Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 132-142).

Scholars have paid increased attention to the impact of social technologies on organizational communication but have yet to explore how their use has influenced organizational socialization, a process in which organizational newcomers transition into the organization. To fill this gap, this thesis investigates the use of social networking applications, a type of social technology, and its relation to three key processes in organizational socialization: information seeking, identity work, and workplace relationship development. Drawing on the concepts of affordance and paradox, this thesis examines how technological features and human factors such as mobile communication culture, technological frames of users, and organizational contexts shape processes of using social networking applications during organizational entry. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with Chinese organizational newcomers regarding their experience of using WeChat, the most popular social networking mobile application in China. Findings suggest that WeChat provides communicative opportunities that are otherwise not available in other communication platforms or channels. The participants obtain official and unofficial information from using WeChat. In addition to conventional, direct information seeking, the participants rely on persistence of information afforded by WeChat to indirectly access information. The participants seek information about identity expectations through indirect methods such as observation and experiment with their provisional identities using WeChat Moments. Details of mundane everyday work life and achievements are the most frequently mentioned content for identity construction. For workplace relationship development, the participants develop metaknowledge of their coworkers through browsing their coworkers' posts from WeChat Moments. WeChat work groups provide opportunities for newcomers to initiate and develop relationships with their coworkers with low social costs. Despite that WeChat provides lots of benefits, the participants describe WeChat as a problematic tool in that they could be trapped in paradoxical situations when they are concerned with engagement in organizational communication flows, construction of flexible identities, genres of professional communication enabled by WeChat, and blurred boundaries between professional and personal life. Dealing with these paradoxes provides opportunities for newcomers to learn technology culture of their organizations, reflect on their technological frames, and adjust their expectations and behaviors with respect to WeChat use. This technologically occasioned learning is an unexpected outcome of responding to the paradoxes of using WeChat during organizational entry. This thesis extends organizational communication research to provide an initial exploration of the use of social technologies in organizational socialization, uncovering how social networking sites and applications both enable and constrain information seeking, identity work, and workplace relationship development. It also provides insights into how various individual, interpersonal, and organizational factors influence the perceived affordances of social networking mobile applications and how these factors interact to shape the paradoxical user experience. With their wide adoption in the contemporary workplace, social networking sites and applications have huge potential to help newcomers transition into new organizations and have become an important aspect in organizational socialization. By learning and adapting to the norms of use for social networking sites and applications in new organizations and making sense of paradoxes in their user experience, newcomers can begin to understand the technology culture of their new organization. This thesis argues that it is necessary to reconceptualize organizational socialization, taking into consideration distinctive processes enabled and constrained by social technologies, and to reflect upon how organizational tactics and the design of social technologies can help newcomers to learn, to adapt, and to thrive in their organizations.

This dissertation provides an analysis of, and critical commentary on, the practice of playfulness as persistent phenomenon in the arts, technology and theory. Its aim is to introduce political reflections on agency through the study of playful technological artefacts, which were largely ignored in the recent discussions on game and play. Following the critical analysis of historic discourses and actual studies of play under differing auspices, and in order to understand play as inherently political agency, this thesis’ research question addresses the immersive effects of playful agency in symbolic exchange systems and in the material consciousness of the player. This thesis conducts an analysis of material cultures, in order to categorise play as technique of an inherent critique of technological culture. It traces the development of contemporary technological objects and their materiality in relation to the application of the concept of affordance in design theory. The author consequently proposes a new category of ‘play affordances’ in order to describe these new requirements of play found in consumer technologies. The structure of the analysis in the distinct chapters is informed by a stringent historic, theoretical and arts analysis and an alternating arts practice. The convergence of these elements leads to insights on further uses, options and perspectives of the research problems discussed, in particular in relation to the requirements of playful interaction in contemporary technologies, which increasingly radicalises the importance of play. The thesis’ hypothesis states that playful practices in arts and technologies provide models for political agency, like the strategic use of Con-Dividualities (Jahrmann 2000). This term describes the concept of shared identities in society or social media consumer technologies, as discussed in historic case studies and the author’s own arts practice, related to the modification of technologies as methodology of arts research. In this way the arts practice and theory of playfulness informs the emergence of a new methodology of research, intervention and participation in society through the arts of play, which is coined as Ludics, as an original outcome of this thesis.

Submitted by Elba Lopes (elba.lopes@fecap.br) on 2017-09-20T14:38:48Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Simone Ferreira e Silva.pdf: 1191981 bytes, checksum: 7ad61f8339d058f729c68691353fd8b7 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-09-20T14:38:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Simone Ferreira e Silva.pdf: 1191981 bytes, checksum: 7ad61f8339d058f729c68691353fd8b7 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-08-30 / The purpose of this research was to analyze the structure of the social network of the scientific production in four publications in the English language in Behavioral Finance in the period of 2011 to 2015. To achieve this purpose, bibliometric and sociometric studies were conducted based on 261 articles from the EBSCOHost data base which contained the expressions: behavior (including variations like behavior, behavioral, behavioural), limits to (of) arbitrage, cognitive biases, overconfidence, optimism, catering, market timing and prospect theory in the titles, key-words or abstracts. Afterwards, it was performed a bibliometric analysis of the most prolific and cited researchers and institutions, the social network they belong to, the indexes of density, the centrality of degree and betweeness, the centralization, closeness and structural holes. The social network analysis indexes made it possible to point Goetzmann as the author of the central positioning in the network, nevertheless there is no researchers elite in Behavioral Finance in periodicals and period studied. As for the institutions, the elite does exist and is made up by actors with relevant position in the network, mainly the Center of Economic Policy Research and The National Buereu of Economic Research. The results of this research may contribute to the development of the scientific production in Behavioral Finance both national and international, and benefit all who direct or indirectly are related to this field, either academic or professional. / Esta pesquisa teve como objetivo analisar a estrutura da rede social formada pela produ????o cient??fica em quatro publica????es em l??ngua inglesa na ??rea de Finan??as Comportamentais no per??odo de 2011 a 2015. Para atingi-lo, foi realizado um estudo bibliom??trico e sociom??trico com 261 artigos da base de dados EBSCOHost que continham as express??es: behavior (incluindo varia????es como behaviour, behavioral, behavioural), limits to (of) arbitrage, cognitive biases, overconfidence, optimism, catering, market timing e prospect theory em seus t??tulos, palavras-chave ou resumos. Posteriormente, procedeu-se ?? an??lise bibliom??trica de pesquisadores e institui????es mais prol??ficos e citados, das redes sociais por eles formadas e dos ??ndices de densidade, centralidade de grau e de intermedia????o, centraliza????o, proximidade e lacunas estruturais. Os ??ndices da an??lise de redes sociais permitiram apontar Goetzmann como autor de posicionamento central na rede, por??m n??o existe uma elite de pesquisadores em Finan??as Comportamentais nos peri??dicos e per??odo delimitado. J?? quanto ??s institui????es, a elite existe e ?? formada por atores com posi????o relevante na rede, principalmente o Centre of Economic Policy Research e a The National Bureau of Economic Research. Os resultados desta pesquisa poder??o contribuir para o desenvolvimento da ??rea da produ????o cient??fica em Finan??as Comportamentais nacional e internacional, al??m de beneficiar todos que, direta ou indiretamente, relacionam-se com esse campo, nos ??mbitos tanto acad??mico quanto profissional.

Submitted by Noeme Timbo (noeme.timbo@metodista.br) on 2017-06-30T15:31:03Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Viviani Garcia.pdf: 1585821 bytes, checksum: 11d243a99cd6678be344644a7d2864a7 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-30T15:31:03Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Viviani Garcia.pdf: 1585821 bytes, checksum: 11d243a99cd6678be344644a7d2864a7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-04-13 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / This study aims to contribute to the understanding of the main elements that facilitate the formation of the informal social information network within a university and which characteristics of its members are considered to be the most potential disseminators in the informal structure. Faced with the management challenges that are increasingly present in the administration of educational institutions, in order to understand their resources and use them more effectively, it is possible to understand the social dynamics of their employees using the Network Analysis method Social Security (ARS). Personal and professional characteristics attract connections in the network and what influence of the relationship in other external institutions on the relationships within the organization researched. For this purpose, a study of perception of information sharing was applied in 28 teachers of distance learning of a private higher education institution located in the state of São Paulo in order to understand the information-seeking relations and the reasons why the most influential actors are sought. The research was initiated with a questionnaire asking each respondent to point out their co-workers who are most in demand and the reasons that directed them to those determined actors. With this material, it was possible to analyze if the most cited had a relation of "strong ties" with their colleagues mentioned and characteristics of the profile of the most requested professionals. The results showed a medium density network with potential for expansion of relations. The most mentioned item was the search for information through friendship relations, followed by work necessity. More than 65% of the actors do not have external contact with their work colleagues, limiting their interactions only in the professional environment. Interaction bonds were strengthened in the study group, since the measurement of reciprocity of the contacts was over 31% of the total of the relationships, as the respondents state that they have frequent, long term and near intimate contacts. / Este estudo pretende contribuir para a compreensão dos principais elementos que facilitam a formação da rede social informal de informação dentro de uma universidade e quais as características de seus membros que são considerados os disseminadores de maior potencial na estrutura informal. Diante dos desafios de gestão cada vez mais presentes na administração de instituições de ensino, com o objetivo de compreender seus recursos e utilizá-los de maneira mais eficaz, surge a possibilidade de compreender a dinâmica social de seus colaboradores utilizando o método de Análise de Redes Sociais (ARS). Compreendendo quais características pessoais e profissionais atraem conexões na rede e qual a influência do relacionamento em outras instituições externas sobre as relações dentro da organização pesquisada. Com este intuito, foi aplicado um estudo de percepção de compartilhamento de informações em 28 professores do ensino a distância de uma instituição de ensino superior privada, localizada no ABC paulista, para compreender as relações de busca de informações e quais os motivos pelos quais os atores mais influentes são procurados. A pesquisa foi iniciada com um questionário solicitando para cada respondente apontar seus colegas de trabalho que são mais procurados e quais os motivos que os direcionavam para aqueles determinados atores. Com este material, foi possível analisar se os mais citados tinham uma relação de “laços fortes” com seus colegas citados e características do perfil dos profissionais mais requisitados. Os resultados mostraram uma rede com média densidade, com potencial de expansão de relações. O item mais mencionado foi a busca por informações por relações de amizade, seguida por necessidade do trabalho. Mais de 65% dos atores não possuem contato externo com seus colegas de trabalho, limitando suas interações apenas no ambiente profissional. Os laços de interação se demonstraram fortalecidos no grupo estudado, pois a mensuração da reciprocidade dos contatos foi acima de 31% do total das relações, assim como os respondentes declaram ter contatos frequentes, de longo prazo e com grau próximo de intimidade.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att beskriva hur styrkan i småföretags sociala och professionella nätverk påverkar valet av finansiell bootsrapping, med företagarens ursprung som betingad faktor. Målet med studien är att introducera och ge en generell översikt över orsakssambandet mellan de berörda koncepten. En undersökning genomfördes bland småföretag i Sverige för att identifiera det sociala och professionella nätverkets påverkan på finansiell bootstraping. I undersökningen antogs företagarens ursprung ha en modererande roll. Dessutom ingick en rad kontrollvariabler för att undersöka deras effekt på orsakssambandet. Sålunda ger det en djupare insikt om vilka underliggande individuella och organisatoriska attribut som påverkar företagares val av finansiell bootstrapping. En utökad kunskap för fenomenet finansiell bootstrapping kan ses som ett konkurrenskraftigt hjälpmedel vid egenföretagande. Framförallt blir det påtagligt för småföretagare som stöter på hinder i anskaffningen av externt finansiellt kapital. Denna uppsats baserades på 136 frågeformulär som returneras från småföretagare som är etablerade på den svenska marknaden. Medan resultatet bekräftar vikten av finansiell bootstrapping för småföretag, identifieras ursprungsskillnader i användningen av olika finansiella bootstrappingmetoder. Dessutom identifieras variationer i invandrare och inföddas användning av sociala och professionella nätverk. Vidare upptäcker vi att styrkan i småföretags nätverk har en positiv påverkan på finansiell bootstrapping. Däremot när ursprung antas ha en modererande effekt ges blandade resultat. Sålunda indikerar resultatet på att det finns vissa likheter i invandrare och infödda företagares finansieringsbeteende

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Miami University, Dept. of Psychology, 2008. / Title from second page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 179-193).

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