The Eliza effect and its dangers: from demystification to gender critique

This essay provides a gender critique of the Eliza effect. It delineates the way in which the Eliza effect is operationalised in AI research even as it is ostensibly demystified, for example in the writings of Douglas Hofstadter and Joseph Weizenbaum. It then exposes the gendered assumptions embedded in the nomenclature used to name this misperception of the computer as having capabilities equivalent to the human. It traces the genealogy of that nomenclature back through Weizenbaum’s ELIZA, to George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. A close reading of the play is deployed in order to reveal the structural inequities of gender, class, and who or what gets to be human, that are both explored in the play and encoded in the operation and operationalisations of the Eliza effect. It concludes by attending to that operation and operationalisation in relation to today’s Virtual Personal Assistant’s, and makes a case for the importance of critique in order to expose the inequitable structures of power obscured and compounded by the Eliza effect – both its name, and that which it names

The sociomateriality of organisational life: considering technology in management research

Drawing on a specific scenario from a contemporary workplace, I review some of the dominant ways that management scholars have addressed technology over the past five decades. I will demonstrate that while materiality is an integral aspect of organisational activity, it has either been ignored by management research or investigated through an ontology of separateness that cannot account for the multiple and dynamic ways in which the social and the material are constitutively entangled in everyday life. I will end by pointing to some possible alternative perspectives that may have the potential to help management scholars take seriously the distributed and complex sociomaterial configurations that form and perform contemporary organisations

The significance of seniority for women managers’ interpretations of organizational restructuring

This paper examines the impact of restructuring within the transport and logistics sector on women managers working at senior and less senior (middle/junior management) levels of the organization. The majority of women experienced increased performance pressures and heavier workloads as well as an increase in working hours. At the same time, there were pressures to work at home (i.e. week-ends and evenings) and reduced opportunities to work from home (i.e. during normal office hours). Management level emerged as an important factor in how these changes were interpreted. Senior managers perceived more positive outcomes in terms of increased motivation and loyalty. Despite a longer working week, they were less likely to report low morale as an outcome from long hours. In fact, irrespective of management level, women working shorter hours were more likely to report low morale as an outcome. Results are discussed in relation to literature on restructuring and careers, in terms of perceptual framing and in relation to different levels of investment in the organization

Organisational participation and women - an attitude problem?

Employee participation is a dynamic and contested area of organisational behaviour, attracting continuing academic, practitioner and policy interest and debate. This chapter focuses on organisational participation and women

College Students, Technology, and Time

Our research explores CUNY students’ lived experiences using digital technology in and out of class, on and off campus. Beyond checking grades or emailing a professor, students use digital technology to create space and time for their schoolwork. However, technology can also impede students’ opportunities for making space and time. Understanding how students use digital technology is crucial for colleges and universities to better support students in their academic work

Integrating social nutrition principles into the treatment of steatotic liver disease

Current treatment of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) focuses on adjusting patients’ lifestyles, including promoting weight loss and physical activity. Here, we suggest adopting a holistic preventive hepatology approach encompassing social nutrition, social prescribing and broader societal changes to facilitate individuals’ engagement with behavioural modifications

Technology use, adoption and behaviour in older adults: results from the iStoppFalls Project

Technology use is a common constituent of modern life. However, little is known about older adults’ use of technology. This article presents a subset of data collected via the technology deployed in the iStoppFalls randomized control trial. The primary focus lies on questions about digital device/Internet use, ownership, length, and frequency as well as social networking. Data was collected from participants aged 65 years or older. Seventy-eight participants completed a specifically developed technology survey as part of the baseline assessment. Results showed that the majority of subjects owned a computer with men being its main user. Participants used technological devices on a daily basis for more than 1 year. The main reason for using technology was e-mail communication, search engines, text processing, and online shopping. Only a few participants used social network applications, with Google+ and Facebook being the most popular ones. Future work should consider an in-depth qualitative approach to further increase understanding of technology use in older adults

Microfinance and loan officers' work experiences: perspectives from Zambia

This article studies the challenges faced by microfinance institutions in Zambia, whose remit it is to provide financial services to the poor. It focuses on loan officers – the agents of delivery on the ground. With reference to loan officers’ experiences and words, the paper examines how gender and education shape and structure their day-to-day encounters. The study finds that different social spaces – ’the office’ and ‘the field’ – and wider context explains the gendered, culturally complex and multidimensional nature of developmental work at grassroots level. Social expectations emerge as major pressure points more for female loan officers than their male counterparts, making them less suitable for microfinance work, which has traditionally targeted poor women