Search results

This paper examines the effect of intergroup competition on intragroup cooperation. Three experiments are reviewed. The first experiment establishes that intergroup competition can effectively increase intragroup cooperation in a laboratory setting where symmetric players make binary decisions in one‐shot dilemma games. The second experiment shows that this constructive effect of intergroup competition is generalizable to a real‐life setting in which asymmetric players make continuous decisions in an ongoing interaction. The third experiment demonstrates that the increase in intragroup cooperation can be accounted for at least in part by motivational, rather than structural, effects of the intergroup competition. Theoretical and practical issues concerning the applications of these findings are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the Moroccan Roadmap to regionalize the country (with the Western Sahara) that is currently presented in principle or general guidelines. By providing greater operational definition to the Roadmap and specific recommendations (including budgetary) for its implementation, the Moroccan and international public and policy makers will see the challenges and merits of the plan, including the potential to significantly advance human development and resolve the Western Saharan conflict.

There are three methods applied in the research of this paper. First, public statements made by King Mohammed VI of Morocco related to regionalization and all aspects of development (community, gender (though not addressed here), human, participatory, reconciliation, and sustainable) were organized chronologically and categorized. This put in place the principle tenets of Morocco's Roadmap. Second, the basic constructed Roadmap is then evaluated against the literature in the field of decentralization and development. This provides a sense of direction the Roadmap intends for transferring power to the sub‐national level and promoting local development. Finally, recommendations for the Roadmap's implementation are presented that reflect the literature and the author's 18 years experience in development in Morocco.

Morocco's Roadmap is relatively innovative as compared against other international decentralization models because it incorporates three of the four major approaches applied in cases around the world to transfer power from the national to sub‐national tiers, and does so in a way that intends to marshal local to national resources toward supporting community‐driven initiatives. This presents considerable opportunities to improve socio‐economic and environmental conditions, and reform vital institutions.

Morocco's Roadmap is broadly stated, and the Advisory Committee on Regionalization appointed by the King is due to have its recommendations for implementation ready to present by 2011. Thus, there is an element of projection in the research by way of building a more clearly defined Roadmap (in order to make it operational) through a literature analysis of its basic‐stated precepts.

The leaders and people of the region and the international community feel a new sense of urgency to resolve the Western Saharan conflict because of the disunity it creates in North Africa, and therefore insecurity and volatility at a crossroads of its hemisphere in a globally insecure time. The international community also seems generally receptive to Morocco's regionalization proposal, which now extends to the whole of the Kingdom a transferring of power from the capital to the regions. The essay provides a clear rationale and description of the proposal/plan, and specificity as to how it can be implemented. It will likely be well received by policy‐makers internationally and those charged in Morocco with implementing the plan.

Just in this past year, there has been a real increase in scholarly, governmental, civil, and public attention on Moroccan regionalization, but it generally remains abstract and unclear as to what it is and involves. This essay provides more vivid detail by thoroughness of research of Moroccan and international sources and the author's extensive experience in working with Moroccan administrations in regards to development, project management, and applying the participatory method (the approach Morocco's King repeatedly stated is intended to drive Moroccan regionalization).

The suggested utility of decentralized development in Iraq and the Palestinian occupied territories is meant to provide policymakers new alternatives to managing and resolving these conflicts. This paper aims to address this issue.

The overall paradigm of decentralization is presented and how participatory development relates within it is described. As the conditions in Iraq and Palestine are then discussed, cited qualities and results of decentralized participatory development are shown to directly address the fundamental issues that perpetuate these conflicts.

The paper finds that decentralization to local communities of development planning and management reinforces national sovereignty when national governments actively support its implementation. The productive partnerships among government, civil organizations and private groups that can result from decentralization – both vertically and horizontally along administrative tiers – strengthen both local community and national autonomy.

The decentralization strategy presented – participatory development – has been shown in cases around the world to also generate vital economic, social, and environmental benefits in a more expeditious and at a lower cost than typical development assistance programs. These outcomes, among others, are what is needed to help resolve conflicts in Iraq and between the Israelis and Palestinians – conflicts rooted in matters of sovereignty, development and reconciliation. In Iraq, decentralization of development will give the national government legitimacy, the Iraqis ownership of their own reconstruction, and the opportunity to incorporate reconciliation as part of the process. In the Palestinian occupied territories, decentralized development will bring immediate relief and build socio‐economic self‐reliance in a way that restructures their economy to be less dependent on Israel and help reduce tensions and violence.

There are important theoretical and applied values of this analysis. By explaining how different ideological perspectives (socialism, neo‐liberalism, alternative development and others) relate to the various organizational arrangements of decentralization, a detailed description of the decentralization paradigm is provided. Then by presenting participatory development as a strategy of decentralization and showing how it can be implemented in Iraq and Palestine, it is shown to be a practical tool with outcomes that correspond fittingly to the fundamental requirements for resolving these destabilizing conflicts. The analysis contributes to both the theoretical and applied knowledge of decentralization.

The relationship between intergroup conflict and intragroup cohesion is a longstanding concern in sociology and related disciplines. Past work suggests that intergroup conflict shapes emotional bonds between group members, promotes in-group and out-group stereotyping, encourages self-sacrifice for the group, and changes the social structure of groups. Conflict thus plays an important structural role in organizing social interaction. Although sociologists contributed much to the beginnings of this research tradition, sociological attention to the conflict–cohesion link has waned in recent decades. We contend that despite advances in our understanding of the conflict–cohesion hypothesis, more remains to be done, and sociologists are especially equipped to tackle these unanswered questions. As such, we encourage sociologists to revisit the study of intergroup conflict and intragroup cohesion and offer some possibilities for furthering our understanding of this phenomenon. After reviewing and evaluating the relevant literatures on the conflict–cohesion hypothesis, we consider ways in which a broad range of current theories from the group process tradition – including theories of status, exchange, justice, identity, and emotion – could contribute to understanding the conflict–cohesion hypothesis and how those theories could benefit from considering the conflict–cohesion hypothesis. In doing so, we make a case for the continuing importance of sociology in explaining the link between intergroup conflict and intragroup cohesion.

Instrumental approaches to norms treat their enforcement as problematic and suggest that self-interested actors are unlikely to sanction. We suggest an alternative conceptualization of the norm enforcement problem. Research shows that social rewards can offset sanctioning costs, thereby encouraging enforcement. The issue then becomes how individuals determine what to sanction. We suggest that the typicality of behavior may provide a clue. We identify conditions under which atypical behavior may be punished. Consistent with existing instrumental approaches, we find that atypical behavior is sanctioned if it detracts from group welfare. We also find evidence pointing to the importance of a non-instrumental factor – perceptions of a behavior's social desirability.

The “upper echelon” literature has mainly produced static empirical studies on the impact of top management team composition on organizational outcomes, ignoring the dynamics of industrial demography. Organizational ecology explicitly studied the dynamics of organizational diversity at the population level, however largely ignoring how the entry and exit of executives shapes organizational diversity over time. In this paper, we try to integrate both streams of demography research and develop a multi-level behavioral theory of organizational diversity, linking selection processes at both levels of analysis. The behavioral mechanism connecting the two levels of analysis is the stylized empirical fact that small groups, including top management teams, routinely reproduce their demographic characteristics over time. We argue that, under certain conditions, the potent forces of team homogenization coevolve with those of population-level selection to sustain between-firm diversity.

Intuition, along with empirical research, suggests that the generation of creative ideas benefits from divergent thinking among team members. However, the generation of creative ideas represents only one stage of the innovative process; teams also must implement ideas. In this chapter, we propose that effective idea implementation may depend on the opposite of team divergence: team conformity. Specifically, we propose that conformity facilitates various group processes important for effective idea implementation, including team coordination, information exchange, conflict management, and collective efficacy. Next, we discuss the role of leaders in managing the magnitude and processes of conformity. The chapter concludes with a discussion of implications and important next steps for studying conformity in relation to team innovative effectiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to study extensive enlargement and safety of flight data recorder memory.

The study involves the moving the memory of flight data recorders from an internal embedded device to a cloud.

The implementation has made the embedded memory device of flight data recorder effectively unlimited, and, hence, much more information can be stored.

The possibility of a flight data recorder to be damaged or lost in a crash is not so high, but the implementation can be very helpful in cases such as aerial disappearances.

The implication is larger and protected memory for flight data recorders.

Finding reasons for crashes is faster, and immediate actions can be taken to find remedy to the failures.

The use of internet and cellphones in airplanes is nothing special at present. It is suggested to take this technology for flight data recorders as well.

There have been many attempts to study the content of the Web, either through human or automatic agents. Describes five different previously used Web survey methodologies, each justifiable in its own right, but presents a simple experiment that demonstrates concrete differences between them. The concept of crawling the Web also bears further inspection, including the scope of the pages to crawl, the method used to access and index each page, and the algorithm for the identification of duplicate pages. The issues involved here will be well‐known to many computer scientists but, with the increasing use of crawlers and search engines in other disciplines, they now require a public discussion in the wider research community. Concludes that any scientific attempt to crawl the Web must make available the parameters under which it is operating so that researchers can, in principle, replicate experiments or be aware of and take into account differences between methodologies. Also introduces a new hybrid random page selection methodology.

This paper aims to explore, for the first time over a long period of time, the autobiographical memory of Israeli veterans of the 1948 War, pertaining to the 1948 Palestinian exodus that led to the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem. Does this memory include the Zionist narrative (i.e. willing flight of the Palestinian refugees) or a critical narrative (i.e. willing flight and expulsion)? One of the primary sources to influence the collective memory of conflicts is the autobiographical memory. This memory is also one of the primary sources for research of the past. Thus, autobiographical memory is of importance.

Methodologically, this is done through an analysis of all 1948 veterans’ memoirs published between 1949 and 2004. Interviews were also conducted with various veterans, to understand the dynamics of their memoir publication.

Empirical findings suggest that during the first period (1949-1968), this memory was exclusively Zionist; during the second (1969-1978), it became slightly critical; and during the third (1979-2004), the critical tendency became more prevalent. Onward, the nine empirical causes for the presentation of exodus the way it was presented are discussed. Theoretical findings relate, inter alia, to the importance of micro factors in shaping the autobiographical memory, assembles seven such theoretical factors, suggests that these factors can influence in two ways (promoting collective memory change or inhibiting it), and that their impact can change over time.

Taken together, the paper contributes empirical and theoretical findings that are based on a solid and wide scope research.