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1 – 10 of over 2000LauraAnn Migliore, Kevin Bottomley and Bridget Arena
Technology is changing more rapidly than most companies can implement it. This chapter presents a digitized Human Resource Development (dHRD) Framework Model that organizational…
Abstract
Technology is changing more rapidly than most companies can implement it. This chapter presents a digitized Human Resource Development (dHRD) Framework Model that organizational leaders can use to meet the needs of current and future workforces via avatar-mediated learning in 3D virtual learning environments (VLEs). The dHRD Framework Model leverages 3D VLE technology as a tool to engage employees and achieve strategic objectives in an efficient and cost-effective manner for managing people. The dHRD Framework Model can inform practice and advance employee engagement outcomes for effective HR decision-making, which includes legal and ethical considerations for mitigating risks in the 3D VLE. The Theory of Gamification, including psychological theories, provides the lens to explain dynamic learning and relationship building using the dHRD Framework Model to engage employees in the 3D VLE.
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Rebecca Watkins and Mike Molesworth
Purpose – To extend our understanding of consumers’ relationships with their growing collections of digital virtual goods by exploring adult videogamers’ attachments to their…
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Purpose – To extend our understanding of consumers’ relationships with their growing collections of digital virtual goods by exploring adult videogamers’ attachments to their digital virtual possessions within videogames.
Methodology – Phenomenological interviews with 35 adult videogamers, primarily conducted in participants’ homes and lasting on average two hours.
Findings – Our participants were able to possess and form emotional attachments to ‘irreplaceable’ digital virtual goods within videogames despite the goods’ immaterial nature and their own lack of legal ownership. The processes via which these attachments developed mirror our existing understanding of material possession attachment; however, technical and legal restrictions were found to hinder attachment formation. Our participants also expressed concerns, rooted not in the immateriality of the goods, but in their lack of control over the safety of their digital virtual possessions and societal perceptions surrounding such emotional involvement in ‘childish’ videogame play.
Originality/value – This study illustrates that consumers desire to, and find ways to, form meaningful attachments to possessions, regardless of their materiality, whilst highlighting the tension between the desire to possess and make meaning from digital virtual goods and recognition of their lack of legal ownership and control, and the goods’ status as frivolous.
Research implications – We see potential for future research to look beyond the immaterial nature of digital virtual goods to study the complex networks of forces influencing digital virtual consumption, whilst the ambiguous ownership of in-game possessions presents possibilities for further research into the problematic nature of possessing, but not owning, such goods.
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This chapter focuses on visualization. Seeing the humanities differently is one of the amazing benefits of working with tools mentioned within this category. Whether it be more…
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This chapter focuses on visualization. Seeing the humanities differently is one of the amazing benefits of working with tools mentioned within this category. Whether it be more traditional visualizations like images or video or that which is considered a bit more advanced like augmented or virtual reality, the enhanced perspective gained through the use of these tools offers digital humanities scholars unprecedented disciplinary perspectives while helping to shape new research areas, questions, and understanding of humanity and culture. In addition to visualization and issues related to it, this chapter also examines gaming and how games and play are impacting the digital humanities in exciting ways.
Bitcoin is difficult to categorize and indeed has been associated with 112 different labels in the British media (e.g., “private money,” “commodity”) – most of which poorly…
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Bitcoin is difficult to categorize and indeed has been associated with 112 different labels in the British media (e.g., “private money,” “commodity”) – most of which poorly describe bitcoin. Specifically, our analyses of 674 media articles, focusing on the relationship between labeling and categorization, identify classification inconsistencies at three levels: within clusters of labels, between labels and categories, and between category attributes. These inconsistencies hamper categorization based on attribute similarity, audience goals, and causal models, respectively. We identify four factors that nurture this categorical anarchy and conclude with a call for research on the socioeconomic revolution heralded by blockchain technology.
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Purpose – The chapter compares gift and market exchange in Hawaiian and New Zealand fisheries.Methodology/approach – The chapter draws upon a combination of original ethnographic…
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Purpose – The chapter compares gift and market exchange in Hawaiian and New Zealand fisheries.Methodology/approach – The chapter draws upon a combination of original ethnographic fieldwork and literature pertaining to fisheries in both New Zealand and Hawaii.Findings – The privatization of fishing rights in New Zealand, in conjunction with a social policy directed toward Maori addressing colonial dispossession, has resulted in the dominance of market exchange, the creation of a purified version of indigenous gift exchange, and the attempted elimination of any hybrid activities. This has not been a positive outcome for the majority of coastal Maori. Fisheries development in Hawai’i has taken a different path. The flexibility that inheres in Hawaiian fisheries enables ongoing participation in both gift and cash economies.Originality/value – Over the last few decades western economies have witnessed a rapid extension of market approaches to many commonly owned environmental goods, a movement which has been entrenched as global policy orthodoxy. The social consequences of this development have been under researched. This chapter challenges the neoliberal model of using market mechanisms and property rights as “the way to do” natural resource management.
Michael A. Katovich and Shing-Ling S. Chen
This paper provides a general comparison between the ethos, methodological mission, and theoretical standpoint of the New Iowa School, established by Carl Couch and his students…
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This paper provides a general comparison between the ethos, methodological mission, and theoretical standpoint of the New Iowa School, established by Carl Couch and his students and Second Life, a three dimensional virtual world that invites particular forms of sociation. Despite differences in orientation and purpose, as well as biases in communication, we propose that the methodological and conceptual emphasis underlying the research generated from New Iowa School experimental studies can provide a useful framework for research into the virtual worlds created in Second Life. In the course of citing similarities and differences between the New Iowa School and Second Life, we also note that contrived worlds in laboratories and virtual worlds in user domains not only have relevant analogical processes to outside, in situ social worlds, but consist of social stages for performances that have application to the various social stages constructed by actors in the real world. In conclusion, we suggest that the New Iowa School and Second Life represent different but compatible realities in their own right, that the conceptual depth associated with the New Iowa School can inform research into Second Life interactions, and that each offer insights into the external worlds inhabited by real actors who navigate across time and space in their everyday lives.
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Anthony J. O’Tierney, Donncha Kavanagh and Kevin Scally
In this chapter, the authors explore the concept of actorial identity through analysing the construction of legal persons as actors, centred on the argument that there is an…
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In this chapter, the authors explore the concept of actorial identity through analysing the construction of legal persons as actors, centred on the argument that there is an ontological separation between living men and women and their legal representations. The authors propose an analytical frame based in part on the games studies literature, wherein actorial identities known as ‘Avatars’ are created by performative declarations that articulate Avatars with Players (living persons). The Avatars act within a bounded ‘Matrix’ while being controlled by Players who are outside the Matrix. In applying the frame to the legal Matrix, the authors distinguish between living persons, natural persons and artificial persons, and introduce the concepts of first-order and second-order Avatars. The authors then employ the analytical frame to model the use of legal Avatars by Apple Inc. and illustrate how cryptocurrency technology enables the creation of Avatars that can transact outside legal systems. The frame also helps explain how autonomous systems could acquire actorial identity and then functionally participate in the legal Matrix.
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