Academic Definitions Research Articles

What is an Accelerator? The Case for a Pluralist Conceptualization

The past decade has seen a marked rise in research on entrepreneurial accelerators. Efforts to develop a conceptual definition of the accelerator initially lagged behind this surge, but have recently begun to emerge in published articles. We explore this conceptual evolution as a case study of how scholars respond to new entrepreneurial phenomena. By first analyzing 48 academic definitions of the accelerator, we demonstrate an increasing convergence on Cohen and Hochberg’s (2014) definition. By then analyzing practitioner understandings of the accelerator phenomenon using textual data from the websites of 73 accelerators, we find that practitioner understandings exhibit similarities to — but also some important differences from — the emerging academic conceptualization. We discuss the significance of this finding in light of the apparent convergence on a single academic definition of the accelerator, which, while conducive to efficient theory generation, might come at the expense of deep insight into the phenomenon. Mindful of this risk, and informed by our research findings, we make the case for a pluralist conceptualization by outlining four ways of viewing what accelerators can be: facilitators of new venture growth, vehicles for personal development, communities of practice, and strategic symbols. In light of the novel and continuously evolving nature of many entrepreneurial phenomena, we conclude by discussing the theoretical benefits of pluralist conceptualizations for the field of entrepreneurship as a whole.

Trolling as a Collective Form of Harassment: An Inductive Study of How Online Users Understand Trolling

Rising media and academic concerns for the social implications of online trolling require that scholars understand how everyday users conceptualize trolling. The validity of survey instruments may potentially be at risk if online users and academics, who subsequently advocate for interventions, have competing understandings of trolling. Surveying 120 US-based online users, I find that the spectrum of behaviors classified in the literature as “trolling” do not resonate with respondents. Instead, respondents report that harassment on the basis of race and gender is indicative of trolling. These results suggest a disconnect between academic definitions of trolling that focus on prosocial or humor-based forms of trolling and lay definitions which foreground identity-based harassment and harm. Current instruments that assess trolling behaviors and experiences do not attend to this definition of trolling as identity-based harassment, calling into question construct validity. Furthermore, sociologists identify identity-based harassment as a form of discrimination in other domains of social life, but present measures of discrimination do not consider the online domain. This suggests that studies of everyday discrimination and the implications of mistreatment should extend to online spaces, where racism and sexism are reproduced.

Methodological and Ethical Challenges in Empirical Approaches to Salafism

Abstract The special issue “Empirical Approaches to Salafism: Methodological and Ethical Challenges” addresses urgent methodological and ethical issues in qualitative research on Salafism. The contributing authors discuss these in relation to their fieldwork on Salafi beliefs, practices, life courses and world views. The contributions problematize the limits of the usual academic definitions of Salafism by confronting the conventional categories of quietist, political and jihadist Salafism with first-hand field data. Thereby, the authors show how categorial lines begin to blur and to shift when exposed to the ambiguous and dynamic characteristics that are inherent to virtual and real-life fieldwork with Salafis.

How do teenagers perceive their intelligence? Narcissism, intellect, well-being and gender as correlates of self-assessed intelligence among adolescents

Self-assessed intelligence (SAI) and its correlates have been extensively studied in adults. However, our understanding of how younger people perceive intelligence is limited. The current study aimed to fill this gap by investigating how SAI is associated with objective intelligence, gender, personality traits, and well-being in a sample (N = 428) of high-school students. The results revealed that SAI was not correlated with objectively measured intelligence (Raven's test); however, it was associated with other constructs. First, there were gender differences, i.e. boys' self-estimates of their intelligence were higher than that of girls. Furthermore, SAI was strongly related to grandiose narcissism and moderately related to the personality trait intellect. Additionally, high SAI was associated with high levels of well-being. Finally, SAI accounted for the link between narcissism and well-being as well as that between intellect and well-being. The lack of correlation between SAI and IQ score is consistent with previous findings suggesting that the conception of intelligence in adolescence differs from academic definitions of cognitive ability. On the other hand, the strong association between SAI and narcissism suggests that the concept of intelligence might primarily be a manifestation of boldness and a narcissistic attitude in adolescence.

The ivory tower and the street: How researchers defined country image over four decades and what consumers think it means

This study's purpose is to provide a comprehensive and systematic analysis on the diversity and nature of country image (CI) definitions in academic research. We used both qualitative content analysis and quantitative social network analysis to systematically analyse CI definitions. The study identified the key concepts that have been central to defining CI and the processes of CI formation. We also examined how the definitions have evolved over four decades. We found an increasing diversity in the academic definitions of CI. We identified several trends in the academic definitions to suggest that the conceptualization of CI has become broader and is no longer confined to the context of consumption. We also compared definitions from academia to those from the general population. With a few exceptions, academia and the general population did not agree on the popular concepts and mechanisms in CI definition.

Convergences and divergences in understanding the word biodiversity among citizens: A French case study

Biodiversity is undergoing a major crisis. Institutions, while launching initiatives tackling the issue, are using and diffusing the term biodiversity and related expert knowledge. However, to collectively address the biodiversity crisis, it is important that actors are able to communicate with each other. This is particularly true in the three-part set including science, public institutions, and citizens. In this paper, we explored this mutual understanding with a focus on laypeople: we assessed the understanding of biodiversity in a sample of 1209 French adult citizens and explored the convergences and divergences with institutional and academic definitions. With a classical hypothetical-deductive approach, we first showed an overall congruence between laypeople and institutions: 80% of respondents provided a descriptive definition of plant and animal species as well as their diversity, which are main ideas diffused by institutions. However, based on the high diversity of the collected definitions, with 57% of provided words in definitions mentioned only once, we complemented this study with an inductive approach. We showed a discrepancy in the definitions from lay people and from conservation science (based on evolutionary and dynamic processes). We also highlighted that 18,5% of definitions are not descriptive and are referring to specific actions for biodiversity conservation. We discuss these results in the context of social-ecological transitions, and encourage conservation communities to acknowledge the range of biodiversity definitions used by laypeople, and to form closer relationships with laypeople to anchor conservation research and action with a bottom-up dynamic process of knowledge sharing.

Meanings of Xiū Xián and Leisure: Cross-Cultural Exploration of Laypeople’s Definition of Leisure

We examined meanings of leisure and a Chinese leisure-like term (i.e., xiū xián) from laypeople’s perspectives by modifying Ito and Walker’s (2014) Leisure Ten Statements Test. Specifically, Euro-Canadian and Mainland Chinese undergraduate students were asked to provide 10 answers to “What is leisure/xiū xián for you?” and “What is not leisure/xiū xián for you?” An inductive coding of these lay definitions resulted in 24 categories, aligned with academic definitions (i.e., time, activity, setting, and psychological experience), suggesting the cross-cultural applicability of the leisure phenomenon. Multivariate analyses of variance identified categories that were more salient among Mainland Chinese (e.g., mass media, rest and reflection, motivation) and categories that were more salient among Euro-Canadians (e.g., emotion). The statistical results also suggested that Mainland Chinese and Euro-Canadians defined leisure/xiū xián similarly concerning some categories (e.g., relatedness and social activities, autonomy). We propose a laypeople’s definition of leisure from a cross-cultural perspective.

Coping but not allowing the coping to be everything: Resilience in informal dementia care.

Health and social sciences literature recognises the significance of psychological resilience in relation to stressful life events. Providing ongoing care for a friend or relative with dementia can be inherently stressful. The aims of this qualitative study were to: (a) explore discrepancies and congruency between definitions of resilience in the academic literature and carers own conceptualisations; (b) assess differences and similarities in conceptualisations of resilience between carers with high, medium and low resilience scores; (c) compare carers' perceived level of resilience with the level of resilience when measured on a standardised tool. Participants were recruited from an earlier study examining levels of resilience and well-being in UK carers of people with dementia. A subset of carers were identified using theoretical sampling, to ensure a diversity of participant characteristics and caring experience. Thirteen carers took part in semi-structured interviews between September and October 2017. Interpretative description was used to elicit findings relevant to clinical practice. We found carers' definitions were concordant with clinical and academic definitions described in the literature. However, they extended the concept and placed greater value on the role of self-compassion. Carers recognised that the appearance of resilience may have negative consequences in terms of securing support from others. Scores on the Brief Resilient Coping Scale did not always match carers' own perceptions of their level of resilience. Additionally, service providers' offers of support did not always reflect carers' priorities. Aligning these two areas would better enable carers and providers to work together to identify resources to support resilience.

Defining the Sharing Economy for Sustainability

(1) Background: The sharing economy has emerged as a phenomenon widely described by academic literature to promote more sustainable consumption practices such as access over ownership. However, there exists great semantic confusion within academic literature surrounding the term “sharing economy,” which threatens the realisation of its purported sustainability potential. (2) Objective: The aim of this paper is to synthesise the existing academic definitions and propose a definition of the sharing economy from the perspective of sustainability science in order to indicate sharing practices that are consistent with the sustainability claims attributed to the sharing economy. (3) Methods: We conduct a database search to collect relevant academic articles. Then, we leverage qualitative content analysis in order to analyse the authors’ definitions and to synthesise the broad dimensions of the sharing economy in the discourse. (4) Results: We propose the following characteristics, or semantic properties, of the sharing economy for sustainability: ICT-mediated, non-pecuniary motivation for ownership, temporary access, rivalrous and tangible goods. (5) Conclusion: The semantic properties that inform our definition of the sharing economy for sustainability indicate those sharing practices that promote sustainable consumption compared to purely market-based exchanges. This definition is relevant for academics studying the sustainability impacts of the sharing economy in order to promote comparability and compatibility in research. Furthermore, the definition is useful for policy-makers, entrepreneurs, managers and consumers that have the sharing economy on the agenda in order to promote social enterprise and support sustainable consumption.

Rewilding in practice: Projects and policy

Rewilding is a conservation approach that is gaining increasing attention from academics, public opinion-makers, and policy makers. But what is rewilding? A large number of academic definitions coexist along with many different on-the-ground practices, and a lack of clarity at the policy level. Here, we trace the transformations of rewilding between practice and policy, following an anthropology of policy approach. We also enroll the “policy assemblage” concept to ask how rewilding is mobilized and how rewilding actors change their relations within assemblages across these practice-policy transformations. We look at how rewilding is made into a reality at particular sites, as projects. We compare this to how rewilding is understood, positioned, used and produced at the policy level. We use a comparative approach, looking at projects in the UK, the Netherlands and Denmark, as well as policy frames and interactions in each of these countries and at the EU level. In order to secure future funding flows and institutional security, projects eventually (or immediately, in Denmark) present themselves as successful and normative within the existing regulations defining success or acceptability. At the same time, the practice of rewilding and the policy of rewilding define failure in different ways. At the project level, flexible long-term goals and adaptive learning allow failures to be avoided by definition. For policy makers, the fear of failure leads to avoidance of projects that cannot be defined as successful. We note that if high-level policy eventually defines normative success in rewilding it will probably do so in terms of its technical practices of reintroduction and passive management. It will be much more challenging to enshrine in policy the “meta-practices” of flexibility, long-term thinking and adaptive learning, which ensure rewilding success in practice. A broad acceptance of rewilding, as it is mobilized between projects and policies, may lead to radical changes in how rewilding is enacted.

The Conceptual and Scientific Demarcation of Security in Contrast to Safety

Increased focus on protection from terrorism, espionage, cybersecurity and other malicious crimes has led to increased academic interest in the topic of security, especially in risk and safety studies. This article aims to investigate the conceptual and scientific demarcation of security in contrast to safety, and discuss the status of security as an independent science. Security is a multifaceted concept and academic definitions often distinguish security from safety in terms of intentionality. However, intentionality also plays a part in safety research thus this is not a sufficient parameter for distinguishing the two fields. The dichotomy of non-malicious versus malicious is suggested as a means for differentiation. A new definition of security that incorporates elements associated with the current security research field is proposed. Security can be defined as the perceived or actual ability to prepare for, adapt to, withstand, and recover from dangers and crises caused by people’s deliberate, intentional, and malicious acts such as terrorism, sabotage, organized crime, or hacking. The conclusion is that before security can be established as an independent discipline, it is necessary to determine what concepts and theories are related to the field, what levels of and objects in society should be included, in addition to the interrelationships and interdependencies with other disciplines.

Examining police officer definitions of evidence-based policing: are we speaking the same language?

ABSTRACTEvidence-based policing has become a commonly used term in academic circles to describe policing practices guided by research evidence demonstrating their effectiveness. Little is known, however, about how police practitioners understand and define the term and the extent to which these definitions align with researcher conceptions of the term. We examine data from a survey on receptivity to research administered to 1355 police officers, supervisors, and leaders from multiple US agencies. Officers familiar with the term ‘evidence-based policing’ were asked to define it, and we coded each definition for key terms identified in the literature as relevant to evidence-based practice and for overall match to commonly used academic definitions. Our results suggest variability in both familiarity with the term ‘evidence-based policing’ and use of key terms from academic definitions based on rank. Higher ranking officers were more likely to have definitions that aligned with academic conceptions, although very few officer definitions fully matched those provided by researchers. Multivariate results suggest higher education is associated with more ‘correct’ definitions. We discuss the implications of our work for efforts to make policing more evidence-based.

Dimensiones culturales de la empresa social. Un modelo para el análisis.

Este artículo propone un modelo teórico para el análisis de las diferentes dimensiones socioculturales de la empresa social. La necesidad de avanzar en modelos de este tipo deriva de la gran variedad de organizaciones que actualmente se subsumen bajo el mismo lema «empresa social», como de la menor atención que han recibido las variables intangibles en el desarrollo de estas organizaciones. Por lo tanto, el modelo propuesto aquí pretende discutir la contribución que pueden hacer al debate académico actual sobre la empresa social el concepto de «racionalidad» de Max Weber, la noción de «régimen de bienestar» de Esping-Andersen y los «tipos culturales» propuestos por Mary Douglas. El artículo presenta una combinación de estos conceptos en dos ejes que permiten analizar diferentes dimensiones culturales de la realidad empírica de empresas concretas. El primer eje es la «escala social» (micro, macro y mesosocial), que incluye la organización interna, las características jurídicas y el contexto del estado de bienestar nacional de la empresa. El segundo eje es el «tipo cultural», que subyace en cada uno de los niveles del primer eje: el burocrático-jerárquico, el mercantil-individualista y el tradicional-comunitario.

Corruption Studies for the Twenty-First Century: Paradigm Shifts and Innovative Approaches

Slavonic and East European Review, 95, 1, 2017 Corruption Studies for the TwentyFirst Century: Paradigm Shifts and Innovative Approaches ALENA LEDENEVA, ROXANA BRATU and PHILIPP KÖKER The key question currently driving innovations in corruption studies is why anti-corruption reforms do not work. The explanatory factors for the disappointing outcomes of anti-corruption interventions over the last twenty-five years include those associated with: 1) understanding and modelling of corrupt practices; 2) measurement and monitoring; and 3) policy design and implementation. This special issue emerges from the international seminar series on innovations in corruption studies in Europe and beyond held by the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES), University College London, between October 2015 and March 2016. The purpose of the series, which brought together researchers of the project ‘Anticorruption Policies Revisited: Global Trends and European Responses to the Challenges of Corruption’ (ANTICORRP), was to highlight innovations in the field of corruption studies regarding theory, methodology, analysis and policy. The articles in this issue represent a sample of the wider academic debates but focus on integrating expertise relating to Central and Eastern Europe Alena Ledeneva is Professor of Politics and Society at UCL SSEES, Roxana Bratu is an ANTICORRP Postdoctoral Research Associate in Global and European Anti-Corruption Policies at UCL SSEES (2012–17) and Philipp Köker is a Senior Research Fellow in Politics and International Relations in the School of Psychology, Politics and Sociology at Canterbury Christ Church University, and ANTICORRP Fellow at UCL SSEES from 2012 to 2016. The authors wish to thank the European Commission and the SSEES Centre for European Politics, Security and Integration for their financial support of the series, and all participants in the seminars for their constructive comments, useful suggestions and insightful contributions to the general discussion. The authors likewise gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the anonymous SEER reviewers, SEER Deputy Editor Dr Barbara Wyllie, General Editor Professor Martyn Rady and the SEER Editorial Board. ALENA LEDENEVA, ROXANA BRATU & PHILIPP KÖKER 2 — the domain of Slavonic and East European Review (SEER) — into a comparative framework. The outcome reflects the openness of the authors to work across area and discipline and to ensure cross-fertilization between area studies and the social sciences in general. Such network-based research has been enabled by funding from the European Commission.1 Wider ANTICORRP findings include a historical analysis of corrupt practices,2 how they are reflected in the media,3 how they surface in measurement,4 how they relate both to good governance and to organized crime5 and how they differ locally, regionally and globally.6 In this special issue, we interpret ‘corruption studies’ narrowly, meaning academic discourse, separate from government policy, media or activist discourses. Rather, we focus on the challenges in corruption studies and the emergence of cross-discipline and cross-area analyses in order to accommodate the complexity and context-bound nature of corruption. 1. The challenges of defining and modelling corruption One of the earlier academic definitions postulates that corruption is ‘the intentional misperformance or neglect of a recognized duty, or the unwarranted exercise of power, with the motive of gaining some 1 Grant No. 290529, ‘Anticorruption Policies Revisited: Global Trends and European Responses to the Challenges of Corruption’. 2 Mette Frisk Jensen and James Kennedy (eds), ‘Two literature reviews on the pre-modern and modern categories of cases respectively’, ANTICORRP Deliverable D2.1, August 2013 [accessed 24 October 2016]. 3 Paolo Mancini (ed.), ‘A comparative research on the print press coverage of corruption’, ANTICORRP Deliverable D6.1, June 2016 [accessed 24 October 2016]. 4 Alina Mungiu-Pippidi (ed.), ‘A comparative assessment of regional trends and aspects related to control of corruption’, ANTICORRP Deliverable D3.2.1, February 2014 [accessed 24 October 2016]; Jana Warkotsch (ed.), ‘Case study reports on control of corruption and EU funds’, ANTICORRP Deliverable D8.2, February 2016 [accessed 24 October 2016]. 5 Salvatore Sberna and Alberto Vannucci (eds), ‘Integrated report on the link between political corruption and organised crime’, ANTICORRP Deliverable D9.1, February 2015 [accessed 24 October 2016]. 6 Davide Torsello (ed.), ‘Comparative country reports on institutional performance’, ANTICORRP Deliverable D4.1, June 2014 [accessed 24 October 2016]; Lena Wängnerud, ‘Case...

We Need to Talk - A Literature Review of Debrief

This literature review consults the diverse academic definitions of debriefing to give context to larp debriefs. Among the many concepts for debriefing, simulation learning and psychological debriefing are explored to show lessons and precedents. Simulation debriefs emphasize learning and a transition from the affective to the cognitive, which can inform how larp debriefs engage with content. The concepts of fidelity and authenticity, along with tripartite learning within simulations, are invoked to show similarities and potential growth for larp debriefs. Psychological debriefing has mixed results, but reviewing the literature shows that psychological debrief practice within research has been functionally dissimilar to larp debrief. Discourse already surrounding psychological debrief has questioned the research methods and results of previous studies, making generalization to larp debriefs inappropriate. Larp-specific debriefs are considered non-therapeutic transitional tools for moving between perspectives and reinstalling the social reality suspended during play. Its counterpart, workshopping, is considered important to creating the necessary context for debriefing. Larp debriefs have the potential to become a vector for the therapeutic work through larping. The article advocates for responsible content creation despite using debrief as a transitional tool, as no evidence suggests that debriefing makes larping safer.

“What is reconciliation and are we there yet?” Different types and levels of reconciliation: A case study of Bosnia and Herzegovina

ABSTRACTThis article uses the northwestern Bosnian village of Prijedor as a case study to empirically engage with theoretical debates about how to understand and research reconciliation and its causes in postconflict societies. It starts with a review of almost 60 different academic definitions of reconciliation with a goal to map out a comprehensive overview of various types and levels of the phenomenon. It then tests the theoretical analytical 18-box matrix devised with data gathered in Prijedor (BiH) during two consecutive periods of fieldwork in order to further improve it and to introduce a temporal dimension into the research of reconciliation.

Towards a practitioner-centric definition of civil war

This paper argues that current academic definitions of civil war are largely inadequate for international relations practitioners. While these casualty-based standards have the methodological consistency needed for quantitative research, they do not capture the dynamics most important to policymakers, including the degree of threat to national interests, the level of disruption to the international system, and the political implications of labelling a conflict a civil war. This paper explains how academics and practitioners use civil war definitions in different ways, creating the need for an additional but non-exclusive practitioner-centric definition of civil war. Its purpose is not to replace the existing academic standard, but rather to provide an additional tool for policymakers tailored to their specific needs – identifying when a civil war has emerged in order to implement a policy response.

Quality Investing Industry versus Academic Definitions

textabstractIn this study we provide an overview of common quality definitions that are currently used in the industry and those used in academic studies, and we outline the differences between these definitions. We show that there is a large dispersion in the definitions that are used for the quality factor with ‘industry’ definitions ranging from return-on-equity and profit margins to leverage and earnings variability, and ‘academic’ definitions such as operating accruals, net stock issues, and gross profitability. We document large performance differences between the different quality definitions. While ‘academic’ definitions for quality all seem to have significant predictive power for stock returns above and beyond common factors, we do not find significant predictive power for individual ‘industry’ definitions. Our results have important implications for the design of investment vehicles that provide investors exposure to the quality factor.

From Translation to Organization to International Business: an Academic No Man’s Land

As universidades se colocam como componentes essenciais do conhecimento mundial. Tal estatuto implica um certo nível de autocrítica e a redefinição de algumas prioridades. O reconhecimento acadêmico de novos departamentos, tais quais os Estudos da Tradução (TS), faz claramente parte do movimento histórico de autocrítica, e TS, por sua vez, reflete o mesmo processo na sua própria história, ou talvez pré-história. Embora TS pretenda ter integrado a Globalização e o novo mundo internacionalizado no âmbito dos seus programas acadêmicos, o desafio para os próximos anos será na combinação entre as suas definições originais (construídas em torno da formação de tradutores) e definições acadêmicas (O que é a Tradução? Como os fenômenos tradutórios, passados e presentes, podem ser retratados? Como as políticas linguísticas, o multilinguismo, o discurso das mídias e os rankings entram nisso?). Sem excluir tópicos estudados desde os princípios (como a formação ou as interações entre nações), propomos explorar o potencial da área das organizações e do mundo contemporâneo dos negócios (nesse artigo, da indústria automobilística internacional), que pode ser considerado um No Man’s Land dentro das tradições da nova disciplina. Estamos convencidos de que ideias novas e fundamentais poderão surgir desse mundo ainda pouco explorado.

Definitions and Conceptual Dimensions of Responsible Research and Innovation: A Literature Review.

The aim of this study is to provide a discussion on the definitions and conceptual dimensions of Responsible Research and Innovation based on findings from the literature. In the study, the outcomes of a literature review of 235 RRI-related articles were presented. The articles were selected from the EBSCO and Google Scholar databases regarding the definitions and dimensions of RRI. The results of the study indicated that while administrative definitions were widely quoted in the reviewed literature, they were not substantially further elaborated. Academic definitions were mostly derived from the institutional definitions; however, more empirical studies should be conducted in order to give a broader empirical basis to the development of the concept. In the current study, four distinct conceptual dimensions of RRI that appeared in the reviewed literature were brought out: inclusion, anticipation, responsiveness and reflexivity. Two emerging conceptual dimensions were also added: sustainability and care.