Today we can see how companies are making significant investments in various methods and tools to access and utilize the users’ knowledge for the purpose of innovation efforts. What many highly innovative companies try to accomplish with these investments is to develop and establish sustained producer-user ecosystems. The aim of these ecosystems is often to encourage users to collaborate with each other and with the producer in order to generate innovations related to the offering of the producer. However, although these ecosystems are proven to create new innovation opportunities for companies, it has been shown that a close collaboration with many users brings about a number of challenges for companies. For example, it can be costly and time-consuming to establish and utilize large numbers of user relationships and it can be difficult to align the innovation interests of established producers with those of the users. Moreover, the fact that many innovating users have relationships to one another can contribute to conflicts of interests and established producers may have to balance stability and change within the ecosystem. Another challenge in the utilization of user relationships is that it is not only dependent on the direct interaction with users but also the internal dissemination and utilization of information related to the users’ needs. This dissemination can be problematic since it is costly and difficult to forward timely and reliable information about the users’ needs. Consequently, the aim of this thesis is to better understand how companies that are operating within sustained producer-user ecosystems can leverage user relationships for the purpose of innovation. The research forming the foundation for this thesis was carried out within two established medical technology companies that successfully had developed innovations within this type of ecosystems. Quantitative and qualitative data was collectedand a number of different analyses were conducted. The results reveal that these ecosystems can be understood as a system where direct and indirect user experiences are distributed among employees and users. This in turn implies that employees utilization of user relationships can be understood as a function of the extent to which employees knows and values the pertinence of their own as well as others direct and indirect user experiences as well as accessibility and cost of seeking user-information from other people. The results demonstrate that when companies experience high costs related to the acquisition of user experiences they may benefit from employing users to occupy boundary-spanning roles. However, the thesis reveals how the utilization of such boundary-spanning roles brings with it a number of organizational challenges. Moreover, an important aspect of success tends to be the utilization of relationships to so-called transformational users. These users experience problems with established producers' current products before the majority of users, they adopt new technologies earlier than their peers, and they cooperate with established producers for the purpose of transformation of a product field in order to obtain or maintain a central position within the ecosystem. Furthermore, the results reveal how established producers and users are jointly engaged in value creation through various collaborations. However, the results also indicate that the utilization of user relationships for innovation within these types of ecosystems is, to a large extent, a matter of managing tensions emerging within and around these collaborations. On a general level, this thesis points to the potential benefits of considering producer-user ecosystems as a comprehensive perspective, which may explain how companies gain and sustain a competitive edge, rather than one out of many approaches that companies can apply in order to leverage user relationships for innovation. / <p>QC 20140918</p>

The current study aimed to assess the relationship between perceived occupational stress and social support among collegiate coaches, and if years of coaching experience and competition level (NCAA Division I, II, III) add to the explanation of occupational stress above and beyond social support. The study utilized the Administrative Stress Index (Koch, Gmelch, Tung, & Swent, 1982) in order to measure perceived occupational stress and the Personal Resource Questionnaire: Part 2 (Brandt & Weinert, 1981) to measure perceived social support. Results suggested that task-based stress is significantly related to perceived social support, but years of experience and competition level do not add to the occupational stress explanation. This study provides the field of sport and exercise psychology and the coaching profession with more information about work-related stress in coaches; it also supports previous literature on the stress-support relationship. / School of Physical Education, Sport, and Exercise Science

No description available.

Online Self-portrayal has been attracting attention since the rise of social networks and their integration into everyday life. Social media have been said to support the idea of an “endlessly constructed self,” transporting culture and shaping people’s online experiences. Research often focused on the if and why when mostly college students portrayed themselves on social networks and in online communities. The aim of this study is to deepen the understanding of how a certain demographic of women uses Facebook and Instagram for self-portrayal and what it means to them. The focus is on interesting but seldom studied personalities: well-educated, urban women in their late 20’s up to their late 30’s that are well integrated into the labor market. A combination of netnographic study and semi-standardized interviews of Facebook and Instagram activities are conducted within the framework of Erwin Goffman’s "representation of the self in everyday life." Results show a high appreciation of Instagram in order to present a curated portrayal of one’s life and a communication through 'likes'. Interestingly, the women, although highly skilled, often successful and living in one of the most appreciated urban centers of the world, occasionally feel pressure and insecurity to live up to the expectations of their networks.

Bakalauro baigiamajame darbe nagrinėjama Lietuvos Respublikos savivaldybių komunikacija Lietuvoje ir pasaulyje populiariausiame socialiniame tinkle „Facebook“. Savivaldybė šio tyrimo rėmuose traktuojama kaip teritoriškai determinuota bendruomenė ir kaip vietos valdžios organas. Ataskaitoje pristatomo tyrimo problema išreiškiama klausimais „Kokia yra viešojo administravimo institucijų komunikacijos socialiniuose tinkluose specifika? Kokia yra Lietuvos Respublikos savivaldybių komunikacijos socialiniame tinkle „Facebook“ bendroji situacija, turinys, struktūra?“. Teorinėje darbo dalyje atskleidžiama socialinių medijų ir socialinių tinklų specifika, viešojo administravimo institucijų komunikacijos socialiniuose tinkluose tikslai. Daromi apibendrinimai, kad: viešojo administravimo institucijų komunikacija socialiniuose tinkluose turėtų būti paprasta ir aiški; pranešimai turėtų būti orientuoti į lakoniškumą, patrauklumą (vaizdais ir žodžiais), optimalų dažnumą; jeigu savivaldybė per soc. tinklus sugebėtų pati apimti didelę auditoriją, ji turėtų tinkamą įrankį įvaizdžio vadybai. Empiriniame tyrime taikytas kiekybinės-kokybinės turinio analizės metodas. Tam sukurtas tyrimo instrumentas, skirtas fiksuoti komunikacijos dažnumą, naudojamas priemones, nagrinėjamas temas. Duomenims apdoroti naudota deskriptyvinė statistika. Tyrimą sudaro 3 dalys. Pirmoje dalyje analizuojami Lietuvos savivaldybių „Facebook“ paskyrų (N=18) bendrieji bruožai, atsirenkamos tyrimui aktualios paskyros (N=12)... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Bachelor‘s thesis examines the communication of Lithuania‘s municipalities on Facebook – most popular social networking site in Lithuania and the world. Municipality in this research is handled as a territorially determined unit as well as a local government‘s body. The scientific problem of the thesis is expressed with these questions: „What is the particularity of communication on social networking sites in public administration institutions? What are general situation, content, structure of Lithuania‘s municipalities communication on Facebook?“. Theoretical part of the thesis reveals particularity of social media and social networking sites; reveals public administration institutions goals of communication on social networking sites. Summing-up that: public administration institutions communication on social networking sites should be plain and simple; posts should be oriented to laconism, attraction (visual and verbal), optimal frequency; if municipality itself were able to cover large audience on social networking sites, it would have suitable image management tool. Empirical research was implemented by using quantitative-qualitative content analysis. This was done by creating the research instrument, which measures frequency, tools and topics of communication. Data was processed by using descriptive statistics. Research consists of three parts. First part – general attributes of Lithuania‘s municipalities Facebook pages (n=18) were analysed; particular pages (n=12)... [to full text]

This study examined the applicability of Mishel's model of uncertainty in illness (1990) to the adaptation process of women diagnosed with fibromyalgia. The power of uncertainty and social support to predict an uncertainty appraisal and its corresponding coping strategy utilized in this population were examined.Structural equation modeling was employed to clarify the relationships among uncertainty, social support, the appraisal of uncertainty as either danger or opportunity, and coping as either emotion-focused or problem-focused. One hundred sixty-five participants completed the Mishel Uncertainty in Illness Scale (MUIS-A), the Appraisal of Uncertainty Scale (AUS), the Jalowiec Coping Scale (JCS), and the Social Provision Scale (SPS). After an analysis of several measures of goodness-of-fit, the original model was modified based on theory, the modification indices, and a review of the maximum likelihood estimates (mle) for structural paths. These modifications resulted in a competing model. Finally, a Chi-square test was performed comparing the goodness-of-fit indices of the competing models.Results indicated that Mishel's model is a useful model within which to conceptualize the issues faced by women diagnosed with fibromyalgia. Mishel's model performed adequately; however, the overall goodness-of-fit was significantly improved by modifications which placed greater emphasis on social support. Social support and uncertainty exerted approximately equal effect on a danger appraisal and in the revised model only social support predicted an opportunity appraisal. Results also suggested that uncertainty had a direct effect on emotion-focused coping regardless of the appraisal of the uncertainty as danger or opportunity. The current study did not unequivocally support Mishel's assertion that uncertainty may be evaluated as an opportunity. Although uncertainty demonstrated a significant inverse relationship with an opportunity appraisal in the original model, in the revised model, which considered the direct effects of social support on the appraisal process, uncertainty failed to have a significant effect. Given the depth of evidence and applicability of Mishel's original model, additional research is necessary to determine whether these results are specific to the experience of fibromyalgia or perhaps social support is an under-appreciated factor in Mishel's model. Implications for treatment and directions for future research are explored. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

Low-rank matrix factorizations have become increasingly popular to project high dimensional data into latent spaces with small dimensions in order to obtain better understandings of the data and thus more accurate predictions. In particular, they have been widely applied to important applications such as collaborative filtering and social network analysis. In this thesis, I investigate the applications and extensions of the ideas of the low-rank matrix factorization to solve several practically important problems arise from collaborative filtering and social network analysis. A key challenge in recommendation system research is how to effectively profile new users, a problem generally known as \emph{cold-start} recommendation. In the first part of this work, we extend the low-rank matrix factorization by allowing the latent factors to have more complex structures --- decision trees to solve the problem of cold-start recommendations. In particular, we present \emph{functional matrix factorization} (fMF), a novel cold-start recommendation method that solves the problem of adaptive interview construction based on low-rank matrix factorizations. The second part of this work considers the efficiency problem of making recommendations in the context of large user and item spaces. Specifically, we address the problem through learning binary codes for collaborative filtering, which can be viewed as restricting the latent factors in low-rank matrix factorizations to be binary vectors that represent the binary codes for both users and items. In the third part of this work, we investigate the applications of low-rank matrix factorizations in the context of social network analysis. Specifically, we propose a convex optimization approach to discover the hidden network of social influence with low-rank and sparse structure by modeling the recurrent events at different individuals as multi-dimensional Hawkes processes, emphasizing the mutual-excitation nature of the dynamics of event occurrences. The proposed framework combines the estimation of mutually exciting process and the low-rank matrix factorization in a principled manner. In the fourth part of this work, we estimate the triggering kernels for the Hawkes process. In particular, we focus on estimating the triggering kernels from an infinite dimensional functional space with the Euler Lagrange equation, which can be viewed as applying the idea of low-rank factorizations in the functional space.

This thesis describes the aboriginal and contemporary social organization of the Coast Salish people of southwestern British Columbia and northwestern Washington State, with a focus on the Squamish Nation whose Reserves are situated in North Vancouver and the Howe Sound area. It is based on field research undertaken over a 30-year period and on published and unpublished sources. The thesis explores the construction of kinship and social groups among the Coast Salish, and the transformation of these relationships over time and in various historical circumstances, from the mid-19th century to the present day. Drawing upon the theoretical approaches of William Davenport (1959), Raymond Firth (1963) and Anthony Cohen (1985), among others, the thesis discusses key components of Coast Salish social organization and identity, including a group's contrasting identity and relation to the groups within its ambit of comparison, the association of specific social units with territory, and the expression of status in both traditional and contemporary society. Specific findings document a shift to nuclear family households, the adoption of English kinship terms, the development of hereditary and elected leadership, and the emergence of the Tribe and the First Nation as primary symbols of identity in the 20th century. Some current issues resulting from the impact of change are examined in the context of naming ceremonies and disputes over inherited property, including ancestral names. The thesis argues that the diversity and complexity of neither the traditional nor transformed expressions of Coast Salish social organization find congruence with models of aboriginal society being deployed by contemporary Courts and Treaty negotiators. Issues of territorial "overlap" presently impeding treaty negotiation among BC's Coast Salish peoples were nevertheless predictable, for like some of the world's other cognatic societies, the Coast Salish could hold discrete notions of identity simultaneously. In conclusion, the thesis examines briefly the application to the Coast Salish of Lévi-Strauss' "House-society" as a specific form of social organization.

Temos aktualumas Prekės ženklas yra ilgaamžiškiausias įmonės turtas, sukuriantis pridėtinę vertę ir padedantis įgyti konkurencinį pranašumą rinkoje. Tačiau sukurti sėkmingą prekės ženklą nėra lengva. Tam reikia ne tik originalių idėjų, bet ir nemenkų investicijų, kadangi prekės ženklo stiprinimas yra nuolatinis procesas. Kitaip tariant, vien sukurti sėkmingą prekės ženklą neužtenka. Nuolatinė konkurencija, vartotojų poreikių pokyčiai verčia nuolatos peržiūrėti prekės ženklo struktūrą ir priimti tam tikrus sprendimus dėl prekės ženklo stiprinimo. Šiais laikais televizija, radijas, žurnalai, internetas ir kt. masinės informacijos priemonės gali apimti didelę auditoriją vartotojų, tačiau reklaminės kampanijos kainuoja dideles pinigų sumas. Tačiau vis dėlto įmonės nevisuomet sulaukia tokio grįžtamojo rezultato, kurio tikėjosi. Taigi, kyla poreikis išsiaiškinti kaip teisingai parengti prekės ženklo stiprinimo programą, skatinančią vartotoją rinktis būtent šį prekės ženklą, bei kaip pasitelkti naujausių informacinių technologijų galimybes ir taip minimaliomis išlaidomis pasiekti kuo didesnę auditoriją ir gauti norimus rezultatus. Darbo objektas- prekės ženklas socialiniuose tinklapiuose. Darbo tikslas - išnagrinėti ir įvertinti prekės ženklo stiprinimo galimybes socialinėse medijose. Darbo tikslui pasiekti numatomi tokie uždaviniai: 1. Išanalizuoti prekės ženklą ir jo stiprinimo metodus. 2. Išnagrinėti integruotąsias marketingo komunikacijas. 3. Išanalizuoti socialinių medijų... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The Relevance of the paper. The brand name is the most durable of company‘s assets creating added value and helping to gain a competitive advantage in the market. Though creating a successful brand is not as easy as it seems. This requires not only original ideas but also a considerable investment because the brand-building is a continuous process. In other words, it is not enough only to create a brand name of the product. Constant competition and changes in consumer demands force the analysis of brand name structure and makes it take certain decisions on the enforcement of the brand building. Nowadays television, radio, magazines, the internet and other mass media can cover a large audience of consumers, though commercial campaigns cost a fortune. However companies do not ussually receive an expected feedback. Thus, there is an increasing demand to find out the right way of brand name building program which encourages choosing exactly this brand name for the consumer and also how to use the opportunities of new infomational technologies and in this way to reach as wider audience as possible with minimal cost and to acquire desired rezults. The object of the paper- the brand name in social networks. The aim of the paper- to examine and evaluate the opportunities of brand name strengthening in social media. Set goals in order to achieve the aim of the paper: 1. To analyze the brand and the methods of the brand strengthening. 2. To analyze the communications of the integrated... [to full text]

This thesis explores the influences of social networks and social support on the literacy engagement of 7 high school students from a multicultural, multilingual, and economically disadvantaged urban neighborhood in a large, diverse North American city. Specifically, this study describes (1) students’ social networks and social literacy interactions; (2) the types of social support the network relationships provide for participants’ literacy; and (3) the ways in which this socioliterate support might affect participants’ literacy engagement. Guided by Ecological Systems Theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, 1992/2005), at three times during an 18-month period the 7 participants completed social network maps and interviews, checklists about their reading and writing choices, and retrospective interviews about their reading and writing practices on self-selected texts. These data were analyzed on the basis of Tardy’s (1985) typology of social support and the tripartite model of engagement proposed by Fredricks, Blumenfeld, and Paris (2004), then individual case reports were created for each participant. For cross-case analysis (Stake, 2006), the individual reports were compared across similar, predetermined themes. Two primary conclusions are supported by the data and analysis: These adolescents received varying amounts and types of socioliterate support from certain members of their social networks, particularly teachers and family members, and this support positively influenced their literacy engagement when they were facing difficult or uninteresting tasks. The study provides an understanding of the relationship between social support, motivation, and engagement in single literacy events, including proposed relationships between these three concepts, as well as perspectives on the role of technology in adolescent social network formation and on the sources from whom adolescents seek literacy-based social support. The study describes pedagogical spaces that can provide and activate such literacy support and suggests topics for future research relating to adolescent literacy, socioliterate networks and support, and literacy engagement.