Doing Qualitative Research

What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

/pdf/technology-and-society-building-our-sociotechnical-future-gnnbv3m66n.pdf

Technology and Society: Building Our Sociotechnical Future

The International maritime organisation

This Article develops justifications for protections against the disclosure of private information. An extensive body of scholarship has attacked such protections as anathema to the Information Age, where the free flow of information is championed as a fundamental value. This Article responds to two general critiques of disclosure protections: (1) that they inhibit freedom of speech, and (2) that they restrict information useful for judging others. Regarding the free speech critique, the Article argues that not all speech is of equal value; speech of private concern is less valuable than speech of public concern. The difficulty, however, is distinguishing between public and private concerns. Traditional approaches include deferring to the media, distinguishing between public and private figures, and looking to the nature of the information disclosed. However, these approaches are flawed. Instead, we should focus on the relationships in which information is transferred and the uses to which information is put. The propriety of disclosures depends upon their purpose, not merely on the type of information disclosed. The Article analogizes to the law of evidence, in which certain information is admissible for some purposes but not others and then examines the values of free speech and argues that privacy often furthers the same ends, demonstrating that free speech should not always prevail in the balance. Next, the Article tackles the judgment and trust critique, which views personal information as essential for making judgments about whether to trust people with whom one associates. Although personal information can help facilitate judgments about other people, the Article contends that these judgments are often made quickly and out of context. In short, more information does not necessarily lead to more accurate judgments. The Article also contends that privacy protects against certain rational judgments that society may want to prohibit (such as employment decisions based on genetic information). The Article then responds to commentators who argue that gossip is valuable because it helps educate us about human nature and argues that the value of concealing one's past can, in many circumstances, outweigh the benefits of disclosure.

The Virtues of Knowing Less: Justifying Privacy Protections Against Disclosure

Protecting users' privacy rights has become a great challenge during the age of technological advancement in areas of digital media and digital communication, such as the internet and e-commerce. Dissemination of personal data over networks has become quite easy, widespread, and uncontrollable. This has created various concerns for online consumers in regard to privacy breaches and made it quite difficult for current regulations and statutes to address data confidentiality violations in many national states. Therefore, the paper discusses one of the contemporary challenging issues: the challenge of new technology and e-commerce to the right to privacy. The aim of this paper is to investigate the implementation of the right to privacy and the effectiveness of the current USA legal system in governing online transactions by drawing on the various notions embedded in the concept of privacy in general and e-privacy in particular. The method adopted for the legal perspective is case studies, where the USA legal context will be explored.

The Legal Dilemma in Governing the Privacy Right of E-Commerce Users: Evidence From the USA Context

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development builds upon the Millennium Development Goals while at the same time reaffirming the conclusions of the leading instruments in the field of human rights and international law. The 17 integrated and indivisible sustainable development goals (SDGs) require innovation through digitalization and legal activities. Digitalization and new technologies are crucial for SDG 8, 9, and 16. SDG 16: Peace, justice, and strong institutions directly focus on law. While SDG 16 does not directly mention it, digitalization is essential in achieving its specific targets. Examples include concepts of e-government (including data protection and public access to information), e-commerce, equal access to dispute resolution mechanisms in cyberspace, and enforcement of non-discriminatory laws for sustainable development. The right to a healthy and sustainable environment encompasses economic, social, and environmental aspects that SDGs capture. To achieve these goals, the 2030 Agenda relies on international law instruments. The right to a healthy and sustainable environment is developing towards an internationally recognized human right. As environmental goals do not recognize national borders, international law plays a key role. International environmental law should facilitate a broader application of existing clean technologies through the transfer of technology and examine the development of new technologies as to its compatibility with a sustainable environment. Moreover, the human right to share in scientific advancement and enjoy its benefits embodies equal access to technology. The legal enforcement of sustainable goals in the private and governmental sectors remains one of the main concerns of climate change.

https://doi.org/10.1088/1755-1315/1026/1/012061

Digitalization and Innovation in Achieving SDGs – Impacts on Legislation and Practice

This paper investigates the process of integrating information technology (IT) within the ship safety management system for enhancing compliance with the International Safety Management (ISM) Code. The importance of this integration is based on the need of ship management companies for properly managing safety information within real time scope and across boundaries of geographical space - namely, between the head office ashore and the ships at sea. This research contributes to the theory and practice of e-management and IT adoption research by providing empirical evidence from practice. Two case studies of Syrian ship management companies have been selected to analyze the process of IT integration, its environment and its impact on ship safety procedures. The study has adopted an interpretive approach, and a research conceptual framework that combines between the `institutional theory' and the `structural technology adoption model'. The findings of the study show that external institutions such as governments, regulators and international organizations have played a pivotal role in institutionalizing organizational practices, such as compliance with safety codes. With the absence of sufficient coercive or regulative pressures, IT practices could not be fully operationalized or optimized although its usefulness has been recognized by both the individual user and the organization.

Integrating information technology (IT) to enhance compliance of safety management system in Syrian shipping companies

Understanding how participants of a GDSS (Group Decision Support Systems) meeting perceive anonymity is a vital issue towards improving its outcomes. This paper aims to investigate how participants of a GDSS meeting interact with the anonymity feature to generate task-conflict. Particular investigation emphasis is on the argument that the users of this system can exploit and employ technology in a way that achieves their own purposes. The strategic component of the SIDE (Social Identity model of Deindividuation Effects) theory has been tested within GDSS meeting context. The paper reports on the results of semi-structured interviews conducted with experienced facilitators, technical support experts and users of these applications in real business environment settings. The two GDSS meeting applications investigated in this research are the ‘FacilitatePro’ and ‘MeetingSphere’. The paper findings indicate that members of a GDSS anonymous environment were found to be task-focused, and that the anonymity feature plays a significant role in fostering task-conflict discussions within these meetings. SIDE’s strategic component assumption that anonymous users of CMC (Computer Mediated Communication) exploit and use their hidden identities to achieve personal objectives could not be found and then could not be proven. Depending on this paper’s investigation, it’s suggested that future research needs to investigate ‘Same Time / Different Places’ meeting configuration, which could provide a solution to some of the participants physical proximity concerns and may yield new findings for this type of GDSS supported meetings.

Anonymity and Group Task-Conflict in GDSS Supported Meetings

The key research objective of the current study is to answer the following research question: Why is ‘privacy' a contested concept that is hard to define? In doing so, the study will raise awareness of the contemporary meaning of ‘privacy' in relation to cyber activities and to draw attention to the need for developing the right to cyber privacy and its legal protection. Hence, the current study has embarked on analysing the meaning of privacy in general, and the meaning of cyber or online privacy in particular. As a result, privacy has been found to be a perennially contestable concept, and this is exacerbated by the ever more rapidly developing digital world and also by the diverse perceptions which vary across societies, cultures, and generations. This has created a big challenge for regulators and legislators to define a specific privacy right that can be accorded with a legal protection against violations across national and international jurisdictions. However, the right to privacy has been found to be vague and open to multiple, competing interpretations.

https://www.igi-global.com/ViewTitle.aspx?TitleId=318675&isxn=9781668480397

The Meaning of Privacy in the Digital Era

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