Research Argues (research + argue)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


,It's a public, I reckon': Publicness and a Suburban Shopping Mall in Sydney's Southwest

GEOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH, Issue 2 2010
ADAM TYNDALL
Abstract Traditionally, public space has been perceived as an integral part of fully functioning liberal democracy. Yet much research argues that public space is in decline due to regimes of neoliberal governance paralleled with a growth in quasi-public spaces such as shopping malls, casinos and gated communities. It is argued that these new spatial forms posit a commercialised, sanitised and ultimately exclusionary urban form in place of more egalitarian, engaging and ultimately democratic public spaces. Increasingly, however, urban research has questioned the veracity of the claims made about the nature of traditional public space as well as investigating the marginal and contingent nature of publicness as constituted by and enacted in a variety of places. Drawing on Foucault's concept of heterotopic space, this paper reports on a qualitative study based on focus group interviews conducted with users of a suburban shopping mall in Sydney's southwest. The research uncovers both a more complex and less overtly deterministic publicness than has previously been identified in such spaces. From these findings the paper argues for a conception of publicity which moves beyond the zero-sum game approach endemic in much work in this area to one which analyses the qualitative effect quasi-public spaces are having on the nature of publicness in the Australian context. The paper concludes by arguing that a rethinking of publicness allows room for the emergence of a more progressive public ethic. [source]


Transnational politics at the edges of sovereignty: social movements, crossings and the state at the US,Mexico border

GLOBAL NETWORKS, Issue 4 2001
Hilary Cunningham
This article documents the history of border crossings among a group of social movement activists located in southern Arizona. By comparing two types of US,Mexico border crossings separated ten years apart, the article explores how political groups become ,transnationalized' and in relation to what kinds of ,states'. By contrasting the shift from a state-centric movement to a transnational coalition, the case study analyses why, in the later period, political activists were no longer able to identify the same kind of state. In chronicling the disappearance of one kind of state formation and the emergence of a transnational one, this research argues that globalization,rather than simply reflecting a decline of the nation state,is a process entailing not only new forms of transnational political activism but also new forms of the state. [source]


Virtual team collaboration: building shared meaning, resolving breakdowns and creating translucence

INFORMATION SYSTEMS JOURNAL, Issue 3 2009
Pernille Bjørn
Abstract Managing international teams with geographically distributed participants is a complex task. The risk of communication breakdowns increases due to cultural and organizational differences grounded in the geographical distribution of the participants. Such breakdowns indicate general misunderstandings and a lack of shared meaning between participants. In this paper, we address the complexity of building shared meaning. We examine the communication breakdowns that occurred in two globally distributed virtual teams by providing an analytical distinction of the organizational context as the foundation for building shared meaning at three levels. Also we investigate communication breakdowns that can be attributed to differences in lifeworld structures, organizational structures, and work process structures within a virtual team. We find that all communication breakdowns are manifested and experienced by the participants at the work process level; however, resolving breakdowns may require critical reflection at other levels. Where previous research argues that face-to-face interaction is an important variable for virtual team performance, our empirical observations reveal that communication breakdowns related to a lack of shared meaning at the lifeworld level often becomes more salient when the participants are co-located than when geographically distributed. Last, we argue that creating translucence in communication structures is essential for building shared meanings at all three levels. [source]


Analysts' Incentives and Street Earnings

JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 1 2009
BOK BAIK
ABSTRACT We examine whether analysts' incentives are associated with street earnings. Because prior research argues that analysts' incentives to promote stocks increase in the extent to which the stock exhibits glamour characteristics, we predict that analysts are more likely to make income-increasing adjustments in determining street earnings for glamour stocks than for value stocks. We find that analysts are more likely to exclude expense items from street earnings for glamour stocks than for value stocks and that excluded expense items help predict future earnings for glamour stocks but not for value stocks. Overall, our results suggest that analysts' self-interest influences street earnings and this self-interest leads to street earnings that are less useful in predicting future earnings for glamour stocks. [source]


Uncertainty and the Rise of the Work-Family Dilemma

JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY, Issue 1 2001
Mark Evan Edwards
Existing research argues that women's wages, consumerism, and changing attitudes dismantled the male bread-winner system. Families' economic need is dismissed with the suggestion that mothers' rhetoric of "need" was a smoke screen to defend against social stigma for working mothers. Drawing on biennial data from 1965 to 1987, I suggest that consumptive certainty of the 1950s and 1960s gave way to economic uncertainty in the 1970s and beyond. Economic uncertainty provided impetus, legitimacy, and justification for young families to adopt new work-family arrangements. Hence, economic uncertainty is conceptualized as a real circumstance that substantiates families' reasonable perceptions of need. [source]


URBAN PAUPERIZATION UNDER CHINA'S SOCIAL EXCLUSION: A CASE STUDY OF NANJING

JOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS, Issue 1 2008
YUTING LIU
ABSTRACT:,This article articulates how two new urban poverty groups, namely the new urban poor and poor rural migrants, are pauperized under China's social exclusion. We argue that the two poverty groups experience different pauperization processes and are subjected to distinctive social exclusions with relevance to their institutional-based status and changes in it. The urban poor experience status change from being beneficiaries of the planned economy to being victims of the market economy, and become a vulnerable group characterized by market exclusion and limited welfare dependency. The status of poor rural migrants changes from being institutionally inferior farmers in the planned economy to being a marginal group of urban society, which is now subjected to institutional exclusion and the resultant social exclusion. This research argues that positive social policies should be considered and a social security system should be established to pay more attention to the development issues of the urban poor. [source]