Dominant Theoretical Models Research Articles

Embracing the Crisis of Research Design: How the Collapse of Case Selection in the Field Can Uncover New Discoveries

Political science has seen a welcome increase in guidance on conducting field research, which recognizes the need for adaptability. But while disciplinary conversations on “iterating” in the field have advanced, strategies for adapting to the breakdown of one’s case selection—an all-too-frequent problem faced by field researchers—remain underspecified. I synthesize the sources of case selection collapse and puts forward four strategies to help scholars iterate when things fall apart: 1) rethinking what constitutes a “case” when fieldwork upends one’s understanding of the population to which the original case(s) belong; 2) reorienting the object of analysis from outcomes to processes when new insights question the values of the outcome variable within one’s original case(s); 3) returning to dominant theoretical models as a source of comparison when unanticipated changes cut off data or field site access; and 4) dropping case(s) that become extraneous amid fieldwork-induced changes in the project’s comparative logic. By embracing these moments of seeming crisis, we can more productively train field researchers to make the most of the inductive discoveries and new theoretical insights that often emerge when one’s original plans fall apart.

Innovative models of enterprise activities in global value chains

Methods. The research is based on the use of such general scientific methods as: logical and historical – to study the historical conditions of the development of the world economy, which influenced the change of scientific ideas about the nature of the innovation process; general and specific – to establish the specifics of theoretical innovation models; analysis and synthesis – to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of open innovations. Results. The evolution of scientists’ views on the nature of innovation processes is traced in the article. Five dominant theoretical models of innovation are characterized, namely: «technological push», «market involvement», «combination of technological capabilities and market needs», «integrated innovation process», «chain» and «open innovation». The relationship between changes in the economic system of society and the development of scientific ideas about the nature of innovation processes has been established. Specific features of the open innovation model are singled out and directions of its application in the organization of innovative activities of enterprises joining global value chains are demonstrated. The advantages and disadvantages of the model of open innovation in global value chains are demonstrated. Novelty. The scientific novelty of the research results lies in the determination of the possibilities of using various types of open innovations existing at the current stage in global value creation chains, for which their ranking was carried out based on the combination of the value of the level of innovation inclusion in the global value creation chain and the purpose of the enterprise’s activity. Practical value. The results of the study reveal the variability of theoretical ideas about the innovation process depending on the transformations of economic systems, and therefore allow enterprises to choose more effective competitive strategies for their development.

Records in social media: a new (old) understanding of records management

PurposeSocial media posts have been an integral part of our society’s communication and serve purposes from the personal to the national, from the mundane to the silly to the momentous. This study aims to examine social media posts as records, discussing how social media technology serves, perhaps unexpectedly, to reinforce traditional archival understandings of issues such as provenance, custody, access, disposition and preservation.Design/methodology/approachThis study follows a four-step methodology. First, this study analyzes literature for a matching definition of the social media record. In the second step, we appraise three social media postings previously curated and cited in news articles by journalists to determine their characteristics – Are these social media posts “records?” Third, this study evaluates the sample records against two dominant theoretical record models, the life cycle and the continuum and attempt to apply the model specifications to the data samples. Finally, this study proposes appropriate records management solutions to address governance issues from the study findings in the conclusion section.FindingsThis study shows that, even by the most traditional of definitions, social media posts are records. The paper also demonstrates that platform mediation transforms simple narrative documents into records whose provenance, custody and control are dictated by platform logics and governance, outside of the control of their creators. Through appraisal of a small sample of “important” social media posts, this study illustrates that, rather than obsolete, traditional records management concepts and approaches are necessary to ensuring the ongoing accessibility, usability and evidentiary character of social media posts in the broader “platformized” context.Research limitations/implicationsThis is exploratory, theoretical work. In future works, this study plans to expand and validate aspects of this study.Originality/valueThis paper tests existing theoretical frameworks, namely, the Records Life cycle and the Records Continuum for applicability to the social media record. The paper also offers a view of the potential for traditional archival and records management concepts in service of a just and inclusive recordkeeping, because such concepts allow us to demonstrate the centralized, elite-serving, bureaucratic structures which underpin social media records are obscured by the seemingly decentralized, participatory nature of social media.

Modeling of senescent cell dynamics predicts a late-life decrease in cancer incidence.

Current oncogenic theories state that tumors arise from cell lineages that sequentially accumulate (epi)mutations, progressively turning healthy cells into carcinogenic ones. While those models found some empirical support, they are little predictive of intraspecies age-specific cancer incidence and of interspecies cancer prevalence. Notably, in humans and lab rodents, a deceleration (and sometimes decline) of cancer incidence rate has been found at old ages. Additionally, dominant theoretical models of oncogenesis predict that cancer risk should increase in large and/or long-lived species, which is not supported by empirical data. Here, we explore the hypothesis that cellular senescence could explain those incongruent empirical patterns. More precisely, we hypothesize that there is a trade-off between dying of cancer and of (other) ageing-related causes. This trade-off between organismal mortality components would be mediated, at the cellular scale, by the accumulation of senescent cells. In this framework, damaged cells can either undergo apoptosis or enter senescence. Apoptotic cells lead to compensatory proliferation, associated with an excess risk of cancer, whereas senescent cell accumulation leads to ageing-related mortality. To test our framework, we build a deterministic model that first describes how cells get damaged, undergo apoptosis, or enter senescence. We then translate those cellular dynamics into a compound organismal survival metric also integrating life-history traits. We address four different questions linked to our framework: can cellular senescence be adaptive, do the predictions of our model reflect epidemiological patterns observed among mammal species, what is the effect of species sizes on those answers, and what happens when senescent cells are removed? Importantly, we find that cellular senescence can optimize lifetime reproductive success. Moreover, we find that life-history traits play an important role in shaping the cellular trade-offs. Overall, we demonstrate that integrating cellular biology knowledge with eco-evolutionary principles is crucial to solve parts of the cancer puzzle.

Does alcohol automatically capture drinkers' attention? Exploration through an eye-tracking saccadic choice task.

Dominant theoretical models postulate the presence of an automatic attentional bias (AB) towards alcohol-related stimuli in alcohol use disorder, such AB constituting a core feature of this disorder. An early alcohol AB has been documented in subclinical populations such as binge drinking (i.e., a drinking pattern prevalent in youth and characterized by repeated alternation between alcohol intoxications and withdrawals, generating cerebral consequences). However, the automatic nature of AB remains to be established. We investigated the automatic nature of AB in binge drinkers through the saccadic choice task. This eye-tracking paradigm consistently highlights the extremely fast and involuntary saccadic responses elicited by faces in humans, relative to other object categories. Through an alcohol-related adaptation of the saccadic choice task, we tested whether the early and automatic capture of attentional resources elicited by faces can also be found for alcohol-related stimuli in binge drinkers, as predicted by theoretical models. Forty-three binge drinkers and 44 control participants performed two versions of the saccadic choice task. In the original version, two images (a face, a vehicle) were displayed on the left and right side of the screen respectively. Participants had to perform a saccade as fast as possible towards the target stimulus (either face or vehicle). In the alcohol-related version, the task was identical, but the images were an alcoholic beverage and a non-alcoholic stimulus. We replicated the automatic attraction towards faces in both groups, as faces generated higher saccadic accuracy, speed, and amplitude than vehicles, as well as higher corrective saccade proportion. Concerning the alcohol-related adaptation of the task, groups did not differ for the accuracy, speed, and amplitude of the first saccade towards alcohol. However, binge drinkers differed from controls regarding the proportion of corrective saccade towards non-alcoholic stimuli after an error saccade towards alcohol, suggesting the presence of an alcohol disengagement bias specific to binge drinkers. Alcohol-related AB in binge drinkers is not characterized by an early and automatic hijacking of attention towards alcohol. This AB rather relies on later and more controlled processing stages, namely a difficulty to disengage attentional resources from alcohol-related stimuli.

Examining the role of information integration in the continued influence effect using an event segmentation approach.

Misinformation regarding the cause of an event often continues to influence an individual's event-related reasoning, even after they have received a retraction. This is known as the continued influence effect (CIE). Dominant theoretical models of the CIE have suggested the effect arises primarily from failures to retrieve the correction. However, recent research has implicated information integration and memory updating processes in the CIE. As a behavioural test of integration, we applied an event segmentation approach to the CIE paradigm. Event segmentation theory suggests that incoming information is parsed into distinct events separated by event boundaries, which can have implications for memory. As such, when an individual encodes an event report that contains a retraction, the presence of event boundaries should impair retraction integration and memory updating, resulting in an enhanced CIE. Experiments 1 and 2 employed spatial event segmentation boundaries in an attempt to manipulate the ease with which a retraction can be integrated into a participant's mental event model. While Experiment 1 showed no impact of an event boundary, Experiment 2 yielded evidence that an event boundary resulted in a reduced CIE. To the extent that this finding reflects enhanced retrieval of the retraction relative to the misinformation, it is more in line with retrieval accounts of the CIE.

Challenging Empathic Deficit Models of Autism Through Responses to Serious Literature.

Dominant theoretical models of autism and resultant research enquiries have long centered upon an assumed autism-specific empathy deficit. Associated empirical research has largely relied upon cognitive tests that lack ecological validity and associate empathic skill with heuristic-based judgments from limited snapshots of social information. This artificial separation of thought and feeling fails to replicate the complexity of real-world empathy, and places socially tentative individuals at a relative disadvantage. The present study aimed to qualitatively explore how serious literary fiction, through its ability to simulate real-world empathic response, could therefore enable more ecologically valid insights into the comparative empathic experiences of autistic and non-autistic individuals. Eight autistic and seven non-autistic participants read Of Mice and Men for six days while completing a semi-structured reflective diary. On finishing the book, participants were asked to engage in three creative writing tasks that encouraged reflective thinking across the novel. Thematic and literary analysis of the diary reflections and writing tasks revealed three main themes (1) Distance from the Novel; (2) Mobility of Response; (3) Re-Creating Literature. Findings demonstrated the usefulness of serious literature as a research tool for comparing the empathic experiences of autistic and non-autistic individuals. Specifically, autistic individuals often showed enhanced socio-empathic understandings of the literature with no empathy deficits when compared to non-autistic participants.

From the Editors

From the Editors

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF DEVELOPMENTAL CONCEPTS OF SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN EUROPE AND THE USA

The paper presents a comparative analysis of the dominant theoretical concepts and models of social entrepreneurship development in continental Europe and the United States. The initial assumption of the paper was the differences in the model of capitalism that are present in these parts of the world, and the dominant theoretical concepts determine the differences in the form of manifestation of social entrepreneurial activity and the degree of population involvement in its implementation. Empirical research, with the aim of testing this assumption, was conducted on a sample of 50,000 social entrepreneurs from 25 countries. The results showed that there are no significant differences in the degree of involvement of the population in social entrepreneurial activity between Europe and the USA in the initial phase. In the operational phase, there are differences in the degree of involvement of the population in social entrepreneurship between Europe and the USA, but they are also present between Eastern and Western Europe, which means that they are not predominantly conditioned by theoretical concepts and models of social entrepreneurship, but by other factors.

Expanding the Prevailing Behavioral Model in A Social Marketing Context: A Case Study of an Eco-point System to Promote Eco-policies in Toyota City, Japan

ABSTRACT To analyze and expand the prevailing behavioral model (awareness–knowledge–attitudes–behavior), this study explored strategies for promoting the eco-family card, a social marketing approach whereby users in Toyota City, Japan, earn eco-points through eco-activities and exchange them for goods. This initiative aims to advance the city’s eco-policy by incentivizing participation in eco-activities. The findings indicate that the dominant theoretical models positing that environmental awareness and knowledge lead to pro-environmental behaviors via attitudes are limited for explaining behavior change in this context. Furthermore, the results suggest that, given their pro-environmental attitudes that are yet to manifest as behaviors, women in their 30s are a promising sociodemographic target for promoting the eco-family card and that residents are somewhat satisfied with the goods that can be obtained with eco-points but desire more places to acquire and use eco-points. Recommendations are provided for the city government’s effective promotion of the eco-family card.

Drug adherence, medical pluralism, and psychopharmaceutical selfhood in postreform Vietnam.

This article examines drug adherence in relation to changing patterns of medical pluralism and neoliberal reforms among psychiatric patients in postreform Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. We conducted 39 in-depth interviews and 21 follow-up interviews with individuals prescribed psychiatric medication on an outpatient basis in 2016 to identify patterns of nonadherence, which was operationalized as taking medications according to doctors' prescriptions at the three-month follow-up interval. Patients adapt or reject their medication prescriptions due to (1) concerns about biomedical drugs and adverse drug reactions, (2) local concepts of psychic distress and selfhood, and (3) the social context of medicine taking. The dominant theoretical models of drug adherence focus on individual-level predictors. However, situating drug adherence in its political-economic context highlights the relationship between medicine and neoliberal modernity that underlies adherence. Examining the intersection of multiple medication regimens and political regimes, we argue that nonadherence is rooted in a complex layering of medical traditions and modernist projects of the self. The reception of new biomedical drugs in Vietnam is shaped by not only folk theories of illness but also a changing cultural politics of the self.

Private Law and Local Custom

One of the striking features of private law in English-speaking countries is the extent to which it is mainly common law. To be sure, many areas of tort, contract, and property are subject to statutes, and civil law jurisdictions demonstrate that private law can be codified. Still, most Anglo-American private law is common law. This chapter explores that relationship. Both private law and the common law fit awkwardly into the dominant theoretical models of law, which emphasize regulation and social control by the state. Thus, the common law has long been criticized for failing to comply with the model of clearly articulated rules that are announced ex ante and applied ex post. The private law, for its part, contains numerous features that make it a poor candidate for a well-designed regulatory regime. Law and economics (L&E) has dominated much of contemporary private law theory. Beginning in the 1980s, however, neoformalist critics focused on features of private law that L&E can explain only awkwardly. These accounts, in turn, provide responses to many of the standard criticisms of the common law. While this movement is encouraging, theoretical challenges remain. Neoformalism, despite its ambition to take the structure of legal doctrine more seriously than L&E, has difficulty accounting for large swaths of private law. Furthermore, these theories have tended to be highly abstract, placing little or no significance on the particularity of the communities over which private law claims authority. In contrast, the common law often evidences a parochialism that focuses on the history or practices of specific communities. A renewed focus on the classical common law theory of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries offers one way of responding to these weaknesses in neoformalism.

Towards a structural inequality framework for student retention and success

ABSTRACTUniversity campuses are increasingly diverse, reflecting substantial growth in student enrolments, but this has not translated to equitable outcomes for all students. While much attention has been focused on student retention and success, particularly for those from non-traditional backgrounds, dominant theoretical models rest on a limited notion of cultural capital that places undue responsibility on students themselves. We suggest that structural inequality, whereby some people receive unequal privileges and opportunities, offers a more productive, less problematic framework for use by academic staff, university leaders and policy makers to address these challenges. In this article, we identify three types of structural inequality – vertical, horizontal, and internal – and include a taxonomy of internal inequalities to prompt further research and policy outcomes. Put simply, rather than ask how students can build cultural capital to assimilate to their institutions, we should ask what institutions can do to include students, staff, and the wider community.

To stage an overlap – The longitudinal, collaborative and embodied process of staging eight lines in a professional theatre rehearsal process

The theatrical rehearsal is to date a scarcely investigated institutional setting. This longitudinal, video-ethnographic study follows two actors' work with eight lines in a quarrel scene, from the first day of rehearsals to opening night. The rehearsal is regarded as a transformation process in which the production team laminate (Goodwin, 2018) the script with multimodal resources (Mondada, 2014). The script contains conventional signs for marking overlapping and loudness, and the aim of this study is to document longitudinally how the actors develop, use and coordinate these and other multimodal resources during the rehearsal process. The analysis shows that the actors laminate the script from the first day, and that overlapping and loudness function as mutually developing resources in the performance. Also, different kinds of resources are prominent at different stages of the process: overlap and loudness first increase during the process, but decrease later, as additional embodied resources become more prominent. The transformation process is thus not a linear development. The micro-analysis also shows that the performance on opening night is an emergent interaction, that is, a process. The data and the results challenge dominant theoretical models of participation in fictional discourse.

The Politics of Governance and Urban Marginality: A Camp Studies Perspective

ABSTRACTDesigned to provide temporary shelter to the displaced, in protracted refugee situations camps become places of long-term residency and undergo processes of urban change. The complex realities of protracted encampment challenge the dichotomy between the city (as a norm) and the camp (as an exception) that underpins dominant theoretical models of refugee camps. Instead, the theoretical lens of urban margins allows us to circumvent this binary and analyse the camps from the perspective of their relation to the city and the state. Rather than a specific location, this article approaches urban marginality as a condition produced by unequal power relations behind the enforcement of a particular urban order. Based on two years of ethnographic fieldwork, it draws on the case of Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank. Unlike the majority of studies on Palestinian camps that focus either on top-down politics of exclusion or political agency of camp residents, the article examines how different actors, interests and modes of exercising power (both formal and informal) intersect in camp space and produce, as well as resist and subvert, the condition of urban marginality.

Digital curation: the development of a discipline within information science

PurposeDigital curation addresses the technical, administrative and financial ecology required to ensure that digital information remains accessible and usable over the long term. The purpose of this paper is to trace digital curation’s disciplinary emergence and examine its position within the information sciences domain in terms of theoretical principles, using a case study of developments in the UK and the USA.Design/methodology/approachTheoretical principles regarding disciplinary development and the identity of information science as a discipline are applied to a case study of the development of digital curation in the UK and the USA to identify the maturity of digital curation and its position in the information science gamut.FindingsDigital curation is identified as a mature discipline which is a sub-meta-discipline of information science. As such digital curation has reach across all disciplines and sub-disciplines of information science and has the potential to become the overarching paradigm.Practical implicationsThese findings could influence digital curation’s development from applied discipline to profession within both its educational and professional domains.Originality/valueThe disciplinary development of digital curation within dominant theoretical models has not hitherto been articulated.

Complex Systems Research in Educational Psychology: Aligning Theory and Method

The purpose of this work is to provide an overview of complex systems research for educational psychologists. We outline a philosophically and theoretically sourced definition of complex systems research organized around complex, dynamic, and emergent ontological characteristics that is useful and appropriate for educational psychology. A complex systems approach is positioned as a means to align underexplored elements of existing theory with appropriate interaction dominant theoretical models, research methods, and equation-based analytic techniques. We conclude with a brief discussion of several foundational topics for complex systems research in educational psychology.

Soccer and integrating Europe’s Muslim minorities: the good, and bad and the ugly

Drawing from recent debates about Muslim immigrants’ lack of integration into European societies, the current article advances a main argument regarding the nexus between soccer and Muslim immigrants’ integration within their host European societies by reviewing dominant theoretical models and focusing on elite European male Muslim soccer players. Considering the growing recent debate about the role of Muslim immigrants in their European societies, soccer has the potential to assist European countries to increase Muslims’ integration level. Elite Muslim soccer players are among the most influential immigrants in European societies. Muslim soccer players could contribute to increase understanding and community unity between different social groups within European societies as many of them prove that identity hyphenation and combining ethnicity and European nationality is possible for Muslim immigrants. Soccer could give more confidence to the generation of young Muslims about being accepted by European majorities.

Theory in Highly Cited Studies of Sexual Minority Parent Families: Variations and Implications

ABSTRACTThis article includes a systematic review and citation analysis of the literature regarding sexual minority parent families, particularly attending to what theories have been used, and how. We consider the importance of theoretical frameworks for future research and implications for policy, practice, and law related to sexual minority parent families. Our review targets 30 highly cited studies located through Google Scholar (as an interdisciplinary search engine) and published within a specific timeframe (2005–2010). We highlight the dominant theoretical models employed across disciplines studying sexual minority parent families. Although the majority of studies reviewed referred to theoretical models or perspectives, explicit theoretical grounding was frequently lacking. Instead, the empirical work reviewed appeared to have a predominantly applied focus in addressing public debates on sexual minority parent families. We provide recommendations for how theory might be more fully integrated into the social science literature on sexual minority parents and their children.

The World’s Most Amazing 100% Awesome Photography Theory

A recent British trend has been the growth in HE photography courses with a concurrent emphasis on industry skills and commercial career outcomes. And, although pedagogic approaches to practical material have adapted, the theoretical material can be seen to be woefully lacking. Calls for a re-examination have indeed been made, but little has been offered that is not simply a rearticulation of the already dominant theoretical models. Rather than relying on the well-trodden models that promote photographer as visionary or emphasise meaning generation, it is proposed that photography theory should look to the breadth of approaches found in film studies, particularly in relation to commercial production. The two areas for development particularly advocated here are genre studies and industry analysis in terms of production and distribution. Since most commercially bound photographers work within industrial structures and constraints, both of these approaches would facilitate an understanding of creativity and innovation in this context. This would open up areas of photographic study that have thus far been largely ignored by academics and, further, would facilitate a closer relationship and dialogue between theory and practice in the educational context.