Concept Of Maturity Research Articles

Maturity as a way forward for improving organizations’ communication evaluation and measurement practices

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to propose an explication of the concept of “maturity,” as it applies to communication evaluation and measurement (E&M) practice, along with contextualization of recent maturity model adoption within academic and professional communities.Design/methodology/approachDrawing from previous work on maturity models within other fields, recent communication scholarship and industry practice, this paper fills a gap in the literature by offering a theoretical conceptualization of communication E&M maturity, including the construct’s core dimensions and sub-dimensions.FindingsCommunication E&M maturity is conceptualized into four essential elements: holistic approach, investment, alignment and culture. The contribution of E&M efforts is represented as the direct support of corporate strategy, and ultimately increased value, from the communications function. Operational elements of maturity include levels of analysis, time, budget, tools, skills, process, integration, motivations, relationships and standards.Originality/valueIn exploring the factors necessary for “mature” E&M programs, and specifically emphasizing the need for a holistic approach, along with sufficient investment and alignment, and conducive cultural factors, the research builds upon existing work examining how communication can serve to inform corporate strategy and create value for an organization. Greater understanding and application of the maturity concept has the potential to advance the field by increasing both accountability and credibility for the work done by the communications function.

Utopias: Future, Present and Concrete in Alasdair MacIntyre and C. L. R. James

ABSTRACTAlasdair MacIntyre’s Ethics in the Conflict of Modernity caps a long engagement with Marx and Marxism through a discussion of the life and work of C. L. R. James. MacIntyre’s critique of James is interesting both because James influenced MacIntyre’s early Marxism and because MacIntyre’s mature critique of Marxism can be understood against the background of his failure to realise a broadly Jamesian political project in the 1960s. Moreover, MacIntyre’s mature concept of a “utopianism of the present” can, in part, be understood as an attempt to overcome the abstract utopian limitations of the politics he embraced in his youth. I argue that MacIntyre was right to reject the interpretation of Marxism he held in the mid-1960s, but that his general criticism of Marxism is less successful because Marxism, at its strongest, can be understood as a form of a utopianism of the present. The underlying flaw with the version of Marxism that MacIntyre embraced in the 1960s is not to be found in its abstractly utopian character but rather in its one-sided conception of the relationship between working-class self-activity and socialist consciousness. This is a problem, though inverted, that continues to haunt MacIntyre’s interpretation of Marxism.

The S\xe4vsj\xf6-school-project: a cluster-randomized trial aimed at improving the literacy of beginners\u2014achievements, mental health, school satisfaction and reading capacity at the end of grade three using an alternative school curriculum

BackgroundA curriculum was planned using modern concepts based on the “old” principles to test if such an educational intervention provided pupils with good mental health and a solid basis for good reading and writing skills, as well as generated a positive attitude to learn. These “old” principles were based on previous knowledge derived from school psychiatry (which in Sweden was a branch of child and adolescent psychiatry 1915–1970), educational psychology and the educational approach from the differentiating Swedish School system of 1946–1970 (itself based on the principles of curative education “Heilpädagogie”, which was later renamed mental health care).MethodsAll six available schools in the small Swedish city of Sävsjö participated in the study. In these six schools there were eight preschool classes that included every 6-year old child living in the city. In total there were 184 families with 186 children (including 2 pairs of twins) who belonged to these preschool classes and were invited to take part in the study. One family moved just before school-start and 8 decided not to participate, thus 177 children (84 boys and 93 girls, aged 5.6–6.6 years) entered the study. The preschool classes were randomized into an experimental group with four preschool classes and a comparison group with four preschool classes. The experimental group followed a teaching program from the start of the preschool year until the end of grade 3 that was tailored to each student’s individual capacity based on the concepts of school maturation and curative education used in the Swedish schools during the period 1946–1970. The comparison group followed today’s average Swedish school curriculum. The project was planned as an intervention study covering the preschool year and the first 3 years of elementary school, which was to form a basis for a follow-up when the pupils had left senior high, the 12th year in Swedish public school. The outcome and the achievements were measured at end of grade 3 using standardized tests on reading, writing and mathematical skills. Behavior was assessed at school start and at end of grade 3 using the Child Behavior Check List (CBCL-scales) in addition to a questionnaire on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD) with criteria from DSM-IV. The children made a self-evaluation of their attitude towards learning.ResultsAt the end of school year 3, the children in the experimental group had an improved reading capacity (p = 0.002, effect size(es) = 4.35) and reading comprehension (p = 0.03, es = 0.04). They evaluated their own reading (p = 0.02, es = 0.23), writing (p = 0.007, es = 0.35) and mathematical skills (p = 0.003, es = 0.48) as going “very well” when compared to comparison group. Differences regarding intelligence quotas between the groups at the start of school had disappeared by the end of grade 3. No differences referring to CBCL were found at end of grade 3. One child in the comparison group fulfilled criteria for AD/HD, according to parents and teachers.ConclusionsThe alternative curriculum covering the preschool year through the first 3 years of elementary school based on the old principles from curative education (“Heilpädagogie”), educational psychology and school psychiatry gave the children in the experimental group a better reading capacity and reading comprehension.Trial registration The study started in 1998. The data were collected longitudinally and prospectively but have not been analyzed until now, with the children having left senior high. A retrospective registration in the ISRCTN is pending.

A process approach to examining mobile commerce adoption progression

PurposeMost studies of mobile commerce (MC) adoption by individuals have focused on the influence of a set of factors at a single point in time, and thus, cannot capture the process by which the individuals progress from simple to sophisticated MC adoption. This paper aims to enhance the current understanding of MC adoption by using a process approach to investigate MC adoption progression among individuals and the factors influencing their decisions to adopt different MC activities of varying complexity levels over time.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative research design was used. Data were collected through a series of semi-structured face-to-face interviews with 22 users of mobile devices to understand how they progressed in MC adoption over time and the factors influencing their decisions to adopt different levels of MC activities. The data were analyzed using qualitative data analysis techniques.FindingsThe findings showed reciprocal influences between individuals’ perceptions and MC adoption. As individuals adopted and gained experience with basic MC activities, their perceptions of MC improved over time, leading to the adoption of more advanced MC activities.Originality/valueThis research proposes a novel process approach and an innovative MC Adoption Maturity model to explain MC adoption progression over a time dimension. The model includes three levels of MC adoption maturity and explains adoption progression from one level to the next. The concept of MC adoption maturity will enable researchers to understand changes in users’ experiences and perceptions throughout adoption maturity progression.

Roadmap for a communication maturity index for organizations—Theorizing, analyzing and developing communication value

This study employed a constitutive (CCO) communication approach to advance the dynamic concept of communication maturity for the purpose of theorizing, analyzing, and developing communication value on an organizational level. A literature review resulted in six theoretical areas related to communication maturity: understanding, function, organization, prerequisites, competence and practices including assessments of communication. These were analyzed in a qualitative comparative case study including 85 key stakeholders from eleven organizations. Findings illustrated the relevance of the theoretical areas to stakeholders’ perceptions of their respective organizations’ communication maturity. A first version of a Communication Maturity Index including four levels of maturity; immature, emerging, established, and mature is proposed. Based on the qualitative analysis, organizations’ communication maturity levels varied from emerging to mature. Findings of this study are limited to participating organizations and interviewed stakeholders. The CMI can be further developed in quantitative studies to investigate the constitutive role of communication in organizations and to be used in practice to develop higher levels of communication maturity.

Creation of mobility packages based on the MaaS concept

Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is a solution that combines a number of services and provides a platform, where multimodal journey planning, booking, payment and ticketing are integrated. Current MaaS solutions provide pay-as-you-go options or predefined mobility packages, however research and development in this field are still far from a mature concept. This paper deals with the creation of mobility packages for users, taking into account several city specific parameters (e.g. demography, cost of living, modal split, weather conditions, environmental friendliness). A method has been elaborated, which assigns package levels to cities involving different transportation modes, such as public transport, bike-sharing, car-sharing and taxi. During the analysis 15 cities in Europe have been considered and based on their specific parameters the most suitable mobility packages were created for them.

What Do Preschool Children in India Understand About Death?: An Exploratory Study.

Most people avoid talking about death with children even when required, as they are unsure at what age children start understanding the concept of death. Although this question has been researched in the west, it has not been answered in the Indian context. Therefore, this study was conducted in India with 25 children (14 females, 11 males; 3-5 years), using play and joint story construction method, along with semistructured interviews. Results indicated that majority of the children understood that everyone has to die, including significant people like their own parents (i.e., universality) and also, many children understood that death is final (i.e., irreversibility). However, only few children understood that all cognitive/behavioral functions cease at death (i.e., nonfunctionality). In conclusion, only a small proportion of preschoolers seems to have had a mature concept of death.

Digital transformation of cultural institutions: a statistical analysis of Italian and Campania GLAMs

Digitalization is playing a prominent role in cultural economics reshaping GLAM organizations toward a more relevant income generation. However achieving a higher level of digitalization requires careful management and resource planning. To this end, the concept of digital maturity provides a useful description of an organization current level of digitalization, allowing for a more effective digital transformation process. The literature concerning business studies and information technology developed highly detailed surveys to assess digital maturity levels within organizations, the so-called digital maturity models. Nevertheless, while many of them are manufacturing-based, very few are wide-spectrum models allowing for a generic assessment of digital maturity. This paper provides a preliminary descriptive analysis on the aptitude of Italian and Campania GLAMs for deploying digital facilities and services, thus suggesting the need to elaborate a specific digital maturity model for GLAM organizations.

The mastery of verb agreement in French and its link to the complexity of NPs in students’ writing

This paper presents results related to subject-verb agreement errors made by 6th grade students (aged 10-11) and by 8th grade students (aged 13-14). Starting from the observation that 8th grade students do not perform better on verbal agreement than 6th grade students, we propose an explanation for the absence of a significant difference between the younger and the older students along the following line: the complexity of the syntactic contexts used by the two groups of students has a impact on verbal agreement. These contexts are: 1) the internal structure of subject NPs, and 2) the syntactic configuration. Our results show that the 8th grade students produce a greater proportion of complex subject NPs than the 6th grade students, and more constructions with a syntactic configuration and a complex NP. A mixed effects logistic regression indicates there is a significant effect of the NP type and of the agreement within the NP. Our study contributes to the studies relative to verb agreement in that it is based on data produced in an authentic writing situation. It also contributes to document and support the concept of syntactic maturity, which claims that older students use more complex syntactic structures than younger ones.

The development of Kraepelin's mature diagnostic concept of hebephrenia: a close reading of relevant texts of Hecker, Daraszkiewicz, and Kraepelin.

In developing his mature concept of hebephrenic dementia praecox (DP) in his 4th (1893) through 6th textbook editions (1899), Kraepelin worked from the hebephrenic syndrome first described by Hecker (1871) and then carefully studied by his student Daraszkiewicz (1892). Working under Kraepelin's supervision, Daraszkiewicz followed Hecker in emphasizing several key features of hebephrenia (distinctive deteriorative course, importance of silliness and minimal positive psychotic symptoms) but expanded the syndrome to include cases developing severe dementia, rejected the link to prodromal depressive and manic phases, and reduced the emphasis on thought disorder. Daraszkiewicz proposed a soft subtyping of hebephrenia based on level of deterioration, which Kraepelin adopted in his 4th edition with an additional emphasis on severe positive psychotic symptoms. In his 5th edition, Kraepelin created a third subform with even more pronounced and bizarre delusions and hallucinations. In his 6th edition, which contained his first articulation of DP, Kraepelin eliminated his hebephrenia subforms presenting a single syndrome, which, compared to Hecker, included more emphasis on positive psychotic and catatonic symptoms and severe dementia. Kraepelin's paths to hebephrenic and paranoid DP differed in important ways. Paranoid DP was a de novo syndrome created by differentiation from paranoia. Hebephrenia, by contrast, evolved from a disorder created in the Kahlbaum/Hecker paradigm of the iterative study of clinical features, course and outcome. Kraepelin further implemented this approach in substantially reworking, over several drafts, the hebephrenic syndrome to fit into his emerging construct of dementia praecox.

“Georg Simmel: Decentering the Self and Recovering Authentic Individuality”

This essay argues argues that there is a persistent tension between two visions of the self in Simmel’s work. In one of these, which I call a decentered conception, the self is characterized by complex, socially-constituted multiplicity. In the other, Simmel strove to understand and reconstruct the grounds for an authentically unique individuality, particularly though not exclusively in his late work. Each of these visions is richer and more complex than has sometimes been appreciated. Important recent arguments about Simmel’s late work, including “The Law of the Individual,” The View of Life, and his Lebensphilsophie in general, have seen it as putting forward a conception of the relational self that overcame this tension. I argue that unreconciled tensions remained, though it is true that his late work was the culmination of his sociological project, not its abandonment. I propose that Simmel’s mature conception of individuality would be better captured by the notion of multiple authenticities rather than a singular, unified law of the individual. This would have been more in keeping with his sociology as well as with his views about the importance of moral conflict.

Predictions of compressive strength of GPC blended with GGBFS developed at varying temperatures

Curing temperature is one of the primary factors determining geopolymeric reactions. A total of 66 cylindrical specimens, subjected to 11 different curing regimes over 24 h, were tested for compressive strengths at 1, 28, and 90 days after curing. The test results demonstrated that coupled effects exist between the maximum temperature, its duration, and the subsequent residual temperature. A model based on the weighted maturity concept was developed to predict compressive strength, reflecting the coupled effects of temperature and duration. The developed model was shown to be superior to other models based on the maturity or rate constant concepts.

Wittgenstein: od etyki do ślepego stosowania reguł i z powrotem

The paper discusses Wittgenstein’s approaches to ethics within two contrastive contexts, e.g., pragmatism and cooperative-discursive normative practice. The first section revisits the fiasco of his early “negative” ethics. The second section subsequently shows how Wittgenstein’s mature concept of blind rule-following displaces normativity but simultaneously becomes the key predictor for discourse ethics (or, rather, a specific kind of it). The final section discusses the pros and cons of finitism in the light of contemporary philosophy of mind. As a conclusion, the author provides evidence for her hypothesis that there is no normative (embodied) mind without a manifest normative competence, which includes moral judgment and discursive competence.

Circular Economy Maturity in Construction Companies

An idea of sustainable development is spread in many aspects of human activity. Recently, there has been a growing interest in it among entrepreneurs of various industries. Investigations of researchers in the field of ecology issues led to a formulation of the Ecodesign Maturity Model (EcoM2) supporting production companies in their pursuit of providing more sustainable products and services. The Circular Economy (CE), on the other hand, appears as a concept of reducing the ecological footprint by finding new concepts of the flow of matter in manufacturing processes, assuming its closed loop. In the literature, comparisons of production systems compatible with the idea of CE to ecosystems occurring in the natural environment, also known as closed ecological systems, can be found. CE in a building sector may be considered at different levels. At first, we can treat objects as ones that can be reused as a whole without any extra processing, for example: construction elements, pallets and multi-use wrapping of building materials. The second level includes reused parts of the construction that need to be remanufactured. The last stage requires a process of recycling, e.g. after a demolition of buildings, building materials are shredded and reprocessed into new elements. The EcoM2 model is used as a basis for an implementation of the Circular Economy in the construction industry. It is justified by its specificity because the construction of buildings is always associated with interference in the natural environment. The aim of the article is to indicate the role of construction enterprises in implementing the CE concept in the sector at the level of both processes and products, treated as an outcome of their activity. The article refers to the functioning of construction companies, including CE in their business strategy. The CE problem in a construction company should be recognised within the entire organizational structure. The concept of Circular Economy Maturity (CEM) of the enterprise is defined. The assumptions of the CEM model for construction enterprises is also described. The basic features that should characterise a company that is mature in terms of the application of the CE concept are specified. It is worth to note that the CE maturity is represented by enterprises that have a natural ability to reform and improve an ecological quality of their products and services. Moreover, these organizations are able to have unified processes and procedures that are identified, and knowledge about ecology is effectively communicated to employees. All organizations that have a CE maturity should plan all activities using processes that are designed and then improved by follow-up studies.

Fighting Aggregation-Caused Quenching and Leakage of Dyes in Fluorescent Polymer Nanoparticles: Universal Role of Counterion.

Dye-loaded polymer nanoparticles (NPs) emerge as a powerful tool for bioimaging applications, owing to their exceptional brightness and controlled small size. However, aggregation-caused quenching (ACQ) and leakage of dyes at high loading remain important challenges of these nanomaterials. The use of bulky hydrophobic counterions has been recently proposed as an effective approach to minimize ACQ and dye leakage, but the role of counterion structure is still poorly understood. Here, a systematic study based on ten counterions, ranging from small hydrophilic perchlorate up to large hydrophobic tetraphenylborate derivatives, reveals how counterion nature can control encapsulation and emission of a cationic dye (rhodamine B octadecyl ester) in NPs prepared by nanoprecipitation of a biodegradable polymer, poly-lactide-co-glycolide (PLGA). We found that increase in counterion hydrophobicity enhances dye encapsulation efficiency and prevents dye adsorption at the particle surface. Cellular imaging studies revealed that ≥95 % encapsulation efficiency, achieved with most hydrophobic counterions (fluorinated tetraphenylborates), is absolutely required because non-encapsulated dye species at the surface of NPs are the origin of dye leakage and strong fluorescence background in cells. The size of counterions is found to be essential to prevent ACQ, where the largest species, serving as effective spacer between dyes, provide the highest fluorescence quantum yield. Moreover, we found that the most hydrophobic counterions favor dye-dye coupling inside NPs, leading to ON/OFF fluorescence switching of single particles. By contrast, less hydrophobic counterions tend to disperse dyes in the polymer matrix favoring stable emission of NPs. The obtained structure-property relationships validate the counterion-based approach as a mature concept to fight ACQ and dye leakage in the development of advanced polymeric nanomaterials with controlled optical properties.

Economic criteria of forest management

Forest managers face two competing paradigms: traditional multiple use sustainable management and ecosystem management. Traditional management maximizes sustainable yield with certain preservation limitations. Maximization of the yield without discounting is called the “forestry” decision and implies maximization of average wood increment. Maximization with discounted cash flow is often referred to as the “economic” decision and is based on the concept of financial maturity employing criteria of I.Fisher, M.Faustman, R.Hartman and their numerous latest modifications. Economic criterion results in harvesting of rather young forests. Preservation or conservation tends to stop forest management of any type and leave forest intact. Traditional forestry employs logging criteria with preservation limitations. Ecosystem management is a new paradigm. It needs new forestry approaches and economic criteria. It imitates forest structures in pursuing simultaneously ecological and economic targets. It employs criteria based on targeted sustainable forest structures, which is different from targeting sustainable forest products yield.

PERSONALITY MATURITY AND SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING IN STUDENTS OF FULL-TIME AND CORRESPONDENCE FORMS OF STUDYING IN THE UNIVERSITY

The article contains the research of connections between personality maturity and subjective wellbeing in full-time and correspondence course psychology students. The concept of personality maturity is considered in terms of O.S.Shteppe’s and Yu.Z.Hilbukh’s approaches, the concept of subjective well-being is considered in terms of E. Diener’s hedonistic approach. For empirical study there were used such methods as Personality Maturity Questionnaire Yu.Z. Hilbukh, Personality Maturity Questionnaire O.S.Shteppe , Subjec tive Well-being Scale A. Perrudet-Badoux in V.N.Sokolova adaptation, Satisfaction with Life Scale E. Diener in D.O.Leontiev adaptation, Subjective Happiness Scale S. Lyubomirsky. The subjects of the research were second year students since this period can be considered the most stable of whole studying time. It’s revealed that the most psychology students have got acceptable level of personality maturity by Yu.Z.Hilbukh that is very high, high or satisfactory level. According to O.S.Shteppe the most of them have got required level of personality maturity. Students feel subjective well-being on emotional and cognitive level by average measure, they feel happy with their life by higher than average measure. Personality maturity in general is signifiantly correlates with subjective well-being in the emotional aspect and satisfaction with life as cognitive aspect of subjective well-being in students of both forms of studying. Also the tendency to form connection between personality maturity and feeling of happiness is revealed in full-time students. Correlations between com ponents of personality maturity and subjective well-being were obtained for full-time and correspondence course students separately. In full-time student’s different aspects of subjective well-being are more wildly connected with such components of personality maturity as motivation of achievement, self-acceptance and life philosophy. In correspondence course students, aspects of subjective well-being are to more extent connected with components of personality maturity as contactability, tolerance and synergy. It can have argued that full-time students to feel emotionally comfortable need to have dispositions which regulate relations with themselves, but correspondence course students need to have dispositions which are demanded in communication and building ofrelationships.

Disillusioned Youth and the Search for Alternative Maturities in Antonio Espina's Pájaro Pinto

This article argues that Antonio Espina’s first novel, Pajaro Pinto (1927), upends nineteenth-century understandings of development, not only through its rejec-tion of linear narration on a formal level, but also through its thematization of the concepts of youth, puerility, and maturity. After situating Espina’s novel within the context of the Rif War (1920-26), the literature of Europe’s “lost generation,” and the transformation of the Bildungsroman in the early twen-tieth century, it discusses the geopolitics of cultural development that underlies the influential view of modernist art put forth by Jose Ortega y Gasset in his essays “La deshumanizacion del arte” and “Ideas sobre la novela” (1925). It then analyzes Espina’s nuanced response to Ortega in Pajaro Pinto, highlighting especially how he draws from the aesthetics of film both to dehumanize his text and to advance a critique of the categories of humanity and dehumanization, puerility and maturity that structure Ortega’s thought. Finally, these observations are brought to bear on a reading of the story “Xelfa, carne de cera” in order to demonstrate how Espina unravels notions of individual and national formation, condemning both Spain’s colonial project in Morocco and the farcical maturity of the European metropolis.

“I’m Not a Real Person Yet”: Queering Coming of Age in Frances Ha

The 2012 film Frances Ha, portraying twenty-seven-year-old Frances Halladay’s everyday struggles in New York City, poses a problem of genre classification: No critical consensus exists on whether Frances Ha’s portrayal of Frances should be called critical or affirmative. Yet even the sympathetic descriptions of what is perceived as Frances’s arrested development suggest that Frances as a character continually fails at being a ‘proper adult.’ This essay, however, posits that this alleged indecisiveness of the film’s central message should be understood as a conscious strategy insofar as Frances Ha ‘queers’ the genre of coming of age. That is, I suggest that understanding the film in terms of conventional notions of coming of age based on a bildungsroman tradition must necessarily prove insufficient. Drawing on the work of, among others, Susan Fraiman and Jack Halberstam, this essay argues that Frances Ha can be read as an interrogation of heteronormative concepts of maturity by queering notions of matrimony, development, and mastery. In doing this, the film opens up spaces for imagining alternative ‘modes of life.’ Treating Frances’s perceived immaturity as consciously made ‘mistakes’ instead allows us to unpack the film’s subversive intervention into what it means to be a ‘grown up’ in twenty-first-century America.

Freedom and Matter: From Kant to Fichte

Fichte's mature conception of transcendental freedom is the subject of some controversy. This paper hopes to shed light on Fichte's later conception by examining his earliest thoughts on the matter. The focus is on three pivotal years of Fichte's development between 1791 and 1793: A. 1791: Fichte’s Earliest Account of Freedom; B. 1792: Two Reviews and Fichte’s Doubts; C. 1793: Fichte’s Revised Account of Freedom. The paper begins with a discussion of Fichte's reflections on how a broadly Kantian conception of transcendental freedom can be manifest in the empirical world. Then the paper examines several short works from 1792 in which Fichte's views become significantly more sophisticated. It will be shown that Fichte confronts in these works the worry that neither a metaphysical account of the natural world, nor a mere appeal to ‘facts of consciousness,’ can be sufficient to establish autonomy in the positive sense. It will be argued that Fichte responds to these worries in two ways. One, relatively well known, is his attempt to prove the existence of practical reason from features of self-consciousness. The paper will focus instead on Fichte's account of moral motivation added to the 1793 second edition of the Attempt at a Critique of all Revelation. There, Fichte sketches an account of pure practical motivation that does not depend on direct appeal to features of self-consciousness, but is more in line with Kant's own appeal to the moral law.