Value creation and change in social structures: the role of entrepreneurial innovation from an emergence perspective

Aim: Our aim is to develop a more complete understanding of how processes that entrepreneurs perform interact with wider society and the causal effects of society on entrepreneurial behaviour and vice versa. We aim to show how entrepreneurial agency is put into effect in relation to the disruption of social structure and social change. This has implications for innovation and entrepreneurship policy and practice, and for entrepreneurship theory. We also investigate the role of ‘value’ in these processes. Contribution to the literature Our central argument is that emergent forms (or ‘emergents’) may be short lived (ephemeral) but have causal power on the performance of the actors in the system of inter-relationships in the innovation ecosystem. The emphasis on inter-related social processes and ontological stratification provides theoretical development of extant entrepreneurship theory on new venture creation (by explaining process), effectuation (by linking individualism and holism) and opportunity recognition (by deconstructing opportunity into anticipation, ontology and process). Methodology The paper takes an 'emergence' perspective as a way to understand entrepreneurial processes that give rise to innovation. The anticipation of value and the inter-relationship with social and organisational structures are fundamental to this perspective. A longitudinal analysis of a case study of the development of a new business model within an entrepreneurial firm is described. The case is followed through seven phases in which the relationship between process and emergent ontological status is shown to have destabilising and stabilising effects which produce emergent properties. Results and Implications One methodological contribution is framing how to conceptualise the empirical evidence. Emergents have causal effects on the anticipations of value inherent in their particular system of innovation. This causality is manifest as the attraction of resource in the firm; the stabilisation of the emergent constitutes strategy in the enterprise. A key role of the entrepreneurs in our case study was the creation and maintenance of evolving ontological materiality, as meaningful to themselves and to those with whom they interacted. In simple terms, they made things meaningful to people who mattered

ICT for development reconsidered: a critical realist approach to the strategic context in Kenya's transition to e-governance

This study contributes to critical information systems research understanding of the broader strategic context of information systems initiatives in developing countries. It investigates contextual influences with structural impacts that may lead to instabilities and discontinuities in the immediate project context using a critical realist paradigm. It was informed by literature on development as discourse, ICT4D policy and technology transfer, E-Government adoption, and information systems research paradigms and applications in developing countries. A disconnection was observed between ICT4D policy practice that favors positivist technology diffusion models and research findings that suggest interpretive and critical contextual approaches. A theoretical framework was developed to reconsider ICT4D from a postcolonial country perspective by integrating critiques of modernity from Critical realism and postcolonial theory. An empirical case study investigation of change in Kenya‘s transition to E-Governance was then conducted and analyzed using a critical realist research framework, the Morphogenetic approach, supplemented by Q-methodology to study subjectivity. Finally ICT change was interpreted using critical realist concepts for structure, culture, and agency, with an overriding direction towards greater freedom. The main research contribution is a new approach to ICT4D where change is conceived within a dialectical framework that assumes people are moral and ethical beings possessing values. Research findings have implications for understanding the strategic context of E-Governance and ICT4D, time and temporality in contextual integrative frameworks, and suggest an alternative approach to strategy analysis in situations of rapid political and institutional change. They highlight the importance of political leaders and development agencies as mediators and interpreters of the strategic context. Development was conceived as a dialectical process towards transformative praxis, which together with the suggested approach to the strategic context, may require us to rethink the meaning of IS project success or failure in postcolonial developing countries

Educating the Net Generation

Edited by Diana G. Oblinger and James L. Oblinger. Includes a chapter by former College at Brockport faculty member Joan K. Lippincott: Net generation students and libraries. The Net Generation has grown up with information technology. The aptitudes, attitudes, expectations, and learning styles of Net Gen students reflect the environment in which they were raised—one that is decidedly different from that which existed when faculty and administrators were growing up. This collection explores the Net Gen and the implications for institutions in areas such as teaching, service, learning space design, faculty development, and curriculum. Contributions by educators and students are included.https://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/bookshelf/1278/thumbnail.jp

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

Karakteritega suhestumine ja digikogukondlik praktika: “Halvale teele” multidistsiplinaarne uurimus

Kuidas suhestab vaataja end narratiivse karakteriga? Kirjandusteadus, folkloristika, narratoloogia, psühholoogia, ja meediauuringud laiemaltki on antud seoses rakendanud käsitlusi samastumisest, empatiseerimisest ja (väljamõeldud maailma) sukeldumisest. Kuna väljamõeldud inimesed, kas kirja- või pildisõnas, polevat rohkemat autori(te) ettekujutuse viljast, siis püüdvat vaataja/lugejagi neis kas ära tunda iseend või siis teisalduda jälgitavasse situatsiooni, end vaadeldava tegelaskujuga samastades. Kui karakteriga suhestumise analüüsis lähtuda aga igapäevasuhtlustasandist, näib olevat ebapiisav eelistada üksnes taaskujutavat ja sissepoole pööratud vaadet inimteadvusele, kuna ideedel inimesest kui „sotsiaalsest olevusest“ ja tähenduse „sotsiaalsest karakterist“ (Võgotskii) on oht jääda tahaplaanile ja „karakteriga suhestumine“ taandub omamoodi sisedialoogiks: vaataja mõistab teist inimest iseenda põhjal kohandatud mudeli kaudu. Ehkki teatud olukordades on see vajalik mõistmis- ja tähendustamisstrateegia, ei saa eirata, et suhestumine kui selline on ometi suunatud. Haaratud ollakse kellestki, „sukeldutakse“ maailma, mida keegi omas-maailmas-iseseisvalt-eksisteerivana asustab. Käesoleva doktoriväitekirja avapeatükk sünteesib väga mitmekesist teaduskirjandust ja töötab välja kohase teoreetilise mõisteraamistiku, mis käsitleb suhestumist teleseriaali tegelaskujudega argiteadvuslikust sotsiaalsest kogemusest lähtuvalt. Keskne on siin käsitlus pärisustamisest: kogukondliku arutelu kontekstis lihtsalt lähenetaksegi tegelaskujudele kui päris inimestele. Narratiivsest tegelaskujust saab persoon. Internetiarutelud opereerivad kolmandas isikus (mina/tema) ja narratiiv-ajalooliselt (väljamõeldud süžee kui narratiivse persooni elu lugu). Individuaalsed kommentaaritekstid on siinjuures mõistetavad kui narrtseptid, s.o. narratiivse teis(t)e-taju tähendusloomelised saadused. Narrtseptid toovad esile narratiivsetele persoonidele suunatud tõlgenduste kogukondlikult jagatud, mitmehäälset mõõdet. Väitekirja teine peatükk tutvustatab originaalmõistet majakas. Majakal on internetikommunikatsiooni analüüsis struktureeriv roll. “Heites valgust“ kommunikatsiooni erinevatele külgedele, majakas kas liigendab narrtseptiivseid looilmu (retseptiivne, „populaarne“ dimensioon) või komponeerib neid reaalajaliselt avalduvateks ’lahtiste otstega’ diskursuseilmadeks (analüütilis-metodoloogiline, „akadeemiline“ dimensioon). Siinkohal pakubki antud peatükk ühtlasi ka kriitilisi kohandusi juba käibelolevatele mõistetele võimalike maailmade ja narratiiviteooriast ning diskursuseanalüüsist, s.o., looilm, kavatsemis-ilm, tekstiloojate-ilm ja diskursuse-ilm. Doktoriväitekirja kolmas peatükk keskendub ameerika teleseriaali “Halvale teele“ (Breaking Bad) internetikommentaaride illustratiivsele lähianalüüsile. Eelkirjeldatud teoreetilisel mõisteaparatuuril on analüüsis keskne roll.How does the viewer engage herself with narrative characters? Literary theory, folkloristics, narratology, psychology, and media studies more widely have generally found guidance in the treatments of identification, empathy, and immersion. For if fictional people, be it by the written or audiovisual depiction, are nothing but the fruits of authors’ imagination, then the viewer or the reader similarly attempts to recognize herself in, immerse herself into the world of, and identify herself with the observed character. While analyzing character engagement from the perspective of everyday communication, however, the exclusively representational and inward approach to the human mind can prove an inadequate preference. For the respective ideas of human as a „social being“ and the „social character of meaning“ (Vygotsky) hazard to become backgrounded due to „character engagement“ becoming proportionate to a kind of inner dialogue: viewer makes sense of the other through the model she has adapted about herself. Although it can be, at times, a necessary strategy for comprehension and sense-making, one cannot disregard the engagement being—even toward “fictional” people—always directed. You are absorbed by someone, you become “immersed” in a world that is inhabitated by someone autonomously-existing-with-their-world. In synthesizing diverse literature, Chapter One of the present dissertation develops appropriate theoretical framework that approaches engagement with the characters of television serials from the stance of common sense social experience. Of focal significance here is the notion of realitization: in the context of communal discussion, characters just are approached as if real people. Accordingly, a narrative character becomes a person. For Internet discussions operate in third person (me/her) and historio-narratively (“fictive” plot as narrative person’s life story). Individual commentary texts become hereby considered as narrcepts; that is, they are the sense-making products of the narrative perception of the other (narrative+precept). Through narrcepts, the distributed and polyphonic dimension of the construals directed toward narrative persons becomes acknowledged. Chapter Two of the dissertation introduces a succeeding original notion: beacon. Beacon enacts a structuring role in the analysis of online communication. Beacon „throws light“ onto the different aspects of Internet discourse, decomposing narrceptive storyworlds (reciprocal, „popular“ dimension) and composing the latter into „open ended“ discourse worlds emerging in real time (analytical-methodological, „academical“ dimension). Consequently, critical adaptations of current terminology in possible worlds theory, narrative theory, and discourse analysis are presented; that is, storyworld, intend-world, text makers’ world and discourse world. Chapter three of the dissertation concentrates on the illustrative close analysis of the online commentaries with regard to the American television serial Breaking Bad. The previously established theoretical apparatus serves a central role in the analysis

Multimodal textbook design : analyzing the construction of the discourses of pharmacology

Includes bibliographical references.The aim of the research is to contribute to a pedagogy of Multiliteracies in the context of Health Sciences. A Multiliteracies approach sees text in terms of a process of 'redesigning' meaning from a range of available resources. These include multimodal semiotic resources such as visual and verbal modes, as well as particular discursive and social practices that the text draws upon. The study originates from a disagreement over which Pharmacology textbook fourth year medical students should use. The founding argument is that a Pharmacology textbook can be seen as constructing the discourses of the 'prescribing physician' As such, it simultaneously constructs and bears imprints of particular ideologies, discursive formations and social relations which are relevant in the field of medicine and science, as well as those from private and public life-worlds. As a teacher, I am interested in how the textbooks' ideologies contribute to or contest that of the new problem-based medical curriculum. I also analyze the respective designs in terms of their accessibility and suitability specifically for undergraduate medical students. The theoretical framework is provided by Fairclough's notion of 'orders of discourse' together with Halliday's metafunctional view of text, and is operationalized through a social semiotic analysis of sections of two textbooks. The textbooks analyzed are 'Pharmacology' by Rang et al ('Rang'), and 'the Oxford Textbook of Clinical Pharmacology and Drug therapy' ('Oxford'). I focus on the grammatical system of transitivity to construct the respective textbooks' views of social reality, and I use an analysis of modality in the texts to construct the social relations between writers, readers and the subject of Pharmacology. The analytical 'toolkit' includes verbal as well as visual semiotic resources within a framework of textual coherence. The study concludes that while Rang constructs social relations and identities that resonate with a contemporary society, its interest in Pharmacology is scientific rather than clinical. Furthermore, its design features may limit access specifically for undergraduate medical students. Oxford, on the other hand, is dominated by the discourses of clinical medicine and medical education. It constructs the subject of Pharmacology in terms of therapy or 'process', rather than in terms of drugs or 'products', and in this sense may be more suitable as a 'tutor'. However, it does not prepare the student for critical engagement with the changing social realities and relations of power in a post-Fordist society. The value of the study is two-fold. Firstly, it reiterates the importance of critical reflection on the various aspects of a curriculum. This includes reflection on alignment between the ideologies of textbooks and that of the new curriculum, and between curricular objectives, activities and assessment practices. Secondly, it has led to the operationalizing of a metalanguage of design, specifically in a Health Sciences context. This metalanguage may be used not l ' only for improving the communicative value of students' assignments, but also to expand their cultural perspectives through critical engagement with aspects of social identities and relations

Cities Made of Boundaries

Cities Made of Boundaries presents the theoretical foundation and concepts for a new social scientific urban morphological mapping method, Boundary Line Type (BLT) Mapping. Its vantage is a plea to establish a frame of reference for radically comparative urban studies positioned between geography and archaeology. Based in multidisciplinary social and spatial theory, a critical realist understanding of the boundaries that compose built space is operationalised by a mapping practice utilising Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Benjamin N. Vis gives a precise account of how BLT Mapping can be applied to detailed historical, reconstructed, contemporary, and archaeological urban plans, exemplified by sixteenth- to twenty-first century Winchester (UK) and Classic Maya Chunchucmil (Mexico). This account demonstrates how the functional and experiential difference between compact western and tropical dispersed cities can be explored. The methodological development of Cities Made of Boundaries will appeal to readers interested in the comparative social analysis of built environments, and those seeking to expand the evidence-base of design options to structure urban life and development

Rural community development: a study of the relevant sociological theories

On account of this incomplete grasp of the concept in different regions and at different levels, and also on account of the lack of its systematic treatment in the theoretical spheres, there is an ever-growing need for examining the contemporary thought and experience and for gaining an integrated understanding of the subject, from time to time. The focus of the present study is on one aspect of this situation, namely, the apparent paucity of a foundation of sociological theory to the concept of community development. The purpose of this thesis may therefore be stated as the study of the theoretical background of the concept of rural community development.” The main aim is not so much to examine the concept of community development itself, as it is to examine some of the sociological theories that could be brought together to construct a basis, as it were, which would support a generalized concept of community development. It is assumed here that the central concept of community development has its foundation in the theories of sociology.This study seeks to bring together these relevant theories so as to show their conceptual relationship with community development