Digital Capital Research Articles

Digital capital and food agricultural SMEs: Examining the effects on SME performance, inequalities and government role

This paper provides an explorative and interrogative profile of digital capital on SMEs within the agricultural food sector, focusing on SME farmers. Digital capital is deemed the new capital essential for farmers. The paper examines the opportunities and threats offered by digital capital and explores how it influences agricultural SME performance and how it leads to digital inequalities. The study purposively sampled three South African agricultural provinces and adopted a purposive sampling technique to collect quantitative and qualitative data. With the undoubted contribution of SMEs to social and economic fronts, the study chronicled how digital capital has improved the value chain processes while unearthing the barriers to digital tools access. It emerged that SMEs face many adoption challenges; hence it is debatable to link positive SME performance to digital capital adoption. It emerged that agricultural SMEs mostly adopt complimentary service digital tools, indicating that digital capital is a catalyst for inequalities. While the government has implemented some initiatives to promote digital capital adoption, such interventions remain inadequate. The study contemplates other initiatives that could be adopted to address the barriers SMEs face in this digital era, hence closing the inequalities gap within the industry. SMEs should be subject to public policy support and protection, particularly on digital capital incentives and sponsorship. The government must regulate some digital capital tools which are more harmful than productive.

From digital divide to digital capital: the role of education and digital skills in social media participation

Social media platforms have become significant media for participating in society. This, and society’s digitalization overall, has resulted in concerns regarding access and inclusion. By combining theories of social media participation and digital inequality, we explore issues regarding the prerequisites of participating through social media platforms, focusing especially on education. Through an analysis of data from a representative survey study in Finland (N = 3724), we illuminate the ambiguity of the perceived obstacles to both digital skills and political participation. We further build on the concept of digital capital to show the significant mediating effect of digital skills on education and participation. By utilizing the ISS (Internet Skills Scale), we break down digital skills into operational, information navigation, social, creative and mobile skills, and show how the operational skills have most significant mediator between education and political participation in social media. In studying digital inequality, we claim that the concept of digital capital is a valuable tool to illuminate the mechanisms for overcoming digital divides through the transaction of other forms of capital into digital capital, and digital capital to other forms of capital, in this case political capital.

Activation of the process of realizing the potential of digital capital for the domestic business community

Activation of the process of realizing the potential of digital capital for the domestic business community

Sustainability in a Digitized Era Analyzing the Moderation Effect of Social Strata and Digital Capital Dependence on Digital Divide

Although we have evolved digitally and technologically in the 21st century, disparities still exist in society. The research problem cited for the study is the need to assess the impact of the digital divide in the formation of digital capital, where the already stratified society based on variables such as age, gender, education, and region (rural–urban) will act as moderators to mitigate the digital inequalities for a sustainable world. The research objectives are to explore the underpinning reasons for the digital divide in reinforcing social inequalities, quantify the impact of the digital divide on digital capital statistically, and to evaluate the moderating effect of social strata variables comparatively. The idea of digital capital culminates into five hypotheses for this study as the digital divide impacts digital capital, as well as the assessment of moderating effects of age, education, and region. Statistical tools, specifically frequency, percentage, reliability, ANOVA, correlation, and regression, have been used to test the hypothesis and proposed conceptual model. The social strata dimension in the study revealed a higher variance of opinion. Digital capital is taken as the dependent variable and the digital divide is the independent variable, which shows Beta as 0.591 and B as 0.585, indicating a good relationship of 59.1% and an effect of 58.5%. Finally, the research reveals that there exists a digital divide and, hence, digital inequalities in India need to be addressed for attaining various Sustainable Development Goals. The study has significant implications for the leaders and policymakers to work towards inclusivity by bridging the digital divide and eliminating digital inequalities in India.

Branded childhood: Infants as digital capital on Instagram

The relationships between childhood, labour and value are changing in today’s digital culture. Drawing on a visual discourse analysis of 10 Scandinavian influencers’ Instagram accounts, this paper explores how the connections between the commercialisation and sacralisation of children appear in the digital age. The results show how infants function as digital capital for building relationships between consumers and products and how they are structured into a framework around consumption and used in narratives to strengthen the parents’ brand. The findings suggest an urgent need for a legal framework for child labour in social media.

Social and digital vulnerabilities: The role of participatory processes in the reconfiguration of urban and digital space

In the Italian context, political and social participation in the urban dimension has experienced innovations to broaden the inclusion of citizens in public choices relating to citylife and to urban renovation. Participation found in the city a relevant space to experiment with innovation in the relationship between institutions and citizens, many initiatives advanced and developed over the years have had a powerful lever in technology: participatory budgets, consultations, public-private-non-profit partnerships. In other cases, specifically in peripheral realities, urban innovation has turned out to be detached from digital infrastructures and has benefited, rather, from the social infrastructures in the area. Civic committees, community foundations, collaboration agreements between citizens and authorities, and local community development experiences developed in peripheral contexts. Regenerating urban spaces is a political objective proposed with increasing emphasis by institutional bodies at the various levels of governance. Environmental, economic, social and urban planning intersect and overlap and often projects related to urban planning “on paper” prevail over issues related to urban communities “on territories”. Without adequate processes of participation and subjectivity of citizens living in urban contexts, no model of “urban renaissance” appears fully deployed, resulting in participatory processes that—at best—only allow for access logics in a neoliberal perspective. Through a qualitative methodology, the paper aims at presenting and investigating six case studies in major Italian cities (Rome, Naples, Milan, Turin, Florence, Reggio Calabria), in which democratic innovation and experimentation in civic engagement spread from the digital capital of citizens and the social organizations of the peripheral territory, with its specificities and its problems. In particular, the objective of the paper is to discuss and problematise the processes of participation involving and featuring vulnerable people within the reconfiguration of urban and digital spaces. Following Sutton and Kemp's approach, we consider the relationship between urban spaces and marginal communities as central to a one-to-one relationship, fostering processes of urban inclusion. Combining participatory processes in liminal marginalized communities with an institutional push toward holistic urban regeneration may develop opportunities for active citizenship, overcoming the neoliberal paradigm of the city.

Economic and mathematical modelling of investments in Ukraine

Investments, primarily in manufacturing, are a guarantee that enterprises will be able to update their production assets in a timely manner and maintain or even strengthen their position in markets of goods and services. However, the issue of defining factors that affect the volume and dynamics of investments is quite problematic, which makes it difficult to create appropriate economic and mathematical models. Foreign and Ukrainian scientists have long been engaged in determining such factors. Usually, they include: GDP per capita of the country; the rate of economic growth; national savings; currency exchange rate; inflation; discount rate; the level of tax burden (primarily – corporate income tax); the price index for industrial products; the level of income on invested capital (return on investment coefficient); wages; labor productivity, etc. But in each country, the strength of influence of different factors may vary. The process of modeling investments is also complicated by the fact that some factors (for example, GDP per capita) are complex in themselves and depend on other factors. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to define the factors influencing investment in Ukraine and to develop appropriate economic and mathematical models, which are supposed to be used in the future to build a comprehensive system-dynamic model of the impact of digitalization on ensuring sustainable development of Ukraine. Such a comprehensive model can become not only a convenient tool for determining the consequences for industry of changes in investment volumes under the influence of various factors, but also the level of Labor morbidity and environmental pollution. According to results of the study, it was found that the volume of investment in the Ukrainian industry is most affected by the NBU discount rate. The paper suggests an appropriate investment model and justifies its adequacy. Investments in industrial digital capital are influenced by the factors of the US dollar index and tax burden, and investments in environmental digital capital are affected by factor of tax burden. However, due to the very approximate statistics on which the calculations were performed, the corresponding models are not reliable. Taking into account the results of the study, recommendations for the development of a methodology for collecting and presenting statistical information related to investments in digital equipment and technologies by enterprises of the country and digital capital for environmental and industrial purposes (by structure) are made. Their implementation will make it possible to make more accurate calculations in the future and create more reliable economic and mathematical models that can become a convenient tool for defining the directions of development of the country's economy.

Capital gains in a digital society: Exploring how familial habitus shapes digital dispositions and outcomes in three families from Aotearoa, New Zealand

Persistent concerns about the digital divide are typically framed as a deficit of Internet access, skills or participation. Despite advances remedying first- and second-level divide issues, scholars have found that not all benefit equally from the Internet use resulting in the theorising of a third-level digital divide exploring the social determinants critical to benefit from the Internet use. Presenting analysis for three families from Aotearoa New Zealand, this work highlights the importance of the family in creating children’s digital disposition. Applying Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice concepts, we illustrate how parent’s habitus informs children’s responses to the digital world, shaping diverse forms of ‘digital capital’ which may result in ‘capital gains’ for some, and less capital benefits for others. Findings suggest that the forms of digital capital that are valued by families are closely tied to class positioning and cultural background.

Utilising Building Information Models in Facility Maintenance and Operations

Utilising the digital capital of buildings, including building information modelling (BIM), is crucial for building owners from the perspective of high-level maintenance. This case study concerns a company in which building information models are received as files complying with the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) standard. An analysis of the information content of the IFC files was performed to investigate whether the files, which were generated in a construction project using traditional procedures, contained relevant information for maintenance. The critical needs were evaluated based on the aspects highlighted in an online survey. As a result, essential content requirements for BIM are presented for facility maintenance and operations (FMO). It has been shown that existing building information models cannot close the information gap from a facility maintenance perspective. Still, they have significant potential due to their ability to contain technical information and provide a graphical representation. With information exchange requirements (IERs), a great deal of progress could be made by utilising BIM for FMO. A property service company’s capabilities must also be evolved before the benefits of digital capital can be reaped. This paper provides insights for developing the information content of computerised maintenance management systems (CMMS) and demonstrates the crucial need to harmonise them using BIM. Finally, as a new use case for BIM, this paper presents an operations and maintenance model (OMM).

Journalist-Twitterers as Political Influencers in Brazil: Narratives and Disputes Towards a New Intermediary Model

The ascendency of Jair Bolsonaro to the presidency of Brazil in 2018 put the role of traditional media companies and journalists under the spotlight. Bad news or opinions against his government have been officially treated as fake, inaccurate, or false information. In this context, data show a decrease in news trust and growing news consumption through platforms. According to the 2021 Reuters Institute report on news trust, only 21% of Brazilians trust the press as an institution, with 71% using social media platforms to be informed. As part of a broad and complex crisis of the traditional intermediary model, several journalists appeared in the Brazilian public sphere as influencers on social media platforms such as Twitter. Based on a qualitative perspective, this article aims to research the role of journalists as political influencers and their use of Twitter to express their voices. A sample of 10 journalists with more than 10,000 followers on Twitter, five working for traditional media and five from native digital media, were interviewed in depth. We realized that they use their digital capital in two political directions. On the one hand, as part of a digital strategy promoted by media outlets to gain attention and call the audience, journalists share their spots and comments on daily issues. On the other hand, in a polarized political context, journalists have found Twitter a means to express their voices in a context of increasing violence and restrictions on free expression among this collective.

Peran Kapital Sosial dan Kapital Digital pada Produksi dan Pemasaran Urban Farming dalam Peningkatan Pendapatan Petani Urban Miskin Di Banjir Kanal Timur Kelurahan Pondok Kopi Jakarta Timur

Income is one of the indicators of people's welfare, this also applies to urban farmers. Urban farmers are people who work to maintain plants for their benefits to generate income in urban or urban areas. In previous studies, social capital was considered to be effective in increasing production and marketing, which of course had an impact on farmers' income levels. Likewise with technology, it is undeniable that technology has an important role in the sustainability of activities. This article aims to analyze the existence of the role of social capital and digital capital, as well as the obstacles faced by urban farmers in the East Flood Canal, Pondok Kopi sub-district in developing social capital and digital capital, especially in the production and marketing of urban farming to increase the income of urban farmers in BKT by qualitative descriptive approach. Interviews were conducted with 10 informants using a tap recorder, a notebook to write research findings and documentation in the form of photos while at the research location. The selection of informants was carried out by purposive sampling. The results showed that Social Capital is very important in launching production and marketing activities. Trust, networks, values and norms which are elements of social capital are important elements among urban farmers. The form of trust among urban farmers is by lending each other equipment such as hoes and sickles. A social network between farmers and sellers of fertilizers and seeds in the Cakung market who need each other. Values and norms for each farmer not to interfere with each other's land so as to create smoothness in producing agricultural products. Meanwhile, in operating technological devices, in this case, HP as an element of Digital Capital is very minimal. There are still few urban farmers who use Handphones for marketing activities because they cannot read and write, so farmers find it difficult. However, there are some farmers who already use handphones and find it helpful because they can easily get farming tools at the online shop and get more income compared to farmers who do not use handphones in their marketing.

Digital technology and increasing engagement among students with disabilities: Interaction rituals and digital capital

As the number of students identified with disabilities grows, schools moving towards inclusive classrooms are concerned with ensuring engagement of all students. Research has shown that digital technology provides support for students with disabilities so that they can participate in classroom activities. This research has been largely quantitative with a focus on student participation and improving academic outcomes. Moreover, the qualitative research has defined engagement as increasing attention on learning tasks. However, we do not know how and whether digital technology can generate interactions among these students and their peers or their teachers. This paper uses qualitative data from six Ontario, Canada school boards, including 27 classroom observations and interviews with teachers, to explore the role that digital technologies (i.e. robotics, smartboards, iPads) play in facilitating greater engagement among students with disabilities. Drawing on Randall Collins’ interaction ritual chains theory, and Pierre Bourdieu's theory of cultural capital, we posit that digital technologies can alter classroom routines and rituals that can lead to greater engagement. In particular, this study confirms that digital technologies can play a major role in boosting engagement through support and greater access to classroom content and learning processes. We add to the literature by postulating that digital technologies enhance classroom rituals and interactions by giving students a literal and figurative voice, and through changes in interactions among students with disabilities, their peers, and teachers. Additionally, students with disabilities who are adept at using digital technology can generate a form of capital that displays a type of credibility with their teachers and peers.

Цифровой гудвилл предприятия: содержание понятия и возможность оценки

The article deals with the problems of determining the concept of goodwill in terms of digital transformation. There has been proposed a new concept of digital goodwill and studied the problems of determining its content and evaluation. Digital transformation in modern conditions has been found to determine both the pace of economic development and efficient activities and the creation of a successful business reputation. A comparative analysis of the methods for evaluating the results of digitalization was carried out and it was revealed that the performance indicators are similar in many methods, but the number of indicators and the reliability of their assessment is questionable. The analysis of the definitions of the concept of goodwill showed that there is no single, generally accepted definition, goodwill improperly comprises only business reputation. It has been assumed that the concept of goodwill is broader, it comprises a set of characteristics of an organization (business reputation, product quality, technological culture, digital culture, a certain level of production organization, partnerships, market prospects). In the context of digitalization, new types of factors of production appear, which include digital capital; an analysis of the existing definitions of digital capital was carried out and its own was proposed: tangible and intangible identifiable assets and unidentifiable digital assets (digital goodwill and digital competencies of employees), which allow implementing digital technologies and contribute to increasing labor productivity. For the first time the concept of digital goodwill was proposed, under which is meant a good name of the company including the company’s reputation, prestige, customer relations, location, product range, and other things based on the active use of digital technologies in management and having a significant impact on its future income. Key factors of digitalization have been identified, which can serve as targets for the formation of digital goodwill. The problems of evaluating digital goodwill are considered: invisibility (absence in accounting objects), lack of a clear assessment methodology, unavailability of objective information for developing the cash flows.

대학생의 정신건강, 디지털 사회자본, 디지털 리터러시, 스마트폰 의존도, 학습몰입과의 구조적 관계

Objectives The purposes of this study was to specify variables related to learning flow, and to analyze the structural relationships among them. Methods The subjects of the this study was 407 students. A structural equation model was applied to collected data. And this study was to investigate the difference of the path between gender by using multiple group structural equation model. Results The results are as following. First, the path between mental health, digital social capital, digital literacy, smart phone overdependence, learning flow had a significant effect. Specifically mental health and smart phone overdependence had a negative effect on learning flow, digital social capital, digital literacy had a positive effect on learning flow. Second the difference of the path between gender group had a significant effect in mental health→digital social capital, mental health→smart phone overdependence. Conclusions Based on the results of this study, we propose a direction to improve the learning flow of the university students. It is necessary to recognize the importance of mental health, digital social capital, digital literacy, smart phone overdependence factors to promote learning flow.

Gendered access to digital capital and mobile phone ownership among young people in Rakai, Uganda

This article examines how gendered access to digital capital—in the form of the social and economic resources needed to own and use a mobile phone—is connected to key adult milestones, such as securing employment and engaging in romantic relationships. Descriptive statistical analysis of 11,030 young people aged 15–24 in Rakai, Uganda indicated that men were more likely to own mobile phones than women. Analysis of qualitative interviews with young people (N = 31) and ethnographic participant observations among young people (N = 24) add nuance and depth to the observed gender difference. We go beyond a ‘categorical’ approach to gender (i.e. comparing rates between men and women) to examine how access to digital capital is gendered both for men and for women. Mobile phone ownership both reproduces and destabilises gendered social organisation in ways that have implications for economic opportunities, social connections, HIV risk and overall health and well-being. Young men had greater access to the benefits of mobile phone ownership, whereas young women's access to those benefits was impeded by covert and overt gendered mechanisms of control that limited access to digital capital. Findings suggest that mhealth initiatives, increasingly deployed to reach under-resourced populations, must take into account gendered access to digital capital.

Generative Logic of Digital Capitalism Based on Artificial Intelligence Technology

In the era of digital capitalism, machines and technology have gradually become the main body that dominates workers. Information technology is actually the digital embodiment of mass machine production. It is with the help of ICT and digital technology that digital capitalism realizes the digital transformation of the way capitalism exists and the proliferation of digital capital. The purpose of this paper is to study the generative logic of digital capitalism based on artificial intelligence technology. Compare the production, circulation, consumption of traditional commodities, and the production of digital capital, explore the nature of digital capitalism and the differentiation of digital capitalism in the era of artificial intelligence, analyze the impact of artificial intelligence on labor polarization, and the results show the high-skilled labor force in the eastern region. The ratio to the medium-skilled labor force is 0.086. Take the M enterprise in capitalism as an example, and study the application of artificial intelligence to the energy and power industry to provide value to customers through new products. The new changes in contemporary artificial intelligence capitalism solve the problems in the operation of the original business model, benefiting both customers and enterprises.

Doing digital discipline: how Airbnb hosts engage with the digital platform

Digital platforms and activities permeate everyday lives in multiple ways. They organize different modes of movement, and sometimes, who moves and who stays still. This paper takes its empirical starting point by exploring Airbnb hosts, not only through the lens of tourism labour but also within the larger context of platform-mediated work. This paper pursues two aims in exploring how trust is produced and negotiated on the platform and how the platform serves to align host performances towards corporate interests. The paper argues that the affordances of the platform are designed to develop digital credibility, or digital capital, which in turn functions to discipline hosting performances, which become instrumentalized, measured, and controlled in accordance with business interests and corporate understandings of hosting performances. In doing this, the paper argues that the development of digital capital is integral to navigating the digital platform successfully and explores how digital capital is produced and instrumentalized through the development of profiles, the review system, and the superhost status. This paper contributes insights into the workings of a key platform for facilitating tourism but also adds to the current discussion on the organization of interactions in platform capitalism.

Social Digital Capital as Hybrid Non-Material Capital: Theoretical Approaches and Practical Solutions in the Russian Context

The article analysed theoretical approaches towards understanding digital capital as a new form of non-material capital which becomes a key human resource in the context of digitalization of all spheres of public life. It investigated the dynamics of theoretical insights into the forms of non-material capital discussing such concepts as “information capital”, “information habitus”, etc. The study discussed the contribution of the French sociologist P. Bourdieu into the conceptualization of non-material capital. The results of the latest research into digital capital in both international and Russian academic discourse were analyzed. The article reviewed critical reflections on the opportunities for the empirical analysis of digital capital: digital capital index, "digital passport", etc. Formation of digital capital and its measurement model is analysed through the systematization of the empirical research in this area. We conducted a series of expert interviews conducted during summer and autumn of 2021 to demonstrate how the concept of digital capital is perceived by Russian media researchers, educators, journalists, and representatives of the legislative power of the Russian Federation. Thematic analysis of the respondents' answers made it possible to identify the main sub-themes of digital capital in expert discourse: well-being of the individual, digital content, digital transformation, material resources, government, digital inequality, media education and media literacy. The article pointed to the importance of digital capital as a new hybrid meta capital in the professional and personal spheres of human life in the modern digital world, as well as to the role of the state in overcoming digital inequality and forming digital capital of citizens. We identified the issue of measuring digital capital given the rapid development of digital media communications and emergence of new services, platforms and technologies. The research provided some insights into such aspects of digital capital as safe functioning in the digital media communication environment and capacity to create and distribute digital content. The study discussed the specifics of measuring and constructing digital capital in the Russian Federation determined by the complexity of climatic, territorial and other characteristics.

Digital capital of Russian enterprises: development trends in the digitalisation of the economy and the coronavirus pandemic

The digitalisation of the economy and the global coronavirus pandemic transfer competition for consumers into a virtual Internet environment, in which the enterprise success depends on its digital capital, which includes an Internet communication system with potential consumers. The article reveals the regularities and trends in the development of the enterprises digital capital focused on the retail market for the period 2017–2021. Economic and variance analysis of digital capital indicators based on the enterprises formed samples has been carried out. It has been noted that the leaders in the demand for websites are the trade and services industries. The global coronavirus pandemic in 2020–2021 became a powerful growth driver, with the major effect on enterprise website promotion is observed with a one year lag (in 2021). It has been found that the most industries enterprises are practically not engaged in the paid traffic development for their sites. Only real estate agencies actively interact with advertising Internet services. It has been shown that the enterprises digital capital development constantly requires new impulses or growth drivers and enterprises in most studied industries do not use the full opportunities range for increasing digital capital.

Ordinary people, criminals, addicts and recreational users: Swedish court of law descriptions of persons sentenced for online drug purchases.

Background: The aim of this study was to analyze how Swedish courts describe persons sentenced for purchasing illicit drugs online. Methods: Qualitative analysis of naturally occurring data through 201 sentences that included 248 individuals sentenced for having purchased drugs online between January 1 2010 and January 1 2020. Results: The analysis resulted in the construction of four ideal types regarding the described characteristics of the sentenced persons; the ordinary person, the recreational user, the addict and the criminal. The courts operate with a notable dichotomy between traditional drug markets and online drug markets, that can be understood in relation to descriptions of Bourdieusian capital forms, specifically street capital and digital capital. Conclusion: Descriptions relating to street capital were of larger interest to the courts compared to digital capital, although there were examples of when the courts argued that uses of digital capital should be viewed as an aggravating circumstance. The courts largely held a dichotomous view of online and offline drug markets that focus on street-based criminality, which may have implications for how emerging digital drug markets are responded to by drug law enforcement and judicial systems.