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Information science has differentiated information technology from productive technology, but the common concept of technology remains largely unexplored. A view of technology as a human construction, applied to productive technology, has begun to be developed to comprehend information technology. Information technology is regarded as a form of knowledge concerned with the transformation of signals from one form or medium into another. Analogous, although not identical, concepts of universality can be distinguished for both productive technology and for information technology. The steam engine has been regarded as a universal source of motive power and of the computer as a universal information machine. Universality helps account for the wide adoption of the steam engine and the computer. For both forms of technology, theoretical considerations related to universality and working constructions embodying universality have, in contrasting ways, been partly separate developments. Further possibilities offered by a view of information technologies as human constructions are indicated.

The aim of the paper is to explore how multiple modes of knowledge play out in the consolidation of nursing procedures in construction of “local universality”. The paper seeks to explore processes where nurses negotiate universal procedures that are to become local standards in a hospital.

The paper is based on a case study design. Working group sessions, where the activity was to consolidate different versions of nursing procedures were observed and videotaped. For this paper, transcribed videotaped observations, where tension‐laden situations were identified, are subject to interaction analysis.

In the negotiations to construct standards, multiple modes of knowledge play out; personal experience, collective expertise and formalized knowledge. The paper demonstrates the contributions these modes of knowledge make in a process of standardization. This shows that standards, as such, do not stay universal for very long, but are constructed as “local universalities”.

The study elaborates on discursive negotiations of procedures to illustrate how local universality plays out in processes to constitute standards. It is a limitation because how the local universality plays out in clinical work, or make claims about practice transformation, cannot be described.

The paper shows the necessity of confronting standardized procedures through multiple modes of knowledge. The paper exemplifies productive interactions in the construction of local universality, and how professionals account for practice when facing formal and standardized procedures.

It is arguable that the central questions requiring explanation by the behavioural and social sciences are those falling under the rubric “nature vs. nurture”. To be sure, the issue is oversimplified when stated so simply; there are both physiological and environmental elements in the causation of behaviour, as well as feedback through which each alters the other. Moreover, discussions of this dichotomy can often be seen to be sterile arguments about definition, rather than answers to the empirical question of what is, in fact, happening. What matters is not “nature” or “nurture” in the abstract, but the roles physiology, environment, and the interaction of the two play in generating specific behaviour.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the underlying meanings, effects and cultural patterns of metadata standards, focusing on Dublin Core (DC), and explore the ways in which anticolonial metadata tools can be applied to exercise and promote Indigenous data sovereignty.

Applying an anticolonial approach, this paper examines the assumptions underpinning the stated roles of two of DC’s metadata elements, rights and creator. Based on that examination, the paper considers the limitations of DC for appropriately documenting Indigenous traditional knowledge (TK). Introduction of the TK labels and their implementation are put forward as an alternative method to such limitations in metadata standards.

The analysis of the rights and creator elements revealed that DC’s universality and supposed neutrality threaten the rightful attribution, specificity and dynamism of TK, undermining Indigenous data sovereignty. The paper advocates for alternative descriptive methods grounded within tribal sovereignty values while recognizing the difficulties of dealing with issues of interoperability by means of metadata standards given potentially innate tendencies to customization within communities.

This is the first paper to directly examine the implications of DC’s rights and creator elements for documenting TK. The paper identifies ethical practices and culturally appropriate tools that unsettle the universality claims of metadata standards. By introducing the TK labels, the paper contributes to the efforts of Indigenous communities to regain control and ownership of their cultural and intellectual property.

The paper aims to offer a new perspective casting original light on the foundational socio‐scientific argumentation premised on the application of the epistemology of unity of knowledge across contrasting shades of reasoning, to the problem of religion, science and society. Kantian epistemological reasoning is questioned within this argumentation. The specific case of money, finance and real economy is treated in the context of the epistemology of unity of knowledge contra Kantian problem of heteronomy.

The comparative study of received literature in the history of epistemological thinking is applied to the issue of universality and uniqueness of theory and its application in the learning dynamics between organically complementary relations, called circular causation, to the ethical interdependence between money, finance and the real economy. The goal is to attain social and economic sustainability.

A new epistemological outlook in occidental sciences is needed to repair its intrinsic dualism. Kantian thinking is instrumental in this structural flaw. Unity of divine knowledge as comprehended by functional ontological formalism in the deepest of scientific terms compromises the universal and unique alternative in “everything”. This claim has been formalised.

This is a theoretical exploration.

Important global implications of the need for a new outlook of unity between monetary, financial and real economic variables are presented within the contrasting epistemological argumentations. The direction of such money‐real economy reform in the light of Islamic economics and finance is pointed out.

This is an original conceptual paper, whose content argued out in rigorous scientific language of topological mathematics aims at showing the link between the epistemology of unity of knowledge and the world‐systems. The same is impossible in the Kantian worldview.

The universality of the health system in Canada is often emphasised to contrast the differences between the Canadian and American systems of access to care. However, changes in migration patterns and tightening of administrative procedures around undocumented persons are beginning to challenge this Canadian image. Currently, there is a lack of data to support the existence and the consequences of this shift. This pilot project documents health care professionals' and community organisation workers' perceptions of the problems faced by recent migrants in accessing health care, and the health consequences of such barriers. Results confirm the existence of numerous health care access problems for both completely undocumented migrants and legal migrants who fall into the cracks of the provincial and federal health systems. The data suggests that these barriers may have important unrecognised morbidity and mortality consequences, and that they are a source of severe stress and psychological distress. To protect recent immigrant families, there is a need not only to revise the articulation between the provincial and federal health mandates but also to address the strong societal perception linking universality of health care to the notion of citizenship. Further research is warranted on this emerging social problem, but the institutional sensitivity of these issues may constitute an obstacle to a more comprehensive understanding.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the implicitly assumed universality of the best seller negotiation literature Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher and William Ury.

Existing cross-cultural negotiation literature was systematically searched for findings indicating either a higher or lower likelihood of successfully applying the authors’ advice in different cultural environments, as defined in the Hofstede framework or The Globe Study. The findings were aggregated, categorized into a matrix, synthesized and analyzed.

This paper finds that the assumed universality of the method of Getting to Yes and its single principles is not supported by research. Instead, a dichotomy of the four principles’ applicability along the Individuality dimension of Hofstede was found. Hence, the western orientation of Getting to Yes is reality, inhibiting its use in non-western cultures. However, in one principle – Invent options for mutual gain – the findings refute a successful application in western cultures. Additional findings and research gaps are presented.

Practitioners should apply Getting to Yes with caution, if at all, in a non-western environment. For the teaching of negotiations, alternative approaches for conducting negotiations in the non-western world are needed.

Although widely used in research, scholars only addressed sporadic comments concerning the limitations of Getting to Yes across cultures. Often the universality of Getting to Yes is either implicitly or explicitly assumed in research and practice. This paper approaches this topic systematically by providing evidence that Getting to Yes is not universal and conceptually sees negotiations through a western shaped perspective that provides considerable implications for research, practice and teaching.

This paper aims to contribute to the emerging discussion on the contextualization of knowledge-oriented research by examining the universality of knowledge management (KM) practices. Knowledge is a firm’s most valuable resource, and KM, or the ability to leverage knowledge resources, constitutes the base for the firm’s competitive advantages.

A theorized ten-fold conceptualization of KM practices is tested on a sample of 622 firms from four countries (Finland, Spain, China and Russia). Confirmatory factor analysis and principal component analysis are used to test the applicability of the concept in various country contexts.

The findings provide interesting evidence of variation in the managerial assessment of KM practices among countries. This shows that KM practices are socially embedded phenomena, affected by the managers’ institutional and cultural contexts.

Researchers and managers are advised to be mindful of the differences in terms of KM practices between the studied countries and to display a certain cultural sensitivity when approaching KM.

The paper is the first to examine the managerially assessed structure of KM practices in a cross-country context with multi-firm datasets. The results will help to determine the similarity of KM practices in four economically and culturally distinct countries. It also adds to the discussion about the potential national peculiarities of KM and provides a novel concept of KM practices, which is tested in a cross-national context. Thus, this study provides an outline for future KM studies and increases managerial understanding about the variety of value-creating KM practices.

In the determination of the measurement uncertainty, the GUM procedure requires the building of a measurement model that establishes a functional relationship between the measurand and all influencing quantities. Since the effort of modelling as well as quantifying the measurement uncertainties depend on the number of influencing quantities considered, the aim of this study is to determine relevant influencing quantities and to remove irrelevant ones from the dataset.

In this work, it was investigated whether the effort of modelling for the determination of measurement uncertainty can be reduced by the use of feature selection (FS) methods. For this purpose, 9 different FS methods were tested on 16 artificial test datasets, whose properties (number of data points, number of features, complexity, features with low influence and redundant features) were varied via a design of experiments.

Based on a success metric, the stability, universality and complexity of the method, two FS methods could be identified that reliably identify relevant and irrelevant influencing quantities for a measurement model.

For the first time, FS methods were applied to datasets with properties of classical measurement processes. The simulation-based results serve as a basis for further research in the field of FS for measurement models. The identified algorithms will be applied to real measurement processes in the future.

The aim of this article was to understand about cultural representation in these coursebooks and if it is reflected the status of English as a lingua franca.

This article is a report on a case study in the form of content analysis of different categories of culture represented in English language coursebooks used in schools of Iran. In order to do so, references to source, target, international and universal cultures were classified into four aspects: perspectives, products, practices and persons.

Generally, the findings suggested that despite the high frequency of cultural elements, the representation favoured the source culture, while the target, international and universal cultures were heavily under-represented.

Apart from the valuable contributions of the study, the implications of the study are that despite the high frequency of cultural elements, the representation favoured the source culture, while the target, international and universal cultures were heavily under-represented. Therefore, the imbalance in the content of materials on different cultures needs to be redressed. While the main concern of this investigation is the frequency of appearance, which replicates the extent of source, target, international and universal cultures represented in the coursebooks, the impact of the materials, affected by how the cultural elements are used and perceived by teachers and pupils, is beyond the scope of the present study; hence, future studies in this area are deeply encouraged, and it is recommended for further research.

The implications for resolving the imbalance in cultural representation are also being explained.

Bearing in mind the importance of coursebooks as well as the role of culture in teaching the English language, this article aims at understanding about cultural representation within the newly developed Iranian English language coursebooks for schools, an issue that has never been studied by Iranian scholars with respect to the newly published materials.