Resistance Is Not Futile: Harnessing the Power of Counter-Offensive Tactics in Legal Persuasion

A core competency for people working in law or business is the ability to influence and persuade: People need to become expert at getting others to agree, to go along, and to give in. The potential “targets” of one’s influence throughout a given workday are seemingly endless and include clients and customers, co-counsel, opposing counsel, supervisors, direct reports, contractors, subcontractors, consultants, secretaries, judges, juries, witnesses, police officers, court personnel, and others. Moreover, that influence is largely exerted through words spoken and behaviors exhibited within the context of a negotiation. And yet, leading academics have argued that the vast majority of academic writing on negotiation has ignored the element of interpersonal influence. This Article was written to help correct this glaring omission.This Article underscores the notion that throughout each day, people move rapidly and fluently between the roles of persuasion “agent” (that is, one who attempts to persuade others) and persuasion “target” (that is, one whom others attempt to persuade). If an agent” party is attempting to persuade, the receiving or “target” party must understand the various tactics, strategies, and techniques being employed in those attempts, as well as ways to resist and defend against them. This Article provides this knowledge and understanding so that all parties, whether agents or targets, can be more effective negotiators. Those who are not aware that these techniques exist and who cannot recognize them and resist them place themselves (and their clients) at a clear disadvantage with respect to negotiation outcomes and final settlement results. It is only by recognizing and responding to various strategies and techniques of influence and persuasion that negotiators can begin to resist their powers and nullify their impacts

Gamification risks in collaborative information systems: identification and management method.

In recent years, technology has been increasingly harnessed to play a role in encouraging and persuading people towards a better achievement of their individual and collective goals. Gamification solutions are popular approaches in this field. Gamification in business refers to the use of game elements in order to facilitate a change of behaviours, encourage engagement and increase motivation toward executing tasks and attaining goals. Despite the increasing recognition, previous research has revealed risks when applying gamification to teamwork within a business environment, such as negatively affect group coherence and creating adverse work ethics. For example, applying competitive elements such as leaderboards may lead to clustering amongst team members and encourage adverse work ethics such as intimidation and pressure. Although the problem is already recognised in principle, there is still a need to clarify and concretise those risks, their factors and their relation to the gamification dynamics and mechanics. Moreover, developing an integrated method to systematically identify those risks and provide a way to mitigate and prevent them for healthier and successful implementation of the system in teamwork places is needed. To achieve this goal, this thesis conducted a set of empirical studies involving managers, practitioners, psychologists and gamification users. This includes three-stage empirical research in two large-scale businesses using gamification in their workplace, including two months’ observation and interview study. This resulted in identifying a set of risk factors, a taxonomy of risks and set of management strategies. A follow-up focus groups research study also identified the modalities of application of these strategies, including who should be involved and how in their implementations. These studies first resulted in the development of a checklist tool to help identify gamification risks. The findings were finally used to develop a method to systematically identify gamification risks and recommend design practices and strategies to tackle them. By accomplishing that, this thesis recommends that gamification in enterprises shall undertake a risk assessment and management process to cater for its potential side effects on teamwork. A notable recommendation is to use participatory decision style for the method that enables for the analysis of gamification risks and their resolution. Moreover, this thesis recommends studying how to integrate the risk identification processes, which should take an iterative participatory style with the systems’ development life cycle activities

A personality-based behavioural model: Susceptibility to phishing on social networking sites

The worldwide popularity of social networking sites (SNSs) and the technical features they offer users have created many opportunities for malicious individuals to exploit the behavioral tendencies of their users via social engineering tactics. The self-representation and social interactions on SNSs encourage users to reveal their personalities in a way which characterises their behaviour. Frequent engagement on SNSs may also reinforce the performance of certain activities, such as sharing and clicking on links, at a “habitual” level on these sites. Subsequently, this may also influence users to overlook phishing posts and messages on SNSs and thus not apply sufficient cognitive effort in their decision-making. As users do not expect phishing threats on these sites, they may become accustomed to behaving in this manner which may consequently put them at risk of such attacks. Using an online survey, primary data was collected from 215 final-year undergraduate students. Employing structural equation modelling techniques, the associations between the Big Five personality traits, habits and information processing were examined with the aim to identify users susceptible to phishing on SNSs. Moreover, other behavioural factors such as social norms, computer self-efficacy and perceived risk were examined in terms of their influence on phishing susceptibility. The results of the analysis revealed the following key findings: 1) users with the personality traits of extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism are more likely to perform habitual behaviour, while conscientious users are least likely; 2) users who perform certain behaviours out of habit are directly susceptible to phishing attacks; 3) users who behave out of habit are likely to apply a heuristic mode of processing and are therefore more susceptible to phishing attacks on SNSs than those who apply systematic processing; 4) users with higher computer self-efficacy are less susceptible to phishing; and 5) users who are influenced by social norms are at greater risk of phishing. This study makes a contribution to scholarship and to practice, as it is the first empirical study to investigate, in one comprehensive model, the relationship between personality traits, habit and their effect on information processing which may influence susceptibility to phishing on SNSs. The findings of this study may assist organisations in the customisation of an individual anti-phishing training programme to target specific dispositional factors in vulnerable users. By using a similar instrument to the one used in this study, pre-assessments could determine and classify certain risk profiles that make users vulnerable to phishing attacks.Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Commerce, Information Systems, 202

Article Entries Alphabetized by Author Last Name

Published in cooperation with the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolutio

Social engineering and the ISO/IEC 17799:2005 security standard: a study on effectiveness

As Information Security (IS) standards do not always effectively cater for Social Engineering (SE) attacks, the expected results of an Information Security Management System (ISMS), based on such standards, can be seriously undermined by uncontrolled SE vulnerabilities. ISO/IEC 17799:2005 is the subject of the current analysis as it is the type of standard not restricted to technical controls, while encompassing proposals from other standards and generally-accepted sets of recommendations in the field. Following an analysis of key characteristics of SE and based on the study of Psychological and Social aspects of SE and IS, a detailed examination of ISO/IEC 17799:2005 is presented and an assessment of the efficiency of its controls with respect to SE is provided. Furthermore, enhancements to existing controls and inclusion of new controls aimed at strengthening the defense against Social Engineering are suggested. Measurement and quantification issues of IS with respect to SE are also dealt with. A novel way of assessing the level of Information Assurance in a system is proposed and sets the basis for future work on this subject.Information SystemsM. Sc. (Information Systems

An Analysis of a Public Health Media Campaign in Switzerland

This multidisciplinary, grounded theory study analyses public health media communication for Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI) prevention in Switzerland. Health communication researchers measure the effects of media campaigns on populations to improve prevention. However, such effects may evade measurement due to complex interactions between audiences, media channels and ecology, message content, and targeting strategies. Competing theories explain media effects on health behaviours but there is a dearth of research examining upstream planning and stakeholder perceptions of media campaigns. In effect, interactions between communities, health officials, practitioners, and communication/media stakeholders are politically sensitive, and inaccessible to researchers. Whereas national HIV and STI prevalence was relatively low, the Swiss government aimed to raise general public awareness about risks and prevention. LOVE LIFE 2019 was a multimedia public health campaign centred on a video series promoting male condom use as well as a Safer Sex Check questionnaire providing tailored recommendations. This case study utilises innovative triangulation of media analysis methods including content analysis; digital ecosystem analysis; Goffmann’s theatrical frame and gender display; grammar of visual design and social semiotics; intervention theoretical indicators; and social marketing and extended social marketing, to retroactively understand encoded values and underlying mechanics of the media strategy. Concurrently, international and national authorities and practitioners with diverse stakeholder viewpoints were interviewed regarding media campaign planning in general and LOVE LIFE 2019 specifically. As a complement to grounded theory, thematic analysis elucidated interview and media themes, leading to insights into stakeholder environments and media effects. Grounded theory methodology resulted in a substantive theory comprising four testable propositions to guide further research, identifying relationships between culture, ideology, and values, with implications for public health media communication. Based on the substantive theory, practical recommendations were formulated to address contextual issues: (a) a content strategy for HIV and STI prevention targeting the general public; (b) HIV and STI federal policies; (c) inclusive design processes for human-centered planning; and (d) ethical considerations for public health utilisation of digital media

The rhythm of life is a powerful beat: demand response opportunities for time-shifting domestic electricity practices

The 2008 Climate Change Act set legally-binding carbon reduction targets. Demand side management (DSM) includes energy use reduction and peak shaving and offers significant potential to reduce the amount of carbon used by the electricity grid. The demand side management (DSM) schemes that have tried to meet this challenge have been dominated by engineering-based approaches and so favour tools like automation (which aims to make shifting invisible) and pricing (which requires customer response) to shift demand. These approaches tend to focus on the tools for change and take little account of people and energy-use practices. This thesis argues that these approaches are limited and therefore unlikely to produce the level of response that will be needed in future. The thesis therefore investigates the potential for time-shifting domestic energy demand but takes a different angle by trying to understand how people use energy in their daily lives, whether this use can be shifted and some of the implications of shifting it. The centrepiece of the work is an empirical study of eleven households energy-use practices. The interdisciplinary methodology involved in-house observations, interviews, photographs, metered energy data and disruptive interventions. The data was collected in two phases. Initially, a twenty-four hour observation was carried out in each household to find out how energy was implicated in everyday practices. Next, a series of three challenges were carried out, aimed at assessing the implications of disrupting practices by time-shifting food preparation, laundry and work/ leisure. A practice theory approach is used to shift the focus of attention from appliances, tools for change, behaviour or even people, to practices. The central finding of this work is that practices were flexible. This finding is nuanced, in the light of the empirical research, by an extended discussion on the nature of practices; in particular, the relationship between practices and agency and the temporal-spatial locatedness of practices. The findings demonstrate that, in this study at least, expanding the range of demand response options was possible. The research suggests numerous possibilities for extending the potential of practices to shift in time and space, shift the energy used in practices or substitute practices for other non-energy-using practices, though there are no simple technological or behavioural fixes . More profoundly, however, the thesis concludes that infrastructures of provision , such as the electricity grid and the companies that run it, underpin and facilitate energy-use practices irrespective of the time of day and year. In this context technology-led demand response schemes may ultimately contribute to the problem they purport to solve. A more fundamental interrogation of demand and the infrastructures that serve it is therefore necessary and is almost entirely absent from the demand response debate

Caravan second homes: an empirical study of consumer behaviour towards a depreciating property asset

Merged with duplicate record (10026.1/257) on 03.01.2017 by CS (TIS)This is a digitised version of a thesis that was deposited in the University Library. If you are the author please contact PEARL Admin ([email protected]) to discuss options.This research draws upon a combination of qualitative interviews and quantitative questionnaire data to investigate the role static caravans play within second home consumerism. Fundamentally it seeks to explain why people buy such a fast depreciating property asset. Results suggest how irrespective of their income two thirds of such consumers show a passionate loyalty towards their static caravan and have little regard for alternative forms of retreat they could afford. Clearly there are significant reasons beyond price which explain such investment. At their broadest static caravans proved to be desirable for reasons of escape, salvation, control, enhancement and opportunity but a number of further concepts began to emerge which extend current understanding of second homes. Within the caravan, space and time were found to hold greater value, and by virtue of their compactness life was considered to be organized, tidier, simplified and as a consequence more enjoyable than that at the principal home. Many of the alluring features which were inherent in their design were discovered to create an environment in which living was perceived to be miniaturised, adventuresome and a fairytale. Remarkably the lack of space and permanence were not perceived to be shortcomings but attributes, providing further forms of freedom and connection with nature. Purchases were seen to be driven as much by an attachment with the space static caravans provided, and memories of previous occasions enjoyed in them, as any desire for location. Through utilising chi-square tests with both factor and cluster analysis the research has been able to identify four types of consumer and the effects of eight statistically significant variables upon their profiles and behaviour. The character traits of purchasers were found to be particularly high in levels of agreeableness, and their perpetual yo-yoing between the caravan and home proved to be so regular, and the community they engendered so familiar, touristic characteristics were little evident. Indeed this research questions whether such consumption can continue to be considered touristic, and provides a fresh insight into understanding the need for a second home. Regardless of environment what purchasers yearned was a leisurely existence at home without any sense of guilt. What static caravans were found to provide was permissible behaviour; a utility within which `at leisure' could be transacted. For the first time this research quantifies the ownership of static caravan second homes and draws together a number of findings to explain the success they enjoy, to finally offer some resolve to the repeated calls for such study

Successful masculinity : in search of the alpha within

Abstract Pickup artists and the seduction community have gone from being an underground network of workshop and internet based teachers and students, to, following the publication of Neil Strauss' book 'The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists', a movement entering the wider public consciousness, a subculture of (primarily) men who wish to get better at meeting, sleeping with, and dating women. They try to make the transformation from men who are not successful socially or with women, termed 'AFC's or 'Average Frustrated Chumps' in the seduction community, to PUAs, or PickUp Artists. There are now seduction companies, TV shows, radio shows, podcasts, blogs, books, forums, websites, chat rooms, and community groups for major cities all across the world. This material is not always practiced or preached in a mainstream-safe way, but rather is done by breaking through groupthink, going against perceived norms, not being politically correct, and using the findings of evolutionary psychology and life coaching. The thinking behind this is: Everything can be taught, so why not how to get girls? Game is (supposed to be) a fun, pleasurable way to improve your overall self: diet, exercise, hygiene, education, career, living circumstance, behavior, sociability - all are looked at towards bettering an overall enhanced version of yourself, almost quantifiable, to be the most optimal self you can be, where you are having a good life, and women are a part of that life, who may join you on your own individual journey as a man. An alpha. The present thesis focuses on Strauss' book 'The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists', highlights themes and issues which are pertinent for social and inter-relational reasons. Masculinity in postmodern hypercapitalist neoliberal western society is examined, through the prism of the text. The seduction community and its pickup techniques have not been examined adequately so far in academia, there is little research on the validity of the apparently successful routines and social dynamic structural mechanisms which pickup artists use to attract women. Findings include the similarities in the ways that Game overlaps in some instances with social theories, better understandings of male-female interactions, and a more comprehensive picture of masculine dating and attraction rituals

Nationalism-as-Technology and Peace in Europe, 1815-1914

This study offers a theory in which nationalism is not only conducive to war -which is the conventional wisdom-, but also brings peace to entire groupings of states under a specific set of conditions. After the theory is laid out, a plausibility probe of 19th century Europe offers good justification for a continued research program of nationalism-as-technology and its effects. The theory's insight comes from seeing nationalism not as an ideology, but as a form of military technology. For such technologies, their effect on war depends on how widely all countries employ them. When everyone has the same technology (i.e. when all countries are similarly endowed with nationalism), peace is cemented because countries mutually deter each other from launching wars of conquest. They do this by building mass armies to offset that of their neighbors, and threaten would-be conquerors with costly guerrilla wars and insurgencies. (Conversely, if only a few states possess the technology, the temptation to abuse it in conflict does rise.) The theoretical section of this study first justifies this analytical possibility of seeing nationalism as a technology. Among other things, the absence of definitional stumbling blocks is discussed. That is, given how technology is broadly defined by leading technologists, there is nothing inherent in the concept of nationalism that prevents its consideration as a technology. The study then proceeds to derive a series of hypotheses about the curvilinear effects of nationalism on war across a given region. As mentioned, the primary case study is 19th century Europe (1815-1914), which lends itself to a plausibility probe. The results are corroborating. Napoleonic France first "discovered" nationalism as a technology with military applications - it formed the first mass armies and attempted continental conquest. Later on, other "early-adopters" also employed nationalism to take land from their neighbors. Sardinia, for instance, used Italian nationalism to build volunteer armies and fight Austria for control of northern Italy in 1859. But the early adopters were then followed by most other European countries, which took reins of their own nationalisms to build mass-armies and boost their defenses. In line with the theory, the widespread adoption of nationalism preceded two whole generations of European peace, from 1871 to 1914. (So rare was this long peace that it would not be equaled until after World War II.) In sum, the history of the 1800s seems to fit broadly with the theory, and gives good reason for continued research into the pacifying role of nationalism