Informal Theory Research Articles

Undersea cable security in the Indo‐Pacific: Enhancing the Quad’s collaborative approach

Undersea communication cables carry the bulk of global communications, intelligence, and financial transactions daily. They are increasingly threatened, and Australia, Japan, India, and the US have begun coordinating cable security activities in the Indo-Pacific as the Quad. This article investigates the Quad’s role in undersea cable communication security, and analyzes its motivations, strengths, and the challenges it faces thereby illuminating the Quad’s evolving position in international security and its role in global governance. In doing so, it evaluates the Quad’s significance in addressing emerging security threats in the Indo-Pacific, attempts to fill critical gaps in policy formulation, and contributes to theories of informality and global governance. It begins by outlining threats to undersea communication cables. Second, it details the Quad Partnership for Cable Connectivity and Resilience within the context of an informal intergovernmental organization literature. Third, it provides recommendations for policy formulation in undersea cable security and explores the Quad's potential for improving connectivity, resilience, and security. Finally, the article emphasizes the need to tailor policies to India’s unique position within the Quad and explores proactive measures like floating Quad-supported cable repair ships. These recommendations offer insights for policymakers to bolster global communication infrastructure, resilience, and provide public goods amidst multipolarity and great power rivalry.

Leadership, Change and Conflict: An Examination of Informal Human Resources Theory for Policy Capacity

In recent times, academics and practitioners have focused on the optimal processes and capabilities required to increase an organization’s policy capacity, but there is little research on the human resource theory adopted by practitioners to improve public policy and its development. This article presents the results of a 2018 case study of policy capacity involving thirty-one interviews with civil servants in a small provincial government in Canada. An informal theory of policy capacity and human resources centering on leadership, conflict management, change management, and analytical capabilities is articulated using the language of practitioners. For practitioners, the findings of this article provide guidance and context for human resource strategies for policy capacity. The article concludes that there is an opportunity for academics to expand the paradigmatic boundaries of human resources research in public administration for the purposes of improving policy capacity.

Informal network context: deepening the knowledge and extending the boundaries of social network research in international human resource management

While informal networking has been universally regarded as an important feature of expatriate effectiveness, respective network constructs (yongo, wasta, blat/svyazi, etc.) remain weakly understood when taking expatriates’ ability to connect to local networks into account. Drawing on informal institution and social capital theory, we present informal networks as an important contextual factor in international human resource management (IHRM), relevant to the work of expatriates in particular. We define informal networks by pointing out their distinctive nature in contrast to social networks and developing central themes to guide future research in this area. This is achieved by integrating the informal network context into research themes relevant to the IHRM domain. In this article, seven research themes centering on focal research questions are developed, which, taken together, constitute a future research agenda and expand the typical domain of IHRM research in the informal network context.

Self-equity as a trustworthiness measure: The relationship among self-equity and security clearance eligibility adjudications in US Army recruits

ABSTRACT The United States government’s clearance adjudication process examines past behavior to determine soldier eligibility for a security clearance. For young recruits with a short-documented history, however, little information is available. While informal social controls generally associate with criminal desistance, desistance speaks little about those who have yet to offend. This work extends informal social control theory to better understand military clearance eligibility adjudication outcomes as measured in terms of a self-equity construct. This analysis looks at a twelve-year cohort of US Army recruits who received clearance eligibility adjudication within the first five years of service, as recorded in military archival data in the Person-event Data Environment (PDE) database. Laub, Rowan, & Sampson’s (2018) age-graded theory of informal social control is tested to estimate models, capturing the self-equity effects of moral waiver, qualification-test percentiles, service time, rank, education, and childbirth–marriage interaction. The results demonstrate that self-equity substantively relates to security clearance eligibility adjudication outcomes. These findings carry policy implications for the creation of an objective trustworthiness measure in the absence of reliable documented history.

Model of the National Security System: Selected Problems

Purpose: The aim of the article is to present the knowledge about the concept and organization of the national security system, to define the directions of its development and to present a model that would correspond to contemporary security conditions in its most important area, which is to ensure conditions of existence and national development free of any disturbances to oppose these disturbances and their consequences. Design/Methodology/Approach: In studies, to a different extent and depending on the approach, the research models used in social sciences were used, that is the model of empirical theory, which assumes that all knowledge comes from experience and is associated with the description of relationships between empirical events, the model of the axiomatized theory, based on making bold hypotheses, axioms and theorems, the model of informal (practical) theory based on common knowledge, and the model of eclectic theory, in which various ways of knowing are used: scientific knowledge, empirical laws, hypotheses and possibly common knowledge. The last of the above methods, as the integration of the first three, found the widest application in the course of research. Findings: The main hypothesis is that the organization of national security is dispersed both vertically and horizontally, and this situation causes difficulties in the efficient functioning of the state in times of peace, crisis and war. There are many safety-related systems at all levels of the state organization. Each of them has its own legal regulations, tasks and subordination. Practical Implications: The author's research is illustrative material in the field of formulating organizational assumptions in the field of national security and is an interpretation of knowledge that will be used in the practice of the activities of state organs. Originality/Value: The author's research concerns the organization of the state to ensure security in various states and circumstances of the state's functioning. It is a presentation of the model of the national security system, which, when viewed from the inside, is a set of integrated elements designed to carry out specific tasks, and when viewed from the outside, it is a whole, capable of ensuring security in the most complex circumstances..

Urban informality and the state: Repairing Cairo’s waters through Gehood Zateya

Equitable and just access to urban water presents challenges for global policymakers. In Egypt, providing and maintaining access to water has always been associated with the state. Recently, however, in cities such as Cairo, water shortages have led to the inclusion of multiple actors in the complicated processes of water access and repair. This paper argues that the state’s hegemonic control over water governance is contested by increasingly blurred binaries of formal and informal everyday practices. I show how water governance in Cairo operates through a plurality of informal practices – gehood zateya (individual and community efforts) – which cross boundaries of class, legality and space. By drawing on theories of hybrid infrastructures and urban informality, water access and repair in Cairo emerge as relational processes shaped by socio-technical practices of state and non-state actors. This paper explores two case studies demonstrating the politicization of repair in a marginalized informal area and elite/middle-class gated communities. These cases illustrate how residents living in informal areas maintain relations with the state through community water systems and ‘cultures of repair’, while elite residents engage in ‘private governance’ schemes and rely on networks of privilege. This article offers insights into changing state-society relations during transitions to water privatization and the shaping of Cairo’s uneven urban waterscape.

Taking issue with how the Work-integrated Learning discourse ascribes a dualistic meaning to graduate employability

Work-integrated Learning (WIL) is renowned for providing a bridge between ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ that fosters ‘employable graduates’. This study critically argues that the WIL discourse continues to ascribe a dualistic meaning to graduate employability that primarily contributes to creating the so-called theory–practice gap for students. As an argument towards such a conclusion, a genealogical discourse analysis of how the graduate employability idea operates in 87 present and past official documents concerning the Cooperative Education (Co-op) WIL model is used. Two accounts of graduate employability, the antagonistic practice acclaiming account and the harmonious theory and practice account, recur in both the present and past documents. Both accounts contribute to creating the gap, while the latter also contributes to bridging it. The non-dualistic account, which involves knowing that the key to becoming employable is understanding how both research-based and informal theory shape daily occupational work, could be a useful alternative to these accounts. This is because it could encourage students to see how theory is a form of knowledge manifested in, rather than disconnected from, this work. However, the usual WIL design, whereby universities and workplaces outside universities are respectively institutionalised as the places where ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ is learnt, is not so much instrumental in spreading this non-dualistic account, but rather implies to students that ‘theory’ is absent from daily work until they apply it. Thus, I discuss how establishing physical and/or virtual countersites to the usual WIL design could potentially spread this account to students.

Weeping wombs: Leucorrhea and the chronicity of distress in Gilgit-Baltistan

In Gilgit, capital of the Gilgit-Baltistan region in northern Pakistan, leucorrhea – vaginal discharge known in the vernacular as safaid pani, or ‘white water’ - serves as both a medical diagnosis and signifier of the chronicity of the reproductive, social, and emotional burdens endured by women. While ethnomedical providers explained safaid pani as resulting from relatively benign forms of ‘weakness’, which required minimal dietary or ethno-botanical recourse, allopathic physicians approached discharge as evidence of numerous pathologies that necessitated protracted and sometimes also expensive treatments. Physicians’ clinical assessments were not solely biomedical, but also integrated informal folk and formal ethnomedical theories of causation. Clinical diagnoses that affirmed leucorrhea as a pathophysiology substantiated women’s belief that it was proof of the destructive effects of sustained social inequity, peril, and distress on the body, and the uterus in particular. Women and their treating providers recognized the power of the (dys)functional uterus to not only threaten women’s reproductive wellness but also their social, marital, and familial status, which hinged on their ability to become pregnant and give birth, to sons especially. Because of the ailing uterus’s expansive importance, weeping wombs served as a potent source for women’s claims making and calls for attention and care.

An Empirical Test of Age-Graded Informal Social Control Theory: New Correlates of Youth Deviance

This study examines several family structural variables that have a hypothesized effect on delinquency, substance abuse, and violence. We conducted a survey for potential correlates of Sampson and Laub’s age-graded informal social control theory variables within the Turkish context. Our large sample size (31,272), drawn from high school students in Istanbul, Turkey, allowed us to test the effects of family settings on youth deviance by using various statistical tests and programs. Our findings indicate that juveniles exposed to parental substance abuse are more likely to use illegal substances, commit a greater number of delinquent acts, and participate in more instances of violent behavior. Additionally, family social capital, residential mobility, religiosity, and the number of siblings were some other statistically significant correlates of delinquency.

Apostle Paul's Fundraising Economic Theory of Savings and Social Change

This article critically explores the idea of savings from the New Testament perspective, particularly, using the Pauline fundraising strategy. It argues that the direction given by Apostle Paul regarding the fundraising of the Gentile Christians constitute an informal economic theory of savings. Content analysis was used in reviewing relevant literature for the study. It was established that the directions Paul gave to the Gentile Christians regarding the fund raising constitute informal savings principles. Additionally, Pauline fundraising strategies was eschatological and relational in nature. The paper concludes that Paul’s fundraising was centered on three concepts namely, generosity, gratitude and mission. In this regard, Paul’s fundraising economic theory had the sole aim of bringing social change in the lives of the Jewish Christians.

International Migrant Remittances, New Venture Funding, and Informal Economy

Developing countries are characterized by a significant portion of informal economy which constrains the inclusive growth and entrepreneurship development, and a large inflow of remittances from abroad. There are continued and growing interests in international migrant workers remittances and informality among scholars and policy makers. However, these two concepts have not been connected in the literature. Based on theories of informality, we develop a mediation model linking migrant worker remittances to home country informality together and examine the mediating role of new venture funding availability. We adopt Baron & Kenny’s (1986) four step approach to test the mediation effect, and use instrumental variable regression to address endogeneity issue. Our results show that migrant remittance reduce home country informality through its positive impact on new venture funding availability.

Direct spectra of Bishop spaces and their limits

We apply fundamental notions of Bishop set theory (BST), an informal theory that complements Bishop's theory of sets, to the theory of Bishop spaces, a function-theoretic approach to constructive topology. Within BST we develop the notions of a direct family of sets, of a direct spectrum of Bishop spaces, of the direct limit of a direct spectrum of Bishop spaces, and of the inverse limit of a contravariant direct spectrum of Bishop spaces. Within the extension of Bishop's informal system of constructive mathematics BISH with inductive definitions with rules of countably many premises, we prove the fundamental theorems on the direct and inverse limits of spectra of Bishop spaces and the duality principle between them.

Institutional Risk and Firm Performance in Africa: The Moderating Role of Corruption Control

ABSTRACTHow does institutional risk influence firm performance in Africa? While most studies focus on formal institutional risk, I argue that informal institutional risks are equally influential. Consistent with that view I use informal institutions theory and multilevel techniques to analyze data from 411 firms in 18 African countries. I find negative effects of informal institutional risks (socioeconomic conditions) on firm performance. In addition, I find interactive effects of control of corruption. I discuss the implications of the findings for research and practice.

Translating Informal Theories Into Formal Theories: The Case of the Dynamic Computational Model of the Integrated Model of Work Motivation

Theories are the core of any science, but many imprecisely stated theories in organizational and management science are hampering progress in the field. Computational modeling of existing theories can help address the issue. Computational models are a type of formal theory that are represented mathematically or by other formal logic and can be simulated, allowing theorists to assess whether the theory can explain the phenomena intended as well as make testable predictions. As an example of the process, Locke’s integrated model of work motivation is translated into static and dynamic computational models. Simulations of these models are compared to the empirical data used to develop and test the theory. For the static model, the simulations revealed largely strong associations with robust empirical findings. However, adding dynamics created several challenges to key precepts of the theory. Moreover, the effort revealed where empirical work is needed to further refine or refute the theory. Discussion focuses on the value of computational modeling as a method for formally testing, pruning, and extending extant theories in the field.

A Test of Policymakers' Formal and Lay Theories Regarding Healthcare Prices

Abstract Politicians, think tanks, and advocacy groups have proposed paths to reduce prices and improve outcomes in the US healthcare market. These paths tend to follow a combination of formal neoclassical economic theory and lay theory which posits solutions focused on increasing competition, reducing regulations, and normative beliefs about price→quality and price→cost relationships. We identify these formal and informal theories and test five tenets of healthcare reform. Our results, based on over 7 million consumer/hospital interactions across the US, when combined with other empirical work, suggest that increased competition among hospitals is associated with lower hospital procedure prices; yet increased competition among insurers is associated with higher prices. Policymakers should not, in the current environment, rely on the tenet that reducing regulations will reduce hospital prices, nor should they assume that healthcare quality and price are positively correlated. We discuss the complexity of ...

Towards a critical geography of corruption and power in late capitalism

Corruption politics have received little attention in human geography. We offer a critical geography of corruption as an alternative to economistic framings that take corruption as an objective set of deviant practices mostly besetting states in the Global South. Instead, we theorize corruption as a historically shifting, subjective discourse about the abuse of entrusted power. Geographic and cognate disciplinary approaches reveal how corruption narratives become politicized and yoked to symbolic, material, and territorial regimes of power. We suggest that recent theories of urban informality provide a revealing lens into the ethico-politics and territorial struggles of contemporary capitalism across the North and South.

Theoretical Literature Review: Tracing the Life Cycle of a Theory and Its Verified and Falsified Statements

The Academy of Human Resource Development (AHRD) has proven to be a source of knowledge providing research in the forms of theory development, literature reviews, educational and descriptive analyses, critical analyses, and empirical research studies. Given this vast body of knowledge, there has not been a call for researchers to provide a literature review format for tracing the life cycles of individual theories, differentiating between formal and informal theories within human resource development’s (HRD) body of knowledge. The current article proposes a format for conducting a theoretical literature review, using path-goal leadership theory and the learning organization as two examples to showcase the benefits of using a theoretical literature review. Incorporating theoretical literature reviews to some of the AHRD’s journals could help in identifying and mapping the field’s formal and informal theories while aiding in providing additional historical reviews for the discipline.

Models to support students’ understanding of measuring area of circles

Many studies showed that enormous students got confused about the concepts of measuring area of circles. The main reason is because mathematics classroom practices emphasized on memorizing formulas rather than understanding concepts. Therefore, in this study, a set of learning activities were designed as an innovation in learning area measurement of circles. The activities involved two models namely grid paper and reshaping which are respectively as a means and a strategy to support students’ learning of area measurement of circles. Design research was used as the research approach to achieve the aim. Thirty-eight of 8th graders in Indonesia were involved in this study. In this study, together with the contextual problems, the grid paper and reshaping sectors, which used as the models in this learning, helped the students to gradually develop their understanding of the area measurement of circles. The grid papers plays important role in comparing and estimating areas. Whereas, the reshaping sectors might support students’ understanding of the circumference and the area measurement of circles. Those two models could be the tool for promoting the informal theory of area measurement. Besides, the whole activities gave important role on distinguishing the area and perimeter of circles.

A property rights theory of competitive advantage

Research Summary: This article proposes a formal organizational economics approach to strategic management. Using a Property Rights Theory (PRT) framework, it rationalizes and provides a constructive contribution to two of the main strategy theories: the Resource‐Based View (RBV) and Porter Generic Strategies (PGS). The article shows that the welfare maximizing PRT conditions that characterize the existence and boundaries of a firm parallel both the RBV and Porter conditions for a sustainable competitive advantage, and provides a formal rationalization of Barney’s categorization of resources and Porter’s generic strategies. The article reveals some underexplored aspects of current informal theories, and extends their scope with the integration of strategic networks of complementors and social welfare considerations, opening up new avenues for research. Managerial Summary: This article brings two new insights for managers. First, showing that a firm can garner rents when it is a socially optimal form of organization for the assets it controls, it rationalizes the importance of control and adds a social welfare perspective to strategy. The Resource‐Based View (RBV) and Porter Generic Strategies (PGS), besides theories of competitive advantage, can also be viewed as theories of control. Second, taking into consideration the growing importance of networks and complementors in the knowledge economy, this article highlights the strategic importance of two resource characteristics—collaborative and easy to combine—and opens up new doors for the consideration of two business strategies for managers—platform and coordination—in addition to the traditional cost, differentiation, and focus strategies.

Bridging views in cinema: a review of the art and science of view integration.

Recently, there has been a surge of interest in the relationship between film and cognitive science. This is reflected in a new science of cinema that can help us both to understand this art form, and to produce new insights about cognition and perception. In this review, we begin by describing how the initial development of cinema involved close observation of audience response. This allowed filmmakers to develop an informal theory of visual cognition that helped them to isolate and creatively recombine fundamental elements of visual experience. We review research exploring naturalistic forms of visual perception and cognition that have opened the door to a productive convergence between the dynamic visual art of cinema and science of visual cognition that can enrich both. In particular, we discuss how parallel understandings of view integration in cinema and in cognitive science have been converging to support a new understanding of meaningful visual experience. WIREs Cogn Sci 2017, 8:e1436. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1436 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.