3,826 research outputs found

    UMSL Bulletin 2023-2024

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    The 2023-2024 Bulletin and Course Catalog for the University of Missouri St. Louis.https://irl.umsl.edu/bulletin/1088/thumbnail.jp

    Early Shame, Self-Esteem, and Christian Women

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    The purpose of this phenomenological study was to gain a deeper understanding of the lived experiences surrounding the self-esteem of evangelical Christian women with early shame experiences. The theory guiding this study was attachment theory as it explains self-esteem being rooted in early childhood through trust building, unconditional love, and security. The theoretical framework further illustrates the impact of self-esteem as life progresses due to a combination of positive and negative self-evaluations. Early shame experiences affect one’s self-esteem adversely. Low self-esteem could breed isolation once people fail to see their self-worthy in establishing meaningful connections, without which individuals lack the nurture needed to grow and sustain their well-being. Data were collected through an unstructured interview. The study findings revealed that (1) poor parental bonds, (2) environmental stressors, and (3) identification with God were significant shared experiences. This study provided implications for community stakeholders in the field of education, healthcare, and ministry. It implied having an early secure attachment and a positive relationship with God as mitigators to adverse mental health, as they facilitate healthy coping among individuals who have faced trauma such as early shame experiences

    Constitutions of Value

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    Gathering an interdisciplinary range of cutting-edge scholars, this book addresses legal constitutions of value. Global value production and transnational value practices that rely on exploitation and extraction have left us with toxic commons and a damaged planet. Against this situation, the book examines law’s fundamental role in institutions of value production and valuation. Utilising pathbreaking theoretical approaches, it problematizes mainstream efforts to redeem institutions of value production by recoupling them with progressive values. Aiming beyond radical critique, the book opens up the possibility of imagining and enacting new and different value practices. This wide-ranging and accessible book will appeal to international lawyers, socio-legal scholars, those working at the intersections of law and economy and others, in politics, economics, environmental studies and elsewhere, who are concerned with rethinking our current ideas of what has value, what does not, and whether and how value may be revalued

    Interdisciplinarity in the Scholarly Life Cycle

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    This open access book illustrates how interdisciplinary research develops over the lifetime of a scholar: not in a single project, but as an attitude that trickles down, or spirals up, into research. This book presents how interdisciplinary work has inspired shifts in how the contributors read, value concepts, critically combine methods, cope with knowledge hierarchies, write in style, and collaborate. Drawing on extensive examples from the humanities and social sciences, the editors and chapter authors show how they started, tried to open up, dealt with inconsistencies, had to adapt, and ultimately learned and grew as researchers. The book offers valuable insights into the conditions and complexities present for interdisciplinary research to be successful in an academic setting. This is an open access book

    Empowering Information Systems Users: The Role of Timely and Customizable Information for User Engagement and Selection Behavior

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    Information systems (IS) increasingly empower their users by strengthening users’ capability and autonomy to make their own decisions how to use and engage with IS. Specifically, users are empowered when they have sufficient knowledge to make rational decisions within IS and sufficient control to shape their experience with IS. In line with these pillars of empowerment, technological advancements unlock new possibilities for IS providers to empower users with access to high quality information (e.g., by providing timely updates of dynamically changing information) and with the ability to control the information stream (e.g., by implementing interfaces to customize websites). As a result, users have greater autonomy to actively shape their user experience to their likening, making them less dependent on having to identify IS that match their needs. At the same time, empowering users pays off for IS providers, as empowered users are known to form more positive attitudes and intentions to engage with the empowering IS. This thesis addresses the two aforementioned pillars of empowerment through knowledge and empowerment through control. Four studies shed light on how the increasingly prevalent practice of empowering users with timely and customizable information affects user engagement as well as users’ selection behavior. The first strand of this thesis investigates user empowerment through timely information in the context of decision support systems (DSS) that aid users in their selection of which (physical) location to visit. To avoid congestion at locations, such DSS communicate how busy each location is by displaying crowding information (CI), accompanied by timeliness cues indicating when this CI was retrieved (e.g., “updated just now” vs. “average over the last year”). Helping users avoid crowded locations becomes all the more important during periods of extraordinary pathogenic risk, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, where physical distancing is imperative for the containment of the pathogen. Against this background, the first study in this thesis investigates how CI with different levels of timeliness affects how users select between differently crowded medical practices. The results demonstrate that while the display of CI is generally useful for users to avoid crowded locations, providing particularly timely CI (i.e., updated close to real-time) leads users to select less crowded locations even more effectively. Moreover, this effect is strongest for individuals who exhibit low levels of health anxiety – an important contextual variable influencing user behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. The second study extends the findings of the first study by investigating a context in which hedonic motives may encourage users to seek instead of avoid crowds. Specifically, the study examines how timely CI affects users’ choice between differently crowded bars. Despite users longing for the presence of others as part of their visit experience, the results show that particularly timely CI makes users more aware of potential costs of congestion (e.g., prolonged wait times) and consequently leads users to select less crowded locations – thereby corroborating the previous findings in the utilitarian context of selecting a medical practice. Importantly, timelier CI also increases user engagement in that users express a greater intention to reuse the DSS providing the CI. This finding indicates that timely CI not only contributes to the containment of congestion, but also allows DSS providers to retain users more effectively and thereby achieve recurring impact on the reduction of crowding. The second strand of this thesis investigates user empowerment through customizable information in the context of (banner) ads on websites. As ads oftentimes cause irritation and stifle user engagement with the website, first website providers have begun to empower users to customize how many ads they agree to have displayed. Despite website providers hoping to thereby enhance user engagement, it is unclear how users respond to the ability to customize ads they never asked for. Against this backdrop, the third study investigates how the provision of ad quantity customization (AQC) affects user engagement and which ad quantity levels users opt for. The results demonstrate that offering AQC consistently enhances user engagement in that users with access to AQC stay longer on the website and visit more sub-pages than users who cannot customize ad quantity. Counter-intuitively, a website with ads that offers AQC elicits even greater user engagement than a website that is entirely free of ads by default. In addition, the effect on user engagement is strongest for users accessing the website with a mobile (vs. stationary) device. Interestingly, users do not configure AQC to eliminate ads altogether, but instead opt for 29.0% of the default amount of ads to be displayed. The fourth study seeks to extend the previous findings by shedding light on the underlying mechanism that drives the effect of providing AQC on user engagement. The findings suggest that offering AQC elicits perceived empowerment as a pivotal stimulant with two important outcomes: First, users pay closer attention to the website, thereby discovering more information useful to them and consequently experiencing a greater fit between the website’s information and their own needs. Second, the feeling of being in control over ads, as typically immutable and irritating website elements, elicits a sense of enjoyment. Both informational fit and perceived enjoyment then lead users to engage more intensely with the website. Overall, this thesis showcases the role and importance of IS-enabled user empowerment by providing a more comprehensive understanding of how empowering users with timely and customizable information affects user engagement and users’ selection behavior. In doing so, this thesis answers calls for research that urge scholars to not only shed light on emerging phenomena, but also to enable and empower IS users. The studies in this thesis contribute to IS research on empowerment by (1) revealing the importance of timeliness of information as a thus far under-investigated source of empowerment and by (2) uncovering ad customization as a hitherto largely neglected, yet important piece of web customization that complements our understanding of empowerment mechanisms. In addition, this thesis also offers valuable insights and actionable recommendations how DSS providers and policy makers can harness empowerment through timely CI to recurringly reduce crowding without infringing on users’ freedom. Likewise, this thesis guides website providers how to leverage ads as website elements that users enjoy to customize to boost user engagement with the website as a whole

    Urban Space, Genre and Subjectivity in African and Latin American Cinema

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    This project studies twelve African and Latin American films from a range of eras and countries, with an emphasis on their treatment of urban space, their manipulation of genre elements, and their approaches to character subjectivity. The analysis draws on major works of urban theory by Henri Lefebvre, Manuel Castells, David Harvey, Jane Jacobs, and others in order to investigate the relationship between cinema and the urban experience. As the films in the study are mostly set in cities that are not discussed by the theorists, the analysis entails testing their theories against the realities of these other settings, as depicted in the films. Furthermore, as these films depict places and people not usually featured in commercial cinema, this project will emphasize ways in which the films challenge dominant patterns of cinematic representation with regard to African and Latin American people, places and culture. Finally, this project will analyze important structural and stylistic nuances of each film in order to contribute to existing discussions of African and Latin American film and global film in general

    How Doctoral Students in a Formal Leadership Program Conceptualize Followership: A Mixed-Methods Study

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    The purpose of this exploratory mixed-methods study was to determine how doctoral students in a formal leadership program conceptualize followership. The methods used to conduct this analysis included distributing a Qualtrics (released in August 2022) survey and conducting one-on-one interviews with a sample of degree-seeking doctoral students within a formal leadership program. The researcher collected quantitative and qualitative data addressing students’ followership style, leadership attitudes and beliefs, and perceptions of followership. These data were analyzed concurrently using a triangulation design. A total of 67 students completed the survey, and seven students were interviewed. The findings revealed that the participants employ an exemplary followership style, exercise systemic thinking, and hold a prototypic and antiprototypic view of followers. As followers, the participants described themselves as actively supporting the leader, organization, and team while taking the initiative to go above and beyond in problem-solving and executing their roles. Further, they emphasized the importance of developing rapport with their leader(s) and colleagues because they view leadership as a collective process that is relationship oriented. Moreover, they believe they add value to that process regardless of the role they hold. Although their perceptions of followership encompass a continuum of negative and positive follower attributes, they assume that most followers are proactive and interactive in their work with the leader(s) and members of the organization. Keywords: follower, followership, leadership, higher education, mixed-method

    The Festival of Nowruz and Consumer Identity Politics: An Ethnographic Case Study of Persian Consumers in the UK

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    This ethnographic case study aimed to address a lacuna in Consumer Culture Theory (CCT) research investigating the nexus of seasonal festivals, ritualistic consumption, and the politics of consumer identity. While there is much research on experiential consumption and identity in CCT, there is little about how immigrant consumers deploy festivals and ritualistic consumption to work on their identities. To address this lacuna, this thesis draws upon CCT research and the theories of ritual and festivals to shed light on how Iranian Ă©migrĂ©s negotiate their identity through mobilising elements of Persian culture, especially Nowruz (the Persian New Year). To this end, I adopted a qualitative research approach and undertook 20 semi-structured interviews, mainly over Zoom, analysed manually by using a hermeneutic method of thematic analysis. The findings of this study indicate that Iranians in the UK suffer from and, in turn, perpetuate internal exclusion and conflicts, resulting in a fragmented diasporic community. However, this study demonstrates the potential capacity of Nowruz as a pertinent temporal and spatial context in which to alleviate communal fragmentation and identity work. Specifically, this study reveals a redemptive form of identity politics in the context of Nowruz that responds to expatriates’ ideological tensions and their desire for authenticity and to reclaim recognition. Finally, the findings demonstrate that Nowruz has become increasingly commercialised in a Western culture. This means that the marketplace allows UK-based Iranian consumers to deploy consumption resources and a marketised mode of communality (e.g., ticketed Nowruz parties) to pursue pleasure and project a secular Persian identity. This identity is attractive and meaningful for expatriates in resolving their ideological tensions as they seek to challenge and transform social, cultural and political stigma underpinned by their religiosity and nationality as Muslim Iranians in the UK
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