6,244 research outputs found

    Examining the Impact of Personal Social Media Use at Work on Workplace Outcomes

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    A noticable shift is underway in today’s multi-generational workforce. As younger employees propel digital workforce transformation and embrace technology adoption in the workplace, organisations need to show they are forward-thinking in their digital transformation strategies, and the emergent integration of social media in organisations is reshaping internal communication strategies, in a bid to improve corporate reputations and foster employee engagement. However, the impact of personal social media use on psychological and behavioural workplace outcomes is still debatebale with contrasting results in the literature identifying both positive and negative effects on workplace outcomes among organisational employees. This study seeks to examine this debate through the lens of social capital theory and study personal social media use at work using distinct variables of social use, cognitive use, and hedonic use. A quantitative analysis of data from 419 organisational employees in Jordan using SEM-PLS reveals that personal social media use at work is a double-edged sword as its impact differs by usage types. First, the social use of personal social media at work reduces job burnout, turnover intention, presenteeism, and absenteeism; it also increases job involvement and organisational citizen behaviour. Second, the cognitive use of personal social media at work increases job involvement, organisational citizen behaviour, employee adaptability, and decreases presenteeism and absenteeism; it also increases job burnout and turnover intention. Finally, the hedonic use of personal social media at work carries only negative effects by increasing job burnout and turnover intention. This study contributes to managerial understanding by showing the impact of different types of personal social media usage and recommends that organisations not limit employee access to personal social media within work time, but rather focus on raising awareness of the negative effects of excessive usage on employee well-being and encourage low to moderate use of personal social media at work and other personal and work-related online interaction associated with positive workplace outcomes. It also clarifies the need for further research in regions such as the Middle East with distinct cultural and socio-economic contexts

    The Role of English and Welsh INGOs: A Field Theory-Based Exploration of the Sector

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    This thesis takes a field theory-based approach to exploring the role of English and Welsh international non-governmental organisations (INGOs), using the lens of income source form. First, the thesis presents new income source data drawn from 933 Annual Accounts published by 316 INGOs over three years (2015-2018). The research then draws on qualitative data from 90 Leaders' letters include within the Annual Reports published by 39 INGOS, as well as supplementary quantitative and qualitative data, to explore the ways in which INGOs represent their role. Analysis of this income source data demonstrates that government funding is less important to most INGOs than has previously been assumed, while income from individuals is more important than has been recognised in the extant development studies literature. Funding from other organisations within the voluntary sector is the third most important source of income for these INGOs, while income from fees and trading is substantially less important than the other income source forms. Using this income source data in concert with other quantitative data on INGO characteristics as well as qualitative data drawn from the Leaders' letters, I then show that the English and Welsh INGO sector is a heterogenous space, divided into multiple fields. The set of fields identified by this thesis is arranged primarily around income source form, which is also associated with size, religious affiliation, and activities of focus and ways of working. As Bourdieusian field theory suggests, within these fields individual INGOs are engaged in an ongoing struggle for position: competing to demonstrate their maximal possession of the symbolic capitals they perceive to be valued by (potential) donors to that field. Further analysis of these Leaders' letters, alongside additional Annual Reports and Accounts data, also reveals a dissonance in the way in which INGOs describe their relationship with local partners in these different communication types. While these Leaders' letters and narrative reports tell stories of collaborative associations with locally-based partners, this obscures the nature of these relationships as competitive and hierarchical. The thesis draws on the above findings to reflect on the role of INGOs as suggested in the extant literature. This discussion highlights how the various potential INGO fields identified are associated with differing theoretical roles for INGOs. Finally, the thesis considers how INGO role representations continue to contribute to unequal power relations between INGOs and their partners

    Human Rights practitioners’ approach to refugees and migrants. A therapeutic psychosocial perspective.

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    This thesis advances the argument that the best way to address the needs of involuntarily dislocated populations is to develop a combined framework that includes both psychosocial and therapeutic perspectives as well as human rights principles. Based on my professional experience as a refugee lawyer, I argue that only such a combined framework can adequately respond to the complexity of the refugee realities. Moreover, I demonstrate that, in some circumstances, the application only of human right rules can violate the same rights that they are meant to protect. I suggest that human rights practitioners are more likely to become aware of the real needs of those we help and, thus, provide them with targeted interventions, once we add a psychosocial perspective to our work. It is in this sense that our endeavours become therapeutic, which should be distinguished from offering them psychotherapy. The added therapeutic dimension also benefits refugees by rescuing them from developing victim identities. This empowering and participatory model of interaction also assists them with an awareness of their existing resources as well as of those new strengths they acquire from their exposure to adversity. Finally, they benefit from an improved level of self reflexivity and a deeper consideration of the socio-political and cultural contexts that act as background to the migratory experience. This study examines various possible applications of this proposed combined framework, ranging from the enrichment of the refugee lawyers curricula with tenets of psychosocial perspectives to the addition of a therapeutic dimension to the hearings of migration/asylum courts

    THE DREAM OF A ZERO WASTE SOCIETY: EXPLORING THE PRACTICES AND BEHAVIOURS OF WASTE GENERATION IN GREATER MEXICO CITY

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    This research aims to re-conceptualise consumption and waste generation through a broader set of theoretical questions and analytical methodologies to establish a more holistic theoretical framework for comprehending the global South's "waste crisis." This thesis is primarily based on the following question: "why do we dispose of things?". By focusing on practices and behaviours of consumption and disposal by citizens of GMC, this thesis seeks to unpack the networks, symbols, skills, and meanings of these practices. This moves the conceptualisation of waste generation away from being conceived as an irremediable consequence of population growth or as primary responsibility on the consumers' shoulders. Therefore, this thesis proposes that consumers are embedded in a "throwaway environment" that pushes them toward unsustainable practices. However, this does not mean that the consumers have a "throwaway culture"; consumers might be "carriers" of practices, but they are still active participants. By unravelling the multiple layers of framing that aggregate into the consumption and disposal of citizens in GMC, we shall see how GMC society's historical, social, and political framework serves as dispositions that guide an individual to act. This study focuses on modifying the narrative of considering consumers as careless, lazy, or consumption-driven. It also sheds light on how ignoring these behaviours and practices will only bring temporary and reactionary solutions when dealing with waste. This dissertation also offers an analytical framework that explores how consumers' elements interrelate and are synergetic. By re-conceptualising consumption and waste generation, I propose not focusing on the insidious moral narrative of whether consumption and disposal are acceptable and to what degree. Instead, we should concentrate on a policy strategy that will help reduce the flow of materials. As a result, we might be able to curve a waste crisis by accepting shared responsibility (mostly borne by governments and businesses

    Essays on Indian Futures Markets

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    Exchange derivatives trading for national level commodity futures and equity index futures in India started in 2003 and 2001 respectively. Despite of the institutional ecosystem being put in place for nearly two decades, the participation of farmers and Farmer Producer Organizations' (FPOs) in agricultural futures trade is extremely low in India; and unlike most global Exchanges, the decision for contract sizes, margins and open position limits on the equity or equity index derivatives still remains a part of the regulator's mandate. This doctoral thesis by identifying two regulatory reforms from the Indian market concerning outright suspension of wheat futures contracts and increase in the market lot size of the index futures contracts, focuses on three essays relating to relative market efficiency, price discovery performance and market quality measures. The first essay examines the impact of wheat trading suspension on the degree of market efficiency in the pre-ban and post-ban phases. The second essay using data from the analogous wheat contract analyses if the trading ban have consequences on the market leadership and information flow between the spot and futures prices, under different trading periods. Lastly, the third essay examines whether the increase in the minimum lot sizes of index futures contracts can affect the trading activity variables, market liquidity and price volatility. Analysis from the first essay show that interventions like abrupt trading bans had negative effects on both the long-run market efficiency and short-run efficiency measure. Further results from the second essay reveal that trading suspensions have negative consequences on the short-run price discovery dynamics. Therefore from a viewpoint of attracting more hedgers (farmers' or FPOs) into the market for increasing liquidity and depth, regulators must provide stable policy environment for future trade to flourish. Finally, findings from the third essay suggest that increase in the contract size had positive impact only for the open interest, but the trading volume and liquidity variables were negatively affected. Therefore, the Securities market regulator's interventions in the Exchange's commercial decisions may discourage interest in the equity futures products at large in the long-term

    Economic Experiments on Tax Compliance, Harassment Bribes, and Diverse Committees

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    This Doctoral thesis includes three chapters. In Chapter 1, An Experimental Study on the Role of Social Norms About Tax Compliance, we study which social norms shape taxpayers’ avoidance behaviour. We look at the direct effect on tax avoidance and evasion and how the two interact with social norms and rule-following concerns. We also experimentally manage empirical and normative expectations to look at their role in determining tax avoidance. In Chapter 2, Incentives for whistle-blowing: An Experiment, we investigate the effectiveness of financial rewards in encouraging optimal whistle-blowing. To do so, we conduct a laboratory experiment that features a two-player bribery game between a public official and a citizen. First, the public official decides whether (and how much) to ask for a bribe. Then, the citizen jointly decides whether to pay the bribe and whether to report the public official for corruption. We use a between-subject experimental design that varies the accuracy of the judicial system (defined as the probability of type-1 and type-2 errors) and the evidence threshold required for proving guilt (defined as the cost of reporting). In Chapter 3, Diverse Committees, we investigate the potential of diversity to influence committee decision-making. We present a model in which committee members receive private information on a state of the world, deliberate and vote. Committee members belong to one of two groups which may differ along two dimensions: (a) their preferences and (b) their information structures. We test the model’s key predictions in a laboratory experiment

    A Hot Conflict Growing Ever Hotter: How Climate Change Provokes Instances of Violence in South Sudan

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    In South Sudan, people are not engaging in violent altercations because of climate change. People are not deciding to kill other people because the average temperature of the world has risen 1 degree celsius, or harming their neighbor because of irregular rain patterns. Alas the link from climate change to violence is not as direct as that. Rather, climate change has played a non-direct role in the South Sudanese conflict. Within the political marketplace it has subtly altered conditions which later spark or intensify outbreaks of violence. Climate change in this sense should be viewed as a stressor of sorts rather than a direct cause of violence. As will be described in the first section, climate change places increased stress on the security of food, health, shelter, and the economy. The increased lack of accessibility combined with the preexisting political and ethnic tensions that exist in South Sudan’s political marketplace has led to an exacerbation of violence in the region; this is unlikely to end given the hopeless outlook for both climate change resolutions and the deeply rooted predisposition to violence which South Sudan has had since its birth as a nation

    Creating the Modern Army: Citizen-Soldiers and the American Way of War, 1919–1939

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    William J. Woolley is professor of history emeritus, Ripon College.The modern US Army as we know it was largely created in the years between the two world wars. Prior to World War I, officers in leadership positions were increasingly convinced that building a new army could not take place as a series of random developments but was an enterprise that had to be guided by a distinct military policy that enjoyed the support of the nation. In 1920, Congress accepted that idea and embodied it in the National Defense Act. In doing so it also accepted army leadership’s idea of entrusting America’s security to a unique force, the Citizen Army, and tasked the nation’s Regular Army with developing and training that force. Creating the Modern Army details the efforts of the Regular Army to do so in the face of austerity budgets and public apathy while simultaneously responding to the challenges posed by the new and revolutionary mechanization of warfare. In this book Woolley focuses on the development of what he sees as the four major features of the modernized army that emerged due to these efforts. These included the creation of the civilian components of the new army: the Citizen’s Military Training Camps, the Officer Reserve Corps, the National Guard, and the Reserve Officer Training Corps; the development of the four major combat branches as the structural basis for organizing the army as well as creating the means to educate new officers and soldiers about their craft and to socialize them into an army culture; the creation of a rationalized and progressive system of professional military education; and the initial mechanization of the combat branches. Woolley also points out how the development of the army in this period was heavily influenced by policies and actions of the president and Congress. The US Army that fought World War II was clearly a citizen army whose leadership was largely trained within the framework of the institutions of the army created by the National Defense Act. The way that army fought the war may have been less decisive and more costly in terms of lives and money than it should have been. But that army won the war and therefore validated the citizen army as the US way of war
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