Jacob R. Straus, Raymond T. Williams, Colleen J. Shogan and Matthew E. Glassman
The purpose of this paper is to understand why some Senators choose to use Twitter more frequently than others. Building on past research, which explored causal factors leading to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to understand why some Senators choose to use Twitter more frequently than others. Building on past research, which explored causal factors leading to early congressional adoption, theories about why some Senators use Twitter more frequently in their daily communications strategies are developed.
Design/methodology/approach
A “power user” score was developed by evaluating each Senator’s clout, interactivity, and originality on Twitter. These scores are then used as the dependent variable in a regression model to evaluate which factors influence Senators becoming Twitter “power users.”
Findings
The study found that: constituent income is positively correlated with heavy use, but constituent education level is not; the more ideological a Senator is the more he or she will be a Twitter power user; the number of days on Twitter is a significant indicator of advanced Twitter usage; and having staff dedicated to social media is positively correlated with being a Twitter power user.
Research limitations/implications
All Senators in the second session of the 113th Congress (2014) were evaluated. As such, future research hope to expand the data set to additional Senators or the House of Representatives.
Practical implications
A better understanding of why some Senators use Twitter more than others allows insight into constituent communications strategies and the potential implications of real-time communication on representation, and the role of accountability between a Senator and his or her constituents.
Originality/value
The study examines constituent communication by Senators in a new, more interactive medium than previously considered. Additionally, the study places findings about Senator’s constituent communication in the broader context of representation.
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An intriguing development in the realm of commercial software has arisen over the last decade, from highly improbable beginnings. From its inception in the ‘hacker ethic’…
Abstract
An intriguing development in the realm of commercial software has arisen over the last decade, from highly improbable beginnings. From its inception in the ‘hacker ethic’, freeware has had a huge impact on IT businesses around the world, most strongly in the guise of its spin‐off, open source software. The eventual consequences are that, for example, more than 60% of all the servers on the World Wide Web are running the Apache open source system, and Linux, the open source cousin of Unix, is challenging Microsoft’s products as the most popular business server operating system. Major IT users such as multinational banks, and major IT companies including IBM, Hewlett Packard, Sun Microsystems, Dell, Oracle, Informix, Intel, Fujitsu, AMD and Computer Associates are investing in and supporting Linux. In 1998, Netscape Communications made public (‘opened’) the source code for its Netscape web browser. In 1999 Apple published the source for the ‘Darwin’ core of its Mac OS X. The Perl freeware programming language continues to gain popularity for web‐based applications.
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The purpose of this paper is to introduce a practical conceptual tool for analysing the dynamics of cultural change in organizations. In so doing it seeks to address two concerns…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce a practical conceptual tool for analysing the dynamics of cultural change in organizations. In so doing it seeks to address two concerns in the organization culture literature: issues of time and perspective which underlie the contested nature of culture; and limitations of existing analytical frameworks to cater for differing perspectives in a manner which is accessible to academics and practitioners.
Design/methodology/approach
Williams' notion of culture as a constant negotiation between the dominant, the emergent, and the residual cultures mediated by the processes of selective tradition and incorporation is discussed. For illustrative purposes this model is then used to analyse material collected in a case study of a growing IT organization.
Findings
The analysis framework identifies the paradoxes and potential tensions in the ongoing development of this organization. As a result it promotes questioning, and clarifies where choices are to be made.
Research limitations/implications
The paper shows how this framework can be used to assist investigation. Although the usual limitations of case study research apply, the framework facilitates a wider view of change over time.
Practical implications
The paper provides an accessible reflective framework that affords a more dynamic, contextual, evolutionary, and nuanced view of organizations. It accommodates multiple perspectives within an organization and facilitates their exploration.
Originality/value
The paper introduces the ideas of Raymond Williams to a wider organizational audience, and demonstrates how they can be adapted to make complex accounts of culture and organization more accessible.
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The purpose of this paper is to consider historical shifts in the mobilisation of the concept of radical in relation to Australian schooling.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to consider historical shifts in the mobilisation of the concept of radical in relation to Australian schooling.
Design/methodology/approach
Two texts composed at two distinct points in a 40-year period in Australia relating to radicalism and education are strategically juxtaposed. These texts are: the first issue of the Radical Education Dossier (RED, 1976), and the Attorney General Department’s publication Preventing Violent Extremism and Radicalisation in Australia (PVERA, 2015). The analysis of the term radical in these texts is influenced by Raymond Williams’s examination of particular keywords in their historical and contemporary contexts.
Findings
Across these two texts, radical is deployed as adjective for a process of interrogating structured inequalities of the economy and employment, and as individualised noun attached to the “vulnerable” young person.
Social implications
Reading the first issue of RED alongside the PVERA text suggests the consequences of the reconstitution of the role of schools, teachers and the re-positioning of certain young people as “vulnerable”. The juxtaposition of these two texts surfaces contemporary patterns of the therapeutisation of political concerns.
Originality/value
A methodological contribution is offered to historical sociological analyses of shifts and continuities of the role of the school in relation to society.