The future of information systems-using social systems to create protocols for the virtual environment (systems analysis through social analysis)

Information is the medium for communication, power-play, politics, and the building block for knowledge systems. It is associated with social interaction, and can be mediated by technology use. The paper argues that the key to understanding the impact of future technologies lies in the interaction between the social and technical environment. It suggests that future technologies such as virtual reality make necessary a move away from traditional methods of systems analysis and design. The interactive nature of such technology requires a validation in the social environment. The paper proposes the creation of protocols (a set of universally applicable standards) for the virtual environment. It suggests that information systems are split into three protocols: physical, learning, and cultural protocols. Finally it illustrates that their influence over each other can be understood by applying structuration theor

Acting together: ensemble as a democratic process in art and life

Traditionally drama in schools has been seen either as a learning medium with a wide range of curricular uses or as a subject in its own right. This paper argues that the importance of drama in schools is in the processes of social and artistic engagement and experiencing of drama rather than in its outcomes. The paper contrasts the pro-social emphasis in the ensemble model of drama with the pro-technical and limited range of learning in subject-based approaches which foreground technical knowledge of periods, plays, styles and genres. The ensemble-based approach is positioned in the context of professional theatre understandings of ensemble artistry and in the context of revolutionary shifts from the pro-technical to the pro-social in educational and cultural policy making in England. Using ideas drawn from McGrath and Castoriadis, the paper claims that the ensemble approach provides young people with a model of democratic living

The internationalization of family SME

Purpose – Owing to its specificities, the family small and medium enterprise (SME) shows a particular behavior as for the creation, development, sharing, protection and transmission of knowledge. The purpose of this paper is to study the specificities of the processes of knowledge creation and development in family firms. Design/methodology/approach – Through a questionnaire, hypotheses of the model were tested. The study is based on 118 firms belonging to various industries. After evaluating the reliability and validity of the items through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, the model was tested through structural equation modeling (LISREL). Findings – The model retained induces the following conclusions. Internationalization knowledge positively influences internationalization degree of the firm. The conservatism of family SME does not directly influence the level of internationalization knowledge. The influence of conservatism on internationalization knowledge is exerted only through the decisional dimension of independence orientation. The independence orientation of family SME, then with its two dimensions simultaneously (decisional and resource independence), does not significantly influence internationalization knowledge. Contrary to decisional independence which influences indirectly the degree of internationalization (through the intermediation of internationalization knowledge), resource independence influences directly the dependant variable. The mediation of internationalization knowledge is thus not totally proven. Social networking positively influences the amount of internationalization knowledge. Research limitations/implications – A major weakness is the absence of a synchronic approach as the dependent and independent variables are measured at the same moment. A more longitudinal approach would be valuable to analyze the causal relationships between the independent variables and internationalization knowledge and internationalization degree. A second limitation is that the characteristics of the sample may limit the generalizability of the results.Family firms, Small to medium-sized enterprises, Globalization, Learning organizations, Knowledge management

Social Media in the Dental School Environment, Part B: Curricular Considerations

The goal of this article is to describe the broad curricular constructs surrounding teaching and learning about social media in dental education. This analysis takes into account timing, development, and assessment of the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors needed to effectively use social media tools as a contemporary dentist. Three developmental stages in a student’s path to becoming a competent professional are described: from undergraduate to dental student, from the classroom and preclinical simulation laboratory to the clinical setting, and from dental student to licensed practitioner. Considerations for developing the dental curriculum and suggestions for effective instruction at each stage are offered. In all three stages in the future dentist’s evolution, faculty members need to educate students about appropriate professional uses of social media. Faculty members should provide instruction on the beneficial aspects of this communication medium and help students recognize the potential pitfalls associated with its use. The authors provide guidelines for customizing instruction to complement each stage of development, recognizing that careful timing is not only important for optimal learning but can prevent inappropriate use of social media as students are introduced to novel situations

Book Groups in Social Work Education: A Method for Modelling Groupwork Practice

The use of book groups as a learning medium in social work education has evolved rapidly over the last few years, with universities and practice settings across the UK and beyond adopting the approach to supplement traditional teaching methods (Taylor, 2014). Where employed, student social workers and practitioners have found book groups to be effective for consolidating understandings that support professional development. Thus far, however their use within modules of learning as a means to demonstrating groupwork practice has not been fully realised. The following account proposes a teaching approach which is twofold in nature. On the one hand it engages students, within their initial social work training, in a group experience and on the other, through the group, makes explicit the knowledge and skills essential to effective groupwork for practice. This paper offers book groups as medium through which students can develop groupwork knowledge and skills; and makes the point that groupwork remains a viable method of intervention in social work practice

Dynamic capabilities in small and medium manufacturing firms in rural Finland – role of social capital?

During the last decade, there has been wide agreement on the importance of dynamic capabilities on economic performance of firms. Simultaneously an increasing literature suggests that economic dynamics is embedded in social relations and social institutions. In this article, the determinants of dynamic capabilities of small manufacturing Finnish firms will be explored. Specifically we focus on the importance of social capital for firm dynamics. According to analysis, the most important antecedents of dynamic capabilities of firms are its strategy and social capital. Social capital as wide and active participation in network cooperation correlates statistically significantly with the firm dynamics. Social capital increases firm dynamics by enhancing communication and knowledge spillovers in corporate networks. Active networkers gain important information from their bridging and linking ties, such as other firms and public institutions. According to the analysis, the increase of trust in business relations does not correlate with the dynamic capabilities. Instead trust acts as a trigger factor when firms consider their network activities. Keywords: social capital, networks, trust, dynamic capabilities, small and medium sized enterprises

A Study on The Impact of Government Using Social Media as Medium in Sharing Information to Public

Several Studies shows that the used of social media as flatform of communication. The wide use of social media has changed the value of the information and individual role. Social media has been a great platform for knowledge sharing and even getting better as medium of communication and collaboration. The study aimed to examine the Impact of Government Using Social Media as Medium in Sharing Information to Public. The independent variables (Value, Role, Membership, Knowledge Sharing and Collaboration & Intention) of this study were used as primary goals of this research, while the dependent variable is Used of Social Media. The impacts that the users received from the new method, which is the social media that open the opportunity for people to gain tremendous knowledge not only on the past stories where it has become history, but also the current news which is latest and in a real-time basis story and news. The data collected from the quantitative study were distributed to the public in Kuala Lumpur via questionnaires to 150 respondents, since the researchers assume that Kuala Lumpur has a high population density from various population groups.  Statically Package for Social Science (SPSS) were used to analyze the correlation and determining the validity of the hypotheses. This study found that people are not really being impacted from the information shared from government agencies. It is recommended for future researcher to study the link between social media as a medium in sharing information with the aspect that impacted in people daily life and the role of government in controlling the news and information

On social networks and collaborative recommendation

Social network systems, like last.fm, play a significant role in Web 2.0, containing large amounts of multimedia-enriched data that are enhanced both by explicit user-provided annotations and implicit aggregated feedback describing the personal preferences of each user. It is also a common tendency for these systems to encourage the creation of virtual networks among their users by allowing them to establish bonds of friendship and thus provide a novel and direct medium for the exchange of data. We investigate the role of these additional relationships in developing a track recommendation system. Taking into account both the social annotation and friendships inherent in the social graph established among users, items and tags, we created a collaborative recommendation system that effectively adapts to the personal information needs of each user. We adopt the generic framework of Random Walk with Restarts in order to provide with a more natural and efficient way to represent social networks. In this work we collected a representative enough portion of the music social network last.fm, capturing explicitly expressed bonds of friendship of the user as well as social tags. We performed a series of comparison experiments between the Random Walk with Restarts model and a user-based collaborative filtering method using the Pearson Correlation similarity. The results show that the graph model system benefits from the additional information embedded in social knowledge. In addition, the graph model outperforms the standard collaborative filtering method.</p

Social Technologies : Medium Baru Untuk Menciptakan Nilai Dan Produktivitas Bagi Organisasi

Social technologies become more important nowadays. Its not only as a one ofcommunication channel for the firm, but also as a medium to enhance the valueproposition and the productivity of the firm. We can say that Information Communi-cation and Technology was the driver of this phenomenon, especially when Web 2.0has use widely. As the development of social technologies - one of the medium issocial media marketing such as blog, facebook, twitter, etc - become a popular mediain consumer's life, firm must also see this medium as a strategic tool. This is true,specifically from the result of the research of McKinsey Global Institute (2012) whichattempts to quantify the value of social technologies. The research find that socialtechnologies, when used within and across enterprises, have the potential to raise theproductivity of the high-skill knowledge workers that are critical to performance andgrowth in the 21st century by 20 to 25 percent (MGI, 2012)