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1 – 10 of 21Rebecca Reynolds, Sam Chu, June Ahn, Simon Buckingham Shum, Preben Hansen, Caroline Haythornthwaite, Hong Huang, Eric M. Meyers and Soo Young Rieh
Many of today’s information and technology systems and environments facilitate inquiry, learning, consciousness-raising and knowledge-building. Such platforms include e-learning…
Abstract
Purpose
Many of today’s information and technology systems and environments facilitate inquiry, learning, consciousness-raising and knowledge-building. Such platforms include e-learning systems which have learning, education and/or training as explicit goals or objectives. They also include search engines, social media platforms, video-sharing platforms, and knowledge sharing environments deployed for work, leisure, inquiry, and personal and professional productivity. The new journal, Information and Learning Sciences, aims to advance our understanding of human inquiry, learning and knowledge-building across such information, e-learning, and socio-technical system contexts.
Design/methodology/approach
This article introduces the journal at its launch under new editorship in January, 2019. The article, authored by the journal co-editors and all associate editors, explores the lineage of scholarly undertakings that have contributed to the journal's new scope and mission, which includes past and ongoing scholarship in the following arenas: Digital Youth, Constructionism, Mutually Constitutive Ties in Information and Learning Sciences, and Searching-as-Learning.
Findings
The article offers examples of ways in which the two fields stand to enrich each other towards a greater holistic advancement of scholarship. The article also summarizes the inaugural special issue contents from the following contributors: Caroline Haythornthwaite; Krista Glazewski and Cindy Hmelo-Silver; Stephanie Teasley; Gary Marchionini; Caroline R. Pitt; Adam Bell, Rose Strickman and Katie Davis; Denise Agosto; Nicole Cooke; and Victor Lee.
Originality/value
The article, this special issue, and the journal in full, are among the first formal and ongoing publication outlets to deliberately draw together and facilitate cross-disciplinary scholarship at this integral nexus. We enthusiastically and warmly invite continued engagement along these lines in the journal’s pages, and also welcome related, and wholly contrary points of view, and points of departure that may build upon or debate some of the themes we raise in the introduction and special issue contents.
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Bidit Lal Dey, Sharifah Alwi, Fred Yamoah, Stephanie Agyepongmaa Agyepong, Hatice Kizgin and Meera Sarma
While it is essential to further research the growing diversity in western metropolitan cities, little is currently known about how the members of various ethnic communities…
Abstract
Purpose
While it is essential to further research the growing diversity in western metropolitan cities, little is currently known about how the members of various ethnic communities acculturate to multicultural societies. The purpose of this paper is to explore immigrants’ cosmopolitanism and acculturation strategies through an analysis of the food consumption behaviour of ethnic consumers in multicultural London.
Design/methodology/approach
The study was set within the socio-cultural context of London. A number of qualitative methods such as in-depth interviews, observation and photographs were used to assess consumers’ acculturation strategies in a multicultural environment and how that is influenced by consumer cosmopolitanism.
Findings
Ethnic consumers’ food consumption behaviour reflects their acculturation strategies, which can be classified into four groups: rebellion, rarefaction, resonance and refrainment. This classification demonstrates ethnic consumers’ multi-directional acculturation strategies, which are also determined by their level of cosmopolitanism.
Research limitations/implications
The taxonomy presented in this paper advances current acculturation scholarship by suggesting a multi-directional model for acculturation strategies as opposed to the existing uni-directional and bi-directional perspectives and explicates the role of consumer cosmopolitanism in consumer acculturation. The paper did not engage host communities and there is hence a need for future research on how and to what extent host communities are acculturated to the multicultural environment.
Practical implications
The findings have direct implications for the choice of standardisation vs adaptation as a marketing strategy within multicultural cities. Whilst the rebellion group are more likely to respond to standardisation, increasing adaptation of goods and service can ideally target members of the resistance and resonance groups and more fusion products should be exclusively earmarked for the resonance group.
Originality/value
The paper makes original contribution by introducing a multi-directional perspective to acculturation by delineating four-group taxonomy (rebellion, rarefaction, resonance and refrainment). This paper also presents a dynamic model that captures how consumer cosmopolitanism impinges upon the process and outcome of multi-directional acculturation strategies.
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Caroline Marchant and Stephanie O’Donohoe
Young people’s attachment to their smartphones is well-documented, with smartphones often described as prostheses. While prior studies typically assume a clear human/machine…
Abstract
Purpose
Young people’s attachment to their smartphones is well-documented, with smartphones often described as prostheses. While prior studies typically assume a clear human/machine divide, this paper aims to build on posthuman perspectives, exploring intercorporeality, the blurring of human/technology boundaries, between emerging adults and their smartphones. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on assemblage theory, this interpretive study uses smartphone diaries and friendship pair/small group discussions with 27 British emerging adults.
Findings
Participants in this study are characterized as homo prostheticus, living with and through their phones, treating them as extensions of their mind and part of their selves as they navigated between their online and offline, private and social lives. Homo prostheticus was part of a broader assemblage or amalgamation of human and non-human components. As these components interacted with each other, the assemblage could be strengthened or weakened by various technological, personal and social factors.
Research limitations/implications
These qualitative findings are based on a particular sample at a particular point in time, within a particular culture. Further research could explore intercorporeality in human–smartphone relationships among other groups, in other cultures.
Originality/value
Although other studies have used prosthetic metaphors, this paper contributes to understanding of smartphones as a prostheses in the lives of emerging adults, highlighting intercorporeality as a key feature of homo prostheticus. It also uses assemblage theory to contextualize homo prostheticus and explores factors strengthening or weakening the broader human–smartphone assemblage.
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The purpose of this study is to investigate how various relationships an employee builds within the organization affect their willingness to stay with the company. Specific…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate how various relationships an employee builds within the organization affect their willingness to stay with the company. Specific research objective was to examine impact of social exchange on organizational commitment in the hospitality industry.
Design/methodology/approach
An online survey using Qualtrics' panel database was used to collect data. The target was full-time employees in the hospitality industry. A total of 245 surveys were collected and used for data analysis. The results were analyzed using structural equation modeling.
Findings
Results of hypotheses testing showed that internal service quality and perceived organizational support have positive relationships with organizational commitment.
Originality/value
These findings can help hospitality managers develop programs and interact with employees in order to increase commitment and a sense of belonging with the company.
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Margaret S. Stockdale, Myrtle P. Bell, Faye Crosby and Jennifer Berdahl