Knowledge management through the development of knowledge repositories: towards work degradation

This paper questions the consequences of the use of electronic knowledge repositories for work and employment. Drawing on critical research suggesting that knowledge management associated with such tools presents similarities to scientific management principles, it proposes to examine the following key research question: how do employees experience the transformation of the employment relationship when a knowledge repository is introduced to the workplace? The inquiry is grounded in an exploratory qualitative case study of a knowledge management system designed to foster knowledge‐sharing in a Belgian public administration. The findings illustrate two complementary outcomes: this system resulted in employees experiencing deskilling and work degradation, and was met with resistance. Significantly, this paper considers work degradation as a reflexive phenomenon in the context studied, where knowledge‐sharing systems produced deskilling and resistance as part of a specific re‐regulation process.     

醇基涂料的研究现状与展望

介绍了醇基涂料的应用和研究现状,简述了消失模醇基涂料、V法醇基涂料、湿型砂醇基涂料、醇基流涂涂料以及厚大铸钢件醇基涂料的相关研究及应用效果,分析了醇基涂料的主要性能,如悬浮性、抗粘砂性等的研究成果,以及醇基涂料的性能要求和发展趋势,指出耐火骨料的粒度、级配和悬浮剂的选用对改善涂料悬浮性有重要作用,纳米复合悬浮剂、改性悬浮剂的使用使涂料悬浮性得到显著提高;不同粒度组合的耐火骨料和助熔剂的加入能改善涂料的抗粘砂性能,而转移涂料、醇基粉状涂料是未来醇基涂料的发展趋势,得出应研发具有水与醇兼溶的特殊悬浮剂和黏结剂来进一步提高涂料的悬浮性以及研制出强度高、抗开裂的高强涂料来提高涂料的抗粘砂性能。     

基于ADS1248高精度测温装置的设计

针对疫苗的运送及仓储过程中对环境温度的严格要求,设计了高精度的测温装置。选用了Pt100作为温度传感器,采用四线制测量方法去除了传输线上的干扰,设计了比例测量法使系统的精度仅依赖于一个高精度电阻。选用的ADS1248芯片内部包含了PGA放大器及24位ADC芯片,降低了装置的复杂性,同时具有较高的分辨率。经测试,本装置的测温精确达到0.1℃,能够满足疫苗的运送及仓储的要求。     

混凝土曲线梁桥裂缝成因分析及相应对策

针对目前混凝士曲线箱梁桥普遍开裂的情况,从温度变化、预应力、混凝土收缩与徐变、支座设置、设计计算模型和施工方法等方面对裂缝成闲进行了分析。从设计计算、施工和加固措施等方面对梁桥裂缝的防治提出相应对策。     

Enhanced job satisfaction under tighter technological control: The paradoxical outcomes of digitalisation

Via a multiple case study of work in microfinance institutions in India, this paper reports on the experiences of field officers and branch managers following work digitalisation. It identifies and explains an intriguing post-digitalisation paradox of reported increased job satisfaction and tighter technological control diminishing branch managers' work-life balance. The paradox draws attention to the significance of context in workers' experiences of mobile digital technologies (MDTs) and contradicts previous studies on workers' positive experiences of adopting MDTs: the workers in this study did not experience greater autonomy or flexibility but reported enhanced employment security and status. The paper also adds to literature on employment relations following work digitalisation by revealing powerful enforcement of technological control, with ‘WhatsApp’ identified as a key managerial tool used for surveillance and discipline, and worker resistance at the margins.     

United we stand,divided we fall: the failure of an accounting information system in a major radiology provider

This article explores the way in which a major Australian radiology organization implemented a complex accounting information system and how workers in the 72 radiology practices that had to use it resisted the change. The study reports on the issues that led to the circumvention of the system by individuals and, after only three years, complete withdrawal of the accounting information system by the parent organization. This article has implications for firms in the health care and other sectors considering implementing new accounting information systems. Organizations need to incorporate change management techniques and provide open communication to all stakeholders to minimize disruption and potential problems.     

Departures from Everyday Resistance and Flexible Strategies of Domination: The Making and Unmaking of a Poor Peasant Mobilization in Bangladesh

James Scott's influential work has popularized the notion that everyday resistance among the peasantry takes covert and backstage forms, termed 'weapons of the weak'. This paper, however, provides a case study involving transformation of covert resistance and outward compliance of the poor into open dissent and confrontation with power-holders, though falling well short of the limiting conditions of rebellion or revolution. Such instances serve to dispel the notion that poor and weak groups adopt only covert forms of resistance in their everyday existence. The paper takes up the questions of why, and under what circumstances, such transformation of covert resistance into overt forms can come about. These issues are explored using evidence from a poor peasant mobilization in rural Bangladesh during the parliamentary election of 1986. The analysis shows that there were sequential shifts in the respective strategies of domination and resistance of the rich and the poor, which shaped each other interactively over a dynamic trajectory. Such adaptive and variable responses require an approach that can accommodate flexibility and substitution in the strategies adopted by the weak and the powerful. These also call for further exploration and analysis of the middle ground between everyday and exceptional forms of resistance.     

Barriers toward purchasing from online travel agencies

Online travel agencies (OTAs) are expanding their services to many segments of the travel and tourism industry. While they are beneficial to travelers, OTAs also face a great deal of consumer resistance. However, prior literature has largely focused on travelers’ adoption intentions toward OTAs, scarcely exploring the causes of such resistance. Addressing the gap, this study extends the innovation resistance theory (IRT) to examine the barriers to positive purchase intentions toward OTAs. A mixed method research design with open-ended essays and cross-sectional survey is used to test the proposed model. Findings suggest that benefits barrier is the chief inhibitor of purchase intentions. In comparison, privacy and security concerns and the vulnerability barrier show positive association with intentions. As a moderator, visibility influences the strength of the association between benefits barrier and purchase intentions. Further, the strength of this association differs among young, middle-aged, and old users.     

Falling walls and lifting curtains: analysis of border effects in transition countries

Since McCallum's (1995 McCallum, J. 1995. National borders matter: Canada-US regional trade patterns. American Economic Review, 85(3): 615–23. [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) finding of surprisingly high border effects on trade between the US and Canada, there have been a number of studies on other parts of the world, and improvements made to the gravity model to measure this effect accurately. This paper suggests some other modifications to the model, and applies it to a region of the world that presents a distinctly interesting case. Changes in border effects of formerly socialist countries in Central and East Europe, and countries in the former Soviet Union are analyzed during 1976–2002 at country and sectoral levels, and also with respect to blocs of countries. A discussion on cross-country variations in border effects follows the computations.     

On market forces and adjustments: acknowledging consumer creativity through the aesthetics of ‘debadging’

Abstract

This paper explores the social dynamics by means of which market forces are enacted at the level of everyday consumption. In particular, it draws on Holt's (2002 Holt, D.B. 2002. Why do brands cause trouble? A dialectical theory of consumer culture and branding. Journal of Consumer Research, 29: 70–90. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) notion that as ‘unruly bricoleurs’, consumers kick-start processes of market adjustment and innovation through improvising ways to negotiate the demands of daily life. In this way, consumers can become active players in realising new possibilities for identity construction and empowerment that involve the creative re-appropriation of marketer-based meaning. To investigate those issues, we turn to a virtual community in the empirical setting of car customisation. Over an eight-month period, an internet-based methodology generated textual observations of online posting activity on five internet newsgroups attracting those interested in the particular pursuit of car modification. Participants used those web-forums to share information, passions, and enthusiasms. Analysis shows that grounded aesthetics function as vehicles for creativity and the reworking of dominant market logics (Vargo & Lusch, 2004 Vargo, S.L. and Lusch, R.F. 2004. Evolving to a new dominant logic for marketing. Journal of Marketing, 68: 1–18. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). We conclude that online discussion threads offer valuable access to the emergent interplay of discursive resources in circulation among virtual communities and that this has implications for the conduct of environmental scanning. The paper illustrates how the discursive resource-base is nurtured, sustained, and transformed through various interpellations, including performing claims to prestige and self-defining distinctions, as well as constructing narratives of personal history and social dynamics.