scholarly journals Being smarter about space: drawing lessons from spatial science

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ate Poorthuis ◽  
Matthew Zook
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Quantitative Methodology ◽  
Smart Technology ◽  
Computational Work ◽  
Core Concepts ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Smart Technologies ◽  
Human Intellect

Smart technology – in its many facets – is often critiqued within Geography in ways that parallel the critiques of quantitative geography in the 1960s and GIScience in the 1990s. In this way, both the development on ‘smart’ technology itself and its criticisms are the latest chapter in a long-standing disciplinary debate around quantification and technology. We re-evaluate this history and argue that quantitative methodology and its theoretical critiques are not as incompatible as often claimed.To illustrate how we might address this apparent tension between theory and quantitative methods we review how both approaches conceptualize one of Geography’s core concepts: space, and highlight opportunities for symbiosis. Although smart technologies can further orthodox positivist approaches, we argue that the actual practice is more nuanced and not necessarily absolute or totalizing. For example, recent computational work builds upon critical geographic theories to analyze and visualize topological and relational spaces, relevant to topics such as gentrification and segregation. The result is not a Geography in which smart technology and algorithms remove the need for human input but rather a rejoinder in line with the recent resurgence of a critical quantitative geography. In short, a Geography where social theory and the human intellect play a key role in guiding computational approaches to analyze the largest, most versatile and relevant datasets on social space that we have ever had.

Markets are constantly collapsing: Reconceptualizing ‘the market’ as a quantum social wavefunction

2021 ◽  
pp. 102452942098782
Author(s):  
Michael Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Open Economy ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Value Chains ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Core Concepts ◽  
Broad Framework

The quantum moment in International Relations theory challenges the taken for granted Newtonian assumptions of conventional theories, while offering a novel physical imaginary grounded in quantum mechanics. As part of the special issue on reconceptualizing markets, this article questions if prior efforts to conceptualize ‘the market’ have been unsuccessful at capturing the paradoxical microfoundational/macrostructural because of the Newtonian worldview within which much social science operates. By developing a new, quantum perspective on the market, taking the physical paradigm of the wavefunction, I seek to explore the connections between entanglement, nonlocality, interference and invisible social structures. To demonstrate the applicability of quantum thinking, I explore how global value chains and open economy politics might be ‘quantized’, through the mobilization of core concepts of quantum social theory, within the broad framework of the market as a quantum social wavefunction.

Technology adoption and company performance

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-161
Author(s):  
Yeong-Wha Sawng ◽  
Yongjae Park ◽  
Seok-Hong Jo ◽  
Seung-Lak Park
Keyword(s):  
Performance Index ◽  
Strategic Decision ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Company Performance ◽  
Relative Importance ◽  
Smart Technology ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Internal Process ◽  
Smart Technologies ◽  
Interdisciplinary Study

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide useful implications for Korean export companies to adopt the smart technology to improve their performance in the era of industrial convergence with the interdisciplinary study between trade and technology management. Design/methodology/approach This study followed the five-stage procedure and methods. In the first stage, measurement items were developed in four performance factors: leaning and growth, internal process, customer and finance. In the second stage, data were collected by conducting two types of surveys: first, for Korean export companies that have adopted Radio frequency identification (RFID) to test the proposed model and analyze the performance and second, for RFID experts of industry-university R&D cooperation to measure the relative importance of factors and items. In the third stage, the model was verified with structural equation modeling. In the fourth stage, AHP was used to analyze the relative importance of factors and items. In the fifth stage, post-RFID adoption performance in Korean export companies was measured by a formula for the performance index. Through these five-stage procedure and methods, the final performance improvement strategies and practical implications are presented in the conclusion. Findings The framework finds that the total score of RFID post-adoption on company performance proved relatively low, which indicates that the effect of this technology on export companies’ performance is still unsatisfactory. And financial performance proved to be ‘top priority’ area, which requires the most urgent effort for improvement since its importance was higher than learning and growth, internal process and customer performance—but nonetheless its performance index was the lowest. This study finds that strategic decision making is required for adopting smart technology in the perspective of technology convergence to improve the performance of companies among heterogeneous industries. Research limitations/implications Despite the significant results of this study alone, it also has limitations. Therefore, the direction of the future study is as follows: future research should focus on finding specific impact factors enhancing post-adoption of smart technologies including RFID performance by conducting empirical studies that identify the factors affecting post adoption of smart technologies rate directly or indirectly. Originality/value In the current global market environment, not only technological convergence in the same kind of industry but also industrial convergence in the different kinds of industries are essential to manufacturing and service companies including to export companies with perspective of Innovation. This study has the value as an interdisciplinary study to actually measure the performance of a company by industrial convergence through the theme of adoption of smart technology in export companies.

The Washington Park Relocation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Rocksborough-Smith
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
American History ◽  
Black Power ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Physical Development ◽  
Significant Part ◽  
Racial Equality ◽  
Black Arts ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The University

Chapter 5 of this book looks at how the DuSable Museum conducted its expansion and physical development in the Black Power era. The museum’s relocation to Washington Park, next to the University of Chicago, reimagined a historically African American social space and neighborhood in the city’s geography and can be considered alongside the highly diverse engagements of Black Power and black arts movement activists around the country with civic-level politics. The politics this expansion effort brought into play also demonstrate how museum work became a significant part of local movements for urban racial equality through the 1960s and early 1970s, a process that further reflected growing interest in African American history.

Customer Experience in the Restaurant Industry

2020 ◽  
pp. 254-272
Author(s):  
Ilhami Tuncer
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Customer Experience ◽  
World Market ◽  
Restaurant Industry ◽  
Qr Code ◽  
Smart Technology ◽  
Technology Applications ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Smart Technologies

One of the most important points of consideration that will ensure the sustainability and profitability of businesses in the digitized world market is the experience offered to customers. Experience in business preferences, especially of the digitized customers, is quite specific. This chapter discussed the contribution of smart technologies to customer experience for restaurants, and emphasized its significance. Moreover, the subjects of artificial intelligence, smart technology, and QR code were addressed based on customer experience. The contribution offered to customers was emphasized by giving examples of smart technology applications used in restaurant businesses to improve customer experience. The chapter will contribute theoretically to the subject which has not been adequately studied in the literature.

A theory of (research) practice makes sense in sensemaking

2019 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriana van Hilten
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Organizational Studies ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Sensemaking Theory ◽  
The Social ◽  
Thinking Tools ◽  
Practical Implications ◽  
New System

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to introduce Bourdieu’s social theory, and its “thinking tools” of habitus, doxa, field and capital, as a sensemaking theory. Design/methodology/approach The emic research studied, for a particular group, the firm-wide implementation of a new system. The study used data occurring naturally in the organization (executive newsletters), and externally (third-party surveys), as well as 23 participant interviews to structure the social space (field) and determine what is of interest (identity). Interviews were coded for habitus, doxa, field, capital, symbolic violence and strategies to re-assert interviewees’ own doxa versus logic imposed by the powerful. Findings A unique, esteemed identity was being erased through executive attempts to introduce a new culture at the firm, and the new systems represented a challenge to this valued identity. Participants used strategies to re-assert their identity through not participating in the logic of the new tool: discussing misuse, lack of use, relative unimportance and low priority of the new tool. Practical implications Change that threatens an esteemed, valued identity is more likely to be resisted. The logic of an established practice or system (beyond merely gathering user requirements) is beneficial in understanding potential reactions to a new system. Change in systems that occur simultaneously with the imposition of a new culture, particularly where the system is seen as being a representation of that imposed culture, may be resisted through non-practice (misuse or lack of use) of the new system. Originality/value The paper demonstrates the applicability of Bourdieu’s social theory to organizational studies, providing a sensemaking of change and acts of resistance.

scholarly journals “We Offer Nuffle a Sausage Sacrifice on Game Day”. Blood Bowl Players’ World-building Rituals through the Lens of Theory of Sociocultual Viability

2020 ◽  
pp. 089124162094824
Author(s):  
Benedict E. Singleton
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Cultural Theory ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
American Football ◽  
Mary Douglas ◽  
The World ◽  
Building Activities

This article explores the world-building activities of players of the tabletop game Blood Bowl—a game that parodies American Football within a fantasy setting. It utilizes a ritual framework to focus on players’ activities relating to the considerable amount of luck inherent to the game. Based on fieldwork and survey data, it interprets players’ rituals and other actions as an effort to enact a particular social space, a “magic circle,” where enjoyable risk-taking and “edgework” take place. This social space is then analyzed within the Mary Douglas-derived theory of sociocultural viability (cultural theory). Using the theory’s typology, Blood Bowl tournaments can be characterized as individualist–hierarchy hybrid institutions. The article contributes by offering cultural theory as a tool for analyzing and comparing risk-taking behavior in diverse social contexts. The worlds built through Blood Bowl play are both analyzable and comparable with those integral to other social institutions, with cultural theory’s social solidarities ubiquitous. The article thus innovates by linking literatures on leisure and gaming with broader social theory.

scholarly journals Geografía social del turismo. Una mirada crítica a la percepción del turismo y a su representación espacial

2020 ◽  
pp. 113-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfonso Fernández-Arroyo López-Manzanares
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Spatial Representation ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Social Geography ◽  
International Level ◽  
Sociological Perspective ◽  
Production Of Space

La Geografía Social del Turismo surge de una perspectiva sociológica en la aplicación del enfoque geográfico y aproximación al turismo. La novedad del término a nivel internacional revela el escaso recorrido de la crítica y la teoría social, así como de la irreflexión geográfica en este campo de estudios. El objeto de la investigación es un espacio social del turismo, representación espacial de un conocimiento-emancipación para proyectar un cambio social, una producción del espacio al margen de la racionalidad regulada por el mercado capitalista y su pedagogía neoliberal. Social Geography of Tourism arises from a sociological perspective in the application of the geographical approach and his proximity to tourism. The originality of the term at the international level reveals the limited spread of criticism and social theory and, especially, geographical thoughtlessness in this field of studies. The object of this research is a social space of tourism, a spatial representation of a knowledge-emancipation to create a social change, a production of space outside the rationality regulated by the capitalist market and its neoliberalism pedagogy.

Methodology in Our Education Research Culture

2010 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 229-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin K. Henson ◽  
Darrell M. Hull ◽  
Cynthia S. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Education Research ◽  
Research Design ◽  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Doctoral Programs ◽  
Quantitative Methodology ◽  
Research Culture ◽  
Scientifically Based Research ◽  
Research In Education ◽  
Applied Education

How doctoral programs train future researchers in quantitative methods has important implications for the quality of scientifically based research in education. The purpose of this article, therefore, is to examine how quantitative methods are used in the literature and taught in doctoral programs. Evidence points to deficiencies in quantitative training and application in several areas: (a) methodological reporting problems, (b) researcher misconceptions and inaccuracies, (c) overreliance on traditional methods, and (d) a lack of coverage of modern advances. An argument is made that a culture supportive of quantitative methods is not consistently available to many applied education researchers. Collective quantitative proficiency is defined as a vision for a culture representative of broader support for quantitative methodology (statistics, measurement, and research design).

Andy Warhol's “Factory”: The Production Site, Its Context and Its Impact on the Work of Art

1991 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline A. Jones
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Assembly Line ◽  
Social Space ◽  
American Art ◽  
World War ◽  
American Artist ◽  
Change In Practice ◽  
Studio Practices ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Mode Of Production

The ArgumentIt is often observed by historians of postwar American art that painters and sculptors of the 1960s sought a more mechanized “look” for their art. I argue that the changes reflected in the art have their source in a deeper shift – a shift at the level of production, expressed in new studio practices as well as in the space of the artworks themselves.In the period immediately before, during, and after World War II, the dominant topos of the American artist was that of a solitary (male) genius, alone in his studio, sole witness to the miraculous creation of his art. I demonstrate that artists of the 1960s, against this backdrop of heroic modernism, engaged in a different rhetoric and practice, one based on the models of industry and business. The studio of Andy Warhol, named the “Factory,” is viewed as apodictic of this great change, with its rudimentary assembly line and highly social mode of production.The change in practice instantiated in Warhol's Factory is significant in and of itself, but I argue further that it expressed itself in the “place of knowledge” – the space within (or in front of) Warhol's paintings and objects, and the newly social space in which they signify. The context for that signification thus becomes crucial to our understanding of the “Warhol phenomenon” celebrated in popular and arthistorical texts. The ambivalencies embedded in Warhol's Factory, where the artist's role oscillated between manager and proletarian worker, are seen as a function of their context. Conflicting signals are also broadcast by the works of art, which speak in the dialect of mass production with the accent of the irreplaceably unique.

Quantitative Methodology

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles H. Franklin
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Graduate Training ◽  
Summer Programs ◽  
Quantitative Methodology ◽  
Political Methodology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Market Niche ◽  
American Political Science

This article reviews the history of the quantitative methodology institutions, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), and the American Political Science Association's Political Methodology Section. It also highlights the role of organizations and institutions in promoting and structuring the development of quantitative methodology in political science. The development of summer programs in quantitative methods is described. There was a market niche for methodology both as a subfield on its own, and as a direct contributor to improving substance through improved methods. The existence of the Society for Political Methodology has increased expectations for graduate training, at least among those who see their careers as methodologists.

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