Proactivity routines: The role of social processes in how employees self-initiate change

Proactive work behaviors are self-initiated, future-focused actions aimed at bringing about changes to work processes in organizations. Such behaviors occur within the social context of work. The extant literature that has focused on the role of social context for proactivity has focused on social context as an overall input or output of proactivity. However, in this article we argue that the process of engaging in proactive work behavior (proactive goal-striving) may also be a function of the social context in which it occurs. Based on qualitative data from 39 call center employees in an energy-supply company, we find that in a context characterized by standardized work procedures, proactive goal-striving can occur through a proactivity routine – a socially constructed and accepted pattern of action by which employees initiate and achieve changes to work processes, with the support of managers and colleagues. Our findings point to the need to view proactive work behaviors at a higher level of analysis than the individual in order to identify shared routines for engaging in proactivity, as well as how multiple actors coordinate their efforts in the process of achieving individually-generated proactive goals.

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Socio-Pedagogical Context of Upbringing and Education

Development of education ◽

10.31483/r-97208 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 12-15

Author(s):

Svetlana Vladislavovna Kolesova

Keyword(s):

Social Context ◽

Human Sciences ◽

Positive Thinking ◽

Modern Life ◽

Social Pedagogy ◽

The Social ◽

General Pedagogy ◽

The Individual ◽

Pedagogical Science

The article is devoted to discussing social and pedagogical context for the processes of upbringing and education. The purpose of the study is to disclose the specifics of upbringing and education contributing to positive socialization of the individual in the circumstances when the social component of modern life has gained greater significance. The research methods include the study and analysis of academic and pedagogical publications on the discussed issue. The article examines integration and differentiation as trends in the progress of modern pedagogical science. The author highlights the issue of interconnection and independence between general pedagogy, social pedagogy and other human sciences. The idea of social context for traditional pedagogical processes of education and instruction is argued in the article. The author focuses on transformation that these processes undergo in the present-day context for an individual’s social development, as well as on risks and barriers in solving educational problems arising in that context. The article reveals the role performed by child’s upbringing and education as factors of positive socialization. The author presents her standing in viewing the concept of “positive socialization”, and in defining the role of positive thinking in this process. The article also suggests there is a need for socio-pedagogical support for an individual’s positive socialization. The concept and content of socio-pedagogical support of a student in the process of upbringing and education is briefly revealed. The author concludes by stating a demand to modify methodology of researching processes of education and instruction in the domain of an individual’s socialization.

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Value-driven issues throughout the development of sociological theory

Sociology: Theory, Methods, Marketing ◽

10.15407/sociology2020.04.147 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 147-160

Author(s):

Gulbarshyn Chepurko ◽

Valerii Pylypenko

Keyword(s):

Social Interactions ◽

Social System ◽

Sociological Theory ◽

Social Scientists ◽

Social Sphere ◽

Technological Advances ◽

The Social ◽

The Individual ◽

Different Levels

The paper examines and compares how the major sociological theories treat axiological issues. Value-driven topics are analysed in view of their relevance to society in times of crisis, when both societal life and the very structure of society undergo dramatic change. Nowadays, social scientists around the world are also witnessing such a change due to the emergence of alternative schools of sociological thought (non-classical, interpretive, postmodern, etc.) and, subsequently, the necessity to revise the paradigms that have been existed in sociology so far. Since the above-mentioned approaches are often used to address value-related issues, building a solid theoretical framework for these studies takes on considerable significance. Furthermore, the paradigm revision has been prompted by technological advances changing all areas of people’s lives, especially social interactions. The global human community, integral in nature, is being formed, and production of human values now matters more than production of things; hence the “expansion” of value-focused perspectives in contemporary sociology. The authors give special attention to collectivities which are higher-order units of the social system. These units are described as well-organised action systems where each individual performs his/her specific role. Just as the role of an individual is distinct from that of the collectivity (because the individual and the collectivity are different as units), so too a distinction is drawn between the value and the norm — because they represent different levels of social relationships. Values are the main connecting element between the society’s cultural system and the social sphere while norms, for the most part, belong to the social system. Values serve primarily to maintain the pattern according to which the society is functioning at a given time; norms are essential to social integration. Apart from being the means of regulating social processes and relationships, norms embody the “principles” that can be applied beyond a particular social system. The authors underline that it is important for Ukrainian sociology to keep abreast of the latest developments in the field of axiology and make good use of those ideas because this is a prerequisite for its successful integration into the global sociological community.

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The impact of the social context on value and expectancy beliefs in an online graduate program: The role of social presence

Journal of Computer Assisted Learning ◽

10.1111/jcal.12492 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Ordene V. Edwards

Keyword(s):

Social Context ◽

Social Presence ◽

Graduate Program ◽

The Social ◽

The Impact

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A market-based rationale for the privacy paradox

Media Culture & Society ◽

10.1177/01634437211015843 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 016344372110158

Author(s):

Opeyemi Akanbi

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Market Structures ◽

Media Companies ◽

The Social ◽

Social Media Platforms ◽

Privacy Paradox ◽

The Individual ◽

Privacy Risks ◽

Social Collective

Moving beyond the current focus on the individual as the unit of analysis in the privacy paradox, this article examines the misalignment between privacy attitudes and online behaviors at the level of society as a collective. I draw on Facebook’s market performance to show how despite concerns about privacy, market structures drive user, advertiser and investor behaviors to continue to reward corporate owners of social media platforms. In this market-oriented analysis, I introduce the metaphor of elasticity to capture the responsiveness of demand for social media to the data (price) charged by social media companies. Overall, this article positions social media as inelastic, relative to privacy costs; highlights the role of the social collective in the privacy crises; and ultimately underscores the need for structural interventions in addressing privacy risks.

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Society as Cause and Cure: The Norms of Transgender Social Medicine

Culture Medicine and Psychiatry ◽

10.1007/s11013-021-09727-4 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Ketil Slagstad

Keyword(s):

Social Medicine ◽

Social Aspects ◽

Political Role ◽

Therapeutic Regime ◽

Trans People ◽

The Social ◽

In Trans ◽

The Individual ◽

Oral History Interviews

AbstractThis article analyzes how trans health was negotiated on the margins of psychiatry from the late 1970s and early 1980s. In this period, a new model of medical transition was established for trans people in Norway. Psychiatrists and other medical doctors as well as psychologists and social workers with a special interest and training in social medicine created a new diagnostic and therapeutic regime in which the social aspects of transitioning took center stage. The article situates this regime in a long Norwegian tradition of social medicine, including the important political role of social medicine in the creation of the postwar welfare state and its scope of addressing and changing the societal structures involved in disease. By using archival material, medical records and oral history interviews with former patients and health professionals, I demonstrate how social aspects not only underpinned diagnostic evaluations but were an integral component of the entire therapeutic regime. Sex reassignment became an integrative way of imagining and practicing psychiatry as social medicine. The article specifically unpacks the social element of these diagnostic and therapeutic approaches in trans medicine. Because the locus of intervention and treatment remained the individual, an approach with subversive potential ended up reproducing the norms that caused illness in the first place: “the social” became a conformist tool to help the patient integrate, adjust to and transform the pathology-producing forces of society.

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Modeling Syntactic Change under Contact: The Case of Italiot Greek

Languages ◽

10.3390/languages6020074 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 6 (2) ◽

pp. 74

Author(s):

Cristina Guardiano ◽

Melita Stavrou

Keyword(s):

Social Context ◽

Ancient Greek ◽

Potential Source ◽

Syntactic Change ◽

The Social ◽

Linguistic Structures

In this paper, we investigate patterns of persistence and change affecting the syntax of nominal structures in Italiot Greek in comparison to Modern (and Ancient) Greek, and we explore the role of Southern Italo-Romance as a potential source of interference. Our aim is to highlight the dynamics that favor syntactic contact in this domain: we provide an overview of the social context where these dynamics have taken place and of the linguistic structures involved.

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Individual behavioural traits not social context affects learning about novel objects in archerfish

Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology ◽

10.1007/s00265-021-02996-4 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 75 (3) ◽

Author(s):

Nick A. R. Jones ◽

Helen C. Spence-Jones ◽

Mike Webster ◽

Luke Rendell

Keyword(s):

Social Context ◽

Social Environment ◽

Social Contexts ◽

Negative Effects ◽

Behavioural Phenotype ◽

Social Species ◽

The Social ◽

Social Animals ◽

Novel Objects ◽

The Individual

Abstract Learning can enable rapid behavioural responses to changing conditions but can depend on the social context and behavioural phenotype of the individual. Learning rates have been linked to consistent individual differences in behavioural traits, especially in situations which require engaging with novelty, but the social environment can also play an important role. The presence of others can modulate the effects of individual behavioural traits and afford access to social information that can reduce the need for ‘risky’ asocial learning. Most studies of social effects on learning are focused on more social species; however, such factors can be important even for less-social animals, including non-grouping or facultatively social species which may still derive benefit from social conditions. Using archerfish, Toxotes chatareus, which exhibit high levels of intra-specific competition and do not show a strong preference for grouping, we explored the effect of social contexts on learning. Individually housed fish were assayed in an ‘open-field’ test and then trained to criterion in a task where fish learnt to shoot a novel cue for a food reward—with a conspecific neighbour visible either during training, outside of training or never (full, partial or no visible presence). Time to learn to shoot the novel cue differed across individuals but not across social context. This suggests that social context does not have a strong effect on learning in this non-obligatory social species; instead, it further highlights the importance that inter-individual variation in behavioural traits can have on learning. Significance statement Some individuals learn faster than others. Many factors can affect an animal’s learning rate—for example, its behavioural phenotype may make it more or less likely to engage with novel objects. The social environment can play a big role too—affecting learning directly and modifying the effects of an individual’s traits. Effects of social context on learning mostly come from highly social species, but recent research has focused on less-social animals. Archerfish display high intra-specific competition, and our study suggests that social context has no strong effect on their learning to shoot novel objects for rewards. Our results may have some relevance for social enrichment and welfare of this increasingly studied species, suggesting there are no negative effects of short- to medium-term isolation of this species—at least with regards to behavioural performance and learning tasks.

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Foreign Experience in Using Educational Logotherapy in Professional Activities of Primary School Teachers

Comparative Professional Pedagogy ◽

10.1515/rpp-2017-0036 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 7 (3) ◽

pp. 55-61

Author(s):

Yuliia Stepura

Keyword(s):

Primary School ◽

Social Activity ◽

Therapeutic Concept ◽

Professional Activities ◽

Therapeutic Interaction ◽

The Social ◽

Primary Schoolchildren ◽

The Individual ◽

Individual Self

Abstract The article examines the nature and importance of using aesthetic and therapeutic concept and educational logotherapy, in particular, for creating a special emotionally comfortable socioeducational environment for primary education The author has represented inteipretation of foreign scholars' views (J. Bugental, V. Frankl, A. Maslow, R. May, J. Moreno, C. Rogers et al) on such terms as “communication ”, “aesthetotherapy ”, “educational logotherapy” etc. An attempt has been made to analyze the social coTitent of pedagogical activity in the context of using logotherapy in primary school based on an agogical paradigm. In the scope of the article, the specific of using the therapeutic metaphor in the educational environment of primary' school has been represented as well as the basic stages of its implementation have been determined. These stages are the following: description of the storyline, persuasion and binding. The author has defined the role of the “living metaphors” in organization of the therapeutic interaction between the teacher and primary' schoolchildren. Particular attention has been paid to formation of the humanistic competency among primary schoolchildren; this competency is to be based on their understanding of the following philosophical and pedagogical categories: a norm (as a means and a results of pupils' social activity), freedom (as a mean and a result of individual self-expression among primary schoolchildren) and happiness (as an individual self-expression among primaryr schoolchildren). The author has assessed the role of deflection method and paradoxical intention for the social development of the pupil and further formation of the individual. Additional attention has been paid to determination of the socioeducational and psychological and pedagogical potential of such leading method in logotherapy as “The Socratic dialogue” (or “The Socratic circle”): as well have been highlighted the main stages of its implementation: consent (search for what pupil may agree), doubt (an expression of doubts towards weak arguments of interlocutor) and arguments (the teacher must convey' one’s opinion, without any resistance from the child): have been represented different various algorithms of its realization: the method of “aquarium”, “panel method” and “questioning technique”.

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From Society to Self (and Back) through Place: Habit in Transactional Context

OTJR Occupation Participation and Health ◽

10.1177/15394492070270s107 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 27 (1_suppl) ◽

pp. 50S-59S ◽

Cited By ~ 19

Author(s):

Malcolm P. Cutchin

Keyword(s):

Essential Role ◽

The Social ◽

Moral Dimensions ◽

The Individual

This argument extends the efforts of scholars of occupation and habit in several ways. It extends previous examinations of John Dewey's perspective on habit by bringing to the forefront his view of the social and moral dimensions of habit in the context of his larger metaphysical ground-map. That view suggests a habit process involving the transaction of the social and the individual, with habit as central to that transaction. Dewey's view is further enhanced with a portrayal of how it operates in the material experience of place and landscape. Examples from several scales of place are discussed to illustrate the essential role of material landscapes in this habit process. Using these analyses, the concept of rehabilitation is reconsidered.

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