Investigate the Social Actor Model of ICT Use in Organizations

Keyword(s):  
Ict Use ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Nishanie Priyanga De Silva Senapathy

<p>Life after retirement from full-time work is known as the third act of an individual. In New Zealand the third act has become longer, resulting in an ageing population. An implication of population ageing is the need for increased support and services for older people who live within the community. Non-profit sector organisations primarily cater to those that are either beyond the reach of state services or are unable to afford services offered by the commercial sector.  This study is guided by the central research question: how can non-profit sector organisations use ICTs to support service provision for older people living within the community? Using Lamb and Kling’s social actor model, adapted to the context of non-profit sector, the research project explores how ICT use is influenced by factors that are investigated under four key dimensions: affiliations, environment, identities and technology. Employing a case research method, it studies ICT use in four human services non-profit sector organisations.  The analysis of the case studies revealed how external influences are enacted within organisations. The study presents a framework which explains post-adoptive use in non-profit sector organisations incorporating external factors, the organisational view and social actor behaviours. The findings suggest that client and funder information requirements influence organisations to select one of four responses to external cues. Organisations adopt either a complementary perspective, a competing perspective, a compatible view or a negotiated view. These organisational information perspectives craft social actor behaviours within non-profit organisations.  Further, this study found information challenges associated with maintaining complex client requirements. Mobility of the work force, deficiencies in data capture and limitations of existing client information systems constrain information flow in these organisations. As a result analysis of service utilisation data fails to communicate the actual value created within communities.  This study has extended the understanding of ICT use in non-profit human services organisations in New Zealand and contributed to knowledge in the development of the social actor model within specific contexts. The original contribution of this study is the three-tier typology of social actor- information roles. The study presents social actor behaviour associated with a primary entity and an information role. Five main social actor- information roles were identified across three tiers and have been mapped against a spectrum of information behaviours associated with each role. When responding to external cues social actors engage in task related behaviours associated with their information roles. By contributing to ICT use practices, this research presents new perspectives on the components of value in organisational processes. Identifying value adding and value communicating information flows, information loss and informal ICT support roles this study presents a detailed analysis of the factors that enhance and constrain ICT use within human services non-profit sector organisations.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Nishanie Priyanga De Silva Senapathy

<p>Life after retirement from full-time work is known as the third act of an individual. In New Zealand the third act has become longer, resulting in an ageing population. An implication of population ageing is the need for increased support and services for older people who live within the community. Non-profit sector organisations primarily cater to those that are either beyond the reach of state services or are unable to afford services offered by the commercial sector.  This study is guided by the central research question: how can non-profit sector organisations use ICTs to support service provision for older people living within the community? Using Lamb and Kling’s social actor model, adapted to the context of non-profit sector, the research project explores how ICT use is influenced by factors that are investigated under four key dimensions: affiliations, environment, identities and technology. Employing a case research method, it studies ICT use in four human services non-profit sector organisations.  The analysis of the case studies revealed how external influences are enacted within organisations. The study presents a framework which explains post-adoptive use in non-profit sector organisations incorporating external factors, the organisational view and social actor behaviours. The findings suggest that client and funder information requirements influence organisations to select one of four responses to external cues. Organisations adopt either a complementary perspective, a competing perspective, a compatible view or a negotiated view. These organisational information perspectives craft social actor behaviours within non-profit organisations.  Further, this study found information challenges associated with maintaining complex client requirements. Mobility of the work force, deficiencies in data capture and limitations of existing client information systems constrain information flow in these organisations. As a result analysis of service utilisation data fails to communicate the actual value created within communities.  This study has extended the understanding of ICT use in non-profit human services organisations in New Zealand and contributed to knowledge in the development of the social actor model within specific contexts. The original contribution of this study is the three-tier typology of social actor- information roles. The study presents social actor behaviour associated with a primary entity and an information role. Five main social actor- information roles were identified across three tiers and have been mapped against a spectrum of information behaviours associated with each role. When responding to external cues social actors engage in task related behaviours associated with their information roles. By contributing to ICT use practices, this research presents new perspectives on the components of value in organisational processes. Identifying value adding and value communicating information flows, information loss and informal ICT support roles this study presents a detailed analysis of the factors that enhance and constrain ICT use within human services non-profit sector organisations.</p>


2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (5) ◽  
pp. 816-832 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin C. Williams ◽  
Besnik Krasniqi

Purpose Recently, a small but burgeoning literature has argued that tax non-compliance cannot be fully explained using the conventional rational economic actor approach which views non-compliance as occurring when the pay-off is greater than the expected cost of being caught and punished. Instead, a social actor approach has emerged which views tax non-compliance as higher when “tax morale”, defined as the intrinsic motivation to pay taxes, is low. To advance this social actor model, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate the individual and national heterogeneity in tax morale, which is crucial if tax compliance is to be improved. Design/methodology/approach To do this, the authors report data from the 2010 Life in Transition Survey on tax morale in 35 Eurasian countries. Findings Logit econometric analysis reveals, on the one hand, that there is higher tax morale among middle-aged, married, homeowners with children, with a university degree and employed, and on the other hand, that there is higher tax morale in more developed countries with stronger legal systems and less corruption, and higher levels of state intervention in the form of both taxation and expenditure. Research limitations/implications Rather than continue with the rational actor approach, this paper reveals that how an emergent social actor approach can help to more fully explain tax non-compliance and results in a different policy approach focused upon changing country-level economic and social conditions associated with low tax morale and thus non-compliance. Practical implications These results display the specific populations with low tax morale which need targeting when seeking to tackle tax non-compliance. Originality/value This paper provides a new way of explaining and tackling tax non-compliance in Eurasian countries.


2012 ◽  
pp. 127-153
Author(s):  
Silvia Cataldi

The article begins with a brief overview of how the relationship between researcher and object of study has been approached in social sciences. The goal is to reflect further on the process of this study and to raise two essential questions: what kind of relationship develops between the researcher and the social actor? And what kind of participation is required from the social actor? To answer these questions the article proposes identifying four different models of participation, the effects of which are analyzed by rediscovering all the practices that include a particular involvement of the social actor in the research process.


2020 ◽  
pp. 58-76
Author(s):  
Ray Brescia

This chapter focuses on the movement's message. Many of the social movements often embraced a unifying message that sought ways to attract a wide and diverse group of supporters. For an understanding of some of the additional components of social movement success, particularly in social innovation moments, the chapter turns to contemporary social movement theory to try to identify the connection between one's network, the messages that network might send, and the extent to which the identities of the members of that network are tied up in both. It discusses the evolution of social movement theory, beginning with what can be called the rational actor model of community organizing. What this discussion shows is that messages matter for community organizing and social mobilization. Personalizing, humanizing, and optimistic messages can help movements expand and grow, creating the network effects described in the previous chapter. At the same time, when those messages are encoded onto face-to-face relationships, those relationships serve as a channel through which a movement can expand its network.


Forests ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 708
Author(s):  
Giampiero Branca ◽  
Irene Piredda ◽  
Roberto Scotti ◽  
Laura Chessa ◽  
Ilenia Murgia ◽  
...  

Today, a forest is also understood as a real social actor with multiple-scale influences, capable of significantly conditioning the social, economic, and cultural system of a whole territory. The aim of this paper is to reconstruct and interpret the population’s perception of the silvicultural activities related to traditional use of forest resources of the southwestern Sardinian Marganai State Forest. The “Marganai case” has brought to the attention of the mass media the role of this forest and its silviculture. The research was carried out via semi-structured interviews with the main stakeholders in the area. The qualitative approach in the collection and analysis of the information gathered has allowed us to reconstruct the historical-cultural and social cohesion function that the forest plays in rural communities. The results highlight that the main risks concern the erosion of the cultural forest heritage due to the abandonment of the rural dimension (mainly by the new generations, but not only), with the consequent spread of deep distortions in the perception, interpretation, and necessity of forestry activities and policy.


Author(s):  
Rachel Humphris

This chapter presents the methodology of the research including theoretical discussions of ‘anthropological truth’, the researchers’ shifting situated positions throughout the fieldwork and the writing process. This chapter draws on Munn’s conception of the social actor as a mobile spatial field. The home emerged as the most salient site of interaction through this methodology. This has two implications. First, it provides a different entry point to social worlds (resonating with feminist analytics) rather than choosing a space and exploring the social actors that create it. Second, this approach revealed the home as the site where ‘culture’ was located and contested. This opens the home space to studies on diversity and conviviality. It also demonstrates the different terms that encounters in the home took on through the social roles of host and hosting, the materiality of the space, and gendered dynamics.


Author(s):  
Dennis A. Gioia ◽  
Aimee L. Hamilton

Historically speaking, there have been a number of great debates in the organizational identity literature. Undoubtedly the most basic still is, “Is there such a thing as organizational identity?” This debate might best be characterized as an ontological debate. A second debate has to do with what can be known about the phenomenon. This epistemological debate has pitted various “camps” against each other. The three most prominent camps are the social actor, social construction, and institutional theory views on organizational identity. We suggest a conceptual pathway for reconciling these apparently competing views and furthering the research agenda for organizational identity. This chapter argues that despite the debated differences among these views, each largely depicts identity as “entitative.” Our proposed reconciliation centers on a fourth “processual” view on identity, that is, identity-as-flow.


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