Pragmatic Action Research Articles

Choice on the menu: Increasing meal choice for people living in residential aged care, a pilot study.

For residents in residential aged care (RAC), opportunities to make decisions about their meals are often limited. Increasing choice for residents requires significant changes to be made to the foodservice system to deliver nutritionally adequate, timely and enjoyable meals to residents. The pilot project aimed to understand the effect of increasing choice in meals on residents, staff and the foodservice system. A pragmatic action research approach was used to collaboratively design and evaluate an altered a foodservice system that increased choice, enabling residents to place their order at the mealtime and choose from a menu of seven hot meal options for lunch and dinner. Outcome measures were measured pre- and post-implementation and included food waste, resident satisfaction and foodservice costs. Resident satisfaction measured on a 5-point Likert scale improved between pre- (3.60 ± 1.09) and post- (4.57 ± 0.49) measurements, whereas production waste increased (pre-55g, post-90 g) and foodservice costs increased (pre-$9.20-$11.14 per resident per day, post-$11.01-$12.15 per resident per day). Compared to the standard cook serve meal, consumption of protein foods increased marginally (+5 g), vegetable consumption increased (+11 g) and carbohydrate consumption decreased (-38 g) for meals consumed from the intervention menu. Increasing choice can have a positive impact of resident satisfaction; however, further work is needed to investigate how production waste and costs can be addressed.

‘If one knows what is to come’: ethics, audience and eschatology in Pindar’s Olympian 2

Abstract This essay uses one difficult sentence from Pindar’s Olympian 2 as a jumping-off point to address larger issues about the relationship between literature and belief. Section II tackles Pindar’s judgement of the dead (56–60) and argues that this passage is better understood as an instance of unusual particle usage rather than as an elliptical expression of recondite doctrine. Here the posthumous fate of humanity is decided on the grounds of ethical conduct. Section III discusses the unfinished conditional beginning in line 56 and probes the connection between eschatological knowledge and pragmatic action. Scholars have focused on the unusual details of Pindar’s eschatology, but its overarching practical thrust is to reinforce a conventional ethic. Section IV examines the knowledge of the future mentioned in line 56 and other gestures towards privileged knowledge. Scholars have considered Olympian 2 an ‘intimate’ text intended for a select audience, but there is reason to think that this epinician aimed at a panhellenic reception. Combining motifs from various sources, Pindar creates a unique vision of the afterlife that is capable of transcending doctrinal labels and appealing to many. Section V briefly concludes by considering how this poem works as both a victory ode and a religious text. Pindar’s ode is not a ‘corrupt paraphrase’ of anything else; the text creates a world of its own and inscribes core epinician values into the very architecture of the cosmos.

Experimentation in Wicked Situations: How activists construct pragmatic action frames

Experimentation is key in wicked situations; it provides small wins while keeping several options open for the future. The literature is, however, scarce on how experimentation is framed, a crucial aspect to the understanding of how actors identify and pursue experiments in situations that are constantly changing and lack a clear resolution. We address this gap by drawing on the concept of ‘action frames’ and deploying a comparative case study of nine cases in diverse contexts in which activists experimented with wicked problems. We find that activists pragmatically shy away from pursuing a permanent solution to focus instead on achieving small wins, diagnosing ‘symptoms’ rather than ‘root causes’ of problems, and ‘working around’ institutional constraints instead of directly ‘confronting’ them. This pragmatic action frame prompts them to initiate pilot experiments that involve trial-and-error and collective learning, and that sometimes scaffold into cumulative small wins. Reflecting on our findings, we build a model of how pragmatic action frames fuel distributed possibilities to experiment in wicked situations. Our model contributes to the literature on wicked problems by revealing how activists ‘welcome’ complexity instead of ‘taming’ it. We contribute to the literature on action frames by demonstrating how multiple viable pragmatic action frames are constructed iteratively without threatening an alternative, dominant frame. Lastly, we contribute to the literature on robust action by demonstrating how pragmatic action frames pave the way for distributed experimentation and by unpacking the core attributes that make ‘robust actors’ accepting of open-ended wayfinding journeys.

Language as social action: Gertrude Buck, the "Michigan School" of rhetoric, and pragmatist philosophy.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Gertrude Buck and collaborators developed a sociologicallyand pragmatist-informed approach to language that has been neglected in later scholarship. Buck approached the study of language from the standpoint of pragmatist functional psychology, which is indebted to John Dewey's pragmatism at the University of Michigan, and which views language as a normal, dynamic action of human organisms engaged in necessary cooperative relations with one another. Her approach overcomes the small-minded pragmatism that would criticize figurative or poetic language as impractical, and instead shows how figuration is essential to the particular ways in which language is action that conveys meaning to others and serves broader social functions. Buck's forgotten work helps overcome criticisms of the application of pragmatic action theory to language and literature, sketching how language structure may be explained on the basis of language as a natural social-communicative act, how figurative language is inherent in the normal act of communicating situated bodily experiences to others, and how rhetorical speech and writing contributes to participation in democratic social processes. This paper also indicates how Buck's work has been partially rediscovered in Composition Studies, as well as prefigures later reader-response esthetics and feminist analyses of language.

Grade 3 teachers’ understanding of the implemented mathematics curriculum content

This pragmatic action research explores Grade 3 teachers’ understanding of the implemented mathematics curriculum content. Exploring teachers’ understanding of the mathematics curriculum content is required because understanding of content determines how teachers teach, the resources they use, and how teachers assess. It should be noted that, over time, curriculum reforms take place; and these reforms impact not only on teachers’ knowledge, expertise, or motivation, but also on their understanding. Understanding, as synthesised by the researcher, is a planned, prescribed system of presenting one’s thoughts and expertise regarding a particular subject; in this case, mathematics. In exploring this phenomenon, six Grade 3 teachers from Nkangala District in Mpumalanga were purposefully sampled to be part of this study. Data was generated through two phases of reflective activities, observations, interviews, and a focus-group discussion. To answer the two research questions of this study, the generated data was analysed guided by the natural identity framework themes. Findings revealed that teachers’ understanding of the implemented mathematics curriculum content is mostly informed by a combination of their need to comply with the prescripts of policy and higher authority, common understanding to appease their societal needs, and individual understanding based on their experiences and beliefs. The study drew the conclusion that, for teachers to embrace the three propositions of understanding and identities, teachers’ natural understanding identity should be promoted. This identity is underpinned by reflective practice and adaptation to what works in their day-to-day practice as teachers.

Network Interventions: Applying Network Science for Pragmatic Action in Public Administration and Policy

Abstract Public management and policy scholars have engaged in extensive development of theory and empirical study of networks and collaborative systems of governance. This scholarship has focused on understanding the mechanisms of network formation and the implications of network properties on individual and collective outcomes. Despite rich descriptive work and inferential analyses, little work has attempted to intervene in these systems. In this article, we develop the foundation for a new body of research in our field focused on network interventions. Network interventions are defined as the purposeful use of network data to identify strategies for accelerating behavior change, improving performance, and producing desirable outcomes (Valente, 2012). We extend network intervention strategies from the field of public health to public sector interorganizational and governance networks. Public sector actors have an interest in network interventions based on the fundamental pursuit of efficiency, effectiveness, and equity. Network interventions can increase the uptake of an organizational change among employees, improve the performance of a governance system, or promote the spread of a successful policy across jurisdictions. We provide scholars and practitioners with a useful way to conceptualize where, why, and how network interventions might be deployed in the pursuit of public value.

Situated co-operative creativity

Abstract A highly important societal aspect of language use are pragmatic creative acts and interactions. The ability to, through multimodal interaction, create something new, is primordial for human sociality. In this paper, I propose a theoretical model that enables detailed analysis of situated co-operative creative actions as these naturally emerge in interactional situations. First, I develop the theoretical model by extrapolating from Charles Goodwin’s theory of co-operative action. I then illustrate the model through detailed analysis of a single case where participants interact in a video-mediated robotic context. The model is situated within ethnomethodological multimodal conversation analysis and based on video ethnographic data. This research contributes to the field of creativity and human pragmatic action by providing an applicable model for Situated Co-Operative Creativity, the SCOC model, which can be used for detailed analysis of everyday creativity.

Aloisio Magalhães and the North American experience: design in practice and theory

This article seeks to present the North American scenario found by Aloisio Magalhães at the end of the 1950s, when he began a process of turning off painting for entry into the field of design. In the pragmatic action of American artists and immigrants welcomed in the country, Aloisio recognizes the possibility of a design built in the practical exercise but also in teaching and critical theory, seeing in that system the mode of production compatible with contemporaneity.

De facto differentiation in the EU’s economic and monetary union - A rationalist explanation

ABSTRACT Although there are various legal tools to make European integration more flexible, the EU and its member states uphold long-term arrangements of de facto differentiation circumventing EU law. This article assesses their role in the EU’s system of differentiated integration. To that end, it advances a model based on rational choice theory, outlining the steps and conditions under which tolerated arrangements of de facto differentiation can emerge. This is illustrated in three case studies in Economic and Monetary Union (EMU): (1) Sweden’s de facto opt-out from EMU; (2) Kosovo’s adoption of the euro as sole legal tender, and (3) the Fiscal Compact. Data was gathered via document analysis and 11 expert interviews. The article concludes that de facto differentiation may constitute a viable alternative and useful means to make EU integration more flexible if strong national demand for differentiation meets the need for discretion or timely, pragmatic action.

A contribution towards health.

A contribution towards health.

Precision Public Health for Non-communicable Diseases: An Emerging Strategic Roadmap and Multinational Use Cases.

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) remain the largest global public health threat. The emerging field of precision public health (PPH) offers a transformative opportunity to capitalize on digital health data to create an agile, responsive and data-driven public health system to actively prevent NCDs. Using learnings from digital health, our aim is to propose a vision toward PPH for NCDs across three horizons of digital health transformation: Horizon 1—digital public health workflows; Horizon 2—population health data and analytics; Horizon 3—precision public health. This perspective provides a high-level strategic roadmap for public health practitioners and policymakers, health system stakeholders and researchers to achieving PPH for NCDs. Two multinational use cases are presented to contextualize our roadmap in pragmatic action: ESP and RiskScape (USA), a mature PPH platform for multiple NCDs, and PopHQ (Australia), a proof-of-concept population health informatics tool to monitor and prevent obesity. Our intent is to provide a strategic foundation to guide new health policy, investment and research in the rapidly emerging but nascent area of PPH to reduce the public health burden of NCDs.

Machines in the Triangle: a Pragmatic Interactive Approach to Information

A recurrent theme of human–machine interaction is how interaction is defined and what kind of information is relevant for successful communication. In accordance with the theoretical strategies of social cognition and technical philosophy, we propose a pragmatic interactive approach, to understand the concept of information in human–machine interaction. We start with the investigation of interpersonal interaction and human–machine interaction by concerning triangulation as guiding principle. To illustrate human–machine interaction, we will mainly focus on the interactive relationship between human cognitive skills and their technological environments. In triadic interaction, the concept of information cannot only be understood as a syntactic transformation as in the dyadic relationship. We argue that information as pragmatic action patterns can be understood as physically embodied units that is not purely formal but generated in interactive processes and stabilized in use. By exploring how the concept of affordance is applied in psychology, anthropology and human-centered design, we provide a notion of pragmatic information, focusing on users in the development and use of machines or software systems. The triadic interaction of end user, development team, and product leads to a successful human–machine interaction. This theoretical framework enables us to understand how the new socio-technological environments expand our scope of action and how we form, interpret, and learn to deal with patterns of action among ourselves and with machines.

COVID-19 screening strategy in workplaces in the canton of Vaud: what lessons?

Repetitive screening in enterprises was one of the measures recommended in Switzerland in the fight against COVID-19. In the canton of Vaud, 70 companies participated in the program, 73 % of which were small and medium-sized enterprises. The SARS-CoV-2 positivity rate was 0.07 % out of 70'105 tests performed. The impossibility of teleworking and the reduction of transmission were the main motivations for joining the program. The facilitating elements were the availability of the Cantonal Medical Office, the existence of a starter kit and the support of the hierarchy within the companies. The main obstacles were the arrival of vaccination, the multiplicity of screening providers and the workload. The program was a pragmatic action tool for companies rather than a population-based strategy.

On the certainty of entanglements with ecocide: pragmatic action for responsive pedagogy inspired by ecological psychology and permaculture

ABSTRACT Inspired by youth concerns for environmental justice and pathways forward that sustain diverse biology, we draw upon ecological psychology to theorise learning. This novel proposition, against the tide of cognitive constructivism, proffers a non-dualist paradigm more aligned with the purpose and intent of those seeking ecological justice and responds to calls for theory to support place-based education. Additionally, theory from ecological psychology lends support for understanding how ecocide is sustained and why work that inspired the environmental movement over half a century ago, such as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring has seemingly remained ignored and derided in the broader public realm. We provide some clues as to how that ignorance is perpetuated via understandings of perceptual learning theory. Finally, we map a pathway forward to respond with permaculture activism and offer a unique and solutions-based narrative that inspires hope in the face of catastrophe.

An interpretive study on the role of top managers in enterprise resource planning (ERP) business value creation

This paper contributes to the growing body of literature on enterprise resource planning (ERP) business value by investigating organizational ERP development in view of the active involvement, vision, and direction of top management teams (TMTs). A top-down approach to ERP adoption and implementation was adopted with sociomaterial and social construction assumptions about the mechanisms that generate ERP business value. A single ERP case study was analyzed in an industrial setting by interpretive means, thus providing theoretically based, detailed and interesting insights. Our research suggests that ERP benefits emerge during the TMT’s encounters with the ERP system through pragmatic action and situated improvisations. Our findings suggest that ERP adoption is strongly influenced by TMT characteristics and social processes, while complementary process-change needs are perceived by the executive participation during implementation. We also suggest that when the ERP system goes live, a synergistic relationship termed TMT-IT imbrication will create the technological infrastructure perceived as ERP value. At this postimplementation stage, various TMT characteristics and processes are proposed that greatly influence top managers’ patterns of imbrication behavior. Several propositions are developed and summarized in a framework to enhance the current understanding of managerial agency in achieving business benefits from ERP systems. The paper concludes with implications for top managers and future research directions.

COVID-19 vaccine-taking hesitancy among Bangladeshi people: knowledge, perceptions and attitude perspective

ABSTRACT Several novel efforts have been put forth to make a readily available vaccine against the global pandemic of COVID-19. However, there seems to appear vaccine-taking hesitancy among the general people. Against this backdrop, this current study sets to assess the vaccine-taking intention, ways to overcome the vaccine-taking reluctance among Bangladeshi people and explore their knowledge, perceptions, and attitude toward the COVID-19 vaccine. To this end, this study leveraged on a cross-sectional survey, which was consisted of 1377 respondents covering the eight divisions of Bangladesh. The descriptive statistical method and ordinal logistics regression were employed to explore and rationalize our study outlined objectives. Empirical findings revealed that approximately 71% of the respondents had adequate knowledge about the COVID-19 vaccine, whereas 46% of the respondents were willing to be vaccinated against COVID-19 while the rest of the respondents were hesitant to take the vaccine. However, concern about the potential side effects was one of the core reasons for vaccine-taking hesitancy. Assuring the common people about vaccine safety and efficacy, along with easing the registration procedure, can ameliorate people’s confidence to get vaccinated. Meanwhile, about 60% of the respondents believed that a vaccine could help Bangladesh win the battle against COVID-19 and will allow back to normal life. Although the government has taken some pragmatic action steps to promote the vaccination rate, it is recommended that the mass vaccination program should be extended to the grassroots level with proper extension community support and easing the registration process.

The Demise of “Pragmatism”? Assessing the Public Debate on Australia's Engagement with China

Like many other regional powers in the Asia‐Pacific, Australia is a middle‐sized state wedged between two great powers, the United States (US) and the People's Republic of China. While Australia continues to rely upon the US alliance for security, China remains its biggest trading partner. Over the past two decades, Australia's public foreign policy discussions have centred upon Australia's “China Choice” in the context of growing strategic rivalry between these dominant powers. This debate has sought to grapple with the options available to Australia in managing its relations with an increasingly assertive China and an unpredictable US. This article examines the public debate on China policy since the election of the conservative Liberal‐National Coalition government in 2013. It argues the appropriateness of a pragmatic foreign policy in relation to the engagement of great powers has been the central question in Australia's China debate. Yet what constitutes pragmatic action in relation to Australia's China policy is varied and based on differing understandings of how middle‐sized states can and do seek to cope with structural shifts. The paper also argues, however, that an emergent anti‐pragmatist tradition has recently emerged that reflects the unprecedented challenges facing Australian foreign policy and presents "pragmatism" as a threat to Australian sovereignty, principles, and values.

Everything lies in a space: cultural data and spatial reality

AbstractThis essay examines the use of spatializing techniques for analysing cultural data, drawing on fieldwork with developers of music recommender systems in the United States. Comparing these practices with related analytic techniques developed by post‐war cognitive anthropologists, it explores three broad topics: how such techniques engender a sense of continuous, enveloping milieu from discrete and often sparse data; how spatialization is used to grant culture a kind of reality rooted in pragmatic action and scientific quantification; and how spatial representations of culture are essentially anticipatory for the people who make them, transforming the near future into the nearby.

When Do Institutions Constrain? A Construal Level Theory of Rule-Breaking Entrepreneurial Action

The New Institutional Economics tradition emphasizes that institutions enable and constrain entrepreneurial action. Meanwhile, entrepreneurs are known to alter or evade existing rules. Surprisingly little is known about why entrepreneurs are sometimes constrained and other times enabled by the institutional rules of the game. We argue that this is because prior work has treated institutions as “given” constraints that are commonly understood by entrepreneurs. Building on construal level theory, we provide a model in which entrepreneurs subjectively interpret the nature and enforcement of political and social rules. The entrepreneur’s institutional distance, or relative proximity to the political process, informs how they construe the rules of the game—facilitating different types of entrepreneurial action. In our model, low institutional distance enables pragmatic action and superior navigation of the existing institutional environment. By contrast, high institutional distance enables divergent thinking and superior deviation from existing institutions, yielding disruptive change. After presenting the model, we briefly discuss how our work enriches the literature on the political economy of technological change. Our work changes the way we think about the entrepreneurial-institutional interface, illuminating how the heterogeneity of entrepreneurial perceptions of the institutional environment yields patterns of rule-breaking and rule-shaping entrepreneurial action.

Evidence of Overfishing in Small-Scale Fisheries in Madagascar

Small-scale fisheries are an important source of food, income and cultural identity to millions of people worldwide. Despite fishers observing declining catches, a lack of data remains a barrier to understanding the status of small-scale fisheries and their effective management in many places. Where data exist, complex analyses and stock assessments are often beyond the capacity and budgets of local managers. Working with small-scale fisheries in western Madagascar, we analyse landings data to provide a description of the fishery and evaluate the top twenty commonly caught species for evidence of overfishing. Using length composition data, we use Froese’s three simple rules: Let them spawn, let them grow and let the mega-spawners live and Cope and Punt’s decision tree to infer overfishing. We also use length-based parameters to calculate and compare fishing mortality with natural mortality to assess overfishing (F>M). Over 17,000 fishing trips were registered, landing just short of 2 million individual fish. Length data were recorded for a sample of over 120,000 individuals. Fish comprised 95% of landings, with the remainder comprised of other groups including crustaceans (mostly shrimp, crab and lobster), cephalopods, and holothurians. We provide some of the first evidence that fish species caught in the small-scale fisheries of the Menabe region of Madagascar are experiencing overfishing. The most notable result that for 13 of the 20 most common species, fishing mortality exceeds natural mortality. Many species had a large proportion of individuals (in some cases 100%) being caught before they reached maturity. Very few species were fished at their optimal size, and there were low numbers of large individuals (mega-spawners) in catches. Overfishing in western Madagascar presents a serious threat to the income, food security and well-being of some of the most vulnerable people in the world. The results of this paper support the call for improved management. However, management approaches should take account of overlapping fisheries and be inclusive to ensure the impacts of management do not undermine the rights of small-scale fishers. Further data are needed to better understand the trends and to improve management but should not hinder pragmatic action.