Situated Action Research Articles

Industry hierarchy in team sport industries, team tactics and competitive advantage: the empty goal option in league handball

ABSTRACT Research question The paper asks to what extent team tactics qualify as internal sources of competitive advantage in team sport industries. Team tactics are complex routines for situated action, which require highly skilled actors to perform them. However, in an industry structure facilitating a highly unequal allocation of athletic talent, the potential of tactical routines to create competitive advantage is limited and incentives to exploit new routine options are dulled. Research methods The paper addresses the research question on the basis of a quantitative case study on empty goal tactics in German professional league handball. Results and findings There is evidence for a strong quality hierarchy between teams. Superior teams perform significantly better in standard tactic situations. A new tactical option is used primarily to resort to standard routines. New routines are avoided when incompatible with already established routines and do not promise a competitive advantage. Implications In a highly hierarchical team sports industry, the key resource heterogeneity, which creates competitive advantage, remains athletic talent. Creating new tactical options will not suffice to increase competitive balance. Teams have to develop key upstream higher-level routines before team tactics become relevant.

What do parents do? Towards conceptual clarity in the study of parental influence on adolescent developmental and behavioural outcomes

This conceptual paper utilises Situational Action Theory, the adolescence and parenting literatures, and a parental monitoring and crime use-case, to emphasise two separate but inter-related and co-existing distinctions i) between parenting behaviours that guide and control (behaviour distinction), and ii) between parenting behaviours that influence developmental and behavioural outcomes (goal distinction); and intersect these distinctions to identify four kinds of parental influence. The specificity of distinctions and their intersection are rarely made explicit in parenting research, resulting in concepts, design, analysis, and conclusions which conflate various parenting features and processes. This paper goes right back to basics and contributes to clarity in the conceptual foundations of parental influence on adolescent development and behaviour. By facilitating conceptual clarity and detailed specification of mechanisms, this paper under-labours to support the future development of better models of parental influence. In turn, this can underpin strong empirical research into the causes of adolescent behaviour that has the most utility for effective policy.

Congested metro materialities: how platform escalators afford “friction” in the Copenhagen Metro

ABSTRACT This paper will unfold affordances of the material setting in the Copenhagen Metro and its role for passenger movements and “capacity issues”, zooming in on the role of platform escalators at the underground station of Nørreport. The analysis will focus particularly on “congestions” as causing friction for the vision of the Copenhagen Metro as a “travelator of continuous movement”. However, friction can be understood as equally an impeder and enabler of movement, and although the platform escalators are not innocent, they are also not determining congestions to happen on the platform in a top-down manner. Such situations are equally staged bottom-up by passengers’ embodied practices and their motivations, metro “literacy” and ways of managing the presence of others in the metro. However, the movement possibilities afforded by the material setting can be hard to negotiate for passengers with lesser able bodies or lesser metro literacy. Through empirical examples, the paper contributes with nuanced understandings of “capacity issues”: rather than a pure quantitative mismatch between the amount of platform sqm’s and the number of passengers, capacity issues reflect the multiple affordances of the material setting and how these are negotiated through the agency of human actors in mobile situations. Connecting these insights to design, this paper suggests a dual approach to “solving” capacity issues that simultaneously makes the Metro increasingly well-functioning by reducing the movement impeding friction from the physical setting, while allowing the friction of passengers’ embodied practices as a good accessible and inclusive public space.

Does Contact with the Justice System Influence Situational Action Theory's Causes of Crime? A Study of English and German Juveniles

Does Contact with the Justice System Influence Situational Action Theory's Causes of Crime? A Study of English and German Juveniles

Does Contact with the Justice System Influence Situational Action Theory's Causes of Crime? A Study of English and German Juveniles

To explore why system contact often has no crime-preventative effect, the current study examined the effects of juvenile justice contact on Situational Action Theory's (SAT) causes of crime, including personal morals, deviant peer associations, and detection risk perceptions. The analysis is based on a sample of English (Peterborough Adolescent and Young Adult Development Study) and German (Crime in the modern City study) juveniles. Propensity score matching was applied to estimate whether the lenient system contacts influenced the causes of crime in the year after the contact. The treatment effect estimates are mostly insignificant and relatively small. The few significant estimates in the English sample suggest that official contact slightly increased deviant peer associations and decreased feelings of moral guilt. Overall, the findings suggest that system contact may often have no crime-preventative effect as it does not (Germany), or only slightly (England) affect SAT's causes of crime. Previous studies, primarily based on the U.S. data, often reported more substantial effects that mostly operated in a crime-amplifying direction. It is speculated whether the less substantial impact in the current study can be attributed to the overall more lenient, diversion-oriented handling of the examined English and German offenders.

Melvin Pollner’s radically reflexive ethnomethodology in historical context

The article explores in a historical context Melvin Pollner’s way of integrating radical reflexivity in ethnomethodology. It is argued that a kind of double hermeneutic should prompt and assist this integration. The implementation of the double hermeneutic discloses a problematic that goes beyond Pollner’s program. It is a problematic that concerns the unintended effects and the unexpected consequences in members’ ongoing construction of local orders. The emergence of such effects and consequences is assigned to configured social practices capable of transcending members’ situated actions and activities. The way in which configured social practices avoid members’ control and regulation is not to be confused with a sort of ‘hidden collective intentionality’ that diverges from members’ apparent intentionality. In order to spell out the nexus of radical reflexivity and double hermeneutic, the article makes use of the ontological difference between the facticity of members’ interpretive-practical mode of being-in-the-world and the factuality of the manifolds of indexicalities resulting from the documentary description of members’ production of lived orders. Facticity is addressed in terms of interplay of practices and possibilities. This interplay is also the terrain on which unintended effects and unexpected consequences come into being.

Cães operacionais no sistema prisional do Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil

Intervention dogs in prison units are fundamental in helping operations that demand action in situations of stress and controlled force with the prison population. The prison system is an area where the dog can be used the most, whether for intervention, scent, searching and operations to inhibit drug trafficking. This mission is performed by the canine technician and his dogs. Dogs are distinguished by racial types, temperament and learning characteristics, which make them excellent working partners. This article contributes with the description of specifications for the use of the dog in the prison system of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, regarding the regulation and the legal foundation, the profile of the operational dog, the training, the security of the dog-police binomial in routine tasks, with the dog playing a supporting role in tactical employment and the talent of the canine technician who leads him on a leash.

Developmental and Life-Course Criminology Theory: A Literature Review

The paper reviews certain criminological life course theories. The theory of developmental pathways is based on specific trajectories that gradually, during development, lead to criminal behaviour. The age-graded theory of informal social control explains the influence of social institutions during the life course on the occurrence of criminal behaviour. The interactional theory finds that delinquency has its roots in weak social ties and delinquent networks; it is part of reciprocal continuous relationships during the life course. The dual taxonomy theory explains the continuity and changes in criminal careers and identifies two types of perpetrators. The integrative multi-layered control theory explains the development of criminal behaviour, events and crime rates through the integration of classical criminological theories. The situational action theory states that during development criminal behaviour is part of moral action. The developmental propensity theory considers the correlates of genetics and environment to delinquent behaviour. The integrated cognitive antisocial potential theory incorporates traditional criminological theories aiming to explain the unique potential for antisocial action that can lead to criminal behaviour during development.

The Relationship of Leadership Style of the Head Room with Nurse's Work Motivation

Most of the hospital employees are nurses. Nurses work 24 hours to provide nursing care. Nursing with this large number of course requires reliable leadership. Leadership is one of the managerial aspects in organizational life that aims to influence, move and direct one's actions in certain situations to achieve goals. Leadership will be reflected in the leadership style that will be applied to subordinates. Leadership style is a form of behavior from a leader that can affect a person's work motivation and become a driving force for work morale. The purpose of this study was to analyze leadership with work motivation of nurses in hospital inpatient rooms. ype of research is a quantitative method with a non-experimental approach, with adesign cross sectional where data collection for the independent and dependent variables is carried out at the same time. The research sample consisted of 32 nurse with total sampling technique. The analytical test used is rank spearman. Results obtained are that the democratic leadership style affects the work motivation of high nurses with p value = 0.000 and Rho = 0.656

Analysing the Water-Energy-Food Nexus From a Polycentric Governance Perspective: Conceptual and Methodological Framework

The Water-Energy-Food Nexus has emerged over the past decade as a useful concept to reduce trade-offs and increase synergies in promoting goals of water, energy and food securities. While WEF scholarship substantiates the biophysical interlinkages and calls for increased and effective coordination across sectors and levels, knowledge on conditions for effective coordination is still lacking. Analysing WEF nexus governance from a polycentricity perspective may contribute to better understanding coordination. In this paper, we propose a conceptual framework for analysing WEF nexus governance based on the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework and the concept of Networks of Adjacent Action Situations (NAAS). The interdependence among transactions for pursuing WEF securities by actors in different action situations generates the need for coordination for changing or sustaining institutions, policy goals and policy instruments that guide actions leading to sustainable outcomes. Coordination is attained through arrangements based on cooperation, coercion or competition. Coordination in complex social-ecological systems is unlikely to be achieved by a single governance mode but rather by synergistic combinations of governance modes. Particular coordination arrangements that emerge in a context depend on the distribution of authority, information and resources within and across interlinked decision-making centres. Further, integrating the political ecology based conceptualisations of power into the analytical framework extends the governance analysis to include the influence of power relations on coordination. Methodological innovation in delineating action situations and identifying the unit of analysis as well as integrating different sources and types of data is required to operationalise the conceptual framework.

Criminality and socioeconomic disadvantage: a spatial analysis throughout Brazilian municipalities

ABSTRACT This study uses situational action theory (SAT) to analyse the effects of socioeconomic disadvantages on criminality rates (namely, robbery) in Brazilian municipalities. To achieve this objective, the variation of robberies per thousand inhabitants was used as a proxy for criminality, estimating its determinants using a spatial panel data set. As a result, we identified social disadvantage greater effect (i.e. variation of the mean Education and Health Firjan indices) when compared to economic disadvantage on the criminality in Brazilian municipalities. This effect was more noticeable in regions with poorer social infrastructure. Moreover, the crime environment to which individuals are exposed has a positive association in the determination of illegal acts, confirming arguments made by SAT.

Taking Action in Student Harassment Situations: Application of the Behaviour Change Wheel to Bystander Intervention.

This study applied the Behaviour Change Wheel (BCW) to understand barriers and facilitators to bystander behaviors in UK students. The BCW includes detailed examination of the capabilities, opportunities, and motivations involved in behaviors. Two surveys (n = 515; n = 201) and a focus group study (n = 12) were undertaken. Capability to intervene may be influenced by confidence and beliefs about physical ability and safety. Students appeared to have the physical opportunity to intervene, but social opportunity might be influenced by cultural norms. Motivations might be influenced by beliefs as well as inherent stereotypes about perpetrators and victims. Behavior change techniques (BCTs) such as instruction on how to perform the behavior, reattribution and creating a valued self-identity should be applied to overcome these barriers. A logic model to theorize the change processes underlying bystander behaviors in this population offers a new perspective on what needs to be addressed in interventions.

Optimisation of manufacturing process parameters for variable component geometries using reinforcement learning

Tailoring manufacturing processes to optimum part quality often requires numerous resource-intensive trial experiments in practice. Physics-based process simulations in combination with general-purpose optimisation algorithms allow for an a priori process optimisation and help concentrate costly trials on the most promising variants. However, considerable computation times are a significant barrier, especially for iterative optimisation. Surrogate-based optimisation often helps reduce the computational effort but surrogate models are typically case-specific and cannot adapt to different manufacturing situations. Consequently, even minor problem variations e.g. geometry adaptions invalidate the surrogate and require resampling of data and retraining of the surrogate. Reinforcement Learning aims at inferring optimal actions in variable situations. In this work, it is used to train a neural network to estimate optimal process parameters (“actions”) for variable component geometries (“situations”). The use case is fabric forming in which pressure pads are positioned to optimise the material intake. After training, the network is found to give meaningful parameter estimations even for new geometries not considered during training. Thus, it extracts reusable information from generic process samples and successfully applies it to new, non-generic components. Since data is reused rather than resampled, the approach is deemed a promising option for lean part and process development.

Reflecting on the Interaction of Self-Control and Morality in Situational Action Theory: Comparing Absolute and Relative Effects of Self-control in 28 Countries

Reflecting on the Interaction of Self-Control and Morality in Situational Action Theory: Comparing Absolute and Relative Effects of Self-control in 28 Countries

On a Unique Solution of the Stochastic Functional Equation Arising in Gambling Theory and Human Learning Process

The term “learning” is often used to refer to a generally stable behavioral change resulting from practice. However, it is a fundamental biological capacity far more developed in humans than in other living beings. In an animal or human being, the learning phase may often be viewed as a series of choices between multiple possible reactions. Here, we analyze a specific type of human learning process related to gambling in which a subject inserts a poker chip to operate a two-armed bandit device and then presses one of the two keys. Through the use of an electromagnet, one or more poker chips are given to the individual in a container located in the apparatus’s center. If a chip is provided, it is declared a winner; otherwise, it is considered a loser. The goal of this paper is to look at the subject’s actions in such situations and provide a mathematical model that is appropriate for it. The existence of a unique solution to the suggested human learning model is examined using relevant fixed point results.

Dynamic Semantic World Models and Increased Situational Awareness for Highly Automated Inland Waterway Transport.

Automated surface vessels must integrate many tasks and motions at the same time. Moreover, vessels as well as monitoring and control services need to react to physical disturbances, to dynamically allocate software resources available within a particular environment, and to communicate with various other actors in particular navigation and traffic situations. In this work, the responsibility for the situational awareness is given to a mediator that decides how: 1) to assess the impact of the actual physical environment on the quality and performance of the ongoing task executions; 2) to make sure these tasks satisfy the system requirements; and 3) to be robust against disturbances. This paper proposes a set of semantic world models within the context of inland waterway transport, and discusses policies and methodologies to compose, use, and connect these models. Model-conform entities and relations are composed dynamically, that is, corresponding to the opportunities and challenges offered by the actual situation. The semantic world models discussed in this work are divided into two main categories: 1) the semantic description of a vessel’s own properties and relationships, called the internal world model, or body model, and 2) the semantic description of its local environment, called the external world model, or map. A range of experiments illustrate the potential of using such models to decide the reactions of the application at runtime. Furthermore, three dynamic, context-dependent, ship domains are integrated in the map as two-dimensional geometric entities around a moving vessel to increase the situational awareness of automated vessels. Their geometric representations depend on the associated relations; for example, with: 1) the motion of the vessel, 2) the actual, desired, or hypothesised tasks, 3) perception sensor information, and 4) other geometries, e.g., features from the Inland Electronic Navigational Charts. The ability to unambiguously understand the environmental context, as well as the motion or position of surrounding entities, allows for resource-efficient and straightforward control decisions. The semantic world models facilitate knowledge sharing between actors, and significantly enhance explainability of the actors’ behaviour and control decisions.

A Critical Overview of the Geometry of Fraud and a Model Proposal within the Framework of Situational Action Theory

Geometric metaphors have been used in fraud theory for more than 60 years. The most commonly used of these metaphors is the fraud triangle. The fraud triangle has been criticized severely for its scope, substitutability of its elements, perceptuality, individuality and one-sidedness. Different models developed afterwards tried to cover the shortcomings of the fraud triangle with additions and modifications, but none of them became as popular as the fraud triangle. In this study, by moving away from the use of geometric metaphors, which has become a traditional approach in explaining the structure and causality of fraud, a model based on Situational Action Theory (SAT) is proposed. The aim of the study is to reveal that fraud has a complex and multi-dimensional structure that cannot be explained with one-dimensional metaphors, and in this context, to develop a theoretical model expressed in a mathematical formula for measuring fraud risk.

Development of Machine Learning Methods in Hybrid Energy Storage Systems in Electric Vehicles

The hybrid energy storage systems are a practical tool to solve the issues in single energy storage systems in terms of specific power supply and high specific energy. These systems are especially applicable in electric and hybrid vehicles. Applying a dynamic and coherent strategy plays a key role in managing a hybrid energy storage system. The data obtained while driving and information collected from energy storage systems can be used to analyze the performance of the provided energy management method. Most existing energy management models follow predetermined rules that are unsuitable for vehicles moving in different modes and conditions. Therefore, it is so advantageous to provide an energy management system that can learn from the environment and the driving cycle and send the needed data to a control system for optimal management. In this research, the machine learning method and its application in increasing the efficiency of a hybrid energy storage management system are applied. In this regard, the energy management system is designed based on machine learning methods so that the system can learn to take the necessary actions in different situations directly and without the use of predicted select and run the predefined rules. The advantage of this method is accurate and effective control with high efficiency through direct interaction with the environment around the system. The numerical results show that the proposed machine learning method can achieve the least mean square error in all strategies.

Undervisningsbegreppets innebörd i förskolan utifrån ett läroplansteoretiskt perspektiv

The purpose of the study is to contribute knowledge about how teaching in preschool can be understood in relation to how teaching is described by preschool teachers. The following research questions were posed: How do preschool teachers describe teaching and its meaning in preschool? and What didactic questions appear in preschool teachers’ descriptions of teaching in preschool? The empirical data consist of reflective texts that were analysed through content analysis with the help of Bernstein’s concepts: classification and framing, and visible and invisible pedagogy. The results show that the preschool teachers in the study perceived the introduction of the concept of teaching in preschool as an opportunity, which allowed them to become more aware of their actions in different learning situations. That the preschool teachers described teaching taking place through play and in everyday situations based on children's interests and needs hints at an organization with invisible pedagogy, weak classification and weak framing. Strong classification and strong framing, on the other hand, became manifest when the preschool teachers described that they plan what they do with the children and use materials, organize children’s groups and design environments to promote children’s learning. Furthermore, the preschool teachers focused mainly on the didactic questions of how and why, while the what-question received less attention.

Undervisningsbegreppets innebörd i förskolan utifrån ett läroplansteoretiskt perspektiv

The purpose of the study is to contribute knowledge about how teaching in preschool can be understood in relation to how teaching is described by preschool teachers. The following research questions were posed: How do preschool teachers describe teaching and its meaning in preschool? and What didactic questions appear in preschool teachers’ descriptions of teaching in preschool? The empirical data consist of reflective texts that were analysed through content analysis with the help of Bernstein’s concepts: classification and framing, and visible and invisible pedagogy. The results show that the preschool teachers in the study perceived the introduction of the concept of teaching in preschool as an opportunity, which allowed them to become more aware of their actions in different learning situations. That the preschool teachers described teaching taking place through play and in everyday situations based on children's interests and needs hints at an organization with invisible pedagogy, weak classification and weak framing. Strong classification and strong framing, on the other hand, became manifest when the preschool teachers described that they plan what they do with the children and use materials, organize children’s groups and design environments to promote children’s learning. Furthermore, the preschool teachers focused mainly on the didactic questions of how and why, while the what-question received less attention.