Issues Of Agency Research Articles

Co-creating with AI

The concept of “co-creation” is particularly timely because it reframes the ethics of who creates, how, and why, not only interpreting the world but seeking to change it through a lens of equity and justice. An expansive notion, co-creation embraces a constellation of methods, frameworks, and feedback systems in which projects emerge out of process and evolve from within communities and with people, rather than being made for or about them. Co-creation, we contend, offers a hands-on heuristic to explore the expressive capacities and possible forms of agency in systems that have already been marked as candidates for some form of consciousness. In this article, we ask if humans can co-create with nonhuman systems and, more specifically, artificial intelligence (AI) systems. To find out, we interviewed more than thirty artists, journalists, curators, and coders, specifically asking about their relationships with the AI systems with which they work. Their answers often reflected a broader spectrum of co-creation, expanding the social conversation and complicating issues of agency and nonagency, technology and power, for the sake of human and nonhuman futures alike.

Human Agency in the Missio Dei and the Problem of Discipleship

AbstractAt the heart of this article is an inquiry into the relationship between human and divine agency in the doctrine of the missio Dei and a critique of the turn to the language of discipleship in looking to articulate this agency. Taking the World Council of Churches’ Commission of World Mission and Evangelism's two recent documents, Together towards Life: Mission and Evangelism in Changing Landscapes (TTL) and the “Arusha Call to Discipleship,” as a case study, this article will seek to articulate an account of human participation in the missio Dei which maintains the emphasis on spirituality in TTL. Through a close reading of TTL and the Arusha Call, the article will demonstrate that the introduction of discipleship language has not solved the issue of agency but rather has changed the account of agency and, as a result, the missiology. By turning to accounts of faithful participation from qualitative research into British Methodism, to John V. Taylor's Go‐between God, and to Pope Francis’ Evangelii gaudium, I will suggest that a better account of human agency in the missio Dei can be developed by emphasizing the pneumatology of TTL and by turning to language of attentiveness, accompaniment, and discernment.

The post-war reconstruction planning of London

ABSTRACT The replanning of London following the Second World War is, in many ways, a familiar story. However it has often been told in fragments, usually prioritizing the best-known plans and the involvement of Professor Patrick Abercrombie. This paper positions the replanning more widely, considering a hierarchy from region to specific locales, and the problems of fragmented planning within such a structure. It explores issues of agents, agency and authority. The sanitized and orderly vision of a new London is set against a more complex and disordered reality of reconstruction-plan production. The urgency, scale and complexity of the task, and questions of why should ‘author’ plans, are significant issues. The realities of postwar London have been shaped by a messy and misunderstood process.

Accessing a “bounded space”: An ethnographic map of a residential care home for old persons during COVID-19

Taking place in a residential care setting in England during COVID-19, this ethnographic study offers a closer look at residents' experiences of residential care, with particular focus on dignity and wellbeing. Viewing experiences of well-being as embedded within interpersonal negotiations, the study turns to experience and stories to reveal complexities and contradictions in this taken-for-granted space. However, the timeline and design for this project has been greatly impacted by COVID-19. In exploring the design of this study and its ‘journey’ toward the field, the following article takes a critical view in order to view the impacts that ‘bounded’ and protected care settings may have on the agency and rights of older adult research participants. In this article, I also consider some of the complex ethical issues of conducting qualitative research during a time when older adults are being denied personal visitors, which can further 'bound' the care home space. The article offers timely insight on issues of agency and voice when working with a ‘protected population’ during a time which highlights the vulnerability of old adults.

Exploring the role of institutional investors in voting, monitoring and dialogue engagement in mitigating agency conflict in Malaysia’s public listed companies

Institutional investors are very important for keeping shareholder value high by reducing agency conflict and promoting good governance. Recent governance scandals have placed Malaysia on the global stage, jeopardising the publicly listed companies (PLCs) reputation and calling into question the effectiveness of the country’s corporate governance mechanism. The study aimed to examine the level of agency conflict in Malaysian PLCs and the roles of institutional investors in mitigating agency issues. At the same time, we are exploring unclear institutional investors level of activism in Malaysia and evaluating which roles are considered powerful among institutional investors. The findings demonstrated that institutional investors significantly mitigate agency conflict, with monitoring and dialogue engagement as the most influential roles. Conclusively, the discovery reinstated Type 1 agency conflict (principal-agent) among important issues for corporate governance in Malaysia. The study meets the gaps of prior research in the Malaysian context of agency conflict. It offers a novelty on agency conflict examination in Malaysia as well as exploring institutional investors’ roles and recommending an approach that can be taken to strengthen the governance mechanism among PLCs in Malaysia. The present study advises institutional investors to play aggressive roles in managing agency issues, and relevant bodies need to enhance awareness of agency issues.

Managerial Ownership, Leverage, Dividend Policy, Free Cash Flow, Firm Value: Evidence in Indonesia Stock Exchange

Limited liability company agency issues in Indonesia make for an exciting study topic from both the corporate law and corporate finance perspectives, giving rise to an agency issue, or conflict of interest. Determining the impact of managerial ownership, leverage, and dividend policy on free cash flow and firm value in the Manufacturing Industry listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange from 2014 to 2020 is the goal of the study. 33 sample companies and 198 data samples total are used in this purposive sampling study. The data is balanced panel data that was analyzed using a stepwise regression approach. The results showed that managerial ownership had a significant negative effect on firm value, leverage did not affect firm value, dividend policy had a significant positive effect on firm value, and free cash flow had a significant positive effect on firm value. managerial ownership does not affect free cash flow, leverage has a significant positive effect on free cash flow, and dividend policy has a significant negative effect on free cash flow. This study implies that managers tend to be opportunistic so institutional ownership interference in the manufacturing industry in Indonesia is still high. High dividend payments will give a positive signal that will have an impact on increasing stock prices.

Determinants of green bond issuance: agency or stakeholder motives matter?

We investigate the underlying reasons for a firm to issue green bonds using agency and stakeholder theory as frameworks. We testhow different proxies for each theory explain the decision to issue a green bond. We also test whether these proxies are relevant togreen bond issuance amounts. We perform logit and fixed effects regressions using a dataset of green bond issuers and non-issuersin 27 countries for the 2013 to 2017 period. Our findings suggest that the agency motive is a key determinant of the decision to issuea green bond. However, agency issues seem to have only a partial impact on the size of the green bond issuances.

Not by Design Alone! Modelling Practices to Identify Students’ Frameworks of Evolution in Real-Life Contexts

Despite being a fundamental concept in biology, evolution continues to be one of the most challenging topics to teach in science education. Ideas of evolution emphasising anatomical or behavioural features of individuals, as opposed to the interplay between genetics and the environment, are reinforced through language and culture, making them robust and persistent in the student population at all educational levels. Model-based reasoning has been reported to be useful for students to make sense of process-based science content, combining epistemological with linguistic and value dimensions. However, there is a dearth of evidence in biology education showing how modelling can instigate epistemological maturity, specifically about issues of agency and design in evolution by natural selection. Drawing on this perspective, this study focuses on describing the nature of students’ ideas while modelling the resistance developed by a population of mosquitoes in a lagoon after an insecticide is introduced. Data collection includes students’ written reports and drawings, which were analysed with content and discourse analysis. The findings show that, at first, students believed adaptation to feature at will was a behavioural characteristic instigated by a pre-existing design. After modelling the process of natural selection, the explanations appeared to improve (from Lamarckian to Neo-Darwinian views), and most groups showed accurate explanations about adaptation.

Between enslavement and agency. Selected issues in the field of political agency

This article deals with issues in the field of enslavement and agency. Slavery is understood as an area of political science research located at the intersection of issues of political agency and theories of power. In the first part, slavery is treated as a form of enslavement, and other forms of enslavement are presented using a modified, four-part scheme proposed by Szymon Wróbel. The second part describes some fields of transgression, emancipation and agency.

Pulp and participation: Assessing the legitimacy of participatory environmental governance in Umkomaas, South Africa

The Sappi Saiccor mill in Umkomaas, KwaZulu Natal (KZN) Province, is a global pulp producer. It is also a major emitter of noxious substances in the heavily polluted and historically marginalised South Durban area. Taking a qualitative, narrative approach, this paper examines Saiccor's legacy of contamination, community opposition to the mill, and responses of state actors responsible for governing industrial risk. Through a conceptual framework combining theories around participatory environmental governance, legitimacy and state capture, the article explores the extent to which measures deployed by/on behalf of the Sappi Saiccor mill to engage with local residents and activists can be considered legitimate. The paper argues that prevalent corporate instrumentalism and a lack of political will continue to undermine the legitimacy of community engagement processes, which remain characterised by mistrust. It concludes the South African state cannot be relied upon to support genuinely inclusive, deliberative, empowering and reflexive governance practices. It is therefore left to organised civil society to force discourse beyond hegemonic, ecologically-modernised, technocentric ideals, and to bring issues of power, agency, and social justice to the fore of public and policy debate. The way might then be paved for strong political leadership committed to transparent, equitable environmental governance processes.

Governing Large Projects: A Three-Stage Process to Get It Right

Private and public megaprojects, whether new plant facilities, IT systems, skyscrapers, airports, railways, roads, or the Olympics, are frequently associated with dramatic cost and schedule overruns. The root causes are behavioral biases – such as optimism and deliberate deception – accompanied by principal-agent issues and a lack of project-related skills. Through a three-stage process – i.e., Forecasting, Organizing, and Executing (FOX) – we organize and offer solutions to mitigate the cognitive biases and agency issues planners and policymakers face in large projects. Following the three-stage FOX process and building on Behavioral Decision Theory (BDT), we first review evidence for the accuracy of Reference Class Forecasting (RCF), which considers comparable past projects to forecast a current, planned project. We provide evidence for RCF performance and recent methodological extensions such as Similarity Based Forecasting (SBF). Second, considering the principal-agent and project governance literature, we offer organizational solutions to reduce unfounded optimism and deception, including debiasing techniques and specific measures to curb principal-agent issues. Third, we suggest combining a project modular design with speedy implementation for faster, better, cheaper, and lower-risk execution. Overall, we offer an original, holistic theoretical view that deals with both behavioral and strategic elements of how to debias large projects, along with direct practical implications and advice for those who manage megaprojects with increasingly high stakes and risks.

Exploring educational policy transfer: A structure–agency perspective

AbstractThis study presents some of the current methodological issues regarding the analysis and comprehension of educational policy transfer, with particular emphasis on the issue of structure and agency. It suggests some shortcomings of current educational policy transfer research in dealing with the complex interaction between structure and agency. To fill those voids, drawing from Archer's morphogenetic approach in educational policy transfer, an alternative framework of educational policy transfer is presented. A case from the author's current research on China's interest in Japanese vocational education during the late Qing Dynasty is given to explain the usage of this new interpretive framework. It is hoped that this new conceptual framework will aid in analysing educational policy transfer and open up a new methodological and theoretical space for future educational policy transfer research.

City Governments as Political Actors of Global Governance

Abstract The transnational rise of city networks is increasingly associated with the emergence of hybrid configurations beyond the public sector that contribute to technocratic decisionmaking processes and the depoliticization of global governance. This article takes issue with this argument. By analyzing the legitimation strategy used by the global city network United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) vis-à-vis the UN system, the article contends that city networks can generate collective agency and frame political issues as a matter of public accountability. The cities gathered under UCLG, a “public membership” city network, are offering their political constitution to the multilateral system, thus complementing rather than replacing the political agency of state-centric processes. Yet the state-centric nature of the international system is also the main obstacle on the (winding) road of UCLG toward multilateral recognition.

Financing industrial corporations in a developing economy: panel evidence from Imperial Russia

This article explores the financing of early industrial corporations using newly constructed panel data from Imperial Russian balance sheets. We document how corporate capital structures and dividend payout policies reflected internal agency issues, information asymmetries with external investors, life cycle considerations, and other frictions present in the Russian context. In particular, we find that widely held, listed and more profitable corporations were less reliant on debt financing. Asset tangibility was associated with lower debt levels, suggesting that Russian corporate debt was short-term, collateral was largely irrelevant, or agency problems dominated. Finally, we find that many of these same issues, for example ownership structure and access to securities markets, also mattered for financial performance and that dividends may have compensated investors for poor legal protections.

Agency cost and Earnings Management: Evidence from Amman Stock Exchange

This study examines the impact of agency cost and earnings management by employing data from 30 Industrial Jordanian firms from 2009 to 2019. In this study, I will investigate if earnings management decreases agency expenses in Jordan, a country where businesses face agency issues. The confluence of agency cost problems and earning management was tested using a static model. The main findings of this study suggest that Earnings Management is closely associated with agency costs. There is an Agency Conflict occurrence in the ASE. On the other hand, the factors affecting corporate governance have no appreciable impact on the agency cost index.

Social Media in the Process of Evidence of Electronic Information and Transaction Crimes

This study aims to examine and analyze social media accounts’ status and seizure procedures in the evidentiary process of cybercrime. This study uses normative legal research with a statute and case approach. The collection of legal materials is carried out using a literature study technique. The collected legal material is then qualitatively analyzed to describe the problem and answer study purposes. The results show that the status of social media as legal means of proof in the evidentiary process at trial is regulated in Law No. 11 of 2008 and Law no. 8 of 1981. Electronic evidence can be categorized as proof of indication by fulfilling the formal and material requirements regulated in Law No. 11 of 2008. Meanwhile, seizure procedures of social media accounts in the evidentiary process of cybercrime are preceded by searching mobile phone communication to obtain device specifications. Social media accounts, files, documents, and applications used by cybercrime perpetrators will be found in these specifications. Seizure of social media accounts is regulated in Article 43 section (3) of Law No. 19 of 2016, while the procedure is carried out based on Law No. 8 of 1981. Therefore, it is recommended that the government and law enforcement agencies issue implementing regulations regarding seizing social media accounts as legal means of proof in the evidentiary process of electronic information and transaction crimes. In addition, collaboration between the Ministry of Communications and Informatics and social media platforms is needed to handle more accessible and more efficient cases, mainly regarding seizures of social media accounts used by cybercrime perpetrators. On the other hand, it is necessary to expand the meaning of proof of indication as regulated in Law No. 8 of 1981 in order to be able to emphasize social media proof as a legal means of proof.

Epistemic justice is the basis of shared decision making

BackgroundThere is little evidence that share decision-making (SDM) is being successfully implemented, with a significant gap between theory and clinical practice. In this article we look at SDM explicitly acknowledging its social and cultural situatedness and examine it as a set of practices (e.g. actions, such as communicating, referring, or prescribing, and decisions relating to them). We study clinicians’ communicative performance as anchored in the context of professional and institutional practice and within the expected behavioural norms of actors situated in clinical encounters. DiscussionWe propose to see conditions for shared decision-making in terms of epistemic justice, an explicit acknowledgment and acceptance of the legitimacy of healthcare users and their accounts and knowledges. We propose that shared decision-making is primarily a communicative encounter which requires both participants to have equal communicative rights. It is a process that is started by the clinician’s decision and requires the suspension of their inherent interactional advantage. ConclusionThe epistemic-justice perspective we adopt leads to at least three implications for clinical practices. First, clinical training must go beyond the development of communication skills and focus more on an understanding of healthcare as a set of social practices. Second, we suggest medicine develop a stronger relationship with humanities and the social sciences. Third, we advocate that shared decision-making has issues of justice, equity, and agency at its core.

A data-driven decision support tool for public transport service analysis and provision

Public transport service (PTS) analysis and provision is an important and challenging issue for public transport agencies. The results of the PTS analysis help transport planners to identify the areas in need of PTS improvement. Furthermore, relevant policy actions need to be determined for service provision to reach the desired level of PTS improvement in the identified areas. Without an appropriate decision support tool, planners need to apply several blind trials to find a policy action which improves the PTS in the examined areas. This paper introduces a data-driven decision support tool for PTS analysis and provision. The proposed framework combines a potentially large number of PTS measures while taking the correlation among the investigated measures into account and develops high-dimensional supervised classification models that predict the PTS levels for different policy actions. With this approach, planners can identify and prioritize the areas in need of PTS improvement, determine what policy actions should be targeted to improve the PTS in the identified areas, and predict the PTS impacts of these policy actions in the examined areas. The application of the proposed framework is demonstrated in detail through a case study of Budapest, Hungary, which is followed by a hypothetical policy implementation. The results show that mostly outskirts are in need of PTS improvement. Furthermore, the underlying reasons behind the areas with poor overall PTS are studied to target the relevant policy actions that improve the PTS in the identified areas. The PTS impacts of the targeted policy actions are studied by using the developed high-dimensional supervised classification models.

Governing Large Projects: A Three-Stage Process to Get It Right

Private and public megaprojects, whether new plant facilities, IT systems, skyscrapers, airports, railways, roads, or the Olympics, are frequently associated with dramatic cost and schedule overruns. The root causes are behavioral biases – such as optimism and deliberate deception – accompanied by principal-agent issues and a lack of project-related skills. Through a three-stage process – i.e., Forecasting, Organizing, and Executing (FOX) – we organize and offer solutions to mitigate the cognitive biases and agency issues planners and policymakers face in large projects. Following the three-stage FOX process and building on Behavioral Decision Theory (BDT), we first review evidence for the accuracy of Reference Class Forecasting (RCF), which considers comparable past projects to forecast a current, planned project. We provide evidence for RCF performance and recent methodological extensions such as Similarity Based Forecasting (SBF). Second, considering the principal-agent and project governance literature, we offer organizational solutions to reduce unfounded optimism and deception, including debiasing techniques and specific measures to curb principal-agent issues. Third, we suggest combining a project modular design with speedy implementation for faster, better, cheaper, and lower-risk execution. Overall, we offer an original, holistic theoretical view that deals with both behavioral and strategic elements of how to debias large projects, along with direct practical implications and advice for those who manage megaprojects with increasingly high stakes and risks.

Acute, chronic, and post-mortem toxicity: a review focused on three different classes of new psychoactive substances.

New psychoactive substances (NPS) are not controlled under the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 or the 1971 Convention, but they may pose a public health threat. Knowledge of the main properties and toxicological effects of these substances is lacking. According to the current Drugs Law (Law n. 11.343/2006), the Brazilian Surveillance Agency issues directives for forbidden substances in Brazil, and structural classes of synthetic cannabinoids, cathinones, and phenylethylamines are considered illicit drugs. Considering that data on these controlled substances are scattered, the main objective of this work was to collect and organize data to generate relevant information on the toxicological properties of NPS. We carried out a literature review collecting information on the acute, chronic, and post-mortem toxicity of these classes of NSP. We searched info in five scientific databases considering works from 2017 to 2021 and performed a statistical evaluation of the data. Results have shown a general lack of studies in this field given that many NPS have not had their toxicity evaluated. We observed a significant difference in the volume of data concerning acute and chronic/post-mortem toxicity. Moreover, studies on the adverse effects of polydrug use are scarce. More in-depth information about the main threats involving NPS use are needed.