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The paper analyzes the presentation of management content in education in pedagogical journals in Serbia. Journals were selected for the analysis from the list of categorized domestic journals of psychology, pedagogy, andragogy and special education. The temporal sample of the analysis was set for the period of the last 10 years. The basic starting point of the analysis are the papers that contain in their title explicitly mentioned terms that refer precisely to the context of the concept of management in pedagogy (management, editing, leadership, system management, management, economics, leadership). The mentioned semantic context also represents the basic unit of analysis of the mentioned contents. The analysis of the journals in the field of education according to the mentioned criteria leads to the conclusion that the number of articles in this field is significantly lower than the articles dealing with general pedagogical issues. This results in the need for a more precise scientific definition of the status of management in education and a systematization of the contents in connection with the aforementioned theoretical framework.

International business research has provided substantial empirical evidence that foreign firms investing in countries with adverse environmental conditions may emerge as the main competitors in those countries. Against this backdrop, the dominance of local banks in Nigeria is puzzling. Our exploratory study, designed to investigate this inconsistency, revealed that managers of foreign and local banks perceive Nigeria's environmental resources differently and, consequently, respond to them with different strategic choices that lead to different performance outcomes. Building on environmental psychology theory, we theorize the mechanisms by which foreignness affects perceptions and the ways in which these perceptions guide strategic choices. The study makes novel contributions to IB theory by blending insights from environmental psychology with theories of international business and employing individual-level analysis to supplement the firm-level analyses that have dominated preceding studies. The research enabled us to shed light on different explanatory variables than those commonly employed in international business research and to explain the puzzle that triggered our interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Limite is the property of Universidad de Tarapaca, Departamento de Filosofia y Psicologia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

While child development is well‐recognized as a complex process which could hardly be decomposed into separate lines or domains in contemporary psychological theories, the decomposition approach is widely used in empirical studies. Based on the cultural‐historical theory, this study argues for adopting the unit of analysis as a way to bridge this gap, and finds "role adjustment" as a suitable unit to analyse child development during the transition to school. The case of a 5‐year‐old second‐generation Chinese Australian child's transition to school (with a total of 34 h of observation and 5 h of interview) is presented to verify its feasibility and to illustrate how it could be achieved in a research practice. The case study demonstrates that a child's role adjustment is in essence a process of transforming his/her role system, during which his/her major roles, the relation of the major roles, as well as his/her role‐taking patterns change as a whole, and by tracing a child's role adjustment trajectory, how the child is learning and developing, what difficulties he/she encounter, and why these difficulties appear become clear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assemblage and actor-network theories explain how markets and consumption are constituted by heterogeneous resources that form part-whole relations at various scales. Marketing and consumer research studies that use these theories, however, often retain human-centred scales and units of analysis, such that objects and forces that exist at unfamiliar (time)scales are overlooked. This paper explains how Object-Oriented Ontology can help to guide ontological, methodological, and analytical considerations in studies of market and consumption assemblages. We offer a framework that helps researchers to consider how far researchers should unpack assemblages into component parts; to what extent studies should trace objects' effects as part of wider contexts; how 'objects' may harbour qualities that are withdrawn from social contexts; and how these hidden features can be encountered through speculative methods. Finally, we critically discuss the place of objects and subjects in socio-material research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of collostructional analysis or, more precisely, simple collexeme analysis, is to quantify the statistical association between a construction c and a lexeme l that occurs in a particular slot of the construction. The analysis is based on 2×2 contingency tables that ought to represent a cross-classification of the units of analysis. So far, the units of analysis have been identified either as all constructions in the corpus or all instances of a class C of constructions to which construction c belongs. In practice, it is often not possible or feasible to identify these constructions. Therefore, the sample size is typically approximated by heuristic estimates. The bottom-right cell of the contingency table is most affected by these approximations. I suggest that the units of analysis be defined on the word level, instead, as the class W of word forms that satisfy the restrictions on the collexeme slot of c. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to explore the diffusion of information systems (IS) in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as a multifaceted and open social phenomenon, by considering the role and effects of complementary adoptions -in terms of other innovations and their adopters- on the adoption of the IS -focal adoptions. We conceptualised adoption as a staged process (agenda-setting, matching, implementing, restructuring, clarifying, routinising and infusion) and used multiple case studies to guide the fieldwork and analysis. We found that the outcome, timing, and flow of the stages of the focal processes were affected by intricate and multilevel systems of mutually dependent complementary adoptions of innovations and non-innovations by a diversity of adopters, which ultimately determined the results of the focal adoptions. Our constructs define an alternative unit of analysis that provides a comprehensive and realistic view of the possibilities of effectively diffusing IS in SMEs. This emphasises the need to rethink the objects of study, agency functions, theoretical frameworks, and research approaches if we are to understand systems and design and implement system interventions, including public policies.

This article argues that Immanuel Wallerstein’s world-system approach was instrumental in revealing sociology’s theoretical and methodological blind spots and in formulating a comprehensive framework for the study of global inequalities. In doing so, it anticipated both the critique of Eurocentrism and methodological nationalism put forth by transnational and postcolonial approaches as well as the debates over the rise in global inequalities by several decades. I trace this analytical primacy to several factors: first, to world-systems analysis’ methodological shift from the nation-state to the entire capitalist world-economy as an early global sociology; second, to the relation between the methodological shift to the epistemological critique and their role in Wallerstein’s early approach to global inequalities. Finally, I address the relationship between the self-definition of world-systems analysis as a form of protest against mainstream social science (rather than as a theory) and the theoretical and political filiations with postcolonial and decolonial approaches in order to show how they contributed together to the prominence of global inequalities as a topic.

This study compared 2 units of analysis for assessing acquisition mastery during sight word instruction for 3 participants. The unit of analysis refers to the specific performances that criteria are applied to, either sets of stimuli or individual operants. In the Set Analysis condition, we applied the acquisition‐performance criterion to the aggregated accuracy of a set of 4 target operants. In the Operant Analysis (OA) condition, we assessed the criterion for individual operants and replaced targets as they met the acquisition criterion. All participants acquired novel textual responses to sight words faster under the OA condition and response maintenance was similar between conditions. This study extended previous research by showing enhanced response maintenance in the OA condition by increasing the performance criterion from 1 observation of 100% accuracy to 2. This study also suggests a unique contribution of OA to quickening learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that world-systems analysis was instrumental in revealing sociology’s theoretical and methodological blind spots and in formulating a comprehensive framework for the study of global inequalities. In doing so, it anticipated both the critique of Eurocentrism and methodological nationalism put forth by transnational and postcolonial approaches, as well as the debates over the rise in global inequalities by several decades. I trace this analytical primacy to several factors: first, to world-systems analysis’ methodological shift from the nation-state to the entire capitalist world-economy as an early global sociology and, second, to the relation between the methodological shift to the epistemological critique and their role in Wallerstein’s early approach to global inequalities. Finally, I address the relationship between the self-definition of world-systems analysis as a form of protest against mainstream social science (rather than as a theory) and the theoretical and political filiations with postcolonial and decolonial approaches in order to show how they both contributed to the prominence of global inequalities as a topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The circular economy aims to minimize resource inputs and waste and emission outputs of the economy and its organizational subsystems. This can benefit both financial and sustainability performance of companies. To analyze industrial implementation of the concept, the prevalent unit of analysis on the firm level is currently the circular business model. Our investigation of nine Swedish biogas companies and one branch organization indicates a range of conceptual shortcomings that challenges this approach. Our comparative case analysis points towards circular ecosystems being a more appropriate concept to describe the high level of coordination between different stakeholders necessary to implement circular systems. This increases the suitability to analyze, plan, and communicate circular economy systems on an organizational level, especially if value chain integration is low. An ecosystem perspective can thus support innovation and entrepreneurship in the context of the circular economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes the historical stages of exploring the concept of “giftedness” which reflect principally different understandings of this term, but nowadays are considered as the alternatives. The 1st stage: during the Medieval Period, the term “giftedness” is introduced for the first time ever and it explains the ability of a man to create (the God has given the gift). The 2nd stage: during the Renaissance period, the emergence of the wage labour puts an issue of assessing the presence and the height of abilities. The dependence of the product on the giftedness as high/low abilities is postulated. The 3rd stage: in the philosophy of the Modern Period, in the framework of dialectics, the concept of the process is developed and the levels of cognition as the main, generic ability of a human are defined, therefore the giftedness as an issue is missing. The 4th stage: beginning from the middle of the 19th century, due to the split in the philosophical directions and the demands of the psychometric paradigm, giftedness is reduced to the height of intellect and, subsequently, to the height of any abilities. The 5th stage: the emergence of the theory of giftedness based on the advanced methodology introduced to psychology by Vygotsky.

Aim/Purpose The purpose of this article is to present clear definitions of the population structures essential to research, to provide examples of how these structures are described within research, and to propose a basic structure that novice researchers may use to ensure a clearly and completely defined population of interest and sample from which they will collect data. Background Novice researchers, especially doctoral students, experience challenges when describing and distinguishing between populations and samples. Clearly defining and describing research structural elements, to include populations and the sample, provides needed scaffolding to doctoral students. Methodology The systematic review of 65 empirical research articles and research texts provided peer-reviewed support for presenting consistent population- and samplerelated definitions and exemplars. Contribution This article provides clear definitions of the population structures essential to research, with examples of how these structures, beginning with the unit of analysis, are described within research. With this defined, we examine the population subsets and what characterizes them. The proposed writing structure provides doctoral students a model for developing the relevant population and sample descriptions in their dissertations and other research. Findings The article describes that although many definitions and uses are relatively consistent within the literature, there are epistemological differences between research designs that do not allow for a one-size-fits-all definition for all terms. We provide methods for defining populations and the sample, selecting a sample from the population, and the arguments for and against each of the methods. Recommendations for Practitioners Social science research faculty seek structured ways in which to present key research elements to doctoral students and to provide a model by which they may write the dissertation. The article offers contemporary examples from the peerreviewed literature to support these aims. Recommendations for Researchers Novice researchers may wish to use the recommended framework within this article when developing the relevant section of the dissertation. Doing so provides an itemized checklist of writing descriptions, ensuring a more complete and comprehensive description of the study population and sample. Impact on Society The scientific method provides a consistent methodological approach to researching and presenting research. By reemphasizing the definitions and applications of populations and samples in research, and by providing a writing structure that doctoral students may model in their own writing, the article supports doctoral students' growth and development in using the scientific method. Future Research Future researchers may wish to further advance novice researcher knowledge in developing models to guide dissertation writing. Future studies may focus on other essential areas of research, including studies about recruitment methods and attrition strategies, data collection procedures, and overall research alignment. Additionally, future researchers may wish to consider evaluating doctoral student foundational knowledge about populations and samples as part of the research process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents central ideas and future challenges of cultural-historical activity theory, focusing specifically on the work of the so-called Helsinki school of activity theory. We first introduce the revolutionary roots of the theory in the works of Marx and Vygotsky, and the evolution of the unit of analysis through different generations of activity theory. We then discuss the foundational role of historicity and dialectics in activity theory. We identify two central epistemological-methodological principles that guide activity-theoretical studies, namely the principle of double stimulation and the principle of ascending from the abstract to the concrete. These principles lead us to emphasize formative interventions as a powerful way to conduct societally impactful activity-theoretical research. We conclude by pointing out some major challenges facing activity theory in the 21st century.

The analysis and proposal of Zagaria, Andò and Zennaro are suggestive, but the essential question is not raised: the need for scientific research to be explicitly based on an epistemological reflection that takes into account the specificity of psychology. In the first and second parts of my comment, I will justify the need for epistemological reflection in psychology, and in the third part, I will analyze, by means of an example, why the option of adopting the principles of evolutionary psychology does not guarantee greater theoretical coherence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stakeholders of language tests are often interested in subscores. However, reporting a subscore is not always justified; a subscore should provide reliable and distinct information to be worth reporting. When a subscore is used for decisions across multiple levels (e.g., individual test takers and schools), it needs to be justified for its reliability and distinctiveness at every relevant level. In this study, we examined whether reporting seven Reading and Listening subscores of the TOEFL Primary ® test, a standardized English proficiency test for young English as a foreign language learners, could be justified for reporting at individual and school levels. We analyzed data collected in pilot administrations, in which 4776 students from 51 schools participated. We employed the classical test theory (CTT) based approaches of Haberman (2008) and Haberman, Sinharay, and Puhan (2009) for the individual and school-level investigations, respectively. We also supplemented the CTT-based approaches with a factor analytic approach for the individual level analysis and a multilevel modeling approach for the school-level analysis. The results differed across the two levels: we found little support for reporting the subscores at the individual level, but strong evidence supporting the added-value of the school-level subscores when the sample size for each school exceeds 50. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diversity and representativeness are two enriching components of an academic field and for quite some time, Management Information Systems (MIS) researchers have been advocating for more studies on them. The objective of this study is to investigate the extent to which survey-based research articles reflect diversity in MIS research and to evaluate representativeness in journals in the MIS field. Diversity is a multifaceted concept that can be delineated along several constructs such as diversity in research approach, diversity in theories, and diversity in research methods. Survey research is the dominant research method in the MIS field accounting for 32–41% of published empirical research studies. In this study, diversity is conceptualized and explored through six factors that are easily identifiable in a survey-based research article namely the unit of analysis, research topics, type of respondents, number of authors, number of schools of authors, and number of country of authors. The study makes use of a set of 1466 survey-based research articles published over 21 years in 15 mainstream MIS journals in Europe and the USA to study diversity and representativeness using Tsallis entropy and Chi-Square statistics. The results present an overview of the state of the MIS survey-based research in Europe and the USA while also revealing that MIS researchers are predominantly gathering survey data from business executives at the firm and individual units of analysis in both regions. Overall, we find dominant categories (top 2) emerge for each factor as they relate to diversity both in Europe and the USA with three factors having the same dominant categories indicating that diversity continues to elude the MIS research field. The results have implications for both research and practice in the MIS field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Working Papers on Culture, Education & Human Development / Papeles de Trabajo Sobre Cultura, Educacion y Desarrollo Humano is the property of Papeles de Trabajo Sobre Cultura, Educacion y Desarrollo Humano and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines the importance of the dialectical method in Vygotsky’s research on verbal thinking. Specifically, it demonstrates the relationship between the unit of analysis in Thinking and Speech and the dialectical method followed by Marx in Capital, along with presenting the different stages of a child’s thinking (syncretism, complexive thinking and conceptual thinking) that emerged as a result of Vygotsky’s historical–logical research. Ultimately, this article argues that Vygotsky’s Thinking and Speech is compatible with Marxism and activity theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International marketing research plays a vital role as firms expand globally. Yet limited attention has been paid to the conceptual underpinnings of research needed to guide expansion. This article focuses on these issues and specifically examines the conceptual framework that guides research, the geographic units of analysis, and the constructs. The authors suggest two alternative approaches to organizing cross-cultural research: the adapted etic and the linked emic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The units of analysis historians and geographers use dictate what questions are asked, which stories are told and eventually which patterns emerge. Units of analysis are framing tools that help scholars identify global patterns. By focusing on seas and ocean basins, one can bring out the processes of interaction that link peoples living in the various regions around a sea and ocean basin. Nowadays, as Global History is emerging as a new historical paradigm and as a form of “global geography” is being taught in French high schools, the Indian Ocean framework, like the Mediterranean Sea decades ago with historians such as Fernand Braudel, is commonly used to explain the early development of global trade networks and regional cross-cultural interactions in what is commonly referred to as the “Old World”, as opposed to the “New World” “discovered” by Christopher Columbus in 1492. This article deals with this recent and unprecedented use of the Indian Ocean as a global framework for historical and geographical analysis in teaching and research fields and explains why teaching about the Indian Ocean world as a zone of dynamic interaction between peoples makes more pedagogical, historical and geographical sense than teaching about it through traditionally delineated national or continental units in a globalized world. It also discusses the limitations of the use of such a broad unit of analysis and the potential consequences of a teleological bias that prompts historians and teachers to try integrating the human past into a comprehensive big picture that emphasises the shared experiences of all humans sometimes at the expense of a somewhat traditional historiography, focusing on the idea that the human past is marked by important differences between peoples across space and time. The conclusion assesses how global historians and geographers are attempting to reconcile the idea of an increasing integration at the global scale with that of proliferating difference at the local and regional scales and envisages the ways in which they can construct and teach a global historical and geographical narrative of the past and of our contemporary world that may help students understand the growing complexities and challenges of globalization, including global environmental issues such as the building of a sustainable future for all.

Taking the example of teaching mathematical modelling in university degrees, this paper focuses on how the unit of analysis adopted by different research frameworks in mathematics education transforms a teaching problem into a research one. The transformation starts by including a specific way of conceiving not only the activity of modelling but also its possible evolutions and connections with more general mathematical or scientific activities. This epistemological dimension of the research problem can be enlarged by what we call the ecological dimension, that is, the set of conditions and constraints that allow or hinder the existence of specific mathematical activities, such as modelling, as normalised school practices, in particular, at the university. The institutional perspective adopted by the Anthropological Theory of the Didactic integrates both dimensions. This integration leads to the formulation of new research questions in the domain of modelling and applications and provides new tools to address them systematically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of metacontingency has been used to understand cultural selection and how organisms behave in groups. Despite constant refinements to its definition, the term has still been used to describe either a unit of analysis, a procedure, or even one or more processes. Based mainly on experimental studies, this paper clarifies those elements and proposes terms to deal with them. The culturant is the unit of analysis typically employed in experiments on this matter, and it is fundamental to differentiate descriptive culturants (interlocking behavioral contingencies defined by their environmental effect, i.e., their aggregate product) and functional culturants (classes of interlocking behavioral contingencies under control of cultural consequences). We argue that the term metacontingency should refer to the procedure of arranging a conditional relation between a culturant and a cultural consequence. The processes of cultural selection can be defined based on the effect of environmental events (e.g., cultural consequences) on characteristics (e.g., frequency) of the culturant and can be directly described as changes in culturants (e.g., culturant increase and culturant decrease). This terminology can improve conceptual precision in the area of cultural selection and facilitate clear communication in interpretative or quasi-experimental studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The need to study digital innovation at societal levels beyond organizations. • The systems of innovation as units of analysis and an integrative conceptual base. • Critical realism as the philosophical stance of systems of innovation. • The staged model to study the structure of the systems of innovation. • The morphogenetic approach to study the evolution of the systems of innovation. This study addresses calls to expand the boundaries of digital innovation research at multiple levels of society to comprehensively study the structure and evolution of innovation processes and outcomes. We contribute by proposing a framework composed of systems of innovation (SIs) 1 Systems of innovation (SIs). 1 as an alternative and holistic conceptual base and unit of analysis, which accounts for the interconnected components located beyond the organizational microenvironments that ultimately affect innovation in organizations. Given the compatibility of SIs and the ontology of critical realism (CR) 2 Critical realism (CR). 2 as well as some flaws in SI research practice, we also use critical realist research approaches to guide the study of the state and transformation of SIs. We further explain the joint use of SIs and CR by applying them to the area of information systems innovation diffusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an attempt to show possible ways to unpack the theoretical content of the concept of perezhivanie by clarifying the place and role of this concept within cultural-historical theory and examining the connections of this concept with other concepts, principles, and laws of the theory. There is an important distinction between the two meanings of perezhivanie presented in Vygotsky’s original texts — perezhivanie as a psychological phenomena/process which can be empirically observed and studied (P1) and perezhivanie as a concept, a theoretical tool for analysis of the process of development (P2). This distinction is an important step forward in developing the generative understanding of the concept of perezhivanie within the cultural-historical theoretical framework. Perezhivanie as a concept is not about a phenomenon how the particular child interprets, understands and relates to a certain situation. Perezhivanie as a concept is not about what the particular child experiences in a particular situation. Perezhivanie as a concept has its own theoretical content within the theory. Questions on clarification and methodological meditations are in line with Vygotsky’s ideas on perezhivanie as a concept, which relates to (1) the process of development; (2) the role on social environment and (3) the laws of development.