scholarly journals Making time/breaking time: critical literacy and politics of time in data visualisation

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Veronica Johansson ◽  
Jörgen Stenlund

PurposeRepresentations of time are commonly used to construct narratives in visualisations of data. However, since time is a value-laden concept, and no representation can provide a full, objective account of “temporal reality”, they are also biased and political: reproducing and reinforcing certain views and values at the expense of alternative ones. This conceptual paper aims to explore expressions of temporal bias and politics in data visualisation, along with possibly mitigating user approaches and design strategies.Design/methodology/approachThis study presents a theoretical framework rooted in a sociotechnical view of representations as biased and political, combined with perspectives from critical literacy, radical literacy and critical design. The framework provides a basis for discussion of various types and effects of temporal bias in visualisation. Empirical examples from previous research and public resources illustrate the arguments.FindingsFour types of political effects of temporal bias in visualisations are presented, expressed as limitation of view, disregard of variation, oppression of social groups and misrepresentation of topic and suggest that appropriate critical and radical literacy approaches require users and designers to critique, contextualise, counter and cross beyond expressions of the same. Supporting critical design strategies involve the inclusion of multiple datasets and representations; broad access to flexible tools; and inclusive participation of marginalised groups.Originality/valueThe paper draws attention to a vital, yet little researched problem of temporal representation in visualisations of data. It offers a pioneering bridging of critical literacy, radical literacy and critical design and emphasises mutual rather than contradictory interests of the empirical sciences and humanities.

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna-Maija Hietajärvi ◽  
Kirsi Aaltonen ◽  
Harri Haapasalo

Purpose The effective management of inter-organizational integration is central to complex projects. Such projects pose significant challenges for integration, as organizations struggle with constantly changing inter-organizational interdependencies and must develop and adapt integration mechanisms to meet new demands. The purpose of this paper is to understand what kinds of integration mechanisms are used and how they are developed and adjusted during the infrastructure alliance projects. Design/methodology/approach This study provides empirical evidence of integration dynamics in project alliancing by analyzing two infrastructure alliance projects – a complex tunnel construction project and a railway renovation project. The research approach is an inductive case study. Findings This paper identifies integration mechanisms adopted in two case projects and three central triggers that led to changes in the integration mechanisms: project lifecycle phase, unexpected events and project team’s learning during the project. Practical implications Integration capability should be a precondition for alliance project organizations and requires the adoption of a wide range of integration mechanisms, as well as an ability to adjust those mechanisms in response to everyday dynamics and emergent situations. Originality/value Although unplanned contingencies and the responses to them represent important influences in organizations, there is limited amount of research on the dynamics of integration. The findings will be of value in supporting the management of inter-organizational integration in complex, uncertain and time-critical construction projects.


2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (1/2) ◽  
pp. 2-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhixian Yi

Purpose – In the digital age, constant changes in libraries inform contemporary building design. An innovative library building design is a complicated process and can be viewed as a continuous process of the use of tacit and explicit knowledge and innovative tools and approaches. Knowledge management (KM) can bring about the much needed innovation, and transform tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge. For the design of a library to be successful, it is necessary to apply KM to library building design. The purpose of this paper is to look at key change impacts, to explore how to manage knowledge in building design and to identify key design principles. Design/methodology/approach – This paper looks at key change impacts, explores how to manage knowledge in library building design and pinpoints design principles. Findings – This paper finds that KM can be vital to library building design, and it can be used in all stages: to examine the internal and external environments, transform tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge by using portals, and analyze existing and future issues and trends. When effectively used, KM will result in innovative design strategies and also will reduce the time and costs of the building design and plan processes. The main principles of library building design are flexibility, accessibility, safety and security, applicability, adaptability, efficiency, and sustainability. Practical implications – This paper provides a useful overview of how to manage knowledge in library building design and design principles. Originality/value – The views, discussions, and suggestions will be of value to improve the effectiveness of library building design.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Myat Su Han ◽  
Daniel Peter Hampson ◽  
Yonggui Wang

Purpose This study aims to investigate whether or not the two facets of pride, hubristic and authentic, are associated with knowledge hiding. Design/methodology/approach This study collects survey data (N = 343) from one of the leading information technology (IT) companies in Myanmar at two stages with a two-month interval. This study uses multiple regression analyses to test this study’s hypotheses. Findings Results reveal that hubristic pride is positively related to knowledge hiding, whereas the relationship between authentic pride and knowledge hiding is negative. These relationships are contingent upon the level of employees’ self-efficacy. Research limitations/implications This study suggests that managers should include measures for moral emotions in their recruitment and selection criteria. Furthermore, the authors suggest that managers should design strategies to induce moral emotions at the workplace and enhance personal resources (e.g. self-efficacy), which have an instrumental effect in maximizing the prosocial facet of pride (i.e. authentic pride) as well as minimizing adverse experiences of the antisocial facet of pride (i.e. hubristic pride), thereby reducing knowledge hiding. Originality/value The findings shed light on the significance of the inclusion of emotional variables in understanding employees’ knowledge hiding. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first empirical study to examine the combined effect of emotive and cognitive variables in predicting knowledge hiding by demonstrating that hubristic pride only mitigates knowledge hiding behavior among high self-efficacious employees.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahir Gopaldas ◽  
Anton Siebert ◽  
Burçak Ertimur

Purpose Dyadic services research has increasingly focused on helping providers facilitate transformative service conversations with consumers. Extant research has thoroughly documented the conversational skills that providers can use to facilitate consumer microtransformations (i.e. small changes in consumers’ thoughts, feelings and action plans toward their well-being goals). At the same time, extant research has largely neglected the role of servicescape design in transformative service conversations despite some evidence of its potential significance. To redress this oversight, this article aims to examine how servicescape design can be used to better facilitate consumer microtransformations in dyadic service conversations. Design/methodology/approach This article is based on an interpretive study of mental health services (i.e. counseling, psychotherapy and coaching). Both providers and consumers were interviewed about their lived experiences of service encounters. Informants frequently described the spatial and temporal dimensions of their service encounters as crucial to their experiences of service encounters. These data are interpreted through the lens of servicescape design theory, which disentangles servicescape design effects into dimensions, strategies, tactics, experiences and outcomes. Findings The data reveal two servicescape design strategies that help facilitate consumer microtransformations. “Service sequestration” is a suite of spatial design tactics (e.g., private offices) that creates strong consumer protections for emotional risk-taking. “Service serialization” is a suite of temporal design tactics (e.g., recurring appointments) that creates predictable rhythms for emotional risk-taking. The effects of service sequestration and service serialization on consumer microtransformations are mediated by psychological safety and psychological readiness, respectively. Practical implications The article details concrete servicescape design tactics that providers can use to improve consumer experiences and outcomes in dyadic service contexts. These tactics can help promote consumer microtransformations in the short run and consumer well-being in the long run. Originality/value This article develops a conceptual model of servicescape design strategies for transformative service conversations. This model explains how and why servicescape design can influence consumer microtransformations. The article also begins to transfer servicescape design tactics from mental health services to other dyadic services that seek to facilitate consumer microtransformations. Examples of such services include career counseling, divorce law, financial advising, geriatric social work, nutrition counseling, personal styling and professional organizing.


2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 173-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Cosgrave ◽  
Myfanwy Maple ◽  
Rafat Hussain

Purpose Some of Australia’s most severe and protracted workforce shortages are in public sector community mental health (CMH) services. Research identifying the factors affecting staff turnover of this workforce has been limited. The purpose of this paper is to identify work factors negatively affecting the job satisfaction of early career health professionals working in rural Australia’s public sector CMH services. Design/methodology/approach In total, 25 health professionals working in rural and remote CMH services in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, for NSW Health participated in in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Findings The study identified five work-related challenges negatively affecting job satisfaction: developing a profession-specific identity; providing quality multidisciplinary care; working in a resource-constrained service environment; working with a demanding client group; and managing personal and professional boundaries. Practical implications These findings highlight the need to provide time-critical supports to address the challenges facing rural-based CMH professionals in their early career years in order to maximise job satisfaction and reduce avoidable turnover. Originality/value Overall, the study found that the factors negatively affecting the job satisfaction of early career rural-based CMH professionals affects all professionals working in rural CMH, and these negative effects increase with service remoteness. For those in early career, having to simultaneously deal with significant rural health and sector-specific constraints and professional challenges has a negative multiplier effect on their job satisfaction. It is this phenomenon that likely explains the high levels of job dissatisfaction and turnover found among Australia’s rural-based early career CMH professionals. By understanding these multiple and simultaneous pressures on rural-based early career CMH professionals, public health services and governments involved in addressing rural mental health workforce issues will be better able to identify and implement time-critical supports for this cohort of workers. These findings and proposed strategies potentially have relevance beyond Australia’s rural CMH workforce to Australia’s broader early career nursing and allied health rural workforce as well as internationally for other countries that have a similar physical geography and health system.


2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javaria Javaid ◽  
Saira Soroya ◽  
Khalid Mahmood

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the attitude of faculty members towards knowledge-sharing in the University of Education, Lahore. The impact of personal and organizational factors that may contribute to effective knowledge-sharing among the university’s teaching staff is also analyzed. The factors affecting the willingness of the faculty members to share knowledge are broadly classified as “organizational” and “personal” factors. Design/methodology/approach A questionnaire-based survey was conducted on permanent teaching staff working at different campuses of the University of Education all over the province of Punjab, Pakistan. The survey instrument for this study was adapted from four studies. The questionnaires were distributed among 246 faculty members personally. Findings The findings of the study showed that the faculty members were familiar with the importance of knowledge-sharing and were also interested in sharing their knowledge and expertise with others. The results showed that organizational factors (trust, reward system and organizational culture) played a vital role in enhancing the knowledge-sharing attitude of faculty members. The impact of these factors on knowledge-sharing attitude was significant. Originality/value This is the very first study which explored the personal and organizational factors of knowledge-sharing in a specific academic institution from Pakistan. The findings of the research provided useful insights to the management of the University of Education particularly and other universities in general to design strategies for enhancing knowledge-sharing culture in the higher education institution. These findings may also be helpful for other developing countries.


2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (6) ◽  
pp. 873-890 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sameer Kumar ◽  
Katie J. Himes ◽  
Collin P. Kritzer

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide the organization with a process for assessing risk associated with their supply chain and a framework from which they can build their strategy to manage risk. Design/methodology/approach – The proposed process is based on a compilation of research and interactions with supply chain managers in various industries, and these sources provide a specific process to identify how critical the risk is, when to act upon it, and how to manage it. An adapted risk mitigation framework organizes strategies according to the likelihood of disruption and consequences. Included is an industry example used to demonstrate the framework. Findings – The variability and uncertainty associated with supply chain risks make disruption difficult to predict. Furthermore, getting information from suppliers about the amount of risk associated with their operation in an attempt to scope one's own risk can be a challenge. Management must consider the amount of risk the organization is going to accept and how much to invest to mitigate it. Originality/value – To manage the risk associated with supply chain disruption, an organization must deploy a strategy for assessing it. Once risk areas have been identified, the organization must design strategies which will mitigate the risk. The depth and degree to which risk is mitigated depends upon how risk-averse a company is and what they are willing to invest in this activity.


2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (6) ◽  
pp. 1564-1590 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shwadhin Sharma ◽  
Anita Khadka

Purpose Drawing on the taxonomy of patient empowerment and a sense of community (SoC), the purpose of this paper is to analyze the factors that impact the intention of the individual to continue using online social health support community for their chronic disease management. Design/methodology/approach A survey design was used to collect the data from multiple online social health support groups related to chronic disease management. The survey yielded a total of 246 usable responses. Findings The primary findings from this study indicate that the informational support – not the nurturant support such as emotional, network, and esteem support – are the major types of support people are seeking from an online social health support community. This research also found that patient empowerment and SoC would positively impact their intention to continue using the online health community. Research limitations/implications This study utilized a survey design method may limit precision and realism. Also, there is the self-selection bias as the respondents self-selected themselves to take the survey. Practical implications The findings can help the community managers or webmasters to design strategies for the promotion and diffusion of online social health group among patient of chronic disease. Those strategies should focus on patient’s empowerment through action facilitating and social support and through creating a SoC. Originality/value An innovative research model integrates patient empowerment and a SoC to study patient’s chronic disease management through online social health groups to fill the existing research gap.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 361-374
Author(s):  
Nasim Eslamirad ◽  
Soheil Malekpour Kolbadinejad ◽  
Mohammadjavad Mahdavinejad ◽  
Mohammad Mehranrad

PurposeThis research aims to introduce a new methodology for integration between urban design strategies and supervised machine learning (SML) method – by applying both energy engineering modeling (evaluating phase) for the existing green sidewalks and statistical energy modeling (predicting phase) for the new ones – to offer algorithms that help to catch the optimum morphology of green sidewalks, in case of high quality of the outdoor thermal comfort and less errors in results.Design/methodology/approachThe tools of the study are the way of processing by SML, predicting the future based on the past. Machine learning is benefited from Python advantages. The structure of the study consisted of two main parts, as the majority of the similar studies follow: engineering energy modeling and statistical energy modeling. According to the concept of the study, at first, from 2268 models, some are randomly selected, simulated and sensitively analyzed by ENVI-met. Furthermore, the Envi-met output as the quantity of thermal comfort – predicted mean vote (PMV) and weather items are inputs of Python. Then, the formed data set is processed by SML, to reach the final reliable predicted output.FindingsThe process of SML leads the study to find thermal comfort of current models and other similar sidewalks. The results are evaluated by both PMV mathematical model and SML error evaluation functions. The results confirm that the average of the occurred error is about 1%. Then the method of study is reliable to apply in the variety of similar fields. Finding of this study can be helpful in perspective of the sustainable architecture strategies in the buildings and urban scales, to determine, monitor and control energy-based behaviors (thermal comfort, heating, cooling, lighting and ventilation) in operational phase of the systems (existed elements in buildings, and constructions) and the planning and designing phase of the future built cases – all over their life spans.Research limitations/implicationsLimitations of the study are related to the study variables and alternatives that are notable impact on the findings. Furthermore, the most trustable input data will result in the more accuracy in output. Then modeling and simulation processes are most significant part of the research to reach the exact results in the final step.Practical implicationsFinding of the study can be helpful in urban design strategies. By finding outdoor thermal comfort that resulted from machine learning method, urban and landscape designers, policymakers and architects are able to estimate the features of their designs in air quality and urban health and can be sure in catching design goals in case of thermal comfort in urban atmosphere.Social implicationsBy 2030, cities are delved as living spaces for about three out of five people. As green infrastructures influence in moderating the cities’ climate, the relationship between green spaces and habitants’ thermal comfort is deduced. Although the strategies to outside thermal comfort improvement, by design methods and applicants, are not new subject to discuss, applying machines that may be common in predicting results can be called as a new insight in applying more effective design strategies and in urban environment’s comfort preparation. Then study’s footprint in social implications stems in learning from the previous projects and developing more efficient strategies to prepare cities as the more comfortable and healthy places to live, with the more efficient models and consuming money and time.Originality/valueThe study achievements are expected to be applied not only in Tehran but also in other climate zones as the pattern in more eco-city design strategies. Although some similar studies are done in different majors, the concept of study is new vision in urban studies.


2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 447-462
Author(s):  
Anne Crampton ◽  
Cynthia Lewis

Purpose This study aims to discuss the ethical and political possibilities offered by the presence of teaching artists (TAs) and visual artwork in racially and culturally diverse high school literacy (English Language Arts) classrooms. Design/methodology/approach This study explores episodes from two separate ethnographic studies that were conducted in one teacher’s critical literacy classroom across a span of several years. This study uses a transliteracies approach (Stornaiulo et al., 2017) to think about “meaning-making at the intersection of human subjects and materials” (Kontovourki et al., 2019); the study also draws on critical scholarship on art and making (Ngo et al., 2017; Vossoughi et al., 2016). The TA, along with the materials and processes of artmaking, decentered the teacher and literacy itself, inviting in new social realities. Findings TAs’ collective interpretation of existing artwork and construction of new works made visible how both human and nonhuman bodies co-produced “new ways of feeling and being with others” (Zembylas, 2017, p. 402). This study views these artists as catalysts capable of provoking, or productively disrupting, the everyday practices of classrooms. Social implications Both studies demonstrated new ways of feeling, being and thinking about difference, bringing to the forefront momentary possibilities and impossibilities of complex human and nonhuman intra-actions. The provocations flowing from the visual artwork and the dialogue swirling around the work presented opportunities for emergent and unexpected experiences of literacy learning. Originality/value This work is valuable in exploring the boundaries of literacy learning with the serious inclusion of visual art in an English classroom. When the TAs guided both interpretation and production of artwork, they affected and were affected by the becoming happening in the classroom. This study suggests how teaching bodies, students and artwork pushed the transformative potential of everyday school settings.


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