Elections, Wars, and Protests? A Longitudinal Look at Foreign News on Canadian Television

This study reports on the Canadian data from a recent international content analysis of broadcast news in 18 countries. With a mind to Robert A. Hackett’s longitudinal analysis of foreign news on CBC and CTV in 1989, the current study addresses questions of foreign news prominence, geographic distribution, topic coverage, and variation between networks, noting differences and similarities in the content of foreign news in light of shifting cultural, political, and economic environments; news production processes; and communication technologies. This analysis provides an update to Hackett’s seminal work, painting a picture of the Canadian foreign news landscape two decades later

How does digitalization alter the paradox of supply base concentration? The effects of digitalization intensity and breadth

Purpose – The highly uncertain and turbulent environments nowadays intensify the paradoxical effects of supply base concentration (SBC) on improving cost efficiency while increasing idiosyncratic risk (IR). Digitalization is regarded as a remedy for this paradox, yet digitization’s potentially curative effect has not been empirically tested. Leveraging the lenses of paradox theory and information processing theory (IPT), this study explores how two distinct dimensions of digitalization, i.e. digitalization intensity (DI) and digitalization breadth (DB), reconcile the paradoxical effects of SBC. Design/methodology/approach – Using a panel dataset of 1,238 Chinese manufacturing firms in the period of 2012–2020, this study utilizes fixed-effects regression models to test the proposed hypotheses. Findings – The authors discover that SBC enhances a firm’s cost efficiency but induces greater IR. More importantly, there is evidence that DI restrains the amplifying effect of SBC on IR. However, DB weakens the enhancing effect of SBC on cost efficiency and aggravates the SBC’s exacerbating effect on IR. Originality/value – This study advances the understanding of the paradoxical effects of SBC on cost efficiency and IR from a paradox theory perspective. More importantly, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the authors’ study is the first to untangle the differential roles of DI and DB in reconciling the paradox of SBC. This study also provides practitioners with nuanced insights into how the practitioners should use appropriate tactics to deploy digital technologies effectively

Unraveling the Effects of Mobile Application Usage on Users’ Health Status: Insights from Conservation of Resources Theory

Numerous studies have documented adverse consequences arising from increased technology usage and advocated for a reduction in such usage as a plausible remedy. However, such recommendations are often infeasible and oversimplistic given mounting evidence attesting to users’ growing reliance on technology in both their personal and professional lives. Building on conservation of resources (COR) theory, we construct a research model to explain how mobile application usage, as delineated by its breadth and depth, affects users’ nomophobia and sleep deprivation, which can have negative impacts on users’ health status. We also consider the moderating influence of physical activity in mitigating the effects of mobile application usage on users’ health. We validated our hypotheses via data collected by surveying 5,842 respondents. Empirical findings reveal that (1) nomophobia is positively influenced by mobile application usage breadth but negatively influenced by mobile application usage depth, (2) sleep deprivation is negatively influenced by mobile application usage breadth but positively influenced by mobile application usage depth, and (3) sleep deprivation and nomophobia negatively impact users’ health status, whereas (4) physical activity attenuates the impact of mobile application usage on sleep deprivation but not nomophobia. The findings from this study not only enrich the extant literature on the health outcomes of mobile application usage by unveiling the impact of mobile application usage patterns and physical activity on users’ health but they also inform practitioners on how calibrating usage breadth and depth, along with encouraging physical activity, can promote healthy habits among users

Leveraging Open-standard Interorganizational Information Systems for Process Adaptability and Alignment: An Empirical Analysis

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to understand the value creation mechanisms of open-standard inter-organizational information system (OSIOS), which is a key technology to achieve Industry 4.0. Specifically, this study investigates how the internal assimilation and external diffusion of OSIOS help manufactures facilitate process adaptability and alignment in supply chain network.Design/methodology/approachA survey instrument was designed and administrated to collect data for this research. Using three-stage least squares estimation, the authors empirically tested a number of hypothesized relationships based on a sample of 308 manufacturing firms in China.FindingsThe results of the study show that OSIOS can perform as value creation mechanisms to enable process adaptability and alignment. In addition, the impact of OSIOS internal assimilation is inversely U-shaped where the positive effect on process adaptability will become negative after an extremum point is reached.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the existing literature by providing insights on how OSIOS can improve supply chain integration and thus promote the achievement of industry 4.0. By revealing a U-shaped relationship between OSIOS assimilation and process adaptability, this study fills previous research gap by advancing the understanding on the value creation mechanisms of information systems deployment

Doctoral candidates' information practice through research writing : cases of East-Asian students in Australian universities

Information practices are pertinent to research writing, particularly in the writing of a literature review. This study examined East Asian doctoral (PhD) candidates’ information practices as a construct in writing literature reviews for social science theses in Australian universities. The outcomes of this research complement and extend the current documented strategies and regulations in information practices in both fields of Higher Degree Research education and Library and Information Science (LIS). Conceptualised in terms of Foucauldian (1972) “statements”, this study contributes to a reconceptualisation of information practices in research writing through the analysis of students’ literature reviews. Further, this research sheds light on research pedagogy for researchers who are committed to being educators more than supervisors. For doctoral students this thesis provides in part a picture of information practices in research writing. Information practices in literature reviews have largely been under-researched and/or overlooked in the fields of LIS and research education. Past studies in these two areas have contributed to developing research students’ information search abilities and writing abilities through various strategies (Carter, 2011a; Cotterall, 2011a; Kavuluru et al., 2012; Lee & Kamler, 2008; McCulloch et al., 2010; Olsson, 2010; Switzer & Lepkowski, 2007), while there is lack of combined investigation about information practices in research writing. Moreover, there are few studies investigating the statements (Foucault, 1972) per se in these two areas. Statement which is the core unit of discourse brings about the particular modalities of existence such as the information practices in research writing (Foucault, 1972). The investigation on statement can generate new insights into research writing by relating to information practices in both research education and LIS

Wal-Mart's Power Trajectory: A Contribution to the Political Economy of the Firm

asymptotes capital accumulation capitalization corporate power resistance Wal-MartThis article offers a power theory of value analysis of Wal‐Mart’s contested expansion in the retail business. More specifically, it draws on, and develops, some aspects of the capital as power framework so as to provide the first clear quantitative explication of the company’s power trajectory to date. After rapid growth in the first four decades of its existence, the power of Wal‐Mart appears to be flat‐lining relative to dominant capital as a whole. The major problems for Wal‐Mart lie in the fact that its green‐field growth is running into barriers, while its cost cutting measures seem to be approaching a floor. The article contends that these problems are in part born out of resistance that Wal‐Mart is experiencing at multiple social scales. The case of Wal‐Mart may tell us about the wider limits of corporate power within contemporary capitalism; and the research methods outlined here may be of use to scholars seeking to conduct political‐economic research on the pecuniary trajectories of other major firms

10. The Academic Departments

Includes: Collective Bargaining, Labor Law, and Labor History: The Department of Economic and Social Statistics; Labor Economics and Income Security Department: A Parent Department: Human Resources and Administration; The Organizational Behavior Department; Evolution of the Human Resources and Administration Department

The Geographical Deconcentration of Scientific Activity (1987-2007)

Texte intégral à l'adresse : http://sticonference.org/Proceedings/vol1/Grossetti_Geographical_348.pdfTraditional research on "world cities" tends to develop the idea that large, inter-connected agglomerations can better take advantage of international competition. This suggests that we should observe an increasing concentration of activities in these cities at the expense of smaller ones. Among analyses using measures based on scientific publications, certain studies support this hypothesis. Others however, show that in certain countries such as China, an opposite trend is emerging; the largest cities are undergoing a relative decline in the country's scientific activities. To go beyond this seeming contradiction, this paper provides a global analysis of all countries having papers in Thomson Reuters 'Web of Science' over the period 1987-2007. The addresses -present in each article- were geo-coded and then grouped into agglomerations. The result of our analysis is unambiguous: deconcentration is clearly the dominant trend -both: globally and within countries-, despite some rare exceptions for which explanations are suggested