Big Companies Research Articles

Argumentation strategies in lobbying: the discursive struggle over proposals to regulate Big Tech

PurposeThis study investigates, through a case study where organisations held opposing lobbying objectives, the argumentation strategies employed by organisations in their lobbying. Big Tech companies lobbied against proposed online harm regulations in the UK, with their objectives clashing with public interest groups with a health focus, who advocated for broader regulations. The research explores the functional relationship between these argumentation strategies and the lobbying objectives of the organisations involved. Additionally, it examines the extent to which organisations with similar lobbying objectives converge in the argumentation strategies they deploy.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative content analysis of N = 13 submissions in response to the UK Online Safety Bill from seven public interest groups and six Big Tech companies was conducted. It captured both the public affairs objectives and argumentation strategies submitted in response to the regulatory proposal.FindingsOur findings suggest Big Tech use argumentation strategies that emphasise cost implications, threats to freedom of speech and claim proposed regulations are impractical, while at the same time seeking to align their objectives with public interest norms. Public interest groups continuously stress the costs and risks for mental health if regulations are not widened in scope or rigorously enforced.Originality/valueSituating lobbying within communication management, the study contributes to theorising language strategies. It reveals the argumentation strategies with which both powerful corporations and public interest groups attempt to influence public policy. Both theoretically and practically, it will contribute to developing analytical frameworks for understanding the influence intent in lobbying argumentation.

Internet of Things and Employee Engagement Across the Business Model in the Business Park Companies in Jordan

Businesses now function and engage with technology very differently as a result of the Internet of Things’ (IoT) rapid growth. This study investigates the connection between IoT adoption, the business models used by businesses located in a Jordanian business park, and its effect on employee engagement (EE). This research intends to offer insights into how the incorporation of IoT technology affects EE levels through the moderating role of business model’s mechanisms, in recognition of the critical role that engaged employees play in fostering organizational success. Data were gathered from 68 big companies a range of businesses inside a well-known commercial complex in Jordan using a quantitative approach, which also included questionnaires. Out 265 questionnaires were retrieved, 230 valid for analysis. PLS4 were employed to analyze the data. The results emphasize how closely intertwined IoT integration, components of business models, and employee engagement are. It has been discovered that the alignment of IoT- enabled processes with the business model’s strategies improves operational effectiveness, streamline workflows, and enhance EE. Limitation and future research are also provided.

Appraising Regulatory Framework Towards Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) Under Digital Humanism

Abstract The explosive advancement of contemporary artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, typified by ChatGPT, is steering humans towards an uncontrollable trajectory to artificial general intelligence (AGI). Against the backdrop of a series of transformative breakthroughs, big tech companies such as OpenAI and Google have initiated an “AGI race” on a supranational level. As technological power becomes increasingly absolute, structural challenges may erupt with an unprecedented velocity, potentially resulting in disorderly expansion and even malignant development of AI technologies. To preserve the dignity and safety of human-beings in a brand-new AGI epoch, it is imperative to implement regulatory guidelines to limit the applications of AGI within the confines of human ethics and rules to further counteract the potential downsides. To promote the benevolent evolution of AGI, the principles of Humanism should be underscored and the connotation of Digital Humanism should be further enriched. Correspondingly, the current regulatory paradigm for generative AI may also be overhauled under the tenet of Digital Humanism to adapt to the quantum leaps and subversive shifts produced by AGI in the future. Positioned at the nexus of legal studies, computer science, and moral philosophy, this study therefore charts a course for a synthetic regulation framework of AGI under Digital Humanism.

Fighting Antimicrobial Resistance: Innovative Drugs in Antibacterial Research.

In the fight against bacterial infections, particularly those caused by multi-resistant pathogens, the need for new antibacterials is undoubted in scientific communities. and is by now also widely perceived by the general population. However, the antibacterial research landscape has changed considerably over the past years. The majority of big pharma companies has left the field and thus, the decline in R&D on antibacterials severely impacts the drug pipeline. In past years, antibacterial research increasingly relies on smaller companies or academic research institutions, which mostly have only limited financial resources, to carry a drug discovery and development process from the beginning and through the clinical phases. This review formulates the requirements for an antibacterial in regard of targeted pathogens and resistance mechanisms. Strategies are shown for the discovery of new antibacterial structures originating from natural sources, chemical synthesis and more recent AI approaches. This is complemented by principles for the computer-aided design of antibacterials and the refinement of a lead structure. The second part of the article comprises a compilation of promising antibacterial molecules classified according to bacterial target areas. Aspects of the origin, the antibacterial spectrum, resistance and the current development status of the presented drug molecules are highlighted.

Optimists, moderates and sceptics – identifying consumer groups and their willingness to consume cultured proteins in Finland

PurposeIt is suggested that the detrimental externalities of intensive livestock production can be reduced by manufacturing animal proteins with cellular agriculture technologies. This study explores consumer attitudes towards cultured proteins based on representative Finnish survey data (n = 1,452).Design/methodology/approachSum variables from the principal component analysis were utilized in the cluster analysis to identify potential consumer groups of cultured proteins in Finland. A regression analysis was used to find out the explanatory factors of positive first reaction, willingness to taste, willingness to use and support for the establishment of a national cultured meat sector.FindingsMost of the respondents (72%) would taste cultured products, but attitudes of optimists (n = 516), moderates (n = 479) and sceptics (n = 457) differ in terms of the environment, livestock farming and cultured proteins. Most optimists (77%), almost quarter (23%) of moderates and less than a fifth (18%) of sceptics support cultured proteins. The environmental concerns are shared by optimists and moderates, whereas moderates and sceptics tend to be more suspicious. Positive attitudes are significantly influenced by social norms and respondents' beliefs regarding their global and national benefits. Major concerns pertain to anticipated dictation force of big companies, negative effects on Finnish agriculture, product attributes, use of genetically modified organisms and experienced (un)naturalness of cultured foods.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the understanding of Finnish consumers' attitudes towards cultured proteins. The identification of potential consumer segments and the elucidation of their attitudes are relevant, given the anticipated acceleration in the development of cultured foods.

Talent philosophies and institutional factors as determinants of talent management in SMEs: a French country-specific empirical investigation

PurposeTalent management (TM) is a crucial strategic issue for global organizations, extending beyond multinationals and big companies to encompass small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and contexts outside the Anglo-Saxon sphere. However, TM in SMEs is still under-researched, with a lack of studies and evidence on TM determinants and TM in practice. This study explores, using the lens of institutional theory, how talent philosophies and a combination of institutional factors shape TM in French SMEs, highlighting the interplay between these elements within the specific context of French SMEs.Design/methodology/approachGiven the limited knowledge about TM determinants in SMEs and the need to uncover and understand the phenomenon investigated, this study is exploratory in nature and lends itself to a qualitative research approach. In-depth semi-structured interviews with 27 CEOs, managers, TM and HR managers across 15 SMEs in France provided a comprehensive cross-industry perspective.FindingsThe study reveals that talent philosophies in French SMEs are predominantly inclusive and development-oriented, influenced by institutional factors such as the cultural logic of proximity and personalization, state support mechanisms like the Fonds Unique Interministériel (FUI) and legal frameworks that emphasize equal opportunity. Organizational elements like size and proximity foster a community-focused, egalitarian TM approach, while ownership and vulnerability lead to a reactive and informal TM strategy. The study presents a model that links these determinants to the specific TM approaches observed in French SMEs, illustrating how institutional factors like centralized control and egalitarianism shape TM practices.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper highlights the need for more empirical studies on talent philosophies, institutional and organizational factors not only in SMEs but also in comparison with multinational enterprises (MNEs), through institutional theory. Particular attention should be paid to the homogenization of SME sizes based on their level of establishment.Originality/valueThis study extends studies on TM determinants in SMEs, from the perspective of talent philosophies, utilizing insights from French institutional theory. It is also among the few and new studies to highlight contextual issues of TM as well as how TM is practiced depending on internal and external factors.

Measuring the Effectiveness of the 'Batch Operations' Energy Design Pattern to Mitigate the Carbon Footprint of Communication Peripherals on Mobile Devices.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is set to play a significant role in the future development of smart cities, which are designed to be environmentally friendly. However, the proliferation of these devices, along with their frequent replacements and the energy required to power them, contributes to a significant environmental footprint. In this paper we provide scientific evidences on the advantages of using an energy design pattern named 'Batch Operations' (BO) to optimize energy consumption on mobile devices. Big ICT companies like Google already batch multiple API calls instead of putting the device into an active state many times. This is supposed to save tail energy consumption in communication peripherals. To confirm this, we set up an experiment where we compare energy consumption and carbon emission when BO is applied to two communication peripherals on Android mobile device: 4G and GPS. Results show that (1) BO can save up to 40% energy when sending HTTP requests, resulting in an equivalent reduction in CO2 emissions. (2) no advantages for the GPS interface.

The Impact of Managerial Accounting Techniques on Short-term Decisions

This study aims to determine the importance of managerial accounting in the process of short-term decision-making. Since managerial accounting is a crucial component of the financial information system and is crucial in making decisions in big companies or SMEs, while managerial accounting is only briefly discussed in the majority of economic units, there are some organizations where certified public accountants view managerial accounting as an optional component of the business. Financial data was collected from one of the SME companies in KRG/Sulaimani governorate, which is Mariwan Gallery, located in Bazian. The results indicate that managerial accounting has a significant effect on the process of short-term decision-making. This study recommends that all businesses, including small shops, hire accountants in order to make critical financial decisions. This helps businesses perform better, and it also provides more job opportunities for society.

Video Generative AI in Digital Marketing: A SWOT Analysis on E-Commerce

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping the way various business processes are performed, most rapidly in digital marketing, due to its advanced computational capabilities. ECommerce companies are in advantageous position to adopt and reap the benefits of AI for many reasons including the readily available computational infrastructure and big data related to their users and processes. Meanwhile, big tech companies and startups are competing to create and improve generative AI models, that create high-definition videos based on inputs in the form of text, image or videos. The current research specifically aims to analyse the video outputs of various video generating AI models available for digital marketing purposes in ecommerce businesses and to rationally analyse how those video generative AI models benefit or affect e-commerce companies. To meet the research objectives, mixed methodologies of experimentation and content analysis were deployed. It was observed that the video outputs from the tested models were not yet suitable for digital marketing and appeared underdeveloped. Additionally, the SWOT analysis revealed advantages like low costs, alongside concerns such as intellectual property issues.

Attributing Responsibility to Big Tech for Mass Atrocity: Social Media and Transitional Justice

Big Tech companies such as Meta, the owner of Facebook, are increasingly accused of enabling human rights violations. The proliferation of toxic speech in their digital platforms has been in the background of recent episodes of mass atrocity, the most salient of which recently transpired in Myanmar and Ethiopia. The involvement of Big Tech companies in mass atrocity raises multiple normative and conceptual challenges. One is to properly conceptualize Meta’s responsibility for the circulation of toxic speech. On one view, endorsed by the corporation itself, Meta can be absolved from any significant share of responsibility for these atrocities because toxic speech is the speech of some (rogue) users, hosted but neither created nor endorsed by the company; if anything, Meta is responsible for failing to anticipate and swiftly remove that speech. I will argue that this view is misleading, as it misses the underlying forces crafting toxic speech. Meta’s business model relies on what one might call the algorithmic capture of attention, which it achieves by manipulating its users and by creating an environment in which manipulative practices of some users thrive over others. This fact alone turns the company into a co-creator of toxic speech rather than a mere conduit of the toxic speech of others. As a result, it is safe to claim that Meta bears significant causal responsibility and sufficient moral responsibility for the dissemination of toxic speech, such that it justifies its inclusion in transitional justice processes and grounds its moral obligation to act in ways that advance these processes.

Digital sovereignty and artificial intelligence: a normative approach

Digital sovereignty is a term increasingly used by academics and policymakers to describe efforts by states, private companies, and citizen groups to assert control over digital technologies. This descriptive conception of digital sovereignty is normatively deficient as it centres discussion on how power is being asserted rather than evaluating whether actions are legitimate. In this article, I argue that digital sovereignty should be understood as a normative concept that centres on authority (i.e., legitimate control). A normative approach to digital sovereignty is beneficial as it supports critical discourse about the desirability of actors’ assertions of control. It is also more closely aligned with traditional definitions of sovereignty that are grounded in ideas of sovereign authority. To operationalise this normative approach to digital sovereignty and demonstrate the deficiencies of a descriptive approach, the role that “Big Tech” companies are playing in controlling artificial intelligence is considered from both perspectives. Through this case study, it is highlighted that Big Tech companies assert a high degree of control (i.e., descriptive digital sovereignty), but that they lack strong input legitimacy and have a questionable amount of output legitimacy. For this reason, it is argued that Big Tech companies should only be considered quasi-sovereigns over AI.

The Ethico-Politics of Design Toolkits: Responsible AI Tools, From Big Tech Guidelines to Feminist Ideation Cards (Extended Abstract)

This paper interrogates the belief in toolkitting as a method for translating AI ethics theory into practice and assesses the toolkit paradigm’s effect on the understanding of ethics in AI research and AI-related policy. I start by exploring the ethico-political assumptions that underly most ethical AI toolkits. Through a meta-critique of toolkits (drawing on a review of existing ‘toolkit-scoping’ work), I demon-strate that most toolkits embody a reductionist conception of ethics and that, because of this, their capacity for facili-tating change and challenging the status quo is limited. Then, I analyze the features of several ‘alternative’ toolkits – informed by feminist theory, posthumanism, and critical design – whose creators recognize that ethics cannot be-come a box-ticking exercise for engineers, while the ethical should not be dissociated from the political. Finally, in the concluding section, referring to broader theories and cri-tiques of toolkitting as a method for structuring the design process, I suggest how different stakeholders can draw on the myriad of available tools, ranging from big tech com-panies’ guidelines to feminist design ideation cards, to achieve positive, socially desirable results, while rejecting the oversimplification of ethical practice and technosolu-tionism that many responsible AI toolkits embody. The analysis thus serves to provide suggestions for future toolkit creators and users on how to meaningfully adopt the toolkit format in AI ethics work without overselling its transformative potential.

Who Gets Paid (for) What? The Cultural Political Economy of News Content in Generative AI

One of the key controversies that generative artificial intelligence (AI) has recently stirred was whether compensation is due for the copyrighted materials used to train AI models. This article explores the logic, trajectories, and dynamics of content generation, including news, through generative AI in two distinctive yet intertwined domains. Guided by a cultural political economy approach, it examines how both the political context (validation/legitimation of AI-generated news content by established news media) and the economic context (use of unpaid and underpaid labor in the forms of freely scraped data and data annotation work) shape the deployment of news content on AI models. It further untangles how the space for serious, independent journalism may shrink, as big tech companies’ algorithmic technologies emerge as a solution to contemporary problems in journalism. A clear danger here is that AI companies’ proprietary algorithms, language training models, and value-laden parameters are incompatible with journalism's democratic obligations and responsibilities.

Large Language Publishing

The AI hype cycle has come for scholarly publishing. This essay argues that the industry’s feverishーif mostly aspirationalーembrace of artificial intelligence should be read as the latest installment of an ongoing campaign. Led by Elsevier, commercial publishers have, for about a decade, layered a second business on top of their legacy publishing operations. That business is to mine and process scholars’ works and behavior into prediction products, sold back to universities and research agencies. This article focuses on an offshoot of the big firms’ surveillance-publishing businesses: the post-ChatGPT imperative to profit from troves of proprietary “training data,” to make new AI products andーthe essay predictsーto license academic papers and scholars’ tracked behavior to big technology companies. The article points to the potential knowledge effects of AI models in academia: Products and models are poised to serve as knowledge arbitrators, by picking winners and losers according to what they makevisible. I also cite potential knock-on effects, including incentives for publishers to roll back open access (OA) and new restrictions on researchers’ access to the open web. The article concludes with a call for a coordinated campaign of advocacy and consciousness-raising, paired with high-quality, in-depth studies of publisher data harvestingーbuilt on the premise that another scholarly-publishing world is possible. There are many good reasons to restore custody to the academy, the essay argues. The latest is to stop our work from fueling the publishers’ AI profits.

Exploring the landscape of automated species identification apps: Development, promise, and user appraisal

Abstract Two decades ago, Gaston and O'Neill (2004) deliberated on why automated species identification had not become widely employed. We no longer have to wonder: This AI-based technology is here, embedded in numerous web and mobile apps used by large audiences interested in nature. Now that automated species identification tools are available, popular, and efficient, it is time to look at how the apps are developed, what they promise, and how users appraise them. Delving into the automated species identification apps landscape, we found that free and paid apps differ fundamentally in presentation, experience, and the use of biodiversity and personal data. However, these two business models are deeply intertwined. Going forward, although big tech companies will eventually take over the landscape, citizen science programs will likely continue to have their own identification tools because of their specific purpose and their ability to create a strong sense of belonging among naturalist communities.

First International Workshop on Quantum SoftwareEngineering: The Next Evolution (QSE-NE) Summary 2024

As we enter the new quantum age, tech giants like IBM, Google, and Microsoft are leading the way. But, there is a major challenge: we need to turn exciting quantum possibilities into real, practical tools. That's where Quantum Software Engineering (QSE) comes in, and it's why "Quantum Software Engineering: The next Evolution (QSE-NE)" workshop is proposed. This workshop is conducted to help guide this change. It aims to highlight the latest ideas in QSE and get people from different fields talking, from university researchers to big tech companies. Our main goals were to share new QSE methods, tools, and studies and to tackle the tough problems we face in developing quantum software. This workshop is all about setting the direction for the future of building quantum software, at a time when it is really crucial. More details can be found at: https://sites.google.com/view/qse-ne/ home.

What is digital education? Decoding notions and encoding critical thinking, human rights and participation for fairer digital societies

This research addresses some of societal challenges in the digital age by analysing key features and contextual factors associated with digital education’s notions among academic literature. It problematises some of its shortcomings by zooming into digital education’s references to critical thinking, human rights and participation. A Systematic Literature Review was applied among peer-reviewed articles published in English since 2014. Results for discussion hinged upon the implications of dominant conceptualisations, factors enabling missing links with digital rights, and tactics steering education towards social justice in digital societies. Advancing democracies in the digital age entail comprehensive efforts oriented by human rights including technologies, regulations, research and education. Among these, education has been pointed as fundamentally affecting a stark ‘division of learning’. This gap is the axial point for the financial and controlling interests of big wealthy companies and governments. The implications of these digital divides have expanded the field of digital rights in the last decade, which was accelerated after the COVID-19 digital transformation. Nevertheless, the right to a quality education has remained broadly sidelined among digital rights, and most of the concerns from this field have been minimally included in educational agendas.

Investigating Co‐Authorship Networks of Academic and Industry Researchers in Artificial Intelligence

ABSTRACTResearch teams from the industry, especially big technology companies, have been pushing impactful research work in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), changing the prospects of the field and the careers of many researchers. Research teams from big technology companies usually possess more data, bigger computing infrastructure, and research talent, granting them the advantages in advancing AI research. While most previous work focuses on investigating the advantages the industry has in the field of AI, and how their research publication is different from those published by academic teams, few research has been done to investigate whether working as an industry researcher is beneficial at the individual level. In this work, by analyzing co‐authorship networks of researchers published in AI conferences, we investigate whether working in the industry gives researchers advantages in “intangible” forms, such as social capital, represented by the collaborative relationships they gained or maintained. Our result shows that the many advantages industry researchers possess correlate with the social capital they have, measured by degree centrality, eigenvector centrality, betweenness centrality, and effective size.

Veri Sömürgeciliği Çağında Verinin Sömürgecilikten Kurtulması: Profesör Nick Couldry ile Bir Söyleşi

In May 2024, the Faculty of Communication at Üsküdar University hosted the 11th International Communication Symposium, which this year has been delineated on the overarching theme 'Digital Inequality and Data Colonialism’. Among the scholars and subject matter experts serving as keynote speakers during its proceedings, Prof. Dr. Nick Couldry along with Prof. Dr. Ulises A. Mejias- gave an insightful keynote speech entitled “Data Grab: The New Colonialism of Big Tech”, which focused on the subjects explored in the groundbreaking research recently published by the two scholars and entitled Data Grab: The New Colonialism of Big Tech and How to Fight Back. In this context, as founders of the concept of data colonialism, Couldry and Mejias discussed further implications of this concept and how Big Tech companies are nowadays grabbing users’ data, exploiting labour and connections for their profit. We interviewed Professor Nick Couldry on data colonialism and why it represents a radically different concept from those already existing in sociology and communication studies. Moreover, we asked what we can do as users of websites and social media platforms

Corporate Social Responsibility In The EU Regulation

The paper aims to introduce the milestones in the EU regulation on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in general with a special focus on small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). EU regulation is introduced based on EU documents and international and Hungarian literature. The debate about CSR began in the 1990s in Europe and after the turn of the millennium several papers, guidelines, and directives attempt to provide a common approach about it. However, CSR relates mainly to big companies still today, smallerfirms can also implement CSR. Despite that research on SMEs’ CSR started after 2000, EU documents already highlighted from the beginning of the 2000s the importance of smaller companies as well, and in 2002 the European Commission drew up a strategy for SMEs. The paper illustrates not only the papers and SMEs’ role but also provides ideas about the sense of the EU regulation on CSR and collects the reasons why couldit be beneficial to have a debate and approach about CSR at the EU level. The paper also presents some information about how the SMEs’ CSR features comply with interview research among SMEs in Győr, Hungary in 2021–2022. It is possible to believe that learning the European approach may contribute to thinking in a more integrated way about how to behave socially responsibly and how to manage social impact.