External Referents Research Articles

Dead reckoning: charting a new (metaphorical) course for accounting

PurposeMetaphor is the foundation upon which all scientific disciplines, from basic to applied, construct the mental models used in theory development and organizing research phenomena. The authors posit that a navigational science metaphor might provide a useful framework, or at least an additional “waypoint,” with which to evaluate extant accounting theory and further discourse in accounting research and practice. This study aims to critically examine the base metaphors of accounting theory and practice through the lens of navigational science.Design/methodology/approachThe supreme dominance of the Positive Accounting Theory paradigm (Watts and Zimmerman, 1986) is critically evaluated using a navigational metaphor as a literary device for cognitive estrangement.FindingsThe authors suggest that accounting, as both a practical and academic field, might benefit from the multifarious approach of navigational science in the computation of longitude, particularly with regards to the use of external (societal) referents, moving toward a more “heteroglossic” model of accounting (vid. Macintosh and Baker, 2002) as a means of “situating” accounting research and practice with regards to said external referents (cf. Bayou et al., 2011).Originality/valueThis work brings together existing streams of literary theory and epistemology in accounting, and views them through the lens of a navigational science metaphor. Cognitive estrangement, a well-established device for reorganizing perplexing problems in any science, is used to reimagine an accounting science as navigational situating.

Neuroanthropology of shamanic trance: a case study with a ritual specialist from Mexico.

In Mexico, shamans are recognized for the gift of entering a deep trance that allows them to know the origin of the diseases and conflicts that afflict people. They commonly treat patients through limpias (cleansing) to extract negative elements sent by a witch or that were "collected" in places that harbor "evil winds." We present a case study of an 81-year-old Mexican shaman who noticed her gift in childhood. Electroencephalographic recordings were made while the shaman performed three activities: reading cards to diagnose a patient and answer the questions he posed; limpia with chicken eggs, stones, and bells to absorb adverse "things"; and the incorporation trance through which the deceased is believed to occupy the shaman's body to use it as a communication channel. Alpha activity was observed when concentrated, suggesting a hypnagogic-like state. Predominant beta and gamma oscillations were observed, suggesting a potential plastic phenomenon that modulates the assimilation of external and internal referents guiding temporal schemes for action, attention, and the integration of mnemonic, sensory, and imaginative elements. We used a neuroanthropological approach to understand shamanic trance as a biological potential of the human brain to induce non-ordinary states of consciousness linked to cultural beliefs and practices.

The Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) Model-Based Analysis on Appliances Acquisition in the Philippines: An Empirical Study on Consumers’ Behavior towards Purchasing Refrigerators

Through the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) Model, the paper was designed to answer five (5) questions: (a) What are the factors affecting the decision of the Filipinos in buying refrigerators?; (b) What are the reasons that encourage Filipinos to purchase refrigerators?; (c) What is the relationship between energy labels and the purchasing behavior of the Filipinos?; (d) What are the internal and external referents associated in purchasing behavior?; and (e) How do socio-demographics affect the purchasing behavior? SOR explains that several external aspects can act as a stimulus which influences a person’s internal state, referring to the organism, which will result to certain behavioral response. The prevailing motivation of consumers rely on their hedonic behavior which attributes with the experiences of sensory appeals including emotion and gratification The study suggests that the consumers lack ample knowledge and capacity to use their familiarity and awareness on the existence of energy labels on making sound decisions when purchasing refrigerators. The importance of energy labels was being set aside by the consumers when being conflicted with the product’s brand, features, and aesthetics. Subsequent interventions of government may be necessary in order to address the gap between the consumers purchasing motivation and purchasing behavior. The intensification of information campaign and supporting policies may provide avenue to ensure that consumers are empowered on choosing energy efficient appliances. Furthermore, the development of a comprehensive communication plan that will cut across sector may address the concerns on the appliances acquisition of the Filipinos.

A focus group study exploring dairy farmers' perspectives of cull cow management in Ontario, Canada.

Maintaining the welfare of cull dairy cows from the farm to slaughter is an ongoing challenge for the dairy industry. Recent research suggests that some cull dairy cows within the marketing system are in physical states that are below regulatory standards, and further research is required to determine why these unfit cows are found throughout the journey to abattoirs. Since dairy farms are the origin of these cows, decision making by dairy farmers has been identified as key to preventing cull cows that are considered unfit for transport from entering the marketing system. The objectives of this study were to understand dairy farmers' perspectives on their cull dairy cow management practices, recommendations and requirements of regulations, management tools, and welfare issues. Four focus groups with a total of 21 participants were each conducted virtually, video recorded, and transcribed verbatim, with dairy farmers from Ontario, Canada. A thematic analysis of focus group discussions was conducted utilizing deductive reasoning. There were three themes identified including deciding to cull or not, management of cows being culled, and knowledge and perceptions of cull cow regulations. When making culling decisions, farmers utilize multiple sources of information including personal experiences and values and external referents like veterinarians, family members and other farmers. The welfare of their cows was a high priority but one that was often weighed against the financial outcomes of culling decisions. Finally, most participants considered recent regulatory changes for the management of cows before shipment to be of little importance on their farms. In conclusion, the farmers from this study showed the diversity of considerations they make in culling decisions and the large contribution of animal productivity and economic factors. There was a general lack of knowledge of recent regulatory changes for the shipment of cull cows, and there is room for improving the uptake of new recommendations for culling only cows fit for transportation.

The Cultural Underpinnings of Organizational Identity Shaped by External Identity Referents

In this qualitative study, we examine how an organization that permanently sits between two or more other organizations - salient identity referents - constructs its own identity. Drawing on a processual lens on identity, we find that the organization 'caught in the middle' constructs its identity by drawing on various forms of identity work: identity borrowing, identity referencing and identity affirmation. We find that these processes of identity work are underpinned by cultural mechanisms in that the enactment of cultural practices feeds into organization members' understandings of and claims about their organization's identity. Our work thus contributes to our understanding of the links between organizational culture and identity. We also shed light on how an organization positioned 'between' salient identity referents constructs its own identity through continually enacted processes. Further, we find that central cultural practices may be customized, adding to organizational differentiation.

“Es Muy Tranquilo Aquí”: Perceptions of Safety and Calm among Binationally Mobile Mexican Immigrants in a Rural Border Community

Perceptions of community can play an important role in determining health and well-being. We know little, however, about residents’ perceptions of community safety in the Southwestern borderlands, an area frequently portrayed as plagued by disorder. The qualitative aim of this community-based participatory research study was to explore the perceptions of Mexican-origin border residents about their communities in southern Yuma County, Arizona. Our team of University of Arizona researchers and staff from Campesinos Sin Fronteras, a grassroots farmworker support agency in Yuma County, Arizona, developed a bilingual interview guide and recruited participants through radio adds, flyers, and cold calls among existing agency clientele. Thirty individual interviews with participants of Mexican origin who live in and/or work in rural Yuma County were conducted remotely in 2021. Participants overwhelmingly perceived their communities as both calm and safe. While some participants mentioned safety concerns, the vast majority described high levels of personal security and credited both neighbors and police for ensuring local safety. These perceptions were stated in direct contrast to those across the border, where participants had positive familial and cultural ties but negative perceptions regarding widespread violence. In conclusion, we argue that to understand environmental factors affecting health and well-being in Mexican immigrant populations, it is critical to examine the role of binational external referents that color community perceptions.

Is This the Way to Amarillo? Reading Denise Riley with Derek Attridge

Abstract This essay responds to a challenge offered by the avowed bafflement of the critic and prosodist Derek Attridge faced with a poem by Denise Riley, ‘Lone Star Clattering’. It argues that Attridge’s adoption of an interpretative approach derived from Don Paterson, employing a step-by-step and constrictive cognitive framing, cannot succeed with a late Modernist lyric poem. Drawing on classroom experience with the same poem, it describes a prevalent cats-cradle approach as a variant on such constrictive reading, where a small group of external referents is grabbed onto, and the poem forced into unseemly conformity with them. The essay proposes instead a practice of feline reading characterized by a hovering casual interest, a constant scan of the sensual and mental fields so that their contours are felt, while sustaining a hair-trigger responsiveness to any unanticipated event along with a Keatsian tolerance of irresolution.

Vocal communication of magnitude across language, age, and auditory experience.

Like many other vocalizing vertebrates, humans convey information about their body size through the sound of their voice. Vocalizations of larger animals are typically longer in duration, louder in intensity, and lower in frequency. We investigated people's ability to use voice-size correspondences to communicate about the magnitude of external referents. First, we asked hearing children, as well as deaf children and adolescents, living in China to improvise nonlinguistic vocalizations to distinguish between paired items contrasting in magnitude (e.g., a long vs. short string, a big vs. small ball). Then we played these vocalizations back to adult listeners in the United States and China to assess their ability to correctly guess the intended referents. We find that hearing and deaf producers both signaled greater magnitude items with longer and louder vocalizations and with smaller formant spacing. Only hearing producers systematically used fundamental frequency, communicating greater magnitude with higher fo. The vocalizations of both groups were understandable to Chinese and American listeners, although accuracy was higher with vocalizations from older producers. American listeners relied on the same acoustic properties as Chinese listeners: both groups interpreted vocalizations with longer duration and greater intensity as referring to greater items; neither American nor Chinese listeners consistently used fo or formant spacing as a cue. These findings show that the human ability to use vocalizations to communicate about the magnitude of external referents is highly robust, extending across listeners of disparate linguistic and cultural backgrounds, as well as across age and auditory experience. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Social and emotion dimensional organizations in the abstract semantic space: the neuropsychological evidence

An essential aspect of human cognition is supported by a rich reservoir of abstract concepts without tangible external referents (e.g., “honor”, “relationship”, “direction”). While decades of research showed that the neural organization of conceptual knowledge referring to concrete words respects domains of evolutionary salience and sensorimotor attributes, the organization principles of abstract word meanings are poorly understood. Here, we provide neuropsychological evidence for a domain (sociality) and attribute (emotion) structure in abstract word processing. Testing 34 brain-damaged patients on a word-semantic judgment task, we observed double dissociations between social and nonsocial words and a single dissociation of sparing of emotional (relative to non-emotional) words. The lesion profiles of patients with specific dissociations suggest potential neural correlates positively or negatively associated with each dimension. These results unravel a general domain-attribute architecture of word meanings and highlight the roles of the social domain and the emotional attribute in the non-object semantic space.

A Focus Group Study of Canadian Dairy Farmers' Attitudes and Social Referents on Antimicrobial Use and Antimicrobial Resistance.

As part of broader actions to combat antimicrobial resistance (AMR), health authorities have promoted the reduction of antimicrobial use (AMU) in food animals. Farmers' attitudes and receptivity to reduction of AMU appear to be variable and context specific. Our research objectives were to gain insight into Canadian dairy farmers' attitudes toward AMU, AMR, and AMU-reduction in the dairy industry, and to explore drivers and barriers to change AMU, including the influence of social referents. We conducted seven focus groups with 42 farmers in two provinces of Canada (New Brunswick and Ontario) and used thematic analysis to identify, analyze, and report patterns in the data. Our results indicate that farmers usually rely on their previous experience and judgement of individual cases of disease when making decisions related to AMU. External referents included other farmers, family members, and veterinarians. However, veterinarians were generally only consulted for unusual cases. Participants in this study expressed that maintaining cattle welfare is their responsibility, and that they were not willing to jeopardize animal welfare in order to reduce AMU. In addition, farmers regarded the cost of investment in improved facilities to prevent disease as an important barrier to reduce AMU. Finally, the majority of participants considered themselves to be low users of antimicrobials and perceived a small role of AMU on dairy farms in AMR. In conclusion, farmers from this study showed self-reliance to decide about AMU on their farms and considered animal-related and economic factors in these decisions. There was a general lack of knowledge of how to reduce AMU without investing in facilities, and there is an opportunity to motivate increased involvement of the veterinarian in AMU-related decisions. These results should be considered to design and refine antimicrobial stewardship programs for dairy farms.

Assessing biases, relaxing moralism: On ground-truthing practices in machine learning design and application

This theoretical paper considers the morality of machine learning algorithms and systems in the light of the biases that ground their correctness. It begins by presenting biases not as a priori negative entities but as contingent external referents—often gathered in benchmarked repositories called ground-truth datasets—that define what needs to be learned and allow for performance measures. I then argue that ground-truth datasets and their concomitant practices—that fundamentally involve establishing biases to enable learning procedures—can be described by their respective morality, here defined as the more or less accounted experience of hesitation when faced with what pragmatist philosopher William James called “genuine options”—that is, choices to be made in the heat of the moment that engage different possible futures. I then stress three constitutive dimensions of this pragmatist morality, as far as ground-truthing practices are concerned: (I) the definition of the problem to be solved (problematization), (II) the identification of the data to be collected and set up (databasing), and (III) the qualification of the targets to be learned (labeling). I finally suggest that this three-dimensional conceptual space can be used to map machine learning algorithmic projects in terms of the morality of their respective and constitutive ground-truthing practices. Such techno-moral graphs may, in turn, serve as equipment for greater governance of machine learning algorithms and systems.

CEO pay inequity, CEO-TMT pay gap, and acquisition premiums

This study extends previous research on the influence of CEO pay inequity on CEOs' decision-making by examining the relationship in the acquisition context. Focusing on CEOs' compensation vis-à-vis external and internal referents, we find that underpaid CEOs pay higher acquisition premiums and that overpaid CEOs pay lower premiums, although this tendency is reduced as the level of overpayment increases, creating a U-shaped relationship. We further find that the CEO-TMT pay gap moderates the relationship between CEO under-/overpayment and acquisition premiums by adjusting CEOs' perceptions of pay inequity and motivation to restore inequity through their higher or lower sense of self-importance. The findings of this study suggest that CEOs' decision-making is strongly influenced by their framing of gains and losses and the perception of pay inequity vis-à-vis external and internal referents.

A circulação de referências na revista Educar em Revista e o campo educacional brasileiro (2000-2010)

Resumo O presente estudo examina os artigos publicados no período entre 2000 e 2010 por uma das principais revistas pedagógicas brasileiras, Educar em Revista , editada pelo Setor de Educação da UFPR. O objetivo é caracterizar o conjunto dos autores que publicam nesse periódico, suas afinidades e redes de relações, de modo a obter indícios que ajudem a configurar o atual estado do campo educacional brasileiro, cada vez mais caracterizado pela cultura da performatividade, fundada em uma intensa competição. A hipótese principal é a de que a investigação dos artigos publicados nos principais periódicos brasileiros pode oferecer elementos significativos para compreender a estruturação e a dinâmica do campo educacional na linha proposta por Bourdieu. No exame dos artigos foram mobilizados procedimentos metodológicos em que é dada uma atenção particular aos referentes externos presentes nos artigos. Também são recolhidas informações presentes nas suas referências bibliográficas, registrando-se livros, artigos de revista, teses e dissertações e outras fontes ali mencionadas. Isso completa-se pelo levantamento de informações biográficas e curriculares dos autores. No exame de Educar em Revista constatou-se uma mudança do perfil da publicação, já que ela apresentava, no intervalo entre 2000 e 2005, um forte caráter endógeno, o que foi corrigido nos últimos anos do período estudado, no sentido de maior adequação aos critérios de avaliação dos periódicos utilizados pela Capes. Percebe-se que tanto os editores quanto os autores que publicam na revista procuram se ajustar às novas características do campo, cada vez mais marcado pela performatividade e pela competição.

Neural representation of visual concepts in people born blind

How do we represent information without sensory features? How are abstract concepts like “freedom”, devoid of external perceptible referents, represented in the brain? Here, to address the role of sensory information in the neural representation of concepts, we used fMRI to investigate how people born blind process concepts whose referents are imperceptible to them because of their visual nature (“rainbow”, “red”). Activity for these concepts was compared to that of sensorially-perceptible referents (“rain”), classical abstract concepts (“justice”) and concrete concepts (“cup”), providing a gradient between fully concrete and fully abstract concepts in the blind. We find that anterior temporal lobe (ATL) responses track concept perceptibility and objecthood: preference for imperceptible object concepts was found in dorsal ATL, for abstract (non-object, non-referential) concepts in lateral ATL, and for perceptible concepts in medial ATL. These findings point to a new division-of-labor among aspects of ATL in representing conceptual properties that are abstract in different ways.

Managing noise in signalling effectiveness: an empirical test of listed companies in China

PurposeSignalling theory suggests how “strong” or “weak” the signal quality detected by a receiver (defined as signalling strength) is distorted by noisy factors (defined as noise). Although corporate cooperation signals are known to lead to receiver reaction, the effects of distortion factors on signal credibility are generally unexplored in signalling process. The paper aims to discuss this issue.Design/methodology/approachAfter analysing 264 contract announcements in 2013–2015 that befall publicly listed firms in China, the authors explore the signalling impact of contract value. the authors also incorporate the signalling noises, namely, signalling environment, external referents and other signallers, into the contracting context and investigate their effects on distorting the relationship between signal strength and receiver reaction.FindingsResults indicate that firms’ contract-signing announcement conveys an effective signal to investors: the larger the contract scale is, the more investor reaction the firms experience. The signalling effects of contract scale on investor reaction are moderated by the three distorting factors.Originality/valueThe findings contribute to the signalling theory literature on the effects of signalling noise on receivers’ perception of signal observability.

Modeling and Measuring Scale Attraction Effects: An Application to Charitable Donations

Charities seeking donations typically employ an “appeals scale,” a roster of suggested amounts presented to potential donors, along with an “Other” category. Yet little is known about how the amounts comprising appeals scales affect whether a donation is made and, if so, jointly exert “pull” on its magnitude. Availing of multi-year panel data and a field experiment, we develop a model accounting for individual level donation incidence, amount, and appeals scale attraction effects. The model incorporates heterogeneity across donors in both upward and downward scale point attraction, as well as in donation patterns (e.g., seasonality), and accommodates multiple operationalizations of internal and external referents to summarize the effects of prior donation history and scale points, respectively. Overall results suggest that scale points do exert substantial attraction effects; that these vary markedly across donors; that they are in fact referent-based effects; that donors are more easily persuaded to give less than more; and that, while all scale points exert pull, influence wanes with distance. The modeling framework applies not only in donation contexts, but whenever an ordered categorical scale is used to collect data regarding an underlying latent response.

The Myth of the South Indian Iron Stupa (Nanten tettō) in Japanese Esoteric Buddhism

According to a legend, recorded in China in the second half of the eighth century by Amoghavajra (Bukong 不空, 705–774), the most influential patriarch of Esoteric Buddhism (mikkyō 密教) during the Tang, the teachings of the Vajraśekhara Tantra (Ch. Jin’gangding jing, Jp. Kongōchōgyō 金剛頂経) were transmitted to an unnamed sage in south India (Nanten 南天, an abbreviation of Nan-Tenjiku 南天竺) from inside a mysterious iron stūpa (tettō 鉄塔). A few decades later, Kūkai 空海 (774–835), the founder of the Shingon school 真言宗 in Japan, identified that sage as Nāgārjuna, who came to be considered the third patriarch of Shingon Buddhism. Since then, that of the South Indian Iron Stupa (nanten tettō 南天鉄塔) has been an important theme in Japanese religious history; in particular, it became a symbol of the transmission of esoteric knowledge in intiation/consecration rituals (kanjō 灌頂) and was later transferred and adapted to newly created Buddhist rituals for Japanese deities (kami 神) known as jingi kanjō 神祇灌頂 or shintō kanjō 神道灌頂. This article explores some of the aspects of the myth and its doctrinal implications, especially regarding the epistemology and soteriology of Esoteric Buddhism. After a brief discussion of the Iron Stupa myth from East Asian canonical sources and Kūkai’s ideas about the tranmission of Esoteric teachings, I move on to examples of esoteric exegeses of this myth, both from the Shingon and Tendai denominations—as typical in such interpretive endeavors, the words of the myth, their meanings and their (supposed) external referents (objects and states of the world) are disassembled and recombined according to the principles of medieval Buddhist semiotics. Next, I trace further developments of the Iron Stupa myth as a central image in medieval rituals about Japanese kami. In the final considerations section I offer some elements to place this myth within the larger context of the system of meaning of Esoteric Buddhism.

Silence and Blindness in Richard Wright’s Native Son

Richard Wright’s Native Son has often been read as a socially-oriented text, seemingly neglecting its existence as a literary construct. Such readings gear towards identifying the text with such societal ills as racism and environmental impact on the individual, as if these are the only business of the text.In this paper, however, attention shifts from such external referents to the text itself, deconstructing the meaning of blindness already ascribed to the text as well as the meaning of silence as it is denotatively known. The uncovering of the textual meaning of each of these concepts will also serve either to compliment a character or to disparage same, and then the interweave of both concepts will result in reading the text as a tragedy. This study will be anchored on the provisions of Derrida’s deconstructive criticism.

The Exilic Classroom: Spaces of Subversion

This paper explores the possibility of the classroom as an exilic space of subversion in which we can pursue anarchist notions of personal transformation, relationships and society. Classroom environments in higher education institutions in Britain, particularly following the introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework in September 2016, are premised upon relationships shaped by specific external standards: Employability, the instrumental pursuit of degrees, provider/consumer exchange, among others. Any notions of personal transformation are economic, and the broader goal is the pursuit of economic gain for individual, company and country. In an act of subversion of these external standards, I propose theorising the classroom as an exilic space: a temporally and spatially bracketed space in which participants and their relationships are not beholden to these various external referents. Instead, I put forward the exilic classroom as an anarchic space in which the interactions of the participants are not pre-defined but are formed in the process of the interactions themselves. In theorising the exilic classroom I draw on the work of Obika Gray, and push his notion of exilic space further by integrating the works of Michel de Certeau, Jamie Heckert and Gustav Landauer to help propose a classroom defined as a positive subversive everyday space that is not bound by its opposition to wider structures. The creation of such an exilic classroom assists the participants in stepping out of their expected roles as ‘provider’ and ‘consumer’, or ‘teacher’ and ‘student’, and allows the creation of a space of possibilities for our relationships

It Takes a (Virtual) Village: Exploring the Role of a Career Community to Support Sensemaking As a Proactive Socialization Practice.

Scholars have long advocated for individuals to play a more proactive role during organizational entry rather than relying on institutionally led processes. The primary benefit being that the newcomer moves from passive recipient, dependent on the institution to highlight relevant information, to active agent with self-determined sources and methods to aid in adjustment. A virtual career community made up of 12 first year business faculty members was created to provide such a self-determined source of support during the transition from doctoral studies to full-time assistant professorship. After the entry period (1 academic year), the interactions in this community were used as data for a phenomenon driven research study. The results illustrate how a virtual career community could be used as a proactive socialization tool by encouraging sensemaking amongst first year faculty peers. The sensemaking process consists of perceived contrasts and tensions, followed by positive and negative self-disclosures, community feedback, and the experience of cognitive-behavioral shifts. The findings also expand the proactive use of external referents during organizational entry, which previously had only looked at friends and family members of the newcomer.