Multilevel Theory Research Articles

A protocol for evaluating a multi-level implementation theory to scale-up obstetric triage in referral hospitals in Ghana

BackgroundGhana significantly reduced maternal and newborn mortality between 1990 and 2015, largely through efforts focused on improving access to care. Yet achieving further progress requires improving the quality and timeliness of care. Beginning in 2013, Ghana Health Service and Kybele, a US-based non-governmental organization, developed an innovative obstetric triage system to help midwives assess, diagnosis, and determine appropriate care plans more quickly and accurately. In 2019, efforts began to scale this successful intervention into six additional hospitals. This protocol describes the theory-based implementation approach guiding scale-up and presents the proposed mixed-methods evaluation plan.MethodsAn implementation theory was developed to describe how complementary implementation strategies would be bundled into a multi-level implementation approach. Drawing on the Interactive Systems Framework and Evidenced Based System for Implementation Support, the proposed implementation approach is designed to help individual facilities develop implementation capacity and also build a learning network across facilities to support the implementation of evidence-based interventions.A convergent design mixed methods approach will be used to evaluate implementation with relevant data drawn from tailored assessments, routinely collected process and quality monitoring data, textual analysis of relevant documents and WhatsApp group messages, and key informant interviews. Implementation outcomes of interest are acceptability, adoption, and sustainability.DiscussionThe past decade has seen a rapid growth in the development of frameworks, models, and theories of implementation, yet there remains little guidance on how to use these to operationalize implementation practice. This study proposes one method for using implementation theory, paired with other kinds of mid-level and program theory, to guide the replication and evaluation of a clinical intervention in a complex, real-world setting. The results of this study should help to provide evidence of how implementation theory can be used to help close the “know-do” gap.Plain language summaryEvery woman and every newborn deserves a safe and positive birth experience. Yet in many parts of the world, this goal is often more aspiration than reality. In 2006, Kybele, a US-based non-governmental organization, began working with the Ghanaian government to improve the quality of obstetric and newborn care in a large hospital in Greater Accra. One successful program was the development of a triage system that would help midwives rapidly assess pregnant women to determine who needed what kind of care and develop risk-based care plans. The program was then replicated in another large hospital in the Greater Accra region, where a systematic theory to inform triage implementation was developed.This paper describes the extension of this approach to scale-up the triage program implementation in six additional hospitals. The scale-up is guided by a multi-level theory that extends the facility level theory to include cross-facility learning networks and oversight by the health system. We explain the process of theory development to implement interventions and demonstrate how these require the combination of local contextual knowledge with evidence from the implementation science literature. We also describe our approach for evaluating the theory to assess its effectiveness in achieving key implementation outcomes. This paper provides an example of how to use implementation theories to guide the development and evaluation of complex programs in real-world settings.

In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Multi-Level Theory for Supplier Participation on Digital Platforms

ABSTRACT Digital platforms have transformed various industries, with profound changes witnessed in settings characterized by repeated, low value, and novel transactions, such as ride sharing, household services, and food delivery. Platform providers need to understand the factor(s) that suppliers consider before choosing to participate on their platforms. We argue that multi-level theorizing is necessary to explain the patterns of decision criteria that constitute the complex, yet boundedly-rational decision of platform participation. We draw on multiple theoretical perspectives which include predictors from firm-level strategic behavior, firm-level digital predictors, institutional predictors, and platform level, competition and contextual (environmental) predictors to model restaurant’s decision to participate on food delivery platforms, which are an exemplar of platforms that digitize transactions of ubiquitous and episodic nature. The population of 95,735 restaurants, serving a total of 135 different cuisines, located in the 37 largest cities of India, forms the dataset for developing our multi-level theory. Our decision tree induction methodology, which employs high levels of pruning, empowers us to discover context-specific rules that serve as credible approximations of the partial ordering of decision flows tacitly used by restaurants in deciding to participate on platforms. We identify six combinations of predictors, that is, decision rules, which are situated in at least four theoretical perspectives, to succinctly explain supplier participation on digital platforms. Finally, we abduct away from these specific decision rules to develop generalizable theoretical propositions. The decision trees, context-specific rules, general forms of the rules, and generalized propositions together form our multi-level theory for supplier participation on digital platforms. Our findings aid platform providers identify suppliers who can be the focus of efforts to increase platform participation, and help suppliers identify the participation status of competitors. For policymakers, our findings imply that incentives at the ends of the pricing spectrum can increase supplier participation on digital platforms.

A multilevel analysis of climate change inaction: case study of an Australian electricity company

ABSTRACT Climate change is a key societal and economic challenge. Despite widespread recognition for the need for urgent action on climate change, transformation to a zero carbon economy is still elusive. While there are detailed accounts of organisational responses to climate change impacts, little is known about climate change inaction. We adopt the theoretical framework of resilience in social-ecological systems to explore the change processes needed to overcome climate change inaction. Through an in-depth case study of an Australian energy company, we identify the impediments to climate change action due to rigidity and scarcity traps at three levels: micro (organisation), meso (industry), and macro (government). These traps inhibit transformation from a fossil fuel regime to a renewable energy regime. Our study contributes to a multi-level theory of organisational inaction on climate change by identifying specific causal factors that erode systemic adaptive capacity, increasing the probability of rigidity and scarcity traps. We find that different inaction occurs at all three levels, and is closely interconnected (across levels) within a social-ecological system, due to dynamic antecedents (e.g. changing individual attitudes, business practices, and government policies). Competencies, resources, and cultural changes can help organisations traverse rigidity and scarcity traps to overcome climate change inaction.

О типах переводческих трансформаций как способах передачи эквивалентного содержания высказывания юридического дискурса (на материале Семейного кодекса РФ)

Юридический текст представляет собой разновидность дискурса институционального типа. Структурно-синтаксическая организация, стилистическое оформление, функционально-прагматический потенциал и семантика ключевых номинант высказывания юридического дискурса подчинены тематике сообщения и детерминируются целью коммуникации. В рамках данной статьи автор обращается к сопоставительному анализу оригинала и англоязычной версии перевода Семейного Кодекса РФ. Основная задача исследования – анализ специфики передачи эквивалентности юридического перевода с позиции разных уровней теории эквивалентности – прагматического, семантического, синтаксического – через призму многоуровневой переводческой модели, разработанной В. Н. Комиссаровым, и посредством обращения к типам переводческих трансформаций. Переводческие трансформации рассматриваются как языковые выражения, полученные вследствие технических приемов перевода, сводимых к замене исходного текста некоторыми нерегулярными (контекстуальными) соответствиями. В ходе исследования выявлены особенности «функционирования» переводческих трансформаций, влияющие на разные уровни теории эквивалентности: симметрия и асимметрия структурно-синтаксической организации высказывания, маркированная «внедрением» новой лексической единицы в отрезок речи, изменение тональности высказывания, появление новых коннотаций за счет этимологически репрезентированного знания или других инференциальных характеристик исследуемых единиц. В качестве факторов, модифицирующих тональность высказывания, мы выделяем следующие: смещение коммуникативного центра высказывания, усиление или ослабление эмфазы внутри отрезка речи, наличие «скрытой» семы. В качестве основных методов исследования в работе обозначены компонентный, дефиниционный, этимологический, концептуальный и контекстуальный анализ, представляющие комплексный подход к исследованию высказывания юридического дискурса как единой «пирамиды».

Microfoundations of Organizational Agility: A Socio-Technical Perspective

To be agile, organization need to be able to quickly reconfigure their internal resources in order to respond to changes occurring in their environment. In this paper, we draw on the theories of organizational routines and technology affordances to explicate the internal socio-technical “machinery”—the people, processes, and technology—that, in response to an external change, an organization must reconfigure and redirect to achieve new organizational imperatives. The paper contributes a novel multi-level theory that recognizes behavior at the human individual (micro-) level as a causal factor in the macro-level phenomenon of agility. We illustrate and validate the theoretical model with case studies that represent three large organizations that exist in dynamic business environments that demand agility. The research suggests that business processes in the organization evolve both via top-down design and bottom-up practice routinization and further that the need for flexibility drives the tension between them. By elucidating microfoundational mechanisms, the theory defines a stronger causality model for explaining organizational agility phenomena.

Service system well-being: conceptualising a holistic concept

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop a concept of service system well-being by presenting its collective conceptualisation and ten key domains.Design/methodology/approachService system well-being domains were established using multi-level theory and a qualitative case study research design. To validate the domains initially developed from the literature, 19 in-depth interviews were conducted across two case studies that represented the service systems of a hospital and a multi-store retail franchise chain. A multi-stakeholder approach was used to explore the actor’s perspectives about service system well-being. Key domains of service system well-being were identified using deductive categorisation analysis.FindingsThe findings found evidence of ten key domains of well-being, namely strategic, governance, leadership, resource, community, social, collaborative, cultural, existential and transformational, among service system stakeholders.Research limitations/implicationsService system well-being is a collective concept comprising ten domains that emerged at different levels of the service system. The propositions outlined the classification of and interlinkages between the domains. This exploratory study was conducted in a limited service context and focussed on ten key domains.Practical implicationsService managers in commercial and social organisations are able to apply the notion of service system well-being to identify gaps and nurture well-being deficiencies within different domains of service-system well-being.Originality/valueBased on multi-level theory, the study is the first to conceptualise and explore the concept of service system well-being across multiple actors.

THE IMPACT OF LIFESTYLE BEHAVIORS ON HEALTHY AGING TRAJECTORIES: THE ATHLOS PROJECT

The number of people above 60 years old will double by 2050. There is a considerate variability in the health status of older people. The identification of the different trajectories that people follow as they grow older constitutes one of the aims of the ATHLOS project. In the current study, we created a metric of health in the four available waves (2001, 2003, 2012, 2015) of the Mexican Health and Aging Study (MHAS) by employing Bayesian multilevel Item Response Theory. Growth mixture modelling indicated that older Mexicans (n=14,143) age by following four distinct pathways (i.e. high-stable, moderate-stable, low-stable, decliners). Adherence to healthy lifestyle behaviours (i.e. physical activity, non-smoking, limited alcohol consumption) was associated with better health trajectories. Preliminary analyses in the ATHLOS harmonised dataset also suggest that older people age by following four distinct pathways. The impact of lifestyle behaviours within the harmonised dataset will be investigated and also presented.

An Integrated Approach to Testing Dynamic, Multilevel Theory: Using Computational Models to Connect Theory, Model, and Data

Some of the most influential theories in organizational sciences explicitly describe a dynamic, multilevel process. Yet the inherent complexity of such theories makes them difficult to test. These theories often describe multiple subprocesses that interact reciprocally over time at different levels of analysis and over different time scales. Computational (i.e., mathematical) modeling is increasingly advocated as a method for developing and testing theories of this type. In organizational sciences, however, efforts that have been made to test models empirically are often indirect. We argue that the full potential of computational modeling as a tool for testing dynamic, multilevel theory is yet to be realized. In this article, we demonstrate an approach to testing dynamic, multilevel theory using computational modeling. The approach uses simulations to generate model predictions and Bayesian parameter estimation to fit models to empirical data and facilitate model comparisons. This approach enables a direct integration between theory, model, and data that we believe enables a more rigorous test of theory.

Opening Up the Black Box: A Contingent Dual-Process Model of Ambidexterity Emergence

While research on contextual ambidexterity has primarily focused on the role of individuals to host exploration-exploitation tensions, the emergence process linking ambidexterity at the individual level and at higher levels of analysis such as the team or organization has not been described. Integrating multilevel theory and the differentiation-integration view of ambidexterity, we suggest a contingent dual process model of ambidexterity emergence. In the case of composition, both integration and differentiation are taking place at the individual level, followed by convergence-based aggregation. In the case of compilation, differentiation takes place at the individual level, followed by divergence-based aggregation and integration at the group level. We further argue, that the relative success of composition and compilation emergence is moderated by the degree of integration mechanisms at the group level. Drawing on multi- informant survey data from 58 teams in a large Swiss insurance company, we find strong support for our theoretical arguments.

Stress, sex hormones, inflammation, and major depressive disorder: Extending Social Signal Transduction Theory of Depression to account for sex differences in mood disorders.

Social Signal Transduction Theory of Depression is a biologically plausible, multi-level theory that describes neural, physiologic, molecular, and genomic mechanisms that link experiences of social-environmental adversity with internal biological processes that drive depression pathogenesis, maintenance, and recurrence. Central to this theory is the hypothesis that interpersonal stressors involving social threat (e.g., social conflict, evaluation, rejection, isolation, and exclusion) upregulate inflammatory processes that can induce several depressive symptoms, including sad mood, anhedonia, fatigue, psychomotor retardation, and social-behavioral withdrawal. The original article describing this formulation (Psychol Bull 140:774-815, 2014) addressed critical questions involving depression onset and recurrence, as well as why depression is strongly predicted by early life stress and comorbid with anxiety disorders and certain physical disease conditions, such as asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic pain, and cardiovascular disease. Here, we extend the theory to help explain sex differences in depression prevalence, which is a defining feature of this disorder. Central to this extension is research demonstrating that ovarian hormone fluctuations modulate women's susceptibility to stress, brain structure and function, and inflammatory activity and reactivity. These effects are evident at multiple levels and are highly context-dependent, varying as a function of several factors including sex, age, reproductive state, endogenous versus exogenous hormones, and hormone administration mode and dose. Together, these effects help explain why women are at greater risk for developing inflammation-related depressed mood and other neuropsychiatric, neurodevelopmental, and neurodegenerative disorders during the reproductive years, especially for those already at heightened risk for depression or in the midst of a hormonal transition period.

Business and Human Rights: From Domestic Institutionalisation to Transnational Governance and Back Again

ABSTRACTThe ‘business and human rights’ (BHR) field emerged amidst concerns over the adequacy of national legal systems and institutions in addressing human rights impacts of global market integration. BHR relies on governance networks and advocacy that transcend a ‘national’ paradigm. Yet BHR norms and initiatives remain anchored in national governmental entities and processes. BHR thus prompts reflection on the coherence and relevance of ‘domestic institutionalisation’ of human rights. First, this article briefly explores how BHR disrupts the paradigmatic view of domestic human rights institutions, given its transnational character and because BHR addresses market as well as state actors. Secondly, we show how BHR re-draws the perimeter of the national human rights system: by triggering business-focused activities by existing national human rights actors; by drawing new government entities and market actors into domestic human rights implementation; and via national components of associational or hybrid governance mechanisms. Next, we argue BHR’s extension of the ontology of human rights institutionalisation suggests the relevance of multi-level governance theory in analysing the BHR field. In concluding we observe that BHR further highlights the need to contextualise the concepts of human rights institutionalisation and national human rights institution within global market society.

Human resource strategies for organizational ambidexterity

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to propose a comprehensive framework that delineates how human resource (HR) practices are differentially configured for exploitative and explorative innovation as well as how the sets of HR practices support these two types of innovation.Design/methodology/approachBased on the structural ambidexterity approach and a bottom-up process in the multilevel theories, this research derives the need for the differential managerial structures for exploitation and exploration at the unit level. In addition, the Input–Process–Outcome model of team effectiveness and multilevel theories are employed to discuss the internal nature (e.g. resources, work styles) of exploiting and exploring units. Finally, building on strategic HR management literature, this research configures exploitation-targeted and exploration-targeted HR systems and delves into how these differentiated HR systems generate differential inputs of human capital resources and thereby foster exploitative and explorative innovation processes.FindingsThis research proposes several factors for exploitation and exploration, including: necessary inputs (i.e. commitment, narrowness, and cohesion for exploitation vs thoughtfulness, breadth, and openness for exploration), idiosyncratic innovation processes (i.e. convergent collective cognition vs divergent collective cognition), and differentiated HR systems comprised of different forms of unit staffing (homogeneity vs heterogeneity), performance appraisal, incentives, and training and development (short-term vs long-term orientation).Originality/valueThe proposed theoretical framework contributes to an improved understanding of the psychological foundation of organizational ambidexterity and systematizing how diverse HR practices work together to elicit exploitative and explorative innovation from employees.

Clarifying the Theoretical Tenets of the Symbolic Threat Perspective

Although Tittle and Curran in 1988 found support for the symbolic threat hypothesis, no further empirical investigations of the perspective have occurred to explain the contingencies of juvenile justice decision-making. We argue that past research has neglected this multilevel theory by only focusing on the “symbolic threat” thesis component, mischaracterizing the perspective as an inequality theory, or classifying the model as a derivative of Blalock’s minority group threat perspective. We contend that the original formulation of the symbolic threat hypothesis is a distinctive theory and offers a viable alternative to inequality and other racial/threat theoretical perspectives. The current study empirically tests the perspective in its entirety by examining the interrelationships between county-level characteristics (i.e. youth and minority populations), a juvenile’s race/ethnicity, and engaging in “moral offenses” with juvenile justice decision-making. The findings provide insight into the influence of contextual factors on the social control of youth of different racial/ethnic backgrounds.

Dynamic capability and disruptive innovation within perspectives of industry 4.0, research result and innovation on people’s prosperity

This paper elaborates the theoretical view of sustainable industrial systems within one of state owned enterprise (SOE) in banking industry. The primary theory for this paper elaborates the sources of dynamism in dynamic capability. This paper provides a multi-level theory ofdynamic capabilities (DCs) that explains resource dynamicsby conveying a primary role to persons and interpersonal interactions in lieu of abstract, which is company-level entities.This paper describes banking industry in term of dynamic capabilities to navigate change whenemployees are connected. The mentioned connection is bridged through high-quality relationships, empowering innovative aspects. Strategic adaptation is feasible when people are provided the opportunity to act, think, and feel creatively. Eventually that performance envisions opportunities to enhance how the company operates. Precisely, this paper depicts situation on PT Bank Mandiri (Persero) Tbk. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) is capitalized to proceed to data processing. The objective of this paper is to enhance the ways how the company operates in dynamic capability through disruptive innovation toward sustainable industrial system. The dynamism of dynamic capability is believed to provide adequate foundations toward disruptive innovation. Quantitative approach constitutes the research methodology through the usage of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) Ishikawa method. To conclude, by AHP Method and Ishikawa, PT. WijayaKarya is the chosen contractor that has superior value of 49%, among contractors. Ultimately, Ishikawa method conveys its criteria of quality, time, cost, and personal that require minimum 60% service level.

A Multilevel Theory of Democratic Secession

In this paper, the author sketches a relational approach that regards secession as the political upgrading of a self-governing territory within a multilevel constellation of polities. The author considers territorial integrity, democratic diversity and recognition requirements as general constraints on secession from democratic polities. These principles support substantive and procedural conditions that vary, however, for local, sub-state regional and international secessions. Exit of a member state from a union is the only context in which secession is a unilateral right and even then it is constrained by a duty to negotiate fair terms of separation.

Explaining the Persistence of Gender Inequality: The Work–family Narrative as a Social Defense against the 24/7 Work Culture

It is widely accepted that the conflict between women’s family obligations and professional jobs’ long hours lies at the heart of their stalled advancement. Yet research suggests that this “work–family narrative” is incomplete: men also experience it and nevertheless advance; moreover, organizations’ effort to mitigate it through flexible work policies has not improved women’s advancement prospects and often hurts them. Hence this presumed remedy has the perverse effect of perpetuating the problem. Drawing on a case study of a professional service firm, we develop a multilevel theory to explain why organizations are caught in this conundrum. We present data suggesting that the work–family explanation has become a “hegemonic narrative”—a pervasive, status-quo-preserving story that prevails despite countervailing evidence. We then advance systems-psychodynamic theory to show how organizations use this narrative and attendant policies and practices as an unconscious “social defense” to help employees fend off anxieties raised by a 24/7 work culture and to protect organizationally powerful groups—in our case, men and the firm’s leaders—and in so doing, sustain workplace inequality. Due to the social defense, two orthodoxies remain unchallenged—the necessity of long work hours and the inescapability of women’s stalled advancement. The result is that women’s thin representation at senior levels remains in place. We conclude by highlighting contributions to work–family, workplace inequality, and systems-psychodynamic theory.

Emotionally Engaged Civil Servants: Toward a Multilevel Theory and Multisource Analysis in Public Administration

Excellent public services build on excellent civil servants who are both emotionally intelligent and engaged in their work. This article proposes a conceptual framework for a better understanding of the relationship between public employees and their complex workplaces. We focus on the engagement of civil servants, the role of managers’ and employees’ emotional intelligence, and on employees’ public service motivation (PSM) to provide better services to citizens. We develop three major propositions: (a) the positive effect of employees’ emotional intelligence on their engagement, (b) the moderating effect of managers’ emotional intelligence on the relationship between their employees’ emotional intelligence and engagement, and (c) the moderating effect of employees’ PSM on the relationship between public servants’ emotional intelligence and their engagement. Our conceptual framework may set the stage for future research on civil servants’ engagement and emotional intelligence and their aggregate impact on the quality of government actions and services.

Emocje estetyczne w świetle badań psychologii muzyki: opis i mechanizmy wyjaśniające

The main aim of this article is to review contemporary research on aesthetic emotions from the perspective of music psychology. By analyzing the results of research review in the broader theoretical context, the author attempts to answer the question of the appropriateness of distinguishing a separate category of aesthetic emotions and musical aesthetic emotions. She concludes that despite the specific terminologyused to describe aesthetic musical emotions (classification of aesthetic emotions by M. Zentner et al.), some specific induction mechanisms (a multi-level theory of emotion causation by P.N. Juslin) and functions fulfilled in the listener’s life, there is no clear evidence to distinguish musical aesthetic emotions as a separate category of emotions, and the term aesthetic emotions should be reserved only for the emotions arising as a result of the cognitive evaluation of the stimulus according the listener’s aesthetic criteria.

Understanding American cultural policy: the multi-level governance of the arts and humanities

ABSTRACTThis article uses multi-level governance theory to investigate American cultural policy towards the arts and humanities. The National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act of 1965 articulates the value of the arts and humanities for the American people, providing the foundation for the development of a complex bureaucracy at state and federal levels. The resulting multi-level governance model highlights the interplay among public agencies at federal and state levels, the links with nonprofit organizations, the varied organizational structures that imply different mechanisms for involving citizens, and the diverse sources of funding. These findings show how American cultural policy is based on a fragmented but coordinated bureaucracy that supports a pluralistic society.

Toward an Integrated Multilevel Theory of Crime at Place: Routine Activities, Social Disorganization, and The Law of Crime Concentration

We propose and test a multilevel theoretical model of crime concentration by combining criminal opportunity and social disorganization into a single hierarchical model. Our theoretical model simultaneously answers calls to integrate routine activities theory and social disorganization theory and provides a logical framework for understanding the connections between neighborhood context and micro-spatial environmental conditions. To test our theory we used multilevel negative binomial regression with controls for spatial dependence to estimate street segment level crime counts. Findings showed the expected direct effects on street segment-level violent and property crime of both micro- and neighborhood-level characteristics. Our results for cross-level interaction effects provided evidence neighborhood context moderates the association between street segment-level variables and crime. Model comparisons using likelihood ratio tests revealed that including neighborhood-level characteristics improved explanatory power relative to single level models. This study lends support to a multilevel theory of the law of crime concentration that includes both neighborhood and street segment level conditions.