Search results

The purpose of this paper is to explore the basics of semiotic analysis and concept theory that represent two dominant approaches to knowledge representation, and explore how these approaches are fruitful for knowledge organization.

In particular the semiotic theory formulated by the American philosopher C.S. Peirce and the concept theory formulated by Ingetraut Dahlberg are investigated. The paper compares the differences and similarities between these two theories of knowledge representation.

The semiotic model is a general and unrestricted model of signs and Dahlberg's model is thought from the perspective and demand of better knowledge organization system (KOS) development. It is found that Dahlberg's concept model provides a detailed method for analyzing and representing concepts in a KOS, where semiotics provides the philosophical context for representation.

This paper is the first to combine theories of knowledge representation, semiotic and concept theory, within the context of knowledge organization.

G. H. Mead's social, developmental, and emergent conception of language and mind is a foundational assumption that is central to the interactionist tradition. However, the validity of this model has been challenged in recent years by theorists such as Albert Bergesen, who argues that recent advances in linguistics and cognitive psychology demonstrate that Mead's social theory of language learning and his theory of the social nature of mind are untenable. In light of these critiques, and drawing on Chomsky's debates with intellectuals such as Jean Piaget, John Searle, and Michael Tomasello, this chapter compares Chomsky's and Mead's theories of language and mind in terms of their assumptions about innateness and the nature and source of meaning. This comparison aims to address the major strengths and weaknesses in both models and shed light on how interactionists might frame these conceptual challenges in future theoretical and empirical research.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the question of whether the often paradoxical and conceptually contradictory discipline of information retrieval (IR) can be understood more clearly when it is analyzed from a dialectical perspective.

Conceptual analysis and literature review.

A dialectical understanding of meaning can assist in clarifying some aspects of the complex nature of current IR theory.

Philosophy has the potential to explore the conflicts and contradictions in IR and should not be used just as a means of synthesis and resolution. The use of the philosophy of meaning should include a broader understanding of the philosophical oppositions which lie behind the nature of meaning.

This paper suggests a new perspective on the role of meaning in IR: the dialectical model.

Research was conducted to empirically demonstrate the relationships between personal meaning, calling and organizational commitment in the context of spiritual leadership. Wong's Personal Meaning Profile was used to establish the various sources of personal meaning and identify those that predict calling. The results showed significant positive correlations between self‐transcendent personal meaning and calling. Further, calling was also positively correlated with organizational commitment and contrasted with work‐as‐job as a predictor of commitment. The study suggests that not all sources of personal meaning are predictive of calling, and that calling mediates the relationship between self‐transcendent personal meaning and organizational commitment. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

A strong definition of aboutness and a theory of its role in information retrieval systems have not been developed. Such a definition and theory may be extracted from the work of T. A. van Dijk. This paper discusses some of the implications of van Dijk's work for bibliographic classification theory. Two kinds of intertextuality are identified: that between documents classified in the same class of the same classification system; and that between the classification system as a text in its own right and the documents that are classified by it. Consideration of the two kinds of intertextuality leads to an investigation of the linguistic/cognitive processes that have been called the ‘translation’ of a document topic into a classificatory language. A descriptive model of the cognitive process of classifying documents is presented. The general design of an empirical study to test this model is suggested, and some problems of implementing such a study are briefly identified. It is concluded that further investigation of the relationships between text linguistics and classification theory and practice might reveal other fruitful intersections between the two fields.

The purpose of this paper is to interrogate the concept of meaning and the meaning making process in consumer behavior. While the study of the consumption focuses increasingly on how consumers create meaning in a marketing dominated world, it views this process as relatively unproblematic. This paper challenges that perspective and argues that this process is inherently ambiguous.

This paper is primarily conceptual in nature. It utilizes a post-structural perspective to theoretically examine the concept of meaning and the meaning making process. It then applies this analysis to the consumption and production of popular culture. Three exemplars from the domain of digital fandom are provided to explore the conceptual arguments in the paper.

The paper argues that if the meanings of all texts are fundamentally unstable and that meaning itself is endlessly deferred in the meaning making process, then as the consumer becomes the author of the text, the instability and ambiguity of meaning and the meaning making process transfers equally to the consumption process. Rather than view this as a negative aspect of consumer culture, this paper argues that some consumers relish this ambiguity and the freedom that it gives them to manipulate these products, their textual meanings, and the readers’ identities.

The primary limitation of this paper is that it is conceptual in nature. Future research should empirically examine different cases of meaningless consumption to provide more evidence of this interesting and potentially pervasive aspect of consumer behavior.

There is virtually no research that examines meaningless consumption. The value of the paper is that it challenges a core concept in cultural theories of consumer behavior and extends our understanding of consumption.

The critical dimension and the one that can unify knowledge through systemic interrelationships, is unification of the purely a priori with the purely a posteriori parts of total reality into a congruous whole. This is a circular cause and effect interrelationship between premises. The emerging kind of world view may also be substantively called the epistemic‐ontic circular causation and continuity model of unified reality. The essence of this order is to ground philosophy of science in both the natural and social sciences, in a perpetually interactive and integrative mould of deriving, evolving and enhancing or revising change. Knowledge is then defined as the output of every such interaction. Interaction arises first from purely epistemological roots to form ontological reality. This is the passage from the a priori to the a posteriori realms in the traditions of Kant and Heidegger. Conversely, the passage from the a posteriori to a priori reality is the approach to knowledge in the natural sciences proferred by Cartesian meditations, David Hume, A.N. Whitehead and Bertrand Russell, as examples. Yet the continuity and renewal of knowledge by interaction and integration of these two premises are not rooted in the philosophy of western science. Husserl tried for it through his critique of western civilization and philosophical methods in the Crisis of Western Civilization. The unified field theory of Relativity‐Quantum physics is being tried for. A theory of everything has been imagined. Yet after all is done, scientific research program remains in a limbo. Unification of knowledge appears to be methodologically impossible in occidental philosophy of science.

The decisive antidualism in Bourdieu’s thought permits searching for the complementary traits of his theory of symbolic social system and symbolic interactionism, rather than opposition. The theory of the symbolic social system, which is characterized by the double structure of meanings in the order of social relations and its symbolic representation in the narrower sense, has many convergent points of view with the symbolic interactionists’ perspective, starting with the category of habitus. Conceptual frameworks of structuralist constructivism and symbolic interactionism have one major difference – in Bourdieu’s theory the individual self is not inscribed. There are, however, strong common premises in terms of epistemology, theory of meaning and social ontology. Both epistemologies are antidualistic and relativistic (antiessentialism). Both approaches are based on a common theory of the social origin of meaning (anticognitivism). Both social ontologies are constructivist (social construction of reality). However, Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic struggle for control over the commonsense world-view introduces a new, political dimension to interpretive sociology.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical framework of external accounting communication in the form of a typology based on perspectives, traditions, and theories from the discipline of communication studies. The focus is accounting communication with external audiences via public written documents outside the audited financial statements, i.e., annual reports, press releases, CSR reports, websites, conference calls, etc.

The theoretical framework is based on two broad research perspectives on accounting communication: (A) a functionalist-behavioural transmission perspective and (B) a symbolic-interpretive narrative perspective. Eight traditions of communication research are introduced which provide alternative ways of conceptualising accounting communication, namely (1) mathematical tradition, (2) socio-psychological tradition, (3) cybernetic/systems-oriented tradition, (4) semiotic tradition, (5) rhetorical tradition, (6) phenomenological tradition, (7) socio-cultural tradition, and (8) critical tradition. Exemplars of each tradition from prior accounting research, to the extent they have been adopted, are discussed. Finally, a typology is developed, which serves as a heuristic device for viewing similarities and differences between research traditions.

Prior accounting studies predominantly focus on the role of discretionary disclosures in accounting communication in the functioning of the relationship between organisations and their audiences. Research is predominantly located in the mathematical, the socio-psychological, and the cybernetic/systems-oriented tradition. Accounting communication is primarily viewed as the transmission of messages about financial, environmental, and social information to external audiences. Prior research is mainly concerned with the communicator (e.g. CEO personality) and the message (e.g. intentions and effects of accounting communication). Research from alternative traditions is encouraged, which explores how organisations and their audiences engage in a dialogue and interactively create, sustain, and manage meaning concerning accounting and accountability issues.

The paper identifies, organises, and synthesises research perspectives, traditions, and associated theories from the communication studies literature in the form of a typology. The paper concludes with an extensive agenda for future research on accounting communication.

In this chapter, we present a critical assessment of contemporary organization theory variously described as either multiperspectival or fragmented. We argue that analytic philosophy as one of the major tools used for theorizing about organizations has had a major influence on the development of organization theory and largely explains the current state of affairs. At its core, we argue, is a fundamental methodological fissure in analytic philosophy itself: the distinction between descriptive and revisionary methods. The principal focus of descriptive analysis in organization theory is how agents use everyday language in organizational contexts, often by invoking language games. In contrast, revisionary approaches, concerned about the privileging of theories embedded in everyday language, as well as the complexity and ambiguity of ordinary-language use, aim for explicit theory evaluation and greater clarity by recasting ordinary language in formal systems, such as scientific, especially empiricist, theories, characteristic of the mainstream of theorizing about organizations from the 1940s onward. For a number of theoretical and epistemological reasons logical empiricism or positivism is no longer a widely held view either in the philosophy of science or in the organization theory. We examine some critical issues regarding logical empiricist epistemological foundations and propose a methodological naturalistic framework that supports the ongoing growth of knowledge in organization theory, naturalistic coherentism. In developing this new conception of science we thus opt for a revisionary methodology, but one that is beholden to neither the traditional logical empiricist/positivist conception of (organization) science nor the relativism and conservatism of postmodernist theory, widely considered to be the successor of positivist organization theory.