Social Capital: A review from an ethics perspective

In this paper we extend previous reviews of the social capital literature to encompass an ethics perspective. First, we update previous reviews of social capital. Social capital continues to gain currency in both academic and practical circles, despite relatively little critical reflection on the implications of promoting this popular concept. Our work goes some way to rectifying this paucity in understanding what has been termed the ‘dark side’ of social capital. In particular, we review the social capital concept from the perspective of three theories of business ethics: utilitarianism, justice and ethic of care. While the utilitarian perspective closely parallels accounts of social capital’s rationale, the concept’s operation is mirrored very closely by the assumptions underpinning the ethic of care, while the dark side of social capital is commonly given voice in justice-based critiques. We conclude by considering the implications of our analysis

Impact of Digital Technology on Library Resource Sharing: Revisiting LABELNET in the Digital Age

The digital environment has facilitated resource sharing by breaking the time and distance barriers to efficient document delivery. However, for the librarians, this phenomenon has brought more challenging technical and technological issues demanding addition of more knowledge and skills to learn and new standards to develop. The overwhelming speed and growing volume of digital information is now becoming unable to acquire and manage by single libraries. Resource sharing, which used to be a side business in the librarianship trade, is now becoming the flagship operation in the library projects

Kinematics in the Central Kiloparsec of Spiral Galaxies

Results from kinematic observations of the central regions of spiral galaxies are reviewed, with particular emphasis on starburst and AGN hosts. While morphological studies lead to important insight, a more complete understanding of the physical processes that drive the evolution of the central regions can be achieved with measurements of the kinematics of gas and stars. Here, a variety of observational techniques at different wavelengths is critically discussed, and specific areas of interest are highlighted, such as inflow in barred galaxies and the origin of nuclear spiral arms. A brief discussion of a number of case studies is presented to illustrate recent progress.Comment: Invited review, to appear in The Central kpc of Starbursts and AGN: the La Palma Connection, eds. J. H. Knapen, J. E. Beckman, I. Shlosman, and T. J. Mahoney (ASP: San Francisco), Vol. 249. 18 pages latex, includes 9 postscript figures. Uses newpasp.sty (included

Understanding the digital divide: A literature survey and ways forward

The term digital divide was introduced in the mid-1990s and defined as the gap separating those who have access to new forms of information technology from those who do not. The digital divide remains an important public policy debate that encompasses social, economic and political issues. This paper presents a literature review and classification scheme for digital divide research. The review covers journal articles published between 2001 and 2010 in three types of journals: (1) Information technology & information systems, (2) Economics and business & management and (3) Social science. A classification of digital divide literature and a comprehensive list of references are provided. The results show that the digital divide is a multifaceted phenomenon, due to the many dimensions of determinant factors. Recent studies have included socio-economic, institutional and physiological factors in order to gain a greater understanding of the digital divide. Among other findings, they show that technological determinism is not sufficient to explain the emergence of the digital divide. Moreover, several types of technologies were investigated, both from empirical and conceptual standpoints. The Internet is the most commonly studied technology. The divide in access and usage are discussed at the global, social and democratic levels by employing a quantitative method, either a survey or data analysis, as the main method. However, there is less discussion in developing countries and at the level of the organization (i.e. SMEs, the private sector and the public sector). The qualitative research method could be seen as a complementary method to fill the gap in the current research. The choice of policies which have been recommended to the policy maker and national regulatory agency (NRA) are also presented and discussed at the end of this paper. Several initiatives made at the country and regional levels and by international organizations have also attempted to create a combined policy. This may suggest that the combined policy is the current trend among digital divide policies. Therefore, there is a need for future research to examine these determinants through the context of global, social and democratic divides. The results would provide some insight into how diverse people in different areas adopt ICTs. --Digital divide,Literature review,Future research

A Matter of Opinion: How Ecological and Neoclassical Environmental Economists Think about Sustainability and Economics

The differing paradigms of ecological and neoclassical environmental economics have been described in various articles and books and are also embedded in different institutional settings. However, we cannot take for granted that the paradigm debates described in the literature are actually mirrored in exactly the same way in the perceptions and opinions of researchers looking at sustainability from an economic perspective. This paper presents empirical results from a German case study on how economists and others involved in economic sustainability research from different schools of thought think about the issues of sustainability and economics, how they group around these issues, how they feel about the current scientific divide, and what they expect to be future topics of sustainability research. Knowing that sustainability research is highly and still increasingly internationally intertwined, and assuming that the opinions of German economic sustainability researchers do not dramatically differ from those in other countries, we think that these results will be of interest to the international scientific community. We analyze the data using cluster analysis. Based on a literature survey, we generated forty sustainability-related statements and asked 196 economic sustainability researchers about their degree of agreement or disagreement with these statements. In evaluating our survey results, we discuss to what extent the clusters that we identified do - or do not - represent the two schools of thought of ecological and neoclassical environmental economics. We also propose some research concepts that can help to bridge the gaps amongst economic sustainability researchers as well as others more suitable for a scientific 'competition of ideas'. Key results of the study are: We identify two primary scientific clusters, one clearly confirming the existence of the ecological economics schools of thought, and the other largely capturing the neoclassical environmental view. Yet, there are some surprising exceptions: Both schools of thought share a conceptual definition of sustainability that is integrative in considering ecological, societal and economic dimensions ('three pillar concept') and is based on preserving the development potentials of society. We also find a shared critique of 'pure economic growth' strategies in our sample. These agreed opinions may provide bridging concepts between the schools of thought. Also both clusters agree with respect to a wide range of future fields of sustainability research. Yet, the research agenda of the ecological economics cluster contains a large number of additional topics, primarily related to social, distributional and evolutionary aspects of sustainable development as well as a strong microeconomic focus. Strong divides between the clusters that seem to be more suitable for a kind of scientific competition of ideas are primarily related to the question of how to achieve sustainability, including suitable environmental policy measures.