation, enables decision-makers to prioritise obstacle-mitigation efforts and develop a feasible process to control PPP operation, and offers management countermeasures to remove the key barriers impeding PPP sustainability.
Originality/value
This study is novel for adopting network-oriented techniques to quantify the relative importance of the IFs and examine the transmission pattern of the IFs system. Therefore, it visualises the complex underlying dynamics causing unsustainable PPP operation, identifies root and direct causes of PPP failures, and provides decision-makers with insights into sustaining PPP sustainability from a network-oriented perspective.
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Takashi Saito and Ken‐ichi Ohbuchi
The purpose of this study is to examine individual differences in the susceptibility to pluralistic ignorance of avoidance among Japanese by measuring the value of social harmony.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine individual differences in the susceptibility to pluralistic ignorance of avoidance among Japanese by measuring the value of social harmony.
Design/methodology/approach
Two studies were conducted to examine the effects of a concern for social harmony on pluralistic ignorance of conflict avoidance among Japanese, hypothesizing that the pluralistic ignorance of avoidance will occur more frequently among those with a low regard for the value of social harmony than those with a high regard.
Findings
Consistent with the hypothesis, pluralistic ignorance occurred only among Japanese participants with a low regard for the value of social harmony and not among those who valued it highly.
Originality/value
These findings suggest that those who have a different stance from the cultural value feel a normative pressure by the biased perception of others' behavior due to pluralistic ignorance, which, as a result, works to preserve the predominant cultural value.
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Jonathon R.B. Halbesleben, Anthony R. Wheeler and M. Ronald Buckley
Pluralistic ignorance is defined as a situation in which an individual holds an opinion, but mistakenly believes that the majority of his or her peers hold the opposite opinion…
Abstract
Purpose
Pluralistic ignorance is defined as a situation in which an individual holds an opinion, but mistakenly believes that the majority of his or her peers hold the opposite opinion. The purpose of this paper is to refocus attention on pluralistic ignorance as an important, applied, and multilevel concept to organizational researchers by developing a theory of pluralistic ignorance in organizational contexts.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper reviews the literature with regard to the causes and consequences (for individuals, groups and organizations) of pluralistic ignorance and develops an integrated understanding of how pluralistic ignorance influences employees and organizations.
Findings
The paper finds that pluralistic ignorance is a complex phenomenon that has important consequences for organizations with relation to behavior of individuals.
Research limitations/implications
The development of a model of pluralistic ignorance, with research propositions, will assist researchers seeking to conduct research on this topic.
Originality/value
This paper is original in that it is the first to delineate the processes underlying pluralistic ignorance in a managerial/organizational context.
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Takashi Saito and Ken-ichi Ohbuchi
The purpose of this paper was to examine individual differences in the susceptibility to pluralistic ignorance of avoidance among Japanese by measuring the value of social…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper was to examine individual differences in the susceptibility to pluralistic ignorance of avoidance among Japanese by measuring the value of social harmony. It was hypothesized that the pluralistic ignorance of avoidance will occur more frequently among those with a low regard for the value of social harmony than those with a high regard.
Design/methodology/approach
In two scenario studies, the authors had participants rate both their own avoidance and others’ avoidance in conflict situations. In Study 1, the authors measured the value of social harmony by Yamaguch et al.’s (1995) Collectivism Scale, and they originally constructed a scale to measure the value in Study 2.
Findings
Consistent with the hypothesis, pluralistic ignorance occurred only among Japanese participants with a low regard for the value of social harmony and not among those who valued it highly.
Originality/value
These findings suggest that those who have a different stance from the cultural value feel a normative pressure by the biased perception of others’ behavior due to pluralistic ignorance, which, as a result, works to preserve the predominant cultural value.
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Jonathon R.B. Halbesleben and M. Ronald Buckley
This paper examines the historical development of pluralistic ignorance as a construct and its application to organizational studies. Pluralistic ignorance is a social comparison…
Abstract
This paper examines the historical development of pluralistic ignorance as a construct and its application to organizational studies. Pluralistic ignorance is a social comparison error where an individual holds an opinion, but mistakenly believes that others hold the opposite opinion. Pluralistic ignorance was first developed as an important social construct in the 1920s by social psychologist Floyd Allport, and has been applied to myriad settings in psychology and sociology, including racial segregation, student perceptions of alcohol use, and classroom behavior. Despite work in pluralistic ignorance for over 75 years, it has only recently been applied to management settings. Management scholars have suggested applications of pluralistic ignorance to decision‐making, business ethics, group dynamics, performance appraisal, and burnout. Other management applications are proposed as a means to guide research in pluralistic ignorance in the future.
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A large amount of empirical literature has demonstrated that people will often choose outcomes close to equality, in games or disputes, rather than unequal outcomes that favor…
Abstract
A large amount of empirical literature has demonstrated that people will often choose outcomes close to equality, in games or disputes, rather than unequal outcomes that favor themselves. This behavior will henceforth be referred to as “fairness.” Various formulations of social utility theories explain such behavior as reflecting a preference for fair outcomes. Decision makers are assumed to gain utility not only from their own payoffs but also from others’ payoffs. I will ultimately argue that this interpretation is incomplete because it ignores a factor that, while auxiliary to social utility, is virtually always present in its evidentiary support. Namely, the decision maker is responsible for determining the other party's payoff.