Exploring Visitor Perceptions towards Urban Park Design and Levels of Enclosure: A Case Study from the UAE

As cities transition towards urbanization and sustainability, designing attractive green spaces and urban parks is an important issue to planners and urban designers. One factor believed to have some impact on a park’s attractiveness is level of enclosure. Despite the importance of such a factor in identifying types of park visitors and frequency of visits, a limited amount of research has attempted to statistically model impacts of level enclosure on a park’s attractiveness. To address this gap, this article explores impacts of multiple physical characteristics, including levels of enclosure, on park attractiveness and user behavior. Activities in two parks in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates (UAE) were studied using field observations, photography, interviews, and statistical analysis. Field observations were utilized to model people’s attitude while using parks. Logistic regression was employed to the field observations to investigate associations between different factors and park attractiveness. Results indicated levels of enclosure had a direct influence on park users. Gender, age, and ethnicity were also found statistically significant determinates of park visitor attitudes and park choice. Traces of territorial behaviors and social conflicts were also observed.

Seriemas: A Literature Assessment and Recommendations for Future Research

ABSTRACT Red-legged Seriemas (Cariama cristata) and Black-legged Seriemas (Chunga burmeisteri) are two exclusively South American species that inhabit open and sparsely forested areas. Seriemas have been recently included with the raptors based on ecological and evolutionary evidence. Viewing seriemas as raptors is nontraditional and might be controversial. Therefore, further information regarding the evolution, taxonomy, morphology, and ecology of these birds will clarify the validity of their consideration as raptors. Here we present a review of the published information on seriemas, and discuss future research for these newly adopted raptors. To conduct our review, we developed a systematic map and searched all databases available within Clarivate Analytics' Web of Science, performed a keyword search of Google Scholar, and included the corresponding bibliographies from the Birds of the World website. We reviewed 98 studies, and found that the Red-legged Seriema was the subject of more studies than the Black-legged Seriema. Overall, Brazil and Argentina were the site of most studies. The majority of studies examined physiology (48), followed by behavior (37), threats to the survival of these species (36), and demography (27), while smaller numbers of studies examined stressors (e.g., habitat changes, causes of mortality and injury such as predation, hunting, etc.) (20), and conservation actions (10). Patterns of study categorizations were similar for both species, and the distribution of studies across months was also fairly even for both species. This is the first study to systematically review and assess the published information on seriemas. Our results show the topics and locations on which past studies have focused, and highlight potentially fruitful avenues for future research. Although threats to seriemas have been identified, these have not been thoroughly assessed; thus, their extent and effects on seriema populations were difficult to ascertain. Future research should focus on testing existing hypotheses regarding seriema feeding, vocalization, social, and territorial behaviors, while documenting natural history. Researchers should build on past investigations while establishing programs to monitor the conservation status of seriemas across their ranges.

Human Territoriality in P2P Accommodation: An Examination of Guest Experience

Peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation concerns economic transactions that involve people’s private territory. To provide a fresh perspective on P2P accommodation, this article emphasizes the territorial complexity in such accommodation and proposes to understand guest experience through the lens of human territoriality. Following an interpretative phenomenological approach, this article examined the lived experiences of Airbnb guests. Results suggest that P2P accommodation guests could possess two territorial senses simultaneously: a sense of being in their own territory and of being in others’ territory. Themes related to hosts’ territorial behaviors and guests’ reactions to host territoriality were also identified. Findings of this article highlight the relevance of human territoriality in P2P accommodation and provide novel insights for guest experience research.

Testosterone induces plumage ornamentation followed by enhanced territoriality in a female songbird

We know little of the proximate mechanisms underlying the expression of signaling traits in female vertebrates. Across males, the expression of sexual and competitive traits, including ornamentation and aggressive behavior, is often mediated by testosterone. In the white-shouldered fairywren (Malurus alboscapulatus) of New Guinea, females of different subspecies differ in the presence or absence of white shoulder patches and melanic plumage, whereas males are uniformly ornamented. Previous work has shown that ornamented females circulate more testosterone and exhibit more territorial aggression than do unornamented females. We investigated the degree to which testosterone regulates the expression of ornamental plumage and territorial behavior by implanting free-living unornamented females with testosterone. Every testosterone-treated female produced a male-like cloacal protuberance, and 15 of 20 replaced experimentally plucked brown with white shoulder patch feathers but did not typically produce melanic plumage characteristic of ornamented females. Testosterone treatment did not elevate territorial behavior prior to the production of the plumage ornament or during the active life of the implant. However, females with experimentally induced ornamentation, but exhausted implants, increased the vocal components of territory defense relative to the pretreatment period and also to testosterone-implanted females that did not produce ornamentation. Our results suggest that testosterone induces partial acquisition of the ornamental female plumage phenotype and that ornament expression, rather than testosterone alone, results in elevations of some territorial behaviors.

Characterizing territoriality and the mechanisms that mediate it in female Anolis gundlachi lizards

Territoriality is a suite of behaviors through which animals secure access to particular areas or resources. It is prevalent across animal groups and has the potential to exert substantial influence on fitness by mediating how individuals are distributed across the landscape, which individuals interact socially, and those that have access to resources. Territoriality has been the subject of extensive research on animal behavior over the last century and has influenced our understanding of other aspects of species ecology, such as mating systems. However, a substantial portion of research on territoriality has focused primarily on males, despite the fact that females of many species are also observed to exhibit territoriality. This is particularly true of studies investigating the mechanisms that modulate territoriality, such as circulating hormones and morphological characteristics including body condition. As such, two important questions remain open for many territorial taxa--within territorial species, do both sexes use similar repertoires of territorial behavior, and if so, are these behaviors mediated by the same mechanisms in both females? The aim of this dissertation has been to pursue these two questions in the lizard Anolis gundlachi. Anolis have figured prominently in territorial research over the last century but are plagued with the same pitfall of lack of studies of females, which is a common problem across many groups, as is observed in other species. Integrating field studies and laboratory techniques, I characterized the behavior and space use of free-living female A. gundlachi in Puerto Rico to assess whether females exhibit similar behavioral patterns as males. As part of this research, I assessed the potential for individual variation in body condition to mediate differences in territory size. I also characterized the testosterone and corticosterone profiles of free-living male and female A. gundlachi, and staged territorial intrusions among females to evaluate the potential for these hormones to mediate differences in territorial behavior across the sexes and among females. Finally, I evaluated the potential for a tradeoff between testosterone, corticosterone, and parasite load by measuring parasite loads of Plasmodium sp. in the same free-living population. Together, the results presented in this dissertation demonstrate that female A. gundlachi exhibit territorial behaviors that highly resemble those observed in male A. gundlachi and other species of Anolis. However, two mechanisms commonly implicated in the control of territoriality in males--metrics of body size and circulating hormones concentrations--did not explain similar patterns in females. In addition, we found no evidence of a tradeoff between hormone concentration and parasite load. Taken together, these results demonstrate that different mechanisms may influence similar behaviors exhibited by males and females of the same species. In combination with a growing body of work investigating the evolution of territorial and other aggressive behaviors in females, our findings demonstrate the need for more direct studies of females to more clearly understand why these behaviors have arisen in both sexes and to identify the mechanisms that mediate them in females.

Open-plan office, employees’ enactment, interpretations and reactions to territoriality

Purpose Research on the physical work environment and employee territorial behavior in the field of organizational behavior is limited. In particular, while the prevalence of territorial behaviors in organizations is not new, little is known about how the physical work environment (e.g. open-plan offices) may influence the enactment, interpretation and reactions to territoriality. The purpose of this paper is to explore the connection between the physical environment of work (e.g. open-plan office), employee territorial behaviors (including infringement) and affective environment. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected by means of in-depth-interviews from 27 participants from two large Australian public organizations involved in recruitment, marketing, consulting and education. Findings Results revealed that employees’ personalization in the open-plan office is driven by the nature of their tasks, appointment, duration of time spent on their desk, level of adaptation to the open-plan office configurations and the proximity of desks to senior managers, hallways and passers-by. Additionally, affective environment has a critical effect on employee personalization and the enactment and perception of territoriality and infringements in open-plan offices. Additionally, the authors found that the affective environment is dynamic and that employees in open-plan offices experienced emotional contagion (positive and negative). Research limitations/implications Due to the demographic make-up of one of the participating organizations, less than a third of participants were male. While the data did not suggest any disparity in the territorial behaviors of male and female, future research should include an even representation of male and female participants. Similarly, the authors did not examine the impact of ethnicity and cultural background on employees’ territoriality. However, given that the workforce is increasingly becoming multicultural, future research should explore how ethnicity might impact the use of space, work processes and productivity in open-plan office. Additionally, scholars should continue to tease out the impact of affective environment (positive and negative) on team processes (e.g. conflict, communication, collaboration and the development of team mental models) in the open-plan office. Practical implications The results indicate some practical implications. Noise and distraction are indicated in the results. Therefore, human resource managers and organizational leaders should work with employees to develop some ground rules and norms to curb excessive noise in the open-plan office. Additionally, the authors found in the current study that the affective environment is dynamic and that employees in open-plan offices experienced emotional contagion (positive and negative). Managers should watch out for how individuals react to the prevailing emotions and moods in the open-plan office with the intention of diffusing negative emotions as quickly as possible, for example, by changing the topic under discussion in the open-plan office. The results speak to the need for more active collaboration and engagement between policy makers, workspace architects, designers and employees especially prior to the building of such workspaces. Social implications The results suggest that effective employee interactions in open-plan office may be enhanced by positive emotional contagion and office affective environment. Originality/value So far, little is known about the impact of the physical work context (e.g. open-plan offices) on the enactment, interpretation and reactions to territoriality. The current paper explores the connection between the physical environment of work (e.g. open-plan office), employee territorial behaviors (including infringement) and affective environment. The findings demonstrate for the first time and especially in an open-plan office that ownership and personalization of objects and workspaces are more likely to be driven by the amount of time spent at one’s desk, the nature of employees’ appointments and tasks. Additionally, the present research is one of the first to report on affective environment dynamism in the open-plan office.

Territorial Cognition, Behavior, and Space of Residents: A Comparative Study of Territoriality between Open and Gated Housing Blocks; a Case Study of Changchun, China

Residents have territorial cognition with different hierarchies and conduct corresponding behaviors in the outdoor space of housing blocks through sharing space and facilities. This mechanism stems from human need and might be influenced by physical environmental elements. To understand this effect, especially after a guideline for transforming existing gated housing blocks was enacted in China, this study compared the territoriality of open and gated housing blocks from the view of the cognition, behavior, and space through combined methods. Interview, snapshot, and observation were conducted to capture the situation of these three dimensions, then they were evaluated and grouped by factor analysis and quartiles. Obtained results in the open housing block were found to be inferior to that in the gated case. The conclusion was drawn based on the above that there are remarkable differences between open and gated housing blocks on the intensity of residents’ territorial cognition, the level and quantity of their territorial behaviors, and the distribution as well as continuity of the territorial space.

KNOWLEDGE WITHHOLDING WITHIN AN ORGANIZATION: THE PSYCHOLOGICAL RESISTANCE TO KNOWLEDGE SHARING LINKING WITH TERRITORIALITY

The world of knowledge management consists of different terms that are flying around. Some words are more significant and frequently used than others. Knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer are sometimes measured to have overlapping content and used synonymously. The transfer of knowledge between organizational members has drawn consideration from both academia and business because company competitiveness is linked directly to the dissemination of innovation through an organization. Regardless of the efforts to increase knowledge sharing in organizations, success has been subtle. It is pretty clear that in many instances, employees are not willing to share knowledge even when organizational practices are followed to facilitate transfer. As the scope of innovation within an organization depends on the efficient transfer of knowledge between members, this paper emphases on the concept of knowledge withholding, which is known to interrupt this transfer and distinguish from related concepts (knowledge barriers, knowledge hiding). The aim of this paper is to make a contribution in finding the proper demarcations between these concepts. Firstly, to prove that knowledge sharing and knowledge withholding are separate concepts, Herzberg’s twofactor theory is used which explain the difference between them. Secondly, previous studies on knowledge management are exposed to have unnoticed knowledge withholding in courtesy of knowledge sharing, leading to a lack of information on the earlier. Thirdly, knowledge withholding is defined into two separate manners: the intentional hiding and the unintentional hoarding of knowledge. Finally, characteristics of knowledge withholding are abbreviated based on four territorial behaviors associated to employees in order to advocate areas for further study.