Shared Beliefs Research Articles

In Search of Stability

This article accounts for how authoritarian regimes use elections to achieve stability (and, thus, longevity). At the domestic level, elections are deployed to either feign conformity to established rules and/or shared beliefs about how political power should be maintained or mobilise citizens in a unanimous show of manufactured support for the ruling party. At the international level, elections are employed to simulate compliance to international democratic norms about the appropriate method of selecting political authority. It validates this theory using the case of Myanmar, where three different ruling cliques have sanctioned elections in the pursuit of this dividend. The institutionalisation of this function over time has in turn contributed to the stabilisation of autocratic rule, which has occurred through a combination of endogenous self-reinforcement, exogenous reinforcement and reciprocal reinforcement. This positive relationship offers further opportunities for within-case and cross-case comparisons to be made in the future.

Quality Culture in Universities and Influences on Formal and Non-formal Education

Quality culture in higher education is a complex concept and until now it is hard to establish a generally accepted approach. European University Association affirmed in 2006 that quality culture is understood as a set of elements: shared values, beliefs, expectations and commitment toward quality. The article aims to identify influences driven by institutional quality culture on non-formal and formal education in universities. Preparing organizational culture for change involves various activities: generating organizational attitudes and practices, creating a climate of mutual trust and support, creating a participative environment that includes all stakeholders, empowering members to self-manage and continually improve processes.

An activity theory of research methods in architecture and urbanism

Background: Using activity theory this article argues that intentional activities are central to knowledge-production and may be compared to methods in research, and the worldview within which these activities are perceived as meaningful by the actors who deploy them may be compared to methodologies. Accordingly, research activities are dependent on their context and cannot simply be transferred from one context to another. Methods: Taking the scientific method as an example, the article discusses the underlying materialist assumptions that give the scientific method its meaning, and that helps to identify selective data as evidence for its propositions. By exposing this process as one of narrative construction that is situated and given meaning by the community that deploys it, the article argues that alternative narratives are possible and argues against the assumption that data and evidence are neutral or objective. The purpose of this argument is not to undermine the scientific method, but merely to show that its power lies in the strong connection between the worldview of science and the methods it employs for its development, with the intention of providing a similarly robust framework for architecture and urbanism. Results: The article rejects ontological and epistemological accounts of knowledge production in favour of a socio-cultural approach that sees a community of academics and professionals, such as those in science or in architecture and urbanism, as an interpretative community of shared values and beliefs. These communities share fundamental views about the nature of their disciplines and what is important within them. As a result they determine through their practices what kind of questions are important and what kind of responses are meaningful. In the field of research, they also determine what research outcomes are significant and impactful, and hence represent an advance or knowledge production in the field. Conclusions: On this basis, a proposal is made in which architecture and urbanism is one such interpretative community supporting methodologies and research methods, resulting in a framework for the further development of research practices and research by design.

Geospatial analysis of statin adherence using pharmacy claims data in the state of Michigan.

Research has demonstrated that variation in availability and utilization of health care resources exist on a range of scales, from regions of the United States, hospital referral regions, ZIP codes, and census tracts. Limited research using spatial analyses has found that variation in medication adherence exists across census tracts. Using spatial analysis, researchers may be able to effectively analyze geographically dispersed data to determine whether factors such as sociodemographics, local shared beliefs and attitudes, barriers to access such as availability of prescribers or pharmacies, or others are associated with variations in medication adherence in a defined geographic area. To (a) demonstrate that medication adherence may be mapped across an entire state using medication possession ratios and (b) determine whether a geographic pattern of adherence to statins could be identified at the ZIP code level for members of a statewide insurer. This study utilized pharmacy claims data from a statewide insurer. Insured statin users were aged greater than 30 years, had at least 1 statin prescription, and were continuously enrolled for the observation year. Patient medication possession ratios (MPR) were derived, which were then aggregated as a mean MPR for each ZIP code. ZIP codes were categorized as higher (MPR greater than 0.80) or lower (MPR less than 0.80) adherence and mapped using Arc GIS, a platform for designing and managing solutions through the application of geographic knowledge. Analysis included a determination of whether the MPRs of higher and lower adherence ZIP codes were significantly different. Hot spot analysis was conducted to identify clustering of higher, midrange, and lower adherent ZIP codes using the GetisORD Gi* Statistic. This test provides z-scores and P values to indicate where features with either high or low values cluster spatially. MPRs for these 3 categories were compared using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Of 1,154 Michigan ZIP codes, 907 were represented by 212,783 insured statin users. The mean statin MPR by ZIP code was 0.79 ± 0.4. The mean MPR for higher adherent ZIP codes was 0.83 ± 0.03 and 0.76 ± 0.03 for lower adherent ZIP codes (P less than 0.001). Significant clustering of ZIP codes by adherence levels was evident from the hot spot analysis. The mean MPR was 0.84 ± 0.04 for high adherence areas, 0.79 ± 0.03 for midrange areas, and 0.74 ± 0.04 for lower adherent areas (overall P less than 0.001). Significant variations in adherence exist across ZIP codes at a state level. Future research is needed to determine locally relevant factors associated with this finding, which may be used to derive locally meaningful interventions.

Brain over Brawn: Shared Beliefs and Presumptions in Chinese and Western Strategemata

Whether or not there exists a distinctive “Western Way of War” that differs fundamentally from the military thought and practice of China and other non-Western societies has been much debated in recent years. This article concentrates on a single aspect of the larger problem by comparing the Western classical tradition of strategemata, found mainly in the works of Frontinus, Onasander, and Polyaenus dating from the first and second centuries CE, with the corresponding Chinese tradition found in the ancient military treatises, the early dynastic histories, and important encyclopedic works such as Du You’s Tongdian. It finds that for all practical intents and purposes the two corpora form a single corpus – that is, they include essentially the same range of stratagems that appear to be derived from common or shared assumptions about human psychology. Although similarity is the dominant theme, this study also finds some evidence of change over time and subtle differences between the two traditions. This evidence suggests that the efficacy of particular stratagems is by no means universal but rather is rooted in material conditions and social and institutional structures that are themselves impermanent.

Quality of life as perceived by older persons with chronic illness in rural and urban Shandong, China.

This qualitative study aimed to understand the meaning of quality of life to older persons with chronic illness in China, and to compare the perceptions of those living in rural and urban areas. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 24 older Chinese, half residing in urban and half in rural areas in Shandong province. Through an inductive coding and categorization process, the study identified two shared domains of quality of life: basic necessities and family wellness. Two additional domains, physical health and mood and spirit, were endorsed predominantly by urban residents. Entertainment and leisure comprised a quality of life domain for urban residents only. Cohort experience and cultural values likely played a role in shared beliefs about quality of life, whereas socioeconomic context may account for differences in rural and urban conceptions. An implication of the findings is that for older Chinese with chronic illness, developing and sustaining programs to meet basic needs is critical to quality of life.

The new excellence: spreading constructive beliefs and practices from the few to the many

Purpose – This paper aims to present an interview asking Robert I. Sutton how leaders can create or discover wellsprings of excellence and engagement within their organizations and then scale them successfully to encompass the company as a whole, and then continue to scale them successfully as the business expands. Design/methodology/approach – Sutton discusses what was learned in the process of researching his book Scaling Up Excellence: Getting to More without Settling for Less (Crown Business, 2014), co-authored with fellow Stanford professor, Huggy Rao. Findings – Scaling depends on having shared beliefs and behaviors that people not only talk about, but they also actually live – and that help guide and motivate people in the pursuit of the local definition of excellence. Practical implications – To scale excellence the best leaders and teams employ a one-two punch of first arousing collective emotion, especially pride or anger, and then channelling that emotion to propel the desired action. Originality/value – The paper provides an insightful look at the process of scaling up continuous customer-focused performance and product innovation by a well-known expert.

A phenomenological approach to hospitality management research: Chefs’ occupational commitment

This paper showcases the development of a mixed methods study empathetic with the interpretivist paradigm and deploying a phenomenological approach designed to investigate a perennial hospitality industry human resource management issue – organisational and occupational commitment. In so doing this paper builds onto a body of work which hallmarks the developmental maturity of hospitality scholarship. Specifically, the paper proposes that the judicial selection of various conceptual and operational research tools in the development of a methodology, including research strategy and design, facilitates commensurability and insights into research problems not otherwise necessarily illuminated by ‘aparadigmatic’ studies. The study finds that chefs, cookery being a core hospitality occupation, employ a range of rhetorical devices to reveal the meanings and understandings of shared values and beliefs integral to their occupational community; including creativity, which if unrequited, the research concludes, compromise organisational and occupational commitment.

Healthy Spaces in Meaningful Places: The Rural Church and Women's Health Promotion.

The influence of place on health is beginning to be addressed in health research. Current understanding of rural places, however, remains in a state of disequilibrium, balancing between geographic and sociocultural positions. This article illuminates the significance of place for rural women's experiences of health promotion in the rural church. This study used a novel approach to interpretive phenomenological methodology by including the photovoice method to elicit both individual and shared experiential meanings. Twenty-two participants took pictures, wrote in logbooks, and participated in individual and group interviews to share their experiences of health promotion in the rural church. The church as a place was realized through three broad discourses: (a) an intersection of physical and geographic environments, (b) a gateway to experiential attachment and personal meaning, and (c) a connection to shared culture and beliefs. It is also suggested that place may best be interpreted with an experiential lens as it exhibits lived and felt spaces. Data analysis suggests that place consists of both physical and experiential realities, in addition to being a resource of culture and meaning. Implications for rural women's health promotion include fostering a deeper recognition of place-shaped experiences of health.

Shared beliefs enhance shared feelings: Religious/irreligious identifications modulate empathic neural responses

Recent neuroimaging research has revealed stronger empathic neural responses to same-race compared to other-race individuals. Is the in-group favouritism in empathic neural responses specific to race identification or a more general effect of social identification—including those based on religious/irreligious beliefs? The present study investigated whether and how intergroup relationships based on religious/irreligious identifications modulate empathic neural responses to others’ pain expressions. We recorded event-related brain potentials from Chinese Christian and atheist participants while they perceived pain or neutral expressions of Chinese faces that were marked as being Christians or atheists. We found that both Christian and atheist participants showed stronger neural activity to pain (versus neutral) expressions at 132–168 ms and 200–320 ms over the frontal region to those with the same (versus different) religious/irreligious beliefs. The in-group favouritism in empathic neural responses was also evident in a later time window (412–612 ms) over the central/parietal regions in Christian but not in atheist participants. Our results indicate that the intergroup relationship based on shared beliefs, either religious or irreligious, can lead to in-group favouritism in empathy for others’ suffering.

One Army?

The Salvation Army is a global denomination that finds its identity in both unity and diversity. Shared beliefs and practices are complemented by local tradition, culture and expression, resulting in recognisability similar, yet also distinctly different, Salvationist communities throughout the world. Salvation Army officers share a common calling to ministry, in which personal spiritual maturity and on-going development is seen as a necessary foundation. This article draws upon research that led to the emergence of a framework for spiritual life development that can be used in a multiplicity of contexts. Drawing on a theological and theoretical framework that encompasses evangelicalism, spirituality, theological education and vocational learning, it shows how the diverse contexts of research subjects provided both inspiration and challenge, thus contributing to the emergence of a framework that is simple, adaptable and pedagogically apt.

An Extended Cultural Consensus Theory Model to Account for Cognitive Processes in Decision Making in Social Surveys

In recent decades, cultural consensus theory (CCT) models have been extensively applied across research domains to explore shared cultural knowledge and beliefs. These models are parameterized in terms of person-specific cognitive parameters such as abilities and guessing biases as well as item difficulties. Although psychometric test theory is also formalized in terms of abilities and item difficulties, a quality that clearly sets CCT models apart from other test theory models is their specification to operate on data in which the answer key is latent. In doing so, CCT models specify the answer key as parameters of the model, and also involved with this specification are procedures to verify the integrity of the answer key that is estimated. In this article, the authors develop the following methods to propagate the application of these CCT models in the field of social surveys: (1) by extending the underlying cognitive model to be able to account for uncertainty in decision making (“don’t know” responses), (2) by allowing covariate information to be entered in the analysis, and (3) by deriving statistical inference in the hierarchical Bayesian framework. The proposed model is fit to data describing knowledge on science and on aging to demonstrate the novel findings that can be achieved by the approach.

Explaining Coordination in Collaborative Partnerships and Clarifying the Scope of the Belief Homophily Hypothesis

The move towards collaborative governance in environmental policy often takes the form of collaborative partnerships involving multiple stakeholders with divergent beliefs and interests. Within such partnerships, stakeholders selectively coordinate with one another to varying degrees to achieve both individual and shared objectives. Using interview and questionnaire data from 10 US marine aquaculture partnerships in 2009–2011, we test three theoretical hypotheses regarding how individuals within collaborative partnerships decide with whom to coordinate. These competing propositions include belief homophily (individuals will coordinate with whom they share beliefs), trust (individuals will coordinate with those whom they trust), and resources (individuals will coordinate with those who hold critical resources). Results suggest that specific aspects of trust and resources are more important than shared beliefs in driving coordination in marine aquaculture partnerships. This finding qualifies previous studies that identified shared beliefs as a driving factor. This study concludes with a theoretical discussion about the explanatory boundaries of belief

A cognitive perspective on health systems integration: results of a Canadian Delphi study.

BackgroundOngoing challenges to healthcare integration point toward the need to move beyond structural and process issues. While we know what needs to be done to achieve integrated care, there is little that informs us as to how. We need to understand how diverse organizations and professionals develop shared knowledge and beliefs – that is, we need to generate knowledge about normative integration. We present a cognitive perspective on integration, based on shared mental model theory, that may enhance our understanding and ability to measure and influence normative integration. The aim of this paper is to validate and improve the Mental Models of Integrated Care (MMIC) Framework, which outlines important knowledge and beliefs whose convergence or divergence across stakeholder groups may influence inter-professional and inter-organizational relations.MethodsWe used a two-stage web-based modified Delphi process to test the MMIC Framework against expert opinion using a random sample of participants from Canada’s National Symposium on Integrated Care. Respondents were asked to rate the framework’s clarity, comprehensiveness, usefulness, and importance using seven-point ordinal scales. Spaces for open comments were provided. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the structured responses, while open comments were coded and categorized using thematic analysis. The Kruskall-Wallis test was used to examine cross-group agreement by level of integration experience, current workplace, and current role.ResultsIn the first round, 90 individuals responded (52% response rate), representing a wide range of professional roles and organization types from across the continuum of care. In the second round, 68 individuals responded (75.6% response rate). The quantitative and qualitative feedback from experts was used to revise the framework. The re-named “Integration Mindsets Framework” consists of a Strategy Mental Model and a Relationships Mental Model, comprising a total of nineteen content areas.ConclusionsThe Integration Mindsets Framework draws the attention of researchers and practitioners to how various stakeholders think about and conceptualize integration. A cognitive approach to understanding and measuring normative integration complements dominant cultural approaches and allows for more fine-grained analyses. The framework can be used by managers and leaders to facilitate the interpretation, planning, implementation, management and evaluation of integration initiatives.

Battling the “Invincible Predator”: Alzheimer's Disease as Metaphor

From time to time, Susan Sontag wrote in Illness as Metaphor, a culture generates sentimental fantasies about one or another that reflect more than biology of disease, and more even than shared beliefs about bodies and minds (3). illness makes its way into literature in surprising ways-ways that show both what people want to think about how a affects them and what they most fear about it; ways, in fact, that reflect beliefs about relationship of affliction to essence of one's identity. Sontag's focus was tuberculosis and cancer, two illnesses, she said, poorly understood medically, and experienced as stealthily invasive; each arousing dread; each seen as an evil, invincible predator (6). Because these two diseases were for a long time thought incurable, they generated myths that gave them meaning beyond that of a physically destructive assault on body.Both tuberculosis and cancer were understood as diseases of passion: cancer emerged when strong feelings were repressed; tuberculosis, associated as it was with poverty, became known as artists' disease, a sign of acute sensitivity. The romantic view, Sontag noted, that illness exacerbates consciousness (35). In part, this romantic view transformed illness from a punishment to a form of self-expression; but it also served to place blame for on sufferer. modern diseases (once TB, now cancer), Sontag wrote, the romantic idea that expresses character is inevitably extended to assert that character causes disease-because it has not expressed itself. Passion moves inward, striking and blighting deepest cellular recesses (45). This psychologizing of physical illness substitutes for understanding its biology and, Sontag said, seems to provide control over experiences and events (like grave illnesses) over which people have in fact little or no control. Psychological understanding undermines 'reality' of a disease (45). However that psychological understanding is formulated also reflects a wider view of reality. Romanticizing tuberculosis justified bohemian desire to disengage from social obligations and responsibilities, to retreat-to island, to a magic mountain-and care only for oneself and one's frailties. Cancer reflected a paranoid view of a world troubled by invasive forces: pollutants, cigarette smoke, and deadly rays; and that view justified political isolation and xenophobia.Although both TB and cancer had for centuries made their way into fiction, at time she wrote, Sontag recognized another malady becoming endowed as the vehicle of 'spiritual' feelings and 'critical' discontent: that malady was insanity. With myriad social, environmental, familial, genetic, and biological causes, insanities of many kinds were both mysterious and seemingly intractable. Like TB and cancer, insanity eluded what Sontag called medicine's central premise... that all diseases can be cured (5). Writers such as psychiatrists R. D. Laing and Thomas Ssasz, novelist Ken Kesey, and poet and novelist Sylvia Plath gave mental illness aura of nonconformity, creativity, and even acute insight about social and political affairs. To behave irrationally, perhaps to hear voices, to walk, as it were, to a different drummer-these behaviors, according to Sontag, fed a secular myth of self-transcendence (35).Constructing a DiseaseRecently Alzheimer's Disease (AD) has made its way into popular and literary fiction, generating questions of how-and why-a particular etiology and biology are being transformed imaginatively. How does AD function in character and plot development? What themes does it help a writer to convey? How do fictionalized representations of AD, characterized by of loss of memory, awareness and self, function metaphorically to reveal culturally shared fears and desires?Technological advances in last thirty years have led to belief that through funding for research scientists can conquer all ailments. …

Team knowledge with motivation in a successful MMORPG game team: A case study

We studied the content of the team mental model with a case study about a successful online game team. This team was formed by high-ranking managers in a large raid guild to conduct a raid in War of Worldcraft. They were interviewed with a set of 5-W questions developed according to the conceptualizations of team mental model (Levine & Moreland, 1991). Toward the interview protocol, a content analysis was conducted with two-cycle coding method from exploratory to explanatory and a hierarchical framework from code, category, theme, to theory were generated to describe the team mental model. In the first cycle, 17 codes were extracted from participants' own wording for concepts that were shared by whom controlled various gaming characters. These codes are knowledge convergence about the problem at-hand, actors, events, affects and outcomes – what the core gamers have experienced through the collaborative gaming process. In the second cycle, coding was guided by learning theories. Six categories, mingled from 17 codes, showed collective knowledge of co-work process, leaders' works, work under supervision, seeking joint fun, relationship oriented, and balance between extrinsic-intrinsic motivations. From 6 categories, two themes were synthesized: the team (1) performed “joint hard work” for (2) seeking “joint hard fun.” The first theme comprised declarative and procedural knowledge representations and we consider it to be the commonality between this game team and ordinary work/learning teams. The second theme was composed of affective and cognitive evaluation components about intrinsic motivation which is in accordance with Self-determination theory (SDT, Deci & Ryan, 2000). In general, “Jointly hard work for hard fun” is the gist content of the team mental model. We found ample evidences that members explicitly recall shared motivational beliefs of team mates and emotional–motivational events in gaming. Based on the results of this study, several implications have been addressed for teachers to enhance students' intrinsic motivation in conducting quality Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning. Future studies are needed to further explore the relationship between the quality of team mental models and team-level performance.

Cross Cultural Diversity in Today’s Globalized Era

We live in a world with an abundant array of diversity. Diversity is evident in people, the environment, and all forms of life. Advancements in technology have made the world seem smaller and increased the interaction between people from different cultures. The rapid globalisation has a significant impact on the work, employees, and organizations bringing them frequently with clients, suppliers and peer that they never work before. In an era of globalisation, organization faces unique challenges in coordinating among clients, developers, designers’ workers from different countries. The major challenges are to develop practices, which balance global competitiveness, multinational flexibility and the building of a worldwide learning capability. This balance will require organisations to develop the cultural sensitivity and ability to manage and leverage learning to build future capabilities. While offering opportunities, globalisation also poses significant challenges to employees especially when different cultures are involved as a team. Multicultural teams have their culture as a set of shared values and beliefs. Beliefs are people’s perceptions’ of how things are done in their countries. They are reported as “practices” in a particular culture. Values are people’s perceptions about the way things should be done. They are their preferred practices and people’s beliefs. In a global context the management and development of people inevitably leads to considerations of diversity and related challenges. Attitudes towards working have changed dramatically in recent years and there is currently much more emphasis on multi-cultural working. Many organisations have found that multicultural team integration can be problematic and at times performance is not always at the level required or expected. With an ongoing increase of multicultural teams, leaders in multinational organisations must be aware of cultural diversity issues in order to function effectively and achieve high levels of team performance. This paper will focus on issues like Virtual team, communication in globalized world, resolving conflict and some effective tips for managing cross cultural diversity in the globalized world. Data has been collected from secondary sources.

Playing Favorites: How Shared Beliefs Shape the IMF's Lending Decisions

AbstractInternational organizations (IOs) suffuse world politics, but the International Monetary Fund (IMF) stands out as an unusually important IO. My research suggests that IMF lending is systematically biased. Preferential treatment is largely driven by the degree of similarity between beliefs held by IMF officials and key economic policy-makers in the borrowing country. This article describes the IMF's ideational culture as “neoliberal,” and assumes it to be stable during the observation window (1980–2000). The beliefs of top economic policy-makers in borrowing countries, however, vary in terms of their distance from IMF officials' beliefs. When fellow neoliberals control the top economic policy posts the distance between the means of the policy team's beliefs and the IMF narrows; consequently, IMF loans become less onerous, more generous, and less rigorously enforced. I gathered data on the number of conditions and the relative size of loans for 486 programs in the years between 1980 and 2000. I collected data on waivers, which allow countries that have missed binding conditions to continue to access funds, as an indicator for enforcement. I rely on indirect indicators, gleaned from a new data set that contains biographical details of more than 2,000 policy-makers in ninety developing countries, to construct a measure of the proportion of the top policy officials that are fellow neoliberals. The evidence from a battery of statistical tests reveals that as the proportion of neoliberals in the borrowing government increases, IMF deals get comparatively sweeter.

Hierarchical Bayesian Modeling for Test Theory Without an Answer Key

Cultural Consensus Theory (CCT) models have been applied extensively across research domains in the social and behavioral sciences in order to explore shared knowledge and beliefs. CCT models operate on response data, in which the answer key is latent. The current paper develops methods to enhance the application of these models by developing the appropriate specifications for hierarchical Bayesian inference. A primary contribution is the methodology for integrating the use of covariates into CCT models. More specifically, both person- and item-related parameters are introduced as random effects that can respectively account for patterns of inter-individual and inter-item variability.

Negotiating Competing Goals in the Development of an Urban Ecology Practitioner Inquiry Community

Teacher learning communities are hailed by many as vehicles for reforming and elevating the professional status of teaching. While much research explores teacher community as a venue for measurable gains, our research examines the orientation of practitioner inquiry toward critical debate about effective instruction. Specifically, our study focuses on a group of middle and high school teachers who worked with a nonprofit organization to engage students in urban environmental field investigations. Teachers met regularly as a community with the common goal of teaching urban ecology in an outdoor setting. We collected interview data from members of the teacher community, and we observed teacher interaction during a meeting of the practitioner inquiry group. Interview results indicated that while the nonprofit aimed to support collaborative dialogue and self-critique, participants saw the community mainly as a venue for pursuing short-term goals, such as receiving new resources or socializing with colleagues. Observation data, however, suggested that the community was taking early steps toward building an environment oriented toward critical discussion. Juxtaposing results from our interviews and observations, we discuss the challenges communities face when they seek to develop shared beliefs and deal openly with conflict. Ultimately, we suggest that organizers of collaborative learning environments should work to actively develop structures for building the organizational trust necessary to support civil critique.