Investigating hybridity in organizations: a conceptual framework, a measurement scale, and effects of pro-social claims

This dissertation presents an investigation of the hybrid condition characterizing organizations combining social and economic objectives. Drawing on extant research efforts explaining how such organizations should cope with conflicting aims, the objective of this work is to capture the heterogeneous features of hybridity through three papers with the respective outputs: i) a conceptual framework justifying how hybridity in organizations emerges and externally manifests; ii) a measurement scale of the hybrid condition; iii) an analysis of the consequences of externally manifesting pro-social claims. This study proposes to expand the interpretation of the hybrid condition in current research streams, stimulating novel avenues of investigation that consider different facets of hybridity

Modeling social norms in real-world agent-based simulations

Studying and simulating social systems including human groups and societies can be a complex problem. In order to build a model that simulates humans\u27 actions, it is necessary to consider the major factors that affect human behavior. Norms are one of these factors: social norms are the customary rules that govern behavior in groups and societies. Norms are everywhere around us, from the way people handshake or bow to the clothes they wear. They play a large role in determining our behaviors. Studies on norms are much older than the age of computer science, since normative studies have been a classic topic in sociology, psychology, philosophy and law. Various theories have been put forth about the functioning of social norms. Although an extensive amount of research on norms has been performed during the recent years, there remains a significant gap between current models and models that can explain real-world normative behaviors. Most of the existing work on norms focuses on abstract applications, and very few realistic normative simulations of human societies can be found. The contributions of this dissertation include the following: 1) a new hybrid technique based on agent-based modeling and Markov Chain Monte Carlo is introduced. This method is used to prepare a smoking case study for applying normative models. 2) This hybrid technique is described using category theory, which is a mathematical theory focusing on relations rather than objects. 3) The relationship between norm emergence in social networks and the theory of tipping points is studied. 4) A new lightweight normative architecture for studying smoking cessation trends is introduced. This architecture is then extended to a more general normative framework that can be used to model real-world normative behaviors. The final normative architecture considers cognitive and social aspects of norm formation in human societies. Normative architectures based on only one of these two aspects exist in the literature, but a normative architecture that effectively includes both of these two is missing

Hybrid Vigor: Securing Venture Capital by Spanning Categories in Nanotechnology

This study develops and tests a set of novel theoretical predictions about the conditions under which category spanning is rewarded by external audiences. To do this, we revisit the assumption that comprehensible organizational identities are associated with individual categories. Drawing on insights from cognitive psychology, we suggest that category spanning does not necessarily lead to confusion, but, rather, to interpretations that rely on a “header–modifier” structure where one category anchors cognition but is modified by features of the other. Audiences may have clear understandings about how categories fit together and cognate schema for evaluating firms that hybridize by spanning between them. An empirical examination of venture capital in the carbon nanotechnology industry supports our approach: start-ups were rewarded or punished for hybridization contingent on how they mixed “science” and “technology” in their patents, top management team, and collaborations. As such, we show that the category a firm starts in, how it hybridizes, and the degree to which this affects core versus peripheral identity markers may all affect how it is perceived

A template-based methodology for the specification and automated composition of performability models

Dependability and performance analysis of modern systems is facing great challenges: their scale is growing, they are becoming massively distributed, interconnected, and evolving. Such complexity makes model-based assessment a difficult and time-consuming task. For the evaluation of large systems, reusable submodels are typically adopted as an effective way to address the complexity and to improve the maintainability of models. When using state-based models, a common approach is to define libraries of generic submodels, and then compose concrete instances by state sharing, following predefined “patterns” that depend on the class of systems being modeled. However, such composition patterns are rarely formalized, or not even documented at all. In this paper, we address this problem using a model-driven approach, which combines a language to specify reusable submodels and composition patterns, and an automated composition algorithm. Clearly defining libraries of reusable submodels, together with patterns for their composition, allows complex models to be automatically assembled, based on a high-level description of the scenario to be evaluated. This paper provides a solution to this problem focusing on: formally defining the concept of model templates, defining a specification language for model templates, defining an automated instantiation and composition algorithm, and applying the approach to a case study of a large-scale distributed system69129330

Persistent Inequality: The Chilean voucher system and its impacts on socio-economic segregation and quality of education.

In the last decades, the Chilean educational system is carrying on a process of increasing reforms, beginning with the instauration of a voucher system. Since the implementation of this scheme, however, researchers have pointed out the low academic efficacy and remarkable problem of equity that have developed from this intended reform. After the resulting social discontent, education became an undeniable priority in the national debate; consequently, a significant adjustment to the system was enacted in 2008. Existing scholarly work points to the need for expanding the study of school effectiveness to include a wider notion of context. Theoretically, part of the existing research isolates school performance from its wider sociocultural context, which can be defined as the policy environment and socioeconomic composition of the school. Both of these definitions of context have been avoided or reduced. Although the current effectiveness research emphasises school processes as a way to centralise the idea that school can make a difference, it nevertheless remains acritical with regard to specific policy ideological assumptions and their implications on the notion of effectiveness and the real power of the school to take part in social change. The purpose of this research is to broaden the study of school effectiveness within a long-lasting market oriented system. Using a mixed method research design, the data is collected and analysed through quantitative and qualitative approaches. Deploying multilevel analysis (HLM), the study analyses the presence and impact of the socioeconomic composition of school related to the effectiveness and equity of mathematics academic distribution in 4th grade students at a national level. Aiming to decode the impact of recent policy accountability, the qualitative approach interviews principals and teachers, thereby examining practices for effectiveness and the impact of accountability on the teachers' sense of professionalisation. Nvivo software is used to initiate a grounded theory explanation of the sensemaking of principals and teachers in three socioeconomic disadvantaged school cases. The study concludes that the level of socioeconomic composition of a school impacts more strongly than the family socioeconomic composition, constituting a double disadvantage for vulnerable students. Disadvantaged students attending disadvantaged schools are doubly affected by socioeconomic segregation. These contextual variables affect the effectiveness of schools, resulting in school comparisons that are unfair and misleading. Public schools appear to perform better than private schools when contextual variables are taken into account; however, the existing public policy of school classification does not include multilevel analysis or the type of contextual variables incorporated in this research. Another important conclusion of this study is that the policy of accountability erodes teacher professionalisation and encourages an authoritarian type of leadership. The practice of emphasising specific subjects and the idea of equating student learning with results on standardised evaluations affect the pedagogical practices of teachers, limiting their process to undertaking a series of routine actions for test preparation. Moreover, the urgency toward achieving good test results encourage schools to focus their practices on accomplishing these results, and not on the process of learning. A successful approach to effectiveness within the accountability system seems to be related to highly organised schools with a top-down type of leadership. Disadvantaged schools with a high sense of teacher professionalism and with democratic and flexible school organisation appear to be in opposition to the accountability policy. These findings have significant implications for the operation of a market oriented system. The market oriented system operating in Chile affects the distribution of student opportunities based on their socioeconomic background. The existing school segregation impacts both the operations inside the school and the purpose of the system that is intended to equalise and develop opportunities for students, thereby making school a social institution that can have a positive effect on the lives of pupils and staff. Persisting in a view of the market as a social regulator of effectiveness is not supported by empirical evidence; instead, this view shifts responsibility to the schools and encourages them to compete with each other as a logic of productivity, which affects how schools respond to students who are most in need of their care. Reducing the objectives of education to performativity leads to an impoverishing of the educational experience of students, and a diminishing sense of professionalism of staff. The notion of educational quality requires broadening to include a democratic experience of knowledge construction

Computer Aided Verification

This open access two-volume set LNCS 13371 and 13372 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 34rd International Conference on Computer Aided Verification, CAV 2022, which was held in Haifa, Israel, in August 2022. The 40 full papers presented together with 9 tool papers and 2 case studies were carefully reviewed and selected from 209 submissions. The papers were organized in the following topical sections: Part I: Invited papers; formal methods for probabilistic programs; formal methods for neural networks; software Verification and model checking; hyperproperties and security; formal methods for hardware, cyber-physical, and hybrid systems. Part II: Probabilistic techniques; automata and logic; deductive verification and decision procedures; machine learning; synthesis and concurrency. This is an open access book