Capacity Of Agents Research Articles

Reasons and Causes: A Critical-Realist Phenomenological Analysis of Agency

ABSTRACT Reason is the object of understanding. Cause is the object of explanation. The original aspect of this study, which argues that reasons are in some sense causes, is that it discusses the distinction between reason and cause in the context of agency. It first explains the logical arguments that reasons cannot be causes and that reasons must be causes, and then presents an ontological argument concerning the pre-linguistic and irreducible continuity of phenomenal existence, in which critical realism and phenomenology work together. In discussing the manifestation of reasons in the form of beliefs, memories, and dream interpretations, the focus is on the irreducible phenomenological-psychological level between humans as an organic set of molecules and humans as beings emerging from a social network of meanings. Finally, non-human agency is discussed and the thesis is made that the capacity for agency is not a social gift.

Assessing national land administration reform in Mongolia: A mixed method evaluation using bank loan and historical land administration data

This study presents the findings from a rigorous performance evaluation of a land registry strengthening project in Mongolia. The paper contributes to a small but growing body of systematic evaluations on land administration interventions—and particularly on efforts to build the national capacity of state agencies through institutional strengthening initiatives. The research highlights a methodological approach that utilizes mixed method data sources to explore outcomes in a more rigorous way and through a gendered lens. We rely on a unique set of primary quantitative data sources, including extensive land administration and bank loan data. In addition to ex- ploring outcomes associated with credit access and lending, our extensive data sources enable us to delve into transaction cost, efficiency, and volume. We complement the quantitative data with comprehensive qualitative data from interviews and focus group discussions. This study finds that the project improved Mongolia’s registration process and land administration system. There are notable increases in transaction efficiency; digitization and strengthening of information systems; and improved transparency and access to land records. In contrast, there is more limited evidence about the program’s effect on facilitating improvements in the accuracy of land records, land markets, access to credit, and gender equality in land rights. While the project helped to reduce some instances of corruption, there remain broad challenges to land governance reform.

The cultural logics of mothering practices: agency capacity of the university-educated Chinese mothers in Singapore and Hong Kong

PurposeThis study aims to reveal and compare the cultural logics of university-educated Chinese mothers in Singapore and Hong Kong in their mothering practices to improvise their femininities in constituting their work–family interactions.Design/methodology/approachThis qualitative research, with the ethnographic elements, has included 32 Chinese mothers to share about their mothering experiences through semi-structured interviews. This methodological design with feminist lens embraces women’s own narratives as sources of knowledge and learns their voices to reinvent their role and bodily engagement in shaping their family dynamics.FindingsThis discussion basically reaffirms the argument where the mother’s involvement in their children’s schoolwork becomes one of the core elements in their actual everyday mothering practices. It has further reflected the dynamics of family quality time in the light of mothers’ cultural logics as much as their attentive agency capacity to present their respectable femininity in the form of mothering.Research limitations/implicationsThis research process has revealed the actual experiences of the participants from their own narratives. For future research development, data collection can be extended to include the husbands’ profiles and their narratives in understanding their wives’ mothering experiences.Originality/valueThis discussion enriches the work-family literature by extending it to the Asian Chinese context. While the concepts of cultural capital and habitus have been addressed in previous studies, this discussion highlights the agency capacity of the university-educated Chinese mothers in their cultural logics to deliver their respective mothering practices. This filtering process to transmit cultural capital to their children is as much as they involve in reproducing status boundaries for the family.

Shifting feedback agency to students by having them write their own feedback comments

In higher education, there is a tension between teachers providing comments to students about their work and students developing agency in producing that work. Most proposals to address this tension assume a dialogic conception of feedback where students take more agency in eliciting and responding to others’ advice, recently framed as developing their feedback literacy. This conception does not however acknowledge the feedback agency students exercise implicitly during learning, through interactions with resources (e.g. textbooks, videos). This study therefore adopted a different framing - that all feedback is internally generated by students through comparing their work against different sources of reference information, human and material; and that agency is increased when these comparisons are made explicit. Students produced a literature review, compared it against information in two published reviews, and wrote their own self-feedback comments. The small sample size enabled detailed analysis of these comments and of students’ experiences in producing them. Results show students can generate significant self-feedback by making resource comparisons, that this feedback can replace or complement teacher feedback, be activated when required and help students fine-tune feedback requests to teachers. This widely applicable methodology strengthens students’ natural capacity for agency and makes dialogic feedback more effective.

‘I recorded my movements in the smartphone’: differently reproduced speeds of posthuman bodies

This paper aims to contribute to digitally mediated mobilities literature by studying ordinary people’s differential mobilities within a contact tracing system called the ‘Electronic Entry Register’ formulated by the South Korean government during the COVID-19 pandemic. Employing the posthumanist perspective, this empirical study examines differential mobilities produced by the smartphone-holding citizens on the move, focusing on the agential capacities differentiated through their performances for digital mediations. Consequently, a sequence of field research comprising a walking interview, observation, and sit-in interview was conducted in Seoul during the pandemic. While most research participants acknowledged that they were profoundly affected by the mode of control imposed by the tracing system, many actively strove to strengthen their body-smartphone prosthetic-ness to technically enhance their mobilities, particularly by internalising some procedures into the smartphone. Their differential capacities in turn mutated their embodied speeds and the overall progression within the tracing system, which some others found difficult to catch up with. Subsequently, the researcher discusses the political significance of differentiated agential capacities at the sites of technological mediations and proposes the posthuman body as a useful unit of analysis for critical studies on digitally mediated mobilities.

Disentangling the ‘capacity to act': variegated resources of individuals exerting change agency

ABSTRACT In recent decades, attention to the role of actors in regional development has shifted from the role of ‘formal and collective’ actors to the role of individuals in change agency. In doing so, individuals mobilize their capacity to act, which comprises the total volume of resources accumulated over the course of their life. However, there is a lack of studies focusing on how such capacity is then mobilized for change agency. Therefore, this study seeks to reveal the patterns of how selected agents have used their capacity for change agency and how this is implemented in the specific spatio-temporal setting of an old industrial region. Based on the results of 64 semi-structured interviews conducted with agents of change and local informants in four old industrial towns in Czechia, we identified five basic types of how resources are combined and used during the implementation of change agency – change agencies driven by embodied cultural capital, by bonding social capital, by economic capital, with support from public institutions and those accelerated by symbolic capital.

CYBER SECURITY AND DATA PRIVACY LAW IN PAKISTAN: PROTECTING INFORMATION AND PRIVACY IN THE DIGITAL AGE

The importance of cybersecurity and data privacy cannot be overstated in today's digital age. As Pakistan continues to advance its digital infrastructure and reliance on technology, the need for robust cyber security and data privacy measures has become increasingly urgent. The country has seen a surge in cyber attacks and data breaches in recent years, highlighting the need for a comprehensive legal framework to protect peoples' and organizations' sensitive information. This research paper endeavors to furnish a thorough and up-to-date examination of the existing state of cybersecurity measures and data privacy concerns in Pakistan, with a focus on the challenges and limitations that need to be addressed in order to enhance the country's cyber resilience and protect its citizens' personal information. It will examine the existing legal framework, including the Pakistan Computer Emergency Response Team (Pak-CERT) Act, 2017, the PECA Act, 2016, the Data Protection Act, 2018, and the Cybercrime Act, 2019. The paper will also analyze the various regulations and guidelines related to cybersecurity and data privacy, such as the National Cybersecurity Policy, 2018, and the Data Protection Regulations, 2018. CERT rules 2023 gives a legislative framework to deal with cyber-attacks and vulnerabilities that come up from time to time at the national, industry, and organizational levels. It sets up a working structure for technical support, operational equipment, and capacity building services. The paper will also identify and discuss the challenges and limitations of the current legal framework, including inadequate legal provisions, lack of awareness and enforcement, limited found capacity of law enforcement agencies, and insufficient coordination between government agencies. Furthermore, the paper will provide recommendations for improving the legal framework, such as strengthening legal provisions, increasing awareness and enforcement, building strength for law enforcement agencies, and enhancing coordination between government agencies. The study will employ a qualitative research approach, using a combination of literature review, legal analysis, and expert opinions. The data collection methods will include a review of relevant laws, regulations, and guidelines, as well as interviews with experts in the field of cybersecurity and data privacy. The research paper's conclusions will further the current discussion on cyber security and data privacy in Pakistan., and provide valuable insights for policymakers, regulators, and stakeholders. The paper will also serve as a resource for individuals, businesses, and organizations seeking to understand the lawful framework for cyber security and data privacy in Pakistan. Ultimately, the paper aims to provide a comprehensive knowledge of the present state of cybersecurity and data privacy law in Pakistan and to offer recommendations for improvement, with the goal of enhancing the country's cyber security and data privacy posture.

Building capacity to implement sexual health risk and substance use disorder prevention services in adolescent behavioral health treatment: A case study

Adolescents with mental health and psychiatric disorders, as compared to their peers, are at increased risk for contracting sexually transmitted infections and developing substance use disorders (SUD). Practitioners need integrated programs addressing sexual health and substance misuse to promote healthy behaviors among vulnerable adolescent populations. Building agency capacity necessary to integrate sexual health education and SUD prevention can be challenging, but dissemination and implementation frameworks and models can provide a structured approach. This case study examines the application of the Interactive Systems Framework for Dissemination and Implementation and the Evidence-based System for Innovation Support to build the capacity of behavioral health agency staff to deliver an integrated sexual health risk and SUD prevention program with adolescents. Over a five-year period, researchers and behavioral health agency staff collaborated and increased agency capacity by using a training-of-trainers approach, comprehensive tools, proactive technical assistance, and quality assurance. While there were significant challenges, such as staff turnover and competing agency priorities, the team certified eight facilitators in the selected health promotion intervention and two agency trainers with the capacity for ongoing expansion and the expectation of sustainability of needed adolescent services.

The Immigrants of BUMIDOM and Their Resistance to Employment Assignments

Abstract: The Bureau pour le développement des migrations dans les départements d’outre-mer (Office for the Development of Immigration in the Overseas Departments of France, or BUMIDOM), created by France in 1963, oversaw the immigration of some two hundred thousand people from the Overseas Departments, about a third of whom were women, to metropolitan France between 1963 and 1982. These immigrants were subjected to strictly controlled employment assignments. These women, mostly Black women succeeded, partially, in escaping them. Without comprising a Black feminist movement per se, these women demonstrated a desire for emancipation and a capacity for agency through different strategies. Although their social and economic situation did not put them in a dominant position, they were still not entirely defenseless against BUMIDOM, whose capacity to control the women was limited and which appeared to be a weak institution. Thus, these immigrants’ assorted paths are reminiscent of other forms of contemporary Black feminisms in which Antillean women have long distinguished themselves.

The motivational influence of collective efficacy and charged behavior and the moderating effect of risk-taking propensity on new product development team innovativeness

PurposeThis study examines the motivational processes of charged behavior and collective efficacy driving interdependence and agency in new product development (NPD) teams and the moderating impact of team risk-taking propensity as affective, cognitive and behavioral social processes support team innovation.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from 92 NPD teams engaged in B2C and B2B product and service development. Mediating and moderating effects are examined using partial least squares structural equation modeling, referencing social cognitive and collective agency theories as the research framework.FindingsThe analysis validates collective self-efficacy and charged behavior as interdependent motivational–affective processes that align cognitive resources and govern team effort toward innovativeness. Teams' risk-taking propensity regulates behavior, and collective efficacy facilitates self-regulated motivational engagement. Charged behavior cultivates the emotional contagion, team identification, cohesion and adaptation required for team functioning. Team potency fosters cohesiveness, while team learning improves adaptability along the innovation journey. The resulting theory asserts that motivational drivers enhance the interplay between cognitive and behavioral processes.Practical implicationsManagers should consider NPD teams as social systems with a capacity for collective agency nurtured through interdependence, which requires collective efficacy and shared competencies to generate motivational purpose and innovativeness. Managers must remain mindful of teams' risk tolerance as regulating the impact of motivational factors on innovativeness.Originality/valueThis study contributes to research on the motivational–affective drivers of NPD charged behavior and collective efficacy as complementary to cognitive and behavioral processes sustaining team innovativeness.

A hydrophobic and sustainable anti-icing sand fog seal for asphalt pavement: Its preparation and characterization

Ice can seriously affect the skid resistance of pavement, potentially leading to traffic accidents. To mitigate this problem, this study developed a hydrophobic and sustainable anti-icing sand fog seal (HSSFS) that combines anti-icing functionality with maintenance technology. The HSSFS was prepared using hydrophobic emulsified asphalt (HEA), a thickening agent, corundum, and a sustained-release deicing agent (SRDA). Its composition was determined by single-factor experiments and the Box-Behnken Design (BBD) method, ensuring both stability, anti-icing effects and skid resistance. Subsequently, its anti-icing effect and mechanism, conventional pavement performance, and environmental impact were investigated. Through optimization using single-factor experiments and the BBD design method, it was determined that the optimal composition of the thickening agent, corundum, and SRDA was 26%, 38%, and 36%, respectively. Freezing time, pullout, shear, immersion and freeze–thaw cycle tests indicated that the HSSFS exhibited good anti-icing effects, which can be attributed to the hydrophobic surface and the slow-release deicing agent's capacity. Additionally, pavement function tests indicated that the HSSFS maintained its original functions, such as sealing cracks and pores in the asphalt pavement, thereby reducing water seepage. When the HSSFS spray quantity was 0.6 kg/m2, both the BPN and TD met the specification requirements, indicating good skid resistance for pavement. Furthermore, environmental impact analysis demonstrated that the HSSFS had minimal effects on metals and plants. In conclusion, applying HSSFS to asphalt pavement can provide effective anti-icing effects and preventive maintenance without environmental harm.

Preventive Resilience: The Role of the Agency Capacity of Long-term Care Organizations

Preventive Resilience: The Role of the Agency Capacity of Long-term Care Organizations

Imagining aesthetic leadership

The study of aesthetic leadership has recently gained importance in the organizational literature, wherein some authors focused on the perception and manipulation of “beautiful” artifacts and others focused on relational processes, “dwelling in the senses” (Ropo et al., 2017). In contrast to those views, we argue that aesthetic leadership highlights the role of imagination, beyond artifacts and sense perceptions. To give due consideration to imagination in aesthetic leadership, we show how Kant and Arendt’s philosophies can be transposed to organizational studies to formulate three roles for imagination in leadership: 1. Achieve representative thinking in leadership processes; 2. Allow leadership to create social commitment to put those representations into action; and 3. Sustain a capacity of projective agency as the capacity of inventing alternative but feasible futures.

Identifying Multilevel Community Supervision Challenges to Inform Diversion Approaches for People With Mental Illnesses

Efforts to divert people with mental illnesses from the criminal legal system are widespread among mental health and criminal justice authorities. Most diversion efforts focus on directing individuals with mental illnesses to treatment; however, these treatment-focused interventions are an insufficient approach to diverting people with mental illnesses from the criminal legal system and fail to adequately address organizational and system-level factors that impact criminal legal system involvement. This study uses a social ecological approach to identify multilevel supervision challenges that probation officers face in diverting people with mental illnesses from future criminal legal system involvement. Twenty-six probation agency representatives from across the United States were interviewed as part of a larger study about supervising people with mental illnesses on probation. Salient themes indicate diversion targets related to (1) probation officer and agency capacity, (2) interorganizational relationships and roles, and (3) resources and systems in the local community. A comprehensive framework for diversion must include a both-and approach that maintains focus on individual-level supports and predictors of recidivism and violations, while also targeting the macro- or system-level factors that create the conditions for recidivism at the individual level.

From objects of study to worldmaking beings: The history of botany at the corner of the plant turn

AbstractThe “plant turn” of recent years has surfaced as an interdisciplinary position that sees plants as more than inert, passive objects subject to the whims of humans and of more charismatic animal life. Recent research in STEM, the social sciences, and the humanities, alongside scholarly publishing pursuits, have opened a field in which a small yet expanding community of scholars are proposing the worldmaking and agential capacities of plants. While the field of environmental history has already spent decades centering vegetal life and its profound impact on human societies, this essay considers what the plant turn might look like for the history of science and more specifically, the history of botany. What might it mean for plants to transform from objects of study to worldmaking beings in histories of the science? Drawing on two brief historical case studies from the Philippines, the essay invites consideration of plant worldmaking, understood in tandem with alternative ontologies, and of theorizing with plants. Though it may be much too soon to draw conclusions about what the plant turn may portend for the history of science (and the writing that may come from it), historians may have something to offer the plant turn—in discipline and method—in order to make this promising bed of scholarship rigorous and accessible.

Having multiple selves helps learning agents explore and adapt in complex changing worlds

Satisfying a variety of conflicting needs in a changing environment is a fundamental challenge for any adaptive agent. Here, we show that designing an agent in a modular fashion as a collection of subagents, each dedicated to a separate need, powerfully enhanced the agent's capacity to satisfy its overall needs. We used the formalism of deep reinforcement learning to investigate a biologically relevant multiobjective task: continually maintaining homeostasis of a set of physiologic variables. We then conducted simulations in a variety of environments and compared how modular agents performed relative to standard monolithic agents (i.e., agents that aimed to satisfy all needs in an integrated manner using a single aggregate measure of success). Simulations revealed that modular agents a) exhibited a form of exploration that was intrinsic and emergent rather than extrinsically imposed; b) were robust to changes in nonstationary environments, and c) scaled gracefully in their ability to maintain homeostasis as the number of conflicting objectives increased. Supporting analysis suggested that the robustness to changing environments and increasing numbers of needs were due to intrinsic exploration and efficiency of representation afforded by the modular architecture. These results suggest that the normative principles by which agents have adapted to complex changing environments may also explain why humans have long been described as consisting of "multiple selves."

A Mixed-Methods Evaluation of the Phoenix Crime Gun Liaison Program: Leveraging Patrol Officers for Investigations

Despite considerable attention to gun violence, crime gun investigations have received limited empirical focus. Research suggests that reliance on specialized investigators and long periods of time between gun crimes, evidence collection, and evidence processing are barriers to timely intelligence. The Phoenix Police Department Crime Gun Liaison Program (CGLP) intended to close this gap by increasing the capacity of patrol officers to investigate gun-related offenses. To examine the impact of the CGLP, a randomized control trial was used to select 16 treatment and 16 matched control officers. We supplement quantitative analyses with qualitative results from focus groups. Treatment officers were referred to and responded to significantly more firearm-related incidents, which resulted in collecting significantly more casings, firearms, fingerprints, and DNA samples during the six-month study period than control officers. Treatment officers also generated a significantly higher number of NIBIN leads and arrests. However, incident-level analyses provided less consistent results, though incidents involving treatment officers remained more likely to result in arrest. Qualitative results support these findings, with officers finding value in the program and reporting improved ability to respond to gun crime and reduced time spent processing scenes. Leveraging patrol officers can improve police agency capacity for responding to gun violence.

Enhancing Legal Protection for Digital Transactions: Addressing Fraudulent QRIS System in Indonesia

This study examined the legal safeguards necessary to combat fraudulent QRIS systems in digital transactions, focusing on the imperative need to protect consumers who are often more vulnerable than business entities in the digital transaction process. Employing a normative legal research methodology, the study utilized a legislative approach and concept analysis to deliver its findings. The study revealed that preventive legal protection, manifesting as increased public awareness and understanding of the QRIS system, its use, and associated criminal potentials, is essential. Repressive legal protection should be implemented by enhancing the capacity and infrastructure of law enforcement agencies. In cases of internal issues with the QRIS system, the liability of the system's creator or issuer must be clearly defined. The electronic system's execution can be managed by the electronic system provider or delegated to e-business agent operators, underlined by good faith, transparency, accountability, fairness, and prudence. This research underscores the importance of extensive public socialization and training on the use and risks of the QRIS system, providing implications for bolstering consumer protection laws, enhancing law enforcement capacity and infrastructure, and refining electronic transaction regulations in Indonesia.
 
 
 
 Highlights:
 
 The vulnerability of consumers in digital transactions necessitates robust legal safeguards, particularly regarding the use of the QRIS system.
 Both preventive (educational) and repressive (enforcement) legal protections are vital to combat fraudulent digital transactions and enhance consumer confidence.
 Enhancing law enforcement capabilities and infrastructure, as well as clearly defining the liability of QRIS system issuers, is imperative for maintaining the integrity of digital transactions.
 
 Keywords: Legal protection, digital transactions, fraudulent QRIS, consumer protection, law enforcement capacity.
 
 

Critique and the Black Horizon: questioning the move ‘beyond’ the human/nature divide in international relations

In the contemporary moment of the Anthropocene there appears to be a growing consensus on the need to move beyond the key modernist binary, the Human/Nature divide. We draw out a shared understanding at work in International Relations across critical approaches in Science and Technology Studies (STS), new materialist, and material feminist fields, as well as critical Indigenous, decolonial and pluriversal thought. This is an understanding that seeks to go beyond the limits of modern epistemological and ontological assumptions of human exceptionalism. These approaches seek to rework both sides of the Human/Nature divide: to reconstitute the Human as a knowing, responsive and relational subject, no longer tainted by hierarchies of race and coloniality; while, redistributing agential capacities of responsivity, care and relation beyond the Human. Drawing from work across the broad field of critical Black studies, we flag up the limitations of these entangled, relational posthuman and more-than-human imaginaries, which can easily reproduce hierarchies of subordination and control. We suggest that another approach to the Human/Nature divide is possible, a critical perspective we call the Black Horizon, focused upon the task of deconstruction: an approach which emphasises difference rather than identity, negation rather than addition, critique rather than affirmation.

Cultural and economic barriers and opportunities for the participation of women in agricultural production systems: a case study in Guatemala

As in other Latin American countries, agricultural activities in Guatemala contribute with 32% of the total employment (65% in rural areas), but only one in every ten individuals employed in these activities are women. This study examines the cultural and economic barriers and opportunities for the participation of women in agricultural (crop and livestock) production systems. We rely on a qualitative approach involving focus group discussions with 15–20 women in each of the eight communities visited in the departments of Chiquimula (Dry Corridor) and Huehuetenango (Western Highlands) in October 2022. The study provides several interesting findings, which generally hold across locations. First, women do not seem to have a strong preference for crop production activities, except harvesting, and only get involved in specifically assigned tasks. This lack of interest and participation in crop-related activities, which can be related to low empowerment levels and traditional stereotypes in the community about gender roles, persist even in locations with a higher emigration of men, where women could be expected to take over traditionally male crop-related tasks. Second, participants carry out a variety of other unpaid activities, including raising small-scale livestock and maintaining home gardens, which they do not recognize as formal, income-generating occupations despite their more active role. Third, women consider the commercialization of their products a persistent challenge as they do not have access to markets beyond their community, which additionally results in a deterrent to applying for credits due to a generalized fear of defaulting. Despite their day-to-day economic hardship, participants’ main aspirations point to generating more income in non-crop-related activities, mainly livestock farming and raising, or, alternatively, emigrating to provide a better future for their children. These findings remark the importance of offering extensive support to women to not only start new activities, as it has been the case of several public and private initiatives in the area, but help them through continuous extension services on production, storage, and commercialization; management and accounting; and financial literacy, as well as on building agency capacity through existing women groups and organizations and enabling the environment for improved access to markets and credit.