Formal Organizations Research Articles

Challenges for Formal Organizations Engaging Volunteers During Regular and Crisis Times According to Polish and Italian Volunteer Coordinators

AbstractThe recent crises in Europe impacted the volunteering patterns within formal organizations that provide support in regular and crisis times. In our paper, we investigated how volunteer coordinators from formal entities (public/governmental and non-governmental) perceive (1) the patterns of volunteering engagement (long-term versus episodic) in regular and crisis times, (2) the processes of retaining volunteers during crises; (3) the trust of the community toward various types of organizations during social crises; (4) the role of informal support groups in relation to the tasks of their organization. Between June and October 2023, we performed an online-based study (total N = 55)—in Poland (N = 28) and Italy (N = 27). The survey had multiple-choice and open-ended questions, and the results were analyzed qualitatively using the thematic analysis framework. The findings indicated that volunteer coordinators reckon that long-term and episodic volunteers play crucial and complementary roles in helping organizations achieve their objectives. This implies that organizations should recognize the value of both types of volunteers and consider them essential resources for pursuing organizational goals. The results also suggest that the volunteer retention strategies are worth outlining or revisiting within organizations, and attention should be paid to psychological support. According to coordinators, trust in non-governmental organizations is perceived as crucial in the beneficiaries' decisions about where to seek help. Collaboration with informal groups is advised, given that the goals can be achieved together, mutually using the resources provided by both types of helping entities.

Re-Proportioning, Re-Framing, Re-Purposing: Foreign Experience in Russian Disability Organising After the Retreat of Foreign Funding

Russian civil society has experienced a retreat of foreign funding and NGOs. However, where foreign, formal organisations leave, Russian individuals remain. Exploring the pathways of these individuals shows how they navigate a shifting organising environment. Foreign experience is recognised as formational; it continues to inform action and moves into new spheres. However, some actors perceive overt publicisation of foreign connections and experience as heightening risk, and may disavow or obscure these experiences. Where foreign experience is associated with political threat, actors respond with strategies of apparent depoliticisation. Investigating how foreign experience is obscured thus provides a route into examining the political question of who, or what, is perceived as belonging.

Practices of Grassroots Civic Activity in the Yaroslavl Region: Problems and Results of Implementation

Introduction. The relevance of the study is due to the increasing importance and complexity of horizontal public relations in socio-political processes, an increase in the number of practices of grassroots civic activity at the regional and local levels, including the use of new information and communication technologies. The purpose of the article is to identify the causes of initiation, the specifics of the organization and practical implementation of grassroots civic activity, as well as the specifics of the interaction of its key actors in modern socio-political conditions in the Yaroslavl region. Materials and Methods. The empirical basis of the study is 21 practices of grassroots civic engagement in the Yaroslavl region, the analysis of which was carried out by the case-study method with elements of comparative analysis. The case-study method made it possible to study these practices of grassroots civic engagement in their complexity and integrity, and also identified their key characteristics and factors influencing them. Results. A comparison of the main practices of grassroots civic engagement that have taken place in the Yaroslavl region in recent years has been made. The main mechanisms and subjects of grassroots civic engagement, processes of interaction between actors are identified. The role of information and communication technologies in the organization of grassroots civic engagement was determined. The problems of grassroots civic engagement organization and interaction of its key actors were also outlined. Discussion and Сonclusion. The study revealed the key characteristics of grassroots civic activity: significant actors, theirs goals, motives, resources and methods of action, features of media coverage and the use of information and communication technologies. The results of the study will be useful for improving the efficiency of the work of local authorities with various formal and informal organizations and associations of citizens. They will help to build work with these groups, taking into account the identified features in the implementation of practices of grassroots civil initiatives in the Yaroslavl region.

Secondary school randomized controlled interventions with a minimum dual approach to health and the links to BMI in pupils: A systematic review and meta-analysis within the project From Science 2 School

Introduction & Purpose Health behavior offers a pivotal domain of health for managing current global crises, including physical inactivity and overweight/obesity (Schroeder, 2007). However, adults have limited capacity for adopting healthy behavior into their lifestyle (Prochaska & Velicer, 1997). Schools offer an ideal setting for implementing health interventions considering the breadth of children that can be reached and the amount of time children spend in school (Tanous et al., 2022). The present study hypothesized that appropriately planned physical activity (PA) intervention for pupils and during compulsory secondary school time results in healthier body weight management. Methods A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis (PRISMA) guidelines, a published protocol (Tanous et al., 2022), and a trial registration was completed on the International Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPEO: CRD4202347770). The databases searched (12/2021) included PubMed, Education Source, and EMBASE. Only school-based randomized controlled trial interventions on PA and/or diet published in English or German were included. The study population included pupils (10-19 years of age) enrolled in secondary schools and without major nutritional deficit or unstable health condition. The study sample was refined using exclusion criteria: (i) no outcome on body weight, body mass index (BMI), or self-reported, (ii) intervention groups only targeting overweight and/or obese pupils, (iii) interventions outside of regular school hours or implemented beyond the school setting, (iv) total intervention duration less than eight weeks, (v) branches of schools specializing on physical exercise/sports in general, and (vi) no control group. Title/abstract and full-text screening, data appraisal, and summary data extraction were completed by two reviewers. Results A total of 5,945 articles were identified by the search process, including 23 studies and 9,441 pupils (of which 4,787 males and 4,654 females) eligible for the analysis. PA interventions ranged from eight weeks to eight months and included jumping (n = 2), strength exercises (n = 3), cardiovascular endurance (n = 4), or a combination (n = 2). For PA intervention implemented in the secondary level school setting for at least eight weeks duration, a random effect size of -0.12 units (95% CI [-0.26. 0.02]) of BMI (kg/m2) was found with low statistical heterogeneity (I2 = 0%; p = 0.60). Discussion Due to the behavioral constraints of the school setting, children are denied from achieving the minimum level of health protection, which adversely contributes to the poor global health status with a major impact. Previous meta-analyses identified a small PA intervention effect for improving BMI in pupils (-0.02 kg/m2 and -0.05 kg/m2; Guerra et al., 2013; Harris et al., 2009) with considerable heterogeneity (I2 = 77% and 54%, respectively). The findings of the present investigation revealed a more precise effect measure than previous meta-analyses (Guerra et al., 2013; Harris et al., 2009) regarding the exclusive power of the secondary school setting over PA levels and the BMI health improvement possibility for pupils (-0.12 kg/m2). Conclusion PA intervention in secondary schools contributes to limited, yet beneficial body weight management for pupils in the ongoing global health crisis (Schroeder, 2007; Tanous et al., 2022). Considering the lack of formal organization at homes, schools are urged to achieve 60 minutes of PA daily.

Following in the Trail of Islamic State: The Rise of Media Platforms in the Jihadist Ecosystem

This article examines the role of media platforms in the jihadist propaganda ecosystem. It presents a case study of the Muntasir Media platform which achieved extensive media impact in Spain during the period 2018–19. A descriptive analysis is provided of the emergence, evolution and demise of the platform, which can be viewed as an archetypal illustration of the effect sought by Islamic State propaganda in extolling the work of media jihadists. The article argues that platforms have not only been essential for maintaining the visibility of the jihadist narrative but have also offered an attractive form of surrogate activism for radicalised individuals cut off from formal organisations.

The Seed Keepers

Seeds always presuppose cooperative arrangements of tending and care. Seeds are useful to think with because they connect the past, present, and future, carrying old biologies and inherited histories as well as genetic transformations and new possibilities. This essay traces a history of botanical classification in herbariums, photographs, and seed libraries in Palestine that stretches back to the nineteenth century. Through individuation and taxonomic ordering, colonial botanical archives isolated plants and people from history and vanished Palestinians from their land. The colonial archive's formal organization and orientation to preserving dead or disappearing objects also opens space to investigate the proliferation of archive-based artworks by contemporary Palestinian artists such as Larissa Sansour and Jumana Manna. Sansour and Manna's artworks demonstrate that the value of seeds lies in their cultivation, transformations, and local adaptations. The seed is an alternative archive that maintains the vitality of being in the world. The seed is well-suited to planting Palestinian futures that are living, growing, and changing.

Selection in molecular evolution

Evolution requires selection. Molecular/chemical/preDarwinian evolution is no exception. One molecule must be selected over another for molecular evolution to occur and advance. Evolution, however, has no goal. The laws of physics have no utilitarian desire, intent or proficiency. Laws and constraints are blind to “usefulness.” How then were potential multi-step processes anticipated, valued and pursued by inanimate nature? Can orchestration of formal systems be physico-chemically spontaneous? The purely physico-dynamic self-ordering of Chaos Theory and irreversible non-equilibrium thermodynamic “engines of disequilibria conversion” achieve neither orchestration nor formal organization. Natural selection is a passive and after-the-fact-of-life selection. Darwinian selection reduces to the differential survival and reproduction of the fittest already-living organisms. In the case of abiogenesis, selection had to be 1) Active, 2) Pre-Function, and 3) Efficacious. Selection had to take place at the molecular level prior to the existence of non-trivial functional processes. It could not have been passive or secondary. What naturalistic mechanisms might have been at play?

Linguopoetic analysis of V. M. Shukshin’s short story "The Visitant" (to the 95th anniversary of the birth)

The article studies the poetics of V. M. Shukshin’s short prose. The research aims to present a holistic linguopoetic analysis of a particular work and to describe the author’s image in it. The material for the study was the short story "The Visitant" dating back to the period of V. M. Shukshin’s later writings. The text was examined on the basis of a linguopoetic approach in conjunction with functional-immanent and retrospective-projective methods. The paper characterises the short story genre, analyses its formal and content organisation, compositional and speech structure, as well as the level of the linguistic means representing the narrator’s and the characters’ speech parts. The study has established that, from the standpoint of the genre characteristics, "The Visitant" is a novella. It is characterised by a succinct plot, laconic narrative, retrospective episodes that form the existential chronotope, a paradoxical situation, theatricality, controversial plot dynamics, an unexpected ending, and instantaneous insight into life. The analysis reveals that in the compositional and speech structure of the short story the dominant speech layer is the speech part of the character. It is represented by dialogue or internal dialogised monologue. The dialogue shapes the severity of the conflict between the characters, i. e. the bearers of different chronotopes. The narrator’s speech performs the function of a dramatic commentary remark. The article identifies the peculiarity of the manifestation of the author’s "I" in the story "The Visitant". The author’s image is characterised by dynamism, which is determined, on the one hand, by dialogue as the main form of speech, and on the other hand, by the narrator’s shifting across the spatiotemporal perspective of the text.

Development and Usability of a Mobile Support Application for Sexual Violence Victims Connecting With Formal Support Organizations.

The lack of awareness and accessibility about the support organizations for preventing sexual violence and assisting victims hampers the effectiveness of the social safety net. A mobile application based on a connection to support agencies was developed and evaluated for usability. A group of 15 experts and a group of 30 users evaluated usability. The developed mobile application focused on "Emergency Report," "Support Agencies and Services," and "Counseling for Support." The strength of the application was acknowledged in providing easy-to-find, reliable, useful, and necessary information, highlighting the positive usability and applicability of the mobile support application for sexual violence victims.

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY THROUGH IDENTIFICATION OF TANGIBLE AND INTANGIBLE ASSETS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF BARAN BURING TOURISM KAMPUNG

Suburban areas often experience development pressures, with implications for changing green space into built areas, rural cultures into urban ones, and poverty into prosperity. The development of Buring Kampong (suburban settlement) in Malang City into a tourism kampong, in addition to improving the local economy, must also be able to support environmental quality and community independence. This research used the Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) approach in identifying tangible and intangible assets. The data were collected through field observation, focused group discussion, interviews, and secondary data. Tangible aspects include land use, natural and artificial resources, infrastructure, accessibility, machinery and equipment, and local architecture. Meanwhile, intangible assets include intellectual property, potential branding development, goodwill, software/web, formal and informal organization, social and cultural values, and potential customers. The data obtained were presented descriptively and discussed together, as a triangulation process. The results showed the diversity and breadth of tangible and intangible assets of Baran village, and both of these assets can be directly found in the field and during FGDs and interviews. This research is also an effort to strengthen community engagement and public awareness about their assets, and this activity needs to be continuously improved, to have a better level of community engagement, confidence, social participation, branding, and networking.

Інституційний простір сфери оплати праці.

The problem of adequate performance of economic and social functions of labor remuneration and its compliance with the criteria of decent work is extremely relevant for Ukraine. The problem cannot be solved only by adjusting the existing and adopting new normative legal acts of labor law, since the corresponding legislative amendments must be accepted by the key parties to social and labor relations. The purpose of the article is to investigate the institutional environment in the field of labor remuneration in Ukraine in its various manifestations, to identify the most common institutional constructions, structures and practices that need correction and should become a priority object of state policy. The research was conducted using the methods of desk study. In the absence of official statistical data on the labor market and wages, indirect assessment methods were used based on available administrative data, materials of international organizations, results of sociological surveys, etc. The authors abandoned the traditional identification of institutions exclusively with formal organizations, which are mainly created by the government. The novelty is provided by the study of widespread informal institutional structures and practices, their main manifestations and socio-economic consequences. he study revealed that due to the low efficiency of controlling and punitive instruments of state regulation, several informal and implicit institutional structures have taken root in the institutional environment of the sphere of labor remuneration in addition to or instead of formal norms and rules, in particular, the shadowing of labor remuneration, labor remuneration based on individual agreements, unpaid overtime work, fictitious individual entrepreneurs, etc. Manifestations, main causes and consequences of the spread of informal practices are analysed. The impact of the full-scale military aggression against Ukraine on the labor market and labor force patterns in terms of working conditions and wages is assessed, and the risk of deepening shortage of workers for the needs of the post-war reconstruction is emphasized. The role of the government as the largest employer and the main transformations of the wage institution in the public sector are revealed. Conclusions have been made regarding the priority functions of the state in the sphere of wages, based on the need to ensure the resilience of the national economy.

Understanding Leadership in Formal Organizations: Insights from Qualitative Research

Understanding Leadership in Formal Organizations: Insights from Qualitative Research

The market of academic texts in Russia (according to a qualitative survey)

In Russia, there exists a market where academic texts are sold and bought, from student qualification papers to scientific articles and dissertations. Although its existence violates the formal norms and values of the scientific community, it functions sustainably. The authors analyze the established practices of writing academic texts on demand (with an emphasis on the study of the social behavior of actors) as part of a specific organizational field, a kind of market. The study is based on semi-structured interviews with six direct actors, so-called scriptors (or ghostwriters) and four experts representing NGOs in the field of science and higher education. Destructive entrepreneurship in the system of higher education and science is characterized as a complex system, the actors of which are not only informally “self-employed” scriptors, but also formal organizations that provide contact between customers and performers of academic work. The stability of quasi-scientific texts market in Russia is associated at the macro level with the high demand for higher education and scientific degrees as a status attribute, as well as with a significant supply from scientific and pedagogical workers, thus compensating for the limited opportunities for legal academic entrepreneurship by informal destructive entrepreneurship. At the meso level, the institutional conditions are the rigidity of Russian universities, which continue to be primarily educational institutions, where legal academic entrepreneurship of an innovative type is developing very modestly, and low salaries of staff members. At the micro level, it is an attempt to impose publication activity as the main criterion of academic success in conditions where a significant part of university staff perceive themselves as teachers, not researchers, and do not seek (or do not have the opportunity) to change this situation.

A Textual Analysis of Media Frames Toward Environmental Issues in India

Environmental sustainability and climate change are major geopolitical challenges today. Environmental protection is a global and local issue with few solutions. As governments around the world struggle with environmental politics, mass media organizations inform, advocate, and persuade for positive environmental change. Media reports, facts, and opinions on environmental issues shape public perceptions, so it’s important to evaluate their contexts. This paper examines how Indian news, documentaries, and social media frame environmental issues and how framing affects public perception. Study methods include qualitative comparative and thematic analysis. The environmental topics chosen for study are megacity air quality and pollution and, coastal city natural disasters and climate change. Language, image, and visual selection are evaluated in media frame construction. The study shows that cultural, political, and ideological biases shape these stories. The effectiveness and reach of different media, especially new media, can be compared. The report recommends several media strategies to improve environmental communication and eliminate fallacies like biased frames.

Dari Yogyakarta ke Pelosok Nagari: Aisyiyah dan Modernisasi Perempuan di Nagari Kubang (1930-1945)

This article aims to provide an overview of the establishment of Aisyiyah in Yogyakarta and its development and role in Kenagarian Kubang, Minangkabau, during the period of 1930-1945. The women's movement in Indonesia has undergone a long historical evolution, and during the national movement era, women had established formal organizations dedicated to improving their conditions at that time. These formal organizations were not only city-based but also village-based, as exemplified by the Aisyiyah Organization in Kubang. As an autonomous organization under Muhammadiyah, Aisyiyah was granted the authority to manage charitable activities in the social, religious, educational, and vocational fields. This article analyzes how Aisyiyah contributed to enhancing the welfare and education of women in Kubang, as well as its role in the social and religious movements in the region.

이원화 자치경찰제 추진을 위한 선결 과제

The autonomous police system is based on the premise that the quality of life of the residents can be improved by the police system for the residents, by the residents, and for the residents. Fundamental questions have been raised as to whether Korea's autonomous police system is being operated for the residents, but on the other hand, the current autonomous police system has been implemented after discussion and review of the autonomous police system for a considerable period of time. The autonomous police system is a system that pursues values contrary to the national police system, placing importance on democracy and procedurality rather than efficiency. The autonomous police system is an essential element in the decision-making process of residents aiming for grassroots democracy, and Korea's autonomous police system does not utilize the purpose of the autonomous police system in that it is implemented by determining the model and operation method centrally. In order to operate the autonomous police system, a blueprint to transfer much of the police power to local governments should have been presented, but due to the inefficiency of decentralized systems, confrontation between the two Koreas, and familiarity with the implementation of the national police system, a centralized national police system was maintained, and a formal police organization with limited responsibilities and authority was established in local governments and only some police duties closely related to residents' lives was carried out as an office manager. Despite various problems, the autonomous police system has become an irreversible trend of the times, and although it is insufficient, discussions continue as it contributes to improving the quality of life of residents by improving the problems. The Yoon Suk Yeol government, which was launched in May 2022, launched the “Police System Development Committee” under the Prime Minister in September of the same year and said that it would pilot the dual autonomous police system in Jeju, Sejong, Gangwon and Jeonbuk, but discussions were underway until February 2023 and have been suspended. Given that time is needed to overhaul legislation, implement new models, and improve complementary points, it is not easy to keep its pledge to fully implement the dual autonomous police system by 2026. There are both negative criticisms of the autonomous police system, which has been implemented from 2021 to 2024, as well as positive evaluations of the process of developing the autonomous police system as a transitional period. It is difficult to say that the “double-level” model, in which autonomous police organizations are operated separately from national police, immediately carries out practical autonomous police administration, but it can take on the shape of an autonomous police rather than a unified model. A form of incorporating the national police system centered on the autonomous police system was considered a hard landing plan, and a form of incorporating the autonomous police system centered on the national police system was suggested as a soft landing plan. As a hard landing plan, the full transfer of national police authority to local governments and the introduction of an election system for the chairman of the municipal and provincial autonomous police committees or police officers were proposed. As a soft landing plan, a bill should be enacted or revised to allow the dualization model to operate more efficiently, which should include organizational and operational aspects. The main contents will require the transfer of organization, manpower, and budget to local governments, and accordingly, organizations that can perform autonomous police affairs, such as the autonomous police committee and the autonomous police headquarters, should be reorganized.

Carla Lonzi och krisens kritik 1969-1970

Departing from the Italian critic, art historian, and feminist Carla Lonzi’s essay ”La critica è potere” (Critique is power) from 1970, this article discusses a crisis immanent to the concepts of art and history that dominated the late 1960s Italy. In line with Lonzi’s argumentation, this crisis resulted in what the communist Massimo Cacciari described as ”negative thinking” in 1969, and what Lonzi in her essay describes as a ”critique of the crisis”. Beyond a universal consciousness and its presupposed identities, as they were reproduced within the party form and at academic institutions during this period, artists, workers, and intellectuals turned away from formal organization, and to informal, collective practices. The separatist, decentralized and anti-authoritarian network Rivolta Femminile, founded by Lonzi in 1970, show how the subjects of crisis and critique emerge from a patriarchal and colonial regime of sexual repression.

Women in agroecology: inclusion, exclusion, and empowerment in Peru

ABSTRACT In Peru, formal and informal organizations are key actors in promoting agroecological farming and related social goals but struggle to make significant changes for gender equality. In this study, I seek to understand how organizations conceptualize their role in gender equality throughout project design, implementation, and presentation. While the organizations designed their projects around organizational change, the implementation and presentation of their work focused on improving financial security and agricultural literacy for individual women rather than systemic conditions. Despite this, their efforts underscored the importance of women’s contributions and furthered the conversation about gender in Peruvian agriculture.

Venture capital and the delegation of decision authority in startups: an exploratory study

AbstractWe study the delegation of authority over strategic decisions in startups and how it relates to venture capital (VC) investment through a mixed-methods study. We first show that startups typically centralize decision authority. The extent of delegation is higher if startups are VC-backed. In startups backed by corporate VC investors the aim is to leverage the unique knowledge possessed by entrepreneurial team members in a context characterized by low principal-principal agency costs. In those backed by independent VC investors, the increase in delegation is paired with the emergence of a polyarchy and decoupling between the formal and real organizations. In this situation delegation may serve as a control mechanism aligning the actions of startups with the interests of the VC investors.

Activism in the era of democratic backsliding: explaining the efficacy of the clean-air campaigns in Poland

ABSTRACT Recent scholarship on popular mobilization and activism in Central and East Europe suggests a shift from institutionalized civil society organizations towards grassroots mobilization. Whilst the emergence of such citizen-led activism across the region can be traced back to the anti-neoliberal urban movements that arose in the 2010s in the immediate post EU-accession period, the so-called “illiberal turn” and the legal restrictions placed on formal civil society organizations by radical right and conservative politicians have arguably exacerbated the shift and momentum. In Poland, the reaction of political elites to air pollution activism and the apparent responsiveness of policymakers is particularly puzzling given the “green conservatism” bordering on “environmental nativism” of the Law and Justice government (2015-2023). Building on semi-structured interviews conducted with 30 policymakers and activists involved in the clean air campaign in Poland, we contend that their success in terms of increased public awareness and positive government response is a consequence of the concurrence of (i) a particular (health) framing of air pollution, (ii) the devolution of power and responsibility for managing air quality to regional government, (iii) the circulation of new information and data, and (iv) the emergence of new actors and activist strategies.