Social Contexts, Agency, and Conflicts: Exploring Critical Aspects of Design for Future Smart Home Technologies

Smart devices are increasingly being designed for, and adopted in, the home environment. Prior scholarship has investigated the challenges that users face as they take up these devices in their homes. However, little is known about when and how users or potential users would prefer future domestic Internet of Things (IoT) to support their activities in home settings. To fill this gap, we conducted two co-design workshops, an in-home activity between the two sessions, and pre- and post-study interviews with 18 adult participants, who had diverse levels of prior experience of IoT use. Our findings contribute new insights into how smart home devices could adapt their behavior based on social contexts; how to re-imagine agency and support useful intelligibility; and how to resolve user-driven conflict by providing appropriate information about those with whom devices are shared. Finally, based on these findings, we discuss the implications of our work and provide a set of design considerations from which designers of future smart home technologies can benefit.

The Influence of Religion and Spirituality on Managing Individuals in Organizations

Religion is a cornerstone of any society as it affects politics, law, economics, science, and is reflected throughout history in arts and more. In contrast, spirituality is an individual practice with the aim of mindfulness and having a sense of peace and purpose. This research aims to investigate the influence of religion and spirituality on organizational behavior in organizations in Bahrain specifically with regard to managing individuals in Bahrain. A sample of 46 valid responses was reached due to the sensitivity of the topic. Nationality was found to have a statistically significant effect on ‘behavior-based religion'. Principal component analysis found two distinctive factors among the religion values indicators being referred to as ‘behavior-based religion' and ‘belief of religion'.