The Structured Process Modeling Theory (SPMT): a cognitive view on why and how modelers benefit from structuring the process of process modeling

After observing various inexperienced modelers constructing a business process model based on the same textual case description, it was noted that great differences existed in the quality of the produced models. The impression arose that certain quality issues originated from cognitive failures during the modeling process. Therefore, we developed an explanatory theory that describes the cognitive mechanisms that affect effectiveness and efficiency of process model construction: the Structured Process Modeling Theory (SPMT). This theory states that modeling accuracy and speed are higher when the modeler adopts an (i) individually fitting (ii) structured (iii) serialized process modeling approach. The SPMT is evaluated against six theory quality criteria

RACOFI: A Rule-Applying Collaborative Filtering System

In this paper we give an overview of the RACOFI (Rule-Applying Collaborative Filtering) multidimensional rating system and its related technologies. This will be exemplified with RACOFI Music, an implemented collaboration agent that assists on-line users in the rating and recommendation of audio (Learning) Objects. It lets users rate contemporary Canadian music in the five dimensions of impression, lyrics, music, originality, and production. The collaborative filtering algorithms STI Pearson, STIN2, and the Per Item Average algorithms are then employed together with RuleML-based rules to recommend music objects that best match user queries. RACOFI has been on-line since August 2003 at http://racofi.elg.ca.

Intelligent indexing of crime scene photographs

The Scene of Crime Information System's automatic image-indexing prototype goes beyond extracting keywords and syntactic relations from captions. The semantic information it gathers gives investigators an intuitive, accurate way to search a database of cases for specific photographic evidence. Intelligent, automatic indexing and retrieval of crime scene photographs is one of the main functions of SOCIS, our research prototype developed within the Scene of Crime Information System project. The prototype, now in its final development and evaluation phase, applies advanced natural language processing techniques to text-based image indexing and retrieval to tackle crime investigation needs effectively and efficiently

Just Doing It. The Imaginary, the Symbolic and the Real in Nike's Commodity Fetish

Since the mid-1990s Nike has been in the 'bad books' of left-leaning commentators, anti-capitalist movements and other protesters and academics alike because of its production practices in 'third world' sweatshops. The term ?sweatshop? was at some stage so tightly connected to the brand Nike, that it was entirely conceivable that this huge, now 30 billion Dollars worth, company could be brought to its knees. It wasn't to be. Despite a worldwide campaign against Nike (and other sweatshop operating companies), the company responded by introducing 'strict' codes and conducts for outsourcing factories and workers to follow, which, it was hoped, would address and deal with at least the more serious allegations of terrible sweatshop working conditions and child labour in many of the 'third world' factories where Nike products are made. Although at first slow to respond to the massive anti-sweatshop campaign, Nike has learned its lesson fast and it can now proudly say that it takes its 'responsibility' very seriously ? at least the company says so on its sleek website http:??nikeresponsibility.com (note that NikeResponsibility itself seems to have become a brand). But this paper is not proposing to revisit 'old news'. Rather, the starting point for our investigation is our claim that part of the failure of the anti-sweatshop campaign was its inability to conceptualize and understand the concrete workings of the Nike commodity fetish. And to be sure, this failure is ongoing. Recently, War on Want, a UK-based charity that is playing a very active part in exposing the malpractices of multinational companies in the 'third world', has been running a campaign 'Let's clean up Fashion' , to fight against low-price fashion items sold by UK chains such as ASDA, Primark, Tesco, and others. While we very much support this campaign in general, we fear that it doesn't deal with the workings of the commodity fetish head-on. That is, campaigns like this are well intended they appeal to consumers' hearts and minds, to their compassion but what they do not manage to do is to put forward a rigorous analysis of how the commodity fetish works, and how it could be disrupted. In our view, only a rupture of the workings of the commodity fetish ? the act ? would achieve real improvements. That is, campaigns like the anti-sweatshop movement, are well intended, but their compassionate pleas are just that: well intended. Žižek (1997) might go further and say that it is campaigns like these that are actually the kernel of today?s ideological cover up. The anti-sweatshop campaign is not fighting the commodity fetish, but enabling it to continue its destructive work precisely through its work of ?transparency?. We will show in the paper how this double-whammy might work in practice, using the case of Nike. But we are jumping ahead of ourselves. Our paper, then, is a discussion of the workings of commodity fetishism. At work with us is not only Lacan, who will primarily provide input into the workings of enjoyment in today?s consumer culture, but also Marx and Freud who were the early champions of conceptualising fetishism. In Capital, Marx (1976) discusses commodity fetishism as the main ideological structure that keeps capital moving. Freud (1977), in contrast, wasn?t interested in capital but the workings of the human mind, and he saw in fetishism a displacement activity that would enable young boys to get to grips with the apparent castration of their mothers (i.e. the lack of a penis) and the possibilities of their own castration. Although Freud wasn?t a reader of Marx, as far as we know, there have been many attempts to read across Marx?s and Freud?s conceptions of fetishism and somehow integrate their different approaches ? we could name Benjamin?s Arcades Project here. Our paper will review such attempts to integrate Marx and Freud, but will then apply these readings to the burning question of: What actually gets people into NikeTown, and what lets us enjoy our visit to the temple of the commodity? In other words, how is it possible that despite the tremendously bad press Nike has had over the past decade, the company is turning out record profit after record profit, as millions flock to the shops to buy its trainers and T-shirts, i.e. they are enjoying the Nike commodity. Here we will make use of Lacan's (1977, 1998) analysis of enjoyment and jouissance in order to understand the workings of the Nike commodity

Folk Theory of Mind: Conceptual Foundations of Social Cognition

The human ability to represent, conceptualize, and reason about mind and behavior is one of the greatest achievements of human evolution and is made possible by a “folk theory of mind” — a sophisticated conceptual framework that relates different mental states to each other and connects them to behavior. This chapter examines the nature and elements of this framework and its central functions for social cognition. As a conceptual framework, the folk theory of mind operates prior to any particular conscious or unconscious cognition and provides the “framing” or interpretation of that cognition. Central to this framing is the concept of intentionality, which distinguishes intentional action (caused by the agent’s intention and decision) from unintentional behavior (caused by internal or external events without the intervention of the agent’s decision). A second important distinction separates publicly observable from publicly unobservable (i.e., mental) events. Together, the two distinctions define the kinds of events in social interaction that people attend to, wonder about, and try to explain. A special focus of this chapter is the powerful tool of behavior explanation, which relies on the folk theory of mind but is also intimately tied to social demands and to the perceiver’s social goals. A full understanding of social cognition must consider the folk theory of mind as the conceptual underpinning of all (conscious and unconscious) perception and thinking about the social world

When fiction trumps truth : what ‘post-truth’ and ‘alternative facts’ mean for management studies

In this essay, we explore the notions of ‘post-truth’ and ‘alternative facts’ for management studies. Adopting a pragmatist perspective, we argue that there is no intrinsically accurate language in terms of which to refer to reality. Language, rather, is a tool that enables agents to grab hold of causal forces and intervene in the world. ‘Alternative facts’ can be created by multimodal communication to highlight different aspects of the world for the purpose of political mobilization and legitimacy. ‘Post-truth’ politics reveals the fragmentation of the language game in which mainstream politics has been hitherto conducted. Using the communicative acts of businessman-turned-politician President Trump and his aides, as a prompt, we explore the implications that ‘alternative facts’ and ‘post-truth’ have for today’s management scholarship. We argue that management scholars should unpack how managers navigate strategic action and communication, and how the creation of alternative realities is accomplished in conditions of informational abundance and multimodal communication