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As the United States' population grows via migration and immigration, with this rise in diverse identities, there has been increasing concern regarding disparities for undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. with limited access to the health system. Given the various constraints involving communication and social structures that undocumented immigrants face, a culture-centered approach is drawn on to investigating how this group goes about navigating a dominant health system given their restricted access. I explore co-constructed themes that emerged through conversations with undocumented immigrants, (people without papers as I call them in this work) living in the United States to gain an understanding as to the structural and cultural limitations faced by this group. By doing qualitative semi-structured interviews with local participants living in the South Florida region, I describe the various features of a complex U.S. health system that undocumented immigrants (people without papers) deemed as important obstacles that limit their willingness to interact with official medical spaces. This work draws on narratives and accounts to shed light on the intersection of disparities this group has to overcome in order to consider entering a medical space to receive the treatment they might need. The findings of this article highlighted the structural violence that certain subaltern groups, such as people without papers experience due to their limited access to foundational systems in their environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ropalidia marginata is a common primitively eusocial wasp in peninsular India. Their colonies contain a single egg-laying queen and several non-egg-laying workers. Queens and workers are morphologically indistinguishable, and individuals can change from one role to the other. Unlike most primitively eusocial species, queens of R. marginata are docile, non-aggressive and non-interactive. Nevertheless, the queens maintain a complete reproductive monopoly mediated by non-volatile pheromones. Upon the death or removal of the queen, one worker becomes temporarily hyper-aggressive and becomes the next queen within about a week; we refer to her as the 'potential queen'. Because only one individual becomes hyper-aggressive and reveals herself as the potential queen, and the other wasps never challenge her, we have been much interested in identifying the potential queen in the presence of the queen. However, we have failed to do so until recently. Here, we recount the four decades of search for the potential queen, ending with the recent resolution that emerged from applying the novel technique of multilayer network analysis. Identifying the potential queen in the presence of the previous queen is now possible by integrating behavioural information from multiple social situations to form a holistic view of the social structure of the wasps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores Digital Poverty (DP) in England by adopting the DP Alliance's theoretical framework that includes both Individual Determinants (individual capability and motivation) and Circumstantial Determinants (conditions of action). Such a framework is interpreted as an expression of Strong Structuration Theory (SST), by situating the connection between social structure and human agency in an intertwined relationship. We focus on new potential vulnerabilities that are connected to DP in England by drawing on a survey conducted on a randomised stratified sample (n = 1988) of parents aged between 20–55 with children at school. Exploring parents' experience in the COVID-19 era, we identified economic factors and having children with disabilities as important predictors connected to Digital Poverty. Additional socio-demographic traits (such as age and education), parental status, lifestyles and digital behaviours also play a role in predicting some of the determinants linked to Digital Poverty. This paper adds to SST by empirically exploring how individuals use the Internet according to their metabolised embodiment of external determinants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of transgender individuals often focus on the transgressive nature of their identities and practices or on experiences of transphobia, rejection and violence. Rather than focusing on transgression or marginalization, this paper offers insight into practical knowledge, presenting a feel for the game that young nonbinary individuals develop out of social necessity, as the social world, with its gender binary social structures, remains resistant to nonbinary identities and practices. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 12 nonbinary participants in Slovenia and Bourdieu's concept of practical knowledge, this paper analyses skilful practical strategies for coping with anticipated and experienced misrecognition. These strategies encompass tactful playing along with the binary rules of the game, pushing the rules into a state of limbo and directly engaging and confronting the rules of the game. Moreover, a differentiated domain of strategies emerges, according to the parameters of safety, anticipation of achieving recognition and affective investment in the relations. Overall, the data show that nonbinary individuals are skilful agents who apply a range of practical strategies to manoeuvre through a gender binary world. The article enables insight into young people as actively engaging with objective conditions that are not of their making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Certain fields of research are deeply shaped by their proximity with policy-makers and administrations. The so-called 'regulatory sciences' and their corresponding expert communities emerge from this intermediary space between science and policy. Social studies of expertise and scientific experts show, however, that modes of engagement with policy-making vary greatly from one scientist to another. Two scientists that are part of the same research group or laboratory may engage the policy realm differently. How then does the social organization of research influence scientists' participation in scientific advice and the production of regulatory sciences? The paper looks at toxicology, a field in which knowledge production is centrally motivated by risk assessment, but one that has also seen the emergence of different knowledge-making motives, including advancement of fundamental knowledge and frontier research. A toxicology laboratory may thus harbor a diversity of moral economies of scientific advice. The paper argues that scientists' engagements with policy, through scientific advice and regulatory risk assessment, create organizational tensions and force changes to the standard, team-based social organization of research work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The well-established concept of social capital in community studies is gaining prominence in management studies over the last decade due to evolving workplace and workforce. The paper presents a comprehensive and evidence-based model from past literature on how social capital is architected in organizations. We have adapted the seminal framework suggested by Murphy and DeNisi (2008) to capture distal, proximal, formation, and output factors. Also, our paper unveils areas of further investigation such as intervening, distortion, and psychological factors. We propose to move conversations among academicians and practitioners beyond just benefits of social capital to how one can intentionally facilitate social capital formation at the workplace for competitive advantage. Future researchers can continue to test and adjust the open model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conceptualising discourse as an everyday practice which positions people in localised hierarchies of power, while simultaneously embedded in broader discursive landscapes, underscores encounter as an important site in which social structures produce and reproduce inequality. However, the interdependent role of discourse and encounter remains under-theorised within the field of intersectionality. Drawing on semi-structured interviews from a place-based case study, this paper examines the life-stories of three diversely positioned women to show how they construct, perform, and narrate their identities through encounter. Building on the emerging literature of intersectional geographies of encounter, this paper considers how, at the scale of encounter, dominant discourses become entangled with women's life-story narratives to shape how they perceive themselves and others, and how they feel perceived by others which informs their situated and contingent relational positioning in hierarchies of power. This highlights the centrality of everyday encounters and discourses to the negotiation of hierarchal social structures and intersectional relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Factual welfare television has been described as stigmatising and individualising – representing its participants as failures in a meritocratic society. This paper, however, revisits the 2014 British documentary Benefits Street and argues that it tends to humanise its cast, showing them as trapped in two social structures of benefits (i.e. the social security system) and street (i.e. the deprived local community). Using a multimodal critical discourse studies approach, the paper analyses the verbal, visual and sound tracks of the most popular episode to explore how these modes combine to portray the structure of benefits as stultifying, and the street as a restrictive community. These structures are selectively foregrounded at the expense of the wider, arguably more impactful structures of neoliberal austerity and welfare reform that characterised the political economy of Britain in 2014. The residents' troubles, therefore, appear to be grounded in the two restrictive structures of benefits and street, and individualistic post-welfarism – surely implicated in their problems – becomes the solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The classical Shapley value for cooperative games determines a payoff vector considering that the formation of the grand coalition is made by incorporating players one by one. Later, this method was generalized for games with restricted cooperation by several known mathematical structures: partitions, graphs, convex geometries, antimatroids, matroids or simplicial complexes. In this paper we consider games over simplicial complex with an extra information about the relationships of the agents, a filtration of the complex. Filtrations are very known simplicial structures in the social and neuronal networks. We propose a Shapley value for these situations and an axiomatization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a multidimensional approach to collective violence. Stemming from the literature on collective violence and intergroup relations, a sociostructural model is proposed, functionally connecting the structure of intergroup relations with the variety of collective violence. Three archival databases on anti‐Jewish pogroms in Poland and the Russian Empire at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries are used to demonstrate the variability of types of pogrom violence and its relations with social structure. The results are discussed in light of various intergroup threat theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we explore what campesino [peasant] livelihoods in the rural Andean mountains of Colombia offer to understandings of more-than-human co-existence and care. For, while new conservation paradigms promise to transform economic and social horizons, being "paramuno" [resident of the "paramo," or high moorlands] in the small community of Monquentiva is already characterized by becoming-with-other-beings-and-practices; a disposition toward incorporation of elements that are at-hand, and an ethics of care toward other beings in the landscape. We draw on ethnographic data to present this case study, emphasizing the forms of social organization and persistence that have enabled the emergence of economically and ecologically sustainable livelihoods. We explore these processes in terms of what we call world-making practices, showing how relationships with Indigeneity and collectivity are being renegotiated, and arguing for modes of conservation that engage with existing forms of peasant innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consideration of how interrelated social structures relate with personality has been limited. In this paper, we discuss how researchers might apply an intersectional framework–which uses a social justice lens to examine how social structures are interconnected and impact individuals—at three distinct levels of personality including traits, characteristic adaptations, and integrative life narratives. We begin by providing conceptualizations of personality and intersectionality and describe considerations for their integration, including the need to widen the methodological and epistemological scope of personality science. Key areas of research that demonstrate the promise of an intersectional framework for unpacking structures of power and oppression in relation to the person are then described for each level of personality. Specifically, recommendations for how an intersectional framework may be used to examine structural identity domains in relation to trait levels, values and goals, as well as the content and process of narrated lives are offered. We conclude with discussion of how application of an intersectional framework is crucial for promoting inclusion and generalizability in personality science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Affordances are the perception of what a technical artifact can do. They bridge a technically-determinist perspective with social constructivist theory, acknowledging the material aspects of technology while allowing for user agency. Yet most affordance theory separates out the engagement process into producers and consumers. On one hand, this lens is essential because it considers how an end user interprets, engages, and utilizes technology through their social structure. It highlights how engagement is both constrained and enabled by the creator, but also documents how such engagement might differ from a creator's intention(s) completely. On the other hand, this framework doesn't consider the interactional dimensions of affordances theory. This paper fills this gap, relying on sociotechnical theory to analyze three case studies across three different platforms (Twitter, Google Scholar, and Yandex). In doing so, we explain how pundits, propagandists, and conspiracy theorists 'activate affordances' to validate their claims. When audiences are primed to 'do their own research,' disinformation becomes a more entangled, participatory process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper introduces a conceptual lens for leading social change in slums and informal settlements. In line with this aim, the purpose of this case study is to describe the public problem-solving approach of a social change organization situated in an informal settlement through the lens of adaptive leadership, complexity theory and social change leadership (SCL). Design/methodology/approach: This paper follows an engaged reflection tradition. First, the author-practitioners describe an informal settlement case hereafter called ISC in southeast Iran where many people have historically remained undocumented and uneducated. Using complex adaptive systems theory, adaptive leadership and SCL as the conceptual lens, the paper analyzes ISC as a complex adaptive context in which the community and the government are in tension in solving problems, particularly illiteracy. The instrumental case study draws from participant observation and document analysis to describe and examine the endeavors of a community office operating within ISC. Through this reflective analysis, the authors illustrate how a social change organization can effectively tackle public issues like illiteracy within informal settlements. Findings: This paper applies complexity leadership theory to a social context. The study illustrates how social change organizations can support the transformation of informal spaces into adaptive spaces to enact social change. Originality/value: This paper reflects on engagement activity near the insecure borders of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. By extending an organizational-level theory to the public sphere, this paper contributes theoretically to the complexity theory literature. Moreover, it provides a practical insight for community development and slum upgrading projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper brings into discussion the social construction of organization and proposes a new model in organizational development. The paper begins with a synthesis on the paradigm of social constructionism, emphasizing its utility in organizational studies. In times of uncertainty and rapid changes, a lot of organizations lose their missions and meanings, or have the capacity to reinvent and to thrive. The question is what makes the difference? In this line, the paper proposes a theoretical model, gathering the social constructionism, relational constructionism, and appreciative inquiry. Using the grounded theory strategy, indepth interviews and focus groups were developed with employees and leaders from nongovernmental organizations, Iasi, and Bacau Counties. Data are analyzed through NVivo program and present multiple perspectives regarding their activity in social field. The theoretical model may be an inspiration for organizations that are interested in achieving new ideas, solutions, and results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Healthcare demand change is investigated from the view of the economic and societal dynamics. • The differentiated risk attitudes of individuals and groups are considered. • An extended PageRank algorithm are applied to determine the weights of experts. • An improved GLDS method is developed to prioritize healthcare risk. • A conflict analysis is established to show PIR between failure modes. Faced with backward and uneven economic conditions and an irrational and increasingly inequitable social structure, healthcare disparities are widening and the healthcare inequalities are expanding. This can lead to an increasing public demand for healthcare services, posing unprecedented risk, such as resource shortages, quality deterioration and rising healthcare costs. By identifying, managing, and optimizing the aforementioned risks within the healthcare system, it helps the healthcare system better address the challenges of expanding healthcare demands under evolving economic and social structure. To achieve this, this paper employs failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) to identify severe failure modes in healthcare services. However, traditional FMEA methods possess limitations in assessing the dynamics of trust relationships and interaction effects among experts within social networks. Therefore, this paper proposes an improved gained and lost dominance score (GLDS) based social network decision-making method considering risk attitudes for FMEA to prioritize failure modes in healthcare services. First, transform linguistic risk assessment information from an interdisciplinary team of experts based on probabilistic linguistic term sets handle uncertain efficiently. Meanwhile, experts' influence is reflected by an extended PageRank algorithm with trust degrees based on social networks analysis. Next, an improved GLDS method considering the differentiated risk attitudes of individuals and groups is developed to prioritize failure modes. Especially, to solve the problems of soft preference and incomparability relation among failure modes, which are ignored by the traditional GLDS method, a conflict analysis is established to determine the preference, indifference, and incomparability relations. Finally, the practicality of the proposed method is illustrated by the healthcare service risk case in the emergency department and the effectiveness of the developed method is validated by comparison and sensitivity experiments. The results suggest that failure to update labels showing patient severity promptly is the most dangerous. In addition, it would be more economically efficient to analyze the non-comparable failure modes facing different risk factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This text is a response to a critical appraisal of a paper on the Yagwoia people by Gillison. The author, Mimica, clarifies that his paper is focused on patricide and not collective rites of passage. He provides additional details to refute Gillison's claims about Yagwoia cosmogonic mythopoeia and paternal bone transmission. The text explores the initiation practices and social dynamics of the Yagwoia people, emphasizing the transition from bachelorhood to marriage and fatherhood. It also discusses the significance of shells and valuables as symbols of potency and the complex relationships between fathers, sons, and daughters in terms of inheritance and ownership. The author suggests a more nuanced understanding of Yagwoia culture for a constructive comparison. Additionally, the text discusses the similarities and differences between Gimi and Yagwoia cultures, highlighting the importance of understanding these cultures in relation to their neighbors and the broader region. It encourages readers to appreciate the diversity of cultural practices while recognizing commonalities. [Extracted from the article]

This paper introduces an integrated ontological framework to analyse the interplay between formalised social structures composed of impersonal, codified roles and rules which are commonly described as 'institutions', and the more latent interpersonal relationships that shape and animate these institutions-putting forward the notion of 'extitutions' to describe the latter. The main contribution of this paper is to provide an analytical grid for advancing the formalisation of both institutional and extitutional dynamics and how they affect or influence each other over time, from a multi-faceted and multi-layered network standpoint. This new grid of analysis can be used to characterise the reciprocal interactions between the extitutional and institutional aspects of social groups, explicitly disentangling their respective influences. This makes it possible to prescribe novel configurations of collective action that benefit from a balanced equilibrium between extitutional and institutional dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay embraces a notion of critical scholarship concerned with proposing normative and actionable alternatives that can create more inclusive societies and focuses on the role of institutionalizing experimental places for inclusive social innovation as a bottom-up strategic response to welfare state reforms. By mobilizing the notions of utopias and heterotopias in Foucault, the paper sheds light on the opportunity to move from policy utopias to democratic heterotopias, discussing the politics embedded in this cognitive shift and the democratic nature of social innovation changing social and governance relations by interacting with politico-administrative systems. Some obstacles to institutionalizing social innovation are highlighted, as well as some key governance mechanisms that can be activated either by public and/or social purpose organizations to try to overcome those obstacles. Finally, we discuss the importance of linking inclusive social innovation with democratic, rather than market logics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers have found that many post-secondary music students suffer from physical and mental health issues. However, researchers have mainly studied these problems at the individual level, with little investigation of how music students' work is shaped by the coordinating effects of policies, texts, and discourses at and beyond their local site. This paper describes a protocol for an international project that will explore the health of music students in the context of their daily work. Using an institutional ethnography approach, we will examine the social organization of music students' work at three universities: two in Canada and one in Australia. This will be the first set of studies that use institutional ethnography specifically for the purpose of understanding how the social organization of music students' work shapes their health. Data will be collected using several methods common to institutional ethnography: interviews, focus groups, observations, and collecting texts. Data analysis will begin during the data collection process and proceed in two fluid stages. The first stage will involve a detailed investigation of the pertinent work activities at each music school. The second will involve linking that work to specific social relations within and beyond the institution. After data analysis has been completed at all three sites, findings will be compared to one another to identify commonalities and differences in how students' work is organized. Findings of the entire project may inform policy-making and lead to positive change at the institutions studied, as well as others where similar social organization may occur. The novel approach described here will provide opportunities to expand current knowledge about music students' work and health beyond what has been learned through approaches that focus on students' individual behaviours and attributes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What determines the flow of unsanctioned information in authoritarian regimes? To answer this question, we explore the use and circulation of illicit foreign information among citizens in North Korea. This paper focuses on how the structure of social relations among citizens determines where and with whom people acquire and disseminate politically unsanctioned and potentially illegal content offline. Based on findings from a choice‐based conjoint administered to 313 former residents of North Korea, we show that social capital and trust-related effects associated with the place where information is acquired and the person who provides it determine information flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some studies suggest that resource-rich countries tend to allocate talent and investment toward the resource sector and away from manufacturing or agriculture reducing the competitiveness of these other sectors. Because mining overwhelmingly employs men, when other sectors shrink so do employment opportunities for women (Ross, 2008). This could significantly affect core social structures. Using plausibly exogenous variation in natural resource wealth due to giant oil discoveries and an event study design, this paper finds that giant oil discoveries are associated with relatively worse female outcomes as measured by higher male/female population ratios, higher teen birth rates, and lower educational attendance of tertiary education among women relative to men. However, the impact on health outcomes tapers off within 8 years. Additionally, during periods of increasing oil prices, there is no significant evidence of such effects possibly due to an income effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies how social structure — the pattern of social links that connect individuals in a community — affects labor markets. Under competing views on the role of networks, social structures that discourage network hiring could improve or hinder labor market performance. We test these competing views using data on marriage networks in 15,000 villages, combined with labor force survey data. Using regressions analyses and an instrumental variable strategy, we find that individuals living in more socially fragmented villages are less likely to work in family firms, more likely to use formal job search strategies, invest more in education and earn higher wages. Social fragmentation thus discourages network hiring and improves labor market performance. These results survive 384 combinations of robustness checks. We further provide direct evidence against reverse causality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social scientists appeal to various "structures" in their explanations including public policies, economic systems, and social hierarchies. Significant debate surrounds the explanatory relevance of these factors for various outcomes such as health, behavioral, and economic patterns. This paper provides a causal account of social structural explanation that is motivated by Haslanger (2016). This account suggests that social structure can be explanatory in virtue of operating as a causal constraint, which is a causal factor with unique characteristics. A novel causal framework is provided for understanding these explanations–this framework addresses puzzles regarding the mysterious causal influence of social structure, how to understand its relation to individual choice, and what makes it the main explanatory (and causally responsible) factor for various outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we argue that the sociopolitical trajectory of Bronze Age of Crete was characterized by the progressive but intentional manipulation of an enduring collective ethos, notably in the organization of gatherings and feasts. These key practices, meant to ensure cohesion, took place within a larger social organization of which the constituents were formed by corporate groups that we interpret as "houses." We also argue that the nature of these houses changed over time. This process is particularly evident in the varying contexts in which these gatherings took place, with differences in terms of scale and origin of participants and variations in the balance between base-driven and imposed practices. We highlight that a landscape initially dotted with small local communities, connected through kinship bonds and shared practices at the microregional level, was progressively transformed into a homogenous, all-embracing ideological structure, which pervaded society and constituted the backbone of its hierarchical organization. Legitimized and mobilized within a religious system with clear political overtones, this process resulted into a supra-regional, global network that can rightfully be called "Minoan." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human agency, implying, from sociology's perspective, proactive or even transformative individual behaviour upon the social world (or "social structures" as sociologists call them), remains one of the central concepts and problems for both social science and practice. Current stage of societal evolution, de-structuration, makes individual agency especially important for both individual and collective well-being. In this context, the contribution of contemporary art (2018–2022) to agency issues remains little known in the academic world. The objective of this paper is to examine how contemporary art representatives (artists, curators, and experts) express the issue of agency through their artworks, and to compare this viewpoint with the interpretations from other areas of public life. The focus is on those aspects, ideas, and meanings related to agency that are accessible to a broad audience and can be applied to phenomena outside the realm of art but remain overlooked or underdeveloped in current academic discussions on agency. The authors analyse initiatives in both institutional and non-institutional art on a global scale, and explore their manifestations and impact in comprehending and advancing agency. Finally, this article proposes a typology of agency manifestations in contemporary art: (1) straightforward (strong, radical, protest) agency; (2) escapism; (3) panic agency; (4) subject-object carnivalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past 40 years, college graduates in the USA have become increasingly concentrated in a small number of cities. This paper uses qualitative interviews to explore the processes bringing recent graduates of elite universities to one such city, metropolitan Boston, after graduation. Most respondents reported that their move to Boston was not driven by a clear preference for living there. Rather, they saw themselves as simultaneously choosing a job and a location in one bundled decision, with the job generally determining where they ended up. To reduce the cognitive complexity of the joint job-and-location search, graduates eliminated most options with minimal consideration. The options that remained were disproportionately in cities where the graduates or their universities had preexisting connections—even when the graduates themselves would have preferred to live elsewhere. The social nature of the post-college job search thus served to geographically concentrate these graduates beyond what either their own preferences or the geography of job opportunities would require. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The multiple problems that the planet is currently experiencing—climate crisis, conventional and unconventional wars, planetary disenchantment with political systems, growth of inequality, increase in all kinds of intersectional violence, destructuring of the political economy of morality, etc.—are not a favorable scenario for thinking about hope. This paper nevertheless offers a summary presentation of the sociology of hope, presenting some of its central sources and components as well as a proposed study agenda for the future. This article seeks to foster discussion of what could be the central axes of a sociology of hope. To achieve this purpose, the following argumentative strategy was chosen: (a) the "place" of hope is explored in some classics of sociology, (b) the central components of a sociological investigation of hope are synthesized, and (c) an agenda is presented as a summary for a future development of a sociology of hope. The article seeks to draw attention to the urgency of hope as an important element for the future of sociology and social sciences in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial services are significantly impacted by digital transformation, which has been believed as one of the primary trends reshaping society and industry. A comprehensive understanding of digital transformation from an academic and management perspective is required, and it is crucial to close the knowledge gap using bibliometric and qualitative research techniques. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to identify the extensive research themes in digital transformation in financial services from 2000 to 2021, their significance and interdependencies, to determine which trending topics seem to be the most influential, to trace the evolution of digital transformation in the financial service, and to address new and under-researched field of research that is intriguing for future research. This study used a bibliometric analysis of 288 peer-reviewed research articles published over the last 22 years in digital transformation in financial services. The data were extracted from the Scopus database and used various bibliometric analyses such as conceptual structure analysis, co-citation network analysis, social structure, and keyword analysis using R software. The findings show an overall increasing trend in journal publications, author productivity, collaborative research by institutions, and countries' collaboration from the year 2019, as well as major insights from co-citation analysis. According to Lotka's law, most authors (769, or 95.77%) contributed only one article. In addition, the study assesses multiple research areas, such as the effects of digital transformation in financial services, applied technology and insights, and digitalization processes, comprising the latest trending topics in this research stream that extensively cover up in financial services. One of the limitations of this study is that it used only a single database. The author recommends that the findings of this research be reinforced with more targeted and extensive qualitative literature in this field of study. This study establishes a framework for policymakers, academics, and researchers to investigate the areas where digital technologies influence financial services. This study also highlighted several cutting-edge digital technologies used for different functions of the financial services of an organization. This study illustrates the bibliometric structure of the digital transformation literature in financial services and provides insights into the literature's growth year over year. It provides a comprehensive understanding of this evolving field, guiding future research and facilitating informed decision-making in the financial industry. Plain language summary: Purpose: Financial services are significantly impacted by digital transformation, which has been believed as one of the primary trends reshaping society and industry. A comprehensive understanding of digital transformation from an academic and management perspective is required, and it is crucial to close the knowledge gap using bibliometric and qualitative research techniques. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to identify the extensive research themes in digital transformation in financial services from 2000 to 2021, their significance and interdependencies, to determine which trending topics seem to be the most influential, to trace the evolution of digital transformation in the financial service, and to address new and under-researched field of research that is intriguing for future research. Design/methodology/approach: This study used a bibliometric analysis of 288 peer-reviewed research articles published over the last 22 years in digital transformation in financial services. The data were extracted from the Scopus database and used various bibliometric analyses such as conceptual structure analysis, co-citation network analysis, social structure, and keyword analysis using R software. Findings: The findings show an overall increasing trend in journal publications, author productivity, collaborative research by institutions, and countries' collaboration from the year 2019, as well as major insights from co-citation analysis. According to Lotka s law, most authors (769, or 95.77 %) contributed only one article. In addition, the study assesses multiple research areas, such as the effects of digital transformation in financial services, applied technology and insights, and digitalization processes, comprising the latest trending topics in this research stream that extensively cover up in financial services. Research limitations/implications: One of the limitations of this study is that it used only a single database. The author recommends that the findings of this research be reinforced with more targeted and extensive qualitative literature in this field of study. Practical Implications: This study establishes a framework for policymakers, academics, and researchers to investigate the areas where digital technologies influence financial services. This study also highlighted several cutting-edge digital technologies used for different functions of the financial services of an organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines, in parallel, two key archaeological material groups: the kilns and the ceramics from the exceptional tell site of Imvrou Pigadi, the first known and systematically excavated Middle Neolithic pottery workshop in Thessaly. The study forms an all-encompassing, material-based, and scientifically integrated framework based on macroscopic and microscopic analyses, including typological classification and geoarchaeology with an emphasis on micromorphology, as well as an examination of spatial organization. Direct and indirect evidence for standardization and specialization in technology and production practices points to advanced pyrotechnological knowledge and expertise in pottery manufacture at the site. Moreover, the paper examines the social interplay developed around pottery production by discussing cooperation and the organization of social space within the community. Overall, this analysis touches upon the discussion of the wider community of pottery manufacturing centers in Neolithic Thessaly and places the site within its cultural context, offering new insights into craftsmanship and social reciprocity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic research can make significant contributions to policymakers and other researchers interested in building evidence-based knowledge. However, it is difficult for students to imagine how their research can effectively contribute to social change while respecting curriculum requirements, especially with regard to maintaining methodological and scientific rigour and the validity demanded by academic standards. The rich work and experience of Aziz Choudry contribute directly to overcoming these obstacles and challenges, as he conceptualised research and knowledge production as an activity not exclusive to academia or research institutes, but widely present within social organisations and social movements. In this paper, we reflect on our experiences of conducting research within community organisations as graduate scholars. Building on our respective research experience, including popular education in our research practice, we highlight how popular education spaces offer opportunities for scholars to disseminate their research results and contribute to raising awareness, but also to achieve the standards of intellectual rigour expected by academia. The main goal of this paper is to position the field of social movement learning and knowledge production as key for students who want to develop engaged and relevant research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study carries out a comparative analysis of the nature and characters of indigenous politics and leadership among the Okun-Yoruba and the Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria. The paper extends the analysis to the changing nature of the political organisation of both societies as a result of external influence. For the Okun-Yoruba, the paper explores the political organisations and nature of intergroup relations before the Nupe invasion in the midnineteenth century and the subsequent imposition of British colonial rule in Nigeria around 1900. The indigenous political organisation of the Igbo is subjected to a comparative analysis with the Okun-Yoruba. The study also examines the impact of British colonialism on both the Igbo and Okun-Yoruba. It is noted that both the Okun and Igbo societies shared similar indigenous political and social structures that were characterised by small-scale political units. These colonial arrangements had far-reaching consequences on inter-group relations as well as the political organisation of both Okunland and Igboland. British colonial arrangement applied a new system of administration that was fashioned in line with the indirect rule system which was antithetical to the pre-colonial situation. The British imperialism in Nigeria did not only alter the political landscape but they also changed the nature of intergroup relations for both Okun Yoruba and the Igbo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nurse Ethicists bring a unique perspective to clinical ethics consultation. This perspective provides an appreciation of ethical tensions that will exist beyond the consult question into the moral space of patient care. These tensions exist even when an ethically preferable plan of action is identified. Ethically appropriate courses of action can still lead to moral dilemmas for others. The nurse ethicist provides a lens well suited to identify and respond to these dilemmas. The nurse–patient relationship is the ethical foundation of nursing practice and this relational ontology is well suited to addressing ethical dilemmas that exist prior to and beyond the initial consult question. This paper will describe one nurse ethicist's phronetic and pragmatic approach to a clinical ethics consult elucidated through feminist ethics and systems thinking. This paper will describe the theoretical basis for this method, present a case, and describe how this consultation approach provides a rich analysis based around relationships and responsibilities that also highlights the important ethical tensions within the social structure that exists around the patient and continue after the consult question is answered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the types of work that jurists have historically undertaken and maps how opportunities for legal practice have been shaped by social origins across three centuries: after constitutional independence in the mid‐1800s, during industrial capitalism in the mid‐1900s, and at present‐day advanced capitalism. I analyze historical archive data on law graduates from the 19th and 20th centuries in combination with administrative registry data from the 1990s onwards and employ correspondence analysis to explore how social backgrounds shape careers, considering transformations in class structures and the changing significance of juridical expertise over time. Within each period, jurists have served in very different roles including those that craft and cater to the institutional make‐up of the state and the markets. My analysis shows that the impact of social origin on occupational outcomes has undergone significant changes, mirroring shifts in the broader social structure; from the importance of legal and political capital (within regional jurisdictions) in the 19th century to the significance of economic capital as the main structuring principle, but also a greater significance of cultural capital, in contemporary times. The ability to reach the most powerful positions among law graduates—within the polity in the 19th century, and the economy in the 21st century—has been differently structured by origins. I argue that expansion of the student body, the declining standing of the university, and heightened differentiation of the social structure and the juridical field have made intimate familiarity with the business world pivotal for forging mutually beneficial alliances between jurists and the increasingly dominant capitalist class. Today, a select group of jurists have managed to connect with and contribute to the rising power of private capital. Thus, the historical tale of jurists cannot be accurately captured by notions of uniform descent from national power structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do some movement parties successfully institutionalize into a functioning party organization while others struggle? This paper argues that not all movement parties institutionalize in the same way. Movement parties that emanate out of a long-term social movement organization face a qualitatively different set of challenges than those that form out of a short-term movement. Routinization—the process of parties developing rules, regulation, and predictable behavior—is a particularly crucial component for short-term movement party institutionalization. When parties emanate out of long-standing social movement organizations, they are advantaged because they already have existing formal rules and regulations. Short-term parties however, are disadvantaged because they lack these organizational structures. Further, short-term movement parties not only need routinization, but must make it a priority; the sequencing of their institutionalization matters. I demonstrate the importance of routinization with the case of Taiwan's New Power Party, a movement party formed out of the 2014 Sunflower Movement. This case shows how struggles to routinize early for short-term movement parties leads to crucial causal mechanisms hindering party institutionalization instead of helping it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we argue that the quiet ego, defined as an inclusive identity oriented toward long-term growth in desirable and adaptive ways for oneself and others, can be expressed and developed by participating in the social sphere. The objectives of this study are: 1) to analyze the measurement quality of the Quiet Ego Scale (QES) in a sample of Spanish individuals with different levels of prosocial participation (Study 1; N = 238); and 2) to analyze how the QES is related to participants' perceived benefits and costs and their intention to continue participating in prosocial activities, in a new sample of individuals who actively participate as volunteers, community leaders, activists, and so on (Study 2; N = 288). Our findings showed that the QES has adequate psychometric properties for use in samples of Spanish individuals who perform various social activities. Furthermore, the results suggest a positive chain of relationships, that is, a quiet ego is related to individuals' perception of three specific benefits associated with prosocial participation (Benefits from the activities, Benefits of giving, and Benefits of sharing with similar people), and these benefits to their intention to continue performing such activities. These findings can help non-profit organizations sustain social participation based on perceived personal benefits and the dimensions of a quiet ego. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The #metoo movement and various other social media campaigns have made sexual harassment increasingly visible in recent years. Such collective practices of naming and thereby resisting sexual harassment have been made possible by feminist discourses that have enabled the linking of personal experiences to gendered social structures. In this paper, we examine temporal shifts in young people's accounts of sexual harassment based on two datasets generated by 15-16-year-old girls and nonbinary people which were collected 20 years apart (2000 and 2021) in Finland. We draw on poststructuralist discourse theory, intersectionality and Sara Ahmed's writings on complaints in analysing the participants' positions in relation to sexual harassment. Notably, in the 2000 dataset, the participants emphasized individual agency and responsibility, whereas in the 2021 dataset, they acknowledged gendered and intersectional patterns in victimization and actively resisted victim-blaming and silencing. We conclude that the positions the participants held in the two datasets differ specifically in the extent to which they are informed by feminist discourses and the extent to which sexual harassment is seen as warranting and legitimating complaint. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United States, pregnant people considering a vaginal birth after cesarean delivery (VBAC) face this decision in a highly contested environment where VBAC is simultaneously encouraged—situated within discourses promoting vaginal birth—and discouraged through discourses emphasizing reproductive risk. Woven through these competing discourses is a shared emphasis on maternal responsibility, reflective of a socially constructed belief that birth method is bound implicitly to one's "goodness" as a mother. This paper employs a discursive analytic lens to examine the experiences of 16 pregnant people in New York City seeking VBACs for their upcoming births. We examine how sociocultural discourses of "responsible" mothering shape participants' experiences of considering VBAC and examine participants' anxieties over VBAC and its attainability in light of their past birth experiences. Our analysis demonstrates that participants reproduce discourses privileging vaginal birth, and simultaneously challenge these discourses by invoking an "embodied knowledge" that enables them to assert themselves as responsible mothers in the context of past cesarean deliveries and uncertainty surrounding their upcoming births. Implications are discussed in the context of existing literature on birth and discourses of maternal responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the contribution of Rose Laub Coser to sociological theory in the structural tradition. Laub Coser was one of the most successful women sociologists of her generation. She was born in Berlin in 1916 but left with her family in 1924 for Antwerp in Belgium, and went into exile in 1939 in New York. Thus, Laub Coser was familiar with many cultural worlds and languages. Although she primarily lived in the United States, the transnational influence of the metropolis of Berlin is manifest in her sociological work in several ways. Conceptually, this is relevant for Laub Coser's reception of Georg Simmel's Soziologie. In particular, her theory of the complexity of social roles as a seedbed of individual autonomy is founded on Simmel's theory of the importance of conflict and ambivalence for individualization. Her multiple experiences of emigration and exile influenced Laub Coser's work, including Women of Courage, an analysis of the social lives of Eastern European and Italian migrants in the metropolis of New York, and her internationally comparative studies on the family and women's rise in the labor market. Laub Coser investigated the social consequences of having multiple group affiliations and the conditions for such individuals in the cultural and social structure of modernity. In her transnationally comparative work of migrant cultures, she demonstrated the scope of her theory of role complexity. Contrary to images of migration bare of gender and culture, Laub Coser interprets the individuals she studied in Women of Courage as active agents of migration and provides insights on the influence that cultural definitions of situations have had toward creating the social structure of modern society. Starting from Robert K. Merton's role-set theory and integrating Simmel's analysis of forms of social differentiation, Laub Coser analyzed the conditions and consequences of multiple group affiliations, their observability, and the ambivalences in "cross-cutting social circles" (Simmel), which create conditions for developing individuality and individualism. The cultural mandate for women to be socialized toward the "greedy institution" of the family offers only restricted role-sets and opportunities for articulating social roles, constraining their social competencies as autonomous individuals. Despite the alienating and anomic consequences of role complexity, Laub Coser valued its liberating potential. Possibly this theoretical orientation was also influenced by her own experience as an immigrant, sociologist, and political activist in the socialist women's movement. The posthumously published study Women of Courage is based on a research project that began in the 1980s, comprising hundreds of qualitative interviews with women who had migrated to New York in the early 1920s, and who were at least 13 years old when they immigrated. The histories of these women demonstrate their role in enabling the social mobility of their families in the receiving society. They provided insights into how cultures change and how women migrants understood their lives in the New World. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a new class of allocation rules, which is referred to as the in-group egalitarian Owen values , that integrates two seemingly conflicting principles—marginalism and egalitarianism—in the framework of cooperative games with coalition structures. This class of allocation rules facilitates the use of different principles of allocation in different layers of a social structure such as allocation across coalitions and within a coalition. Therefore, each coalition can employ its specific distributive principle for intra-coalition distribution. Our main results provide axiomatic foundations for the class of allocation rules, in which monotonicity properties highlight the importance of the proposed solutions. We also show that various monotonicity properties generate various allocation rules, where the Owen value and the in-group egalitarian division value are special cases. These results extend the egalitarian Shapley values to the games with coalition structures and offer a rationale for monotonic allocation rules in the presence of social structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quest for a theory of cities that could offer a quantitative and systematic approach to managing cities represents a top priority. If such a theory is feasible, then its formulation must be in a mathematical way. As a contribution to organizing the mathematical ideas that deal with such a systematic way of understanding urban phenomena, we review the main theoretical models present in the literature that aim at explaining the origin and emergence of urban scaling. We intend to present the models, identify similarities and connections between them, and find situations in which different models lead to the same output. In addition, we report situations where some ideas initially introduced in a particular model can also be introduced in another one, generating more diversification and increasing the scope of the original works. The models treated in this paper explain urban scaling from different premises, i.e. from gravity ideas, densification and cites' geometry to a hierarchical organization and social network properties. We also investigate scenarios in which these different fundamental ideas could be interpreted as similar — where the similarity is likely but not obvious. Furthermore, concerning the gravity model, we propose a general framework that includes all analyzed models as particular cases. We conclude the paper by discussing perspectives of this field and how future research designs and schools of thought can build on the ideas treated here. • We review the mathematical models which explain the emergence of urban scaling. • We identify similarities and connections between these models. • Models consider different premises, e.g. gravity ideas, cities' geometry, and network properties. • Regarding the gravity idea, we propose a general framework [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has two objectives. It aims, firstly, to provide an overview of the explanatory dilemmas that J.M. Coetzee highlights in his acclaimed essay "The mind of apartheid" in respect of existing theories of apartheid ideology. It then makes recourse, secondly, to a series of concepts in Lacanian psychoanalysis so as to shed light on these dilemmas. Two questions seem to particularly vex Coetzee. Firstly, where should we seek to locate agency in respect of apartheid ideology: predominantly on the side of the subject or predominantly the side of structure? Secondly, if we need to appeal both to subject and structure, then how are we to understand the relation between these two factors in the workings of apartheid ideology? By means of Lacanian conceptualisation, the paper supplements and extends Coetzee's argument according to which the notion of desire is central to understanding the spread and hold of apartheid ideology. The paper then moves on to elaborate a Lacanian understanding of ideological agency which accounts for the relation between subject and structure (or, in Lacanian terms, subject and the symbolic Other) and does so by thinking apartheid as a transaction of desire and/or lack between the two. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a framework for understanding the role of member-based, politically active 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations in U.S. civil society. Tax-exempt social welfare (501(c)(4)) organizations make up the second largest group of nonprofit organizations in the United States. Among them are a mix of membership organizations, social clubs, professional associations, and advocates that are permitted to lobby and engage in partisan political activities. Informed by the literature, case study research, and a dataset of politically active 501(c)(4) organizations, we identify categories of politically active (c)(4) organizations involved in electoral and policy change actions including national advocacy organizations, local and state member organizations, (c)(4) funders, and shell entities. We discuss four analytic considerations that can guide future research on member-based, politically active organizations including (1) engagement activities, (2) organizational characteristics, (3) context, and (4) outcomes. We then provide an example of how we have applied this approach to a subset of organizations that build civic leadership and political capacity in communities that have experienced structural inequality and racism. We explain how these organizations engage members in grassroots organizing and advocacy strategies in order to impact elections and policy change. By explaining how the (c)(4) structure can enable organizations to involve members in political action, we enhance theoretical understanding of politically active (c)(4)s as mediating structures of political engagement. The paper concludes with proposed avenues for further empirical investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how Indian migrant families in Dubai actively sustain mobile livelihoods across the Indian Ocean and beyond, paying attention to the role played by education in the unfolding of such migrant lives. This paper aims to nuance the experiences of Gulf migrants that have broadly focused on systemic vulnerabilities produced by the legal, economic and social structures encountered in Gulf destinations. This paper builds on the stories of three families from the southern Indian state of Kerala with diverse mobility trajectories over time and space, which is conceptualized in relation to the practice of specific livelihoods, focusing on the patterns and impacts of mobility at different life stages and across generations. Literature engaging with the migration‐education nexus, which reveals that education is an integral part of mobile livelihoods worldwide, provides an analytical backdrop. The paper shows distinct ways in which education forms a crucial part of complex agendas, informing family migration to and from the Gulf region. Furthermore, it captures how migrants' educational agendas are continuously being adjusted in processes of migration, and how this relates to the ongoing transformation of individual and collective social identities and the remaking of mobile livelihoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper starts with the observation that at least for the last century there has been an orthodoxy in the social sciences characterized by sui generis structures of various kinds but also (paradoxically) by the unique role of individuals in their ability to intervene in the flow of events. This paper argues that there is a commonality to a number of challenges to orthodoxy that dates back to the beginnings of the social sciences themselves with Vico. Although many connections have been made between elements of these critiques (Latour's connection to Whitehead, Deleuze's connection to Tarde), this paper proposes to make such connections more explicit by focusing on a central commitment to or tendency towards a monism characterized by a univocal ontology. The implication is that these various alternatives perhaps have more in common than normally thought and can continue to learn from each other. Most importantly, they present a coherent and viable alternative to social science orthodoxy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The topic of the paper is the relationship between social stratification based on occupational classes and the mechanisms of social integration. This was analysed using quantitative data collected in 2015, 2018 and 2021. We sought answers to how we can better understand the interaction of social and integration positions, as well as the functioning of complex integration mechanisms. In the examined six years, a definite stabilisation took place in the integration indicators of the occupational groups: this means that the indicators of occupational groups in some integration dimensions became closer. It is also part of our research results that there is an interpretable correlation between the hierarchy of occupational groups and the examined integration mechanisms: political participation, number of weak ties, subjective social exclusion, and the acceptance of norm violation. The upper strata of the occupational class model (mostly entrepreneurs, managers, professionals, and other white-collar workers) consistently reported more weak ties, less of a sense of exclusion, and greater political participation. We also found consistent yet opposing results for the lower strata, mainly among the unemployed and those in unskilled and semi-skilled work linked to lower-level qualifications. Increasing stabilisation and the impact of the hierarchy of occupational groups are simultaneous integrational characteristics of Hungarian society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital transformation goes beyond digitalization to make radical changes to organisational models and social structures. It takes people with knowledge, skills and motivation to use ICTs to be able to carry out digital transformation. Human capital is seen to be the key for effective digital transformation as it can fuel sustainable development when people use ICTs to lead the lives they choose to live. Unless there is a transformation in capabilities, access to ICTs, requisite skills and knowledge, then digital transformation will merely exacerbate existing inequalities. It will need to touch personal psychology: not merely enabling the marginalised to participate but offering them the ability use digitalization to improve their lives. The human capital key to digital transformation is offered as a means of attaining positive cycles of sustainable development. Lessons learned from papers in this issue throw insight into ways of applying digital technologies to overcome forces of oppression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public debates on linguistic integration as a socially desired outcome often share a prevailing sentiment that newcomers ought to "learn the language." But the intensity of that sentiment is rarely accompanied by an equally robust understanding of what, precisely, it means in practice. This results in a notion of linguistic integration with an inbuilt tension between a seemingly pragmatic and commonsensical appearance, on the one hand, and a minimal action‐guidance capacity, on the other hand. This paper explores this intriguing tension, and it identifies three moral and practical challenges that this challenge presents to the normative theorizing of the practical ethics of linguistic integration: (1) a predicament of arbitrary treatment; (2) the interpersonal structure of social and linguistic learning; and (3) the affective dimension of linguistic integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a case study from southwest Colombia, this paper provides hopeful example of an intercultural social movement popular education initiative which brings together social movements across territorial, political and cultural borders in order to generate unity and collaboration between these counter-hegemonic forces in the southwest of Colombia. It examines the learning and knowledge which have emerged from this initiative, led by a small, radical human rights organisation called Nomadesc, which over the course of two decades has brought together activists from diverse movements and territories across southwest Colombia in order to empower them to deal with the violent context, reimagine alternatives, and strengthen and interweave their struggles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of the cultural turn, there has been a gradual shift in the theorization of African religions, from the static structural-functionalist oriented models, towards the insertion of agency. This new approach foregrounds the intentional actions of individuals, or collective actors, to create meaning when confronted with external cultural ideas. The African, therefore, is treated as an active agent capable of manipulating and inventing new religious possibilities, rather than being a puppet of a rigid social structure. This paper is cast in this mould. It examines the agentic role played by the Pokot as they navigated the cultural challenges presented to them by western Christianity during the British colonial rule in Kenya. However, because the agentic power to authorize meaning is never uniformly distributed in any society, this article highlights the central role played by Lukas Pkech in mediating the cultural conflict between the indigenous Pokot religion and western Christianity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]