5,961 research outputs found

    The Globalization of Artificial Intelligence: African Imaginaries of Technoscientific Futures

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    Imaginaries of artificial intelligence (AI) have transcended geographies of the Global North and become increasingly entangled with narratives of economic growth, progress, and modernity in Africa. This raises several issues such as the entanglement of AI with global technoscientific capitalism and its impact on the dissemination of AI in Africa. The lack of African perspectives on the development of AI exacerbates concerns of raciality and inclusion in the scientific research, circulation, and adoption of AI. My argument in this dissertation is that innovation in AI, in both its sociotechnical imaginaries and political economies, excludes marginalized countries, nations and communities in ways that not only bar their participation in the reception of AI, but also as being part and parcel of its creation. Underpinned by decolonial thinking, and perspectives from science and technology studies and African studies, this dissertation looks at how AI is reconfiguring the debate about development and modernization in Africa and the implications for local sociotechnical practices of AI innovation and governance. I examined AI in international development and industry across Kenya, Ghana, and Nigeria, by tracing Canada’s AI4D Africa program and following AI start-ups at AfriLabs. I used multi-sited case studies and discourse analysis to examine the data collected from interviews, participant observations, and documents. In the empirical chapters, I first examine how local actors understand the notion of decolonizing AI and show that it has become a sociotechnical imaginary. I then investigate the political economy of AI in Africa and argue that despite Western efforts to integrate the African AI ecosystem globally, the AI epistemic communities in the continent continue to be excluded from dominant AI innovation spaces. Finally, I examine the emergence of a Pan-African AI imaginary and argue that AI governance can be understood as a state-building experiment in post-colonial Africa. The main issue at stake is that the lack of African perspectives in AI leads to negative impacts on innovation and limits the fair distribution of the benefits of AI across nations, countries, and communities, while at the same time excludes globally marginalized epistemic communities from the imagination and creation of AI

    Boundary Spanner Corruption in Business Relationships

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    Boundary spanner corruption—voluntary collaborative behaviour between individuals representing different organisations that violates their organisations’ norms—is a serious problem in business relationships. Drawing on insights from the literatures on general corruption perspectives, the dark side of business relationships and deviance in sales and service organisations, this dissertation identifies boundary spanner corruption as a potential dark side complication inherent in close business relationships It builds research questions from these literature streams and proposes a research structure based upon commonly used methods in corruption research to address this new concept. In the first study, using an exploratory survey of boundary spanner practitioners, the dissertation finds that the nature of boundary spanner corruption is broad and encompasses severe and non-severe types. The survey also finds that these deviance types are prevalent in a widespread of geographies and industries. This prevalence is particularly noticeable for less-severe corruption types, which may be an under-researched phenomenon in general corruption research. The consequences of boundary spanner corruption can be serious for both individuals and organisations. Indeed, even less-severe types can generate long-term negative consequences. A second interview-based study found that multi-level trust factors could also motivate the emergence of boundary spanner corruption. This was integrated into a theoretical model that illustrates how trust at the interpersonal, intraorganisational, and interorganisational levels enables corrupt behaviours by allowing deviance-inducing factors stemming from the task environment or from the individual boundary spanner to manifest in boundary spanner corruption. Interpersonal trust between representatives of different organisations, interorganisational trust between these organisations, and intraorganisational agency trust of management in their representatives foster the development of a boundary-spanning social cocoon—a mechanism that can inculcate deviant norms leading to corrupt behaviour. This conceptualisation and model of boundary spanner corruption highlights intriguing directions for future research to support practitioners engaged in a difficult problem in business relationships

    Antecedents of customer loyalty in the manufacturing industry

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    This thesis concerns the study of customer loyalty and its antecedents in the UK manufacturing sector. It adopts a critical realist perspective to the study of customer loyalty, locating the concept in the relationship marketing and social psychology literatures. The findings generated by the literature review and the results of an exploratory qualitative study leads to the development of a conceptual framework in which functional, social and emotional relationship value, customer satisfaction, and moderator variable, relationship age, are believed to influence the level of customer loyalty in the manufacturing industry. The conceptual framework is tested empirically using a quantitative survey design in the context of the UK manufacturing industry. Data is analysed through application of the partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modelling technique. From a theoretical perspective, the study makes a number of valuable contributions to the relationship marketing literature. The study confirms the importance of social and emotional relationship value aspects on customer satisfaction and loyalty outcomes in the manufacturing industry. The findings offer a new theoretical perspective of the role social and emotional value play in creating loyal customers and the role emotional value performs in buyer’s feelings of satisfaction in the B2B domain. The findings also suggest that customer satisfaction acts as a partial mediator in the relationship between customer value and customer loyalty. Moreover, a new theoretical concept of emotional value featuring frustration and human touch in addition to interpersonal relationships is also evidenced from the research results. Furthermore, the study also shows that the theory of consumption values can be applied to the B2B manufacturing domain. The results propose that behavioural loyalty can be expressed through customer satisfaction, and functional and emotional elements of relationship value. Whereas, attitudinal loyalty can be conveyed by customer satisfaction, and functional and social components of relationship value. These relationships are in turn also partially mediated through customer satisfaction. The results also indicate that all three dimensions of functional, social and emotional value influence customer satisfaction outcomes. Overall, the study provides recommendations on how to maximise customer loyalty through strategic combinations of relationship value. It also provides guidance on how to improve customer satisfaction through different elements of relationship value in the manufacturing industry. From a practical viewpoint, the research study findings offer suppliers important guidelines and a toolkit for establishing, developing, and maintaining successful relationships with their customers in the manufacturing industry

    Cyberbullying in educational context

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    Kustenmacher and Seiwert (2004) explain a man’s inclination to resort to technology in his interaction with the environment and society. Thus, the solution to the negative consequences of Cyberbullying in a technologically dominated society is represented by technology as part of the technological paradox (Tugui, 2009), in which man has a dual role, both slave and master, in the interaction with it. In this respect, it is noted that, notably after 2010, there have been many attempts to involve artificial intelligence (AI) to recognize, identify, limit or avoid the manifestation of aggressive behaviours of the CBB type. For an overview of the use of artificial intelligence in solving various problems related to CBB, we extracted works from the Scopus database that respond to the criterion of the existence of the words “cyberbullying” and “artificial intelligence” in the Title, Keywords and Abstract. These articles were the subject of the content analysis of the title and, subsequently, only those that are identified as a solution in the process of recognizing, identifying, limiting or avoiding the manifestation of CBB were kept in the following Table where we have these data synthesized and organized by years

    A discourse analysis of Lacanian psychoanalysts conceptualisation of child psychopathology

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    This study explores how Lacanian Psychoanalysts understand child psychopathology. Addressing this question in line with the principles of the methodological approach that was adopted for the study meant conducting a review of the literature pertaining to the dominant discourses that construct the concepts ‘child’ and ‘psychopathology’. The discourses found to be most influentially to the construction of childhood, historically and contemporaneously, were those of religion, philosophy, and developmental psychology. A review of the literature concerning psychopathology revealed how developmental psychopathology and psychiatry remain the dominant models in research and the clinical treatment of children experiencing mental health problems. The most prominent methods of clinical treatment are also addressed as part of the literature review. This served as the backdrop against which the subject of Lacanian psychoanalysis with children is being explored. Lacanian psychoanalysis provides a coherent theory, with an emphasis on subjectivity, the unconscious, discourse and early childhood as factors that structure the individual. It is these elements that enable practitioners to conduct a form of treatment that is described as ‘one-by-one’, always unique and original to each case. Six semi-structured interviews were carried out with the participants and the interview data was transcribed and analysed using Foucauldian Discourse Analysis (FDA). FDA was used to explore how the participants constructed their understanding of child psychopathology by paying attention to the discourses they used in discussing this subject. The study outlines the role of contemporary culture in the conceptualisation of childhood and psychopathology according to the participants and reveals a radically different way of conducting treatment to the dominant models, those that are addressed in the literature review. These findings from the study advocate for a more nuanced approach to treating children with mental health difficulties that recognises the unique individual qualities of each child and takes account of their social and cultural experience in devising and delivering programmes of treatment

    Exploring Diverse Adolescents & Youth Education Across the Displacement Linear: Education in Emergencies (EiE) Experiences and Colonial Entanglements

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    This thesis explores diverse, forcibly displaced youths'experiences of education in emergencies (EiE) responses in South Sudan, the UK and Jordan and how colonial legacies continue to permeate the types and modes of education programmes that are designed, funded, and implemented. This thesis draws on the Black radical tradition (BRT) as a conceptual and methodological framing. In addition, connecting EiE and BRT scholarship enables new discourses that counter hegemonic and ahistorical narratives of aid to surface and instead illustrate power asymmetries, coloniality, and conflict-affected communities' cultural wealth in challenging limited educational opportunities. This study intends to contribute to critical EiE scholarship, highlighting the heterogeneity of forcibly displaced youth and challenging universalising discourses that erase the EiE experiences of racialised and othered identities. To explore the research inquiry, I use a multi-sited, multi-scalar research approach to co- design a digital storytelling action research praxis with 60 young people in South Sudan, Jordan and the UK, alongside 26 key informant interviews with EiE practitioners to address the research areas. The key findings highlighted that intersectionality matters in EIE, in that forcibly displaced young people's educational experiences are intimately connected to their situated positions, often shaped by colonialism. Similarly, these dynamics profoundly impact and shape the EiE sector. Notwithstanding, some young people resist limited education trajectories, in myriad ways, from leveraging family and community networks to exercising personal agency, seeking out, and setting up learning opportunities. A secondary objective of this study is to challenge the dominant modes of knowledge production and ways of working in the EiE field and to interrogate its conceptual framings by bringing to the fore the issues that young people want to highlight in their educational experiences when enabled to do so through using the digital storytelling research praxis

    Transitions in Motion: Accelerating Active Travel Infrastructure in London through Grassroots Groups and Activist Researchers

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    Active transport plans and infrastructure transition plays a key role in reducing global greenhouse gas emissions and various health issues faced in London, yet has not occurred at a speed required for mitigation or even achieving stated targets and goals. While socio-technical transition research has often focused on the historical perspective and the technical aspects of a transition, it has dwelt less on the process of transition in motion. In particular, the role of grassroots movements in accelerating transitions and the social aspects of creating transitions. Utilising participatory action research and an adapted bridging methodology, this research aims to analyse mechanisms for speeding up active transport policy and infrastructure transitions. It intertwines three layers of bridging methodologies across policy and practice, namely the initiative-based learning (e.g. cycling campaigns), socio-technical analysis, and quantitative modelling. The initiative-based learning was enacted as participatory action research, with myself as an activist researcher, working in partnership with grassroots movements campaigning for active transport infrastructure and policy changes. The ‘Framework for Change’ is a template trialed in this research provided the practical connection to the theoretical socio-technical transition literature. This research project highlight the opportunities and obstacles to accelerate transitions in motion specifically for grassroots movements. The empirical findings suggest that by coupling grassroots and activist researchers, it is possible to create micro-accelerations and influence urban changes towards sustainability. Further, that using the ‘Framework for Change’ can upskill activists and form a template for other campaigns. The findings also suggest that the most important parts of the Framework for Change are building coalitions, creating measurable goals and visions, and understanding who can change policy and infrastructure. My research highlights how actions and events that unfolded represent micro-accelerations or microdecelerations and can lead to better understanding of potential transition pathways and transition goals. It further highlights that grassroots’ movements have much to offer in understanding the social and political changes required for sustainable socio-technical transitions. More research into the social rather than the technical factors could speed up the pace and expand the scale of the transition required for climate change adaptation and healthy built environment outcomes
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