Skilled Actors Research Articles

Horses look longer at skilled humans than unskilled ones despite similar outcomes in an object manipulation task

Evaluating others based on skillfulness and prosociality is an important ability in choosing a cooperative partner. Such abilities have been studied in nonhuman species such as primates and dogs; however, few studies have examined whether horses could evaluate humans based on their skillfulness. Here, we investigated whether horses (Equus caballus) could evaluate humans based on their skillfulness in a situation related to their own interests (food). We showed horses a pair of experimenters, one that could open the lid of a container (skilled actor) and another that could not open the lid of the container (unskilled actor). The unskilled actor ‘accidentally’ dropped the container during the demonstration phase, causing the lid to open, allowing him to remove the object and thus achieve the same outcome as the skilled actor. The experimental trials involved two conditions, one in which the container had food inside, and one in which it was empty. This was because we thought the horses would have an expectation that the skilled actor would give them food after opening the container, so we predicted that horses would look longer at the skilled actor than the unskilled actor only in the food condition. We measured the gaze duration of horses toward each experimenter. Horses looked longer at the skilled actor overall and looked at the two actors longer in the food condition than in the non-food condition, and there was no interaction between role and condition. Post-hoc tests showed that the horses looked at the skilled actor longer than the unskilled actor in both conditions. They also looked at the skilled actor for longer in the food condition compared with the no-food condition. These results suggest that the horses were able to visually discriminate between humans based on their skillfulness.

Understanding and supporting change in health systems using the strategic action fields framework: the availability and origin of sources of authority

ABSTRACT Policy-driven change in public service systems is difficult to implement. We focus upon ‘sources of authority’, which figure within the Strategic Action Fields Framework (SAFF) as resources mobilized by socially skilled actors to catalyse and sustain change. Drawing on qualitative case studies evaluating a large-scale policy-driven change in the English NHS, the Vanguard New Care Models programme, we (1) expand the definitions of ‘sources of authority’ and (2) argue that ‘sources of authority’ vary across two intersecting dimensions. This expands the utility of the SAFF beyond understanding and evaluating policy impact, and offers practical opportunities for achieving change.

Charitable food provision as a strategic action field: introducing a meso-level perspective on food support organizing

AbstractBuilding on 42 semi-structured interviews with directors and stakeholders of food charities based in Greater Manchester (UK), alongside online data and Factiva references trends, I argue that the charitable food provision (CFP) sector can be effectively conceptualized as a strategic action field (SAF). To do so, I first focus on the shared rules, understandings and practices characterising the organizations that belong to the field and on the broader field environment that imposes constraints and provides opportunities to the field actors. Subsequently, I examine the characteristics of five particularly relevant charities to describe the social positions and position-takings of the incumbent, the challengers and the group I refer to as sideliners of the field. Hence, I briefly touch upon the Covid-19 outbreak as an exogenous shock to discuss the effect of the campaign carried out by a ‘socially skilled actor’ - football player Marcus Rashford. I conclude by suggesting future research directions to enhance the application of SAF theory as a tool for investigating food support organizing within and across countries.

Difficult gifts: gifts to and from the popes in twelfth- and thirteenth-century England

ABSTRACT This article explores how gifts, and stories about gifts, to and from the popes were treated and discussed in twelfth- and thirteenth-century England. The first part explores the intellectual context in which these stories were written, namely scriptural and classical ideas about the gift that circulated in the period, and the practical challenges faced by the papacy. The second part explores how English clerks and aristocrats utilised these gifts and stories about them. The exchange of gifts, the article argues, presented the papacy and its partners with mutually incompatible practical and ideological pressures. Despite the efforts of skilled actors such as Pope Innocent III, these challenges could only be navigated, never resolved.

Skilled deceivers are better action perceivers and vice versa

Skilled actors rely on deception to disrupt the perceptual ability of opponents who seek to anticipate action intentions. Common-coding theory (Prinz, 1997) purports that action and perception share common origins in the brain, and therefore it seems plausible that the ability to ‘see through’ a deceptive action would be associated with a capacity to perform the same action. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the ability to perform a deceptive action would be related to the ability to perceive the same type of action. Fourteen skilled rugby players performed deceptive (side-step) and non-deceptive actions while running towards a camera. The deceptiveness of those participants was determined by testing the ability of a separate group of eight equally skilled observers to anticipate the impeding running directions using a temporally occluded video-based test. Based on the overall response accuracies, participants were separated into high- and low-deceptiveness groups. These two groups then themselves took part in a video-based test. Results revealed that the skilled deceivers had a significant advantage in their ability to better anticipate the action outcomes of highly deceptive actions. The skilled deceivers’ sensitivity to discriminate deceptive from non-deceptive actions was significantly better than that of less-skilled deceivers when viewing the most-deceptive actor. Moreover, the skilled perceivers performed actions that appeared to be better disguised than those of the less-skilled perceivers. These findings suggest that, consistent with common-coding theory, the perception of deceptive and non-deceptive actions is associated with the capability to produce deceptive actions and vice versa.

Industry hierarchy in team sport industries, team tactics and competitive advantage: the empty goal option in league handball

ABSTRACT Research question The paper asks to what extent team tactics qualify as internal sources of competitive advantage in team sport industries. Team tactics are complex routines for situated action, which require highly skilled actors to perform them. However, in an industry structure facilitating a highly unequal allocation of athletic talent, the potential of tactical routines to create competitive advantage is limited and incentives to exploit new routine options are dulled. Research methods The paper addresses the research question on the basis of a quantitative case study on empty goal tactics in German professional league handball. Results and findings There is evidence for a strong quality hierarchy between teams. Superior teams perform significantly better in standard tactic situations. A new tactical option is used primarily to resort to standard routines. New routines are avoided when incompatible with already established routines and do not promise a competitive advantage. Implications In a highly hierarchical team sports industry, the key resource heterogeneity, which creates competitive advantage, remains athletic talent. Creating new tactical options will not suffice to increase competitive balance. Teams have to develop key upstream higher-level routines before team tactics become relevant.

Love Your Country: EEG Evidence of Actor Preferences of Audiences in Patriotic Movies.

Movie watching is one of the common ways to spark love for the country. A good patriotic movie can arouse love and pride, encourage people to stand by their countries, and reinforce a sense of national belonging. To evoke audience emotion and enhance patriotism, the choice of actors is fundamental and is a dilemma for film producers. In this exploratory study, an electroencephalogram (EEG) with a rating task was used to investigate how actor types (i.e., skilled vs. publicity) in patriotic movies modulate the willingness of audiences to watch a film and their emotional responses. Behavioral results showed that audiences are more willing to watch patriotic movies starring skilled actors than to watch patriotic movies starring publicity actors. Furthermore, brain results indicated that smaller P3 and late positive potential (LPP) were elicited in response to skilled actors than to publicity actors in patriotic movies. A larger theta oscillation was also observed with skilled actors than with publicity actors. These findings demonstrate that the willingness of audiences to watch a movie is deeply affected by actor types in patriotic films. Specifically, skilled actors engage audiences emotionally, more so than publicity actors, and increase the popularity of patriotic movies. This study is the first to employ neuroscientific technology to study movie casting, which advances film studies with careful scientific measurements and a possible new direction.La première des vertus est le dévouement à la patrie.Napoléon Bonaparte

Thinking of anti-incineration protests in strategic action fields: three case studies in mainland China

ABSTRACT Local protests against municipal solid waste (MSW) incineration have become intractable problems in metropolitan areas worldwide. Based on the theory of strategic action fields, we adopt a comprehensive perspective to understand how controversies surrounding MSW incineration exert influence over the dominant order within the field. Adopting a qualitative research method, we conducted field research in three Chinese cities where proposals for incineration plants have aroused disputes between different categories of actors. The collected empirical data consist of 42 semi-structured interviews and materials provided by interviewees. By examining the dynamic process of protests between challengers and incumbents, we found that skilled actors fight over a meso-level social order – the waste disposal industry and waste management policies – through competition and cooperation. We also found a mix of instrumental and existential motivations in their involvement in the conflict. Our findings deepens understanding of contentions regarding waste management, thereby enriching the existing literature. In a broader sense, our analysis contributes to the discussion of how actors occupying different positions compete for dominance in a specific field and can succeed, under certain circumstances, in shaping social action.

Environmental Assessment of the UHE Tijuco Alto Hydropower Plant: the change of the dominant order

Abstract This research aims to identify, through the Strategic Field of Action Theory, the rationalities encompassed in the environmental assessment of the UHE Tijuco Alto Hydropower Plant (Ribeira River Watershed, Brazil) and to characterize the strategies of the stakeholders in the decision-making process. An interpretative description based on documents and content analysis of the environmental assessment process was adopted as our research method. The evaluation of such documents demonstrates that the strategic actions designed by the skilled actor - in this case, the Vale do Ribeira Movement of People Threatened by Dams - was fundamental to unveil the rationality shared by local communities. This fact has changed the dominant order, which prioritizes the logic of development and often results in the release of projects that affect or violate human rights.

Prologue

Prologue Julia C. Hernández The cover of the present volume returns to the theme of Federico García Lorca and La Barraca explored in volume 73, number 1. We also continue our reflections on the student troupe’s legacy ninety years after it first set forth to travel the Spanish countryside, one of the Second Republic’s state-sponsored misiones pedógicas designed to bring the theater of the Golden Age to contemporary rural audiences. Featured here is Lorca’s own sketch of another type of itinerant trickster drawn from La Barraca’s repertoire: the vagabond estudiante of Cervantes’s La cueva de Salamanca, who proves himself something of a skilled actor in staging a scene of his own design to sing for his supper (fig. 1). The 1932 re-envisioning of Cervantes’s student performer, refracted through the Lorquian lens and brought to life by La Barraca’s own student-actors, invites us to consider how the misiones pedagógicas of previous generations continue to inform our own teaching and research practices today. La cueva de Salamanca, performed as part of a trio of Cervantine entremeses alongside La guarda cuidadosa and Los dos habladores, formed an essential part of La Barraca’s programing from its first sally to Burgo de Osma in the summer of 1932.1 Lorca saw the entremeses as central to the company’s misión pedagógica, accessible in their themes, vivid in their language, direct in their structures.2 While intimately involved in all stages of their production, Lorca took a particular interest in the details of La cueva’s costumes, sketching the designs for the four principal characters, including the Salamancan visitor, in his own hand (figs. 1–4).3 The resulting images are quintessential La Barraca: in the case of the student, the bright colors of his garb, designated by Lorca as “naranja” and “encarnada” in the sketch’s upper right-hand corner, suggest the vanguardist mise-èn-scene Lorca saw as essential to La Barraca’s mission to bring the public the most cutting edge of theater arts (see fig. 1 and cover); to Plaza Chillon’s eye they are “explosivos” and “picassianos,” reminiscent of Lorca’s design collaboration with Dalí for Mariana Pineda (201–02).4 [End Page 5] The spoon-adorned bicorne atop the student’s head, however, evokes a more ancient visual tradition: the iconography of the wandering Salamancan student; roving and hungry, the stock character of the Medieval sopista would arrive, cutlery stowed in hat, to sing for their supper. Surviving as the symbol of Spain’s student choirs today—known as the tuna universitaria—the be-spooned hat, then as now, signals an act of performance. And indeed, Cervantes’s student, seeing an opportunity for a meal of more than the usual traveler’s sopa boba, mounts a memorable show for his hosts. This performance, however, will be a dramatic one, with the student turned both actor and director. Here our sopista takes advantage of his host Pancracio’s interest in the occult arts of the fabled Cave of Salamanca to finagle himself a seat at the lavish table; with Pancracio having returned home unexpectedly, his wife Leonarda frantically hides the local sacristan and barber, illicit guests whom she is entertaining for dinner in his absence. The student, assuming the role of conjurer trained in the cave’s diabolical subterranean classrooms and pretending to summon forth infernal visitors, casts the barber and sacristan as “demonio” and “sacridiablo” in a farce at Pancracio’s expense (Cervantes 242). The duped host, blinded by his own thirst for secret learning, invites this cast of characters to sit down for the feast, the performance continuing with a serenade praising the inverted university that is the cave of Salamanca. It is fascinating to envision La Barraca’s itinerant student performers, decked out in Lorca’s bold designs, portraying Cervantes’s own wandering student performer. And there is a final element of Lorca’s sketch that is particularly compelling to consider in light of these resonances between actor and character portrayed: the spoon that decorates the student’s cocked hat is not the traditional one of modest wood, but rather, as...

Diffusion of operational capabilities knowledge: The social skills perspective

Abstract Paper aims This paper aims to understand how the social skill of managers influence the diffusion of operational capabilities in food and auto parts manufacturing networks. Originality There are taken-for-granted beliefs that its diffusion is based on replicating or transferring resources and practices from one site to another. This study is one of the first ones to discuss operational capability and socially skilled actors. Research method Two polar cases were analyzed through the Strategic Action Fields perspective based on a qualitative perspective and 17 in-depth interviews. Main findings Results demonstrate that diffusion of capability among various actors in subsidiaries will depend on a series of multidimensional factors that influence this process as the stability, state, and relationship between fields. Moreover, members tend to adopt a logic (perception of the world) that reflects the point of view of the group, and from this, the actors construct their narratives, recognize the legitimacy and justify their actions. Implications for theory and practice These perspectives have scarcely been explored in Operations management till today and shall open a new dialogue between Operations Strategy and Organization Studies. It offers practical guidance for diffusing and deploying operational capabilities.

Experiences with CLT Construction in Norway

The use of cross-laminated timber (CLT) elements in buildings is an innovative and upcoming construction method. In Norway, due to its eco-friendly potential, more widespread use of the method is expected despite limited experience to date. The lack of a domestic guiding literature related to issues such as moisture behaviour is creating uncertainties in achieving sustainable buildings and, taken together, such issues are creating a demand for more information about CLT construction in Norway. Qualitative in-depth interviews were used to obtain views based on the hands-on experience of skilled actors in the Norwegian construction industry. The informants (owner-builders, consultants, contractors and CLT suppliers) revealed different outlooks to the CLT construction process. In general, these actors experienced no more challenges with CLT construction than they did with other construction systems. In Norway, the major barrier to the more widespread use of CLT is compliance with fire safety and acoustics regulations. Differences in focus between the industry and Norwegian literature regarding moisture safety is clear. There is a lack of consistent guiding literature. Closer collaboration between industry and the research community is recommended in order to develop workable solutions. It is important to clarify the risks linked to built-in moisture and its impact on buildings. Research institutions should also focus their research on fire safety and acoustics.

How to build and share an experiential knowledge in public health?

Abstract Health promotion stakeholders are encouraged to base their intervention strategies on evidence. However, the evidence produced by public health research is outcome-based and provides little information on “how to act?” It is necessary to complete this evidence with experiential data constituting an evidence of a different nature, answering questions about organizations, skills and tools mobilized to achieve the results, and valuing skilled actors’ knowledge and good practice. For two years, a group of 15 French organizations has been working on capitalization and sharing experiential knowledge. This work is part of the setting up of a national evidence platform. After a benchmarking phase, the group developed and tested a capitalization method which focuses on the collection and analysis of qualitative data and aims to explain the contexts and processes at work in the actions: knowledge and skills, strategies, perceived challenges and facilitating factors, key moments. The group also worked on the structure, content and use of a shareable document. The test has shown the pedagogical interest of the method for the actors who were invited to develop a reflective thinking about their action, as well as the relevance of this method to build experiential knowledge. The ongoing group’s work concerns the dissemination of collected data. A practical guide for stakeholders is being finalised. The group is defining the selection process of the initiatives to be valued, in particular with regard to results that make sense for all stakeholders. The main difficulty of the approach - its low level of recognition and entrenchment in public health - will be discussed during the presentation, as well as the necessity to ensure the legitimacy of this approach in a context where the notion of evidence is centered on quantitative data produced with an objective defined “a priori” and in a controlled context. Key messages This work opens the way for an original reflection in public health to build a shareable experiential knowledge, and to valorize and strengthen field actors’ practical expertise. This work has pedagogical, political, scientific and informational impacts. It contributes to knowledge transfer and provides self-training, a practical vision of policies, and questions for research.

Legitimacy and field development: Electricity transition(s) in Germany

The paper draws on recent developments in the field of electricity generation and distribution in Germany to outline some basic assumptions on how legitimation strategies are framed and differ between emerging and stable action fields. We analyze decentralized forms of electricity generation and distribution. Pioneers of this development seized opportunities connected with broad institutional changes to discredit the status quo and work out legitimations for their new model of how to generate and distribute electricity. Just like skilled actors in stable fields working on adaptation strategies to changing environments, the ones in emerging fields engaged in working out new search strategies, built coalitions, undertook collective action, and established affiliations with recognized authorities and elites. However, unlike skilled actors in stable fields, those in the emerging ones, could not build on established routines. Instead, they drew on logics from outside their field and emphasized the benefits of their activities for society at large. Our analysis shows how actors legitimate novel organizational forms in emerging fields vs. the attempts of incumbent actors in mature fields to preserve their position in a contentious period. Theories of social change should explicitly account for field context.

From “living lab” to strategic action field: Bringing together energy, mobility, and Information Technology in Germany

Against the backdrop of the transformation of the German energy system, a new dynamic is emerging between the previously separate economic fields of renewable energy systems, transportation, and information and communication technologies (ICT). The trend towards digitalization and interconnectivity is prompting the formation of new corporate alliances and business ideas. We argue that the increasing interactions between actors in these sectors are evidence of the emergence of a new intersectoral field. Building on concepts from neoinstitutionalism, particularly, the framework of strategic action fields (SAF), we examine the overlaps and dynamics that are arising in an exemplar of what policy makers and planners often refer to as “living labs.” With help of this case study we observe the cross-field innovation activities taking place at a particular local site. Our empirical examination draws upon a four-year-long ethnography of an innovation campus in Berlin, the German capital. This case reveals the development of interdependent interests and collaborations between both different industries and between companies and academic institutions. These interconnections are built, in part, by socially skilled actors, who act as border crossers between established fields.

The Wheel Woman

“The Wheel Woman,” an interactive performance at the National Museum of American History (nmah) captures visitors' attention and illuminates the gendered history of the bicycle. Although space limitations hamper the actor's ability to connect to museum exhibitions as was originally planned, the performer engages audiences with ease. Accessible and funny, the program plays to varied visitor comfort levels and uses personal conversations to help visitors connect their lives to history. The costumed program, offered regularly throughout the year, is a model of successful museum theater and demonstrates the possibilities of collaboration between performance and historical interpretation. The performance succeeds in large part because of the work of the skilled actor Julia Garner, who is committed to its historical content. During the program she rides an original 1898 Gendron Wheel Company bicycle around the ground floor of the museum's west wing. She wears a period-appropriate costume: a white blouse, long maroon skirt, and boater hat accessorized with a League of American Wheelmen pin. When visitors stare or approach, Garner stops the bicycle to converse. If appropriate, she blows her safety whistle and demonstrates the features of the bicycle and its adaptations for female riders. From the bicycle's basket, she shows off other objects, including a stereograph camera and its resulting images.

The Strategic Action Field Framework for Policy Implementation Research

Drawing upon the theories of social skill and strategic action fields (SAFs), this article presents a SAF Framework for Implementation Research. In the framework, policy implementation systems are conceptualized as multilevel SAFs that form around a public service intervention. Within this context, socially skilled actors leverage diverse sources of authority—including but not limited to political authority—to enable change or stability to a public service intervention. While the framework has underpinnings in field theory, it is able to encompass multiple theoretical perspectives, including complexity theories, organizational theories, economic theories, and theories of human behavior. Importantly, the SAF Framework allows for the integration of results relevant to both management and policy—change in implementation systems, and change in the behavior or conditions of an external target group.

John Flamsteed and the turn of the screw: mechanical uncertainty, the skilful astronomer and the burden of seeing correctly at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.

Centring on John Flamsteed (1646-1719), the first Astronomer Royal, this paper investigates the ways in which astronomers of the late seventeenth century worked to build and maintain their reputations by demonstrating, for their peers and for posterity, their proficiency in managing visual technologies. By looking at his correspondence and by offering a graphic and textual analysis of the preface to his posthumous Historia Coelestis Britannica (1725), I argue that Flamsteed based the legitimacy of his life's work on his capacity to serve as a skilful astronomer who could coordinate the production and proper use of astronomical sighting instruments. Technological advances in astrometry were, for Flamsteed, a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the advancement of astronomy. Technological resources needed to be used by the right person. The work of the skilful astronomer was a necessary precondition for the mobilization and proper management of astronomical technologies. Flamsteed's understanding of the astronomer as a skilled actor importantly shifted the emphasis in precision astronomical work away from the individual observer's ability to see well and toward the astronomer's ability to ensure that instruments guaranteed accurate vision.

The Governance of Innovations in the Energy Sector

The field of electricity supply has slowly evolved over a long period of time. Electricity supply constitutes an example of a large technical system resistant to sudden changes or reorientations. The essential incentives for changes have come from the so called oil-price shocks in the mid ninety-seventies of the last century, the Chernobyl accident and the resulting critical attitude towards nuclear energy in many countries, the liberalization of markets driven forward by the European Commission, discussions about climate change and finally the Fukushima catastrophe. Such external events can lead to changes in governance structures. The standard operating procedure is to have the incumbent actors deal with external challenges in the established way of doing things (structures and actors). We assume that changes in the governance structure are not an immediate reaction to external shocks, but rather these external shocks have to be interpreted, mediated by new, skilled actors and perceived as a chance to see things differently and organize and build coalitions around these new frames. For a successful transformation, a change in the relevant power constellations which supports the incumbent governance structure is required. Processes of change in the end deal with the following question: which actors can achieve what aims under what conditions? The article will analyze four prominent cases in the energy sector to illustrate this point: the governance of the carbon dioxide capture & storage technology in Germany and Norway and the governance of photovoltaics development in Japan and Germany.

PROMETHEUS: heterogeneous sensor database in support of research on human behavioral patterns in unrestricted environments

The multi-modal multi-sensor PROMETHEUS database was created in support of research and development activities [PROMETHEUS (FP7-ICT-214901): http://www.prometheus-FP7.eu] aiming at the creation of a framework for monitoring and interpretation of human behaviors in unrestricted indoor and outdoor environments. The distinctiveness of the PROMETHEUS database comes from the unique sensor sets, used in the various recording scenarios, but also from the database design, which covers a range of real-world applications, correlated to smart-home automation and indoors/outdoors surveillance of public areas. Numerous single-person and multi-person scenarios, but also scenarios with interactions between groups of people, motivated by these applications were implemented with the help of skilled actors and supernumerary personnel. In these scenarios, the actors and personnel were instructed to implement a range of typical and atypical behaviors, and simulations of emergency and crisis situations. In summary, the database contains more than 4 h of synchronized recordings from heterogeneous sensors (an infrared motion detection sensor, thermal imaging cameras, overview/surveillance video cameras, close-view video cameras, a 3D camera, a stereoscopic camera, a general-purpose camcoder, microphone arrays, and motion capture equipment) collected in common setups, simulating smart-home environment, airport, and ATM security environment. Selected scenes of the database were annotated for the needs of human detection and tracking. The entire audio part of the database was annotated for the needs of sound event detection, sound source enumeration, emotion recognition, etc.