Central Proposition Research Articles

Co-creative entrepreneurship

Interest in applying the idea of co-creation to entrepreneurship is emerging through research on opportunity creation and entrepreneur heuristics. We place co-creation in the conceptual center of the entrepreneurship research discussion. Doing so requires relaxing the view of a central entrepreneur and adopting a view of stakeholders as peers in the venture, providing resources and deriving benefit. We formalize this insightinto a central proposition and derive implications of it for major themes ofentrepreneurship research, entrepreneurial outcomes, and three challenges unique to entrepreneurship. The sum of our work suggests moving the discussion in entrepreneurship research from the unit of analysis of the individual entrepreneur, venture, or opportunity to entrepreneurship as a collaborative process undertaken by aconstellation of stakeholders that come together to co-create novelty in the environment.

Social deprivation and secondhand smoke exposure among urban male residents: A nationwide study in China.

INTRODUCTIONSocial deprivation is a known determinant of health and related behaviors. Many studies have linked socioeconomic factors to secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure. However, no studies have examined the relationship between social deprivation and SHS exposure. This study examined whether contextual social deprivation – variously based on living in a house without a car, that was overcrowded, or had an unemployed member (s) – had an independent association with SHS exposure at both individual and regional levels among Chinese residents.METHODSA cross-sectional multistage sampling design was utilized to interview subjects from 6 selected cities in China. A standardized questionnaire selected sociodemographic characteristics, contextual social deprivation and SHS exposure. Multilevel logistic regression models were used to assess the association between social deprivation and SHS exposure.RESULTSA total of 5782 valid questionnaires were collected in this study. Among 2930 non-smokers, the SHS exposure prevalence was 21.9% (95% CI: 19.5– 24.30). Multilevel logistic regression showed a negative association between household income, regional GDP, and SHS exposure, respectively, and positive associations between contextual social deprivation and SHS exposure.CONCLUSIONSFindings support the central proposition that contextual social deprivation must be factored into SHS exposure messages. Our research underscores the importance of reducing health inequality in controlling SHS exposure.

Climate Change and Agroecology in the Development of Rio Grande do Sul-Brazil

The central proposition of this article is to understand and discuss the situation generated by the constant droughts that plague the agricultural economy of several regions in Rio Grande do Sul in recent decades, especially with the adoption of degrading and polluting productive models since the 1970s. Also discuss some information about the natural phenomena that intensify the constant droughts, as well as the human action in the worsening of droughts. For this, we conducted a wide bibliographic research and interviews with researchers in the area. From this, it was identified that agroecology as a model of sustainable agriculture is an alternative to replace the dependent and degrading model of ecosystems in the production of food for gaúchos and for export. Also, with this sustainable model of production in agroecosystems, it is possible to guarantee environmental, economic and social improvements to the families of farmers from all agricultural regions, in addition to mitigating the constant droughts and droughts that have become frequent in recent decades, causing very large economic and environmental losses for all the production of Rio Grande do Sul.

Ceasefire Success: A Conceptual Framework

ABSTRACT The causes and consequences of ceasefires have become a burgeoning area of research. The concept of ceasefire success is integral to this research and plays a key role as either the dependent or independent variable in both qualitative and quantitative work. Despite its importance, it is not clear how ceasefire success should be conceptualized. This critically hampers the progress of theoretical and empirical research on ceasefires. This article offers a conceptual framework based on the central proposition that ceasefire success should be assessed in terms of two inter-related but conceptually distinct criteria: the immediate objective and the underlying purpose. The immediate objective, which is embedded in the definition of a ceasefire, is the cessation of hostilities (either permanently or temporarily). While all ceasefires share this objective, their underlying purpose, which is the reason for establishing the ceasefire, varies widely across cases. The immediate objective and the purpose, while conceptually distinct, are linked since the purpose informs the temporal and geographic scope of the cessation of hostilities. Based on this framework, we argue that researchers interested in ceasefire success need to clearly identify their assumptions and conceptual choices, which should take account of the political context of the ceasefires in question.

Storytelling on Oral Grounds: Viewpoint Alignment and Perspective Taking in Narrative Discourse.

In this paper, we seek to explain the power of perspective taking in narrative discourse by turning to research on the oral foundations of storytelling in human communication and language. We argue that narratives function through a central process of alignment between the viewpoints of narrator, hearer/reader, and character and develop an analytical framework that is capable of generating general claims about the processes and outcomes of narrative discourse while flexibly accounting for the great linguistic variability both across and within stories. The central propositions of this viewpoint alignment framework are that the distance between the viewpoints of participants in the narrative construal – narrator, character, reader – is dynamic and regulated by linguistic choices as well as contextual factors. Fundamentally, viewpoint alignment is grounded in oral narrative interaction and, from this conversation, transferred to the written narrative situation, varying between demonstration and invasion of the narrative subjects and guiding readers’ route of processing the narrative (experiential versus reflective). Our claim is that variations in viewpoint alignment are functional to the communicative context and intended outcomes of narratives. This is illustrated with the analysis of a corporate journalistic narrative that comprises both interactional and non-interactional aspects of storytelling. The concept of viewpoint alignment further explains the oral fundaments of narrative discourse in conversational storytelling and poses new questions on the relation between the dynamic processing of stories on the one hand and their static outcomes on the other.

Ad Agency Leadership in the US, UK, and Australia: A Mixed-Method Analysis of Effective Attributes and Styles

Unlike the extensive scholarship on leadership in related disciplines, research on leadership in advertising is almost nonexistent. This study investigates practitioner views on attributes and styles of effective agency leaders in the US, UK, and Australia using GLOBE’s (Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness) Culturally Endorsed Leadership Theory. All three regions are part of GLOBE’s Anglo cultural cluster. The research examines whether the theory’s central proposition—that leadership in global contexts has universally endorsed elements but is also culturally contingent—is valid in an advertising setting. Using a mixed-method approach, data were collected from agency staff and leaders via 255 survey responses and 40 in-depth interviews. Findings indicate that the best leaders are seen as people-focused, collaboration-driven, and future-oriented. Integrity, vision, and inspiration are top leadership attributes, with collaborative and performance-oriented leadership styles considered the most effective. Views were fairly consistent across regions, with some nuanced differences. One interesting difference from main GLOBE findings is the emphasis on soft skills as a core component of effective leadership. Future research should examine this further, as well as the relationship between leadership and agency culture, millennial and gender differences, and leadership training challenges and also examine advertising leadership across other GLOBE cultural clusters.

On the Road to Personalized Psychotherapy: A Research Agenda Based on Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Depression.

In this conceptual paper, we outline the many challenges on the road to personalized psychotherapy, using the example of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) for depression. To optimize psychotherapy for the individual patient, we need to find out how therapy works (identification of mechanisms of change) and for whom it works (identification of moderators). To date, psychotherapy research has not resulted in compelling evidence for or against common or specific factors that have been proposed as mechanisms of change. Our central proposition is that we need to combine the “how does it work?”-question with the “for whom does it work?”-question in order to advance the field. We introduce the personalized causal pathway hypothesis that emphasizes the links and distinction between individual patient differences, therapeutic procedures and therapy processes as a paradigm to facilitate und understand the concept of personalized psychotherapy. We review the mechanism of change literature for CBT for depression to see what we have learned so far, and describe preliminary observational evidence supporting the personalized causal pathway hypothesis. We then propose a research agenda to push the ball forward: exploratory studies into the links between individual differences, therapeutic procedures, therapy processes and outcome that constitute a potential causal pathway, making use of experience sampling, network theory, observer ratings of therapy sessions, and moderated mediation analysis; testing and isolation of CBT procedures in experiments; and testing identified causal pathways of change as part of a personalized CBT package against regular CBT, in order to advance the application of personalized psychotherapy.

Affective Geographies: Cervantes, Emotion, and the Literary Mediterranean by Paul Michael Johnson

Reviewed by: Affective Geographies: Cervantes, Emotion, and the Literary Mediterranean by Paul Michael Johnson Catherine Infante Paul Michael Johnson. Affective Geographies: Cervantes, Emotion, and the Literary Mediterranean. U OF TORONTO P, 2020. 328 PP. IN THIS GROUNDBREAKING BOOK, Paul Michael Johnson reads Miguel de Cervantes’s works through the lens of affectivity and situates them within the context of the Mediterranean world. Whereas many past studies on the Mediterranean—from Fernand Braudel’s La Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen à l’époque de Philippe II (Armand Colin, 1949) to Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell’s The Corrupting Sea (Blackwell, 2000)— have principally depended on geography, climate, and economics to guide their inquiry, Johnson prioritizes the literatures of this region, specifically the work of Cervantes, to show that “literature, in particular, may be as influential in constructing the Mediterranean as are its geomorphological, climatic, or economic features” (4). As he clearly demonstrates, a focus on literature helps bring to light the complexity of emotions in early modernity that might otherwise be relegated to the margins or rendered invisible. Furthermore, his book seeks to recover the diversity of emotions that are present in Cervantes’s works. Instead of basing his study on one defining emotion of the Mediterranean, Johnson aims to investigate what he calls the “Mediterranean’s affective micro-(hi)stories,” the many life stories of Cervantine characters and other individuals that reflect the affective richness of the region (25). Finally, by putting critical approaches to the Mediterranean in dialogue with affect theory, always with an eye on Cervantes, the author aims to correct some misconceptions that have until now inhibited a robust discussion about the interdependence of a Mediterranean experience and an emotional one. This interdisciplinary approach allows Johnson to offer new and erudite readings of Cervantes’s fiction. Thus, his book contributes significantly not only to scholarship on Cervantes’s œuvre, but also to the field of Mediterranean studies as well as the history of emotion. The book is divided into three parts with two chapters each and concludes with an afterword. Part 1 (“Casting Off”) introduces the theoretical framework by using a diverse variety of Cervantes’s fiction including poetry, prose, and theater, and putting it in conversation with a wide range of critical works on affect and the Mediterranean. Chapter 1 (Introduction) outlines the premise of the book and convincingly shows why the Cervantine corpus is [End Page 117] especially appropriate to undertake the task of analyzing affective structures in the Mediterranean. In particular, Johnson argues that “Cervantes’s engagement with affect is not only fundamental but fundamentally different” (13). Since Cervantes’s works frequently treat questions of emotion across a diverse terrain of cultural encounters and exchanges, his writings offer a fruitful vantage point from which to explore human relations and the multiplicity of affective responses that they inspire. While Johnson carefully incorporates a rich variety of Cervantine texts in his analysis, showing how the Mediterranean is present throughout, he justifies his focus on the author’s prose works because it is there, he contends, that emotions are most salient and developed. Readers of the Bulletin of the Comediantes, thus, will be particularly interested in how Johnson homes in on the theatricality of Cervantes’s prose to illuminate how emotions are expressed and performed by the characters in the texts. Chapter 2 (“Connected (Hi)stories: The Cervantine, Literary, and Affective Mediterranean”) further extends his initial arguments by elucidating how the themes of his book, namely “Mediterranean, emotion, literature, Cervantes,” are all interconnected and how they cannot be considered solely in isolation (28). The chapter exposes how Cervantes’s fiction both reveals the complexity of these connections as well as destabilizes some common stereotypes about the Mediterranean world. Johnson, thus, reinforces that “a central proposition of this book is to interrogate the macro (Mediterranean framework) and the micro (emotions),” using the personal narratives of many characters interspersed throughout Cervantes’s literature as the common thread throughout the project (30). This chapter is one of the most attractive and suggestive of the study because it offers readers a roadmap for how they can approach these themes in other Cervantine texts, which could also be expanded...

Gestão da riqueza velha e criação de riqueza nova: uma crítica à Modern Money Theory (MMT)

Resumo A discussão sobre política monetária, a moeda e sua natureza voltou ao centro do debate econômico no Brasil e no mundo. No cerne do debate proposto estão questões centrais, como, por exemplo, a da impossibilidade de um governo soberano não honrar dívidas denominadas em sua própria moeda, proposição central da Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), além da colocação em dúvida do que foram, até pouco tempo atrás, pressupostos basilares da teoria econômica convencional, como por exemplo a imprescindibilidade de uma organização da política monetária em torno do estabelecimento de um Banco Central Independente que persiga metas de inflação. Nesse contexto, este artigo possui dois objetivos principais. Primeiro, busca-se identificar com maior precisão as molduras teóricas que sustentam duas visões distintas sobre o que é a moeda em uma economia capitalista plenamente desenvolvida. De um lado, a visão da moeda-mercadoria, que incorpora a construção teórica da economia política clássica; de outro, a moeda vista como uma instituição social, pertencente ao arcabouço teórico de matriz keynesiano-marxista. Segundo, busca-se compreender os principais pressupostos da MMT e seus pontos de convergência e divergência em relação às duas visões supracitadas. A partir da perspectiva keynesiano-marxista, conclui-se que não se sustentam as abordagens teóricas que tratam Estados e mercados como entes abstratos, que operam em cenários ideais, afastados das reais condições econômicas, sociais e políticas do momento presente, dentre as quais se destaca a MMT.

Validation of cognitive inhibitors to technology adoption using content analysis

Inhibitors to technology play a crucial role in predicting eventual technology adoption. In the inhibitor space, studies have so far been limited to understanding affective inhibitors only. The central proposition of this paper is to identify two new cognitive inhibitor constructs. This study augments the existing body of knowledge in the area of technology acceptance behaviour by positing 'dissatisfiers' and 'risk' as two cognitive inhibitor constructs to technology adoption. The methodology used for validating the proposed model is content analysis (CA). The target technology chosen for validation is internet of things (IoT). The results obtained provide strong support for the proposed hypotheses thereby establishing dissatisfiers and risk as two new cognitive inhibitor constructs.

Horses for courses. The roles of IPE and Global Public Policy in global energy research

ABSTRACT Although IPE and GPP overlap conceptionally and empirically, there is a case for keeping GPP and IPE analytically distinct. To simplify: GPP tells us why we need international regimes for energy, while IPE tells us why we only have incomplete ones. Although many scholars draw on both sets of literatures, the two approaches to the study of energy market, regulation and politics entail asking different types of questions based on distinct theories and assumptions. The central propositions in this article are that i) in a rapidly changing world of energy scholars from both camps need to be aware of and open to insights from the other school; ii) that the distinction between market-focused liberal scholars on one hand and security-oriented or realist scholars on the other is increasingly important; and iii) that although IPE and GPP scholars can fruitfully accommodate insights from each others literature, the two approaches to the study of energy policy are best valued by their own analytical contribution – even as we grapple with new, cross-cutting issues such as the geopolitics and geo-economics of global energy transitions.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel as an alternative history of stand-up

In this article, we use a critical analysis of the first season of the Amazon 2017-9 series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel as the starting point to examine its central proposition: that a female Lenny Bruce could have existed at that particular time and place in comedy history. We furnish contextual analysis, and survey some routines depicted in the show in terms of both form and content, examining the titular Mrs. Maisel against female comics of her own time and later eras. We chart the ways her comedic development touches on the hallmarks of American stand-up and we assess the development of her comic persona—the main plotline of the first season of the show—by comparison with the personae Lenny Bruce and Mort Sahl shaped for themselves through their routines, and in contrast to the kinds of personae adopted by Joan Rivers and Phyllis Diller. Our argument is that by conflating and blurring distinctions across comedy history, the show illustrates its most important and perhaps least remarked upon development, that of the stand-up persona. It offers, then, an interesting starting point for further scholarship on the emergence of the persona as well as providing a frame for grasping its political, social and psychological utility.

Is Global Management Knowledge on the Way to Impoverishment?

This article seeks to synthesise three fields of inquiry – management studies, linguistics and cognitive psychology – to explore an arguably emerging phenomenon of global management knowledge (MK) impoverishment. To this end, three literatures are reviewed and interrogated for the insights they may provide into the underlying factors affecting global MK: trends in knowledge production, Englishisation of management scholarship and the culturally determined differences in cognition. Arguments are developed through descriptive investigation, discussion and analysis. The central proposition of this article is that the politics of knowledge production, the hegemony of English as the dominant language of management studies and the variations in thinking styles are synergistically interlinked in a way that facilitates Anglophone homogenisation of management research and potentially leads to global MK impoverishment. The ways of addressing the situation are discussed.

A Circular Target Feature Detection Framework Based on DCNN for Industrial Applications

This article presents a novel target detection method, which is named as circular target feature detection framework based on a deep convolutional neural network (DCNN). The central proposition of this method uses the optimized DCNN architecture to detect the target and locate the position of the circle accurately in the image field of view. In this article, a Hough transform based on threshold processing (HTP) is embedded into the optimized DCNN architecture, which calculates the center positions and radius of all circles by training the circular samples for each detected rectangular frame. It can efficiently identify small circular target materials in the industry and screen out unqualified particles. The experimental results show that the boundary information of the circles is obtained clearly from the complex noise background images, thereby accurately determining the location of the circle. It has some advantages over only using a specific circular recognition algorithm. We proposed the new study on HTP-DCNN, which has extremely high accuracy in the field of machine vision positioning with circles for industrial applications.

British government communication during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic: learning from high reliability organizations

This article examines British government communication during the COVID-19 pandemic, assessing how it aligns to the communicational characteristics of high reliability organizations (HROs). The central proposition of the study is that HROs’ organizational culture enables and cultivates effective, ethical communication that, in turn, enhances the trust and engagement of stakeholders and citizens. A thematic content analysis of the UK prime minister’s public communication about the new coronavirus outbreak, examining televised statements, news briefings and prime minister’s questions from January to June 2020, shows that the British prime minister’s initial approach to communication about the virus was complacent about the country’s preparedness and capacity to control the disease’s spread. No errors were admitted in any of the government’s subsequent handling of the pandemic nor were mistakes acknowledged in the actions of those in or advising government. These approaches to communication are at odds with those adopted by HROs. The study suggests that lessons can be learnt from HRO practices for communication in high risk environments. They are also applicable to organizations that have experienced historical difficulties both in admitting errors and in fostering a transparent, responsive communicational culture.

Disentangling Mental Illness Labeling Effects from Treatment Effects on Well-Being

The emerging field of Mad Studies has returned attention to deficiencies of the medical model, refocusing scholars on social causes of mental health problems and on consumers’/survivors’ experiences of labeling and stigma. These themes echo issues addressed in traditional and modified labeling theories. A fundamental labeling premise is that professional categorization as “mentally ill” is a major determinant of individuals’ poorer psychological well-being. However, this relationship has not been tested appropriately because past studies frequently measured formal labeling by a person’s involvement in treatment. Treatment involvement can indicate the receipt of potentially beneficial services or harmful categorization with a stigmatizing label. Independent measures of these constructs in the National Comorbidity Survey-Replication enable reexamining traditional and modified labeling hypotheses for individuals with (N = 1,255) and without (N = 4,172) a recurrent clinical disorder. Supporting labeling theory’s central proposition, formal labeling was linked to more negative affect and disability days in both groups. These relationships were not spurious products of preexisting serious symptoms, refuting a psychiatric explanation. Treatment involvement effects differed noticeably between the groups, underscoring the need to keep treatment and labeling measures distinct.

Teaching older adults: an instructional model from Singapore

ABSTRACT Against the backdrop of an unprecedented increase in the number of older adults in Singapore, the escalating pace of change which necessitates continuous learning, and a dearth of empirical research related to instructional design for older adults, this study sought to fill this gap by investigating the strategies utilized by successful instructors to deal with older adults within the classroom context, from their perspectives. Conceptualized within the interpretivist research paradigm, it adopted symbolic interactionism as its theoretical framework, applying a constructivist grounded theory strategy, within the qualitative research method, to generate the theory. The primary sources of data were in-depth semi-structured interviews and non-participant classroom observations, of nine instructors from diverse backgrounds. The progressive empowerment of learners emerged as the central proposition of the theory generated through the study. Comprising the three phases of empathizing, engaging and empowering, the developed theory provides a systematic, process-oriented instructional model, to guide current and prospective practitioners teaching classes that consist of learners conforming to such a profile. To date, such a model, from an Asian perspective, does not appear to exist.

Building the Modern State in Developing Countries: Perceptions of Public Safety and (Un)willingness to Pay Taxes in Mexico

What is the relationship between taxation and public safety? Contrary to studies suggesting that personal victimization and heightened perceptions of insecurity increase pro-social attitudes and support for state intervention in the form of greater taxation, this article argues that such concerns decrease willingness to pay taxes to address public safety. It estimates what citizens are willing to pay to reduce crime, using an original representative survey conducted in Mexico and relying on the contingent valuation method to assess the value of nonmarket goods. Attitudes toward taxation are found to respond to subjective, sociotropic assessments of public safety rather than to actual risk or occurrences of individual victimization. These findings counter the conventional wisdom that demand for personal security enables greater extraction, a central proposition in classic accounts of state building. Showing that willingness to accept heavier taxation may be weakest among those who perceive the gravest need for security, the study adds precision to theories of fiscal exchange.

How Firms Grow? Contextual Factors as Determinants of Growth Mode Selection

Understanding firm growth has long been a key goal in entrepreneurship research. However, despite decades of research on determinants of how much firms grow, little is known about how firms grow, i.e., the different modes of firm growth (Dosi, Grazzi, Moschella, Pisano, & Tamagni, 2019; McKelvie & Wiklund, 2010; Wright & Stigliani, 2013). To date, firm growth studies have not examined the effect of contextual factors on growth modes, the central propositions of Penrose’s theory of the growth of the firm (Davidsson, 2004; Penrose, 1959/1995). This is both theoretically interesting and practically troubling. From a theoretical perspective, distinguishing between the impacts of organic vs. acquisition-based growth modes is crucial to determining the aggregate-level employment contributions of growing firms. From a practical perspective, research on this important topic has been hampered because data sets in most countries cannot distinguish between organic and acquisition-based growth. Therefore, our study uses a special Swedish dataset to develop theoretical understanding and empirical evidence to show how two internal factors (firm age and firm size) and three external factors (industry, location and macroeconomic condition) influence the proportion extent to which growing firms’ expansion is achieved through organic and acquisition-based growth modes, respectively.

Taking measure: the link between metrics and marketing’s exploitative and explorative capabilities

PurposeWhile metrics are becoming increasingly important for marketing’s relevance, there is also a need to understand how they, as enablers of learning, affect marketing’s adaptive capabilities that ensure its long-term success. Therefore, this study aims to test the association of marketing and financial metrics use and the metric-based orientations of training and compensation, with two key marketing routines – exploitation, i.e. the perfecting of existing activities while allowing for incremental adaptations and exploration or experimentation accompanied by radical adaptation.Design/methodology/approachThe study gathers data from 205 managers and uses partial least squares structural equation modeling to test the hypothesized relationships.FindingsMarketing metrics encourage both forms of marketing adaptation. Financial metrics use discourages exploration. Market orientation and long-term orientation strengthen (weaken) the positive (negative) relationship between marketing (financial) metrics use and marketing exploration. Metric-based training is more positively associated with both adaptive capabilities than a metric-based compensation orientation, albeit weakly.Research limitations/implicationsThe study’s central proposition – that different metrics or metric orientations are associated with distinct types of knowledge, interpretations, mindsets, motivations and cultural contexts – provides a deeper theoretical understanding of the pathways by which a metric emphasis affects marketing adaptation.Practical implicationsMarketing managers should emphasize marketing metrics and training more than compensation, to promote marketing exploitation/exploration, while exercising caution in overstressing financial metrics given their negative association with exploration. This latter negative relationship can be weakened (as can the positive one between marketing metrics and exploration be strengthened) with increased market orientation and long-term orientation.Originality/valueThis study addresses the research gap regarding the relationship between metrics as a configurational element of marketing organization and marketing adaptation.