World city network research at a theoretical impasse::On the need to re-establish qualitative approaches to understanding agency in world city networks

From the late 1990s, the establishment of a new relational ‘turn’ in the study of world city connectedness in globalization has run parallel to the wider relational turn occurring in economic geography. Early work, built firmly upon a qualitative approach to the collection and analyses of new inter-city datasets, considered cities as being constituted by their relations with other cities. Subsequent research, however, would take a strong quantitative turn, best demonstrated through the articulation of the inter-locking world city network (ILWCN) ‘model’ for measuring relations between cities. In this paper, we develop a critique of research based around the ILWCN model, arguing that this ‘top down’ quantitative approach has now reached a theoretical impasse. To address this impasse, we argue for a move away from Structural approaches in which the firm is the main unit of analysis, towards qualitative approaches in which individual agency and practice are afforded greater importance

ssMousetrack: Analysing computerized tracking data via Bayesian state-space models in {R}

Recent technological advances have provided new settings to enhance individual-based data collection and computerized-tracking data have became common in many behavioral and social research. By adopting instantaneous tracking devices such as computer-mouse, wii, and joysticks, such data provide new insights for analysing the dynamic unfolding of response process. ssMousetrack is a R package for modeling and analysing computerized-tracking data by means of a Bayesian state-space approach. The package provides a set of functions to prepare data, fit the model, and assess results via simple diagnostic checks. This paper describes the package and illustrates how it can be used to model and analyse computerized-tracking data. A case study is also included to show the use of the package in empirical case studies

A modern day panopticon: using power and control theory to manage volunteer tourists in Bolivia

Volunteer tourism literature is yet to examine the impact of power and control practices on volunteer tourist compliancy. This paper contributes to closing this research gap by proposing and testing a new theoretical model of power and control practices. Drawing upon the previously un-synthesized theoretical contributions of Foucault (1979) and French & Raven (1959), the model presents power and control practices identified in the extant organizational literature. Using an auto-ethnographic approach, data was collected within a Bolivian volunteer-host community. Examination of results suggested mutually beneficial volunteer-host working relationships occur under ‘softer’ management practices. Our findings also offer insight into the salience of using reward-based management strategies as a control mechanism, as well as identifying two new control practices that emerged empirically. The research suggests several implications for the management of host communities towards creating more harmonious, efficient, and effective working relationships between volunteer tourists and hosts

Unitization during Category Learning

Five experiments explored the question of whether new perceptual units can be developed if they are diagnostic for a category learning task, and if so, what are the constraints on this unitization process? During category learning, participants were required to attend either a single component or a conjunction of five components in order to correctly categorize an object. In Experiments 1-4, some evidence for unitization was found in that the conjunctive task becomes much easier with practice, and this improvement was not found for the single component task, or for conjunctive tasks where the components cannot be unitized. Influences of component order (Experiment 1), component contiguity (Experiment 2), component proximity (Experiment 3), and number of components (Experiment 4) on practice effects were found. Using a Fourier Transformation method for deconvolving response times (Experiment 5), prolonged practice effects yielded responses that were faster than expected by analytic model that integrate evidence from independently perceived components

Evaluation of Deep Convolutional Nets for Document Image Classification and Retrieval

This paper presents a new state-of-the-art for document image classification and retrieval, using features learned by deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs). In object and scene analysis, deep neural nets are capable of learning a hierarchical chain of abstraction from pixel inputs to concise and descriptive representations. The current work explores this capacity in the realm of document analysis, and confirms that this representation strategy is superior to a variety of popular hand-crafted alternatives. Experiments also show that (i) features extracted from CNNs are robust to compression, (ii) CNNs trained on non-document images transfer well to document analysis tasks, and (iii) enforcing region-specific feature-learning is unnecessary given sufficient training data. This work also makes available a new labelled subset of the IIT-CDIP collection, containing 400,000 document images across 16 categories, useful for training new CNNs for document analysis

Digital transformation: incorporating social and human extensions into change models

This study is about incorporating social and human dimensions of the organisation into change models to support technology enabled change, also known as digital transformation. Organisations often manifest change through projects. Despite utilizing change models and frameworks, the rate of failure remains as high as 80%, leading to estimated financial losses of $900B USD a year, in addition to non-financial losses such as opportunity cost, change fatigue, loss of confidence and poor morale. Studies show that the majority of the root causes of failure are non-technical; yet change models and frameworks focus on the technical aspects, providing little guidance to the non-technical aspects (i.e. social and human). This study explores this omission with the aim of developing extensions to improve the success rate of organisational change. The context of the study is two multi-national organisations undergoing digital transformation: a telecommunication provider and a financial institution. The researcher, by virtue of his role as digital transformation leader, is embedded in both organisations which facilitates a deeper understanding of the change context and more informed interpretation of observations and data. Action Research principles support the researcher’s dual role and provide rigor and validity. The study uses Mixed Methods to collect data: two focus-groups sessions with 14 to 20 participants in each and 11 semi-structured interviews with change leaders. The researcher recognizes the ethical implications and tensions associated with Action Research, and maintains vigilance and balance throughout. The study outcomes represent proposed extensions to change models and are model agnostic. They include language, definitions of ‘social’ and ‘human’ aspects of organisational change, themes supporting social and human dimensions of change, weaving of the themes into a practical workflow, and a stakeholder categorization framework mapped to power of influence spectrum. In addition, an interconnected Organisational Model - Human, Business, and Environment - is presented. The proposed extensions aim to improve the success rate of digital transformation and as a result, contribute to boosting productivity, reducing operating costs and improving organisational performance

Capturing and Shaping Shifting Requirements using XML and XSLT: A Field Study

This paper explores Extensible Mark-up Language (XML) and Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT) for authoring, presenting and managing system requirements. A field study is presented that explores the influence of XML schema and XSLT rendering and modeling templates on stakeholder communications. The study is of an e-commerce project where an evolving business model and changing partnerships forced the requirements team to continually adapt XML and XSLT tools to capture requirements. Coding procedures categorized resulting repositories of XML documents, XML schema, XSLT templates, stakeholder interviews, field notes, e-mails, and business documents. Qualitative techniques are applied to derive a model summarizing the influence of XML schema, and XSLT rendering and modeling templates. Implications for researchers and practitioners are discussed, including how XML tools support stakeholders by customizing presentations, assisting negotiations and enhancing traceability