Empirical investigation of relational social capital in a virtual community for website programming

A virtual community of interest has a specific and narrow topic of discussion. Therefore, these communities attract registered members who are focused on knowledge sharing. The current research examines whether network ties, which are an aspect of structural social capital that can be categorized into strong and weak social ties, can provide a non-trivial explanation for members? trust, reciprocity, and identification in a virtual community for website programming interest. This relationship enables us to examine a context in which members share a common goal of resolving programming problems through knowledge sharing in contrast with other community settings where only general topics are discussed (e.g., societal and emotional issues). Data were collected through a survey of a virtual community for website programming composed of 69 members. Affirming conventional perception, results of the study indicate that weak ties affect the level of generalized trust and facilitate group identification. Remarkably, the number of members? strong ties is not significantly related to the degree of their perceived norms regarding generalized reciprocity. Reciprocity refers to a mutual expectation that a benefit granted at present should be repaid in the future. The results suggest two key points. First, even for a virtual community of interest, weak ties overshadow strong ties in explaining the outcome variables. Second, reciprocity is not guaranteed even in a focused form of discussion with a non-social topic that involves specialized knowledge. Therefore, virtual community members should be cautious even if ties are strong. Overall, results imply that virtual community administrators, particularly those who manage specialized communities, should be attentive to the strong and weak ties that exist among the community members

An empirical assessment of second life vis-à-vis chatroom on media perceptual assessment and actual task performance

The contribution of media in fostering communications and exchanges of idea is an enduring topic of investigation. However, our review of existing theories on media and human cognition suggests that there remain taunting contradictions in their theoretical assumptions and postulations with regard to computer-mediated communication (CMC) usage. Specifically, the social presence theory postulates that a rich medium could better facilitate the communication activity by promoting a greater “awareness” of the communicating party, which may then lead to better task performance. Yet, a richer medium could also distract an individual's focus of attention as suggested by the cognitive theory of distraction-conflict. To reconcile these contradicting perspectives, this study conducted an empirical comparison of two CMC tools, i.e., Second Life and online chatroom, in terms of users' perceptions of the media and their actual task performance in these media. The results suggest that a rich medium, such as Second Life, could lead to better perceptual evaluations of users in terms of telepresence, curiosity arousal, and immersion in media. However, the use of a lean medium, such as chatroom, could lead to better task performance in terms of users' recall ability, and the quality of ideas generated during the mediated interactions. Implications for research and practice are discussed

Mediating identity, 'mobile-ising' culture : the social impact of MXIt in the relational lives of teens

The primary aim of the study was to examine the mediating role that MXit plays in the identity formation of 16-18 year old adolescents. Little is known about the social impact of MXit on adolescents’ identities when this usage is so deeply embedded in the relational exchanges of teens’ everyday experiences. Nine focus groups, four group interviews and two one on one interviews were employed across six schools located in four socioeconomically divergent Cape Town suburbs demarcated using middle to upper-income (Milnerton and Newlands) and lower-income (Khayelitsha and Cloetesville) operational definitions

Youth care knowledge exchange through online simulation gaming

A case study and method development research of online simulation gaming to enhance youth care knowlegde exchange. Youth care professionals affirm that the application used has enough relevance as an additional tool for knowledge construction about complex cases. They state that the usability of the application is suitable, however some remarks are given to adapt the virtual environment to the special needs of youth care knowledge exchange. The method of online simulation gaming appears to be useful to improve network competences and to explore the hidden professional capacities of the participant as to the construction of situational cognition, discourse participation and the accountability of intervention choices

Organisational volunteering: Meanings of volunteering, professionalism, volunteer communities of practice and wellbeing

Volunteering has become the major means by which individuals and communities connect and engage with significant social issues. While volunteering is typically constructed as an inherently positive activity that improves personal and social wellbeing, this project critically examines the relationship between organisational volunteering and wellbeing. Scholarly literature from multiple disciplines suggests that three key dimensions are particularly salient in understanding connections between volunteering and wellbeing. The first dimension is the significance and meaning that volunteers themselves attach to what they do. The extensive volunteering literature contains multiple theoretical and empirical perspectives on the core features of organisational volunteering, without considering how volunteers themselves might reconcile these tensions. The second dimension is the role that organisational expectations and messages about professionalism in particular play in shaping volunteer identity and practice and its relationship with wellbeing. Professionalism is usually framed as an attribute of paid work and hence as inconsistent with the volunteer role and the mission of nonprofit organisations more generally. The third dimension involves the connections between organisational volunteering and wellbeing as they are evident in nonprofit communities of practice, where wellbeing emerges from the collaborative relationships that volunteers develop. CoP scholarship tends to position collaboration as a component of “good” CoPs and conflict as negative. Accordingly, the objective of the thesis is to understand the meanings of volunteering as they are constructed by volunteers, shaped by understandings of professionalism embedded in core organisational codes of conduct, and enacted in communities of practice. Doing so will enable a close and comprehensive assessment of the connections and potential tensions between volunteering and wellbeing. In addition to advancing research on volunteering, the research has implications for three core organisational communication constructs: occupational and organisational identity, coordination and relationality. The study of the meanings, identities and practice of volunteering offers insight into how individuals manage multiple identity positions, especially in non-work settings, and how particular identities cue the ways in which relationality is enacted. The study of communities of practice in nonprofit contexts could also extend studies of coordination that explore how organisations attempt to control their members by focusing on meaningful participation. The thesis is structured around five research questions. First, I ask: what meanings do individuals engaged with voluntary organisations give to their volunteering? Second, in order to assess the impact of professionalism, I ask three questions: How do organisational codes of conduct construct professionalism for volunteers? How do these codes of conduct position the relationship between professionalism and wellbeing? How do volunteers relate organisational notions of professionalism to their own wellbeing? Finally, in order to understand the connections between organisational volunteering, relationships and wellbeing in practice, I ask: How do volunteers enact communities of practice? As a broad frame for the entire project, I employ a hybrid phenomenological perspective based around three key postulates: (1) individuals create meaning through intentional interaction with objects of experience; (2) we use both experience and context to understand a phenomenon; and (3) individual and group differences in how an object is experienced enrich our understanding of a phenomenon. The postulates suggest that, in order to understand the phenomenon of organisational volunteering, both a detailed account of volunteers’ experiences and an analysis of the organisational context in which volunteering occurs is required. Specifically, I analysed volunteering in three nonprofit organisations in New Zealand: Refugee Services, the Royal New Zealand Plunket Society, and St John Ambulance. A total of 49 in-depth interviews were conducted with volunteers in all three organisations in order to answer questions about the meanings of volunteering, the impact of professionalism on wellbeing, and communities of practice. Additionally, I collected textual data in the form of reports, brochures, promotional materials and training manuals, as well as observational data to assess how codes of professional conduct were constructed in each organisation. Data were analysed for each of the three key dimensions of the volunteering-wellbeing relationship as follows. I used a phenomenological method of analysis adapted from the Duquesne School to unpack the meanings that volunteers gave to their experiences of volunteering. In order to develop emic understandings of professionalism within the nonprofit organisations in this study, I highlighted statements from organisational representatives and in organisational texts that discussed professionalism and clustered key elements into themes. In contrast, I applied an a priori coding method to address the last research question on communities of practice. Specifically, I adopted Lave and Wenger’s (1991) framework to analyse how volunteers used shared repertoire, mutual interaction and joint enterprise to create communities of practice, and I parsed these categories for evidence of both collaboration and conflict. The findings of this project have significant implications for research on volunteering. First, this study challenges uni-dimensional visions of volunteering found in both academic and popular literature as a free act. Instead, the data highlights the dual nature of volunteering, which is simultaneously agentic and deeply relational. Moreover, two distinct pathways, or ways of negotiating this duality, emerge. Volunteers on the freedom-reciprocity pathway move synchronically between agency and relationality, while those on the giving-obligation pathway shift diachronically from agency to relationality. Second, the study shows that codes of conduct regarding professionalism and its relationship with wellbeing are constructed differently across organisations. Further, participants in each organisation diverged in their responses to organisational notions of professionalism. One group enjoyed the structure and control afforded by professional standards, while the other group resisted professionalism as impersonal and negative for their wellbeing. Third, contestation and conflict were as prevalent as collaboration and cooperation in volunteer communities of practice in all three organisations. While it was clear that dissent was an important part of “well” volunteer communities, the expectation that volunteering would lead to wellbeing and collaborative relationships did influence volunteer retention and intentions to exit. These findings have implications for organisational communication research on identity, coordination and relationality, as well as theorising on nonprofit organising, in the form of three dialectical tensions. First, the study suggests that the process of identification is dynamic and dependent upon how volunteers manage the duality between agency and relationality inherent in volunteering. Second, the study offers an expansive view of what “collaborative” behaviour in communities of practice might entail, implicating both consensus and dissensus. Finally, the study demonstrates the key role that relationality plays, both in definitions of occupational identity as well as the construction of collaborative communities of practice

Social Net-working: Exploring the Political Economy of the Online Social Network Industry

This study explores the nascent political economy of the online social network industry. Exemplars of online social networking, Facebook and Twitter have often been understood as revolutionary New Media tools. My findings show that these social networks are taking on a logic of capitalist production and accumulation, calling into question their revolutionary character. Evidence suggests that user-generated content are now being commodified and exchanged for profit. A critical discourse analysis of Facebook and Twitter’s privacy policy and terms-of-use reveals that these texts primarily function as work contracts rather than treatises on privacy protection. Drawing on the work of Karl Marx, this study revisits his theory of value and develops an expanded form of variable capital model to demonstrate how social networkers fit into this new capitalist circuit of accumulation. This extension of the working day is problematic. Policy recommendations are offered in order to negate the commodification of user data

Understanding Local Knowledge – an Interdisciplinary Framework in the Context of Sustainable Development

This dissertation undertakes an in-depth analysis of the notion of ‘local knowledge’ on which basis it develops a structured, comprehensive, interdisciplinary conceptual-analytical framework on ‘understanding local knowledge’. This framework goes not only beyond typically encountered simplifications and the often seen prioritization of the factual perspective or the ecological dimension, but is also compatible with principles of sustainable development. Local knowledge – understood in this research as an overarching term for forms of knowledge such as e.g. traditional, indigenous, traditional ecological, folk or farmers’ knowledge – is locally adapted knowledge developed over time by people living in close interaction with their natural surroundings. Such knowledge proves vital in a myriad of ways and on various societal levels: Not only does it sustain local communities in their livelihoods and, thus, survival, it also is at the base of what is commonly called ‘ecosystem management’. These services are carried out by local communities at local and regional scales, thereby contributing to advancing environmental conservation and sustainable development. Lastly, with respect to the global level, local knowledge also acts as a vast, highly diversified and locally adapted knowledge repository with many current and potential future applications such as e.g. the development or introduction of novel materials, agricultural products or pharmaceuticals. Regrettably, despite its vital multi-functionality and -valency and a certain global recognition through the official integration of local knowledge into the ‘Convention of Biological Diversity’ at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, local knowledge continues to experience serious marginalization, devaluation and, as a result, an ongoing and almost world-wide erosion and decline. Reasons for this development are to be located not only in real-world power dynamics and vested interests at all societal levels, but also in a limited understanding of the actual character of local knowledge. The latter often stems from a lack of insight by the generally highly specialized Western actors into local knowledge’s complexity and the influence of their own biases and constraints on how a given local knowledge form is perceived and made sense of – biases and constraints rooted in their disciplinary, organizational, structural and personal backgrounds. This research contributes to tackling the latter issue by developing a multidisciplinary-based framework approach to ‘understanding local knowledge’. The heuristic instrument is designed generically such that it is applicable to a broad range of local knowledge forms in rural and urban areas in industrializing and industrialized countries and can be applied in the context of research as much as conservation and development cooperation. Methodically, the dissertation is based on extended literature analyses across sociology, philosophy, anthropology, geography, the ethno-sciences and development, cultural and area studies in order to conceptualize and theoretically inform the notions formative for ‘understanding local knowledge’ as broadly and inclusively as possible, namely ‘knowledge’, ‘locality’ and, to a lesser extent, ‘understanding’. In this process, a total of 16 theory-based generic dimensions characterizing and specifying the three notions are identified. In a second step, these 16 dimensions are aggregated in a conceptual-analytical framework whereby I follow the methodology outlined by Jabareen, Dowding and Stanley. This dissertation’s contributions concern various levels. First, on an analytical level, the heuristic developed facilitates the understanding of principally any given form of local knowledge through a theory-based minimal set of interconnected key dimensions and questions. Second, in view of its normative foundation in sustainable development, the framework provides interested parties with a differentiated way to gain comprehensive insights into local contexts as basis for collaboratively determining sustainable conservation, management and/or development strategies. Third, its structured and systematic approach facilitates comparative studies and forth, its interdisciplinary foundation is expected to promote the uptake of scientific findings across disciplinary boundaries, counteracting tendencies of disciplinary isolation. Fifth, by including the aspect of ‘understanding’, the framework also allows for a critical reflection on the contingency of one’s own understanding on pre-existing biases and constraints, thus also taking account of challenges related to understanding across epistemologies. Approaching the topic of ‘understanding local knowledge’ with an instrument specifically developed to analyze local knowledge forms comprehensively and systematically promises to provide a more complex, transparent and at the same time balanced notion of a given local knowledge form that thus contributes to facilitating collaboration, be it in research, conservation or development cooperation

Is the game worth the candle?: Knowledge access requirements in environments dominated by lead users

Using the context of the under-researched games software industry, I make the case for lead users as an important source of external knowledge, whose interests contain important guideposts for producer performance. This thesis develops our theoretical understanding of the factors that cause lead users to be interested in individual products, which I argue significantly involve identity considerations that directly concern the product and indirectly concern the creator(s) of products; and also enriches our appreciation of the pitfalls of producers ascribing importance to lead users, which has been an under-researched area of academic inquiry. I balance my study by empirically examining opposing views to ascribing importance to lead users and make the case that the exploration-exploitation construct (March, 1991) allows us to sensibly make the distinction along the lines of a firm’s innovation strategy, as to which to adopt. At the basis of my empirical work is extensive data collection from the games software industry, resulting in an original dataset and information pertaining to 120 games, 6 years of data (1998- 2003), an extensive social network analysis of greater than 4500 nodes, personal interviews with managers who represent over 40 firms, and notes from product development team members pertaining to the development of 83 games. Three case studies of unusual games are also examined to add richer insights into these questions. The conclusions draw important messages for both executives in industry and academic researchers

The Structural Politics of Social Organizations in Urban China, post 1989

In der letzten Dekade haben die Neuen Sozialen Organisationen (NSOs) im urbanen China, die sich von herkömmlichen Sozialen Organisationen durch ihre bemerkenswerten Institutions- und Sozialinnovationen unterscheiden, zunehmende Aufmerksamkeit bei den Gelehrten erregt. Gegründet wurden die NSOs teilweise von einigen offiziellen NGOs (hauptsächlich Nicht-Regierungs-Umweltschutzorganisationen), doch noch viel häufiger von „Organisationen der Rechtserklärung“ („asserting rights organizations“), und nicht-offiziellen NGOs. Aus der Perspektive der Strukturpolitik, betrachtet diese Abhandlung solche innovative Sozialorganisationen als Ergebnis der Strukturierung der autopoietischen Bewegung der NSOs und erforscht anhand Giddens Theorie der Strukturierung die Drei-Niveau-Verfahren der Politisierung der NSOs: der Aufstieg von „Rechtserklärungsbewegungen“, der Aufbau eines rationalen oppositionellen Bewußtseins mit einer neuen Generation der liberalen (Bewegung) Intellektueller, und die Bildung von Netzwerken der NSOs. Von den Feldarbeitsforschungen beobachte und formuliere ich den Doppelaktivismus als die Interpretation der Politisierung der NSOs: die Online-Eintragung der Teilnehmer des E-Forums und die vernetzenden Handlungen der NSO-Unternehmer. Solche zwei habitualisierte Verhalten funktionieren als die Mikro-meso-Mechanismen der kategorialen Politik der NSOs, seit dem 1998 das Internet begann sich im urbanen China weit zu verbreiten. Auf dieser strukturalistischen Grundlage können wir eine Dualität der strukturellen Politik der NSOs in heutigem urbanem China herausstellen: einerseits eine auftauchende morphogenetische Zivilgesellschaft, und anderseits einen „Late Authoritarianism“. Zusammengehalten wird diese Dualität durch die Mediation der antiautoritären Natur und der dichten Struktur der NSOs - dies kann in den Demokratie-Bewegungen im Jahre 1989 zurückverfolgt werden, die wieder belebt und umgewandelt zu der autopoietischen Bewegung von NSOs in den letzten 15 Jahren geführt haben.In the last decade, the new social organizations (NSOs) in urban China stemming from conventional social organizations in association with remarkable institutional and social innovations have attracted increasing attentions from scholars, constituted of formal NGOs (mainly environmental NGOs), many more “asserting rights organizations” and informal NGOs. From the perspective of structural politics, this dissertation deems such innovative social organization as the resulting structuration of the NSOs’ autopoietic movement, and launches a Giddensian structuration approach to explore the three-level processes of NSOs’ politicization: the rise of asserting rights movements, the construction of rational oppositional consciousness and new generation of liberal (movement) intellectuals, and the formation of NSOs’ networks. Using fieldwork investigations and observations, a twin activism was formulated as the rationale of NSOs’ politicization: the online posting of e-forum participants and networking agitation of NSO’s entrepreneurs. Such twofold habitualized behaviour functions as the micro-meso mechanisms of NSOs’ category politics since the Internet become widespread in urban China from 1998 onward