Break Things Research Articles

The Relationship of The Implementation of Warta DNAS O/153 with The Performance of Operations Officers

The Babaranjang train accident at Penanggiran Station due to the negligence of operating officers playing cellphones caused the Operations Directors of PT.KAI will issue a ban on using cell phones during working hours to operating officers in Warta Dinas O/153. In the implementation of the O/153 official bulletin at Madiun Station, there are several problems, namely (1) limited coordination between the train travel control officer and the track inspector when there is a disturbance on the road because the walkie-talkie cannot reach, (2) the phenomenon of operational staff who is trying to break things, and (3) there are symptoms of stress, anxiety, or anxiety due to someone being away from a mobile phone, namely nomophobia (No Mobile Phone). Therefore, the author wants to examine the relationship between implementing official bulletins O/153 and the performance of operations officers at Madiun Station. Methods of data collection using questionnaires and data analysis using Spearman rank correlation. The research results obtained a correlation coefficient value of 0.432 and a significance value (2-tailed) of 0.024, less than 0.05. This means there is a relationship between the implementation of news service O/153 and the performance of operations officers at Madiun Station, with a moderately strong relationship and a positive direction.

Move Fast and Break Things? The Contingent Nature of Product Acceleration in Nascent Markets

Acceleration allows firms to lock in early success upon entering a nascent market, but whether it enables firms to sustain competitive advantage after the entry is unclear. Using a granular data set on the U.S. LED lightbulb market 2010–2017, we apply an abductive approach to examine the relationship between postentry product acceleration and market acceptance. We find that, although acceleration is slightly more beneficial for firms that have accumulated greater pioneering experience, incumbents with more recognizable brands are able to achieve even greater market acceptance by slowing down their product iterations. Meanwhile, deceleration seems to be a better strategy among firms striving to build legitimacy via regulatory engagement, whereas acceleration could be more beneficial for firms competing in subproduct markets with greater technological uncertainties. We contribute to the nascent market literature by showing that the extent to which firms gain market acceptance through postentry product acceleration hinges on their abilities to assess, learn from, and shape both market and nonmarket stakeholders. Funding: This research is supported by grants from the Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Technology Research Grant provided by Cornell University’s Johnson College of Business and Daigle Labs at the University of Connecticut, School of Business. Supplemental Material: The online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/stsc.2023.0192 .

How tick list sustainability distracts from actual sustainable action: the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

ABSTRACT The United Nations ‘Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ lays out 17 Sustainable Development Goals to address a range of global issues related to the future of the planet and human well-being. Critics, however, argue that the Agenda, a complex product of multi-stakeholder governance, in its drive to accommodate many competing voices, is overloaded with weakly defined, overlapping and contradictory issues, concepts and buzzwords. These serve to gloss over actual concrete global problems and forces, concealing an underlying free-trade ideology. In this paper, using Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis, we draw attention to the nature of the documents used to communicate the Agenda. These documents comprise an edifice of self-referential texts that rely heavily on infographics, bullet points, charts and tables. Such formats appear to helpfully simplify, distil information and break things down into workable components. But, we show, through the affordances of these formats, the the vagueness of buzzwords, contradictions and lack of clear causalities can be glossed over, presenting the Agenda as a highly technical, engaging, and above all moral process. These formats are important, therefore, for the legitimization and rhetorical power of the Agenda, necessary for its take-up by governments and organizations around the world.

Philosophical Pragmatism and the Challenges of Information Technologies

Philosophical Pragmatism and the Challenges of Information Technologies

Against the Wall, and: Mirrors

Against the Wall, and: Mirrors Neal Zirn (bio) Against the Wall The wall has its own way of resisting. Father, as if he were a boxer in a ringmade of shade and shadow, hits the wallonce, twice, three times, as mother,shrill and loud, taunts him from the kitchen. Eventually, bone shatters, pain is electric,silence ensues, and father returns homewith his hand in a cast, not once, not twice,but three times, as entropy sets in regardingattitude and the lack of any type of reason. It leads me, as I grow from a child into a teen,to want to break things, like bottles, windows,rules, and promises; anything but my own hand, while something raw develops in meand runs wild through my veins, and burns,and hurts, and has teeth with the ability to ripand tear without a hint of mercy or forgiveness. And so, father, is this my inheritance?Is that you outside my door, feeling the needto share the wall that has risen up between us? [End Page 176] Mirrors Inside a mirror lives a reflection.It doesn't evaluate, discriminate,judge, or dismiss. It just is,like the back of your handor the flowers of the field. When I was a young boy,my father would take meto the barbershop whereyou could still get a shavewith a straight razor,and after your cuthave your hair pasted down,like string, with pomade. There was a mirror in front of you,and one behind you attachedto the wall. You could see each,duplicated in the other, on and oninto infinity. It presented a mystery,a magic trick without an answerto how it was done. Worlds within worlds, I thought.A boy's imagination on the natureof being. Everything containedin the blink of an eye. [End Page 177] Neal Zirn neal zirn has been published in numerous journals in the United States and Canada. He is an award-winning poet, painter, and printmaker as well as a dedicated tai chi practitioner. Copyright © 2023 University of North Dakota

Move fast and break things! innovation-intensive strategy, organizational permissiveness, and corporate wrongdoing

With the revelation of questionably ethical practices at the world's most innovative firms, scholars and practitioners have begun to question whether a link might exist between innovation and wrongdoing. We introduce the concept of organizational permissiveness—i.e., tolerance of employees' norm-challenging behavior—to begin unpacking the relationships between cognitive norm-breaking, radical innovation, and corporate wrongdoing. We argue that organizational permissiveness partially mediates the effects of innovation-intensive strategy on innovation outcomes and multiple types of corporate wrongdoing. We analyze a sample of publicly held U.S. firms to demonstrate that the norm-breaking necessary for radical innovation also can produce corporate wrongdoing. Moreover, organizational permissiveness is a mechanism leading to both outcomes. We then use a smaller-sample quasi-experiment examining how merger and acquisition events affect individual scientists' patenting behavior. This provides further support for our hypothesized causal assertions.

Why Did Rebuilding the Afghan and Iraqi Armies Fail?

Investigations into why Western forces – primarily the US and British Armies – failed to build effective and accountable Afghan and Iraqi armies have not focused enough on the links between state and army, Colin D Robinson argues. Building strong states in such circumstances is near-impossible and has dire consequences for armies. In addition, the regular combat culture of Western armies serves them extraordinarily badly when they are called to make things, not break things, in totally dissimilar societies. ◼

What We Understand

What We Understand Gloria L. Huang (bio) When the rooms were empty and the halls were dark, the lights on the machines still flickered like silent Morse codes communicating together. She was present when the noise transformed from loud chatter to muffled quiet, she was there when bags were slung over shoulders and phones were picked up for the long journey home. Unseen and invisible, she was the sentinel who watched over the change from day to night. During work hours, the offices were alive with color and purpose. Posters plastered across the walls encouraged the reader to take risks, move fast, break things. She could never understand this urge to stir the water, to cause waves. This craving to break things and start anew. The vast office spaces were filled with chairs that existed in different shapes, some of them soft amorphous blobs, others upside-down tops that rotated dizzily. The people who came to work reminded her of children playing dress-up. Arriving on bicycles and scooters, backpacks strapped over both shoulders, they were young and fresh-faced. They spoke to computer screens while walking nowhere on treadmills, holding expensive cups of coffees in their hands. One time, she unlocked a door to discover that the floor was a pit filled with plastic balls. On her good days, the place reminded her of the night markets from her youth. The same bustle and color, the same business frenzy unfolding around her. Yet the vendors at the night markets had a hunger in their eyes they couldn't hide, no matter how casually they pretended they didn't need the sale. The children in these offices – they were well-fed and soft, had known nothing of true hardship or struggle. Every evening, Rose – the name she placed on her job applications in brackets to appear more "American" – arrived to clean up after these working children. She would swipe through the turnstile with the identity card attached to her waistband. Though her identity card was meant to provide proof of her membership, she couldn't help feeling that it repeatedly failed at its task. She did not belong to this place, this life. Pushing her janitorial cart from space to space, Rose's mind would wander as she emptied plastic trash containers tucked under desks. Sometimes she would marvel at how much food was thrown away as she wiped counters in kitchens dotted around the offices, her mouth watering at the selection of organic snacks but knowing the treats were not for her. Sometimes she would glance at the computer screens, the ones that hadn't turned black. The screens were often filled with letters and numbers that made no sense to her, as though a child had mashed the buttons on the keyboard until the screen filled up. The fact that these combinations of symbols meant something, created something – it astonished her. Most of the time, she thought about Julia. Rose would move silently between the desks, leaving a trail of cleanliness in her wake like a tornado in reverse. Occasionally someone would look up from [End Page 44] packing away their belongings and flash a smile in Rose's direction. She would nod silently, avoiding direct eye contact unless they looked like Julia. So many of these young girls looked like Julia, with their silky black hair tied into ponytails, their tilted eyes magnified behind thick glasses. She often thought of Julia's childhood, when she was round-cheeked and still adoring of everything Rose did. "Mommy, look at me!" "Mommy, watch this!" Her childish voice repeated requests for attention until the sweetness became grating, a sugary treat that became sickly. Rose regretted her feelings of annoyance now, wished she could go back and kneel before Julia, giving her all the attention she craved. Sometimes she remembered Julia as a teenager, and the cold feeling that descended between them as Julia grew distant and scornful. Rose could never figure out how to reach her, didn't know how to traverse the choppy seas of age and language to bring her sarcastic American daughter back to shore. So she did the only thing she could think of to keep...

Move fast and break things: Reassessing IB research in the light of the digital revolution

AbstractResearch SummaryHow has the emergence of born‐digital firms such as Facebook and Uber influenced international business (IB) research? In this essay, I outline the distinctive qualities of these firms, in particular their “global by default” mindset, and I discuss how IB research on strategy, organization, and institutional context is evolving to help us understand them better. I argue that some traditional domains of inquiry (e.g., subsidiary role typologies) have become obsolete, while others (e.g., MNC–government relationships) have become more important. There is also scope for developing new theories to explain what we observe, rather than seeking to “shoehorn” new phenomena into our existing schemata.Managerial Summary“Move fast and break things” was the original motto of Facebook (now Meta), and it is emblematic of how many born‐digital firms behave. These firms seek to grow quickly, and they have little regard for international borders, often operating in a global‐by‐default way. They are, in other words, very different to industrial‐era firms that plotted their international expansion in a cautious and sequential way. In this essay, I discuss whether our existing IB theories—which were developed during the industrial era—are still fit‐for‐purpose in an economy increasingly dominated by born‐digital firms.

The United States at the Center of the Action

The United States at the Center of the Action

A Virtual Smash Room for Venting Frustration or Just Having Fun: Participatory Design of Virtual Environments in Digitally Reinforced Cancer Rehabilitation.

BackgroundCancer rehabilitation is central for helping patients and relatives create a functional everyday life based on the changes in life conditions. The needs are highly individual and include physical, mental, and social challenges. Cancer rehabilitation programs offer coping strategies, including guidelines on how to handle emotions.ObjectiveThis paper presents a participatory design activity where patients in cancer rehabilitation use a virtual smash room, which is a virtual environment where the user can break things, mainly porcelain or glass items such as vases or plates. The objective is to understand attitudes to, and some effects of, using this application, as well as eliciting ideas of other virtual environments that would be desired.MethodsThe virtual environment presented here, the virtual smash room, was designed at the request of a patient with cancer who wanted a tool for venting frustration. In this virtual environment, the user can break porcelain, vases, and plates. Patients participating in a week-long cancer rehabilitation program tested the virtual smash room and reported their experiences through a questionnaire. The questionnaire comprised three sections: (1) a subset of the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI), (2) a subset of the Virtual Reality Symptoms Questionnaire (VRSQ), and (3) a free-text response section.ResultsA total of 101 responses were gathered. The results from the IMI questions showed that the participants found the virtual experience enjoyable (mean 4.52, maximum 5, SD 0.73), and it helped them retain their focus (mean 4.44, maximum 5, SD 0.74). The VRSQ revealed that there were only minor symptoms related to general discomfort (5.9%, n=6), fatigue (5.9%, n=6), nausea (3.0%, n=3), and tired eyes (8.9%, n=9), while several participants experienced dizziness (22.8%, n=23). Since only postmeasurements were gathered, nothing could be concluded about the prevalence of these symptoms before testing. The free-text responses indicated that the user group had many ideas for other virtual environments to use in cancer rehabilitation.ConclusionsThis study presents a concept of using virtual reality in the cancer rehabilitation process and exemplifies activities of patient participation in the design process. Virtual reality has potential in being both distracting and enjoyable, while certain aspects of cybersickness might be especially important to consider for a user group already experiencing physical and mental issues. The results will act as input in the process of further designing virtual applications in digitally reinforced cancer rehabilitation.

Bioprocessing Needs to Move Fast and NOT Break Things

Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology NewsVol. 41, No. 5 BioprocessingBioprocessing Needs to Move Fast and NOT Break ThingsTo deliver novel biotherapeutics more quickly while managing financial risks and regulatory demands, biomanufacturers are adopting technologies that promote highly integrated operationsMike May, PhDMike May, PhDSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:4 May 2021https://doi.org/10.1089/gen.41.05.14AboutSectionsView articleView Full TextPDF/EPUB Permissions & CitationsPermissionsDownload CitationsTrack CitationsAdd to favorites Back To Publication ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail View articleFiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Volume 41Issue 5May 2021 Information© 2021 by GEN PublishingTo cite this article:Mike May, PhD.Bioprocessing Needs to Move Fast and NOT Break Things.Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News.May 2021.51-52, 54.http://doi.org/10.1089/gen.41.05.14Published in Volume: 41 Issue 5: May 4, 2021PDF download

Editorial: Welcome to the new TEXT website

This editorial introduces the content to this edition, which features seven provocative scholarly contributions to the discipline, largely concerned with what could be considered an ethics of care. and includes too a new Special Issue, Number 61, Writing Through Things: Writing the Past and Broken Things, edited by Debra Wain and Melanie Saward.

Introduction

The scholars who present their work here in this Special Issue on Writing Through Things: Past and Broken Things were invited to contribute their research in the form of a traditional article or creative work that explores the fission between the arena of the mind and the concrete, tangible things of the world around us; to explore that ‘unexplored world’ of ‘memory, emotion, and untapped creativity’ (Pollack, 2011: 230). The events of 2020, lockdowns and self-isolating, meant that we were, perhaps more than ever, surrounded by our own things, offering an opportunity to see these things differently and maybe more clearly. Bill Brown explains that “the work being done… under thing theory is addressing how it is that the inanimate object world helps to form and transform human beings. Part of that is to say: how does our material environment shape us?” (Brown, 2012). We, as writers and researchers, are concerned with that which forms and transforms us and the world around us. These catalysts of formation and transformation can be people, experiences, landscapes, and sometimes they can be the seemingly everyday objects that surround us. As Brown points out, the things that impact on us do not have to be those of ‘economic value in Marxist terms’; they can be ‘small things’ of ‘symbolic value’ (Brown, 2012).

Raiders, Activists, and the Risk of Mistargeting

This Article argues that the conventional wisdom about corporate raiders and activist hedge funds—raiders break things, and activists fix them—is wrong. Because activists have a higher risk of mistargeting—mistakenly shaking things up at firms that only appear to be underperforming—they are much more likely than raiders to destroy value and, ultimately, social wealth. As corporate outsiders who challenge the incompetence or disloyalty of incumbent management, raiders and activists play similar roles in reducing “agency costs” at target firms. The difference between them comes down to a simple observation about their business models: raiders buy entire companies, while activists take minority stakes. This means that raiders are less likely to mistarget firms underperforming by only a slight margin, and they are less able to shift the costs of their mistakes onto other shareholders. The differences in incentives between raiders and activists only increase after the acquisition of their stake. Raiders have unrestricted access to nonpublic information after acquiring ownership of a target company, which allows them to look under the hood to determine whether changing the target’s business strategy is truly warranted. Activists, by contrast, have limited information and face structural conflicts of interest that impair their ability to objectively evaluate what’s best for the target company. This insight has profound implications for corporate law and policy. Delaware and federal law alike have focused on building walls to keep raiders outside the gates, but they ignore the real threat—shareholder activists—that are already inside. We propose reforms to both state and federal law that would equalize the regulation of raiders and activists.

Data and Power

Digital data pervades everyday life, from personal photos shared on social media to voice commands for Amazon Alexa. A widespread industry culture of 'move fast and break things,' however, has compelled data management practices that prioritize profit over preservation. This paper draws from archival theories of appraisal to foreground control, power, subjectivity, and emotion in computing practices that treat data storage as a neutral or objective cost-center. We draw on postmodern archival appraisal theory that recognizes the archive as a powerful and subjective curator of identity and memory. The theoretical basis of archival decision practices, in turn, establishes the value of the archival record and thus the need to save it. With three primary issues of appraisal theory as a framework, we report on an interview study with adults (N=17), ages 51-72, who are in a transitional life-stage that focuses them on their experiences and memories that are worth keeping or discarding. We sketch implications for data management paths that forefront legacy, life transitions, precarity, and control.

Move Fast and Break Things: Silicon Valley and the Language of Entrepreneurial Leadership

Entrepreneurs have long been recognized for their critical role in the development of a vibrant and growing economy. As key “agents of innovation and creative destruction” researchers have differentiated between entrepreneurs and managers predominantly in terms of two factors: (1) personality and (2) social cognitive processes or the way they think. In this study, we explore a new way of looking at the differences between entrepreneurs and managers that may be more useful for practicing managers: their language usage or the way they talk. Using text analysis software, we compare the language from interviews with Silicon Valley entrepreneurs (n = 65 entrepreneurs) with the language from interviews with senior managers (n = 65 managers). As hypothesized, entrepreneurs used significantly more words that were focused on the importance of time, money, and teamwork than managers. Contrary to expectations, managers used more positive emotion words compared with entrepreneurs. We conclude with a discussion of the limitations and implications of our findings for management practice and future research with a particular focus on lessons learned for managers wishing to act like entrepreneurs within their own organizations as intrepreneurs.

Tweet fast and kill things: digital war

Digital technologies have disrupted most sectors of human life and activity, and war and conflict are no exceptions. Beyond military systems, the entire battlefield is transformed, with multi-media smartphones, messaging apps, and social media platforms especially creating a global, participative arena, in which the distinctions of combatant, civilian, and informational warrior implode. In an overview of recent developments of digital war, we argue that neoliberal economic ‘creative destruction’ is now destructive creation, as digital technologies have created new possibilities of destructive activity. Facebook’s early mantra of ‘Move Fast and Break Things’ can now be read as ‘tweet fast and kill things’. We have moved from the 1990s US military hopes of ‘full spectrum dominance’ of all battlefield information to the new military reality of full spectrum access. This is an emergent ‘military-social media complex’ in which the most popular US-made apps and platforms serve as a global informational warfare proxy, where empowered ‘citizen militia’ keyboard warriors take on and take down governments and media propaganda units. As computer processing has eaten mass media, it is time to reveal war in its full ecology, as made through an epochal, structural revolution in communication.

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power by Shoshana Zuboff (review)

John Horgan who has written a foreword here) to protest loudly the ‘profound social, economic, political and technological’ implications of developments touched upon in the volume – the sum is not greater than the parts. Other parts here include Elaine Callinan’s consideration of responses in the regional press to Redmond’s call to war in 1914 and Ray Burke’s reflections on the changing relationship between that press and ‘the national broadcaster’ RTE, as well as Donal Ó Drisceoil’s look at ‘censorship, suppression and the Irish regional press, 1916–23’. In a final essay Anthony Cawley refers to corporate developments that have seen once proudly independent county papers succumb to takeovers by groups such as Independent News and Media, Thomas Crosbie Holdings, Celtic Media Group and Johnston Press. It is also a final reminder that the editors have perhaps tried too hard to fit a quart into a pint pot. They have, nonetheless, succeeded in underlining the central place of Irish regional papers in many people’s media world for much of the twentieth century. This book is a welcome addition to the growing volume of research on developments in the print media that were until quite recently neglected but that, thanks to scholars such as the contributors to this volume and groups such as the Newspaper and Periodical History Forum of Ireland, now receive greater attention than they did before. Professor Colum Kenny’s latest book, The Enigma of Arthur Griffith: ‘Father of Us All’ (Merrion Press) has just been published. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, Shoshana Zuboff (London: Profile Books, 2018), 704 pages. In the first decade of the twenty-first century the high priests of Silicon Valley gloried in their ability to ‘move fast and break things’, riding roughshod over individual privacy, government regulations and paying as little tax as they possibly could, often through dubious methods. Now that the inevitable ‘techlash’ is gathering momentum, the high priests are huddled in Esalen – where else? – at private cuddle parties – why not? – and, according to a recent New Yorker article, they have settled on a new mantra: ‘move purposefully and fix things’. Hmm. Studies • volume 109 • number 433 104 Spring 2020: Book Reviews Studies_layout_SPRING-2020.indd 104 Studies_layout_SPRING-2020.indd 104 27/02/2020 13:59 27/02/2020 13:59 The reason why the tech companies, mainly the two most powerful, Google and Facebook, are coming under pressure is that people are beginning to realise the extent to which privacy is being abused and governments are beginning to emerge from their torpor and exert the rule of law on the online world, the world’s largest ungoverned space. They may also be beginning to feel the heat from Shoshana Zuboff’s ground-breaking, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, published earlier this year. Zuboff, a Harvard Business School professor, is a social psychologist and philosopher who has been studying the mechanics and effects of the digital platforms for many years. She has produced a devastating critique of a digital revolution which tracks and records our every move and sells the resulting data to advertisers. In the beginning advertisers created ads, then bought space from media owners and placed ads in that space – the press, TV, radio stations and billboards. Now advertisers buy data from the digital platforms, which not only provide the space for advertising messages but tell the advertiser what the most effective message will be for a particular individual and advise the most opportune time, when that individual is likely to be most receptive to the message. (There is increasing evidence to suggest that this may not necessarily be the most effective use of advertiser’s budgets, but sin scéal eile ... ) If the initial phase of the tech businesses’ ability to amass unprecedented profits in the first decade of the twenty-first century was based on their ability to target sales prospects at an optimal time, the second phase in the second decade was even more outrageously ambitious: the ability to modify the public’s behaviour in accord with the commercial interests of their advertisers. This brings us back to the famous (infamous?) twentieth...

'Move Fast and Break Things': Law, Technology, and the Problem of Speed

Since computers entered into the mainstream in the 1960s, the efficiency with which data could be processed has raised regulatory questions. This is well understood with respect to privacy. Data that was notionally public — divorce proceedings, say — had long been protected through the ‘practical obscurity’ of paper records. When such material was available in a single hard copy in a government office, the chances of one’s acquaintances or employer finding it was remote. Yet when it was computerized and made searchable through what ultimately became the Internet, such practical obscurity disappeared. Today, high-speed computing poses comparable challenges to existing regulatory models in areas from securities regulation to competition law, merely by enabling lawful activities — trading in stocks, or comparing and adjusting prices, say — to be undertaken more quickly than previously conceived possible. Many of these questions are practical rather than conceptual. Nevertheless, current approaches to slowing down such decision-making — through circuit-breakers to slow or stop trading, for example — are unlikely to address all of the problems raised by the speed of AI systems.