It is recognised that normative systems, and in particular electronic institutions and contracts are a potentially powerful means for making agent interactions in multi-agent systems effective and efficient. However, correctly specifying the behaviour of such systems is a difficult problem. Designers are faced with two concurrent, complex tasks: firstly they must specify the relationships (over time) between agents’ actions and their effects, and secondly they must also consider how agents’ actions are to be regulated through the definition of agents’ permissions and obligations. Such systems are typi- cally complex, and given this complexity it may be difficult for a designer to determine whether their original objectives have been captured by the specification of the system. In this dissertation we seek to address some of the problems associated with institu- tional specification. In order to do this we present a model for specifying institutions based on the notion of socially constructed reality that accounts not only for how the action and events which constitute the institution are described, but also how they are regulated. Institutions may be used in a number of ways, and may account for concepts at varying levels of abstraction. Recognising this we also investigate how several insti- tutions, each accounting for a particular aspect of a society may be composed and how the relationships between these institutions may be expressed. Given this model, we then demonstrate how, using the answer set programming paradigm institutional spec- ifications based on our model may be checked for the absence or presence of certain (un)desirable properties.

Throughout history women have been excluded from leading positions. Today, however, there is an equal gender distribution among Swedish managers, which by some is seen as a result of the Nordic model. Despite this, current statistics show that women tend to have a greater responsibility over child rearing and household duties. The aim of this study is to examine female leaders’ experiences of combining family and career, the challenges they face, and if these differ from male leaders. Previous research on women’s work commitment has shown that mothers are not less committed to their careers than women without children. At the same time other studies show that working mothers feel guilty over not being good enough parents. This study is based on eight qualitative interviews with female and male leaders in Sweden. The study shows that the female participants face challenges to their careers because of traditional gender norms, however these norms do not disfavour the male participants. This study also illustrates that the female subjects meet greater expectations both in their roles as leaders as well as in their roles as parents. Gender norms regarding motherhood result in that the women are made to feel guilty if traditional expectations go unmet. This is not something experienced by any of the male participants.

O chão de fábrica é constituído por operários cuja atuação cotidiana em diferentes postos de trabalho consiste, simultaneamente, na gestão de si próprios. Embora a fábrica seja cravejada por normas oficiais operacionais, de segurança e de qualidade, os operários gerem todos esses elementos conforme suas necessidades psicofísicas e escolhas valorativas possíveis. Portanto, trata-se de uma análise, pautada tanto em veio teórico, notadamente o ergológico, quanto, especialmente, em achados empíricos extraídos de entrevistas efetivadas junto a operários metalúrgicos da grande São Paulo. Ambas as esferas, teórica e empírica, comungam esforços em mostrar as atividades de chão de fábrica em uma perspectiva distanciada daquela de pura execução por operadores via operações padronizadas exogenamente. Essas atividades são na realidade re-formuladas, re-conduzidas, às vezes até reinventadas, consequentemente, apropriadas por sujeitos operários, que renormalizam o seu meio e, na medida do possível, singularizam seus atos de trabalho de acordo com os seus próprios usos subjetivos, valorativos e simbólicos. / The shop floor is constituted by workers whose daily performance in different workstations consists, simultaneously, in the self-management. Although the factory is studded by operational official norms, of safety and of quality, the workers generate all those elements according to their needs psycho-physicals and possible appreciated choices. Therefore, it is treated of an analysis, ruled so much in theoretical vein, especially the ergological, as, especially, in empiric discoveries extracted of interviews accomplished with the workers metallurgists of the São Paulo\'s metropolitan area. Both spheres, theoretical and empiric, they take communion efforts in showing the activities of shop floor by a distanced perspective of that of pure execution by operators through operations standardized exogenously. These activities are in the reality re-formulated, re-driven, sometimes until reinvented, consequently, appropriate for subjects workers, that re-normalize their environment and, insofar as possible, they become singular their work actions according to their own subjective, appreciated and symbolic uses.

Team norms are one of the most frequently used explanations of how teams as a collective entity can influence individual member’s behaviors (Hackman & Walton, 1986; Bettenhausen & Murnighan, 1991; Feldman, 1984). Despite such importance, current theoretical and empirical development of team norms is relatively inadequate. In this dissertation, I view norm strength and norm enforcement as two central pillars of team norms, and specifically examine team norm enforcement from a social network perspective. I first develop a typology based on the existing literature and specify the behavior content of three types of norm enforcement mechanisms: sanction, recognition and learning. Second, I examine the impact of the structural and configural properties on team performance. This model was tested on 799 employees nested in 101 work teams from China. Results from the data analysis have offered partial support that the structural characteristics of norm enforcement network had impacts on team performance above and beyond norm strength.

The dissertation attempts to answer the question of how to theorize resistance from within the philosophy of social science. To answer this question we must consider more than just the philosophy of social science; we also must look to political and moral philosophy. Resistance to the social norms of one’s community is possible to theorize from within the philosophy of social science once we develop a sufficiently nuanced account of social and moral communities (which involves identifying political and moral elements in community formation, reformation, and transformation), according to which membership in a community is not defined by sharing judgments, conceptual frameworks, or comprehensive worldviews, but by sharing terms of discourse so that discussion about judgments, conceptual frameworks, and comprehensive worldviews is possible. Understanding the structure of one’s moral community is not the same as to endorsing that structure. This suggests that contestation is already present within communities about what ‘we’ do, up to and including who ‘we’—as a ‘community’—are. Challenging communitarian understandings of what makes a community a community (usually construed as ‘cultures’, understood somewhat monolithically), I argue that communities are best understood as forming around common concerns or perceptions of problems (sometimes veridical, sometimes not). This contestation plays a major role in determining the identities of communities, and these identities are constantly shifting.

Cette thèse porte sur le rapport entre les normes sociales, les pratiques pédagogiques et l’esthétique dans la danse Odissi en Inde. Apparue sur la scène post-coloniale dans la période de l’après-indépendance du pays en tant que « danse classique », l’Odissi véhicule, en dépit du caractère hétérogène, voire multiculturel, de ses pratiquants, des revendications identitaires relatives à l’Etat indien d’Orissa, rebaptisé Odisha en 2011. La recherche a été menée à partir de terrains successifs effectués principalement dans la ville de Bhubaneswar, capitale de l’Orissa, et plus particulièrement dans une école de danse émergente.Un examen des narrations historiques concernant les années de fondation de la danse ainsi que des éléments mythiques sur lesquels les protagonistes basent les représentations de celle-ci, permet d’identifier l’organisation sociale de la communauté des pratiquants, qui se manifeste notamment dans la généalogie officielle de l’Odissi. Dans le cadre de l’observation des pratiques de danse dans l’école, il apparaît que cet ordre social est réactivé discursivement par le maître aux moments des entraînements quotidiens des danseurs. Il use ainsi d’assignations identitaires dans le cadre de son activité pédagogique, tissant des liens dialectiques entre certaines valeurs morales, une éthique relationnelle entre pratiquants, et les pratiques. Ce mode d’action renforce certes la structure hiérarchique de l’école. Toutefois, du point de vue des pratiquants, cette instauration d’un sens moral de la situation se rapporte à certaines qualités esthétiques intrinsèques à la danse, qui apparaît alors comme une manière d’être plus qu’une manière de faire. / This thesis addresses the relation between social norms, pedagogical practices and aesthetics in Odissi dance in India. Despite the heterogeneous and even multicultural nature of its practitioners, Odissi, which appeared as a “classical dance” on the post-colonial stage during the country’s post-Independence era, is a vehicle for identity claims relative to the Indian State Orissa, renamed Odisha in 2011. The research was undertaken during successive fieldwork periods mainly in the state capital of Bhubaneswar, and more specifically in an emerging dance school.The social organisation of the community of practitioners, which manifests itself in the official genealogy of Odissi, is identified through an examination of historical narratives on the foundation years of the dance, and of mythical elements on which protagonists base their representations. From observation of dance practices in the school, it becomes clear that this social order is reactivated discursively by the master during daily training sessions. He literally uses identity ascriptions in his pedagogical activity, creating links between certain moral values, a relational ethics between practitioners, and dance practice. This mode of action certainly reinforces the hierarchical structure of the school. However, from the point of view of the practitioners, the institution of a moral sense of the situation is related to certain aesthetic qualities of the dance, which then appears as a mode of being rather than a mode of doing.

Navajo school students, it is believed, underachieve at school in terms of school attendance, dropout rates, and standardized performance tests. Among the many reasons proposed to explain the persistent school underachievement is that school culture is largely based on individualism, interpersonal competition, and other Western norms and values. These, it is argued, are an anathema to Native Americans. Hence, school culture may predispose many Navajo High School students to failure. To test this belief I constructed a model of school achievement motivation drawn from Western conceptualizations of achievement motivation described Navajo High School students achievement motivation. Using confirmatory factor analyses tests of equivalency were conducted that contrasted non-traditional Navajo students and females with near traditional Navajo students and males. Using structural equation modeling, I examined the relations of the language, location, and gender variables on the achievement goal factors, mediated by school measures of achievement, ability beliefs, social goals and achievement goals. I concluded that non-traditional and near traditional Navajo students are more similar than dissimilar. Clearly this raises concerns regarding the making of policy based on assumptions regarding presumed differences between non-traditional and near traditional Navajo High School students. I also concluded that, school achievement measures, the ability beliefs, and the social approval and social concern goals are important factors that influence the school achievement goals Navajo students emphasize. This has implications for the manner in which schools and teachers emphasize these factors in classrooms. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This qualitative study is about New Zealand couples who, by choice, do not have children. Strong social norms exist for couples to have children, and those who express a desire to do otherwise have been disbelieved, pressured, and stereotyped. Womanhood has continued to be associated with motherhood, and a maternal instinct is expected to drive women to have children. The aim of this research was to add to knowledge and awareness of how childfree people have experienced being stereotyped, pressured and harassed for being childfree. For this research, I conjointly interviewed ten heterosexual, childfree couples residing in the city of Hamilton. Participants self-identified as childfree, and ranged in age from 23 to 56 years old. Five of the couples also participated in a focus group. Participants related the ways in which they perceived that the wider social context played a role in the negative responses they experienced. Participants revealed how they felt less socially valued through: an idealization of parenthood, exclusion from work benefits, and an expectation that women should manage both employment and motherhood. Stereotyping was found to still occur, with participants reporting that they were labelled as selfish, immature, and anti-children. Stereotypes of being destined for loneliness in later life, and of their pets being substitutes for children were common. Some evidence was found in participants' comments that there were elements of truth in stereotypes of the childfree. The negative stereotyping appeared to have little, if any, impact on how participants viewed or felt about themselves. Participants reported feeling harassed by other people's disbelief in their choice, and assumptions, that despite what they said, everybody wanted children. The pressures experienced by participants took various forms, such as persistent questioning, and came from various sources, including siblings and acquaintances. Participants' reports of feeling pressured or harassed seem to reflect minor and fleeting feelings, rather than a continuing concern. How pressuring comments were perceived by the recipient was very context-dependent. Participants tolerated and coped with people's negative responses by various methods, such as confronting, ignoring, and avoiding the topic of children with certain people. I recommend that further research be done, and that work is needed to promote both acceptance of the childfree option, and freedom of women's identification from association with childbearing.

<p>The study of appropriateness in language use is part of pragmatics, and how speakers give and respond to complements is a source of data in such studies. Compliments are strategies to explicitly or implicitly ascribe qualities that are mutually appreciated by the speaker and the addressee of a compliment. When individuals from different cultures interact in conversations, including the giving and receiving of compliments, and their behaviour is based on different conventions, it may lead to misunderstandings. Earlier studies (Cedar, 2006 & Sharifian, 2005, 2008) suggest that pragmatic transfer can cause cross-cultural misunderstanding. Second language users seem to transfer first language pragmatic rules into second language domains. This study will examine whether pragmatic transfer occurs in Swedish as first language into English as a second language in compliment responses. It will be assumed that pragmatic conventions are influenced by both linguistic and social norms. A Discourse completion task was used in order to obtain the data. The Discourse completion task consisted of one questionnaire in English, and one translated into Swedish, with situations where a compliment was given and the participant was instructed to imagine him/herself in that situation and give their most probable response to that compliment. The results showed that there was no significant difference between compliment responses given in Swedish and those given in English by native Swedish speakers. Thus, pragmatic transfer could have occurred. The Swedish participants’ compliment responses were also compared to compliment responses of Scottish English L1 speakers. The results are discussed in relation to other studies of pragmatic transfer in compliment responses, and suggestions for future research are considered.<strong> </strong></p>

In this era emphasizing the knowledge economy, corporate survival has been paid special attention following the financial depression. For the corporate under the era of knowledge economy, competitive advantages are from knowledge sharing and organizational innovation. More recently, literature has emerged that offers findings about social capital as a complete concept to explore its influences and functions. In this study, we seek to address the three dimensions, namely relationship, trust, and norms of the internal social capital in the context of Chinese culture and further explore the interactive relationships and influences among them. Using the structure equation model, we use data collected 385 knowledge workers from the high-tech, financial and medical industries of Taiwan. The findings show that (1) relationship has positive influences on norms and trust; (2) the relationship, norms, and trust have positive influences on knowledge sharing; (3) the internal social capital has positive influences on organizational innovation; (4) knowledge sharing has a positive influence on organizational innovation; (5) knowledge sharing has partial mediating effects on social capital and organizational innovation. Furthermore, we proposed a theoretical model of relationship, norms, and trust for future research. These findings could be useful in academic field and practical applications.