Processual Nature Research Articles

Kahneman's tryst with reasonableness: a tease unfulfilled?

Abstract Kahneman's criticism of neoclassical rationality was central to his research programme. He argued that rationality understood as temporal consistency among preferences and beliefs is inapt as a descriptive and prescriptive standard of decision-making. Descriptively, consistency ignores high decision costs and biases, such as framing effects. Prescriptively, it is problematic since it neglects the processual nature of choice and the crucial role of regret. Instead, Kahneman argued in favour of using reasonableness as a standard, though he did not fully develop the concept in his work.

Changes in Household Wealth Over the Process of Widowhood Across European Countries.

Widowhood has been shown to decrease surviving spouses' economic well-being. However, previous research has focused mostly on income-related outcomes, and has been less attentive to the importance of wealth, the processual nature of spousal death, and cross-national variation. In this study, we assessed how total, housing, and nonhousing wealth changes over the process of widowhood across 11 European countries. Individual fixed-effects regressions and longitudinal data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe were used to estimate how household net total wealth, housing wealth, and nonhousing wealth changed 3 years prior and 6 or more years after spousal death relative to 4 or more years prior to widowhood in 11 European countries. In all countries, household net wealth stayed relatively constant across the widowhood process, except for Austria, the Czech Republic, and Poland, where wealth declines were observed especially in the years following death. However, we found declines in housing wealth over the widowhood process, including prior to spousal death, across most countries in our sample, particularly in Austria, France, Denmark, the Czech Republic, and Poland. Declines in housing wealth were generally not reflected by changes in nonhousing wealth but coincided with leaving homeownership and downsizing. Widowhood is associated with lower wealth, especially housing wealth, even in the years before spousal loss. Future research should focus on adjudicating the mechanisms behind country differences and exploring the implications of lost wealth following widowhood for surviving spouses' well-being and intergenerational transfers.

Heterogeneity in organizational search behaviors: The case of corporate venture capital units

AbstractResearch SummaryOur qualitative study of five corporate venture capital (CVC) units reveals that CVC is organized along one of two distinct pathways—order‐taker or free‐bird. Our two‐pathway model deconstructs the heterogeneity within CVC designs and provides detailed insights into the processual nature of CVC search mechanisms. We find evidence that the locus of problem formulation influences the chosen search behavior. While order‐takers respond to predefined corporate‐led problem formulation, free‐birds allow the venture market to guide search behavior. Differences in search processes can thus be attributed to the pursuit of distinct problem‐solution pairs. Implications for CVC and organizational search literature are discussed.Managerial SummaryOrganizations search for new knowledge and technologies using corporate venture capital (CVC) units. Despite growing evidence of heterogeneity in CVC designs, managers continue to have limited insights for designing and running such CVC units. In contrast to previous recommendations to use structural attributes and/or institutional logics to design and manage CVCs, we provide managers an organizational search lens which reveals significant variations in how corporations search for new ventures. We identified two extreme CVC designs driven by the locus of problem formulation (internal vs. external): order‐takers—who respond to a predefined and corporate‐led problem formulation approach, and free‐birds—who shape the problem formulation guided by venture market dynamics. We point to design differences across popular CVC subprocesses which can be handy for managers.

Knowledge Entrainment in Large-Scale Transformation Projects: The Evidence-Based Strategy and the Innovation-Based Strategy

Prior research has indicated that knowledge integration is essential for succeeding with large-scale transformation (LST) projects. However, research has largely ignored the processual properties of knowledge integration. This article embarks on the notion of knowledge entrainment and demonstrates the criticality of the processual nature of knowledge integration. Through a comparative qualitative case study of two LST projects in the healthcare sector, two knowledge entrainment strategies were identified (the evidence-based strategy and the innovation-based strategy). Data analysis uncovered triggers, practices, and outcomes of the two knowledge entrainment strategies. Additionally, the central role of temporary project management offices (PMOs) for arranging knowledge entrainment within the LST projects is demonstrated.

Oscillating Between Hope and Despair: Understanding Migrants’ Reflections on Ambivalence in ‘Transit’

This paper investigates the under-explored question of how migrants in so-called ‘transit countries’ make sense of migration aspirations. Drawing from recent scholarship on migration-related ambivalence, we focus on how people reflect on the past and present of their migration aspirations, employing a migrant-centered approach. Based on semi-structured interviews with refugees in Libya and Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as complementary expert interviews, we find that ambivalence, which (re-)shapes migration aspirations, is a necessary reaction to the structures of uncertainty installed in current European externalization measures beyond EU borders. By adopting a migrant-centered approach and taking into account the multidimensional and processual nature of ambivalence, our research contributes to a better understanding of migrants as self-critical and reflective actors facing the challenges of making decisions in situations of uncertainty; thus, ambivalence is produced in a dialectic interplay between migrants’ agency and the opportunities/limitations of changing structures that surround them which, in turn, informs the interplay between forward and backward migration aspirations.

A Neopragmatic Perspective on the Processual Nature of Landscape—Coastal Land Loss in Louisiana in the Context of Scientific Findings, Social Patterns of Interpretation, and Individual Experience

The changes on the Louisiana coast due to land loss can be understood as a process, and the social construction of these processes is highly complex. Due to this complexity, we will examine these social patterns of interpretation as well as individual experiences of coastal land loss in Louisiana within a neopragmatic meta-theoretical framework using several methods, data, researcher perspectives, forms of representation, and theories, with a special focus on the construction of coastal land loss by the media. For this purpose, comments below a YouTube video on a hurricane event on Grand Isle, Louisiana, as well as on-site interviews with people affected by coastal land loss, were qualitatively analyzed. The results were interpreted with the help of various theories such as the theory of three landscapes, Dahrendorf’s conflict theory, Bourdieu’s theory of social capital, and Luhmann’s autopoietic systems theory. The research reveals patterns of interpretation, categorization, and evaluation of processes from an internal and external perspective that are highly morally charged.

Toward an Embodied Theory of Understanding Literary Text

In this article, I aim to theorize and formulate the understanding of literary text within an Embodied Cognitive Approach. After sketching out the analyses of literary text understanding conducted within the framework of the so-called Common Cognitive Approach, I will proceed to point out their shortcomings. I will then lay the scientific foundations of the Embodied Theory of Understanding Literary Text (ETULT) by referring to direct and indirect evidence from neurology, psychology and so on. I will introduce ETULT in detail, with the help of evidence from fiction, Dante's Divine Comedy. I will also delineate the outlines of some field studies for the future, through developing questionnaires and brain scans (fMIR and EEG). In short, ETULT asserts that understanding literary texts is an embodied act, occurring processually on two levels of representation: Schematic and Embodied (The Two-Layered Representation Hypothesis or TLRH). Upon encountering a literary text, the reader forms a Blended Mediated World which is a fusion of the Text World and the Readerly World (The Blended Mediated World Hypothesis or BMWH). Within this mixed world, while those projected parts from the Text World which correspond with sensorimotor experiences of the reader are understood in an embodied way, the parts that lack embodied equivalence in the reader's sensorimotor experience function as Perceian Representamens, setting the reader in search of relevant Objects of Signs, which occur in the form of sensorimotor experiences (The Object-Search Hypothesis or OSH). The reader then becomes involved in a cycle of coming and going movements between the literary text and the socio-physical environment, demonstrating thus the processual nature of embodied understanding.

The Artistic Installation as a Form of Transmitting of Socially Significant Meanings

The connection between art and society presents the main subject of the article. Briefly touching upon the causes of this phenomenon, which stem from the high level of communicative activity of the modern context of our lives, the author shows the connection of these processes and the need of art to absorb the vital problems of our existence — war and peace, ecology, a healthy lifestyle, the role of art, etc. Many artists today think that the absence of that connection leaves art beyond the boundaries of its relevant and called-for forms. One sign of that global tendency is the special interest in the documentary artistic practices, as well as the drifting of art outside of its traditional environment of museums and concert halls. The result is wide dissemination of the performative forms of presentation of socially significant artistic concepts, one of which is installation. While characterizing the environmental side of the issue and tracing the key points of the historical development of the art of installation, the author observes that it is genetically determined to reflect the socially significant problems. Considering the different examples of installation artefacts, the author points out their predisposition to the synthesis of arts. Introducing music to the broad palette of expression means that it not simply intensifies this influence, but, because of the processual nature of music, it possesses the effect of theatricality that manifests itself in the process of exploration of artistically organized environments on the part of the audience. Analyzing the examples of installation constructs that are situated in urban landscapes from this perspective, the author arrives at the idea that the natural consequence of the aforementioned processes is the emergence of artistically presented installations. One of the possible examples is the installation by Heiner Goebbels Everything that Happened and Would Happen based on texts from Europeana: A Brief History of the 20th Century by Patrik Ourednik. The main aim of the analysis of all the examples is to identify some of the new forms of involvement of audiences in the process of perception. While traversing through the liminal state, it is involved in the meaning-generating process and in the process of search and comprehension of the meaning, the audience acquires the chance to understand profoundly the difficult problems of modern social life.

Theoretical framework for an analysis of the recent criminal law reforms in Poland

In the article, I analyse certain aspects of recent criminal law reforms in Poland from the perspective of criminal punishment being a complex legal and social institution of a processual nature. It is intended to enable a critical examination of the punitiveness of the penal system, which can hardly be explained by its effectiveness or even by penal populism. In the study I use the following methods: historical legal, comparative legal, formal logical, dialectical, analytical, synthetical and inductive/deductive. The synthesis and triangulation of the methods follow the principles of culturally integrated social and legal studies (Królikowska, Utrat-Milecki 2010).

IDENTITY FORMATION OF THE CHILD MIGRANT IN MICHAEL ONDAATJE’S AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOVEL “THE CAT’S TABLE”

The current article examines the process of identity formation in the autobiographical novel “The Cat’s Table” by Michael Ondaatje, a Sri Lankan-born Canadian writer. The novel focuses on the childhood and youth stages, which are critical periods for transitioning into adulthood. The research aims to reconstruct the artistic depiction of the migrant character’s identity as they travel from East to West, taking into account the influence of location, environment, external factors, the experience of emigration and survival on the way to the formation of one’s own self. Research methods are subordinate to the aim of the study and tasks. The study employs literary analysis techniques such as close-reading, biographical and autobiographical analysis, narratology, postcolonial criticism, and identity studies. The objectives of the research include analyzing the novel’s poetics, thematic complexity, and genre specificity, examining the synthesis of autobiographical elements and motifs from postcolonial travel literature in relation to modern conceptualizations of identity, and exploring the processual nature of the identity formation of the author-narrator-migrant and the literary character-teen-migrant who exists in the “Third Space” according to H. Bhabha. The emigration of a child is seen as “rites of passage” proposed by Van Gennep, shared by the characters who have undergone international mobility in their early years. The article focuses on the transitional stage of identity acquisition by a child migrant, emphasizing that the writer draws from his own childhood experiences and attempts to convey his teenage identity crisis. The central character of the novel, an eleven-year-old boy, occurs on board a ship that travels from Sri Lanka, a colonized country, to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the largest colonial state in the world in the 20th century. The sea voyage and events on the Oronsay, the ocean liner depicted in the novel, are based on the author’s real memories and serve as a means to delve into the inner journey of the past and reconstruct childhood memories. The concept of “identity crisis”, as described by E. Erikson, is viewed not as a catastrophic event but as a pivotal moment of development that reflects the complexities of social identity and personal growth during the transitional age. The article concludes that the experience of migration during the formative years of personal identity, shared by the author and the characters, is crucial for the adaptation strategies of individuals undergoing resettlement and serves as a significant motif in postcolonial literature focused on the lives of migrants.

The Processual Nature of Volunteer Engagement: A Reconstruction of Career Patterns Based on the Narratives of Interviewees Involved in Non-Profit Activities

The article is intended to reconstruct the career stages of volunteers. As a result of the biographical data analysis, three stages of the volunteering career were outlined: preparation, institutionalization, and, potentially, professionalization. The conditions and contexts of their occurrence were also reconstructed. Secondly, the patterns of volunteering careers were described, namely, the ‘structured action scheme’ with its ‘axiological’ and ‘pragmatic’ variants; a ‘post-trajectory’ pattern, and the pattern of ‘mature participation’ and ‘biographical metamorphosis’. In this qualitative sociological study, transcriptions of narrative biographical interviews were analyzed. The procedures of the classic version of the grounded theory methodology were applied. Some concepts developed by Fritz Schütze in the field of the biographical analysis were also used.

“Now we start to make it like home”: reunited refugee families negotiating integration and belonging

This paper highlights the importance of local and individual context in either facilitating or hindering processes of integration for reunited refugee families settling in unchosen areas. It adds to understandings of integration by analyzing the day-to-day active and processual nature of place-making, from the perspective of families. The findings are based on qualitative interviews with 13 refugee families−21 parents and 8 children aged between 12 and 18, who had recently been reunited in two large cities in the UK: Glasgow and Birmingham. The paper explores the local conditions families identified as conducive to settling in their local area and argues that the process of attaching to their new locales was mediated through the social connections they made. The article contributes to knowledge by demonstrating how families exercised agency and resilience in place-making in unchosen spaces, through the people they met and the relationships they developed. Further, it critiques the tendency to denigrate “exclusive” bonding ties, particularly between co-ethnics and pays attention to the role of friendship in routes to belonging in unchosen spaces.

Prioritizing the culture metric for transformative ocean management in South Africa

ABSTRACT The Ecosystems Services (ES) approach to ocean management forms part of global initiatives to achieve sustainability. In a time of climate change and ocean depletion, ES is critical to an inclusive global ocean accounting and marine spatial planning (MSP). The ES approach proposes that nature offers a range of services to human populations which can be measured for integrated ocean management. The services identified in ES are thought to be usefully integrated into systems’ models for both retrospective analysis and future modelling. Recently, culture is identified as an important ecosystem service in ocean management. The System of Environmental Economic Accounting (SEEA) adopted and applied by the United Nations Statistical Commission Several scholars calls for the inclusion of culture in environmental economic accounting. However, and as argued in this article, for various reasons, culture is not easily circumscribed, and it offers its own epistemological foundation that may frame ocean ‘accounting’. The research presented in the article uses anthropological research methods to investigate, document and analyse the form and substance of coastal culture in South Africa. It is concluded that the transmaterial, temporal and processual nature of culture means that for South Africa and potentially Africa, a radical transformation of ecological discourse is necessary for a sufficiently dynamic ES approach that can apprehend the complexity of culture in Africa and the world.

Rudolf Laban and the seven planes of consciousness: Sensory-somatic portals to spirit

This article explores an unpublished and so far unarticulated aspect of Rudolf Laban’s spiritual thinking which focuses specifically on a diagrammatic sketch drawing by Laban found in the Rudolf Laban Archive at the University of Surrey. In this sketch Laban depicts planes of consciousness and movements of the material and subtle sensory bodies as they relate to his notions of Space, Effort and consciousness, mirroring Rudolf Steiner’s ‘ladder’ of spiritual consciousness. The article further discusses (using this sketch as a stimulus) Laban’s interest in the unconscious, ‘unseen’ aspects of embodiment and his Rosicrucian thinking alongside Steiner’s acknowledgment of the importance of the body as the site of, and portal to, spiritual knowledge and the processual nature of material and subtle existence which has movement at its heart.

Framing the Unframed: Avalanche, an Art Magazine

Between the 1960s and 1970s, art practices such as performance, conceptual, and land art challenged the very possibility of framing the artwork and clearly demarcating the boundaries that enclosed it. In this context, art and artists’ magazines assumed a pivotal role as they became the medium and site for the presentation and dissemination of these new art forms. This essay examines Avalanche, a magazine published between 1970 and 1976 in New York, and analyses how this periodical framed new art within its paper boundaries while at the same time expanding this art in time and space and showing the processual nature of the framing processes.

Demystifying massive and rapid business scaling – An explorative study on driving factors in digital start-ups

This study explores the concept of massive and rapid business scaling (MRBS) in the context of digital start-ups by identifying 20 factors clustered into seven core drivers. Through inductive qualitative research, the study builds on 53 semi-structured interviews with founders, executives, and advisors, leading to the development of a framework that uncovers seven core drivers of MRBS contributing to the scaling process. These core drivers are as follows: 1) scanning the environment and recognizing opportunities, 2) iteratively adjusting the business model with an asset-light structure, 3) achieving operational excellence through digitization, 4) building an efficient and entrepreneurial workforce combined with leadership and vision, 5) leveraging internal resources to strengthen positioning and expand the market, 6) attracting capital to facilitate growth realization, and 7) cultivating organizational agility and a transformation culture. While core drivers one to five imply a processual nature, the sixth and seventh core drivers serve as a foundation for MRBS. Moreover, this study outlines several areas of tension within the process of MRBS. Therefore, the study provides valuable insights for scholars and practitioners.

A Processed Processor: The Processual Nature of the Self

The contribution deals with the question of the constitution and persistence of the “self,” linking psychological and sociological approaches. The central interface of this linkage is derived from the process character of the self. It is argued that transdisciplinary work aiming at this common conceptual core will prove particularly fruitful. After discussing the status of the term “the self” in both science and everyday usage, conceptual arguments and definitions (in contrast to related terms such as ego, individual, person, or subject) are examined. A third step provides a synopsis of established approaches and arguments both from psychological and sociological perspectives, offering points of convergence for a metadisciplinary concept of the self. The proposed process character of the self is discussed with respect to language pragmatics, memory performance, and body boundedness. The final section sums up the lines of argumentation and emphasizes intended inspiration for interdisciplinary discussion.

Towards an experiential identity of place: the case of Manchester’s Craft and Design Centre

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to explore the role and potential of lived experiences in informing and shaping the formation of place identity within the sphere of the production and consumption of craft objects.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is part of a larger funded research project and focuses on Manchester’s Craft and Design Centre. It draws upon a series of in-depth interviews conducted with craft makers and visitors.FindingsThe analysis and interpretation of textual data help to theorise an experiential identity of place, which revolves around the fusion of the cultural heritage and lived insideness of the physical setting; activity spaces and the micro-encounters of craft-making; and conflicting meanings and attachments to the Craft and Design Centre.Originality/valueThis study provides a novel perspective on the understanding of place identity in the context of craft-making by focusing on the lived experiences of various stakeholders and acknowledging the multi-faceted, dynamic and processual nature of place.

Lost in a haze or playing to partners’ strengths? Learning to collaborate in three transdisciplinary European Living Labs

The ability to learn from each other plays a central role in successful transdisciplinary (TD) collaboration. This article systematically investigates how learning to collaborate allows researchers and practitioners to navigate the challenges of collaborative TD work. Drawing on social learning theory, we emphasise the processual nature of social learning in TD research as learning to collaborate. We examine collaborative learning processes in three Living Labs located in different socio-cultural and institutional contexts in Europe. The Living Labs explored the conditions for mutually beneficial rural-urban relations. We use data from a systematic monitoring of a 4-year Horizon 2020 research project. Our analysis illustrates how learning in and through collaboration can enhance individual and collective capacities to deal with different perspectives, priorities, and approaches, enabling the achievement of transformative objectives. We also show how particular factors and conditions lead to differing learning histories and a lack of attention to learning processes may result in challenges to collaboration. This provides a more encompassing understanding of the complex learning dynamics underpinning TD research. We argue that an intentional focus on collaborative learning processes is essential to fulfil the aspiration of TD research to contribute to creating knowledge and capacities for the co-production of sustainable futures.

Entrepreneurial support: a theoretical framework and case study of Tunisia

Entrepreneurial support, its determinants, its articulation, and its actors are always analyzed from both processual and emergent perspectives. Because a certain level of coherence must be maintained, public structures that are perceived as not opting for a process/emergence mix in their support systems are not hostile to using it when the context permits it and when the person receiving support accepts to be at the center of the design of his or her support. Literature reveals that a compromise between these two approaches has neither been established nor, as far as we are aware, exhaustively investigated. This research sought to highlight the processual nature of both the form and substance of entrepreneurial support. To achieve this, we administered a qualitative survey to 21 Tunisian business proprietors. The results indicate that in the Tunisian context, accompaniment is structurally processual and superimposed on an entrepreneurial process that both the accompaniers and the accompanied co-pilot in order to maintain coherence and complementarity during the training of the accompanied in the trade of entrepreneur. In addition, coaching is fundamentally and intrinsically emergent because it is geared toward endogenous action, co-constructed, and contextualized due to the prominence of personalized learning needs and the coachee's situational framework in relation to the enterprise he or she must establish.