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På gränsen mellan ordning och oordning - artefakternas betydelse vid marknadsombildningar : en studie av den svenska postmarknadens ombildningMattsson, Susanna January 2004 (has links)
Marknadiseringen av det svenska postväsendet iscensattes genom en omregleringsprocess i början av 1990-talet. Det visade sig snart att en rad problem uppstod när det gällde att skapa villkor för en fungerande konkurrens på lika villkor mellan Posten och övriga aktörer. Några av dessa problem avsåg postboxsystemet, postnummersystemet och Postens prissättningssystem. Dessa blev föremål för myndigheters och andra aktörers ansträngningar att via omreglering och regeltillämpning påverka förutsättningarna för övergång från statligt monopol till fungerande marknad när det gäller brevförmedling. I boken beskrivs och analyseras marknadiseringen som en konstruktionsprocess som inte bara sätts igång genom en inledande regelförändring utan som kontinuerligt kräver insatser avseende regeltillämpning och omreglering. Bland de myndigheter som involveras är Sveriges Regering och Riksdag, Konkurrensverket, Stockholms Tingsrätt, Marknadsdomstolen och Post- och Telestyrelsen. I avhandlingen används den s.k. aktör-nätverksansatsen (ANT, Actor Network Theory) som analysmetod. Särskild hänsyn tas i ANT till den roll som artefakter, och i vilka sammanhang de är inkopplade, har för sociala förändringar i vidsträckt mening. Studien visar hur de ovannämnda artefakterna, dvs. postboxsystemet, postnummersystemet och Postens prissättningssystem rekonfigureras genom normeringspraktiken men också att det är svårt att åstadkomma en stabil ordning. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2004
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Network Externalities in Developing EconomicsComola, Margherita 11 June 2008 (has links)
Esta tesis consta de tres ensayos basados en microeconometria, teoria de redes y desarrollo económico. En los primeros dos me focalizo en paises en desarrollo (Tanzania y Nepal respectivamente) por estudiar como los habitantes de zonas rurales forman redes sociales, y cómo la existencia de estos lazos informales afecta su bienestar. El tercer ensayo se centra en el comercio internacional de armas e investiga si la orientación política del gobierno tiene un impacto sobre la politica de exportacion de armamentos. / This thesis contains three essays on microeconometrics, networks and economic development. In the first two essays I focus on developing country settings (Tanzania and Nepal respectively) to study how rural villagers form their social networks, and how the existence of these informal links impacts their welfare. The third essay focuses on the international trade of weapons to investigate whether the political orientation of government in power makes any difference to arms export policy.
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Success factors for new business start-up in Hong Kong: a study of the external networks of small business start-upMa, Victor Kee Kin January 2009 (has links)
Most small new firms face problems in surviving the gestation process and achieving a viable performance thereafter because of the very fact of their smallness and newness. Due to a lack of internal resources, entrepreneurs of small new firms find it necessary to seek resources from outside the firm through their external social network. The theory of social capital that prescribes valuable resources are embedded in social relations is, thus, particularly relevant to the small business start-up situation. The embedded resources within an external network are hypothesized to have a positive impact on the business performance of these new firms. The main objective of the present study is to empirically investigate the impact of external networks, and in particular the initial social network of entrepreneurs, to the success of small firm start-up in Hong Kong. The second objective is to determine whether there is any interaction effect of the entrepreneur’s networking capability with the external network structure on the start-up success of small Hong Kong firms. / To carry out the research, this study offers a conceptual model linking initial network start-up success to initial network structure of start-up, and including an interaction effect from the entrepreneur’s networking capability. The study operationalizes social capital in four types of network constructs: network size, trustworthiness, network support and network diversity. A series of hypotheses relating to these four dimensions asserting external network determinants of the start-up success of small firms is posited. Other hypotheses which assert the interaction effect between an entrepreneur’s networking capability and the initial network structure on the success of small firm start-up, are also posited. A field survey, administered to 1,000 small Hong Kong firms of various industries, is used to gather the data. The questionnaire survey was developed in two languages – Chinese and English – to ensure a good level of understanding in the bilingual business environment of Hong Kong. Of the 1,000 questionnaires dispatched, a final sample of 89 small firms was used to empirically test the hypotheses using multiple regression analysis and multiple hierarchical regression analysis. Control variables such as entrepreneurs’ experiences and education prior to the firm start-up are included. / Empirical results indicate that the verification of social capital theory’s prescription for start-up success cannot be supported unequivocally. The results suggest that some initial network conditions such as initial size of strong tie network, network support and network diversity are positively associated with some measures of start-up success, but trustworthiness of network ties and the size of weak tie network do not figure among them. No evidence is found to support that entrepreneurs’ networking capability can positively enhance the effect of the initial network structure on start-up success. Overall, the study raises some questions on the positive linear relationship of certain operationalized constructs such as network size and trustworthiness of social capital with start-up success. Following the findings of this research, future studies may choose to further investigate social capital theory on small start-up success by refining the operationalization of social capital, and verify other interaction effects of entrepreneurs’ networking capabilities.
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A Hubterranean View of Syntax: An Analysis of Linguistic Form through Network TheoryJulie Louise Steele Unknown Date (has links)
Language is part of nature, and as such, certain general principles that generate the form of natural systems, will also create the patterns found within linguistic form. Since network theory is one of the best theoretical frameworks for extracting general principles from diverse systems, this thesis examines how a network perspective can shed light on the characteristics and the learning of syntax. It is demonstrated that two word co-occurrence networks constructed from adult and child speech (BNC World Edition 2001; Sachs 1983; MacWhinney 2000a) exhibit three non-atomic syntactic primitives namely, the truncated power law distributions of frequency, degree and the link length between two nodes (the link representing a precedence relation). Since a power law distribution of link lengths characterises a hubterranean structure (Kasturirangan 1999) i.e. a structure that has a few highly connected nodes and many poorly connected nodes, both the adult and the child word co-occurrence networks exhibit hubterranean structure. This structure is formed by an optimisation process that minimises the link length whilst maximising connectivity (Mathias & Gopal 2001 a&b). The link length in a word co-occurrence network is the storage cost of representing two adjacently co-occurring words and is inversely proportion to the transitional probability (TP) of the word pair. Adjacent words that co-occur often together i.e. have a high TP, exhibit a high cohesion and tend to form chunks. These chunks are a cost effective method of storing representations. Thus, on this view, the (multi-) power law of link lengths represents the distribution of storage costs or cohesions within adjacent words. Such cohesions form groupings of linguistic form known as syntactic constituents. Thus, syntactic constituency is not specific to language and is a property derived from the optimisation of the network. In keeping with other systems generated by a cost constraint on the link length, it is demonstrated that both the child and adult word co-occurrence networks are not hierarchically organised in terms of degree distribution (Ravasz and Barabási 2003:1). Furthermore, both networks are disassortative, and in line with other disassortative networks, there is a correlation between degree and betweenness centrality (BC) values (Goh, Kahng and Kim 2003). In agreement with scale free networks (Goh, Oh, Jeong, Kahng and Kim 2002), the BC values in both networks follow a power law distribution. In this thesis, a motif analysis of the two word co-occurrence networks is a richly detailed (non-functional) distributional analysis and reveals that the adult and child significance profiles for triad subgraphs correlate closely. Furthermore, the most significant 4-node motifs in the adult network are also the most significant in the child network. Utilising this non-functional distributional analysis in a word co-occurrence network, it is argued that the notion of a general syntactic category is not evidenced and as such is inadmissible. Thus, non-general or construction-specific categories are preferred (in line with Croft 2001). Function words tend to be the hub words of the network (see Ferrer i Cancho and Solé 2001a), being defined and therefore identified by their high type and token frequency. These properties are useful for identifying syntactic categories since function words are traditionally associated with particular syntactic categories (see Cann 2000). Consequently, a function word and thus a syntactic category may be identified by the interception of the frequency and degree power laws with their truncated tails. As a given syntactic category captures the type of words that may co-occur with the function word, the category then encourages consistency within the functional patterns in the network and re-enforces the network’s (near-) optimised state. Syntax then, on this view, is both a navigator, manoeuvring through the ever varying sea of linguistic form and a guide, forging an uncharted course through novel expression. There is also evidence suggesting that the hubterranean structure is not only found in the word co-occurrence network, but within other theoretical syntactic levels. Factors affecting the choice of a verb that is generalised early relate to the formation and the characteristics of hubs. In that, the property of a high (token) frequency in combination with either a high degree (type frequency) or a low storage cost, point to certain verbs within the network and these highly ‘visible’ verbs tend to be generalised early (in line with Boyd and Goldberg forthcoming). Furthermore, the optimisation process that creates hubterranean structure is implicated in the verb-construction subpart network of the adult’s linguistic knowledge, the mapping of the constructions’ form-to-meaning pairings, the construction inventory size as well as certain strategies aiding first language learning and adult artificial language learning.
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A Hubterranean View of Syntax: An Analysis of Linguistic Form through Network TheoryJulie Louise Steele Unknown Date (has links)
Language is part of nature, and as such, certain general principles that generate the form of natural systems, will also create the patterns found within linguistic form. Since network theory is one of the best theoretical frameworks for extracting general principles from diverse systems, this thesis examines how a network perspective can shed light on the characteristics and the learning of syntax. It is demonstrated that two word co-occurrence networks constructed from adult and child speech (BNC World Edition 2001; Sachs 1983; MacWhinney 2000a) exhibit three non-atomic syntactic primitives namely, the truncated power law distributions of frequency, degree and the link length between two nodes (the link representing a precedence relation). Since a power law distribution of link lengths characterises a hubterranean structure (Kasturirangan 1999) i.e. a structure that has a few highly connected nodes and many poorly connected nodes, both the adult and the child word co-occurrence networks exhibit hubterranean structure. This structure is formed by an optimisation process that minimises the link length whilst maximising connectivity (Mathias & Gopal 2001 a&b). The link length in a word co-occurrence network is the storage cost of representing two adjacently co-occurring words and is inversely proportion to the transitional probability (TP) of the word pair. Adjacent words that co-occur often together i.e. have a high TP, exhibit a high cohesion and tend to form chunks. These chunks are a cost effective method of storing representations. Thus, on this view, the (multi-) power law of link lengths represents the distribution of storage costs or cohesions within adjacent words. Such cohesions form groupings of linguistic form known as syntactic constituents. Thus, syntactic constituency is not specific to language and is a property derived from the optimisation of the network. In keeping with other systems generated by a cost constraint on the link length, it is demonstrated that both the child and adult word co-occurrence networks are not hierarchically organised in terms of degree distribution (Ravasz and Barabási 2003:1). Furthermore, both networks are disassortative, and in line with other disassortative networks, there is a correlation between degree and betweenness centrality (BC) values (Goh, Kahng and Kim 2003). In agreement with scale free networks (Goh, Oh, Jeong, Kahng and Kim 2002), the BC values in both networks follow a power law distribution. In this thesis, a motif analysis of the two word co-occurrence networks is a richly detailed (non-functional) distributional analysis and reveals that the adult and child significance profiles for triad subgraphs correlate closely. Furthermore, the most significant 4-node motifs in the adult network are also the most significant in the child network. Utilising this non-functional distributional analysis in a word co-occurrence network, it is argued that the notion of a general syntactic category is not evidenced and as such is inadmissible. Thus, non-general or construction-specific categories are preferred (in line with Croft 2001). Function words tend to be the hub words of the network (see Ferrer i Cancho and Solé 2001a), being defined and therefore identified by their high type and token frequency. These properties are useful for identifying syntactic categories since function words are traditionally associated with particular syntactic categories (see Cann 2000). Consequently, a function word and thus a syntactic category may be identified by the interception of the frequency and degree power laws with their truncated tails. As a given syntactic category captures the type of words that may co-occur with the function word, the category then encourages consistency within the functional patterns in the network and re-enforces the network’s (near-) optimised state. Syntax then, on this view, is both a navigator, manoeuvring through the ever varying sea of linguistic form and a guide, forging an uncharted course through novel expression. There is also evidence suggesting that the hubterranean structure is not only found in the word co-occurrence network, but within other theoretical syntactic levels. Factors affecting the choice of a verb that is generalised early relate to the formation and the characteristics of hubs. In that, the property of a high (token) frequency in combination with either a high degree (type frequency) or a low storage cost, point to certain verbs within the network and these highly ‘visible’ verbs tend to be generalised early (in line with Boyd and Goldberg forthcoming). Furthermore, the optimisation process that creates hubterranean structure is implicated in the verb-construction subpart network of the adult’s linguistic knowledge, the mapping of the constructions’ form-to-meaning pairings, the construction inventory size as well as certain strategies aiding first language learning and adult artificial language learning.
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What do things do in policy? Describing the heating sector reform in post-Soviet Russia /Bychkova, Olga V., January 2007 (has links)
Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 272-287).
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The adoption of information and communication technologies by rural general practitioners a socio technical analysis /Everitt-Deering, Patricia. January 2008 (has links)
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Victoria University (Melbourne, Vic.), 2008.
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Acompanhando o fluxo da hemodiálise: contribuições da Teoria Ator-Rede. / Tracking the flow of hemodialysis: contributions of Actor-Network Theory.Renata Cristian de Sá Oliveira 30 July 2014 (has links)
O presente trabalho apresenta a rotina de tratamento de crianças e jovens com doença renal crônica, tendo como finalidade investigar as práticas performadas neste cenário e acompanhar as construções que se moldam durante a realização da hemodiálise. Nesse sentido, tomamos a orientação teórico-metodológica proposta na Teoria ator-rede (TAR), seguindo os atores - humanos e não-humanos - e apresentando as conexões parciais presentes neste campo. Nesse movimento, surgem novos olhares à Psicologia, apontando para uma prática que rompe com os moldes tradicionais, tendo como setting a sala da hemodiálise e partilha a relação terapêutica com os inúmeros actantes deste espaço: agulhas, cateter, responsáveis, técnicos, profissionais de saúde, etc. Colabora ainda para deslocar a noção de saúde e doença como polaridades e , principalmente, para desmontar este último como um estado marginal. Mol (2008) nos ensina que o adoecimento deve ser entendido como parte integrante do sujeito, e que, portanto, estar doente ou saudável representam momentos do fluxo de estar vivo. E isto envolve práticas de cuidado, ou melhor, abrange a negociação entre o desejável e o possível, o que requer investigação caso a caso. Do mesmo modo, o tratamento da hemodiálise é encarado de diferentes formas, na medida que se constitui como um arranjo do sujeito em relação ao espaço, às práticas, às pessoas, etc, sendo, portanto, uma das possibilidades existentes de cuidar do curso da doença renal, que é crônico. Além disso, o corpo é apresentado como um campo de afetações e de associações, por isso deve ser entendido a partir destas. Logo, quando Haraway (1995) afirma que somos todos ciborgues, está apontando uma nova versão sobre o organismo e a realidade material, sendo a experiência dialítica um dos exemplos concreto deste modo de articulação. / This researsh presents the routine treatment of children and adolescents with chronic kidney disease, and aims to investigate the practices performadas this scenario and accompanying buildings that are shaped during the course of hemodialysis. In this sense, we took the theoretical-methodological approach proposed in Actor-network theory (ART), following the actors - human and nonhuman - and presenting partial connections present in this area. In this movement, brings new looks to Psychology, pointing to a practice that breaks the traditional mold, with the setting of hemodialysis room and sharing the therapeutic relationship with the numerous surfactants this space: needles, catheters, managers, practitioners, health professionals etc.. Collaborates yet to displace the notion of health and disease as polarities and especially to dismantle the latter as a marginal state. Mol (2008) teaches us that the illness must be understood as part of the subject, and therefore be ill or healthy flow represent moments of being alive. And this involves care practices, or rather covers the negotiation between the desirable and the possible, which requires case by case. Similarly, treatment of hemodialysis is viewed in different ways, to the extent that such an arrangement is the subject in relation to space, the practices, people, etc., thus being one of the possibilities of caring for stroke kidney disease, which is chronic. In addition, the body is presented as a field of affectations and associations, so it should be understood from these. So when Haraway (1995) argues that we are all cyborgs, is pointing a new version on the body and material reality, being one of the dialysis experience concrete examples of this mode of articulation.
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As Associações de criminalidade à figura do camelô: um estudo através da Teoria Ator-Rede. / Associations crime figure of the camelô: a study by Actor-Network Theory.Thaísa Duarte Ferreira 28 March 2014 (has links)
Neste texto gostaria de apresentar uma investigação sobre as associações de criminalidade investidas na figura do camelô através da Teoria Ator-rede. Diante da realização de dois grandes eventos, a Copa do Mundo em 2014 e os jogos Olímpicos em 2016, foi estabelecido um plano municipal de ordem pública com diagnósticos e proposições a fim de gerir a cidade do Rio de Janeiro. Uma dessas proposições envolve a política do Choque de Ordem que parte do princípio que a desordem urbana é um deflagrador de atividades criminosas. Assim, iniciou-se um processo de higienização das ruas da cidade, que refletiu sobre o trabalho do camelô. Logo, as políticas públicas promovidas para esta cidade aparecem como foco de discussão neste trabalho. Principalmente, como o tema da criminalidade se vincula ou é vinculado à figura do camelô. / In this text we would like to present an investigation into the crime associations invested in figure of camelô by Actor-Network Theory. Before the completion of two major events, the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016, a plan was established municipal public with diagnoses and proposals to manage the city of Rio de Janeiro. One of these propositions involves the policy "Choque de Ordem" it assumes that urban disorder is a trigger for criminal activities. Thus began a process of "cleaning" the streets of the city, which reflected on the work of the street vendor. Soon, the public policies adopted for this city appear as a focus of discussion in this work.
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Biographies of an innovation : an ecological analysis of a strategic technology project in the auto-industryWiegel, Valeri January 2016 (has links)
The ‘localist turn’ in technology studies, exemplified by Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and Social Construction of Technology (SCOT), emphasises the agency of actors in innovation processes while, arguably, neglecting structural influences. They provide rather little guidance regarding methodological choices apart from encouraging rich description and offer only limited capacity to explain the dynamics of technological change. This thesis addresses the need to articulate a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of the contextually-shaped, often highly contingent processes of technological innovation. For this purpose a single, in-depth longitudinal case study was conducted of the development, implementation and use of a strategic information system - a strategic network planning tool - in a German car company. It was analysed applying a biographical perspective which argues for extended analytical foci across multiple sites, moments and time frames in technology studies to account for the complexities and uncertainties inherent in technological change processes. A mixed repository of historical and ethnographic data has been collected, drawing on public and internal corporate documents as well as 44 interviews and extended periods of participant observation at multiple sites. The data was coded and analysed aided by simultaneously building an extensive data-rich timeline of the innovation journey. As a result, our empirically detailed focus on a twelve-year period is contextualised by a historical narrative considering corporate historical developments over three decades. An ecology metaphor is articulated to appreciate multiple episodes and moments of innovation dispersed in space and time - a view neglected by common metaphors of systems and networks. The metaphor underpins a loose framework, tentatively entitled the Ecological Shaping of Technology, that draws on concepts from science and technology studies and cognate discussions in the sociology of professions to engage with the intricacies of space and scales of time in studying the ‘Biographies of Artefacts and Practices’ (Pollock and Williams, 2009; Hyysalo, 2010). The framework pursues a dynamic, longitudinal understanding of the evolution of a protracted technology development project which went through significant changes in conception and in the players involved and their configuration. This is conceptualised in terms of the development of a ‘kernel’ (Ribes & Polk, 2015) of resources and services managed by, and made available to, an alliance of players. While alliances can shift, the kernel persists and evolves over time as players try to attract more resources by entering into negotiations in promising ‘arenas of expectation’ (Bakker et al., 2011) or navigating around those that are less amenable. Technology is portrayed as an element of a package of instrumentalities (de Solla Price, 1983) comprising theories, methods and instruments that are spread across a wider ecology of distributed boundary objects (Star & Griesemer, 1989). Technologies crystallise from efforts of adopting, testing and developing packages to solve specific problems (Fujimura, 1995). A specific technology is co-developed, according to the set of local constrains and specifications delineated by a kernel's alliance of ecologies. These are understood in terms of Abbott’s (2005) conception of linked ecologies. The historically shaped and contingent ecological topography of an innovation project is highlighted as a major influence in the social shaping of technological artefacts.
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