Social Capital in Online Temporary Organizations: Addressing Critical, Complex Tasks through Deliberation

Temporary organizations—small, task-focused, time-bound, agile groups—exist in mass collaborations to address tasks outside of existing procedures. Given that mass collaborations are informal and voluntary, this study explores the impact of social network attributes (cohesion and diversity) in temporary organizations on task completion. We suggest that participants’ prior shared experience and demonstrated knowledge of the larger organization in online temporary organizations, traits of cohesion, and working less often with the same people, evidence of diversity, lead to greater likelihood of successful task completion. Contrary to predictions, however, the less consistent the participant contributions, the lower the likelihood of successful task completion

On the Promotion of the Social Web Intelligence

Given the ever-growing information generated through various online social outlets, analytical research on social media has intensified in the past few years from all walks of life. In particular, works on social Web intelligence foster and benefit from the wisdom of the crowds and attempt to derive actionable information from such data. In the form of collective intelligence, crowds gather together and contribute to solving problems that may be difficult or impossible to solve by individuals and single computers. In addition, the consumer insight revealed from social footprints can be leveraged to build powerful business intelligence tools, enabling efficient and effective decision-making processes. This dissertation is broadly concerned with the intelligence that can emerge from the social Web platforms. In particular, the two phenomena of social privacy and online persuasion are identified as the two pillars of the social Web intelligence, studying which is essential in the promotion and advancement of both collective and business intelligence. The first part of the dissertation is focused on the phenomenon of social privacy. This work is mainly motivated by the privacy dichotomy problem. Users often face difficulties specifying privacy policies that are consistent with their actual privacy concerns and attitudes. As such, before making use of social data, it is imperative to employ multiple safeguards beyond the current privacy settings of users. As a possible solution, we utilize user social footprints to detect their privacy preferences automatically. An unsupervised collaborative filtering approach is proposed to characterize the attributes of publicly available accounts that are intended to be private. Unlike the majority of earlier studies, a variety of social data types is taken into account, including the social context, the published content, as well as the profile attributes of users. Our approach can provide support in making an informed decision whether to exploit one\u27s publicly available data to draw intelligence. With the aim of gaining insight into the strategies behind online persuasion, the second part of the dissertation studies written comments in online deliberations. Specifically, we explore different dimensions of the language, the temporal aspects of the communication, as well as the attributes of the participating users to understand what makes people change their beliefs. In addition, we investigate the factors that are perceived to be the reasons behind persuasion by the users. We link our findings to traditional persuasion research, hoping to uncover when and how they apply to online persuasion. A set of rhetorical relations is known to be of importance in persuasive discourse. We further study the automatic identification and disambiguation of such rhetorical relations, aiming to take a step closer towards automatic analysis of online persuasion. Finally, a small proof of concept tool is presented, showing the value of our persuasion and rhetoric studies

Playing the Field: A Case of Restructuring at the University of Massachusetts Amherst

In 2008, the United States economy entered a rapid and profound decline. As a result most public universities experienced decreased endowments and a decline in state allocations. Some universities responded to this crisis by refocusing their institutional priorities and restructuring their campuses. This study used the lens of organizational field theory (e.g., 1993; Davis & Marquis, 2005; Fligstein & McAdam, 2012; McAdam & Scott, 2005) to analyze a decision-making and restructuring process at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass), which began in late 2008 and concluded in 2011. The purpose of the research was to investigate the ways the UMass Amherst restructuring process was influenced by two of the organizational fields to which the University belongs: public research universities and Massachusetts higher education. The research also examined the effects of the economic and political environment on these fields, and by extension, on the actions of the University of Massachusetts Amherst during this period. Whereas earlier organizational field theorists (Bourdieu, 1993; DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Scott W. R., 1995) primarily considered the influence of fields on actions adopted at the organizational level, more recent research (Davis & Marquis, 2005; Emirbayer & Johnson, 2008; Fligstein & McAdam, 2012) has begun to focus on the strategic actions of individual actors within organizations and the ways those actions can also affect organizational efforts. This study considered the actions of stakeholder groups, and this led to a richer understanding of the interplay of individuals, organization, field, and environment, and the effects of these on university mission. Using a retrospective, descriptive case study design that included analysis of selected documents and interviews of individuals who were part of the decision-making process, I reviewed, coded, and developed preliminary constructs, which later became the themes for analysis. The findings suggested that organizational fields as well as organizational actors each influence an organization’s path in various ways. Additionally, the study gave indications of shifts in mission at least on the UMass campus. This study contributes to a better understanding of the influence of organizational fields in higher education and offers suggestions for further research on shifts in university mission

Governing the constructs of life: what constitutes ‘good’ governance?

This thesis explores contrasting perspectives on what constitutes 'good governance' for human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research. It asks whether there are systematic differences between perspectives of UK and US policy actors and what kinds of patterns are discernible. Biomedical technologies like hESCs generate complex interactions between public values, institutional interests, societal expectations and technological uncertainties. These pose serious governance challenges. Under such conditions, diverse aspects and implications of risk, ambiguity and uncertainty come into focus. We need appraisal processes that address these issues by combining quantitative and qualitative dimensions to 'open up' divergent governance framings. The research framework employed here uses and further develops one such elicitation and analysis process called Multicriteria Mapping (MCM). MCM combines qualitative sensitivity with quantitative precision, while also aiding transparency and reflexivity in documenting and understanding diverse stakeholder perspectives. We therefore address 'good' governance both as an analytical subject and as a rationale for testing a novel form of appraisal. The analysis discerns systematic patterns in perspectives on good governance across national contexts and between stakeholders, identifying several points of convergence and divergence. We examine underlying rationales behind individual perspectives, obtaining empirical support for recent theoretical arguments concerning technology appraisal and democratic deliberation. We find national policy literatures make greater use of moral and ethical language to frame governance challenges, by comparison with stakeholders' emphasis on institutional and socio-political factors. This suggests a more critical and cautious stance is needed towards the legitimatory language of 'bioethics' in policy making. Finally, we explore some of the normative implications for governance of culturally sensitive and scientifically uncertain issues. By providing reflexive explanations of factors influencing perspectives of policy actors, this thesis makes a number of interlinked theoretical, methodological, empirical and normative contributions to understanding of how good governance of biomedical technologies is and should be conducted

Pension Schemes, Sustainable Investing and the Promise and Challenge of Governance Innovations

The thesis is motivated by a contemporary paradox: beneficiaries’ occupational pension contributions, as invested through their pension schemes, form significant financial flows. But almost all beneficiaries are disengaged from the governance decisions determining these flows. Moreover, if beneficiaries are dissatisfied with the performance of their pension scheme, opportunities to exit are absent or limited in pensions systems with a (quasi-)mandatory second pillar, where the market impulse is stifled. This thesis offers a new perspective on how to understand and respond to this paradox. Drawing upon Hirschman’s Exit, Voice and Loyalty (1970), I argue that in the face of either absent or limited opportunities for exit, governance innovations which enhance beneficiary voice should be considered. In particular, voice has the potential to bring benefits to pension scheme governance which, given the recent turn to sustainable investing, addresses the complexity of governing schemes in the best interests of beneficiaries. Taking Hirschman’s suggestion of voice as an alternative to exit seriously, I draw upon influential democratic (deliberative and participatory democracy) and strategic management (stakeholder) perspectives which theorise on engaging with publics for decision-making. I distil their normative concerns into an integrative conceptual framework, that includes seven qualities of voice: (a) inclusive engagement; (b) deliberative communication; (c) informed engagement; (d) transparency; (e) influence; (f) articulating value; and (g) feasibility. The idea of enhanced forms of voice is likely to be challenged as infeasible in pension schemes and on matters of sustainable investing. I address this critique by presenting a qualitative, interpretative analysis of two governance innovations that engage beneficiaries: the Member Council and the Delegate Assembly. Both models are integrated into sustainability-focused pension organisations situated in mature, multi-pillar pensions systems, where beneficiaries have no or restricted opportunities to exit. The empirical findings explore how the practice of these models shape the realisation of the qualities of voice. Although I take the normative ambitions of voice seriously, I do not take a polemical stance that ignores the structural and contextual challenges to realising its promise. Instead, I draw out the locally specific conditions in each case study that enhance or encroach upon the realisation of voice. By drawing connections with the literature on citizen engagement in public governance, I examine the promise and challenge of institutionalised voice for pension schemes. I argue that while there are significant and pervasive obstacles, the conditions of pension schemes also provide an institutional setting conducive to voice. Moving forward, I suggest ways in which voice in pension scheme governance might be further enhanced and enriched

Undemocratic Crimes

One might assume that in a working democracy the criminal law rules would reflect the community’s shared judgments regarding justice and punishment. This is especially true because social science research shows that lay people generally think about criminal liability and punishment in consistent ways: in terms of desert, doing justice and avoiding injustice. Moreover, there are compelling arguments for demanding consistency between community views and criminal law rules based upon the importance of democratic values, effective crime-control, and the deontological value of justice itself. It may then come as a surprise, and a disappointment, that a wide range of common rules in modern criminal law seriously conflict with community justice judgments, including three strikes and other habitual offender statutes, abolition or narrowing of the insanity defense, adult prosecution of juveniles, felony murder, strict liability offenses, and a variety of other common doctrines. In short, democratically elected legislatures have regularly chosen to adopt criminal law rules that conflict with the deep and abiding intuitions of their constituents. We endeavor to explain how this incongruent situation has arisen. Using the legislative and political histories of the doctrines noted above, we document four common causes: legislative mistake about the community’s justice judgments, interest group pressure, prioritizing coercive crime-control mechanisms of general deterrence and incapacitation of the dangerous over doing justice, usually at the urging of academics or other experts, and legislative preference for delegating some criminalization decisions to other system actors, such as prosecutors and judges. Analysis of these reasons and their dynamics suggests specific reforms, including a legislative commitment to reliably determine community justice judgments before enactment and to publicly explain the reasons for enacting any criminal law rule that conflicts. Creation of a standing criminal law reform commission would be useful to oversee the social science research and to help hold the legislature to these public promises

The identification and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities on family-owned estates in the north-east of Scotland.

Family-owned estates face challenges achieving economic stability. Estate owners, including those in the North East of Scotland (the focus of this study) are committed to perpetuating family ownership. To enable this, entrepreneurial diversification is advocated by both landowner associations and rural consultancies. However, upper-class estate owners have historically been perceived to be reluctant to engage in entrepreneurial activities and some remain so. With other remunerative options available to them, this research investigates the identification and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities by estate owners in the North East of Scotland. Multiple perspectives drawn from institutional and entrepreneurial theory provide insights into estate owners' embeddedness in the institutions of family and social class, and their influence on the socially-constructed nature of entrepreneurial motivations, personality and process. Individual case studies of estate owners in the North East of Scotland provide rich insights into what activities estate owners engage in, and how and why they identify and exploit entrepreneurial opportunities. Cross-case analysis identifies patterns of similarity and difference between individual estates. Case-state estate owners are found to engage in similar ranges of activities, with a minority identifying and exploiting differentiated opportunities. Motivations are layered in nature. Explicit commitments to community and implicit commitments to family motivate estate owners to ensure continued financial stability of their estates. Awareness and identification of estate resources are push factors for estate owners to engage in entrepreneurial activities. Their entrepreneurial process consists of multiple, overlapping journeys, which consist of phases of awareness, identification, development, action and outcomes. Estate owners whose continued entrepreneurial activities have short-term requirements have retained traditional identities of estate owners or farmers, whereas those whose activities are planned to continue over a longer time are those who have embraced - albeit partially - entrepreneurial identities. Contributions have been made to theory and understanding in the areas of entrepreneurial process, personality and motivation. Contributions to policy and practice include recommendations to support estate owners engaging in entrepreneurial activities, aimed at both enterprise and/or landowner support organisations as well as policy makers. Finally, methodological contributions are made to the process of sampling and interviewing elites, and the use of individual case studies of elites and cross-case analysis

Glitched Rhetorics: Online Deliberation of New Technology

This dissertation examines public deliberation on the social media site reddit regarding two controversial technologies: Alexa and Bitcoin. Such vernacular deliberation of prominent new technologies is widespread online and increasingly significant—with Alexa and Bitcoin generating numerous controversies throughout the 2010s & early 2020s—yet understudied by rhetoric and media scholars. Arguments for and against the technologies consistently emerge, and so I ask: What are the terms, patterns, and logics in the binarized reddit deliberations of emergent technology? There is also an alternative rhetorical practice of those conflicted and ambivalent, yet not absent from the deliberations. I name it glitching, a paleologism used to describe a digital version of a transhistorical and transgressive anti-idealism (i.e., kynicism). My second question is: In what way do redditors glitch the deliberation of emergent technology? Rhetorical-archaeological analysis and digital rhetorical ethnography are the methods I utilize to answer the first and second questions, respectively. Arguments for Alexa employ terms “connect,” “work,” and “convenience,” in patterns emphasizing expertise and rationality, toward a logic of technological progress. “Listening” and “labor” are the terms which appear throughout anti-Alexa posts and comments, in patterns resembling investigative journalism, to advance a logic of economic justice. Pro-Bitcoin arguments employ terms “buy” and “celebration,” in a pattern resembling that of speculative finance, undergirding a logic of prosperity technology. “Privacy” and “scam” are the terms which appear throughout anti-Bitcoin posts and comments, in a pattern of technical expertise which supports logics of technological and financial skepticism. Glitched rhetorics are ambivalent and irreverent interruptions in the binary oscillation of vernacular deliberation about technology which frequently appear in online fora, and closely resemble the kynicism of Diogenes of Sinope. The glitched rhetorics about Alexa and Bitcoin diverge in extremeness, but share embrace of risk and use of sexual vulgarity to challenge customs and interrupt sober deliberations which otherwise lead to the synthesis of managed decline. Glitched rhetorics are not the collective action necessary for systemic change in the matter of society’s relationship to technology, but as a kynical signal not unlike the barking of a dog they persistently reveal that such action is necessary

The Merit - Diversity Paradox in Doctoral Admissions: Examining Situated Judgment in Faculty Decision Making.

The small base of extant research on doctoral admissions suggests a paradox between principles of merit and diversity: Faculty profess diversity, but rely on a conventional notion of merit that undermines diversity’s realization. To untangle this paradox and broaden understanding of graduate admissions, I conducted a comparative ethnographic case study focusing on the social construction of merit in Ph.D. admissions. Over two years of data collection in three research universities, I conducted 86 interviews with faculty and observed 22 hours of admissions committee meetings in ten highly ranked Ph.D. programs in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Guided by sociocultural theories of evaluation, decision making, and disciplines, I find that what counts as merit has an important organizational dimension that helps explain contradictions between espoused and enacted values. Merit is not just an individual attribute. It is also a significant organizational challenge that involves apparent contradictions because decision makers compromise across the multiple hierarchies of priorities for the discipline, department, committee, and self. At the department level, a logic of status maintenance affects decision-making processes, perceptions of risk, meanings associated with common criteria, and profiles of preferred applicants. In debating borderline applicants, diversity is an important consideration, as are research engagement and “fit.” However, faculty make broad, initial cuts using a very high standard of conventional achievement that may undermine diversity. Furthermore, participants associate diversity more with obligation and pragmatic benefits than personal commitment or organizational transformation. The decision-making model, which I call deliberative bureaucracy, maximizes efficiency and collegiality; however, it also reinforces reliance on GRE scores, obscures the basis for ratings and decisions, and sacrifices discussion of criteria and applicants in favor of discussing less-controversial matters of process. I also propose disciplinary logics as a mechanism explaining how disciplines affect faculty judgment, and explore four types of individual-level homophilic preferences that shape ratings and committee deliberations. Findings have broad implications for access to graduate education. They indicate a need to change the organizational culture of gatekeeping so that principles of equity, quality, and diversity are aligned across the evaluative contexts in which judgments of merit are situated.PhDHigher EducationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/99950/1/jposselt_1.pd