Adoption of information systems innovations by individuals: A study of processes involving contextual,adopter, and influencer actions

The extensive literature on the adoption of information systems (IS) or information technology (IT) innovations by individuals has primarily used a variance approach, focusing on individual, organizational, and technological factors that influence the level of adoption. Probably due to this focus on factors affecting adoption, little is known about the processes by which individuals adopt IS/IT innovations. Considering IS/IT adoption as an emergent process involving actions by the potential adopter, actions by individuals who might influence the adopter, and actions within the adopter’s context, we examined the ways in which these actions interacted with each other over time. We conducted optimal matching and cluster analyses using data from 27 interviews about the adoption of 30 IS/IT innovations.The emergent taxonomy includes three distinct processes by which individuals adopt innovations: Conscious Quest, Requisite Compliance, and Asserted Trial. The Conscious Quest process, which results in “full adoption,” seems to be driven by the adopter, with no social influence and no mandate. In contrast, in Requisite Compliance and Asserted Trial processes, both of which resulted in “partial adoption,” the adopter encounters considerable pressure, either from a contextual mandate (Requisite Compliance) or from influencers (Asserted Trial). Implications for research and practice are examined.     

Life in the Putty‐Knife Factory!1

ABSTRACT . The public choice approach can be used to analyze a wide variety of social phenomena, of which academic activity is one possible example. The object of this paper is to see if the public choice approach can throw useful light on its own rise as a potent body of ideas in contemporary social sciences. The particular focus is a set of reminiscences about the life of the Public Choice Center over the period 1969 to 1983 (and especially 1976 to 1983, when I was myself part of the Center). Reflecting on that period, I attempt to isolate those features of the Center's life that seem to me to have been most important to its success; and then ask broader questions about how much of that success public choice methods might illuminate. The aspect of public choice theory that I focus on in this connection is its account of agent motivation. I assert that the desire for esteem played a greater role in motivating the agents than the desire for “interests,” more narrowly construed. The paper concludes with some general thoughts about esteem as a motivating factor in academic circles and more generally.     

When Hard Heads Collide

ABSTRACT . In this article, Loren Lomasky begins with a firsthand account of some of the people he interacted with at the Center for the Study of Public Choice in Blacksburg and some of what he learned there. Aside from the revealing personal anecdotes, we learn something of the culture clash he experienced as a visiting fellow at the Center and about his introduction to intellectual activity as “blood sport.” Lomasky then reviews some of the strengths and weaknesses of public choice theory from a philosophical point of view and offers some suggestions. These primarily concern the theory's narrow focus on the material nature of interests. Finally, Lomasky offers techniques for including moral interests in the deliberations of decision makers.     

Collective Acceptance, Social Institutions, and Social Reality

ABSTRACT . The paper presents an account of social institutions on the basis of collective acceptance. Basically, collective acceptance by some members of a group involves the members’ collectively coming to hold and holding a relevant social attitude (a “we‐attitude”), viz. either one in the intention family of concepts or one in the belief family. In standard cases the collective acceptance must be in the “we‐mode,” viz. performed as a group member, and involve that it be meant for the group. The participants must be collectively committed to what they have accepted. Social institutions are taken to be norm‐governed social practices introducing a new social and conceptual status on the practices or some elements involved in those practices. This requires that some of the involved norms be constitutive norms as opposed to merely “accidentally” regulating ones. A classification of social institutions is presented. The account is broader in scope than is Searle’s.     

Can you market God? A case study of the ‘God Speaks’ social marketing campaign

• Public service campaigns, spanning more than 60 years and thousands of mass media advertisements, have asked individuals to take actions such as “Say No to Drugs” and “Keep America Beautiful,” as well as to support various nonprofit organizations. A case study of the “God Speaks” religious social marketing campaign is offered as an example of a non-traditional campaign that provides insights for future endeavors. Although the campaign, which began as a local paid media effort, appeared to have little measurable impact on attitudes and behavior, it was able to generate extensive non-paid media coverage that greatly increased its reach.

Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Throwaway Culture in the Economy of Exclusion: Pope Francis and Economists on Waste

An essential part of Pope Francis’s critique of the “economy of exclusion” is the concept of the “throwaway culture,” which is an attitude and a reality that goes beyond mere exclusion. Francis is building on critiques of consumerism (what John Paul II called “economism”) that noted both the environmental impacts of unnecessary waste and the social and human impact of reducing humans to mere consumers—the idea that happiness is shopping. Francis adds to this a concern for the people on the margins of society who are treated as disposable and for the consequences of climate change, both of which are connected to the throwaway attitude. This article looks at Francis’s views within the tradition of Catholic social thought and at how economists, especially Adam Smith, who provided the foundation for modern economics, looked at waste and consumerism.     

Strategies affecting Twitter-based networking pattern of South Korean politicians: social network analysis and exponential random graph model

This paper examines the Twitter networking pattern of “following” and “mention” relationships between South Korean politicians. The data were obtained from the Twitter profiles of Korea’s national assemblymen and the most influential political figures. We conducted social network techniques including exponential random graph model and a regression method. The results suggest that these politicians employ two different strategies to establish relationships with other politicians on Twitter. One is “following” other politicians as a social ritual based on dyadic reciprocity, and the other is to “mention” other politicians as asymmetric political support based on the public popularity of their peers on Twitter.     

Karol Wojtyła’s Katolicka Etyka Społeczna as Precursor and Hermeneutic Key to Pope John Paul II’s Economic Teaching

The highly anticipated publication of Karol Wojtyła’s Katolicka etyka społeczna (KES) in 2018 provides a novel and important basis for understanding the economic thinking of Pope John Paul II. The text is comprised of Wojtyła’s extensive lecture notes from the 1950s on the topic of Catholic social teaching and spans almost 500 pages. KES illustrates the future pope’s deep concern for economic justice as a young priest and his ambivalence towards capitalism, which persisted throughout his papacy. Given the size of KES, this article selectively focuses on Wojtyła’s treatment of topics of continuing relevance: the right of the Church to pronounce on economic matters; private property and the “social mortgage” on it; inequality, the just distribution of resources, and the “option for the poor”; the moral assessment of capitalism and Marxism; the dignity of labor and workers’ rights; and the role of conflict in promoting the common good. I contend that KES is consonant with the later papal teaching of John Paul II on economic justice and that it provides a hermeneutic key to understanding it. Furthermore, I argue that the “radicalism” of Karol Wojtyła on matters of economic justice in KES coheres with papal social teaching from Pope Paul VI through that of Pope Francis.     

A model of strategic delegation in contests between groups

We analyze a contest between two groups where group members have differing valuations for the contested rent. Generically the pivotal group member with the median valuation of the rent will not act himself but will want to send a group member that has preferences different to her own into the contest. The delegation can be either to more or less “radical” group members. The direction of delegation depends on the order of moves and the relative “aggressiveness” of the group medians. We show that almost certainly very asymmetric equilibria arise, even if the median group members value the rent (almost) equally. Delegation can lead to a social improvement in terms of resources spent in the contest. We are indebted to Tobias Boehm, Nicolas Klein, Kai Konrad, Dan Kovenock, Matthias Messner, Johannes Muenster, Ray Rees, Hans Zenger and seminar participants at the 2005 Meeting of the Public Choice Society, the European Public Choice Society, the Royal Economic Society, the WZB Berlin, and the Universities of Guelph and Munich for their comments and suggestions. The editor, Massimo Morelli, and an anonymous referee helped to substantially improve the paper.     

The life satisfaction of teachers at work place,research of structural equation modelling regarding general and organized cynicism

This research aims to determine both the predictive role and level of teachers’ life satisfaction, as well as general and organizational cynic perceptions in their workplace. The study sample was composed of 457 teachers who worked in the middle schools in the center and districts of Konya in 2016, who were randomly selected by group sampling. Analysis of the research data was conducted using the statistical program AMOS 18.0, according to structural equation modeling. In the research, loneliness in teachers’ professional lives was considered in two dimensions: as “emotional deprivation” and “social friendship.” According to the research findings, it is evident that organizational cynicism is the most important variable affecting teachers’ emotional deprivation and social companionship levels. The second most important variable affecting teachers' levels of emotional deprivation is general cynicism, while social companionship levels are more affected by life satisfaction. It is also seen that there is a negative relationship between the emotional deprivation and social friendship and life satisfaction variables. The results also demonstrate a slight but statistically significant relationship between the general cynicism and the social friendship levels of teachers.     

Cultural values and public policy: The case of international development aid

This paper investigates whether the quantity and character of aggregate expenditures on foreign aid by donor governments are related to the cultural values held by the people of the donor countries. In particular, we study whether any association exists between three measures of donors’ foreign aid expenditures and two dimensions of culture. We find that the shares of national income governments spend on aid, the proportion of total aid provided in the form of grants, and the proportion of aid directed to humanitarian relief are all related in statistically significant and quantitatively important ways to the location of the cultural values of people in the donor countries on two continua, one from “traditional” to “rational” beliefs about social organization and authority, and the other from “survival” to “self-expression” as the focus of individual aspirations. These results contribute to our understanding of the political economy of aid, and to a growing literature on how culture shapes economic policies, institutions, and performance.     

Pope Francis on Overcoming Exclusion: A Theological Vision with Economic and Social Implications

The ethical imperative to overcome exclusion is a key component of the social teachings and advocacy efforts of Pope Francis. At the very core of the pastoral and social vision he proposes is a drive to resist the global trend toward growing inequality and to encourage greater solidarity, which includes extending economic opportunities much more broadly. Even more vehemently than his papal predecessors, Francis insists on prioritizing the concrete well‐being of people facing hardship and oppression, so that nobody is relegated to the category of “the throwaway.” While the theme of mercy (a “soft” virtue, inasmuch as it involves voluntary action to overcome indifference and suffering) is prominent in many of his ethical appeals, Francis notably displays a distinctive structural analysis (a “hard” diagnostic tool) when addressing injustices in the global economy. The plights of victims of human trafficking, of global climate change, of restricted work opportunities due to globalization, and other causes of human suffering are best analyzed with ample attention to structures that require transformation. While economists and sociologists may be less interested in the underlying moral anthropology and spirituality that grounds the social teachings of Francis, it is undeniable that a coherent social vision undergirds the insistence of the Jesuit pope on greater social inclusion—a vision that applies to the full range of economic, environmental, and social issues. These concerns are on especially full display in two major teaching documents of Francis: his 2013 exhortation “The Joy of the Gospel” and his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’. In each, the pope employs an astute structural lens that reveals injustices and allows him to propose strategies to overcome inequality and exclusion.     

Platform market competition with endogenous side decisions

This paper develops a framework to analyze platform competition in two‐sided markets in which agents endogenously decide on which side of a platform to join. We characterize the equilibrium pricing structure and perform a comparative statics analysis on how the distribution of agents’ preferences affects the platforms’ profits. We also show that the market equilibrium under profit‐maximizing platforms leads to the first best social surplus, which illustrates the importance of the price mechanism to induce more balanced participation across the two sides. This framework can be applied to analyze market competition for “rental” or “sharing” platforms. In addition, we extend our analysis to consider an initial investment stage, which makes participants the owner of some durable goods to rent out.     

Two applications of the Points-of-View model to subject variations in sorting data

In many of the social sciences it is useful to explore the “working models” or mental schemata that people use to organise items from some cognitive or perceptual domain. With an increasing number of items, versions of the Method of Sorting become important techniques for collecting data about inter-item similarities. Because people do not necessarily all bring the same mental model to the items, there is also the prospect that sorting data can identify a range within the population of interest, or even distinct subgroups. Anthropology provides one tool for this purpose in the form of Cultural Consensus Analysis (CCA). CCA itself proves to be a special case of the “Points of View” approach. Here factor analysis is applied to the subjects’ method-of-sorting responses, obtaining idealized or prototypal modes of organising the items—the “viewpoints”. These idealised modes account for each subject’s data by combining them in proportions given by the subject’s factor loadings. The separate organisation represented by each viewpoint can be made explicit with clustering or multidimensional scaling. The technique is illustrated with job-sorting data from occupational research, and social-network data from primate behaviour.     

Flexible learning systems and obsolete organization structures: steps towards bridging the gap

This study explores the mismatch between existing learning systems and the members’ needs for learning in a large international organization. It responds to recent research which argues that members’ learning modes need to be understood and catered for in modern age organizations. Rather than arguing from “what should be”, however, it explores “what is”, by analysing the mismatch developing in a classical organization. Based on the findings, an instrumental model is elaborated, which combines structural and cognitive factors. A main argument is that learning systems and organization structure inhibit one another mutually, which prevents lasting change from taking place. The key to resolving mutual inhibition is to engage in a process of inquiry which focuses on the overall structure and also the learning systems. Three characteristics of such a process of inquiry are proposed as requirements for the resolution of mutual inhibition: social context, setting and proximity.     

Fuzzy-set method in comparative social policy: a critical introduction and review of the applications of the fuzzy-set method

This article critiques the Fuzzy-set Qualitative Analysis (fs/QCA) methodology by examining its applicability in three studies in the field of comparative social policy. In each of these three test cases, I focus on the validity of fuzzy-set’s claimed function—its ability to combine theoretic discourse and evidence analysis. All three studies investigate welfare state reform in the late twentieth century and apply fs/QCA: (1) “Welfare Reform in the Nordic Countries in the 1990s: Using Fuzzy-set Theory to Assess Conformity to Ideal Types,” (2) “States of Welfare or States of Workfare? Welfare State Restructuring in 16 Capitalist Democracies, 1985–2002,” and (3) “The Diversity and Causality of Welfare State Reforms Explored with Fuzzy-sets.” This article begins by discussing the ontology and epistemology of comparative social policy. The fuzzy set logic and set theoretic nature of social science theory is then discussed to align the ontology with fuzzy set methodology. Next, a more detailed introduction of fuzzy-set method (fs/QCA) is followed. This study suggests that fs/QCA is a unique and useful method for comparative social policy. It advances quantitative analysis by exploring cases configurationally and also advances the qualitative analysis by applying the fuzzy set logic and the principle of calibration.     

Predicting failure risk using financial ratios: Quantile hazard model approach

This study examines the role of financial ratios in predicting companies’ default risk using the quantile hazard model (QHM) approach and compares its results to the discrete hazard model (DHM). We adopt the LASSO method to select essential predictors among the variables mentioned in the literature. We show the preeminence of our proposed QHM through the fact that it presents a different degree of financial ratios’ effect over various quantile levels. While DHM only confirms the aftermaths of “stock return volatilities” and “total liabilities” and the positive effects of “stock price”, “stock excess return”, and “profitability” on businesses, under high quantile levels QHM is able to supplement “cash and short-term investment to total assets”, “market capitalization”, and “current liabilities ratio” into the list of factors that influence a default. More interestingly, “cash and short-term investment to total assets” and “market capitalization” switch signs in high quantile levels, showing their different influence on companies with different risk levels. We also discover evidence for the distinction of default probability among different industrial sectors. Lastly, our proposed QHM empirically demonstrates improved out-of-sample forecasting performance.     

Virtuous circle: Human capital and human resource management in social enterprises

The majority of the extant research on human resource management (HRM) draws conclusions based on evidence from for-profit organizations. In response to calls for the exploration of HRM in different contexts, this study focuses on understanding HRM in the context of social enterprises. The unique context of social enterprises and their unique workforce raise questions about the direct applicability of frameworks developed from examining HRM in for-profit organizations. The narratives provided by 20 CEOs, HR directors, and managers of social enterprises in the United Kingdom highlight the importance of “ethics of care” as the core of the HRM-related decisions in the “third sector.” In addition, we identify five distinct workforce categories and propose a typology of differentiated HRM systems that enable social enterprises to achieve their dual mission. Finally, we propose a “virtuous circle” model, highlighting “ethics of care” as the main driver for organizational outcomes, using differentiated HRM systems that better serve their needs.