The role of social media in the collaboration, interaction, co-creation and co-delivery of a social venture in an uncertain conflict environment

This research case study examines the creation and development of a bottom-up social enterprise immediately after the outbreak of a civil war in an Arab country by a group of young patriots in the aftermath of the Arab Spring uprisings in the 2010s. Drawing on Linders’ (2012) model of social action lifecycle, our study examines how different actors become involved and co-created a socially entrepreneurial venture (SEV), how these actors contributed to the coproduction and co-delivery of the social actions (values) over time, and how social media play roles in these processes. Drawing from the empirical evidences of citizen co-production within the existing literature, we found that SEVs operate in very different ways in which the role of social media is critical, both from their equivalents operating in a penurious but stable environment, and those intending to pursue political action within a conflict situation. In our case study, social media was not intended for mass-mobilisation, but for selected mobilisation amongst those within the network. This is due to the insecure environment and the fear of infiltration from opposing parties. We also examine how new actors were, over time, being carefully screened and selected, and potential harmful existing players being excluded, which in turn contributed to the evolving nature of the social enterprises

Voices from the Field: Welfare Policy and Well-being of Child Protection Social Workers in UK

This paper examines two approaches to Child Protection Policy and Practise in UK. Governmental policy is examined first, followed by an overview of alternative approach suggested by its critics. Efficacy of policy reforms is examined from the perspective of the front liners, i.e., the child protection social workers who are the main agents responsible for translating policy into practise. The “reality” of the social workers is mapped through empirical analysis and used as a measure to indicate which ideology, one currently adopted by the State or the one being advocated by its critics, is better suited to improving well-being of workers as well as recipients of welfare. The importance of taking their contextual reality into account when formulating policy is highlighted as crucial to determining the fate of the policy as well quality of life of social workers. The findings are strongly in favour of the critics and highlight severe shortcomings in current State ideology of child and family welfare.Social Policy; Child Welfare; New Public Management; Child Protection Social Workers

Digitalisation and Enterprise Knowledge (net)Working

Social media and emerging mobile technologies have forever changed the landscape of human interaction. Furthermore, they already play a pivotal role also in enterprises as a part of the organisational Knowledge Management System. Almost all large organisations have already implemented at least one Enterprise Social Media tool since they enable collaboration, provide easy access to information, and are available at reasonable costs. The effects of the decoupling of the real and the virtual world (as a result of Social Media use) on the construct knowledge and on knowledge management are still not sufficiently investigated. Against this background, the paper presents an exploratory approach of the development of a specific morphological tableau as an instrument for the analysis of employees’ behavior in context of knowledge management related ESM use. Furthermore, the application of the tableau is exemplary illustrated and further research steps are explained

Research Methods for Non-Representational Approaches of Organizational Complexity. The Dialogical and Mediated Inquiry

This paper explores the methodological implications of non-representational approaches of organizational complexity. Representational theories focus on the syntactic complexity of systems, whereas organizing processes are predominantly characterized by semantic and pragmatic forms of complexity. After underlining the contribution of non-representational approaches to the study of organizations, the paper warns against the risk of confining the critique of representational frameworks to paradoxical dichotomies like intuition versus reflexive thought or theorizing versus experimenting. To sort out this difficulty, it is suggested to use a triadic theory of interpretation, and more particularly the concepts of semiotic mediation, inquiry and dialogism. Semiotic mediation dynamically links situated experience and generic classes of meanings. Inquiry articulates logical thinking, narrative thinking and experimenting. Dialogism conceptualizes the production of meaning through the situated interactions of actors. A methodological approach based on those concepts, “the dialogical and mediated inquiry” (DMI), is proposed and experimented in a case study about work safety in the construction industry. This interpretive view requires complicating the inquiring process rather than the mirroring models of reality. In DMI, the inquiring process is complicated by establishing pluralist communities of inquiry in which different perspectives challenge each other. Finally the paper discusses the specific contribution of this approach compared with other qualitative methods and its present limits.Activity; Dialogism; Inquiry; Interpretation; Pragmatism; Research Methods; Semiotic Mediation; Work Safety

Three Essays on Information-Securing in Organizations

This dissertation is intended to interpret, analyze, and explain the interplay between organizational structure and organizational information systems security by mapping structural contingency theory into three qualitative studies. The research motivation can be attributed in two ways. First, Johnson and Goetz\u27s (2007) conception of embedding information in organizations as part of their field research interviewing security executives serves as a methodological inspiration for the series of three studies reported here. The point that security should be infused into organization activities instead of serving as a bolted-on function is a central tenet guiding the development of this dissertation. Second, a macro approach is employed in the studies reported here, aimed at a theoretical expansion from existing behavioral security studies which typically take a micro perspective, while mitigating potential theoretical reductionism due to a predominant research concentration on individual components of organizational information security instead of the holistic function of the firm. Hence, this dissertation contributes to the behavioral organizational security research by positing a theoretical construct of information-securing, an organizational security process which is essentially characterized by dualism, dynamism, and democratism. With a macro organizational perspective on the elements of information securing, organizations can effectively discover and leverage organization-wide resources, efforts, and knowledge to cope with security contingencies. The first study of this dissertation is designed to investigate the nature of employees’ extra-role behaviors. This study investigated how employees might sometimes take steps beyond the requirements of the organizational-level security policy in order to facilitate effective workgroup operation and to assist less-skilled colleagues. The second study of this dissertation conducts an interpretive study of the role of information systems auditing in improving information security policy compliance in the workplace, with a specific focus on the role of non-malicious insiders who unknowingly or innocuously thwart corporate information security directives by engaging in unsafe computing practices. The last study of the dissertation explores the interplay between organizational structures and security activities. The organizational perspective of security bureaucracies is developed with three specific bureaucratic archetypes to define the evolutionary stages of the firm’s progress through evolving from coercive rule-based enforcement regimes to fully enabled and employee-centric security cultures in the workplace. Borrowing from Weberian metaphors, the characterization of security bureaucracies evolving from an “iron cage” to an “iron shield” is developed. These three studies revolving around the general notion of information-securing are deemed to be a promising start of a new stream of organizational IS security research. In order to enrich and extend our IS security literature, the perspective advocated in this dissertation suggests a shift in the epistemological paradigm of security behaviors in organizations from the prevailing micro views to macro perspectives which will result in very useful new perspectives on security management, security behaviors and security outcomes in organizations. GS Form 14 (8/10) APPROVAL FOR SCHOLAR

On the impact of the ‘linguistic turn’ on research in information systems

The linguistic turn within philosophy has recently gained increased attention within social sciences. It can be seen as an attempt to investigate traditional philosophical problems by analysing the linguistic expressions used for these investigations. More generally, the phenomenon of language itself must be considered because of its (constitutional) impact on the investigation of phenomena in social sciences. In order to understand the consequences of the linguistic turn, its origins in philosophy are important and will be discussed. Within social sciences the linguistic turn already had significant impact. As an example, we will therefore discuss what directions the linguistic turn enabled for organizational analysis. Information Systems as a discipline must face the consequences of the linguistic turn as well. We will discuss how the linguistic framework introduced impacts the development of knowledge management and that of managerial and organizational support systems. This example shows what different perspectives the linguistic turn can provide for investigations within Information Systems. In addition, we will briefly outline the impact of the linguistic turn with respect to methodologies in Information Systems research