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The purpose of this paper is to explore the adoption of a phenomenographic conceptual framework to investigate learning from the perspective of the learner, with the aim of reflecting on the features that this approach shares with information literacy education in general, and with the relational model in particular.

The study offers an analysis of phenomenographic research on learning undertaken by Marton, which is further elaborated by examples of collaborative work by Marton and Booth, as well as by Fazey and Marton. The relationship between understanding and learning, promoted by this perspective, is explored in this paper to illustrate its impact on retention and transfer of the learning process. This is compared with the iterative and independent learning approaches promoted by information literacy education, and specific examples are used to illustrate the pedagogical overlap between phenomenography and information literacy. In addition, the paper examines the relational approach of information literacy promoted by the individual and collective works of Bruce, Lupton, and Edwards to demonstrate how the person‐world relation, advocated by phenomenography, is used to examine the learner‐information relationship promoted by the work of these authors.

The paper reflects on the potential impact that phenomenography and the relational perspectives have on pedagogical practices in Higher Education. In particular, it aims to demonstrate how the relational approach, together with the learn‐how‐to‐learn ethos of information literacy, is fundamental in promoting a framework for lifelong learning that leads to the empowering of the learner through an iterative cycle of reflection and practice, i.e. what phenomenography defines as variation in practice to foster the ownership of learning.

In line with the person‐world relation, the paper explores the relationship between learners and information by outlining its internal/subjective and external/objective dynamics. Claims that the learner's ability to reflect on these dynamics enhances his or her independent learning attitude are explored in the light of current phenomenographic and information literacy research.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework to aid in understanding and evaluating love online. The framework maps the territory of online love by identifying important issues and providing a mechanism for combining relevant theoretical perspectives.

Interdisciplinary literature is reviewed and related through normative and descriptive conceptual analysis.

A diverse and complex set of practices, technologies, intentions, and behaviors comprise love online. Theoretical works on love and mediation can be combined to improve conceptual clarity.

The framework provides a simple but powerful tool for making sense of and critiquing the existing literature as well as outlining avenues for future research.

The framework puts diverse strands of scholarly work into an interdisciplinary discussion about an important phenomenon in new media societies.

The purpose of this paper is to measure the systemic importance of industry in the world economic system under the system-wide event – the crisis of 2008-2009, by viewing this system as a weighted directed network of interconnected industries.

First, the authors investigate this crisis at three different levels based on network-related indicators: the “macro” global level, the “meso” country level, and the “micro” industry level. This investigation not only provides evidence for the systemic influence, that is, systemic risk, of the crisis, but also reveals the contagion mechanism of the crisis, which supports the stress testing. Second, the authors use a network-related business intelligence algorithm, the combined hyperlink-induced topic search (HITS) algorithm, to measure the contribution of a given individual industry to the overall risk of the economic system or, in other words, the systemic importance of the individual industry.

The HITS algorithm considers both the market information and the interconnectedness of the industries. Based on the stress testing, the performance of the combined HITS is compared with the purely market-based systemic risk measurement. The results show that the combined HITS outperforms the baseline in finding the top N systemically important industries.

The combined HITS algorithm provides a novel network-based perspective of systemic risk measurement.

Measuring the systemic importance based on the combined HITS algorithm can help managers and regulators design effective risk management policies. In this respect, the work initiates a research direction of studying the systemic risk in a business system based on a network-related business intelligence algorithm because the business system can be viewed as an interconnected network.

The purpose of this article is to link the associative learning process of the human brain to the relationship and emergence of really significant ideas on the global horizon.

First, learning is explored from the viewpoint of the brain/mind, with a focus on the creation of patterns and their relationships to our personal frames of reference. Second, the associations of three really significant ideas are explored, and a pattern of patterns is surfaced.

The paper finds that in concert with the functioning of the brain, significant ideas emerge in relationship with other ideas that have personal historical significance, i.e. external patterns from the environment are detected, recognized, made sense of and have meaning in relationship with our internal patterns of significance.

The paper creates an appreciation of the role of patterns in thinking and learning.

Relationship marketing (RM) has emerged as a new marketing idea for many firms in Western countries. The aim of this paper is to review the evolution of RM ideas. Definitional difficulties are sorted out, a typology of many of the relationships is developed, structural and social bonds are identified and whether RM is a paradigm shift for marketing theorists and practitioners is debated. This paper argues that RM is not a paradigm shift, but rather an appropriate marketing approach when management considers product/service, customer, and organization factors. The paper’s contribution is its comprehensiveness and up‐to‐date review of the evolution of core RM ideas.

Working toward a symbolic interactionist understanding of information provision by multiple agencies responding to crisis situations, in this paper the authors aim to examine mandated information provision on the part of US law enforcement to survivors of intimate partner violence.

The authors conducted a detailed content analysis of 1,793 documents supplied by local law enforcement agencies from over 700 cities from all 50 US states. Documents were coded within a framework that identified 18 information elements corresponding to four emergent situations commonly found within the survivors’ small world, as well as codes to note level of responsibility expressed by law enforcement and affective tone.

Law enforcement expressed the greatest responsibility for those information elements related to their immediate purview – generally, how to engage with the police themselves in an initial crisis situation. However, information related to community social services, related to “later” survivor situations was included in the documents almost as frequently, but with less expressed direct responsibility.

Agencies providing information to survivors of crisis situations are frequently working within an environment that is bounded by overlapping governmental and private actors who may have different norms, agendas, and priorities. Developing a symbolic interactionist model that allows for the co‐existence of these different approaches, and articulates their interaction, can help IS professionals support these actors who may be struggling with minimal preparation for information interactions.

The automotive industry in North America is experiencing a period of far‐reaching reorganization. Part of that change is in the automotive supply chain, including firms in the industry, such as Ford or General Motors, that assemble the vehicles and firms that are their suppliers. The particular emphasis in the research reported below is on the new relationships among these firms in the automotive supply chain. Some of the data come from in‐depth interviews with twenty‐six senior executives in North American automotive companies, from a survey of 175 firms in the North American automotive industry, and from sessions with an advisory board of representatives of leading industry companies. Additional data derive from historical accounts of the industry. This paper briefly summarizes the differentiation of the supply chain into four types of firms, and the reallocation of tasks within the supply chain. This has meant a transfer of responsibilities from the assemblers (such as Ford) to various kinds of suppliers, and a resultant shift in the system of responsibility and authority in the supply chain. The paper then explores in detail changes in the nature of relationships among firms in the supply chain from a type termed the market model to a type termed the commitment model. Additional topics include changes in the way relationships among firms are initiated and reasons for the new type of relationship. The changes are interpreted in terms of both firm‐level and industry level‐factors. The changes and their underlying causes allow certain predictions: the process of change to the new type of relationship will continue at least until 2005; and it is uncertain how far the new mode of relationship, the commitment model, will extend through the supply chain.

This study aims to investigate the World Bank achievements in reinforcing Middle Eastern economies in the light of the Syrian refugees’ crisis. It aims to analyze the influence of the World Bank activities in sustaining and developing a key Lebanese sector under pressure, namely, education.

Face-to-face, semi-structured interviews were conducted, followed by thematic analysis of gathered data. The study participants included senior Lebanese World Bank professionals and education experts, who once held major leadership roles in the World Bank.

Data analysis revealed major contributions in human development, substantial governmental support and controlling damaging consequences of the Syrian crisis, which helped in supporting economic stabilization and prevented education sector from collapsing.

The desire of evaluating the World Bank activities in the education sector will help in understanding the World Bank’s role in the development process of the education sector and the associated local government support. In addition, the study seeks to assess governmental performance in adapting the required changes to achieve development and revealing strategies used for refugee crisis. Due to a shortage of relevant studies, this study seeks to fill the associated gap with implications and recommendations guiding educational development in the Middle East, in addition to operational recommendations and indications for further studies in the field.

This paper aims to problematise the basis of the use of non-fiction as an explanatory category in libraries that have mandates to deliver information to civil society users to initiate debate on its ongoing value.

A range of literature from the fields of information science, philosophy, literary studies and the sociology of knowledge was critically surveyed to uncover reasons for the use of the non-fiction concept when librarians are dealing with documentary knowledge. A process of thematisation of relevant material was then conducted using a methodology informed by historicist and hermeneutic-phenomenological approaches to social scientific inquiry.

The extreme simplicity of the concept of non-fiction masks a complex range of factors associated with common sense understanding of life and our conceptualisation of what constitutes knowledge in civil society information environments. By restricting the nature of questions associated with knowledge and documentary knowledge the non-fiction concept contributes to a far too narrow view of how these concepts interrelate.

Preliminary reasons are offered for why the non-fiction concept is problematic, and an alternative discursive formation is put forward which may enable more fruitful caretaking of documentary collections in school and public libraries.

This paper helps to open discussion among collection management theorists and practitioners regarding how the concept of documentary knowledge can be more usefully theorised so that it is better able to support the epistemic learning and socialisation goals of libraries characterised by their civil society setting.

Reports research into the sexual behaviour of UK teenagers at the margins of society, the project was a response to the Social Exclusion Unit’s brief to reduce the rate of teenage conceptions and to move teenage parents into education, training or employment. Focuses on the issues of recruiting teenagers for interview, methodology, and building trusting two‐way relationships with them so that sensitive subjects like condom use could be discussed. Characterises these teenage parents and their social status, and compares the UK with the rest of Europe: the former has a simultaneously puritanical and prurient culture. Finds that pairs of friends provided an open and honest environment for research, while journals and cameras provided to the teenage respondents were an essential part of the project. Finds that for them sex is often spontaneous, accompanied by alcohol, and invariably unprotected.