The Dialectics of Technology Standardization

MIS Quarterly ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 1187-1212
Author(s):  
Rikard Lindgren ◽  
◽  
Lars Mathiassen ◽  
Ulrike Schultze ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Research Study ◽  
Global Solutions ◽  
Public Interests ◽  
It Systems ◽  
Road Haulage ◽  
Technology Standard ◽  
Recursive Dynamics ◽  
New Social Order ◽  
Technology Standardization

Technology standardization unfolds as a dialectic process marked by paradoxical tensions. However, standardization research has yet to provide a dialectic analysis of how tensions and management responses interact recursively over time, and with what effect. In this paper, we apply dialectics to analyze an action research study of a Swedish initiative that developed and diffused a technology standard to facilitate the integration of disparate IT systems in road haulage firms. Drawing on the technology standardization literature and our empirical analysis, we engage in midrange theorizing to capture the recursive dynamics through which standard-setters construct and respond to manifestations of three latent tensions: development versus diffusion activities, private versus public interests, and local versus global solutions. Our resulting dialectic theorizing explicates how standard-setters bring these latent tensions into being; how they construct salient tensions through the oppositional logics of polarization, complementarity, and mutuality; how they manage these tensions through splitting, integrating, and suspension responses; and how consequential functional, architectural, and organizational standardization outcomes produce a new social order in which new tensions emerge. These theoretical insights contribute to both the technology standardization and dialectics literatures.

Blackism and Pan-Africanism in Post-Colonial African Literature: A Reading of Femi Osofisan’s Plays

Imbizo ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Clement Olujide Ajidahun
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Black People ◽  
African Literature ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
African Renaissance ◽  
Pan Africanism ◽  
New Social Order

This article is a thematic study of Femi Osofisan’s plays that explicitly capture the essence of blackism, nationalism and pan-Africanism as a depiction of the playwright’s ideology and his total commitment to the evolution of a new social order for black people. The article critically discusses the concepts of blackism and pan-Africanism as impelling revolutionary tools that seek to re-establish and reaffirm the primacy, identity, and personality of black people in Africa and in the diaspora. It also discusses blackism as an African renaissance ideology that campaigns for the total emancipation of black people and a convulsive rejection of all forms of colonialism, neo-colonialism, Eurocentrism, nepotism and ethnic chauvinism, while advocating an acceptance of Afrocentrism, unity and oneness of blacks as indispensable tools needed for the dethronement of all forms of racism, discrimination, oppression and dehumanisation of black people. The article hinges the underdevelopment of the black continent on the deliberate attempt of the imperialists and their black cronies who rule with iron hands to keep blacks in perpetual slavery. It countenances Femi Osofisan’s call for unity and solidarity among all blacks as central to the upliftment of Africans. The article recognises Femi Osofisan as a strong, committed and formidable African playwright who utilises theatre as a veritable and radical platform to fight and advocate for the liberation of black people by arousing their revolutionary consciousness and by calling on them to hold their destinies in their hands if they are to be emancipated from the shackles of oppression.

Scriptural Battlefields: The Old Testament, Legal Culture, and the Polemics of the Spanish New World Empire, 1492–1821

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra ◽  
Adrian Masters
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Social Order ◽  
New World ◽  
Legal Culture ◽  
Spanish Empire ◽  
Correct Interpretation ◽  
Group Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Social Order

Scholars have barely begun to explore the role of the Old Testament in the history of the Spanish New World. And yet this text was central for the Empire’s legal thought, playing a role in its legislation, adjudication, and understandings of group status. Institutions like the Council of the Indies, the Inquisition, and the monarchy itself invited countless parallels to ancient Hebrew justice. Scripture influenced how subjects understood and valued imperial space as well as theories about Paradise or King Solomon’s mines of Ophir. Scripture shaped debates about the nature of the New World past, the legitimacy of the conquest, and the questions of mining, taxation, and other major issues. In the world of privilege and status, conquerors and pessimists could depict the New World and its peoples as the antithesis of Israel and the Israelites, while activists, patriots, and women flipped the script with aplomb. In the readings of Indians, American-born Spaniards, nuns, and others, the correct interpretation of the Old Testament justified a new social order where these groups’ supposed demerits were in reality their virtues. Indeed, vassals and royal officials’ interpretations of the Old Testament are as diverse as the Spanish Empire itself. Scripture even outlasted the Empire. As republicans defeated royalists in the nineteenth century, divergent readings of the book, variously supporting the Israelite monarchy or the Hebrew republic, had their day on the battlefield itself.

Delegitimizing al-Qaida: Defeating an “Army Whose Men Love Death”

2014 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 126-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerry Mark Long ◽  
Alex S. Wilner
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Theoretical Investigation ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
The United States ◽  
Recruitment Tool ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
New Social Order

Deterring terrorism is no longer a provocative idea, but missing from the contemporary theoretical investigation is a discussion of how delegitimization might be used to manipulate and shape militant behavior. Delegitimization suggests that states and substate actors can use the religious or ideological rationale that informs terrorist behavior to influence it. In the case of al-Qaida, the organization has carefully elaborated a robust metanarrative that has proved to be remarkably successful as a recruitment tool, in identity formation for adherents, as public apologia and hermeneutic, and as a weapon of war—the so-called media jihad. In the wake of the upheaval of the Arab Spring, al-Qaida and its adherents have redeployed the narrative, promising a new social order to replace the region's anciens régimes. Delegitimization would have the United States and its friends and allies use al-Qaida's own narrative against it by targeting and degrading the ideological motivation that guides support for and participation in terrorism.

Social Science and a New Social Order

1971 ◽  
Vol 8 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 207-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry R. Targ
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Social Order ◽  
New Social Order

Contradictions of the upcoming period: points for developing the agenda for medium- and long-term perspective

2021 ◽  
pp. 72-80
Author(s):  
D.M. Belousov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Social Situation ◽  
Regional Conflicts ◽  
Global Nature ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
Object Of Control ◽  
Trade Wars ◽  
New Social Order ◽  
Different Levels

Analysis of the economic and social situation allows for the conclusion that the world is entering an era of global instability and contradictions. There is clearly a crisis of compensatory and basic institutions. Humans cease to be the subjects of the historical process and instead are becoming the object of control. Contradictions are sharply increasing at different levels. We are witnessing the conflict between labor and capital related to the national nature of labor and the global nature of capital. Production, security and regional applied science are changing, but financial and institutional systems remain global. Information and trade wars are intensifying. During a multi-level crisis, it is difficult to predict what a new social order will be like, but the transition to it will be difficult and highly possibly rife with (macro-) regional conflicts.

Social identification with the “Yellow Vests”: An exploratory study in France.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathilde Barbier ◽  
Grégory Lo Monaco ◽  
Sylvain Delouvée
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Exploratory Study ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
Social Identification ◽  
Democratic Regime ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
The People ◽  
Full Swing ◽  
New Social Order

The present study was carried out in December, 2018 and aimed at exploring the “Yellow Vests” movement when the revolts were in full swing. It involved 260 French participants (Mage = 42.9 years, SDage 14.6, Min = 18 to Max = 88). Results confirmed our hypotheses. The people who most identified with the “Yellow Vests” are those who perceive the system to be less fair and more illegitimate, and who express more dissatisfaction with the democratic regime and are generally more politically cynical. They feel more alienated and affirm that they would be more likely to resort to violence in order to introduce a new social order. They adhere more to conspiracy theories. Finally, we found greater identification of the “Yellow Vests” with extreme compared to moderate political parties. We discuss these results from the defence of the moral economy principle.

The Paradox of Trans-American Solidarity: Gender, Race, and Representation in the Guatemalan Refugee Camps of Mexico, 1980–1990

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 74-112
Author(s):  
Molly Todd
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
North American ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Refugee Camps ◽  
Grassroots Organizations ◽  
Refugee Women ◽  
Imperial Power ◽  
New Social Order

In the 1970s and 1980s the Guatemalan government's counterinsurgency tactics prompted nearly 2 million people to abandon their homes. Drawing on heretofore unexamined documentation produced by North American solidarity groups, this article examines how Canadian, Mexican, and U.S. grassroots organizations represented the approximately 200,000 Guatemalans who crossed the border into Mexico. It traces the gendered and racialized victim portrayals that celebrated refugee men's voices and agency while reducing refugee women to silent symbols of trauma. A close reading of new sources reveals a paradox of solidarity work in the 1980s: North American activists promoted a new social order of justice and equality, but they did so from positions both privileged and hindered by Cold War geopolitics. As a result, even as “northern” solidarists provided very real succor to “southern” people, their actions continued to be based on uneven (colonial/imperial) power relations and assumptions about an exotic Other.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document