Idiosyncratic Features Research Articles

Examining the connection between resourcefulness and resilience: Analysis of UK rural SME firm-level enterprise characteristics

The ability of rural enterprises to withstand external shocks has been examined at regional and sectoral levels using extensive evidence bases. However, little is known of rural SMEs' resourcefulness and how this can affect their resilience. Rural SMEs have been exposed to severe operational disruptions in the face of recent internal and external shocks caused by turbulent events such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Analysis suggests SME resilience is not sector-wide and depends on enterprises' behaviour, entrepreneurial activity and ability to manage existing resources: a process generally known as ‘bricolage’. This paper examines the connection between resourcefulness of rural SMEs and their resilience capacity. Data from an extensive cross-sectional survey of rural SMEs in the UK was used in a multivariate analysis to create a typology of rural SMEs based on resourcefulness measured by behaviours such as social networking. Rural SME enterprise types are then compared against variables indicating resilient performance during the pandemic. Four rural SME enterprise types emerge from the analysis, each with different strategic behaviours and resilience performance attributes. The typology underscores the importance of resourcefulness in SME resilience and argues that resilience goes beyond regional or sectoral contexts and has to do with idiosyncratic features and individual characteristics. The analysis emphasises the importance of supporting and enhancing resourcefulness capabilities in resilience planning and provides a valuable baseline for further in-depth research on understanding rural SMEs' ability to be resilient in times of crisis.

Empirically testing for niche sports

ABSTRACT Although niching has been well explored across the marketing, strategy, and consumer behaviour literature, its application in the sport context to date has been atheoretical, resulting in pervasive inconsistencies within the sport marketing literature. Such inconsistency has derived from sport scholarship’s adoption of anecdotal and subjective descriptions of “niche sports.” This shortcoming is addressed first through an analysis of extant niche literature, to articulate a conceptual framework to realign and guide future niche marketing sport research. This framework is underpinned by marketing’s empirical generalisations and Dirichlet modelling, offering a parsimonious methodology to identify niche brands. An analysis of Australian sport participation is then performed, to empirically test for the presence of niche sports utilising the advocated framework. Data was obtained from Australia’s large-scale national population tracking survey AusPlay, with a final sample of 70,858 respondents and included 124 discrete sport and recreational activities. The empirical analysis reveals several sports and recreation activities to exhibit characteristics of niche positioning: Crossfit, Mixed Martial Arts, Equestrian, and Walking. These activities feature a base of participants who exhibit an exceedingly high participation frequency, elevated rates of sole loyalty to the respective activity and a disposition for the chosen activity to fulfil a disproportionate share of their overall product category requirements. In practice, such niche sport brands require divergent marketing strategies focused upon product quality, maintaining customer relationships and reinforcing internal dynamic capabilities. The study concludes with a discussion of niche sport’s potential idiosyncratic features, to provide a roadmap for future research.

Preluding on the harp in the late 18th and early 19th centuries

Abstract The practice of improvised or apparently improvised preludes has been widely documented over the centuries. Harpists of the late 18th and early 19th centuries were widely expected to introduce pieces of music with improvised preludes. This article shows how harpists drew techniques from thoroughbass treatises and keyboard repertory. Harpists also created their own idiosyncratic features for preludes, using the idiomatic characteristics of their instrument (refined arpeggios, hand-crossings, harmonic sounds) while using the harp’s pedals to expand the harmonic and chromatic palette of the repertory. The article also shows how formulaic figuration and harmonic patterns were used as building blocks for improvised and composed preludes, and as elements in the education of harpists.

Labour market tightness in the post-COVID-19 era

Since 2020, the labour market in advanced economies has shown resilience against successive supply-side shocks. High job vacancy rates and historically low unemployment, despite a recent weakening of economic growth, imply a lower sensitivity of the labour market to changes in the business cycle, underscoring the need to re-evaluate labour market tightness, as it could increase the risks of wage-price spirals and more restrictive monetary policy. Ιn the present paper, we analyse the degree of labour market tightness and its implications for wages, inflation and monetary policy in two large open economies, the US and the euro area, and in a small open economy, Greece, that has undergone substantial labour market reforms, to explore whether post-pandemic labour market developments have common or idiosyncratic features. We find that policy support measures to address the pandemic and the energy crisis have decoupled unemployment from cyclical fluctuations, with the gap narrowing in 2023. Labour market tightness in the post-pandemic era has mainly been driven by a robust increase in labour demand, while labour supply has reverted to or exceeded pre-pandemic levels in the US, the euro area and Greece. Real compensation per employee lags labour productivity levels in all three economies, whereas it remains below its pre-pandemic level in the euro area and Greece. This suggests that the economies in question could tolerate some further catch-up in real wages in the short term without experiencing inflation.

A universal exponent governing foreign exchange rate risks

Departing from previous studies, this paper uses power laws to model foreign exchange rate risks in terms of realized foreign exchange rate (FX) variances for daily and weekly data. Empirical tests based on daily data provide strong evidence for emergent market risk behavior manifested in a common power-law exponent governing the cross section of realized FX variances. We show that this emergent market risk behavior is invariant across various time frequencies. Based on modern bootstrapping techniques, we derive a novel joint test for investigating the presence of total invariance—that is, invariance of emergent market risk behavior across time frequencies and over time. Our novel test provides strong evidence for total invariance of realized FX variances. We argue that the results are in line with the theory of complex systems—that is, even though FX risk exhibits idiosyncratic features that may originate from market-distinct factors (inflation, interest rates, public debts, etc.), emergent market behavior manifests itself in a universal power-law exponent governing the cross section of FX risks.

Classification of Scientific Papers based on their Nature and Format

The effective categorization and classification of scientific papers based on their nature and format are vital due to the extensive volume of published scientific literature. This research endeavors to delve into the intricate realm of classifying scientific papers, concentrating on discerning categories such as dissertations, scientific articles, theses, and other pertinent types. By meticulously examining the unique attributes, objectives, and structural elements inherent in each paper type, this study aims to furnish researchers, students, and readers with a comprehensive comprehension of the diverse assortment of scientific papers and their idiosyncratic features. Moreover, this article deliberates upon the significance of accurate classification with regard to proficient literature retrieval, knowledge dissemination, and academic publication. Additionally, it scrutinizes the conceivable challenges and deliberations involved in formulating classification systems for scientific papers, encompassing the dynamic nature of scientific communication and the emergence of alternative formats such as preprints and data papers. By augmenting our grasp of scientific paper classification, this research contributes to the enhancement of accessibility, organization, and utilization of scientific knowledge.

The unique neural signature of your trip: Functional connectome fingerprints of subjective psilocybin experience.

The emerging neuroscientific frontier of brain fingerprinting has recently established that human functional connectomes (FCs) exhibit fingerprint-like idiosyncratic features, which map onto heterogeneously distributed behavioral traits. Here, we harness brain-fingerprinting tools to extract FC features that predict subjective drug experience induced by the psychedelic psilocybin. Specifically, in neuroimaging data of healthy volunteers under the acute influence of psilocybin or a placebo, we show that, post psilocybin administration, FCs become more idiosyncratic owing to greater intersubject dissimilarity. Moreover, whereas in placebo subjects idiosyncratic features are primarily found in the frontoparietal network, in psilocybin subjects they concentrate in the default mode network (DMN). Crucially, isolating the latter revealed an FC pattern that predicts subjective psilocybin experience and is characterized by reduced within-DMN and DMN-limbic connectivity, as well as increased connectivity between the DMN and attentional systems. Overall, these results contribute to bridging the gap between psilocybin-mediated effects on brain and behavior, while demonstrating the value of a brain-fingerprinting approach to pharmacological neuroimaging.

Nazarin Tsarin Sauti a Hausar Yamma

Dialectology is an area of linguistics that is concerned with the studies of similarities and differences in speech forms of a particular language. Dialectologists are more interested in studying the relationship existing in speech forms of a language instead of their differences, thus, the relationship is what assists greatly in maintaining mutual intelligibility among the speakers of the same language. Scholars of Hausa dialectology have classified Hausa regional dialects into two major divisions of Eastern and Western Hausa dialects. The divisions were based on the geographical locations and common linguistic features of the dialects that constituted each of the major groups. A regional dialect can be distinguished with another in a particular language at different levels of linguistic studies that include; phonetics, phonology, morphology syntax and the lexicon. This paper is concerned with the phonological variation of Western Hausa dialects. The aim of this paper among other things is to bring to the limelight some neglected Hausa Western dialects that were merged or not included in the earlier division of Hausa dialects classification. The paper attempts to some extent, to study the linguistic features of the Western Hausa dialects as at the present time. The Western Hausa dialects that were brought to the limelight in this paper are: Zamfarci, Kabanci, Arauci, Gobirci, and Adaranci Western dialects of Hausa. The paper has studied the common phonological features of these dialects that shared a regional boundary in the western part of Hausa land which was earlier considered as a single Hausa dialect of Sakkwatanci. A research survey was conducted among a number of speakers in different regions of these dialects through a questionnaire and recorded interviews to establish the existence of the dialects as well as their common features and differences that make them dialects of one language. The research was also guided by a theory of Generative Phonology and Dialectology in Generative Grammar. Findings of the research discovered that the western dialects have common phonological features and share boundaries with each other despite the fact that they have some idiosyncratic features that distinguish them as separate dialects.

Fearing the Gods?

After some introductory remarks on current approaches to curse tablets, this article focuses on the defixiones from Britannia, analyzing the idiosyncratic features of this corpus to demonstrate how the island’s inhabitants adopted and then adapted this magico-religious technology. In particular, it examines a group of curses in which the name of the practitioner is clearly stated. This specific piece of information has been understood by previous scholarship as a reflection of the fearlessness that these practitioners (who were supposedly asking for something fair) felt towards the gods. Nevertheless, this article interprets the use of names as a reflection of the perception that these practitioners had of the god’s omniscience. Additionally, this research also takes into account the context where these artefacts were deposited and the array of rituals that took place in those spaces. Tellingly, most of the curse tablets from Britannia with this feature (i.e. the name of the practitioner) come from sanctuaries and shrines, a context that could have promoted different ways for practitioners to conceive of the cursing ritual and the types of relationship that it created between the author of the curse and the invoked deity.

Features of L.E. Ulitskaya's idiosyncrasy and the problem of its interlanguage transmission (based on the material of originals and translations into English of L.E. Ulitskaya's works "Medea and her Children", "Daniel Stein, translator")

The purpose of the study is to consider various definitions and approaches to the concept of idiostyle. To identify and describe the characteristic features of the idiostyle of L.E. Ulitskaya's works "Medea and her Children", "Daniel Stein, translator", as well as to compare the original texts of the novels with their translation and determine whether the idiostyle is preserved when translating these works of L.E. Ulitskaya into English. To analyze which translation techniques were used to convey the idiostyle. The purpose of the study identified the following tasks: firstly, to define the concepts of idiostyle and idiolect; secondly, to consider the difference between the concepts of idiostyle and idiolect; thirdly, to identify the features that form the idiostyle of L.E.Ulitskaya; fourthly, to consider the features of translation, the elements that form the idiostyle. The subject of the study is the idiosyncrasy and the features that form the idiosyncrasy of the works under consideration. The object of the analysis is the semantic means and grammatical structures that form the idiostyle, and the features of their translation into English. The comparative method allows us to determine whether national cultural components are preserved in translation, whether the phrases of greeting and farewell in letters change, whether the realities of Russian culture are conveyed in the texts of translations. The method of contextual analysis consists in the study of fragments of novels, and in the study of the functional specificity of words in the context used. The scientific novelty lies in the identification of idiosyncratic features based on the comparison of L.E. Ulitskaya's novels "Medea and her Children", "Daniel Stein, translator". The theoretical and practical significance is due to the possibility of applying the research results and conclusions in further development of issues of preserving idiostyle in translation, determining the content of lectures and practical classes in stylistics, linguoculturology, as well as in the construction of courses "Linguistic text analysis" and "Theory and practice of translation". As a result of the research, the most striking elements that form the idiosyncrasy of L.E.Ulitskaya were identified, namely: the use of proper names in the titles of novels, as well as letters in the texts of works, the use of phrases of greeting and farewell, rhetorical questions, anthroponyms, metaphors, repetitions.

Generating impactful situated explanations through digital trace data

Progressively, information systems (IS) researchers draw on digital trace data to capture the emergent dynamics of today’s digitalized world. Digital trace data enable researchers to generate highly context-specific insights into the features and dynamics of socio-technical phenomena. We suggest how IS researchers can use digital trace data to develop situated explanations, that is, explanations that capture the idiosyncratic features of real-world problems in order to generate impactful solutions to these problems. We outline five key principles to build situated explanations based on digital trace data. We make several suggestions on how the information system field can adjust its research and publication practices to embrace the development and dissemination of situated explanations.

Like the swing of the pendulum: The history of government-sponsored rural settlements in São Paulo, Brazil (1820s–1920s)

ABSTRACT This paper studies the history of government-sponsored rural settlements in the province/state of São Paulo, Brazil, as a pendular movement, whose points of reversion depended on the interests of a landowning elite to obtain labour for newly expanding plantations from the 1820s to the 1920s. Faltering infrastructure and ill-defined property rights over public lands were persistent constraints to the development of such rural settlements. Part of this failure can be attributed to a lack of State capacity and part to the opposition of plantation owners to the settling of independent smallholdings. The paper complements this historical-institutional analysis with a quantitative description of such settlements in 1898–1920. These late government-sponsored rural settlements showed the potential to grow in demographic and economic terms and had an overall demographic and occupational composition well aligned with the goal of creating a family-based peasantry. However, there were enormous heterogeneities in ethno-linguistic composition, educational attainment, and economic prosperity between and within such rural settlements, which point to idiosyncratic features that should be taken into account in future research assessing the short- and long-run effects of immigration and settlement policies in Brazil.

Gaining in impacts by leveraging the policy mix: Evidence from the European Cohesion Policy in more developed regions

AbstractThis paper investigates how the overall impact of the European Cohesion Policy depends on the composition of the regional investment in Hard (infrastructure) and Soft (business and technical support) projects. The study employs a generalized propensity score (GPS) analysis in a multidimensional treatment context. In particular, the two dimensions considered are given by the Hard and Soft investments. The GPS estimation is based on a set of relevant idiosyncratic features of the regions. The second step estimates a dose–response function in a two‐dimensional setting. The results confirm the existence of nonlinearities in the effect of different amounts of funds, but more importantly, show a degree of complementarity between Hard and Soft investment and that for policymakers, it is crucial to exploit such features to achieve more significant impact. The EU's more developed regions could have achieved a doubled GDP p.c. growth rate by pursuing a policy mix where Hard investments are reduced in favor of Soft investments. This improvement is comparable to the one obtained by at least doubling the available resources. The findings add to the evidence collected on the impact of the Cohesion Policy, suggesting a shift of the debate from the quantity to the quality of the expenditure pursued under the umbrella of territorial policies.

Dynamic capabilities and environmental performance: all in the family

PurposeThis study adopts the dynamic capabilities perspective to analyze environmental performance in family firms and explores the moderating effects that both family involvement in the Top Management Team (TMT) and long-term orientation (LTO) exert on the relationship between dynamic capabilities and environmental performance.Design/methodology/approachThe authors test the hypotheses on a database of 748 family tourism firms, using hierarchical regression analysis.FindingsThe authors' results show that both variables have a beneficial effect on building the dynamic capabilities to be applied to improving environmental performance. However, the moderating effect of family involvement is revealed to be more complex than that of LTO. Having a high degree of family managerial involvement positively moderates the effect of dynamic capabilities on environmental performance but only in family firms with highly-developed dynamic capabilities; conversely, in family firms with lower levels of dynamic capabilities not having this family involvement in the TMT is better.Originality/valueThis study helps advance the research on Spanish family tourism firms by adopting an approach that unveils the heterogeneity in dynamic capabilities among said firms, driven by the firms' idiosyncratic features in terms of family involvement in the TMT and their LTO. The article also provides practical insights for family business owners, managers and advisors and outlines important directions for future research.

Feeding the fever: Complex host-pathogen dynamics along continuous resource gradients.

Food has long been known to perform dual functions of nutrition and medicine, but mounting evidence suggests that complex host-pathogen dynamics can emerge along continuous resource gradients. Empirical examples of nonmonotonic responses of infection with increasing host resources (e.g., low prevalence at low and high resource supply but high prevalence at intermediate resources) have been documented across the tree of life, but these dynamics, when observed, often are interpreted as nonintuitive, idiosyncratic features of pathogen and host biology. Here, by developing generalized versions of existing models of resource dependence for within- and among-host infection dynamics, we provide a synthetic view of nonmonotonic infection dynamics. We demonstrate that where resources jointly impact two (or more) processes (e.g., growth, defense, transmission, mortality, predation), nonmonotonic infection dynamics, including alternative states, can emerge across a continuous resource supply gradient. We review the few empirical examples that concurrently measured resource effects on multiple rates and pair this with a wide range of examples in which resource dependence of multiple rates could generate nonmonotonic infection outcomes under realistic conditions. This review and generalized framework highlight the likely generality of such resource effects in natural systems and point to opportunities ripe for future empirical and theoretical work.

New constitutionalism across the North-South divide—neoliberalization through development cooperation agreements

The Wall Street Consensus (WSC) marks the global North’s recent attempt to make development in the global South investable. Yet, how are these neoliberal reforms for an investor-friendly environment promoted? This article argues that new constitutionalist mechanisms are used in development cooperation agreements between the global North and the global South to carve in neoliberal reforms in general, and financialization in particular. We apply Gill’s concept of New Constitutionalism (NC) to trace the mechanisms that attempt to lock in these reforms. We chart out how NC underpins Gabor’s WSC and account for idiosyncratic features of postcolonial statehood. We, thus, operationalize and expand Gill’s NC concept. We apply this framework to the MCC Ghana Power Compact, a development cooperation treaty between the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and the Government of Ghana. Deploying qualitative content analysis, we spot about 60% of the NC mechanisms. Beyond rendering visible the NC mechanisms in international agreements, this article contributes an analytical tool to research the (power) dynamics in development cooperation between the global North and South. While it demonstrates Gill’s relevance in understanding these processes, it also points towards avenues of research regarding the locking in of WSC reforms.

QUANTITATIVE CORPUS-BASED METHODS FOR CONSTRUCTION GRAMMAR RESEARCH

With the rapid proliferation of computerized language corpora, modern linguistics is becoming more data-driven and corpus-based, and quantitative linguistic research is gaining popularity. The methodology for linguistic analysis is being improved, and statistically reliable tools are being actively employed to test scientific hypotheses and theories. Cognitive-quantitative construction grammar is a new interdisciplinary study field that results from the integration of qualitative and quantitative linguistic approaches. Drawing on research from various linguistic fields, this framework comprehensively studies general and idiosyncratic features of language constructions – ‘form-meaning’ pairings. This article provides an overview of a number of quantitative corpus-based methods that can be used in cognitive-quantitative construction grammar research to establish distinctive linguistic parameters (factors) of form and meaning of complex clause-level constructions. Clause-level constructions are distinguished by a set of linguistic parameters and factors that determine the specificity of their form (morphosyntactic, relational, referential, positional, syntactic-functional, distributive, etc.) and meaning/ function (collostructional, semantic, communicative, etc.). To determine distinctive parameters of the form of a construction, specialized quantitative corpus methods can be employed: 1) one-factor analysis of variance (ANOVA), 2) multifactor analysis of variance (MANOVA) and 3) post-hoc test by Tukey's multiple comparison method. To identify distinctive parameters of construction's semantics, the method of collostructional analysis can be utilized. By integrating corpus linguistics and quantitative studies, a new level of comprehension can be attained, which makes it possible to analyze linguistic data more accurately. Quantitative corpus-based methods should be considered an effective tool for construction grammar research, allowing linguists to move beyond intuition and gain a deeper understanding of the complexity of language phenomena.

Assessing Tertiary Turkish EFL Learners’ Pragmatic Competence Regarding Speech Acts and Conversational Implicatures

Pragmatic competence is an indispensable component of communicative competence, which plays an essential role in human communication. When an individual is communicatively competent, he/she can carry out an effective conversation in social situations. Therefore, pragmatic competence establishes a compelling factor in English language learning as it permits second/foreign language learners to carry out successful conversations in real-life interactions outside the classroom atmosphere. The improvement of foreign language learners’ pragmatic competence will strengthen their communicative competence. The purpose of this paper is to assess foreign language learners’ comprehension of conversational implicatures by using a multiple-choice discourse test (MCDT) and their performance in a discourse completion test (DCT). Through the use of a quantitative analysis, 54 adult learners of English at C1 and B2 levels of proficiency defined by the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) in a university in Cyprus were tested on their use of implicatures and speech acts. EFL learners were more successful in the MCDT regarding the comprehension of formulaic and idiosyncratic features but received lower results in the DCT. As well as testing the proficiency level, this study was also designed to investigate the difference between the gender performances of the DCT and MCDT. The results revealed that there is no statistical significance between the male and female respondents in terms of pragmatic competence. Based on these results, the role of teaching pragmatics in EFL classrooms portrays a major aspect for a sustainable learning environment. Thus, the paper also illustrates suggestions for future research.

Explaining the Gamestop Short Squeeze using Ιntraday Data and Google Searches.

This article examines the recent short squeeze of the GameStop (GME) stock in early 2021. This event, although not the only case of short squeeze, has some idiosyncratic features that makes it extremely interesting, mainly because it was organized by non-institutional investors through social media like Reddit. Using intraday data during the period 4/1/2021-26/3/2021, we conclude that volume and Google searches provide useful information which enable us to explain the GME performance. Moreover, we show that information on volume and Google searches can provide investors with valuable data, but the faster investors have access to this information, the greater the advantages. This analysis could be very useful for scholars and practitioners who examine profitable investment strategies when such conditions emerge in the markets, and it also provides some thoughts for regulators regarding the impact of networks, social or not, on the stability of the financial markets.

Morally monotonic choice in public good games

Rational choice theory, including models of social preferences, is challenged by decades of robust data from public good games. Provision of public goods, funded by lump-sum taxation, does not crowd out private provision on a one-for-one basis. Provision games elicit more of a public good than payoff-equivalent appropriation games. This paper offers a morally monotonic choice theory that incorporates observable moral reference points and is consistent with the two empirical findings. The model has idiosyncratic features that motivate a new experimental design. Data from our new experiment and three previous experiments favor moral monotonicity over alternative models including rational choice theory, prominent belief-based models of kindness, and popular reference-dependent models with loss aversion.