Johan Nordgren and Fredrik Tiberg
Drug sales facilitated through digital communication on the surface web and on darknet cryptomarkets have increased during the past two decades. This has resulted in an increase…
Abstract
Purpose
Drug sales facilitated through digital communication on the surface web and on darknet cryptomarkets have increased during the past two decades. This has resulted in an increase in drug law enforcement efforts to combat these markets and a subsequent increase in judicial sentencing of people selling drugs online. The aim of this study was to analyze how Swedish courts describe sentenced sellers and how the courts apply case law.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical material consists of 71 sentencing documents produced by Swedish courts in cases of online drug selling between January 1, 2010 and January 1, 2020. In total, 99 sentenced persons occur in the documents. Using a qualitative research design, the authors analyzed the material through thematic text analysis.
Findings
Overall, in their descriptions of online drug sale operations, the courts’ characterizations of the concepts of street capital and digital capital show a dichotomy. These forms of capital are situationally described as both aggravating and mitigating aspects in the application of case law, indicating that it may be fruitful to view both street and digital capital as resources used on contemporary drug markets in general.
Originality/value
Very little research exists into how judicial systems describe and perceive the developing phenomenon of online drug sales. Using a relatively large sample from a decade of sentencing, the authors provide an analysis of how Swedish courts view and valuate capital forms in the online drugs trade.
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This article aims to analyse the discourse about khat in the Swedish newspaper media and to present the concept of moral entrepreneurship as a useful analytical tool for…
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to analyse the discourse about khat in the Swedish newspaper media and to present the concept of moral entrepreneurship as a useful analytical tool for understanding mobilisation against khat use in the Somali diaspora.
Design/methodology/approach
The material analysed consists of daily newspaper articles about khat published between 1986 and 2012. The method of analysis is inspired by the critical discourse analysis framework developed by Norman Fairclough. Drawing on Howard S. Becker's concept of moral entrepreneur, the article focuses on anti‐khat campaigners who speak out against khat in the media. These are often representatives from Somali voluntary associations or organisations, who sometimes employ moral entrepreneurship. The article discusses these actors' role in framing khat use as a tangible threat to the Somali community in Sweden.
Findings
When employing moral entrepreneurship, anti‐khat campaigners spread a certain type of knowledge about khat that is presented to the general public via the media. The key issues that repeatedly are of concern are how khat destroys Somali families and how the use might spread to other groups. In this manner khat use is constructed as a threat to Somali social cohesion. The knowledge produced could potentially influence policy makers to introduce stricter punishments for possession, sale and use of khat, thereby possibly increasing stigma and marginalisation in relation to the Somali immigrant community.
Originality/value
The literature about khat has pointed to the centrality of Somali organisations mobilising against khat in the diaspora. This article presents moral entrepreneurship as a theoretical tool to further the understanding of the mobilisation against khat and its use.
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Jonas Boström, Helene Hillborg and Johan Lilja
The purpose of this paper is to contribute knowledge concerning the dynamics and potential cultural tensions that occur when applying user involvement and design thinking (DT) for…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to contribute knowledge concerning the dynamics and potential cultural tensions that occur when applying user involvement and design thinking (DT) for improving quality in a health-care setting.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is based on a case study following a quality improvement (QI) project in a medium-sized Swedish county council in the field of somatic care. The project involved eight health-care professionals, one designer, four patients and two relatives. A multiple data collection method over a period of ten months was used. It included individual interviews, e-mail correspondence and observations of workshops that covered the QI project.
Findings
The result shows tensions between QI work and the daily clinical work of the participants. These tensions primarily concern the conflict between fast and slow processes, the problem of moving between different fields of knowledge, being a resource for the individual clinic and the system and the participants’ expectations and assumptions about roles and responsibilities in a QI project. Furthermore, these findings could be interpreted as signs of a development culture in the health-care context.
Practical implications
There are several practical implications. Among others, the insights can inspire how to approach and contextualize the current concepts, roles and methods of DT and user involvement so that they can be more easily understood and integrated into the existing culture and way of working in the health-care sector.
Originality/value
This study provides a unique insight into a case, trying to uncover what actually is going on and perhaps, why certain things are not happening at all, when user involvement and design practices are applied for improving health-care quality.
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Jonas Boström, Helene Hillborg and Johan Lilja
The purpose of this paper is to explore and describe the perspectives and reasoning of senior development leaders in healthcare organizations, when reflecting on design as theory…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore and describe the perspectives and reasoning of senior development leaders in healthcare organizations, when reflecting on design as theory and practice in relation to more traditional methods and tools for improving quality and support innovation.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on a qualitative interview design with five development and innovation leaders from separate healthcare regions in Sweden. They have, to varying degrees, applied design theory and practice for quality improvement and innovation in their organizations. The interview transcript was analysed using a content analysis together with an interpretive approach.
Findings
The major findings are to be found in the balancing act for leadership and organizations in healthcare when it comes to introducing and combining different theories and practices for improving quality and support innovation. The balance is between the change in power dynamics and pushing traditional boundaries in a complex healthcare world.
Practical implications
The narratives from the leaders' experience of applying design theory and practice for improving healthcare quality can help us create readiness and knowledge about how we prevent and/or facilitate planning and implementing design theories, practices, methods and tools in a healthcare context.
Originality/value
The study provides a unique insight when it captures and illustrates five different organizations' experiences when applying design for developing healthcare quality.
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Johan Österberg and Emma Jonsson
Purpose – The purpose of the study was to get a deeper understanding of officers’ views of the factors that contribute to army ranger conscripts’ willingness to apply for…
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of the study was to get a deeper understanding of officers’ views of the factors that contribute to army ranger conscripts’ willingness to apply for international military service as well as to look at the officers’ own role in the recruitment process.
Methodology/approach – A grounded theory approach was used. Nine officers from the Swedish Army Ranger Battalion were interviewed.
Findings – Factors that seem to promote the possibility to recruit conscripts to international military service could be understood from five main categories: international military service, education, officers, the Swedish Army Ranger Battalion, and recruitment.
Originality/value of paper – Interviewing key figures in the recruitment process of the Swedish Armed Forces.
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Lennart Thurfjell, John McLaughlin, Johan Mattsson and Piet Lammertse
Haptics is an emerging technology that allows touch‐enabled interaction with virtual objects. Analogous to the use of computer graphics for rendering of a three‐dimensional (3D…
Abstract
Haptics is an emerging technology that allows touch‐enabled interaction with virtual objects. Analogous to the use of computer graphics for rendering of a three‐dimensional (3D) scene to give the user a visual description of the scene, it is possible to use computer haptics to let the user touch objects in the 3D scene. This is normally accomplished by having the haptics engine sending either force vectors or positional information to a haptics device, a robotic arm, that the user manipulates. The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of this technology, describe haptic devices and haptic application programming interfaces. We will also illustrate the use of haptics technology by describing a few industrial and medical applications.
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The purpose of this paper is to theorize on the mechanisms underlying the development of entrepreneurial expertise. While prior studies have identified differences between the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to theorize on the mechanisms underlying the development of entrepreneurial expertise. While prior studies have identified differences between the behavior of novice and expert entrepreneurs, the mechanisms that cause these differences have not received sufficient attention.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper systematically reviews the extant literature on entrepreneurial expertise and builds the conceptual framework by employing an action-control belief framework to propose mechanisms underlying the development of expert behavior.
Findings
This paper argues that differences in behavior between novice and expert entrepreneurs stem from self-perceptions of their ability to act. More specifically, stronger action-control beliefs encourage entrepreneurs to create new interpretations of the world over time; develop and use strategies that allow them to rely on perceived control over means and ends, their perceived capacity, and their agency; and hence behave more like experts.
Practical implications
This paper suggests that strategy, capacity, and control beliefs are key in individuals’ decisions of whether to engage in entrepreneurial action and that expert entrepreneurs hold stronger beliefs than novices. Positive experiences, particularly those associated with deliberate practice, contribute to developing these beliefs and, more broadly, to entrepreneurial expertise.
Originality/value
This paper proposes that the mechanism of transformation from novice to expert behavior can be attributed to positive changes in deeply held beliefs about strategy (i.e. possible means-ends frameworks), capacity (i.e. access to means), and control (i.e. perceived efficacy). Each of the beliefs can develop separately from others and at different pace. In other words, this work explains why novice and expert entrepreneurs behave differently.