How to get into flow with it: measuring the paradoxes in digital knowledge work

Digitized knowledge workers are exposed to various technology-, individual- and work-related factors resulting in multiple paradoxes that may promote or hinder their capacity to work. This paper elaborates on how emerging paradoxes of IT usage impact the flow experience for daily planning tasks of knowledge workers. To study the impact beyond effective use of IT on flow, we conducted a survey study with 336 participants in a mixed-method approach combining PLS-SEM and fsQCA. Our results show that the digital working method could positively influence the flow experience overall. A full mediation of perceived behavioral control, representing the paradox control and chaos, and representational fidelity, representing clarity and ambiguity, on flow, was confirmed. Our fsQCA results support the conclusion that increasing IT penetration alone is insufficient to experience work flow. It depends on how knowledge workers interact with the IT in their specific task environment, balancing the dialectical tensions at work, with some differences between genders and within specific industries. We discuss the study\u27s implications for research and practice

Built Space Hinders Lived Space: Social Encounters and Appropriation in Large Housing Estates

The fundamental structural, demographic, and socio-economic changes afflicting large housing estates in Eastern German cities raise questions about how these neighborhoods could be maintained and developed into attractive residential locations where people want to live and settle down. Besides personal, social, economic, and even administrative factors, individual location decisions are influenced by the physical conditions of space and how they affect a sense of "home" - a crucial precondition for long-term habitation. In terms of urban planning and regeneration activities, we ask: To what extent do the current physical and infrastructural conditions ("built space") of large housing estates encourage residents to "feel at home"? We understand home as an atmosphere of well-being and belonging that is based on the individual and communal appropriation of spaces, which in turn presupposes the possibility of contact and social exchanges among neighbors. The concept of "home" we present here is grounded in philosophical anthropology, new phenomenology, and architectural theory. It provides a specific spatial approach to housing from which we develop indicators to evaluate space. In particular, we apply the concept of "lived space" to evaluate infrastructural amenities, open and green spaces, as well as built structures in three case studies of large housing estates in East German cities. We aim to uncover local potentials for and obstacles to spatial appropriation and encounters in these settings. This allows us to draw conclusions on how urban regeneration policies and measures can make large housing estates more liveable in the long term by promoting encounters and appropriation

Der Einfluss der postsozialistischen Wandlungsprozesse auf die Aushandlung der Geschlechterrollen in Serbien

"In dem Artikel wird am Beispiel Serbiens der Einfluss politischer und sozialer Wandlungsprozesse auf die Aushandlung der Geschlechterrollen verdeutlicht. Im Zentrum der Betrachtung steht der Zeitraum von 1980 bis 2009. Obwohl die Geschlechter de jure bereits gleichgestellt waren, blieb die praktische Umsetzung der Gleichstellung im sozialistischen Jugoslawien, zum Beispiel hinsichtlich unbezahlter Familienarbeit und Erwerbstätigkeit, trotz sichtbarer Fortschritte problematisch. Eine mit dem Zerfall Jugoslawiens und den kriegerischen Auseinandersetzungen in den 1990er Jahren einhergehende Militarisierung der Geschlechterrollen verschärfte auch die genderspezifische publicprivate-division erneut. Erst seitdem mit dem Sturz Milosevic's der eigentliche Demokratisierungsprozess begann, treten nationalistische Gendervorstellungen wieder in den Hintergrund. Die praktische Aufteilung der Verantwortlichkeiten zwischen den Geschlechtern wird nun zunehmend von marktwirtschaftlichen Prinzipien geprägt." (Autorenreferat)"In the following article the influence of social and political developments on the negotiation of gender roles will be outlined using the example of Serbia. The analysis will focus on the years 1980 to 2009. Even though in socialist Yugoslavia gender equality had been legally confirmed its de facto implementation remained problematic. This will be demonstrated using, for instance, the example of the division of paid and unpaid work. When Yugoslavia was falling apart and a violent war of secession was being carried out in the region the gender-specific public-private division in Serbia was even more enforced by an increasing militarization of society. It was only when Milosevic' was overthrown that the democratization of Serbia could really begin. Since then nationalistic gender roles have slowly lost importance again. Instead the division of responsibilities between women and men has become more and more influenced by the implementation of market economy." (author's abstract

Spezielle Silazanderivate von Digallan(4) und Diindan(4) mit Ga-Ga- bzw. In-In-Bindung

Al, Ga and In can easily be incorporated in the cyclic silazane (MeSi)2(NtBu)4H2(LH2) through formal substitution of the hydrogen atoms by the metallic elements. LAlMe, LAlCl, LGaCl, LInCl as well as the side product L(H)InCl2 are obtained in high yields. X-ray structure determinations confirm the molecules LAlMe and L(H)InCl2 to be polycyclic and the metallic atoms to be four-coordinated by intramolecular nitrogen donors. When LAlCl, LGaCl and LInCl are reduced by sodium naphthalene, in the two latter cases the formation of LGaGaL and LInInL is observed. An X-ray structure determination of LInInL shows an InIn bond of 2.768(1) A° with the two indium atoms being coordinated by three nitrogen atoms each (InN ranging from 2.12(1)-2.298(7) A°). LGaGaL and LInInL can be considered as the first amides of GaII and InII

Prevention of familial transmission of depression: EFFEKT-E, a selective program for emotionally burdened families

Aim: Parental depression is a strong risk factor for depression in children and is associated with offspring's behavioral problems. Therefore, prevention measures should aim to reduce the transmission of risk to children of depressed mothers. In this paper, description and evaluation results are reported for EFFEKT-E (Entwicklungsförderung in Familien: Eltern- und Kinder-Training in emotional belasteten Familien), a prevention program to be used in the setting of mother–child rehabilitation clinics. EFFEKT-E is a family-oriented program including parent training and social skills training for pre-school children. Subjects and methods: The evaluation study contained 375 mothers and their children. The program was evaluated in a quasi-experimental pre-post-follow-up design using instruments on parenting behavior and children’s emotional and behavioral problems. Results: Evaluation showed satisfying out reach and implementation of the program. Compared to a treatment-as-usual condition, EFFEKT-E children exhibited less emotional disruption and hyperactivity. Mother's sense of parental competence was promoted, problematic parenting behavior decreased. Conclusion: EFFEKT-E is an evidence-based selective program which has the potential to prevent intergenerational transmission of depression

Penalty contracts: is it all about paying the cash upfront?

We experimentally investigate the relevance of a cash upfront payment for the effort-enhancing effect of penalty contracts. We find that penalty contracts where participants receive the upfront payment physically before working on a real effort task induce more effort than penalty contracts where participants are only informed about the upfront payment. When comparing penalty contracts with economically-equivalent bonus contracts, we find that penalty contracts lead to higher effort provision than bonus contracts, but only if participants physically receive the upfront cash payment in advance. We suggest that the higher salience of the cash upfront payment might be a core driver of the detected framing effect. Our findings emphasize the importance of experimental design choices when studying framed incentive contracts

Selfish Creation of Social Networks

Understanding real-world networks has been a core research endeavor throughout the last two decades. Network Creation Games are a promising approach for this from a game-theoretic perspective. In these games, selfish agents corresponding to nodes in a network strategically decide which links to form to optimize their centrality. Many versions have been introduced and analyzed, but none of them fits to modeling the evolution of social networks. In real-world social networks, connections are often established by recommendations from common acquaintances or by a chain of such recommendations. Thus establishing and maintaining a contact with a friend of a friend is easier than connecting to complete strangers. This explains the high clustering, i.e., the abundance of triangles, in real-world social networks. We propose and analyze a network creation model inspired by real-world social networks. Edges are formed in our model via bilateral consent of both endpoints and the cost for establishing and maintaining an edge is proportional to the distance of the endpoints before establishing the connection. We provide results for generic cost functions, which essentially only must be convex functions in the distance of the endpoints without the respective edge. For this broad class of cost functions, we provide many structural properties of equilibrium networks and prove (almost) tight bounds on the diameter, the Price of Anarchy and the Price of Stability. Moreover, as a proof-of-concept we show via experiments that the created equilibrium networks of our model indeed closely mimics real-world social networks. We observe degree distributions that seem to follow a power-law, high clustering, and low diameters. This can be seen as a promising first step towards game-theoretic network creation models that predict networks featuring all core real-world properties.Comment: Appears in the 35th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), 202