► This paper attempts to explain the profusion of rankings in contemporary society. ► The website TripAdvisor is an example of a trusted ranking mechanism. ► We argue that TripAdvisor is an ...illustration of an internet mediated abstract system. ► Our analysis highlights the role of accounting in eliciting trust. ► The implications for the future of the accounting profession are discussed.
A proliferation of rankings and league tables increasingly permeate everyday life. An objective of this paper is to explain the profusion of such rankings, in particular on-line user review rankings, in contemporary society and what this means for our understanding of the role of accounting. The online travel website TripAdvisor and its hotel ranking system is a prominent example of this new phenomenon. The site increasingly appears to play the role of trusted intermediary for the ‘independent traveller’ who spurns the services of the traditional travel agent in favour of making their own holiday arrangements. In this paper, we undertake netnographic research to consider the way in which TripAdvisor rankings engender trust. Drawing on the site’s own operational features together with an analysis of the traveller commentaries hosted within the site, we argue that the case of TripAdvisor is a powerful illustration of an internet mediated abstract system (
Giddens, 1990, 1991) that draws on calculative practices to construct trust. In addition, we speculate as to the implications of the proliferation of such internet mediated expert systems, both on the accounting profession, and on future accounting research.
During the past decade, social mechanisms and mechanism-based explanations have received considerable attention in the social sciences as well as in the philosophy of science. This article critically ...reviews the most important philosophical and social science contributions to the mechanism approach. The first part discusses the idea of mechanism based explanation from the point of view of philosophy of science and relates it to causation and to the covering-law account of explanation. The second part focuses on how the idea of mechanisms has been used in the social sciences. The final part discusses recent developments in analytical sociology, covering the nature of sociological explananda, the role of theory of action in mechanism-based explanations, Merton's idea of middle-range theory, and the role of agent-based simulations in the development of mechanism-based explanations.
Public opinion polarization is here conceived as a process of alignment along multiple lines of potential disagreement and measured as growing constraint in individuals' preferences. Using NES data ...from 1972 to 2004, the authors model trends in issue partisanship-the correlation of issue attitudes with party identification-and issue alignment-the correlation between pairs of issues-and find a substantive increase in issue partisanship, but little evidence of issue alignment. The findings suggest that opinion changes correspond more to a resorting of party labels among voters than to greater constraint on issue attitudes: since parties are more polarized, they are now better at sorting individuals along ideological lines. Levels of constraint vary across population subgroups: strong partisans and wealthier and politically sophisticated voters have grown more coherent in their beliefs. The authors discuss the consequences of partisan realignment and group sorting on the political process and potential deviations from the classic pluralistic account of American politics.
This article presents a meta-analysis of team-level antecedents of creativity and innovation in the workplace. Using a general input-process-output model, the authors examined 15 team-level variables ...researched in primary studies published over the last 30 years and their relation to creativity and innovation. An exhaustive search of the international innovation literature resulted in a final sample (
k
) of 104 independent studies. Results revealed that team process variables of support for innovation, vision, task orientation, and external communication displayed the strongest relationships with creativity and innovation (ρs between 0.4 and 0.5). Input variables (i.e., team composition and structure) showed weaker effect sizes. Moderator analyses confirmed that relationships differ substantially depending on measurement method (self-ratings vs. independent ratings of innovation) and measurement level (individual vs. team innovation). Team variables displayed considerably stronger relationships with self-report measures of innovation compared with independent ratings and objective criteria. Team process variables were more strongly related to creativity and innovation measured at the team than the individual level. Implications for future research and pragmatic ramifications for organizational practice are discussed in conclusion.
Full text
Available for:
CEKLJ, FFLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PEFLJ
For the past few years, the term ‘lifestyle migration’ has been used to refer to an increasing number of people who take the decision to migrate based on their belief that there is a more fulfilling ...way of life available to them elsewhere. Lifestyle migration is thus a growing, disparate phenomenon, with important but little understood implications for both societies and individuals. This article outlines and explores in detail a series of mobilities that have in common relative affluence and this search for a better lifestyle. We attempt to define the limits of the term lifestyle migration, the characteristics of the lifestyle sought, and the place of this form of migration in the contemporary world. In this manner, we map the various migrations that can be considered under this broad rubric, recognising the similarities and differences in their migration trajectories. Further to this, drawing on the sociological literature on lifestyle, we provide an initial theoretical conceptualisation of this phenomenon, attempting to explain its recent escalation in various guises, and investigating the historical, sociological, and individualised conditions that inspire this migration. This article is thus the first step in defining a broader programme for the study of lifestyle migration. We contend that the study of this migration is especially important in the current era given the impact such moves have on places and people at both ends of the migratory chain.
There are three components to boundary objects as outlined in the original 1989 article. Interpretive flexibility, the structure of informatic and work process needs and arrangements, and, finally, ...the dynamic between ill-structured and more tailored uses of the objects. Much of the use of the concept has concentrated on the aspect of interpretive flexibility and has often mistaken or conflated this flexibility with the process of tacking back-and-forth between the ill-structured and well-structured aspects of the arrangements. Boundary objects are not useful at just any level of scale or without full consideration of the entire model. The article discusses these aspects of the architecture of boundary objects and includes a discussion of one of the ways that boundary objects appeared as a concept in earlier work done by Star. It concludes with methodological considerations about how to study the system of boundary objects and infrastructure.
This article presents a new model of culture in action. Although most sociologists who study culture emphasize its role in post hoc sense making, sociologists of religion and social psychologists ...tend to focus on the role beliefs play in motivation. The dual-process model integrates justificatory and motivational approaches by distinguishing between "discursive" and "practical" modes of culture and cognition. The author uses panel data from the National Study of Youth and Religion to illustrate the model's usefulness. Consistent with its predictions, he finds that though respondents cannot articulate clear principles of moral judgment, their choice from a list of moral-cultural scripts strongly predicts later behavior.
This article elaborates the social ontology and methodology of carnal sociology as a distinctive mode of social inquiry eschewing the spectatorial posture to grasp action-in-the-making, in the wake ...of debates triggered by my apprenticeship-based study of boxing as a plebeian bodily craft. First I critique the notions of (dualist) agent, (externalist) structure, and (mentalist) knowledge prevalent in the contemporary social sciences and sketch an alternative conception of the social animal, not just as wielder of symbols, but as sensate, suffering, skilled, sedimented, and situated creature of flesh and blood. I spotlight the primacy of embodied practical knowledge arising out of and continuously enmeshed in webs of action and consider what modes of inquiry are suited to deploying and mining this incarnate conception of the agent. I argue that
enactive ethnography
, the brand of immersive fieldwork based on “performing the phenomenon,” is a fruitful path toward capturing the cognitive, conative, and cathectic schemata (habitus) that generate the practices and underlie the cosmos under investigation. But it takes social spunk and persistence to reap the rewards of “observant participation” and achieve social competency (as distinct from empirical saturation). In closing, I return to Bourdieu’s dialogue with Pascal to consider the special difficulty and urgency of capturing the “spirit of acuteness” that animates such competency but vanishes from normal sociological accounts.
PDF
