Search results for "meaning"
showing 10 items of 756 documents
The Big Meaning of Small Messages
2019
Here, instant messaging as a mode of everyday communication in digital families is taken up for examination. We look, in particular, into the qualities that make WhatsApp an attractive communication tool for extended families: it allows both one-to-one and one-to-many interactions and provides multiple modalities for intergenerational family communication (voice, text, photos and videos). Empirical evidence and qualitative data collected in Finland and Italy in 2014–2015 are drawn upon and analysed in advancing the argument that the success story of WhatsApp in the family context is related to way it enables reaching the whole family at once and promotes ‘phatic communion’ via small message…
Increasingly emotional design for growingly pragmatic users? A report from Finland
2012
Researchers and practitioners in the field of information and communication technologies (ICT) have for a while been embracing the concepts of user and consumer experience as well as emotions in design, encouraging the industry to emphasise hedonic and symbolic qualities of products and services, over and beyond their utilitarian characteristics. However, the idea that mobile phone users, for instance, seek increasingly experience-rich, personalised products can not be taken for granted. Therefore, it is valuable to investigate the degree to which users really share designers' increasingly socio-emotional stances. The presented longitudinal study investigated users' mobile phone-related pro…
Multiple Authentic Project-Based Experiences and Persistent Learning?
2019
This work-in-progress paper in the research category investigates students’ experiences of learning over two project-based courses, of which the first is taken during bachelor studies and the second is taken during master studies. The research goal was to explore if and how the first project experience was considered beneficial to the latter. A pilot interview was conducted and analyzed for qualitatively different themes. Transformative learning theory (TLT) is introduced as the theoretical framework because of its focus on persistent learning originating in transformations in meaning perspectives. The results are discussed in the context of TLT, and they inform curriculum design and resear…
Professional Agency and Creativity in Information Technology Work
2017
The meaning of professional agency in the context of professional learning, as well as in the development of working practices and work organisations, is pivotal. The role of creativity is also crucial for long-term economic growth in the current global environment, which is characterised by rapid changes in both technology and economy. Hence, it is important to study the relationship between professional agency and creativity. In this chapter, we explore professional agency and creativity within two Finnish information technology organisations. This study’s data include interviews with staff members and open-ended questionnaire responses to the question ‘What is creativity in your work?’. …
Agency as the Ability and Opportunity to Participate in Evaluation as Knowledge Construction
2011
School communities find themselves within an overall ideological and epistemological controversy with regard to a drive for goal-oriented and ‘evidence-based’ practices on the one hand and emancipative bottom-up developmental strategies on the other, treating empirical data as information to be analysed according to context, with potential meaning for practice. This raises questions of democratic purposes of education, of leaders' and teachers' agency and corresponding accountability. This article is therefore an empirically based discussion of the relationship between multiple understandings of democracy and multiple practices of evaluation. It presents certain results of three ethnographi…
The Importance of Creative Services Firms in Explaining the Wealth of European Regions
2013
This chapter shows the important impact that a specific set of services, those belonging to the creative industries, have on regional economic development and wealth generation. Creative industries are a set of knowledge-based activities focused on the generation of meaning, contents and aesthetic attributes through the use of creativity, skill and talent, and have the potential to create wealth from trade and intellectual property rights. A key hypothesis in this paper is that creative services firms are a “growth driver” that promotes wealth in the regions where they are located. This is due to the fact that firms in creative industries introduce new ideas that are subsequently transferre…
The Legend of Excellent Businessman. A Neuroethical Perspective
2019
If the question about the causes of the crises has generated a good deal of literature in Spain, the key issue in recent times has been how to create that tangible and intangible wealth that only companies can give. One of the proposals that specialists agree upon is to revitalise the business entrepreneurial spirit, presenting the entrepreneurs’ way of life as an attractive option, due to the good they produce and the social recognition they enjoy. Accepting the suggestions of the so-called “narrative turn”, the article analyses the virtualities of business narratives in order to enhance the role of entrepreneurs. To this end, the article aims to cover three stages: (1) narratives are nece…
Internet Access in Rural Areas: Brake or Stimulus as Post-Covid-19 Opportunity?
2020
The lack of internet access in most rural areas has become a challenge worldwide. The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted trends such as teleworking and e-commerce, meaning an opportunity for the local economy of these areas, but with serious difficulties in carrying it out. This paper aims to detect this lack of internet in inland areas of the region of Valencia through local actors, in order to identify clear priorities and real needs through an explorative and replicable approach based on agglomerative hierarchical clustering (AHC). The main findings suggest that there are different patterns in the rural internet access related to adequate infrastructure and planned actions by local counci…
Sport and Quality of Life
2022
Negli ultimi trent’anni lo sport ha assunto un significato molto rilevante nella vita delle persone e, seppure con notevoli differenze, sia nei paesi a sviluppo economico avanzato, sia in quelli in via di sviluppo. A livello individuale, esso ha costituito un’area di investimento identitario quando ha assunto la forma di sport spettacolo del quale fruire, alimentando la pratica del tifo e il fandom o costituendo il modello di uno stile di vita vincente; ma anche quando ha assunto la forma di pratica del tempo libero attraverso la quale tenersi in forma, facendo crescere, in questo caso, la diffusione di una cultura della salute e del benessere. Si tratta di due modalità di approcciare al co…
L'operatività del Secondary meaning sui componenti descrittivi di un marchio complesso rafforzatosi con l'uso
2014
Il commento affronta il tema del rafforzamento nel suo insieme del carattere distintivo di un marchio complesso per effetto della notorietà ottenuta con l’uso, tale da determinare una sua significativa penetrazione sul mercato. Si evidenzia, in particolare, che ciò non vale a fare acquisire automaticamente una capacità distintiva autonoma ad un suo singolo componente che ne è originariamente sprovvisto, risultando altrimenti violato il principio che ricollega la sopravvenienza di detta capacità (la c.d. “riabilitazione” associata al fenomeno del “secondary meaning”) alla idoneità in concreto di quello specifico segno a distinguere, nella percezione del pubblico di riferimento, un dato prodo…