A Belgian Transect: Field Broadcast in the expanded field of ecology

Abstract

This article sets out the notion of a Field Broadcast from the dual perspective of Rebecca Birch, one of the developers of a bespoke version of Flash Media Live Encoder and Bram Thomas Arnold, an artist who uses a case study from Sideways Festival, Belgium, 2012. Field Broadcast enables an artist to be in a field, suitably equipped, and stream live footage to an audience. It is an experiment in place, site and the notion of a field. It is a new method of making work in the space between site-specific performance and the digital realm: a way of working that enables artists to generate new artworks within the non-place of the Internet. Birch introduces the technology from a number of perspectives before it is fleshed out with evidence and experience from a live project that took place in Belgium in 2012. Sideways was a festival that traversed Belgium over four weeks and 400?km, with artists walking and generating work en route. The possibilities offered by Field Broadcast are explored in relation to the expanded field of ecology amidst Bourriaud's The Radicant (2009), Guatarri's The Three Ecologies (2005) and Morton's Ecology Without Nature (2007 Morton, Timothy. 2007. Ecology Without Nature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Google Scholar]).     

Work-arounds and Boundary Crossing in a High Tech Optronics Company: The Role of Co-operative Workflow Technologies

This study examines how some employeescoped with the exceptions that they encountered withtheir on-going use of a co-operative workflowtechnology in an optronics company. By drawing on thecase material, this paper will indicate thatapproaches which view work as being capable of beingplanned and managed through the formal authority ofthe hierarchy are insufficient. Instead, this paperwill suggest that exception handling, work-arounds andimprovisation are more characteristic of humanactivity. Computer supported co-operative work will beconceptualised as being embedded in a dynamicrelationship between the context it is situatedwithin, and the actors that engage in it. Theprinciples underlying ethnography have informed theresearch approach.     

The use of focus groups in complex and pressurised IS studies and evaluation using Klein & Myers principles for interpretive research

Studies of information systems (IS) often involve many complexities, uncertainties and restrictions. As a result, researchers have to adopt innovative research approaches or tailor and extend existing ones. This paper describes and evaluates an innovative focus group approach used to study three IS development teams, which had to cope with the application of a broad, polymorphous framework, untested in practice, seeking to elicit potentially highly sensitive opinions and judgements in a highly pressurised, time‐restricted environment. This paper makes two significant contributions. To conduct this evaluation, the researchers operationalised the Klein & Myers seven principles for interpretive study for the first time, creating a set of questions that other IS researchers can now use to evaluate their own interpretive studies. The paper also applies these to the design of the focus groups and develops a set of recommendations for future IS researchers to consider based on lessons learned in this study.     

The use of group support systems in focus groups: Information technology meets qualitative research

This paper explores focus groups supported by group support systems (GSS) with anonymous interaction capability in two configurations: same time/same place and same time/different place. After reviewing the literature, we compare and contrast these anonymity-featured GSS-supported focus groups with traditional focus groups and discuss their benefits and limitations. We suggest directions for future research concerning GSS-supported focus groups with respect to technological implications (typing skills and connection speeds), national culture (high and low context; power distance), and lying behavior (adaptation of model of Hancock, J. T., Thom-Santelli, J., & Ritchie, T. (2004). Deception and design: The impact of communication technology on lying behavior. Proceedings of the 2004 conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 129–134), whereby lying is a function of three design factors: synchronicity, recordability, and distributedness).     

The use of systems development methodologies in practice: a field study

This paper discusses the findings of a field study of experienced systems developers which investigated the use of systems development methodologies (SDMs) in practice. Among the main findings to emerge are the following. There is a wide difference between the formalized sequence of steps and stages prescribed by a methodology and the methodology-in-action uniquely enacted for each development project. Also, there is much evidence which suggests that developers omit certain aspects of methodologies not from a position of ignorance, but from the more pragmatic basis that certain aspects are not relevant to the development environment they face. Thus, methodologies are tailored to the needs of the prevailing development environment and, being documented in a single manual often, are framed at a higher level of granularity that specifies broad activities and objectives, rather than specifying in a very detailed fashion the exact manner in which development should take place. Additionally, the findings clarify the apparently contradictory position in the literature as to whether developer experience is positively or negatively correlated with methodology use. The study would suggest that experienced developers are likely to use methodologies, albeit ones which have been heavily customized to the exigencies of the particular situation.     

Social stress and performance in human-machine interaction: a neglected research field

Abstract

Given the increasing capabilities of highly automated systems, the article argues for a need to address the issue of social stress in human-machine interaction. It suggests a classification system of subordinate concepts found in the research literature under the heading of social stress. A review of the literature revealed a paucity of studies examining the effects of social stressors on performance. In particular, the review showed a shortage of experimental lab-based work, needed to establish clear cause-effect relationships. The article examined the suitability of different social stressors for lab-based research, not only when humans are the source of stress but also in so-called hybrid teams where social stress is caused by machine agents. The review shows that a closer link is needed between the separate literature on social stress and automation. Finally, three mechanisms are proposed that may predict how social stress may affect performance: ‘blank-out’-mechanism, ‘rumination’-mechanism, and ‘increased-motivation’-mechanism.

Practitioner summary: Theories of ergonomics and human factors may benefit from better integration of research and theoretical work in the domain of social stress. This is due to the increasing capabilities of machines to induce social stress.

Abbreviations: HMI: human-machine interaction; TSST: trier social stress test     

Operations research/management science in the Arab world: historical development

This study aims to review the related literature on operations research (OR)/management science (MS) in the Arab world published during the last three decades. Owing to the nature of this study, an extensive survey of the related literature was conducted and inferences were drawn. The inferences drawn from the literature survey on OR/MS in the Arab world were first, there is a paucity of published real‐world applications of OR/MS. Second, there is a lack of published survey‐type studies in most Arab countries, except in Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates. Third, the majority of published works on OR/MS were of a conceptual nature. A few papers concerned with OR/MS in the Arab world were published during the 1980s, with a special emphasis on conceptual issues rather than on applied or survey‐type studies. The 1990s witnessed an increased number of publications on both survey‐type and conceptual studies. Since 2000, the number of publications has increased substantially, mainly through conceptual studies. This study has a number of implications for both practitioners and researchers. Practitioners will be made aware of the applications of OR/MS in the Arab world and the type of problems that have been addressed. This, in turn, might motivate the decision makers and the managers to adopt OR/MS approaches in solving their organizations' problems. As a result, this might increase the usage of OR/MS in this part of the world. Researchers will be able to identify the OR/MS research areas that need more attention in the Arab world. The study mainly covers the studies that are written in English and indexed in non‐Arabic databases. Although the Arabic works were not surveyed exhaustively, the author reviewed and included some available OR/MS works written in Arabic. This study is considered as the first work of its type in surveying the scholarly publications pertaining to OR/MS in the Arab world since the 1980s.     

The potential of dialogue in a municipal development project: action research and planning practice

This article applies reflexive and dialogue oriented approaches to municipal planning. Experience from the dialogical development process in Vennesla is discussed, highlighting the potential of collaborative work in a development coalition. Dialogue and democracy in the coalition are discussed, emphasising the social construction of meaning and knowledge.

Evaluating compliance with a computer assisted randomized response technique: a qualitative study into the origins of lying and cheating

This paper presents the results of a phased qualitative study into the possibilities of a combination of computer assisted self-interviewing with the randomized response technique to decrease evasive answer bias when sensitive topics are studied. As a sensitive topic, compliance with rules concerning the right to receive welfare was studied. In total, 18 respondents (age 21–63, 12 females, 6 males) filled out the questionnaire and were interviewed afterwards. In the first phase, 11 respondents did not follow the randomized response instructions, but after the questionnaire was adapted, cheating (i.e., not operating according to randomized response rules) diminished to nil in the second phase. Most respondents trusted the research setting enough to give incriminating answers to sensitive questions, but lying (i.e., not giving an accurate answer to a question) could not be totally prohibited. Recommendations are formulated for researchers who want to set up their own computer assisted randomized response questionnaires.     

Internet addiction: Meta-synthesis of qualitative research for the decade 1996–2006

Internet addiction is “an individual’s inability to control their Internet use, which in turn leads to feelings of distress and functional impairment of daily activities” [Shapira, N., Lessig, M., Goldsmith, T., Szabo, S., Lazoritz, M., Gold, M. et al. (2003). Problematic Internet use: Proposed classification and diagnostic criteria. Depression and Anxiety, 17(4), 207–216]. Previous research in this field has offered inconclusive data on whether Internet addiction can be classified as a disorder. This study provides an in-depth and comprehensive analysis of internet addiction through a meta-synthesis of qualitative studies on excessive Internet use published during the period of 1996–2006. Several constructs pertaining to the domain of Internet addiction have been identified and a theoretical model of Internet addiction has been proposed.     

Pluralist action research: a review of the information systems literature*

Action research (AR) has for many years been promoted and practised as one way to conduct field studies within the information systems (IS) discipline. Based on a review of articles published in leading journals, we explore how IS researchers practise AR. Our review suggests that AR lends itself strongly towards pluralist approaches which facilitate the production of both theoretical and practical knowledge. First, on the level of each study we analyse how research and problem‐solving activities are mixed, in three ways: the research dominant, the problem‐solving dominant and the interactive approaches. Second, in the context of the wider research programme in which the study is situated, we analyse how AR is mixed with other research methods, in two ways: the dominant and the sequential approaches. We argue that these pluralist practices of mixing types of research activities and types of research methods provide IS action researchers with a rich portfolio of approaches to knowledge production. This portfolio helps them address the risks involved in AR to ensure their efforts contribute to the literature as well as to practical problem‐solving.     

Goal weighting and the choice of behaviour in a complex world

Human behaviour is intrinsically goal-directed. In the laboratory, experimenters usually impose tight constraints on which goal(s) will be chosen to control current behaviour, but in any more complex environment we need an account of how goals are chosen among competing, often unrelated alternatives. As background to the discussion, I summarize some recent findings on component skills in driving. Questions addressed include the relative skills of experts, normals, and novices; individual differences in both skill and accident involvement; and distraction by a secondary task. An account of goal choice in a complex world is then sketched. Perceptual data are combined with internal preferences to guide a competition between alternative momentary goals. A central role is given to the efficiency of goal-weighting, whereby useful sub-goals are selected by joint activation from current and goal states. This idea is linked to work on frontal lobe dysfunction, ‘intelligence’ and dual tasks. Learning and the development of routine behaviour are also considered. Finally, the findings on driving skills are discussed within this theoretical framework, and some practical implications are suggested.     

Risk factors of enterprise internal control under the internet of things governance: A qualitative research approach

This study aims to (1) define the critical risk factors that influence the governance of enterprise internal control in an IoT environment, and (2) classify the risk factors and study their importance in such an environment. The study uses Gowin’s Vee knowledge map as a research strategy to mitigate the limitations of qualitative research through a set of strict research procedures. In addition, the Delphi method is used to test and provide feedback to justify and revise the critical risk factors. Finally, 83 items were obtained and categorized into eight different types of critical risk factors. For emphasizing how the risk factors of enterprise internal control involve diverse stakeholders, the critical risk factors are further classified based on the three-layer DCM architecture for mapping with various perceptions. The results of this research can be used as a reference in managing risk factors under the IoT environment. In the new generation of IoT governance practice, the related factors can also be regarded as the essential measurement items for enterprises in conducting effective internal control and auditing.     

The paucity of multimethod research: a review of the information systems literature

Abstract.  It has commonly been argued that the use of different research methods within the information system (IS) discipline and within individual pieces of research will produce richer and more reliable results. This paper reports on a survey of the IS literature to discover the extent of multimethod research. The findings are that such work is relatively scarce, and where it occurs involves only a small set of traditional methods. Possible reasons for this are discussed.     

Mobile information access in the real world: A story of three wireless devices

The importance of the user perspective to the wireless information access experience cannot be understated: simply put, users will not indulge in devices that are perceived to be difficult to use and in technologies that do not offer quality infotainment – combined information and entertainment – content. In this paper, we investigate the impact that mobile devices have on the user wireless infotainment access experience in practice. To this end, we have undertaken an empirical study placed in a ‘real-world’ setting, in which participants undertook typical infotainment access tasks on three different wireless-enabled mobile devices: a laptop, a personal digital assistant and a head mounted display device. Results show that, with the exception of participants’ level of self-consciousness when using such devices in public environments, the user wireless information access experience is generally unaffected by device type. Location was shown, though, to be a significant factor when users engage in tasks such as listening to online music or navigation. Whilst the interaction between device and environment was found to influence entertainment-related tasks in our experiments, the informational ones were not affected. However, the interaction effects between device and user type was found to affect both types of tasks. Lastly, a user’s particular computing experience was shown to influence the perceived ease of wireless information access only in the case of online searching, irrespective of whether this is done for primarily informational purposes or entertainment ones.     

Reflections on information systems practice, education and research: 10 years of the Information Systems Journal

This paper celebrates the 10‐year anniversary of the Information Systems Journal (ISJ) and the Editors reflect on the papers that have been published over that period and the changes that have occurred in the discipline of information systems. In the opening paper of ISJ, we suggested that the ‘launch of a new journal in information systems prompts thought and debate concerning the state of the subject area and some contemplation of its past and future’. We discussed three areas of this ‘not‐yet‐established discipline’: practice, education and research. In this follow‐up paper, we forgo our convention of ISJ editors not publishing in the Journal. We examine the issues raised in the first paper and consider what has happened in the intervening years as charted in the ISJ. The overview is necessarily selective, probably Anglocentric (with, perhaps, a slight Francophile tinge), sometimes downright opinionated, as well as over‐estimating, perhaps, the contribution of one particular IS journal.     

Stakeholder perspectives on managing the occupational health of UK business drivers: a qualitative approach

Musculoskeletal disorders are one of leading causes of work related ill health and sickness absence. Those drive as part of their job may be at particular risk, with evidence suggesting that prolonged exposure to driving is associated with increased absence from work due to low back pain. Business drivers often work away from a traditional office environment. Such mobile working may pose greater risks to occupational health due to increased ergonomic risks, for example working from the car, longer working hours and a lack of concern amongst drivers about health and safety. It has been suggested that occupational health practices have not adapted to meet the needs of peripatetic workers. The current study explored how occupational health services are delivered to business drivers. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with a sample of 31 stakeholders in 4 organisations. Respondents included, health and safety professionals, occupational health nurses, fleet managers and high mileage business drivers. The interviews were transcribed and analysed using ‘Template Analysis’. The data revealed that, within these organisations, the provision of occupational health services was often fragmented and drivers and other key stakeholders were often unaware of the existing systems within their organisations. The peripatetic nature of business drivers meant that they were difficult for occupational health teams to reach. The paper concludes by presenting recommendations for occupational health professionals and researchers engaged with improving the health of peripatetic workers, namely that occupational health policies should be integrated in company strategy and widely disseminated to drivers and those with responsibility for managing their occupational health provision.     

Evaluating Shared Access: social equality and the circulation of mobile phones in rural Uganda

This article examines forms of shared access to technology where some privileges of ownership are retained. Sharing is defined as informal, non-remunerative resource distributing activities where multiple individuals have a relationship to a single device as purchaser, owner, possessor, operator and/or user. In the specific case of mobile phones in rural Uganda, dynamics of social policing and social obligation were mediated and concretized by these devices. Patterns of sharing mobile phones in rural Uganda led to preferential access for needy groups (such as those in ill health) while systematically and disproportionately excluding others (women in particular). The framework for sharing proposed in this article will be useful for structuring comparisons of technology adoption and access across cultural contexts.     

Control enactment in context: Understanding the interaction of controlee and controller perceptions in inter-organisational project teams

Control is necessary for aligning the actions of management (i.e., controllers) and subordinates (i.e., controlees) around common goals. The enactment of control often fails in practice; however, as controlee perceptions may not match those of controllers, leading to a myriad of possible outcomes. Through an interpretive case study of two inter-organisational IT projects, we reveal how controlees' appraisals and responses to controls are context-dependent and play out across multiple levels (e.g., personal, professional, project and organisational contexts). We build on a coping perspective of IS controls to theorise the ‘coping strategies’ that controlees pursued relevant to these contexts and the ‘coping routes’ followed when combining different consecutive coping strategies. We find the process need not end with the selection of a single strategy but can potentially continue as both the controller and controlees make ongoing readjustments. While Behavioural Control Theory traditionally assumes the presence of a single control hierarchy, interorganisational IT projects are multi-level entities that amalgamate different structures and cultures. Our study moves beyond the existing assumptions of Behavioural Control Theory to discuss how a controller's choice of activities shapes the salience of different contexts in controlee appraisals.