Designing Multi-sided Community Platforms for Local High Street Retail

The continuing rise of online retail comes at the expense of small and medium-sized stores in local high streets. Many cities now experience substantial vacancies and the decline of independent and family-owned stores, impeding citizens’ perceived quality of living. In this paper, we design the community platform ‘smartmarket²’, with which networks of local retailers interact with networks of customers to co-create a physical and at the same time digital customer experience in a high street. The platform connects with retailers’ information systems, while interfacing with in-store technologies to connect with potential customers’ smartphones. From a theoretical perspective, the platform exemplifies how previous research on value co-creation, multi-sided (engagement) platforms, and retail communities can complement each other to constitute online-offline customer experience. Based on comparing smartmarket² with rival IT artifacts, we abstract nascent design knowledge by conceptualizing a design theory for ‘community platforms for high street retail’ as a new class of IT artifacts. We conclude the paper with identifying how digital services—including cross-promotions, geographical recommender systems, and geospatial analytics—may be offered on the platform to leverage the competitive position of small and medium-sized retailers in local high streets through online-offline customer experience

The Abduction of Disorder in Psychiatry

The evolutionary cornerstone of J. C. Wakefield's (1999) harmful dysfunction thesis is a faulty assumption of comparability between mental and biological processes that overlooks the unique plasticity and openness of the brain?s functioning design. This omission leads Wakefield to an idealized concept of natural mental functions, illusory interpretations of mental disorders as harmful dysfunctions, and exaggerated claims for the validity of his explanatory and stipulative proposals. The authors argue that there are numerous ways in which evolutionarily intact mental and psychological processes, combined with striking discontinuities within and between evolutionary and contemporary social/cultural environments, may cause non-dysfunction variants of many widely accepted major mental disorders. These examples undermine many of Wakefield's arguments for adopting a harmful dysfunction concept of mental disorder

Youth Media's Impact on Audience and Channels of Distribution

In partnership with the Open Society Institute, the Surdna Foundation supported a research and capacity building initiative focused on youth media's impact on audience. Social Policy Research Associates (http://www.spra.com), based out of the Bay Area, was hired to conduct a literature review of existing media evaluation models, develop a theory of youth media impact on audience, and create a toolkit, which was used to build the evaluation capacity of a regional group of youth media organizations

What is that thing called internal quality assurance system?

Purpose: The main purpose of this paper is to explore and to propose a comprehensive definition and conceptualization of an Internal Quality Assurance System (IQAS) for Higher Education Institution (HEI) by using Work Systems Theory (WST) as a theoretical lens. Design/methodology/approach: The paper follows a multiple method research approach by grounding on a literature review and validating against a published study case. Findings: After analysing a number of IQAS definitions, the paper shows how these systems can be defined as a specific case of a “work system”, the main unit of analysis and conceptualization provided by WST. To further demonstrate the academic relevance and practical applicability of the proposed conceptualization, we provide a concrete instantiation as a “work system” of the IQAS implemented in a real HEI case. Research limitations: Additional instantiations of IQAS implemented in other different real contexts should be conducted to foster the generalizability of the proposed framework. Practical implications: Using the same theoretical lens as a reference point, the paper provides insights and directions for further research as well as potential future uses and practical applications of the derived conceptualization. Originality/value: To our best knowledge, this is the first comprehensive formal IQAS definition and first WST-based conceptualizing an IQAS for HEIs.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Theoretical Foundations of Learning Communities

This chapter describes the historical and contemporary theoretical underpinnings of learning communities and argues that there is a need for more complex models in conceptualizing and assessing their effectiveness

A New Leadership Development Model for Nursing Education

Background Leadership competency is required throughout nursing. Students have difficulty understanding leadership as integral to education and practice. A consistent framework for nursing leadership education, strong scholarship and an evidence base are limited. Purpose To establish an integrated leadership development model for prelicensure nursing students that recognizes leadership as a fundamental skill for nursing practice and promotes development of nursing leadership education scholarship. Method Summarizing definitions of nursing leadership, conceptualizing leadership development capacity through reviewing trends, and synthesizing existing leadership theories through directed content analysis. Discussion Nine leadership skills form the organizing structure for the Nursing Leadership Development Model. Leadership identity development is supported via dimensions of knowing, doing, being and context. Conclusion The Nursing Leadership Development Model is a conceptual map offering a structure to facilitate leadership development within prelicensure nursing students, promoting student ability to internalize leadership capacity and apply leadership skills upon entry to practic

Knowledge-based banking: The bankers’ experience on OKS (Online Knowledge Sharing)

This paper outlines the results from a web-based survey of first time users of a bankers online knowledge sharing. Palmer´s web metrics were used to investigate the effects of key website characteristics on intention to return, satisfaction and self-efficacy. Partial least squares estimation was used to estimate both the measurement and structural parameters in our structural equation model. Statistical significance of the main relationships provided strong empirical support for author conceptual framework

Conceptualizing Democracy as Preparation for Teaching for Democracy

In this essay, a broad spectrum of the work of influential educational scholars was examined in order to identify crucial components of teaching for democracy. Synthesizing the literature with their experiences as middle level teachers and teacher educators, the authors determined those conceptions that would be most fruitful for moving in-service teachers to enact the more “muscular” concepts that foster civic participation and social justice. This collaboration resulted in the identification of four democratic practices as a foundation for designing a course on teaching for democracy. These included amplification of the voices of historically marginalized people, recognition that those in power must work to meet the needs of those without power, recognition of the advantages of diversity even at the potential expense of efficiency, and collaboration in order to teach for democracy