Michael Shick, Nathan Johnson and Yang Fan
The purpose of this viewpoint article is to serve as a discussion starting point regarding organizational leadership’s increasing reliance on AI – in particular, how the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this viewpoint article is to serve as a discussion starting point regarding organizational leadership’s increasing reliance on AI – in particular, how the technology is used as a supplemental tool for supporting rational decision-making. Practical implications and directions for further research are presented.
Design/methodology/approach
With its inception in economics, the concept of rationality has a rich history across multiple research domains. Based on that literature, coupled with the recent advancements in AI, the paper asks: will AI afford organizational leadership the ability to move from making bounded rational decisions to making fully rational decisions? The paper only scratches the surface of such a large question; however, the goal is to start the discussion around the topic.
Findings
While bounded rationality supports efficient decision-making, a complete understanding of any given decision is typically limited, and as a result, neither accuracy nor effectiveness is guaranteed. As AI systems grow in speed and accuracy, they should provide positive support for organizational leaders to make fully rational decisions. AI’s ability to collect and organize data, analyze it, and offer decision alternatives may help close the gap between bounded and rational decision-making.
Originality/value
Although AI research is not new, the recent developments in natural language processing engines has rapidly brought about new possibilities for their use in rational decision-making in the business and organizational context. This is fertile ground for future research, particularly in the area of organizational decision-making.
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From the sixteenth to eighteenth century, China underwent a commercial revolution similar to the one in contemporaneous Europe. The rise of market did foster the rise of a nascent…
Abstract
From the sixteenth to eighteenth century, China underwent a commercial revolution similar to the one in contemporaneous Europe. The rise of market did foster the rise of a nascent bourgeois and the concomitant rise of a liberal, populist version of Confucianism, which advocated a more decentralized and less authoritarian political system in the last few decades of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). But after the collapse of the Ming Empire and the establishment of the Qing Empire (1644–1911) by the Manchu conquerors, the new rulers designated the late-Ming liberal ideologies as heretics, and they resurrected the most conservative form of Confucianism as the political orthodoxy. Under the principle of filial piety given by this orthodoxy, the whole empire was imagined as a fictitious family with the emperor as the grand patriarch and the civil bureaucrats and subjects as children or grandchildren. Under the highly centralized administrative and communicative apparatus of the Qing state, this ideology of the fictitious patrimonial state penetrated into the lowest level of the society. The subsequent paternalist, authoritarian, and moralizing politics of the Qing state contributed to China’s nontransition to capitalism despite its advanced market economy, and helped explain the peculiar form and trajectory of China’s popular contention in the eighteenth century. I also argue that this tradition of fictitious patrimonial politics continued to shape the state-making processes in twentieth-century China and beyond.
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The purpose of this paper is to review how patient and public involvement (PPI) can contribute to quality improvement functions and describe the levels of PPI in quality…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review how patient and public involvement (PPI) can contribute to quality improvement functions and describe the levels of PPI in quality improvement functions at hospital and departmental level in a sample of European hospitals.
Design/methodology/approach
Literature review and cross-sectional study.
Findings
PPI takes multiple forms in health care and there is not a single strategy or method that can be considered to reflect best practice. The literature reveals that PPI can serve important functions to support quality improvement efforts. In contrast, the assessment of actual PPI in quality improvement shows that PPI is low.
Research limitations/implications
Findings are not representative of hospitals in the EU.
Practical implications
A diverse set of methods and tools that can be employed to realize PPI. Service providers should consider PPI at all stages, in particular in setting quality standards and criteria and in evaluating the results.
Originality/value
Contextualization of empirical findings with case studies from the literature that inform further practice and research on PPI.
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Most of 823,000 ethnic Chinese people are living in Southern Vietnam among distinct dialectical groups. Each maintains its own pantheon of gods; the majority worships standardized…
Abstract
Purpose
Most of 823,000 ethnic Chinese people are living in Southern Vietnam among distinct dialectical groups. Each maintains its own pantheon of gods; the majority worships standardized Thien Hau. The Hakka in Buu Long are the only group that worships the craft-master gods. This difference creates a challenging gap between the subgroups and reveals the unorthodox nature of the Hakka’s traditions. The purpose of this paper is investigate the continuous efforts to achieve “evolving standardization” and solidarity through the charismatic efforts of the local Hakka elites in Buu Long by their liturgical transformation.
Design/methodology/approach
The study further discusses the multilateral interaction and hidden discourses by applying Watson’s (1985) theory of standardization and orthodoxy as well as Weller’s (1987) concept of context-based interpretation.
Findings
Truthfully, when facing pressures, the Hakka in Southern Vietnam decided to transform their non-standard worship of the craft masters into a more integrative model, the Thien Hau cult, by superimposing the new cult on the original platform without significant changes in either belief or liturgical practice. The performance shows to be the so-called “the caterpillar’s spirit under a butterfly’s might” case.
Research limitations/implications
The transformation reveals that the Hakka are currently in their endless struggles for identity and integration, even getting engaged in a pseudo-standardization.
Social implications
This Hakka’s bottom-up evolutionary standardization deserves to be responded academically and practically.
Originality/value
The paper begins with a setting of academic discussions by western writers in this area and then moves on to what makes the practical transformation, how does it happen, and what discourses are hidden underneath.
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Benoît Bossavit and Sarah Parsons
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how teenagers on the autism spectrum respond to their involvement in the creation of a collaborative game, meeting the curriculum…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how teenagers on the autism spectrum respond to their involvement in the creation of a collaborative game, meeting the curriculum requirements in programming at secondary level in England.
Design/methodology/approach
Two autistic teenagers were involved in participatory design processes to elaborate and develop together a collaborative game of their choice using the visual programming software, Kodu Game Lab.
Findings
With the support of adults (teachers and the researcher), the participants were able to demonstrate and strengthen their participation, problem-solving and programming skills. The participants expressed their preferences through their attitudes towards the tasks. They created a game where the players did not need to initiate any interaction between each other to complete a level. Furthermore, the students naturally decided to work separately and interacted more with the adults than with each other.
Research limitations/implications
This is a small case study and so cannot be generalised. However, it can serve as starting point for further studies that involve students with autism in the development of interactive games.
Practical implications
It has been shown that disengaged students can develop various skills through their involvement in software programming.
Originality/value
Overall, this paper presents the involvement of teenagers on the autism spectrum in the initial design and development of a collaborative game with an approach that shaped, and was shaped by, the students’ interests. Although collaboration was emphasised in the intended learning outcomes for the game, as well as through the design process, this proved difficult to achieve in practice suggesting that students with autism may require stronger scaffolding to engage in collaborative learning.
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Ella Broadbent and Chrissy Thompson
This chapter examines the structure and sentiment of the Twitter response to Nathan Broad's naming as the originator of an image-based sexual abuse incident following the 2017…
Abstract
This chapter examines the structure and sentiment of the Twitter response to Nathan Broad's naming as the originator of an image-based sexual abuse incident following the 2017 Australian Football League Grand Final. Employing Social Network Analysis to visualize the hierarchy of Twitter users responding to the incident and Applied Thematic Analysis to trace the diffusion of differing streams of sentiment within this hierarchy, we produced a representation of participatory social media engagement in the context of image-based sexual abuse. Following two streams of findings, a model of social media user engagement was established that hierarchized the interplay between institutional and personal Twitter users. In this model, it was observed that the Broad incident generated sympathetic and compassionate discourses among an articulated network of social media users. This sentiment gradually diffused to institutional Twitter users – or Reference accounts – through the process of intermedia agenda-setting, whereby the narrative of terrestrial media accounts was altered by personal Twitter users over time.
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Studies of Tianhou-Mazu cult have been focused on three themes: studies in Taiwan emphasize hegemonic order; studies in Hong Kong reveal a relationship of “sisterhood” alliances;…
Abstract
Purpose
Studies of Tianhou-Mazu cult have been focused on three themes: studies in Taiwan emphasize hegemonic order; studies in Hong Kong reveal a relationship of “sisterhood” alliances; and studies in Singapore highlight the important role of ethnic groups. The rebuilding of the goddess’s ancestral temple in early 1980s and her acquiring a world intangible cultural heritage status in the early twenty-first century facilitate the redefinition of overseas Chinese’s religious affiliation. The purpose of this paper is to discuss this global development of the cult from the 1980s and its ritual implication in overseas Chinese communities.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper, by comparing the Tianhou-Mazu cult in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Southeast Asian Chinese settlements, argues that from sisters to descended replicas, or from local alliances to global hegemony, the cult of Tianhou-Mazu since the 1980s has not only replaced local culture with an emphasis on “high culture,” but also represents a religious strategy regarding local people’s interpretation of correctness and authority.
Findings
This paper argues that despite the imposition of hegemonic power from various authorities, popular religion is a matter of choice. This reflects how local religious practice is construed according to the interpretation of global cultural languages by the elite Chinese; their decision of when and how to reconnect with the goddess’s ancestral temple or the “imperial state,” or to form alliances with other local communities; and the implementation of the local government’s cultural policy.
Originality/value
This paper is one of the few attempts comparing development of a folk cult in various communities.