Essays on the organizational consequences of on-line behavior of audiences

Over the past 2 decades, internet use has become increasingly more a part of our every-day lives. We communicate with our friends and colleagues using the internet, we work using the internet, we also shop using the internet. We learn and increase our knowledge from information available on the internet. While on the one hand, we advance from the instant access to online contexts individualistically, on the other hand we participate as members of a community for example when we share our experiences online. The ever growing use of the internet and its flourish in new segments of our daily life brings significant changes not only to us, the individuals, but also to the organizations. In the past decade, there has been a shift in the field of organizational theory considering the environment of organizations. Current approaches extend the horizon of the classical view proclaiming that organizational environment is not only constituted by rival organizations but also their audience members. Several studies found evidence that audience members' perceptions and behavior influence organizational success. For example, category-spanning organizations on average suffer from social and economic disadvantages in markets because they cannot meet the expectations of their audiences. This shift towards understanding the effect of audience responses on the organizational outcome motivates my dissertation. More specifically, I study how individuals on-line behavior affects organizations. I analyze three aspects of internet mediated communication and their consequences to the organization. Firstly, I address the need to compare how traditional face-to-face communication compares to the modern email communication (Chapter 2). Studies tend to take it for granted, that on-line information exchange mirrors it's off-line counterpart at the work place. Although, there are great advantages in the availability of email data, as it retains communication in its completeness, it does not fully correspond to previously studied relations, like friendship or advice seeking. The characteristics of on-line communications also differ from off-line information exchange. Employees respect divisional and hierarchical boundaries in face-to-face conversations while these boundaries are blurred out within the email exchange. Secondly, I analyze a special type of on-line behavior, the on-line word-of-mouth communication among audience members (Chapter 3). Online reviews play an increasingly important role in shaping organizational performance. Drawing conclusions on how customers perceive quality and typicality of a producer and how it manifests in on-line ratings increase the predictability of producer success. Thirdly, I approach audience behavior from a collective behavior perspective (Chapter 4). Specifically, I analyze audience dynamics with threshold models. Doing so I address the micro level mechanism of how audience behavior creates certain macro level patterns of producer success rather than assuming that they are simple aggregates of individual characteristics

Felhagyott alföldi homoktalajok mikrobiális közösség összetételének, biomasszájának és aktivitásának vizsgálata. = Microbial community structure, biomass and activity in sandy soils of abandoned fields of the Great Plain

A korábban művelt, de felhagyott területek ökológiai helyreállítása gazdasági és ökológiai szempontból is kívánatos lenne. A homokpuszta gyepek restaurációjának módszereit a talajban zajló tápanyag-dinamikai és az azzal összefüggő mikrobiális tevékenységek szempontjából tanulmányoztuk. A kezelések célja a nitrogén immobilizációjának elősegítésén keresztül a másodlagos szukcesszió felgyorsítása volt. A szénforrás-kezelések hatására a talajok mikrobiális biomasszája megnőtt. A nitrogén hozzáférhetőségét a kezelések csökkentették, ezáltal a gyomnövények biomasszája is lecsökkent, de ez nem vezetett szükségszerűen a natív növényfajok abundanciájának növekedéséhez. A természetes növényzet előretörését csak azokon a területeken figyeltük meg, ahol jelentős mennyiségű propagulum-forrás volt a talajban. A kombinált kezelések (kaszálás, C-forrás-kezelés, felülvetés természetes növényzet magjaival) növelték a természetes gyepi növények abundanciáját, a felvehető N tartalom csökkenése mellett. A bolygatatlan gyepterület mikrobiális közösségének stabilitását a bolygatott területtel szemben alátámasztotta a K-stratégista baktériumok nagyobb abundanciája, és a közösség struktúrájának kisebb szezonális változása, vagyis a bolygatatlan élőhely talajmikrobiális közössége nagyobb rezilienciával rendelkezett, mint a bolygatott. Ezek az eredmények fontos előrelépést jelentenek a művelésből kivont területeken a természetes növénytársulásokhoz hasonló növényzet kialakításában. | Ecological restoration of abandoned fields is favoured both in economic and ecological point of view. The restoration methodology of native sand grassland plant communities was studied focusing on soil nutrient dynamics and related microbiological processes. The aim of C amendments and other treatments was to promote microbial N immobilisation and through this to accelerate secondary succession. Carbon treatments (sawdust and sucrose) resulted in a significant increase in microbial biomass C and biomass N by approximately 20 percent. N availability was reduced significantly by C amendments, and the weed biomass decreased as well, but the abundance of native species was not observed in most cases. Native vegetation advanced only at sites having in appropriate amount of propagules in soils. Sawdust used in high rate can be unfavourable in long term resulting net N mineralisation through the priming effect. Combined treatments (mowing, C addition, reseeding by native species) increased the abundance of natural elements, whereas the available nutrients decreased. The higher level of stability of the soil microbial community at natural grassland against the disturbed sites was supported by the larger abundance of K-strategist bacteria and also the smaller seasonal change, therefore the microbial community had greater resilience at undisturbed grassland site than that had at disturbed ones. These achievements are important in restoring of native plant communities at set-aside fields

The Concept and Measurement of Legislative Backsliding

The article examines the concept of legislative backsliding and offers a measurement strategy for its empirical analysis. Legislative backsliding is defined as a move away from liberal democracy in four critical dimensions of legislative quality, its public policy; legal-constitutional-formal; procedural; and stability aspects. We operationalise each of these dimensions with their separate indices relying on components such as stakeholder consultations, time passed between bill introduction and passing the law as well as results of constitutional reviews. We use qualitative mini case studies from Hungary, widely considered from 2010 on to be a poster child for democratic backsliding, to illustrate the viability of the proposed measurement strategy. We find that laws which show deficiencies in terms of legislative quality exhibit them in not just but several dimensions. Based on the case studies we offer insights into scaling up the law-level analysis to the level of legislative cycles and show how the legislative quality index can be used to measure macro-level legislative backsliding

Regulation of mouse microglia activation and effector functions by bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells

Mesenchymal stem or stromal cells (MSCs) are rare multipotent cells with potent regenerative and immunomodulatory properties. Microglial cells are specialized tissue macrophages of the central nervous system (CNS) that continuously survey their environment with highly motile extensions. Recently several studies have shown that MSCs are capable of reprogramming microglia into an “M2-like” phenotype characterized by increased phagocytic activity and upregulated expression of anti- inflammatory mediators in vitro. However, the precise polarization states of microglia in the presence of MSCs under physiological or under inflammatory conditions remain largely unknown. In this study, we found that MSCs induce a mixed microglia phenotype defined as Arg-1-high, CD86-high, CD206-high, IL-10-high, PGE2-high, MCP-1/CCL2-high, IL-1β- moderate, NALP-3-low, and TNF-α-low cells. These MSC-elicited microglial cells have high phagocytic activity and antigen-presenting ability. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) is able to shape this microglia phenotype quantitatively, but not qualitatively in the presence of MSCs. This unique polarization state resembles a novel regulatory microglia phenotype, which might contribute to the resolution of inflammation and to tissue repair in the CNS