Sensing, Understanding, and Shaping Social Behavior

The ability to understand social systems through the aid of computational tools is central to the emerging field of computational social systems. Such understanding can answer epistemological questions on human behavior in a data-driven manner, and provide prescriptive guidelines for persuading humans to undertake certain actions in real-world social scenarios. The growing number of works in this subfield has the potential to impact multiple walks of human life including health, wellness, productivity, mobility, transportation, education, shopping, and sustenance. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, we provide a functional survey of recent advances in sensing, understanding, and shaping human behavior, focusing on real-world behavior of users as measured using passive sensors. Second, we present a case study on how trust, which is an important building block of computational social systems, can be quantified, sensed, and applied to shape human behavior. Our findings suggest that:1) trust can be operationalized and predicted via computational methods (passive sensing and network analysis) and 2) trust has a significant impact on social persuasion; in fact, it was found to be significantly more effective than the closeness of ties in determining the amount of behavior change.U.S. Army Research Laboratory (Cooperative Agreement W911NF-09-2-0053

Mobile apps usage and dynamic capabilities: A structural equation model of SMEs in Lagos, Nigeria.

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.Significant knowledge exists regarding the application of dynamic capability (DC) frameworks in large firms, but their impact on smaller organisations is yet to be fully researched. This study surveyed 1162 small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Lagos in an effort to understand how SMEs in developing country contexts use mobile apps to enhance their businesses through DCs. Through the use of the covariance-based structural equation modelling (SEM) technique, the study explored the fitness of a conceptual formative model for SMEs. The model assembled 7 latent variables namely: mobile app usage, adaptive capability, absorptive capability, innovative capability, opportunity sensing ability, opportunity shaping ability and opportunity seizing ability. Subsequently, 15 hypotheses aimed at testing the relationships between the latent variables were developed and tested. The findings revealed that mobile app usage increases the adaptive, absorptive and innovative capabilities of SMEs. Absorptive capabilities help SMEs to maximise opportunities, while innovative capabilities negatively influence SMEs’ tendency to maximise opportunities. The results failed to establish a direct relationship between mobile app usage and SMEs’ ability to maximise opportunities. The research outcomes indicate that SMEs in Lagos respond to opportunities innovatively but they seldom exhibit innovation in order to create opportunities. The heterogeneous nature of SMEs complicates any clear-cut narrative as to how SMEs in Lagos should employ mobile apps to create and maximise opportunities. However, mobile apps could induce innovation and, as such, impact significantly when developed and applied to the contextual requirements of SMEs. The research revealed the untapped potential of SMEs’ mobile app usage in Lagos

Emotional Biosensing: Exploring Critical Alternatives

Emotional biosensing is rising in daily life: Data and categories claim to know how people feel and suggest what they should do about it, while CSCW explores new biosensing possibilities. Prevalent approaches to emotional biosensing are too limited, focusing on the individual, optimization, and normative categorization. Conceptual shifts can help explore alternatives: toward materiality, from representation toward performativity, inter-action to intra-action, shifting biopolitics, and shifting affect/desire. We contribute (1) synthesizing wide-ranging conceptual lenses, providing analysis connecting them to emotional biosensing design, (2) analyzing selected design exemplars to apply these lenses to design research, and (3) offering our own recommendations for designers and design researchers. In particular we suggest humility in knowledge claims with emotional biosensing, prioritizing care and affirmation over self- improvement, and exploring alternative desires. We call for critically questioning and generatively re- imagining the role of data in configuring sensing, feeling, ‘the good life,’ and everyday experience

Shaping Inclusive Markets: How Funders and Intermediaries can Help Markets Move toward Greater Economic Inclusion

Positive progress toward worldwide economic inclusion is not only possible, but can also be made more possible. In Shaping Inclusive Markets, we draw lessons from history on how more inclusive markets have been achieved and highlight ways in which funders and intermediaries can strengthen the conditions for change

Unbundling dynamic capabilities for inter-organizational collaboration

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore two distinct subsets of dynamic capabilities that need to be deployed when pursuing innovation through inter-organizational activities, respectively, in the contexts of broad networks and specific alliances. The authors draw distinctions and explore potential interdependencies between these two dynamic capability reservoirs, by integrating concepts from the theoretical perspectives they are derived from, but which have until now largely ignored each other – the social network perspective and the dynamic capabilities view. Design/methodology/approach The authors investigate nanotechnology-driven R&D activities in the 1995–2005 period for 76 publicly traded firms in the electronics and electrical equipment industry and in the chemicals and pharmaceuticals industry, that applied for 580 nanotechnology-related patents and engaged in 2,459 alliances during the observation period. The authors used zero-truncated Poisson regression as the estimation method. Findings The findings support conceptualizing dynamic capabilities as four distinct subsets, deployed for sensing or seizing purposes, and across the two different inter-organizational contexts. The findings also suggest potential synergies between these subsets of dynamic capabilities, with two subsets being more macro-oriented (i.e. sensing and seizing opportunities within networks) and the two other ones more micro-oriented (i.e. sensing and seizing opportunities within specific alliances). Practical implications The authors show that firms differ in their subsets of dynamic capabilities for pursuing different types of inter-organizational, boundary-spanning relationships (such as alliances vs broader network relationships), which ultimately affects their innovation performance. Originality/value The authors contribute to the growing body of work on dynamic capabilities and firm-specific advantages by unbundling the dynamic capability subsets, and investigating their complex interdependencies for managing different types of inter-organizational linkages. The main new insight is that the “linear model” of generating more innovations through higher inter-firm collaboration in an emerging field paints an erroneous picture of how high innovation performance is actually achieved

Discontinuity in the Environment, Firm Response and Dynamic Capabilities

This paper identifies and focuses on a specific type of environmental development called discontinuity. Discontinuities in the forms of rapid technological innovations, regulatory reforms, institutional overhauls, and socio-cultural developments are the source of opportunities and threats to the firm. Firm responds to these discontinuities in specific ways in sustaining its existence at different points of time. This paper conceptualizes discontinuity and identifies its natures; explores the possible types of responses by the firm, and their enablers. The capability of sensing, seizing and re-shaping are captured to establish the linkages in the framework of interrelations. It posits a set of propositions based on conceptual development and illustration of two cases.

Symposium: Effects of Human Choices on Characteristics of Urban Ecosystems

Most urban ecology in cities remains an “ecology in cities” rather than an “ecology of cities.” Accomplishing the latter requires the inclusion of humans within the concept of “ecosystem,” both how humans alter the properties of urban ecosystems and how these alterations in turn influence human well-being. These influences are both direct (e.g., physiological and psychological influences on the human organism) and indirect, by influencing ecosystem sustainability. For the 2007 ESA meeting, Larry Baker, Loren Byrne, Jason Walker, and Alex Felson organized a symposium to address the relationships among human choices and urban ecosystems. In the introductory talk of this symposium, these authors discussed how the cumulative effect of individual household choices can have major effects on the properties of urban ecosystems. For example, direct resource consumption by households accounts for 40% of U.S. energy use; in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, households account for 75–80% of total N and P inputs. Households also have a major impact on vegetation biodiversity in cities. Drawing from the social science literature, this first talk introduced the variety of conceptual models that have been put forth to understand how humans make choices. Economists use classic supply–demand models to understand consumption of market goods (such as energy) and other tools to understand the value of nonmarket goods. Environmental psychologists have often used the Theory of Planned Behavior and related models to explain barriers to adopting specific environmental practices. Political scientists focusing on group processes stress the process by which choices are made and the distributive effects of decisions. Although ecologists often focus on how human behaviors are environmentally destructive, there are also many examples of how collective choices have had very positive environmental outcomes. These include large declines in soil erosion and smaller declines in fertilizer P use by farmers in the United States, widespread adoption of household recycling, greatly reduced household water consumption in some water conservation programs, and rapid increases in the sales of the Prius hybrid automobile in recent years. Programs leading to these positive environmental choices generally include a mix of several of the following: a persistent, meaningful message; dissemination of accurate, trusted knowledge; early adoption by trusted individuals; financial incentives or disincentives; targeting of high-consumption individuals; direct regulations; personal economic benefit and feedback. Three presenters examined factors regarding choices of managing the vegetation in urbanized landscapes. Morgan Grove from the Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES-LTER) discussed an “ecology of prestige” in which consumption and expenditure on environmentally relevant goods and services are motivated by group identity and perceptions of social status associated with different lifestyles, and have used this theory to examine landscaping patterns. Grove and his colleagues combined high-resolution social and ecological spatial and temporal data such as property parcels and land cover (\u3e1 m) with composite measures of population, social stratification, and lifestyle for this presentation. Fig. 1 shows the relationship between percentage tree canopy cover (height of bars) with PRIZM lifestyle classifications. Of particular interest in a long-term context is the relationship between cause and effect: the possibility that some social groups are attracted to and conserve existing, desirable landscapes at a neighborhood scale, while others move to and rehabilitate their landscapes

Enhancing pharmaceutical packaging through a technology ecosystem to facilitate the reuse of medicines and reduce medicinal waste

The idea of reusing dispensed medicines is appealing to the general public provided its benefits are illustrated, its risks minimized, and the logistics resolved. For example, medicine reuse could help reduce medicinal waste, protect the environment and improve public health. However, the associated technologies and legislation facilitating medicine reuse are generally not available. The availability of suitable technologies could arguably help shape stakeholders’ beliefs and in turn, uptake of a future medicine reuse scheme by tackling the risks and facilitating the practicalities. A literature survey is undertaken to lay down the groundwork for implementing technologies on and around pharmaceutical packaging in order to meet stakeholders’ previously expressed misgivings about medicine reuse (’stakeholder requirements’), and propose a novel ecosystem for, in effect, reusing returned medicines. Methods: A structured literature search examining the application of existing technologies on pharmaceutical packaging to enable medicine reuse was conducted and presented as a narrative review. Results: Reviewed technologies are classified according to different stakeholders’ requirements, and a novel ecosystem from a technology perspective is suggested as a solution to reusing medicines. Conclusion: Active sensing technologies applying to pharmaceutical packaging using printed electronics enlist medicines to be part of the Internet of Things network. Validating the quality and safety of returned medicines through this network seems to be the most effective way for reusing medicines and the correct application of technologies may be the key enabler