The continuity of underperforming ICT projects in the public sector

There is a growing body of research on the successes and failures of information and communications technology (ICT) projects in the public sector. However, this literature has rarely addressed the question of why some projects persist and continue despite functioning poorly in several areas. In this paper, we suggest that the notions of institutional logics and status differences provide useful insights into the structure and trajectory of this type of continuity. We build our arguments through an in-depth qualitative case study of a public information and communications technology (PICT) project in India. From our findings, we develop a process model of PICT project continuity. We explain how the employment of bureaucratic posturing – a manifestation of bureaucratic logic – as a tactic by high status groups could lead to poor performance on several fronts. The paper elaborates on two levels of continuity: policy-level continuity, which in our case was enabled by the logics of decentralization and technocracy, and operational-level continuity, which was achieved when groups with contrasting status-related motivations supported the project

Mediatization of Emotion on Social Media: Forms and Norms in Digital Mourning Practices

This article provides the theoretical background for this Special Issue which explores the mediatization of emotion on social media as attested in different digital mourning practices. The overview discusses the affective and emotional turn alongside the mediatic turn in relation to key trends and foci in the study of affect/emotion. Our discussion points to a shift in conceptualizations of affect/emotion from mediated to mediatized practice, embedded in other social practices and subject to media and social media logics, affordances, and frames, which are worthy of empirical investigation. The article also presents key insights offered in the four articles of this Special Issue and foregrounds current and future directions in the study of mediatization, emotional sharing, and digital mourning practices

Property and the Construction of the Information Economy: A Neo-Polanyian Ontology

This chapter considers the changing roles and forms of information property within the political economy of informational capitalism. I begin with an overview of the principal methods used in law and in media and communications studies, respectively, to study information property, considering both what each disciplinary cluster traditionally has emphasized and newer, hybrid directions. Next, I develop a three-part framework for analyzing information property as a set of emergent institutional formations that both work to produce and are themselves produced by other evolving political-economic arrangements. The framework considers patterns of change in existing legal institutions for intellectual property, the ongoing dematerialization and datafication of both traditional and new inputs to economic production, and the emerging logics of economic organization within which information resources (and property rights) are mobilized. Finally, I consider the implications of that framing for two very different contemporary information property projects, one relating to data flows within platform-based business models and the other to information commons

Managing value creation in knowledge intensive business services organisations

Value creation is essential in the Knowledge Intensive Business Service (KIBS) industry, due to its problem-solving nature. KIBS organisations need to understand their internal value creation processes as well as the complexity in the environment in order to survive and thrive. This paper investigates how value creation is managed in KIBS organisation through a case study. It then goes on to adopt Beer's Viable System Model (VSM) to propose an organisational design, namely the Value Integration Office (VIO). The VIO focuses on the 5 functions/systems defined by VSM in the meta-system and operation of an organisation in order to manage value creation. This design is implemented in a case study organisation with the aim to adopt a holistic view on value creation within the organisation as well as facilitate future planning function. The implementation and impact of the proposed organisational design are reported in this paper

Resolving Distributed Knowledge

Distributed knowledge is the sum of the knowledge in a group; what someone who is able to discern between two possible worlds whenever any member of the group can discern between them, would know. Sometimes distributed knowledge is referred to as the potential knowledge of a group, or the joint knowledge they could obtain if they had unlimited means of communication. In epistemic logic, the formula D_G{\phi} is intended to express the fact that group G has distributed knowledge of {\phi}, that there is enough information in the group to infer {\phi}. But this is not the same as reasoning about what happens if the members of the group share their information. In this paper we introduce an operator R_G, such that R_G{\phi} means that {\phi} is true after G have shared all their information with each other - after G's distributed knowledge has been resolved. The R_G operators are called resolution operators. Semantically, we say that an expression R_G{\phi} is true iff {\phi} is true in what van Benthem [11, p. 249] calls (G's) communication core; the model update obtained by removing links to states for members of G that are not linked by all members of G. We study logics with different combinations of resolution operators and operators for common and distributed knowledge. Of particular interest is the relationship between distributed and common knowledge. The main results are sound and complete axiomatizations.Comment: In Proceedings TARK 2015, arXiv:1606.0729

New Rituals for Public Connection:Audiences’ Everyday Experiences of Digital Journalism, Civic Engagement, and Social Life

This contribution explores how digitalization facilitates new patterns of using news to connect to larger social, cultural, civic, and political frameworks. Employing in-depth interviews and Q methodology with Dutch news users of mixed age, gender, and educational level in three regions, it finds that news still provides a major frame of reference to public issues in users’ everyday communications. Rather than a complete “de-ritualization” of news practices, wherein no common trajectories for connecting to public life can be discerned anymore, we argue that digitalization facilitates a “re-ritualization” of public connection in which traditional and new media logics interact. While the news still facilitates community, self-presentation, and security, the forms of public engagement people employ to satisfy these needs are increasingly centered on individuals, inextricably embedded in other activities, and more diverse in terms of content. Finally, we find that while news still remains central to people’s public connection, journalism not necessarily is

Modeling Adversaries in a Logic for Security Protocol Analysis

Logics for security protocol analysis require the formalization of an adversary model that specifies the capabilities of adversaries. A common model is the Dolev-Yao model, which considers only adversaries that can compose and replay messages, and decipher them with known keys. The Dolev-Yao model is a useful abstraction, but it suffers from some drawbacks: it cannot handle the adversary knowing protocol-specific information, and it cannot handle probabilistic notions, such as the adversary attempting to guess the keys. We show how we can analyze security protocols under different adversary models by using a logic with a notion of algorithmic knowledge. Roughly speaking, adversaries are assumed to use algorithms to compute their knowledge; adversary capabilities are captured by suitable restrictions on the algorithms used. We show how we can model the standard Dolev-Yao adversary in this setting, and how we can capture more general capabilities including protocol-specific knowledge and guesses.Comment: 23 pages. A preliminary version appeared in the proceedings of FaSec'0