Search results

This discussion essay describes three methodological models of comparative analysis and tests a dialogue between Bartolini, Bray, and Bonilla Molina. Bartolini explores a model that combines dimensions of spatial and temporal variation noting the emphasis dedicated to synchronous cross-sectional investigation, as well as the need to think of time as a dimension of variation, as history. Bartolini summarizes the sociological and historical literature creating a data matrix to which he adds a dimension of time and outlines the case study and development of the case, the development trend, the great development theory, and a synchronous comparison of development. Bray adds items to a greater degree of specificity ranging from the spatial dimension with specific geographical units organized by varying degrees, types, and levels. The comparative analysis of the multilevel schematic occurs by the combination of: geographic levels, location from macro to micro; nonspatial population levels of large ethnic diversity, religion and gender as well as aspects of education and society including teachers, curriculum, finance, management, education, and work. Molina Bonilla presents a dynamic multidimensional model that combines all the macro and micro dimensions of education: school as a political project and as a continent and a country on the planet; as a teaching–learning process from citizenship and democracy; as a process involving students, teachers, and parents; and as a product where the spatial and temporal dimensions from the geopolitical merge into a dynamic hub that crosses stories, capital, and labor. The latter, created to assess quality, is a synthesis of the theoretical and methodological as it provides a multitude of benefits for successful comparative analysis in today’s global and international context of education.

Empirical research in accounting is of considerable importance to the academic community yet it is surprising to note that it is only since the early 1970s that this concern has gained centre stage. Since this time multiple studies have been undertaken from a variety of different theoretical and methodological perspectives. The literature is now replete with empirical studies from perspectives as far apart as the “positivism” of the Rochester School to the expanding Foucauldian studies of accounting practice. While this eclecticism is commendable at one level it is also confusing at another. Reduces some of this confusion by bringing an overview and much needed order into this variety highlighting the underlying features of these multiple approaches to accounting research. Points out the need for choices to be made on the perspective to be adopted along three continuums concerning “theory”, “methodology” and “change”. Presents a case for “middle‐range” thinking for empirical research in accounting. While the reader may not necessarily agree with the logic that leads to this perspective it is hoped that the article will demonstrate that no one perspective can provide a complete picture of accounting reality, that choices on perspective have to be, and can be, made and that these choices are, and should be, contestable.

Purpose: This chapter aims: (a) to extend biased net models of homophily to complete networks; (b) to extend the scope of application of these models to processes of social exchange in a small-group laboratory setting; and (c) to link the theoretical model of attraction and repulsion with a standard statistical model of logistic regression as a way of estimating and evaluating the model.

Methods: We discuss the logic of biased net theory and show how it leads to formal mathematical models of tie formation and tie renewal under mechanisms of attraction and repulsion. We then estimate key theoretical parameters in the models by means of logistic regression.

Findings: The estimated effects of homophily in our models are moderate in strength, weaker than corresponding reciprocity effect, and processes of tie formation and tie renewal are driven more by considerations of direct reciprocity than group membership. Under attraction, homophily effects are stronger for tie renewal than tie formation. Under repulsion, the opposite holds.

Limitations: Participants in our study are divided into two groups based on a criterion that is likely to have been too weak to induce strong group identity. Measures that enhance the sense of group identity need to be introduced in future studies.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an approach to urban environment management through analysis of “urban emptiness” based on user-generated big data.

The research design is based on creating a theoretical model of urban emptiness as a multilayer phenomenon in the city space and then developing an applied approach to map its different types through user-generated and open big data from multiple online sources.

The paper provides a definition and a theoretical model of “urban emptiness” as a multilayer phenomenon integrated into the complexity of the city system and as a resource for sustainable urban development. The paper presents a methodological approach to analyse urban emptiness based on spontaneous user-generated geolocated open data emerging online. This approach is applied to the Russian city of St Petersburg with a demonstration of the data set formation based on multiple sources and an interpretation of the preliminary results.

The paper focuses on the under-researched phenomenon of urban emptiness, which leads to a certain speculation of propositions and lack of generalisability of the results. Therefore, the researchers are encouraged to further test the proposed propositions.

The paper describes urban emptiness as a resource in urban development and gives recommendations on how to account for it in sustainable urban environment management, in particular, in limiting urban sprawl.

This paper consolidates data-driven methods to create an integrated approach to urban environment management from an original standpoint – analysis of urban emptiness.

Objectives: To analyze the tourism policies introduced in response to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourism at the national, state and local levels, considering governmental functions and intergovernmental coordination.

Methodology: The methodology consisted of a review of the scientific literature on public policies, intergovernmental coordination and government functions, in addition to an empirical observation and analysis of norms and legal acts related to the combat against COVID-19 pandemic in four municipalities in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The municipalities of Armação dos Búzios, Paraty, Petrópolis and Rio de Janeiro were selected because of their economic dependence on tourism.

Main Results and Contributions: The most important contributions were the theoretical and methodological model of the analysis of government functions combined with the review of intergovernmental coordination.

Originality/Value: To study tourism policies in a time of pandemic, since government functions, when analyzed in a tourism-related context, were conducted in non-pandemic contexts.

Conclusions: Municipal horizontal coordination is highlighted since it has positively impacted the actions of control and flexibility of pandemic measures. It was further noted that the role of the guarantor government was different throughout the whole process.

Limitations: As the study is ongoing and is part of an international project on tourism and pandemic, other data collection techniques will be included.

The article presents the construction of a conceptual framework, which is rooted in mathematics education and in dialogic analysis. It aims to analyse how dialogic interactions contribute to constructing teachers' mathematical problem-solving knowledge. The article provides one example of this analysis.

The networking between a content analysis framework (Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching Problem-Solving) and a dialogic analysis framework (Lesson Study Dialogue Analysis) is presented. This leads to the construction of indicators to quantitatively and qualitatively code our data: five meetings during one lesson study cycle of a group of eight Swiss primary teachers, working on the teaching of problem-solving.

This article does not present empirical findings. The developed conceptual framework is the result presented.

The presented framework allows modelling, on the one hand, the knowledge relating to the teaching and learning of problem-solving and, on the other hand, the analysis of interactions during a lesson study. The article does not contain the results of the research.

The use of our framework can contribute to teacher educators' and facilitators' training by highlighting which types of intervention are favourable to the development of knowledge.

Our analysis involves a “systematic coding” approach. It allows a fine-grained analysis of the interactions in relation to the evolution of knowledge. Such a systematic approach offers the possibility of questioning the coded data in various ways.

The purpose of this paper is to produce a comprehensive and tabulated review of the many and scattered papers on public mental health literacy, with particular focus on people's ability to recognise mental illness and beliefs about the treatment.

This was a review and tabula study. Comprehensive tables describe studies: the first looks at the beliefs of three different groups (the general public, students and young people) within developed English-speaking countries, and the second on studies from non-English-speaking countries.

Some illnesses like depression and schizophrenia are well researched and others like anxiety or personality disorders largely ignored. The conclusion considers terminological (the loose use of different terms), theoretical (little or no theoretical models) and methodological (heavy reliance on printed, culture-bound vignettes) issues in the developing area of research.

No such review exists and this therefore should be of considerable value to people working in the area.

The purpose of this paper is to understand, from children's perspectives, the commercial marketing strategy of selling breakfast cereals with “insert toys” targeted at children.

The study is based on four focus group interviews conducted with 16 children (8‐9 years of age) concerning 18 different breakfast cereal packages. The theoretical framework integrates childhood sociology, critical discourse analysis and talk‐in‐interaction. This theoretical and methodological combination is used to show how children, in local micro settings of talk, make use of the discourses that are available to them to produce and reproduce social and cultural values about marketing with “insert toys”.

The present findings suggest that, from children's perspectives, “insert toys” are constituted by cultural and social patterns extending far beyond the “insert toy” itself. For example, the analysis shows that it is not biological age that defines what and how consumption is understood.

The focus group material provides understandings of marketing strategies and consumption practices from children's perspectives. When the children talk about children and adults, hybrid agents of the “child‐adult”, the “adult‐child” and the “childish child” are constructed. These hybrids contradict research that dichotomizes children and adults likewise children's understandings of consumption based on age stages. Accordingly, age is rationalized into an empirically investigated category rather than being used as a preset category set out to explain children's behaviours.

Analysis of the focus group interactions shows that the way the market and marketing as well as children and adults are talked about is crucial to understanding children's and parents' actions as consumers.

Accountability is ubiquitous in social systems, and its necessity is magnified in formal organizations, whose purpose has been argued to predict and control behavior. The very notion of organizing necessitates answering to others, and this feature implies an interface of work and social enterprises, the individuals comprising them, and subunits from dyads to divisions. Because the nature of workplace accountability is multi-level as well as interactive, single-level conceptualizations of the phenomenon are incomplete and inherently misleading. In response, this chapter sets forth a meso-level conceptualization of accountability, which develops a more comprehensive understanding of this pervasive and imperative phenomenon. The meso model presented integrates contemporary theory and research, and extends our perspectives beyond individual, group, unit, or organizational perspectives toward a unitary whole. Following this is a description of challenges and opportunities facing scholars conducting accountability research (e.g., data collection and analysis and non-traditional conceptualizations of workplace phenomenon). Theoretical and practical implications are discussed, as are directions for future research.

Buyer power can be defined as the ability to obtain trade terms more favourable than a supplier’s normal trade terms. The purpose of this paper is to estimate existence of buyer power in the Italian market of fresh milk. The sector is characterised by high industrial and retail firms concentration and a significant gap between the downstream and upstream prices exists.

The authors applied the “first-pass” test proposed by Lloyd et al. (2009) on a set of monthly price indexes series from 2000 to 2013 in order to estimate if a buyer power exists in this sector. This in order to verify how prices are transmitted along the supply chain and to determine if buyer power contributes in conditioning the retail-producer price spread.

Estimated results suggest that buyer power exists in the Italian fresh milk supply chain and oligopsonistic behaviour affects the spread between downstream and upstream prices.

The paper gives a contribute on estimation of buyer power in the agro-food supply chains. However, more research needs to be carried out in order to precisely evaluate the nature and the causes of presence of buyer power.