Measuring the Use of Social Media Networks (SMNs) in Knowledge Sharing, by Using Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) A Study Conducted in Some of Iraqi Universities

SMNs like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, WhatsApp,..etc. are among the most popular sites on the Internet. These sites can provide a powerful means of sharing, organizing, finding information and knowledge. The popularity of these sites provides an opportunity to measure the use them in knowledge sharing, which needs a special scale, but unfortunately, there is no special scale for that. Thus, this study supposes to use SCT as a scale to measure the use of SMNs in electronic knowledge sharing due to it has been used to measure knowledge sharing with its traditional form. This study can help the decision-makers to use these SMNs to share the academics’ knowledge in educational institutes to the communities by adopting special plans and strategies to address the main factors in such cases that will help to increase the knowledge sharing between academics and communities. The aim of this study to know the amount of using SMNs by academics to share their own knowledge with the community, which will reflect on educating the community and disseminate the culture within the community. Additionally, to address what the main factor can affect them to share their knowledge with others. The study uses SCT which consists of three factors: (Personal, Environment, and Behavior) as an independent variable, while the dependent variable is: (Knowledge Sharing). Furthermore, the quantitative method is adopted in this study by using an electronic questionnaire through Google Documents with “Five Scale of Likert” to collect the data from participants (250), who are the staff of some Iraqi universities. SPSS has been used in analyzing the collected data. The findings of the study come up with the following: the environmental factor has the greatest influence, then the behavioural factor which is lesser and the personal factor has the lowest influence. Finally, the study found that there is a possibility and ability to measure knowledge sharing by using SCT electronically. Paper type: research paper.

Variations in Member State Use of Preliminary References

Chapter 2 analyses the variations in frequency of preliminary references to the European Court of Justice from the different Member States. This analysis focuses upon two factors; firstly the structural factor that a relevant case must be pending before a national court in an EU Member State (structural factor), and secondly a behavioural factor that the national judge/judges hearing the national case must choose to make a preliminary reference (behavioural factor). The chapter determines each of these two factors and it concludes that about three-quarters of the total variation in preliminary references across Member States can be explained exclusively on the basis of total number of cases (a component of the structural factor). If we fully account for the structural factor and also account for the component whether the Member States may be categorised as either civil law or common law we are able to explain almost 90% of the total variation.

Implication of Social Restrictions on Covid-19 Pandemic Towards Dengue Control: Literature Review

The 2019 coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak was first discovered in Wuhan, China, and was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020. In dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, various countries have implemented social restrictions on their citizens. Social limits due to the COVID-19 pandemic have caused different life effects that have never occurred. This phenomenon will affect the transmission of existing diseases such as dengue fever. This study aims to determine the impact of social restrictions on dengue transmission and indicators of dengue. This research method is a systematic literature review, is a literature review by synthesizing 294 selected 12 articles from the Pubmed.gov database. The literature shows that social restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic hurt the supervision and control of dengue. The increase in the dengue indicator, namely the density of mosquitoes, increased due to the termination of the control program. Human movement is a critical behavioural factor in many vector-borne disease systems because it affects vector exposure and pathogen transmission. The aspect of community mobility also reduces dengue cases during social distancing due to COVID-19.

Project Manager and Stress in Coping with Demanding Situations in Automotive Industry

Coping with demanding situations is a part of managerial work at different levels and in different contexts. In the presented paper, based on the theoretical and methodological analysis of knowledge in the field of coping and special coping with demanding situations in project manager work, we present the results and knowledge related to the possibility of researching and identifying procedures for coping with demanding situations in project management. Attention is focused on the identification of ways of coping with demanding situations in project manager work through the BSMW Questionnaire - Behaviour Strategies in Managerial Work as a tool for identifying these procedures. We present findings related to the analysis of the assessment of strategies for managing demanding situations in project manager work in Slovak automotive industry in the context of selected personality, socio-demographic characteristics of managers and situational conditions. The acquired results verified the meaningfulness of the empirical-inductive principle of detecting the ways of coping with the examined demanding situations and determining the taxonomy of these principles with the specification of five factors – emotional factor of coping, cognitive factor of coping I, cognitive factor of coping II, behavioural factor of coping I and behavioural factor of coping II. From the methodological viewpoint our results contribute to the discussion about the interactional approach in research in social sciences and about the question of dispositional or situational conception of methods of researching in this area of knowledge. Doi: 10.28991/esj-2020-01241 Full Text: PDF

Behavioural changes in dogs with idiopathic epilepsy

BackgroundBreed-specific and broader cohort studies have shown behavioural changes in dogs following the onset of idiopathic epilepsy (IE).MethodsA cross-sectional, case–control questionnaire study was carried out to strengthen this body of evidence. Owners of eight breeds of dog completed an online questionnaire about their dogs’ behaviour; once for control dogs and twice for dogs with IE, for both pre-IE and post-IE onset behaviour.ResultsNinety-six (24.74 per cent) dogs with IE and 292 (75.26 per cent) age and breed-matched control dogs met the inclusion criteria. Control dogs had significantly higher ‘Trainability’ scores than dogs with IE (P=0.04). After IE, dogs had significantly higher ‘Dog-Directed Fear or Aggression’ (P=0.02), ‘Non-Social Fear’ (P=0.01), ‘Attachment/Attention-Seeking Behaviour’ (P=0.04), ‘Attention-Deficit’ (P=0.02) and significantly lower ‘Trainability’ (P=0.02) than prior to the onset of IE. Medication status did not significantly affect any behavioural factor, but drug-resistant dogs had significantly less ‘Trainability’ than drug-responsive (P=0.04) and partially drug-responsive dogs (P=0.03).ConclusionBehavioural differences related to cognitive function are seen between dogs with IE and controls. Behavioural changes related to anxiety, attention and cognition are seen in dogs following the onset of IE. The ability to clinically define and diagnose behavioural comorbidities in dogs is much needed from both a clinical and research perspective.

Effects of Diverse Property Rights on Rural Neighbourhood Public Open Space (POS) Governance: Evidence from Sabah, Malaysia

There are severe issues of public open space (POS) underinvestment and overexploitation. However, few studies have been conducted on the property rights structure and its impacts on rural commons governance, specifically concerning local neighbourhood residential POS quality and sustainability. The social-ecological system framework and the new institutional economics theory were employed to examine the local diverse property rights system and its effects on the emergence of POS dilemmas. Rural commons covering neighbourhood residential Country Lease (CL) and Native Title (NT) POS from the districts of Kota Kinabalu and Penampang, Sabah Malaysia were selected. A mixed-method phenomenological case study, involving multi-stakeholders’ perspectives across public-private-user sectors, was employed. This study revealed four main interconnected property rights issues, including attenuated rights, incomplete rights, maladaptive rights, and security-based de facto perceptive rights, under the complex state-private regime, which incentivise the opportunistic behaviour of individuals in externalising POS commons dilemmas. The findings further inferred that the local diverse property rights issues and POS dilemmas caused, and are associated with, other rights issues and dilemmas, forming a rights-dilemmas nexus. Not only do the institutional failures actuate POS dilemmas, but the former also engender other forms of property rights failures, while the latter cause other POS dilemmas. This paper suggests policy and management insights to public officials, in which the importance of the institutional-social-POS behavioural factor and the re-engineering of POS governance via adaptive property rights realignment are emphasised.

Behavioural factor-based clustering to examine why small businesses choose particular bank: The New Zealand evidence

In this paper, using the theory of planned behaviour, behavioural and non-behavioural factors underpinning small business’ (SB) choice of a bank are explored. To date, we are unaware of any study that uses a behavioural approach to study bank selection by SBs owner/managers. These factors, discussed in the literature, form the basis of a questionnaire administered in New Zealand. Univariate & bivariate analyses, in addition to cluster analysis of the data, show that behavioral factors, such as knowing a person in the bank, prior personal banking experience and recommendation/referrals, are shown to be most important. Also, after controlling for size, industry, and age of business it is found that there is no statistically significant difference in choice variables. Further, inertia is strong once a bank is chosen and cost, while emphasized, does not trigger actions. A cluster analysis of SB owners/managers produced four different groups. However, all of these groups are affected by the same behavioural factors in their choice of a banking partner.

Adaptability: Conceptual and Empirical Perspectives on Responses to Change, Novelty and Uncertainty

Adaptability is proposed as individuals’ capacity to constructively regulate psycho-behavioral functions in response to new, changing, and/or uncertain circumstances, conditions and situations. The present investigation explored the internal and external validity of an hypothesised adaptability scale. The sample comprised 2,731 high school students. In terms of internal validity, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis (EFA and CFA) suggested a reliable higher order adaptability factor subsumed by a reliable first order cognitive-behavioural factor and a reliable first order affective factor. Multi-group CFA indicated invariance in factor structure as a function of gender, age, and language background. Further, age (younger adolescents), language background (non-English speaking), and parents’ education (higher levels) predicted higher order adaptability, while gender (males) predicted first order affective adaptability. In terms of external validity, consistent with hypotheses, higher and first order adaptability was differentially associated with cognate/aligned factors (personality, implicit theories of ability, buoyancy) and also with psycho-educational wellbeing ‘outcome’ factors (achievement, enjoyment of school, meaning and purpose, life satisfaction). Findings hold theoretical and empirical implications for researchers and practitioners seeking to better understand the constructive regulation of individuals confronted with situations involving novelty, change, and uncertainty.