53,693 research outputs found

    The determinants of social capital on facebook

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    This paper investigates the effect of socioeconomic status, trust and privacy concerns, and socio psychological factors on building three structural measures of social capital, which are bridging, bonding and network size (degree). Using online survey data, I find the evidence that trust and privacy concerns, being a female, and the number of hours spent in Facebook are significant determinants of bridging social capital and degree. I show that females and respondents that have trust and privacy concerns are less likely to build bridging social capital. In addition to this, the number of hours spent on Facebook is positively related to the probability of engaging in bridging social capital. The results also suggest that females are less likely to increase their network size. On the other hand, respondents that spend more hours on Facebook and respondents that come from high-income class are more likely to increase their network size.Social capital, Facebook, trust and privacy concern, socio-economic status, socio-psychological factors

    A social capital framework to assess ICTs mediated empowerment of environmental community organizations in Western Australia

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    The potential of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in empowering generally under-resourced community organizations has increasingly been acknowledged in recent years. While organizational empowerment refers to the capability to fulfil its mission by overcoming resource-scarcities, measuring the contribution of ICTs towards organizational empowerment remains an exigent task. Two different theories, ‘resource dependence’ and ‘social networks’ provide a framework to examine how harnessing social capital leads to organizational empowerment. It is in this context that this work-in-progress paper will explore the implications of ICTs adoption on organizational social capital as a proxy indicator of ICTs mediated empowerment. Based on survey responses from 81 Environmental Community Organizations (ECOs) in Western Australia, the findings indicate: (a) the capability to maintain social capital is strongly correlated with the capability to acquire human and financial capital; (b) the trend of access to ICTs (more than one-tenth ECOs not having an access to the Internet) as well as ICTs adoption (less than one-third and one-tenth ECOs hosting websites and posting blogs respectively) is generally weak; and (c) ICTs tend to benefit ECOs already with higher social capital. Apart from illustrating the usefulness of a social capital framework to gauge ICTs mediated empowerment, the findings also exposed the extent of organizational divide amongst ECOs. This paper therefore acknowledges that access to and adoption of ICTs without the necessary skills and support mechanisms will impede empowerment and suggests ways to make ICTs mediated empowerment genuine

    Strengthening Governance of Small-Scale Fisheries: An Initial Assessment of the Theory and Practice

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    Preferred citation for this report: Basurto, X., Virdin, J., Smith, H. and R. Juskus. 2017. Strengthening Governance of Small-Scale Fisheries: An Initial Assessment of Theory and Practice. Oak Foundation.Often hidden in national statistics, small-scale fisheries have been poorly measured at a global level, and in thepast often ignored in states' policy-making. Yet estimates suggest their aggregate global contribution tonutrition, food security and poverty eradication is massive. The most recent estimates available suggest thatsmall-scale fisheries account for over 90 percent of the world's commercial fishers, processors and otherpersons employed along the value chain, equivalent to over 108 million people. Roughly half areemployed in the ocean and the other half in inland fisheries—making small-scale fisheries far and awaythe ocean's largest employer (greater than oil and gas, shipping, tourism, etc.). This level of activitytranslates into a large portion of the global fish catch: an estimated 46 percent of the total, and 38 percentof the fish caught in the ocean. SSFs are also estimated to provide over half the animal protein intake inmany of the world's least developed countries, and over half of the fish for domestic consumption indeveloping countries more broadly. In sum, in many regions of the world SSFs provide both incomes tohelp reduce poverty and safety nets to help prevent it

    Socio-technical factors influencing channel use for knowledge-sharing in regional SME networks

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    The economic sustainability of regional areas is dependent on cross-industry innovation and knowledge-sharing among Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The web-based initiatives deployed in regions worldwide to facilitate SME knowledge-sharing have typically been unsuccessful. This paper argues that the main reason for these failures is the lack of understanding of the socio-technical factors which influence the use of web-based channels (websites, online forums and expertise databases) as well as the more conventional channels (face-to-face and e-mail). This paper reports the findings of interpretive case studies of two regional SME business networks. It evaluates the major channels on six socio-technical criteria: link strength; trustworthiness; tacitness; usability; durability and currency. None of the channels were strong against all socio-technical factors. This highlights the importance of achieving an appropriate mix of channels to facilitate SME knowledge-sharing.<br /

    Bridging knowledge to the market: an innovative approach for an innovative development

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    We live in a world of constant development, growth, innovation and changing needs and nonetheless cultural habits. How to sustain this constant change and how to adapt to globalisation, technological change and constant creativity and innovativeness of key human resources inside larger corporations as well as knowledge institutions is answering the concept of corporate entrepreneurship, new ventures and academic spin-off creation. Article will show the trend in the field of new venture and academic spin-off creation, involving human and social capital as key success factors. Barriers and innovative solutions will be presented on how to overcome the issue of lacking cooperation between academia and industry. Relevant best practices and experiences will be presented to be discussed as opportunities that can find the place in the already existing strengths of Slovenia and its entrepreneurial development and regional growthAcademic spin-off, Early-Stage Financing, Knowledge-Intensive Regions, Knowledge-Intensive Companies, new venture

    Rethinking higher education and its relationship with social inequalities: Past knowledge, present state and future potential

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    The purposes and impact of higher education on the economy and the broader society have been transformed through time in various ways. Higher education institutional and policy dynamics differ across time, but also between countries and political regimes and therefore context cannot be neglected. This article reviews the purpose of higher education and its institutional characteristics juxtaposing two, allegedly rival, conceptual frameworks; the instrumental and the intrinsic one. Various pedagogical traditions are critically reviewed and used as examples, which can potentially inform today’s policy making. Since, higher education cannot be seen as detached from all other lower levels of education appropriate conceptual links are offered throughout this article. Its significance lies on the organic synthesis of literature across social science, suggesting ways of going forward based on the traditions that already exist but seem underutilized so far because of overdependence in market-driven practices. This offers a new insight on how theories can inform policy making, through conceptual “bridging” and reconciliation. The debate on the purpose of higher education is placed under the context of the most recent developments of increasing social inequalities in the western world and its relation to the mass model of higher education and the relevant policy decisions for a continuous increase in participation. This article suggests that the current policy focus on labor market driven policies in higher education have led to an ever growing competition transforming this social institution to an ordinary market-place, where attainment and degrees are seen as a currency that can be converted to a labour market value. Education has become an instrument for economic progress moving away from its original role to provide context for human development. As a result, higher education becomes very expensive and even if policies are directed towards openness, in practice, just a few have the money to afford it. A shift toward a hybrid model, where the intrinsic purpose of higher education is equally acknowledged along with its instrumental purpose should be seen by policy makers as the way forward to create educational systems that are more inclusive and societies that are more knowledgeable and just

    See you on Facebook: the effect of social networking on human interaction

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    This paper proposes an evolutionary framework to explore the dynamics of social interaction in an environment characterized by online networking and increasing pressure on time. The model shows how time pressure encourages the choice to develop social interactions also through online networking instead of relying exclusively on face to face encounters. Our findings suggest that the joint influence exerted by the reduction in leisure time and the new opportunities of participation offered by web-mediated communication may progressively lead a growing share of the population to adopt networking sites as an indispensable environment for the development of interpersonal relationships.internet, computer-mediated communication, social networking, online networks, Facebook, human interaction, social capital
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