Social Systems Framework Research Articles

Delivering sustainable development via social innovation: Cases of social entrepreneurship in South Korea and Singapore

AbstractSocial innovation is a useful mechanism to address unmet needs in local societies and tackle wicked problems through innovative products and services. Policymakers and practitioners have increasingly become interested in effective policies and strategies for facilitating social innovation to deliver sustainable development; however, a lack of coherent analytical framework persists. To address this gap, we propose the Social Innovation System framework, by adapting the Technological Innovation Systems approach widely used in innovation management and policy. Providing a holistic and comprehensive perspective to explore complex interactions among different actors and institutions involved in social innovation, our framework allows more systematic understanding of the development of social entrepreneurship and relevant ecosystems. We employ this framework to analyze social innovation ecosystems in South Korea and Singapore. The results indicate systemic challenges to overcome owing to the collective and interactive nature of social innovation.

Integrating spatial patterns and driving factors of cultural ecosystem services into territorial spatial governance: A case study of the Horqin Sandy Land with multi-ethnic settlements

Although the spatial patterns of cultural ecosystem services (CES) are often considered in land use management, there is a noticeable disparity in research coverage compared to biophysical ecosystem services (BES). Moreover, there is a lack of research focusing on human perceptions of CES. To address this gap, this study proposed a CES-BES framework that integrates spatial patterns, driving factors of CES, and their interactions with BES, based on the general framework of social and ecological systems. To alleviate the dual pressures of ecological degradation and cultural preservation, this study utilized the constructed CES-BES framework to offer land use recommendations aimed at promoting sustainable development in the Horqin Sandy Land. CES and BES were quantified through a combination of questionnaire surveys, SolVES model and process modeling, including aesthetic, biodiversity, cultural, economic, future, and historical values, as well as net primary productivity, crop production, wind protection, and sand fixation. The results revealed that CES in the Horqin Sandy Land exhibited a discernible pattern of "high in the west and low in the east." Notably, the factors perceived by respondents exerted a more substantial influence on CES than non-perceptual factors. Female respondents showed relatively lower sensitivity to CES overall, but higher sensitivity to biodiversity. Han respondents tended to prioritize biodiversity, while Mongolian respondents were more sensitive to cultural and historical values. Herders exhibited higher sensitivity to biodiversity, while respondents from other occupations showed higher sensitivity to cultural and future values. The influence of land use, topography, and accessibility on different CES was generally similar. All CES showed a positive correlation with elevation, slope, and distance to water, while they showed a negative correlation with distance to roads. Based on the results, the Horqin Sandy Land has been divided into five regions, with development recommendations provided for each region to ensure sustainable development. This study provides a novel perspective and methodological framework for CES supporting territorial spatial governance and land use management, contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of CES.

Block-Chain based Trustful Data-Driven Cyber-Physical Social System Framework for Urban Air Mobility

This paper provides an overview of existing research on urban mobility issues and highlights the importance of incorporating smart technologies, particularly in the context of introducing air-based transportation, to enhance the efficiency of urban mobility systems. The integration of air mobility will bring about increased complexities in managing urban transportation due to the growing volume of data, services, and infrastructure that governing bodies will have to handle. Urban air mobility infrastructure consists of interconnected and intricate systems that demonstrate the seamless integration of physical and software components. To address these complexities, the Cyber-physical social system (CPSS) is proposed as an effective approach to minimize complications within and between these subsystems. Establishing public-private partnerships and ensuring secure transactions are vital prerequisites for embracing current technological advancements and shaping the future of urban air mobility services. In this regard, blockchain technology emerges as a reliable protocol that guarantees the integrity of data exchanged among the decentralized network of stakeholders, eliminating the need for a trusted intermediary.

Research on the Construction of Social support System Framework of Sports Service for the Aged in the New Era

Through the documents, logic analysis and other methods of the study of the sports service social support system for the elderly in our country, the paper thinks that the sports service social support system for the elderly refers to by the government, social organizations or individuals through the formal and informal way, for the elderly sports services to provide social support, according to a certain order and contact formed the whole. Relevant responsibility subjects cover the government, communities, sports non-profit organizations, social workers, volunteer service teams. They mainly include formal social support system, informal social support system, professional social support system and community support system. In the future, philosophy reform should be adopted as soon as possible to guide the formulation of relevant policies, and on the basis of giving full play to the leading role of the government, a social support system for sports services for the elderly with Chinese characteristics should be constructed. Through multiple cooperation, an effective supply of sports services for the elderly in China should be realized.

A fairness-aware graph contrastive learning recommender framework for social tagging systems

Personalized recommendations for social tagging systems aim to deliver high-quality recommendations for users and annotate meaningful characteristics on items. However, compared to some state-of-the-art general recommender systems, current tag-aware recommender systems (TRS) have no advantage in either performance or efficiency. We discover that tagging information not only boost performance, but also promote fairness caused by biased data. In our work, we propose a fairness-aware graph contrastive learning framework named Tag-aware Graph Contrastive Learning (TAGCL). The design of its graph structure is composed of two bipartite graphs: user-tag graph and item-tag graph. Leveraging contrastive learning paradigm, our proposed TAGCL is able to encode stable and high-quality representations. In the fairness-aware learning, we jointly optimize the model through negative tag learning and TransT regularization. Extensive experiments on three public datasets and two sizable real-world datasets show that TAGCL outperforms some state-of-the-art general recommender methods and TRS in terms of accuracy of recommendations and dramatically reduces bias on some heavily skewed dataset. We also carry out comprehensive ablation studies to verify the validity of our proposed framework.

Economic Innovation Caused by Digital Transformation and Impact on Social Systems

The purpose of this study is to review studies on innovation and identify factors that affect the acceleration of digital economic innovation. This study also analyzes the impact of economic innovation on social systems. A systematic literature review method was used to analyze the findings of extant studies on digital transformation and economic growth. Results indicate that different drivers trigger economic innovation in different times. Our analyses reveal that digital economic innovation results in changes in the industrial structure and helps productivity improvement and cost reduction in the production sector. Results show that the impact of economic innovation on technology and society spheres interacts with economic innovation. This study contributes to the literature by providing a comprehensive framework of how economic innovation and social systems are connected and how technology, economy, society, and policy sectors coevolve within the enormous framework of social systems.

Этничность и традиция в меняющихся коммуникационных контекстах: взгляд через «галактики» Гутенберга, Маклюэна и Цукерберга

The article analyzes the phenomena of ethnicity and tradition in the context of the development of society from the traditional type to the globalised one. In the conducted analysis of various approaches to their interpretation, the vulnerable positions of such trends as primordialism, constructivism, and instrumentalism are considered. As an alternative, helping to eliminate controversial points, an attempt is made to use the theories of M.G. Мakljuen and M. Castells. Application of the paradigm of informationalism provides an opportunity to use the optics of communication to analyse the transformation of the semantic and functional content of the cultural/ethnic tradition in the life of society. The influence of the evolution of mass media on the existence of a cultural tradition can be traced within the framework of various social systems: a primitive tribal community and an agrarian society; industrial and post-industrial; globalized and digital society. A comparative analysis of the characteristic features of the social development of each of the types of societies is intended to reveal the factors influencing the transformation of the functional and semantic continuum of traditional/ethnic culture in different eras. Among essential aspects of these changes are the following: changing the role and function of traditional culture in the life of society; transformation of subject-object relations in the communication field that forms ideas about ethnicity and tradition. This, in turn, significantly affects the identification processes at the personal and group levels of the modern society.

Transport infrastructure of Spain as a factor in tourism development


 
 
 This article considers features of functioning of a modern transport network. Transport is an important area of infrastructure supply for the population and the state economy, the key function of which is the movement of people and goods. The current transport complex is subject to contradictory trends: as an infrastructure industry, transport is located in a position dependent on the production of social goods, and as a special sector of the economy, transport has an important impact on the regional location of production capacity and participates in the process of reproduction part of the system of economic relations. The importance of transport infrastructure in the economy, its development and operating conditions are difficult to overestimate. After all, it is the basis of the supporting framework of territorial social systems of any level. On the current state, level and opportunities for the development of the transport infrastructure depends not only the social and economic growth of territorial economic systems, but also their spatial development. Tourism plays a significant role in the development of transport infrastructure. Europe is one of the most attractive regions for tourists in the world. In turn, Spain is one of the most popular destinations for tourists from around the world as well as for European tourists. Spain plays an important role in tourist traffic in Europe. This is facilitated by its efficient transport and geographical location, developed production infrastructure, as well as historical aspects. Spain is a key country of transit by air and sea with the Americas. The flat terrain promotes the development of road and rail passenger transport across the centre of the country. And given the attractiveness to tourists and direction of tourist flows to the regions of the country, the study of geographical features of transport infrastructure is quite relevant. The peculiarities of the functioning and formation of the transport infrastructure of Spain are considered. The geographical features of the development of the infrastructure of railway, road and sea and air transport of Spain are analyzed. As for the terminals in the regions of Spain, their number also corresponds to the number of airports. Therefore, the largest number of terminals is in the Canary Islands – 9 (all airports have one terminal, except Lanzarote). There are 8 terminals in the airports of Andalusia, where all airports except Malaga have one terminal, in Malaga there are three. The two Madrid airports have 6 terminals, but 5 of them are located at the country's main airport – Madrid-Barajas. Catalonia's airports have 5 terminals, two of which are located in Barcelona El Prat. There are 4 terminals in Galicia – one each in Vigo and La Coruna and two in Santiago de Compostela. There are 4 terminals in Galicia – one each in Vigo and La Coruna and two in Santiago de Compostela. In all other regions, the number of terminals is proportional to the number of airports. An assessment of the level of development of transport infrastructure for tourism in the regions of Spain was conducted. On the basis of quantitative indicators of the analysis of the transport infrastructure of Spain, a point assessment of the level of development of the transport infrastructure of the country’s regions for the needs of tourism was carried out. Administrative units are divided into 5 groups: with the highest, high, sufficient, medium and low level of development of transport infrastructure for tourism. Transport infrastructure is most developed in the tourist regions of the country – Catalonia, Andalusia, Madrid, the Canary and Balearic Islands.
 
 

Support policies for dependent older adults: Europe and Brazil.

This theoretical essay discusses long-term care policies for dependent older adults. It aims to analyze the content and strategies that guided the formulation of the so-called "dependence policies" in some European states, seeking guidance to formulate actions related to the same issue in the Brazilian case. The knowledge bases are official documents and scientific papers analyzing the institutionalized proposals. The study shows that all the countries investigated included dependence policies within their social security system framework. Some offer total protection, while others only partial protection to older adults and family caregivers. However, older adults and their caregivers never fail to receive the care they need. In Brazil, some local experiences meet comprehensive care requirements. Initiatives of Belo Horizonte and São Paulo are narrated, and while important, they are not policies. They are successful cases that can evolve to increase social awareness or simply disappear as non-institutionalized experiences. The issue addressed in this paper is very relevant, due to the inexorable fact of the accelerated growth of the long-lived population, which requires care from others the most.

Implementing capacity development for disaster risk reduction as a social learning system

Climate change can lead to changes in the frequency, intensity, spatial extent, duration and timing of weather extremes, which pose disaster risks to exposed and vulnerable communities. Capacity development is a common disaster risk reduction (DRR) action and a climate change adaptation. There is a knowledge gap on what is involved in and what works in practice of bottom-up approaches to develop DRR capacity that incorporates local ownership, local knowledge and learning. The participatory research described in this paper applied Wenger's conceptual framework for social learning systems to establish a community of practice (CoP) for DRR between 2016 and 2017 in Maruleng Local Municipality, South Africa. Planning documents, event and reflection notes, office reports and artefacts were initially coded based on key concepts of the framework and further coded based on emerging sub-themes. The results showed that the framework provided a useful structure for designing capacity development that emphasises learning and organically integrates local knowledge. Structuring capacity development as a social learning system has the potential to make the CoP's learning effort self-sustaining and shift the focus of capacity development from a specific task to a long-term common interest shared by CoP members. The framework, however, did not provide adequate consideration for institutional challenges such as high leadership turnover and limited political power of the CoP, which impacted alignment, mutuality and membership – all of which are important to sustaining the CoP for capacity development.

Placing self-assessed health within the systems framework: a preliminary insight into social synergy and syntony

Abstract The issue of self-assessed health (SAH) has been discussed within the scope of multiple interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary studies, gathering the attention and interest of scholars from various fields of study. Emerged at the confluence of subjective and objective measurements, the construct has triggered controversies and debates on its relevance and reliability, yet it is employed in many analyses as a pertinent reference point for individuals’ perceptions regarding their health status or wellbeing. Starting from these considerations, the current study aims to move the discussion further, by placing SAH in a broader argumentative perspective, as a multivalent process dependent on a myriad of individual, social, environmental, digital, etc. factors apposite to complex social systems. Therefore, the specific contribution intended via this approach is the advancement of a preliminary outlook on SAH within the social systems framework with a special emphasis on synergy and syntony. Against the backdrop of a conceptual undertaking, several factors are brought forward – i.e., environmental factors such as housing, neighborhood, residence and social (interactional) factors such as digital exposure, face-to-face communication, and social trust – hewing the path for future in-depth investigations on the topic.

Towards a Knowledge-Driven Framework of Cyber-Physical Social System for Multidimensional Urban Mobility

This paper focuses on the proposed generic framework of Cyber-Physical Social Systems (CPSS) for Multidimensional Urban Mobility (MUM). The introduction of air mobility will increase the complexity of urban mobility management due to the increase of data (real-time information exchange), services, and infrastructure. This paper first summarizes the shift of the smart mobility and associated concerns and emphasizes the smart technologies to be introduced for efficient deployment of the MUM. Afterwards, the state-of-the-art on CPSS present the details of the research work in the context of CPSS data management process and challenges related with data. In conclusion, a framework to address the various challenges associated with the data paradigm is proposed.

Characterizing Regenerative Aspects of Living Root Bridges

Living root bridges (LRBs) are functional load-bearing structures grown from Ficus elastica by rural Khasi and Jaintia communities in Meghalaya (India). Formed without contemporary engineering design tools, they are a unique example of vernacular living architecture. The main objective of this study is to investigate to what extent LRBs can be seen as an example of regenerative design. The term "regenerative" describes processes that renew the resources necessary for their function. Whole systems thinking underpins regenerative design, in which the integration of human and non-human systems improves resilience. We adapted the living environments in natural, social, and economic systems (LENSES) framework (living environments in natural, social, and economic systems) to reflect the holistic, integrated systems present in LRBs. The regenerative / sustainable / degenerative scale provided by LENSES Rubrics is applied to 27 focal points in nine flow groups. Twenty-two of these points come from LENSES directly, while five were created by the authors, as advised by the LENSES framework. Our results show 10 focal points in which LRBs are unambiguously regenerative. One focal point is unambiguously sustainable, while 16 are ambiguous, showing regenerative, sustainable, and degenerative aspects. User perspective determines how some focal points are evaluated. The contrast between a local, indigenous perspective and a global, tourism-focused perspective is demonstrated by the results.

Part B: The Role of Substantive Equality in Shaping Transformative Social Protection in South Africa into the Digital Platform Work

ABSTRACT This is a conceptual paper which is exploring the adaptation of social protection for digital platform workers in Souths Africa within the realm of substantive equality. The paper examines how a substantive conception of equality can contribute toward shaping social protection in South Africa into the digital work era where a new form of work is emerging which does not fit into the framework of traditional contributory social protection systems.

Factors influencing quality of life in African-American dementia dyads

Objective: Both caregivers and the older adults they care for can experience declines in quality of life (QOL) over the course of the dementia trajectory. Little research has examined QOL in African-American caregivers and even less in African-American persons with dementia (PWDs), making it difficult to identify associated factors.Method: Guided by the Negro Family as a Social System framework, a secondary data analysis was used to examine the influence of family structure, instrumental and expressive role functions on QOL in a sample of 62 African-American dementia dyads (i.e. African-American PWDs and their African-American caregivers). Dyadic data were analyzed using multilevel modeling to control for the interdependent nature of the data.Results: On average, African-American PWDs reported significantly worse QOL than African-American caregivers. Within African-American dementia dyads, QOL covaried. African-American PWDs experienced significantly worse QOL when their caregiver was a non-spouse and they themselves perceived less involvement in decision-making. In addition, African-American caregivers experienced significantly worse QOL when they reported greater dyadic strain with the African-American PWD and were non-spouses of African-American PWDs.Conclusion: Findings suggest understanding the interpersonal characteristics (e.g., dyadic relationship, family structure and role functions) of dyads may hold promise for improving their QOL.

Conflict between nature reserves and surrounding communities in China: An empirical study based on a social and ecological system framework

The conflicts between nature reserves and surrounding communities are attracting growing attention. These conflicts, through complexities of resource, socio-economic, and governance conditions, are produced through interactive processes. We report a case study of Taibai Mountain National Nature Reserve in Shaanxi, China, where we employ Ostrom's Social and Ecological System framework and conflict theory, in context of a high motivation of investment in rural China. The results reveal that social and ecological systems in each of the three examined villages were varied with respect to natural resource systems and units, actors, governance, and degrees of reserve-village conflicts. The competing interests of using reserve resources for both conservation and tourism generated a high level of conflict in Hetaoping Village. Changhushan village showed low levels of conflict. This was due to a polycentric governance system with strong self-organization and networking processes, along with well-planned investment and rational harvesting of natural resources outside the nature reserve. This allowed Changhushan to utilize their resources in multiple ways, with relatively lower conflict. Dali village had medium level of conflict. Upon the reserve's creation, the government had included the village's forest within the reserve without feasible economic compensation or effective means of conflict resolution. These decisions have severely limited the capacity of the current nature reserve administration. Our study indicated that nature reserves and their surrounding villages could coexist well when polycentric governance played roles in both curbing emerging conflicts and solving existing ones. We discuss policy implications to foster environmentally friendly economies and polycentric governance for all village's social and ecological systems.

A Social Systems Approach to Self‐assessed Health and Its Determinants in the Digital Era

Placing self‐assessed health (SAH) and its determinants within a social systems framework, the current paper aims to investigate the influences of individual characteristics, environmental and socio‐economic factors on the way people rate their own health. The multiplexity and dynamics of social structures are examined through the lens of the digital era, which exerts a substantive impact on the individuals' appraisal of reality and capacity of adjusting to the unfolding of the world. Thus, given the digital‐centric environment contextualizing the activity of white‐collar workers, the study scrutinizes SAH and its determinants based on over 54 000 observations. The findings support the inferred relationships, supporting that SAH is determined by multifield variables to a great extent. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Uncoordination of China’s social assistance program resources and policy solutions

With the promulgation and implementation of Social Assistance Interim Measures, China has basically established the social assistance system framework with Dibao, Three-nos people support and disaster relief as the basis, with housing aid, medical aid ,education aid and employment aid as the support and with temporary assistance and charity help as the supplement. The establishment of various social assistance programs undoubtedly aims to fulfil different demands of urban and rural neddy people, however,the increase of social asistance programs does not necessarily bring about an increase in the effectiveness of social assistance. This paper analyzes the uncoordination of China’s social assistance program resources and put forward related policy solutions.

INVESTMENT ATTRACTIVENESS OF AGRICULTURAL SECTOR OF UKRAINIAN REGION IN MODERN CONDITIONS OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

It is proved that investment attractiveness of regions is an indisputable factor in the stable socioeconomic development of the country. The purpose of the study is to analyse investment attractiveness of region and to substantiate proposals for improving investment attractiveness of Cherkasy region. The subject of the study was peculiarities of formation and expansion of investment potential in the region. Methodology. The paper is based on the views of prominent domestic and foreign economists. During the research process, the following methods were used: monographic, historical, analysis and synthesis (in theoretical and empirical studies of investment process); systematic (for the systematization of methodological approaches and indicators of investment attractiveness assessment of the region); statistical and graphics (for the analysis of state and trends of investment processes in Ukraine); comparative (for analysing the investment attractiveness of regions). Results. The essence of investment attractiveness of region as aggregate characteristic of conditions of a certain territory of the country is determined, which includes assessment of development level of investment infrastructure, human capital, financial opportunities, which significantly affect the formation of profitability of invested fixed assets and investment risks. Investment attractiveness of an individual region of Ukraine is assessed. It is proved that investigated region is investment-attractive and has a powerful potential for increasing the volume of gross agricultural products and providing the population with quality food products. Practical implications. The main problems connected with the receipt of investments into the economy of the region are determined, ways of their solution are revealed. In order to improve investment attractiveness level of Cherkasy region, we recommend local authorities to work in the following areas: introduction of free funds accumulation mechanism, in particular, in venture funds; creation of innovative risks insurance system; accumulation of public funds within the framework of social and pension insurance systems and their focus on long-term lending of investment activity; strengthening investment activity of population and ensuring guaranteed protection of their savings.

Assessing the diversity of values and goals amongst Brazilian commercial-scale progressive beef farmers using Q-methodology

This paper analyses the diversity of goals and values amongst 26 Brazilian commercial-scale beef farmers previously identified as exhibiting progressive technology adoption behaviours, and considers the implications for the agricultural innovation system (AIS). Following the Q-methodology guidelines, four main sets of goals and values were identified and labelled: the Professional Farmer (PF), the Committed Environmentalist (CE), the Profit Maximiser (PM) and the Aspirant Top Farmer (ATF). All farmer types believed in operating the farm as a business and agreed with the notion that cattle production and nature conservation are compatible. The PF aimed to run the farm professionally, based on sound technical and managerial practices. The CE put a particularly strong emphasis on the long-term sustainability of the farming system. The PM focused on technical issues to pursue economic returns and efficiency, thereby also creating space for lifestyle objectives. The ATF sought physical farm and livestock excellence, was growth oriented, and sought recognition by peers. These four typologies have implications for the farmers' technology adoption and its promotion, e.g. they are likely to influence the uptake of particular types of innovations, and reinforce the importance of considering AIS within a social systems framework. This is the first Q-methodology study to demonstrate considerable diversity of values and goals within a subset of technology-adopting progressive farmers, with implications within agricultural innovation systems for the integration of goal diversity and adoption theory.