Communication Decision Research Articles

A PERSPECTIVE FROM MARKETING MIX AND SALES PERFORMANCE: THE EXISTENCE OF MODERN RETAILERS AMID TRADITIONAL RETAILERS IN SONDER

The rapid grow of modern retailer in almost major cities in Indonesia has an impact on economic development and has a strong effect on community decision-making about whether to shop in modern retailers or traditional retailers. This study aimed to analyze the existence of modern retailers amid traditional retailers in the perspective of marketing mix and sales performance. Descriptive qualitative approach was used in this study. Primary data was gained from interview with 30 respondents from traditional retail owner in Sonder district. Based on the result of the study, it shows (1) The presence of modern retail in Sonder district has an impact on 43% traditional retailers and 57% retailers not impacted. (2) Marketing mix strategy affecting on increasing traditional retailer sales performance which product and price variable has an important role. Meanwhile, the others remaining marketing mix strategy variable such as promotion and place did not play significant role in increasing the traditional retailer sales performance in Sonder.

Blockchain and the emergence of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs): An integrative model and research agenda

Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) are blockchain-based organizations fed by a peer-to-peer (P2P) network of contributors. Their management is decentralized without top executive teams and built on automated rules encoded in smart contracts, and their governance works autonomously based on a combination of on-chain and off-chain mechanisms that support community decision-making. A growing body of literature has emerged exploring DAOs. However, there is a considerable lack of clarity about this organizational design and its theoretical conceptualization. To this end, we undertake an integrative literature review that reveals three main principles—decentralized, automated and autonomous organizations—and the following four theoretical perspectives mainly adopted to examine this novel organizational form: transaction cost theory, institutions for collective action, agency theory, and socio-materiality. By extending these theories, we propose an integrative model of DAO for research and theory building. Our contribution provides conceptual clarity and proposes a framework for future research directions.

PARTISIPASI MASYARAKAT DALAM PEMBENTUKAN PERATURAN DESA DI DESA KERASWETAN KECAMATAN GENENG KABUPATEN NGAWI

Abstract— Village regulations are statutory regulations established by the Village Head after being discussed and agreed with the Village Consultative Body. Village regulations are needed to organize village government, limit power, and regulate village community life in order to achieve the goals of the State of Indonesia. The problem inthis journal is how community participation in the formation of regulations. Basically, every village has a different pattern of behavior and community habits in daily life, so there needs to be a concrete rule in the village itself, namely in the form of Village Regulations. Likewise with Keraswetan Village, Geneng District, NgawiRegency,it is necessary to have an understanding of the importance of community participation in the formation of village regulations. The method used in the implementation of this community service uses the legal counseling method. Based on the results of this study it was concluded that the importance of community participation in the formation of Village Regulations. Village regulations in principle are a village community decision that is used as the basis for implementing village government with the aim of regulating living together, protecting community rights and obligations, and maintaining community safety and order in administering village government in accordance with the wishes and aspirations of the community. The formation of Village Regulations must be in accordance with Law Number 12 of 2011 concerning the Formation of Legislation and the process of forming village regulations based on Law Number 6 of 2014 concerning Villages.

Playing With Uncertainty: Facilitating Community-Based Resilience Building

Resilience has become a fundamental paradigm for communities to deal with disaster planning. Formal methods are used to prioritise and decide about investments for resilience. Strategies and behaviour need to be developed that cannot be based on formal modelling only because the human element needs to be incorporated to build community resilience. Participatory modelling and gaming are methodological approaches that are based on realistic data and address human behaviour. These approaches enable stakeholders to develop, adjust, and learn from interactive models and use this experience to inform their decision-making.<em> </em>In our contribution, we explore which physical and digital elements from serious games can be used to design a participatory approach in community engagement and decision-making. Our ongoing research aims to bring multiple stakeholders together to understand, model, and decide on the trade-offs and tensions between social and infrastructure investments toward community resilience building. Initial observations allow us as researchers to systematically document the benefits and pitfalls of a game-based approach. We will continue to develop a participatory modelling exercise for resilience planning with university graduate students and resilience experts within academia in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Changing Care: Applying the Transtheoretical Model of Change to Embed Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Long-Term Care Research in Canada

Healthcare policy reform is evident when considering the past, present and future of long-term care (LTC) in Canada. Some of the most pressing issues facing the LTC sector include the changing demographic composition in Canadian LTC homes, minimal consideration for the role of intersectionality in LTC data collection and analysis, and the expanding need to engage diverse participants and knowledge users. Using the Transtheoretical Model of Change (TTMC) as a framework, we consider opportunities to address intersectionality in LTC research. Engaging diverse knowledge users in LTC (e.g., unpaid caregivers, paid care staff), community (e.g., advocacy groups, service providers) and policy decision-makers (e.g., provincial government) is crucial. Empowering individuals to participate, modifying environments to support engagement, and facilitating ongoing partnerships with knowledge users are critical aspects of change efforts. Addressing structural barriers (e.g., accessibility, capacity, jurisdictional policies, and mandates) to research in LTC is also essential. The TTMC offers a framework for planning and enacting individual, organizational, and system-level changes for the future of LTC.

Free for all? Knowledge as a barrier in technopolitical communities in Spain

Optimistic visions of its liberating potential have accompanied the Internet since its inception. However, technopolitical communities have defended free knowledge, but they risk adopting liberal notions when there is a group hierarchy depending on technological skills or the time people invest in the project (Coleman & Golub, 2008; Crabu et al., 2016). Using a combined methodology, we aim to understand the decision-making and training processes of technopolitical communities in Spain. Results show that these projects are collective, and their communities are aligned with the availability of public materials on the Internet for individual learning and mutual support values. However, they must consider developing better-established training and decision-making strategies to attract more people and more diverse profiles. Otherwise, there is a risk of generating an elite of experts who may enjoy free knowledge but cannot effectively collectivize it and disrupt the context of informational capitalism.

Climate-Informed Decision-Making in Data-Poor Environments: Managing Climate Risk Through Citizen Science Networks

Climate change impacts have become a verifiable reality in most communities in Africa and have already shown its ruthlessness in derailing modest gains made towards sustainable development. While evidence of climate change impacts abounds, especially in key climate-sensitive sectors a, not many people living in affected communities have the requisite knowledge, understanding and capacity to respond to emerging impacts. Most communities in Ghana and Africa, broadly, lack the requisite climate change knowledge resources to inform adaptation choices. Adaptation decision-making, in most cases, is reactive, speculative, and based on flawed understandings and taken-for-granted assumptions of the climate change phenomenon. This is essentially because most countries lack the capacity to make climate-informed decisions, a situation that emerges out of the pervasive lack of efficient climate information services regime. The paucity of climate change knowledge and associated climate information services is undoubtedly an issue of institutional capacity; however, it is also a function of an enduring culture—a poor attitude towards data collection and application—in decision-making processes. Data-poor environment, or data-poverty, as implied in this work, therefore, broadly describes the absence of a data management culture in decision-making processes; it also describes the lack of functional climate information services regime in local communities in Africa and how such omissions impede the ability of countries to make climate-informed decisions. Focusing on Ghana, the paper problematizes the lack of climate information in local communities. The paper argues that Africa’s climate crisis is as much a knowledge and learning challenge which requires new and innovative learning approaches to build capacities to facilitate the making of data-driven and climate-informed adaptation decisions in local communities. The paper, therefore, foregrounds citizen-science networks as avenues for community-focused and community-based climate knowledge co-producing mechanisms.
 
 Received: 23 February 2022 / Accepted: 15 April 2022 / Published: 5 May 2022

The Transnational Afterlives of European Muslims

Abstract How do European Muslims navigate death and burial in countries where they face systematic barriers to political inclusion? The authors of this article investigate the complex negotiations surrounding end-of-life decisions for Muslim communities in France and Germany. Drawing on multisited ethnographic research among Algerian and Turkish diasporas in Marseilles and Berlin, they illustrate how burial decisions reflect divergent ideas about citizenship, belonging, and identity. While some Muslims are interred in local cemeteries, many more are repatriated out of Europe to be laid in ancestral soils in countries of origin. Through interviews with Muslim death-care workers and community members the authors analyze the significance and symbolic value that such posthumous journeys carry in postmigratory settings. They argue that the Muslim corpse embodies a range of overlapping desires, experiences, and expectations connected to histories of migration, settlement, and return, as well as attitudes toward death and beliefs about the afterlife. Consequently, the corpse offers a compelling window into the transnational afterlives of migration and empire.

Levelling up versus democratic localism

The Johnson government's pledge to 'level up' in response to regional inequality has been derided for its continuing lack of political substance. Responses from the Labour Party leadership have tended to ignore the development in several parts of the UK of approaches focusing on democratic localism or 'community wealth building', in which local leaders, groups and communities in neglected or 'left behind' areas are not only achieving central aspects of what 'levelling up' promises, but doing so with more progressive principles and intentions than those that underpin the Tory-led project. The obvious example of this is the 'Preston Model', a project brought in over the past decade by a Labour-led city council. While some criticisms of the Preston Model and community wealth building are misconceived, others are valid areas of question or concern for the left, in particular those that centre on the democratic nature of these economic experiments, and the risk that their focus on the spending policies of local or regional authorities ignores the potential for genuinely democratic community decision-making. This article looks at the extent to which community wealth building has integrated or accommodated these concerns; the potential for doing so in future iterations of the strategy; and how a focus on these alternative strategies could offer a path to renewal for the Labour Party nationally.

Community decision making based on social capital during COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from Bangelan Village tourism, Indonesia

Bangelan is one of the villages which proclaim as a tourism village in Malang Regency. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted tourist visits, causing considerable losses to tourism economic activityr. This study aims to determine the structure of community adaptation in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is associated with social capital and collective actions to restore socioeconomic conditions. Assessment of social capital used three variables: trust, social norms, and social networks, each of which identifies its relationship with collective action. This study used descriptive analysis and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and the data were obtained from the questionnaire. The study results explain that the norm variable in social capital wasthe most influential for the community to make decisions in taking collective action to restore the socioeconomic conditions. The norms were based on compliance with applicable norms and social sanctions against those who violate. Social norms affected almost every aspect of people's lives and became development pillars. The success of development efforts depended on conforming to or contradicting the development with pre-existing norms. In addition, the role of the community as hosts was the most important element in tourism development where they lived. Furthermore, norms could prevent outsiders from taking the opportunities that often dominate the development of local tourism destinations.JEL Classification I32; R23; R51

Climate-Informed Decision-Making in Data-Poor Environments: Managing Climate Risk Through Citizen Science Networks

Climate change impacts have become a verifiable reality in most communities in Africa and have already shown its ruthlessness in derailing modest gains made toward sustainable development. While evidence of climate change impacts abounds, especially in key climate-sensitive sectors, not many people living in affected communities have the requisite knowledge, understanding and capacity to respond to emerging impacts. Most communities in Ghana and Africa, broadly, lack the requisite climate change knowledge resources to inform adaptation choices. Adaptation decision-making, in most cases, is reactive, speculative, and based on flawed assumptions and understandings of the climate change phenomenon. This is essentially because most countries lack the capacity to make climate-informed decisions which is also a function of the pervasive lack of efficient climate information services regime across Africa. The paucity of climate change knowledge and associated climate information services is undoubtedly an issue of institutional capacity; however, it is also a function of an enduring culture—a poor attitude toward data collection and application—in decision-making processes. Data-poor environment, or data-poverty, as implied in this work, therefore, broadly describes the absence of a data management culture in decision-making processes; however, specifically to climate change, it describes the lack of functional climate information services regime in local communities in Africa and how such omissions impede the ability of countries to make climate-informed decisions to support adaptation and resilience building. Focusing on Ghana, the paper problematizes the lack of climate information in local communities. The paper argues that Africa's climate crisis is as much a knowledge and learning challenge which requires new and innovative learning approaches to build capacities to facilitate the making of data-driven and climate-informed adaptation decisions in local communities. The paper, therefore, foregrounds citizen-science networks as avenues for community-focused and community-based climate knowledge co-producing mechanisms.

Identifying factors contributing to social vulnerability through a deliberative Q-Sort process: an application to heat vulnerability in Taiwan

Extreme heat events are gaining ever more policy and societal attention under a warming climate. Although a breadth of expertises are required to understand drivers of vulnerability to hazards such as extreme heat, it is also acknowledged that expert assessments in group settings may be subject to biases and uneven power relations. In this Technical Note, we outline a structured deliberative process for supporting experts to work collaboratively to assess social vulnerability to a climate-related hazard, in this case extreme heat in Taiwanese cities. We argue that adapting elicitation approaches such as Q-Methodology for use in collaborative settings can help to organise expert discussion and enable dialogue and mutual learning, in a way that supports consensus-building on vulnerability assessment. Outcomes from our collaborative assessments suggest elderly people living alone, elderly people over 75, pre-existing circulatory diseases and level of participation in community decision-making may all be notable drivers of heat vulnerability in the Taiwanese context. Methodologically, we argue that collaborative sorting exercises offer a way to embed local and experiential knowledges into assessments of available evidence, but that strong facilitation and additional checks are necessary to ensure an inclusive process that reflects the diversity of perspectives involved.

Bridging the Urban-Rural Divide in Chronic Disease Through Community Engagement in Health Program Delivery.

The urban-rural divide in chronic disease contributes to persistent geographic disparities in life expectancy in North Carolina. Policies and programs in resource-constrained rural areas should be designed to increase health equity and reduce this continuing divide by including greater community engagement and decision-making for meaningful, sustainable change.

Barriers to the Participation of the Traditional Leadership Institution in Promoting Rural Agricultural Development: The Case of Agricultural Projects

The Traditional Leadership Institution (TLI) is constitutionally recognised to promote rural development in South Africa. It works with local government in a cooperative governance system to support agricultural development. However, it is increasingly viewed as a weaker development partner that lacks initiative and understanding of its sector-specific roles. This explains why, since the dawn of democracy in 1993, the TLI has not been fully integrated to drive rural modernisation and development. This challenge entrenches the status quo and contributes to the failure of important economic sectors like agriculture to uplift the livelihoods of rural communities. This exploratory study investigated factors that deter the TLI from effectively participating in community practices that promote agricultural development in South Africa. Data was collected from traditional leaders and council members; farmers participating in agricultural projects; municipal officials; and extension service officers in the Limpopo Province, South Africa. Focus group discussions and face-to-face interviews were used. The findings reveal four broad themes that describe barriers to participation. Barriers of a “political and relational” nature emerged as the most prominent. Further, the barriers were found to be horizontal, diagonal and vertical related. Studying and examining the complex network linkages of the barriers that were identified is critical for understanding the failure of the TLI to contribute meaningfully to agricultural development. Such an understanding serves as a springboard for adapting and devising appropriate intervention measures that could improve the integration of the TLI and community decision practices that promote agricultural development.

The High Latitude Spectroscopic Survey on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope

Abstract The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will conduct a High Latitude Spectroscopic Survey (HLSS) over a large volume at high redshift, using the near-IR grism (1.0–1.93 μm, R = 435–865) and the 0.28 deg2 wide-field camera. We present a reference HLSS that maps 2000 deg2 and achieves an emission-line flux limit of 10−16 erg s−1 cm−2 at 6.5σ, requiring ∼0.6 yr of observing time. We summarize the flowdown of the Roman science objectives to the science and technical requirements of the HLSS. We construct a mock redshift survey over the full HLSS volume by applying a semianalytic galaxy formation model to a cosmological N-body simulation and use this mock survey to create pixel-level simulations of 4 deg2 of HLSS grism spectroscopy. We find that the reference HLSS would measure ∼10 million Hα galaxy redshifts that densely map large-scale structure at z = 1–2 and 2 million [O iii] galaxy redshifts that sparsely map structures at z = 2–3. We forecast the performance of this survey for measurements of the cosmic expansion history with baryon acoustic oscillations and the growth of large-scale structure with redshift-space distortions. We also study possible deviations from the reference design and find that a deep HLSS at f line > 7 × 10−17 erg s−1 cm−2 over 4000 deg2 (requiring ∼1.5 yr of observing time) provides the most compelling stand-alone constraints on dark energy from Roman alone. This provides a useful reference for future optimizations. The reference survey, simulated data sets, and forecasts presented here will inform community decisions on the final scope and design of the Roman HLSS.

Sustainability and Green Socio-Ecosystem Resilience

Humanity is facing a series of critical challenges, global warming being one the most important. Consequently, sustainability and resilience have become key elements in better response to the crisis and maintaining an equilibrium between ecology, economics, and various social domains. The design and use of urban land should consider including a multi-functional green infrastructure to obtain different benefits, from ecosystem services to value creation. Additionally, the urban land-use planning system contributes to economic growth, social development and environmental sustainability, while biodiversity can provide renewal and reorganization capacities for changes in the social-ecosystems. All these elements bring forth a different paradigm for the future decisions of communities. Paper seeks to synthesize Keywords: Resilience, sustainability, urban land use.

Stakeholders\u2019 hopes and concerns about the COVID-19 vaccines in Southeastern Nigeria: a qualitative study

BackgroundEquitable access and high uptake of safe and effective vaccines is critical to ending the COVID-19 pandemic. To ensure the success of these vaccines, particularly in many developing and under-developed parts of the world, the concerns of local communities including fears, potency, and levels of acceptance should be addressed. This study assessed community stakeholders’ perceptions in parts of Southeastern Nigeria about COVID-19 vaccine, towards engaging them effectively to ensure the success of the vaccination campaigns.MethodsA qualitative study was conducted involving fourteen stakeholders from the Southeastern geo-political zone of Nigeria selected using purposive sampling. In-depth semi-structured individual interviews lasting about 30 min were used to collect data. Data analysis was informed by a general inductive approach.ResultsStakeholders hoped that the development and roll out of the vaccines will bring COVID -19 to an end, will help to maintain good health and allow people get back to normal life. On the other hand, stakeholders expressed their concerns and worries about the “speed” with which the vaccines are being produced, possibility of future adverse effects from vaccination, misinformation, and level of preparedness in the health system to implement the vaccine campaign.ConclusionsThis study identified that more needs to be done to improve perceptions of those who influence health decisions in communities towards COVID-19 vaccines. This includes firstly, the involvement of the community and religious leaders in vaccine promotion. Secondly, it is imperative to develop and disseminate persuasive messaging on vaccine effectiveness and safety targeted at both health professionals, policymakers, and the community which are culturally sensitive and address identified concerns among health workers. Thirdly, the health systems should be strengthened and system-level interventions that directly target one or more of the WHO’s six health system building blocks: service delivery, health workforce, health information systems, access to essential medicines, financing, and leadership/governance.

Factors Influencing People's Decision to Pay Zakat, Infaq and Sedekah (ZIS) in Baitul Mal Banda Aceh City

The aim of the research is to examine the influence of factors that determine people's decisions in giving zakat, infaq, and sedekah at amil zakat institution. Some influencing factors are level of publication, promotion, reputation, religiosity, and motivation to the community's decision to pay ZIS at Baitul Mal of Banda Aceh City. The method used in this research is quantitative by using primary data. The data collection was conducted by distributing questionnaires directly to the research object. Each variable was measured a Likert scale. The research population was the people of Banda Aceh City aged 15-64 years and above who have jobs and income. The sample selection technique used is convenience sampling, the research object consisted of 100 respondents. Data processing was carried out by using binary logistic regression analysis. The results of this study indicated that publication, promotion, reputation, religiosity, and motivation positively and significantly impacted the community's decision in paying ZIS at Baitul Mal of Banda Aceh City, either partially or simultaneously. The results also showed that the community did not only require an increase in a good understanding of ZIS and its benefits, but they also demanded the reputation of Baitul Mal institution to be improved in order to encourage them to pay ZIS at Baitul Mal of Banda Aceh City.

The complexity of the conservation-development nexus in Central African national parks and the perceptions of local populations

Conservation programmes of recent decades aimed to adopt an approach that addresses biodiversity conservation goals through socio-economic tools and to better integrate the human dimension into biodiversity conservation. Yet, to analyse this complex conservation-development nexus, studying conservation perceptions of local populations are crucial to understand the dynamics and establish sound conservation-development management policies. Therefore, we aim to identify the key determinants of conservation perceptions in the Central African context in order to implement successful local and regional conservation strategies. Conservation perceptions of two national parks’ adjacent populations were examined through household surveys, adapted from the Poverty-Environment Network (PEN), in Rwanda and Republic of Congo. Outcomes were statistically analysed to identify the most important factors affecting perceptions about conservation measures. Using a nonlinear canonical correlation analysis, we found that economic factors (e.g. salary, savings, cattle size) and education positively affect conservation perceptions while ecosystem-dependent factors such as hunting and gathering other non-timber forest products have negative effects. Though, we identified a significant difference between two sites, whereby, conservation perceptions are negatively affected by bushmeat factors in Republic of Congo, and NTFP in Rwanda. In addition, our study showed that resource use and rights play a major role in communities’ perceptions and that revenue-sharing projects have a key impact on the perceptions. To ensure sound conservation and development measures, revenue-sharing schemes focusing on material benefits and alternative livelihoods may provide the best approach if participation of communities in the decision-making process is ensured. In this optic, improving education levels will raise awareness and positive perceptions of conservation measures. Development measures should target poor households as they appear to be more conservation-adverse. We conclude that in depth research on local demands for ecosystem products, relationships among stakeholders and community decision power are crucial factors to understand the complexity of the conservation-development nexus.

How a Public Health Crisis Created an Impetus for Change: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's National Commission to Transform Public Health Data Systems: Expert Roundtable.

How a Public Health Crisis Created an Impetus for Change: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's National Commission to Transform Public Health Data Systems: Expert Roundtable.