Psychic distance revisited: A proposed conceptual framework and research agenda

2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max Smith ◽  
Peter J Dowling ◽  
Elizabeth L Rose

AbstractThe concept of psychic distance has had a long but problematic history in the academic study of international business. Although inherently appealing, attempts to empirically validate the theoretical frameworks proposed by early psychic distance scholars have provided mixed results. This has led a number of academics to question the usefulness of the concept. Theoretical advances have been made in recent times with the introduction of revised definitions, but there is still the need for a conceptual framework of psychic distance that unambiguously identifies the determinants of psychic distance and demonstrates the relevance of this concept at the national, firm, and individual level. The present paper proposes a revised definition of psychic distance and posits a conceptual framework of psychic distance that addresses these needs. It then concludes by putting forward a research agenda arising as a consequence of the new conceptual framework.

2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max Smith ◽  
Peter J Dowling ◽  
Elizabeth L Rose

AbstractThe concept of psychic distance has had a long but problematic history in the academic study of international business. Although inherently appealing, attempts to empirically validate the theoretical frameworks proposed by early psychic distance scholars have provided mixed results. This has led a number of academics to question the usefulness of the concept. Theoretical advances have been made in recent times with the introduction of revised definitions, but there is still the need for a conceptual framework of psychic distance that unambiguously identifies the determinants of psychic distance and demonstrates the relevance of this concept at the national, firm, and individual level. The present paper proposes a revised definition of psychic distance and posits a conceptual framework of psychic distance that addresses these needs. It then concludes by putting forward a research agenda arising as a consequence of the new conceptual framework.


Author(s):  
Tan Yigitcanlar ◽  
Juan M. Corchado ◽  
Rashid Mehmood ◽  
Rita Yi Man Li ◽  
Karen Mossberger ◽  
...  

The urbanization problems we face may be alleviated using innovative digital technology. However, employing these technologies entails the risk of creating new urban problems and/or intensifying the old ones instead of alleviating them. Hence, in a world with immense technological opportunities and at the same time enormous urbanization challenges, it is critical to adopt the principles of responsible urban innovation. These principles assure the delivery of the desired urban outcomes and futures. We contribute to the existing responsible urban innovation discourse by focusing on local government artificial intelligence (AI) systems, providing a literature and practice overview, and a conceptual framework. In this perspective paper, we advocate for the need for balancing the costs, benefits, risks and impacts of developing, adopting, deploying and managing local government AI systems in order to achieve responsible urban innovation. The statements made in this perspective paper are based on a thorough review of the literature, research, developments, trends and applications carefully selected and analyzed by an expert team of investigators. This study provides new insights, develops a conceptual framework and identifies prospective research questions by placing local government AI systems under the microscope through the lens of responsible urban innovation. The presented overview and framework, along with the identified issues and research agenda, offer scholars prospective lines of research and development; where the outcomes of these future studies will help urban policymakers, managers and planners to better understand the crucial role played by local government AI systems in ensuring the achievement of responsible outcomes.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 1304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Strasser ◽  
Joop de Kraker ◽  
René Kemp

Learning processes play a crucial role in the development of the transformative capacity of social innovation actors. This article builds on the recently developed Transformative Social Innovation (TSI) theory to propose a conceptual framework and research agenda for understanding and investigating the roles and limits of network leadership in supporting learning processes that serve to develop the transformative capacity of social innovation. This focus on network leadership is underdeveloped so far in TSI theory. Addressing this research gap also serves to increase the practical relevance of TSI theory to practitioners engaged in network leadership. After presenting a synopsis of TSI theory, we present an overview of the elements of the conceptual framework, which are successively specified throughout the article. First, transformative change is conceptualized, involving three institutional dimensions: depth, width and length. Based on this, a definition of transformative capacity is proposed that addresses change across these three dimensions. We then describe how various types of learning processes can contribute to the development of transformative capacity. Next, we outline the roles of network leadership in supporting these learning processes across various network levels. We conclude with a research agenda for empirically investigating these roles of network leaders as agents for advancing transformative changes for sustainability.


2014 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 37-39
Author(s):  
Steven Ramey

The controversy over Penguin India withdrawing Wendy Doniger's book, announced in February 2014, provides an occasion to consider the problems and possibilities within the academic study of religion. As the controversy centered on representations of what both Doniger and her opponents termed Hinduism, the problems with adjudicating contested definitions of religions or the category religions becomes apparent. Rather than assuming that we can present a normative definition of any of these terms, I argue that scholars should avoid applying these contested labels themselves and recognize instead whose application of contested labels that they use. This approach facilitates a more robust analysis of the ways these terms enter the negotiation of various conflicts and the interests and assumptions behind them, making religious studies more relevant to contemporary society.


Think India ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 72-83
Author(s):  
Tushar Kadian

Actually, basic needs postulates securing of the elementary conditions of existence to every human being. Despite of the practical and theoretical importance of the subject the greatest irony is non- availability of any universal preliminary definition of the concept of basic needs. Moreover, this becomes the reason for unpredictability of various political programmes aiming at providing basic needs to the people. The shift is necessary for development of this or any other conception. No labour reforms could be made in history till labours were treated as objects. Its only after they were started being treating as subjects, labour unions were allowed to represent themselves in strategy formulations that labour reforms could become a reality. The present research paper highlights the basic needs of Human Rights in life.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 5070
Author(s):  
Xesús Prieto-Blanco ◽  
Carlos Montero-Orille

In the last few years, some advances have been made in the theoretical modelling of ion exchange processes in glass. On the one hand, the equations that describe the evolution of the cation concentration were rewritten in a more rigorous manner. This was made into two theoretical frameworks. In the first one, the self-diffusion coefficients were assumed to be constant, whereas, in the second one, a more realistic cation behaviour was considered by taking into account the so-called mixed ion effect. Along with these equations, the boundary conditions for the usual ion exchange processes from molten salts, silver and copper films and metallic cathodes were accordingly established. On the other hand, the modelling of some ion exchange processes that have attracted a great deal of attention in recent years, including glass poling, electro-diffusion of multivalent metals and the formation/dissolution of silver nanoparticles, has been addressed. In such processes, the usual approximations that are made in ion exchange modelling are not always valid. An overview of the progress made and the remaining challenges in the modelling of these unique processes is provided at the end of this review.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
María Jiménez-Buedo

AbstractReactivity, or the phenomenon by which subjects tend to modify their behavior in virtue of their being studied upon, is often cited as one of the most important difficulties involved in social scientific experiments, and yet, there is to date a persistent conceptual muddle when dealing with the many dimensions of reactivity. This paper offers a conceptual framework for reactivity that draws on an interventionist approach to causality. The framework allows us to offer an unambiguous definition of reactivity and distinguishes it from placebo effects. Further, it allows us to distinguish between benign and malignant forms of the phenomenon, depending on whether reactivity constitutes a danger to the validity of the causal inferences drawn from experimental data.


2021 ◽  
pp. 174997552199830
Author(s):  
Antonio Ariño Villarroya ◽  
Ramon Llopis-Goig

Since the 1990s, the central references of the sociology of cultural practices have been the theoretical frameworks developed by Pierre Bourdieu and Richard A. Peterson around the concepts of distinction and omnivorousness. This article is based on these frameworks; it revises them together with those of Donnat and Lahire and postulates that the terms of cultural classification and especially those of the upper classes (distinguished and omnivorous) require revision. The article also claims that there are diverse socio-cultural profiles due to the fact that there is never a single logic of differentiation of tastes, and that the results of the present research demand a new conceptual framework capable of showing the operation of diverse logics of differentiation and hierarchy. In order to do this, an analysis of the socio-cultural profiles of the cultivated groups in Spanish society is carried out on the data obtained from the Survey of Cultural Habits and Practices in Spain 2018/19. This work proves the existence of three types of cultivated population – classical, modern and syncretic – with notable differences in their cultural interests and practices, as well as in their underlying sociodemographic features and aesthetic logics, and concludes by posing the need to delve into the latter in what it defines as the study of cultural practice regimes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sander van der Linden ◽  
Jon Roozenbeek ◽  
Rakoen Maertens ◽  
Melisa Basol ◽  
Ondřej Kácha ◽  
...  

Abstract In recent years, interest in the psychology of fake news has rapidly increased. We outline the various interventions within psychological science aimed at countering the spread of fake news and misinformation online, focusing primarily on corrective (debunking) and pre-emptive (prebunking) approaches. We also offer a research agenda of open questions within the field of psychological science that relate to how and why fake news spreads and how best to counter it: the longevity of intervention effectiveness; the role of sources and source credibility; whether the sharing of fake news is best explained by the motivated cognition or the inattention accounts; and the complexities of developing psychometrically validated instruments to measure how interventions affect susceptibility to fake news at the individual level.


2021 ◽  
pp. 053901842199956
Author(s):  
Gerard Delanty

This essay is a comment on the research program launched by Frank Adloff and Sighard Neckel. My comment is specifically focused on their research agenda as outlined in their trend-setting article, ‘Futures of sustainability as modernization, transformation, and control: A conceptual framework’. The comment is also addressed more generally to the research program of the Humanities Centre for Advanced Studies ‘Futures of Sustainability’. I raise three issues: the first relates to the very idea of the future; the second concerns the notion of social imaginaries and the third question is focused on the idea of social transformation.


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