Search results for "AGENCY"

What is agency? Conceptualizing professional agency at work

2013

Abstract The concept of agency has become widely used in learning research, especially in studies addressing professional and workplace learning, but also in policy discussion on how to promote individually meaningful careers and life-courses amid rapid changes in working life. The purpose of this article is to provide a critical review of the multidisciplinary concept of agency, and to suggest a fruitful conceptualization of professional agency at work. The following questions are addressed: (i) How have the ontological characteristics and manifestations of agency been understood? (ii) How have the relationships between the social and individual aspects of agency been understood? We examin…

Perspectives on Cluster Evolution: Critical Review and Future Research Issues

2015

The past two decades have witnessed an ever-growing scholarly interest in regional clusters. The focus of research has mainly been on why clusters exist and what characteristics “functioning” clusters hold. Although the interest in more dynamic views on clusters is not new, in recent years, however, more attention has been paid to providing better explanations of how clusters change and develop over time, giving rise to an increasing popularity of different variants of the cluster life cycle approach. This article offers a critical review of various cluster life cycle models. We discuss the key ideas and arguments put forward by their main protagonists and we identify several shortcomings –…

Probabilistic European Country Risk Score Forecasting Using a Diffusion Model

2013

Over the last few years, global crisis has shaken confidence in most European economies. As a consequence, a lack of confidence has spread amongst European countries leading to Europe’s financial instability. Therefore, forecasting the next future of economic situation involves high levels of uncertainty. In this respect, it would be interesting to use tools which allow to predict the trends and evolution of each country’s confidence rating. The Country Risk Score (CRS) represents a good indicator to measure the current situation of a country regarding measures of economic, political and financial Risk in order to determine country Risk ratings. CRS is underscored by Euromoney Agency and is…

Solving the Surveillance Problem

2017

This chapter examines the way surveillance is discussed in the leading Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat after the revelations made by former NSA-contractor Edward Snowden. In 2013, Snowden provided journalists with documents that revealed the unexpected extent of surveillance conducted by security agencies such as the NSA. Drawing on Critical Discourse Studies and a Foucauldian view of discourse, this article understands media discussions following the Snowden revelations as discursive struggles where the legitimacy and future of surveillance are being constructed and debated. The article examines the ways the media formulates solutions to the problems posed by surveillance, and explores…

Violence Through Words: Cultural Aspects and Performative Agency

2020

This chapter aims at describing the ways and ploys used by words (in the various public and private contexts where they define relations) conveying a form of symbolic violence aimed at classifying genders as they play out their respective identity roles. To this end, the author refers to “euphemized discourse” (Bourdieu, 1993) and the concept of “agency” (Duranti, Etnopragmatica. La forza nel parlare. Carocci Editore, Rome, Italy, 2007) in order to describe the process of naturalization of discursive practices geared towards affirmation of the androcentric system of language. Here, a variant of Mediterranean culture which remains patriarchal and sexist is examined by means of discourse anal…

The impact of fairness on the performance of crowdsourcing an empirical analysis of two intermediate crowdsourcing platforms

2016

This research aims to investigate mechanisms available to the seeker to encourage participation of solvers to a challenge. We hypothesize that specific crowdsourcing mechanisms, reducing the information asymmetry of solvers on the challenge, increase solvers’ perception of procedural and distributive fairness and incentive their self-selection process. Moreover, posing problem in an ‘open’ manner exposes seekers to possible opportunism risks. Thus, seekers utilize many safeguard contractual mechanisms to mitigate these risks and protect the information shared in a challenge. By using data from two intermediate crowdsourcing pltaforms, we provide that safeguard mechanisms may have a drawback…

Hegemonic representations of the past and digital agency: Giving meaning to “The Soviet Story” on social networking sites

2015

In 2008, Edvīns Šnore, the Latvian film director, released a shocking and provocative documentary, “The Soviet Story,” which explored some terrible episodes from the Soviet past as well as the collaboration between the Soviet and Nazi regimes. Scholars have argued that The Soviet Story is an effective Latvian response to Russian propaganda, but it also exemplifies the broader problems of post-communist memory politics. This article takes a step further in the discussion of The Soviet Story. It focuses on the idea of how memory work triggered by the documentary got started on social networking sites. In particular, the article deals with the video-sharing website YouTube and the Internet en…

La activación de la inmigración

2020

Los enfoques convencionales sobre las migraciones han tendido a considerar frecuentemente a los inmigrantes como sujetos pasivos en sus procesos de incorporación a las sociedades de recepción. En cambio, cada vez contamos con más muestras de la iniciativa de los propios inmigrantes como actores de procesos de cambio, así como nuevas perspectivas de investigación que tratan de dar cuenta de este giro: el reconocimiento de la autonomía de las migraciones, la relevancia de las capacidades y la agencia de los migrantes en diferentes ámbitos y su contribución al desarrollo de las sociedades de recepción. En realidad, los inmigrantes despliegan diversas estrategias, luchas y resistencias contribu…

Review of Vitanova (2010): Authoring the Dialogic Self: Gender, agency and language practices

2011

La recuperación del espacio público y la evolución del patrimonio común : prácticas colaborativas a través de la agencia cultural / Restoring the pub…

2017

Resumen: Este artículo revisa el uso de prácticas creativas promovidas por agentes culturales que compiten discursivamente con la racionalidad instrumental imperante en las sociedades modernas contemporáneas. Particularmente, los casos que aquí se exploran son acciones colaborativas llevadas a cabo por dos asociaciones de la ciudad mexicana de Guadalajara: el despacho de urbanismo CUADRA y Fundación CEDAT. Se analizan, por un lado, iniciativas de intervención artística a través del grafiti como forma de creación de identidad; y por el otro, la exposición y comunicación realizada a través del documental como herramientas de reactivación y socialización de espacios públicos.Palabras clave: ag…