Grace Spencer and Jill Thompson
The expansion of research with children offers new opportunities for the development of child-centred practice. Children's participation in research has been championed as a…
Abstract
The expansion of research with children offers new opportunities for the development of child-centred practice. Children's participation in research has been championed as a positive way to challenge the processes and practices that affect their everyday lives. Yet opportunities for collaborating with children, and leveraging their voices, remains heavily guided by adult-led priorities. In this chapter, we offer a critique of ‘child-centredness’ and related voice-based and participatory discourses in the absence of a full-fledged engagement with the power imbalances between adults and children. We draw on examples from our research with children on contemporary global challenges (COVID-19 pandemic, health and migration) to expose the ways that adult-led agendas for, and definitions of, participation can affect children's engagement in research. We highlight how children also effect change and display their agency through the sharing of their experiences with adult researchers. The dynamic nature of social change highlights children's considered engagement with contemporary challenges but also the importance of reciprocity and willingness of adults to listen and respond to the issues that children identify as being central to their lives. We attend to the ways our methodological decision-making offers opportunities for leveraging children's perspectives, but also highlight the dangers of reproducing dominant adult/child power relations when seeking to be ‘child-centred’. We conclude by offering some critical questions to prompt further debate in this field, In doing so, we highlight the value of reciprocity and critical reflexivity as necessary first steps towards a more considered engagement with adult/child power relations in ‘child-centred’ research.
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Vladislav Valentinov and Spencer Thompson
The economic theory of the firm apparently concurs with Niklas Luhmann’s theory of social systems with regard to the primary function of the firm to be complexity reduction, i.e…
Abstract
Purpose
The economic theory of the firm apparently concurs with Niklas Luhmann’s theory of social systems with regard to the primary function of the firm to be complexity reduction, i.e. the alleviation of the cognitive burden on agents whose cognitive capacities are limited. At the same time, however, the theory of the firm ignores the attendant issues of societal sustainability emphasised by Luhmann. The paper aims to fill this gap.
Design/methodology/approach
Taking a theoretical approach, the paper builds on the conceptual construct of “the complexity-sustainability trade-off”, which combines two contrasting aspects of the relationship between a system and its environment, namely, the precariousness highlighted by Luhmann and the embeddedness highlighted by open systems theory. These themes are respectively reflected in the principles of complexity reduction and environmental dependence which constitute the trade-off.
Findings
Drawing inspiration from the classic Marshallian presentation of supply and demand in modern economics, the paper argues that the principles of complexity reduction and critical dependence translate into the demand for and supply of social systems. In the proposed systems-theoretic interpretation of the theory of the firm, demand and supply refer to the imperatives of achieving coordination and securing cooperation within the firm, respectively. Thus, in the theory of the firm, the complexity-sustainability trade-off manifests itself as a trade-off between coordination and cooperation.
Originality/value
The implicit focus of the theory of the firm on complexity reduction disregards the nature, importance and fragility of cooperation in real-world firms. In so doing, it impedes the authors’ understanding of unconventional types of business organisation, such as cooperatives. These defects can be corrected by reorienting the theory of the firm according to the proposed systems-theoretic approach, which holds that firms should not be governed or studied in isolation from their environment, as they too often are – and, accordingly, that apparently anomalous forms of organisation should be taken seriously, as they too often are not.
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Grace Spencer, Ernestina Dankyi, Stephen O. Kwankye and Jill Thompson
Conducting research with young migrants offers an important opportunity to understand better their own perspectives on their migration experiences. Yet, engaging migrant youth in…
Abstract
Conducting research with young migrants offers an important opportunity to understand better their own perspectives on their migration experiences. Yet, engaging migrant youth in research can be fraught with ethical and methodological challenges. Institutional ethics processes have a tendency to prioritise standard principles – many of which depart from the ethical sensitivities that emerge during research practice. In this chapter, the authors explore some of the procedural and situated ethical issues involved in conducting research with child and youth migrants in Ghana. In particular, the authors highlight how the diversity of young migrants prompts definitional issues about what constitutes childhood and youth, and in different socio-cultural spatial settings. Differing categorisations of child and youth generate issues of representation and guide adult-led decisions about children’s assumed competencies and vulnerabilities to participate in research. The precarious living circumstances of many migrant children, including the absence of parental figures or legal guardians, coupled with language and cultural barriers, present particular difficulties for securing informed consent. Challenges of this kind can deny young migrants the opportunity to participate in research about their own lives and serve to reproduce dominant power asymmetries and assumptions about these children’s vulnerabilities. The authors conclude by offering some suggestions for how researchers might develop critical ethical reflexivity to support the meaningful and ethical engagement of young migrants in research.
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This chapter examines the research practices, procedures and problems involved in a study investigating the digital lifeworlds of rural and urban youth aged 13–18 years in…
Abstract
This chapter examines the research practices, procedures and problems involved in a study investigating the digital lifeworlds of rural and urban youth aged 13–18 years in Nigeria. First, the chapter maps the key aspects of the ethical guidelines that were followed before and during the course of the study. The key aspects of the guidelines covered issues linked to information disclosure, assent/consent, confidentiality, potential harms to participants, and institutions, and financial compensation and other inducements. In addition, the chapter unpacks some of the ethical complexities and dilemmas that emerged during the research. Drawing on perspectives from the new sociology of childhood and youth-centred research approaches, the chapter examines both the opportunities and challenges involved in doing research with young people on digital technology within the African context. In line with a youth-centred approach, the study privileges young people’s views and voices to facilitate their full autonomy and rights to participate in research. The chapter draws attention to the important contextual influences and dynamics that can affect all aspects of the research process and shape the emergent ethical considerations. These include ethical conundrums such as adult–child power relationship, gendered relations and group dynamics, problems of language and cognition, ‘techno-shame’, shy and assertive participants, the drawbacks of conducting fieldwork in school settings and absent participants.
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Brad Moore and Alan Brown
This paper aims to examine the application of Total Quality Management (TQM) in five organizations in light of the assumption that its implementation is an ongoing negotiated…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the application of Total Quality Management (TQM) in five organizations in light of the assumption that its implementation is an ongoing negotiated order rather than an objective reality as often accepted by the literature. Guided by a theoretical framework identified by Spencer (1994), the perceptions of a cross‐section of managers and employees in these organizations are used to establish the nature of applied TQM in terms of mechanistic and organic “mental models” of organization.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper shows that research methodology is qualitative, and evidence was collected primarily through semi‐structured in‐depth interviews. A non‐quantifying general analytic methodology was used to analyse the evidence collected via convenience sampling.
Findings
The findings in this paper indicate that, in three of the organizations, TQM is being applied in generally organic ways. In the other two organizations, strong influences of the mechanistic model were detected. In many cases, elements of both mechanistic and organic approaches can be found in the same organization.
Research limitations/implications
The research in this paper is qualitative and exploratory in nature and, as such, does not attempt to investigate the implementation of TQM across a large number of organizations nor generalize the findings.
Originality/value
The research in this paper has significant originality as there is little research, to date, evident on the alternative view, of the implementation of TQM, espoused by Spencer (1994). The research contributes to the literature by demonstrating that the application of TQM can be both mechanistic and organic, encouraging the debate to focus on the nature of the variation of implementation as a subject of discussion in its own right.
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Amr Soror, Zachary R. Steelman and Ofir Turel
The current work builds on the dual process theory of habituation and sensitization to empirically investigate theory-based mechanisms through which social media use habit…
Abstract
Purpose
The current work builds on the dual process theory of habituation and sensitization to empirically investigate theory-based mechanisms through which social media use habit influences continued social media use intentions in the context of problematic social media use (SMU).
Design/methodology/approach
We build on the dual process theory of habituation and sensitization and test our model with structural equation modeling technique applied to survey-based data collected from 337 social media users.
Findings
Findings suggest that SMU Habit may increase user's perceived Habituation and directly reduce user's experienced SMU related Exhaustion. Furthermore, Habituation and SMU related Exhaustion are negatively associated in a nonlinear fashion. Also, SMU Habit may promote higher level of SMU Dependency through Sensitization. Increased level of SMU Dependency is associated with increased level of SMU related Exhaustion. Thus, SMU Habit simultaneously shapes two opposing forces driving continued use decisions.
Practical implications
The current work can serve as a basis for developing effective interventions especially given the increase in problematic uses of IS fostered by the development of technology use habits.
Originality/value
Although separate strands of research independently examined the role of “pull” forces such as SMU dependency and the role of “push” forces such as SMU related Exhaustion in influencing users' inclination toward future SMU, a unified theoretical framework considering the triad of SMU Habit, “pull” and “push” forces together is yet to be offered. Deploying Habituation–Sensitization theory will shed new light on dual mechanisms through which habit drives continued use decisions in SMU context. Thus, the current work can serve as a basis for developing effective interventions given the increase in problematic uses of IS.