Tweeting about emergency: A semantic network analysis of government organizations’ social media messaging during Hurricane Harvey

While social media like Twitter have been increasingly adopted by public-sector organizations, it remains less explored as to how government and emergency management (EM) organizations use these platforms to communicate with the public in response to emerging natural disasters. Extending the Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) to the realm of social media, this study examines the emerging semantic networks from 67 government and EM organizations’ official tweets during Hurricane Harvey over a three-week period. It identifies how multiple crisis response strategies—including instructing information, adjusting information, and bolstering—are constituted of different issues, actions, and organizational actors before, during, and immediately after the disaster event. Results suggest that government agencies use the strategy of instructing information predominantly before and during the disaster, whereas adjusting information and bolstering strategies are utilized more during post-disaster recovery. The study offers theoretical and practical implications of using a semantic network approach to studying organizational crisis responses.     

A framework to study strategizing activities at the field level: The example of CSR rating agencies

This paper responds to recent calls to bridge strategy and organization research by combining Strategy-as-Practice and Neo-Institutional Theory through re-theorizing the notion of strategic actor. We problematize the notion of strategic actor at the field level, and rely on insights from management and organization studies and sociology to advance a theoretical framework that conceptualizes organizations as social actors at the field level. We demonstrate our theoretical framework by drawing on corporate social responsibility rating agencies. We see corporate social responsibility rating agencies as supra-individual, social actors that are predisposed to assume an active role in defining and revisiting structural parameters within the society through their purposeful, meaningful actions and interactions. Our main contribution is to the development of the Strategy-as-Practice literature, achieved by re-theorizing the notion of strategic actor at the field level. This contribution responds to the micro-isolationism critique, and proposes a new focus for Strategy-as Practice research.     

Countering Overseas Power in Global Value Chains: Information Asymmetries and Subcontracting in the Plastics Industry

Resource Dependency Theory (RDT) and Global Value Chain (GVC) analysis have been deployed in the strategic and international management literatures to address questions of power in dyadic relationships and global production networks, respectively. This paper integrates the two theoretical approaches in order to expand RDT, using insights from Hirschman's exit/voice model to show the options available to some firms but not others. Using the relationship between buyers and contract manufacturers from GVC analysis, we find a correlation between firm size and choice of strategic action in response to contract manufacturers' dependence on buyers. Large firms follow an acquiescence strategy while small manufacturers follow an avoidance strategy, able to use both exit and voice strategies. Enabled by scale or control over information, both of these approaches successfully reduce uncertainty and provide a source of sustained competitive advantage. Using a study of the production chain in consumer plastics manufacturing in China, we show how dependent firms respond to GVC induced pressure. We find that based on the size of the contract manufacturer, the range of strategic responses to power is constrained by the nature of the dependency in global value chains. This opens important insights into the role that structural characteristics of organizations (like size) play in determining strategic freedom.     

Who Should Pay for Interdependent Risk? Policy Implications for Security Interdependence Among Airports

We study interdependent risks in security, and shed light on the economic and policy implications of increasing security interdependence in presence of reactive attackers. We investigate the impact of potential public policy arrangements on the security of a group of interdependent organizations, namely, airports. Focusing on security expenditures and costs to society, as assessed by a social planner, to individual airports and to attackers, we first develop a game-theoretic framework, and derive explicit Nash equilibrium and socially optimal solutions in the airports network. We then conduct numerical experiments mirroring real-world cyber scenarios, to assess how a change in interdependence impact the airports' security expenditures, the overall expected costs to society, and the fairness of security financing. Our study provides insights on the economic and policy implications for the United States, Europe, and Asia.     

“百年未有之大变局”之哲学分析

当今世界正处于“百年未有之大变局”中。这是中国共产党对于世界新的时代特征的全新、科学和准确的研判。“百年未有之大变局”这一重大论断，具有深厚的马克思主义哲学的本体论基础、认识论基础、矛盾论基础和历史观基础。作为科学世界观与方法论，马克思主义哲学的辩证唯物主义和历史唯物主义为我们深刻认识和精准把握“百年未有之大变局”的深层本质和哲学依据提供了重要的认知性引导、方法论基础和实践智慧支撑。     

The self as the locus of morality: A comparison between Charles Taylor and George Herbert Mead's theories of the moral constitution of the self

This paper provides a critical comparison of two leading exponents of the relationship between morality and selfhood: Charles Taylor and George Herbert Mead. Specifically, it seeks to provide an assessment of the contribution each approach is able to make to a social theory of morality that has the self at its heart. Ultimately, it is argued that Taylor's phenomenological account neglects the significance of interaction and social relations in his conceptualisation of the relationship between morality and self, which undermines the capacity of his framework to explain how moral understandings and dialogic moral subjectivity develop in a world of shared meaning. I then argue that Mead's pragmatist interactionist approach overcomes many of the flaws in Taylor's framework, and offers a grounded conceptualisation of the relationship between self and morality that is able to provide a basis for a properly social account of moral subjectivity.     

A surplus process involving a compound Poisson counting process and applications

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce a surplus process involving a compound Poisson counting process, which is a generalization of the classical ruin model where the claim-counting process is a homogeneous Poisson process. The incentive is to model batch arrival of claims using a counting process that is based on a compound distribution. This reduces the difficulty of modeling claim amounts and is consistent with industrial data. Recursive formula, some properties and relevant main ruin theory results are provided. Further, we consider applications involving zero-truncated negative binomial and zero-truncated binomial batch arrivals when the claim amounts follow exponential or Erlang distribution.     

Sensemaking in crisis situations: Drawing insights from epic war novels

Soldiers operate under conditions of extreme uncertainty and danger, in which sensemaking is both crucial and challenging. A grounded theory analysis of four epic war novels by veterans (Tolstoy, Remarque, Heller, O’Brien) provides insights into soldiers' sensemaking in combat. The findings are of theoretical and methodological relevance. Theoretically, this article contributes to sensemaking theory by identifying alternative sensemaking pathways besides the traditional enactment-selection-retention model. Additionally, while existing literature suggests that sensemaking failures result in organizational breakdown, this study shows that personnel may continue to do their work in the (fictional) belief that other organizational members can still make sense of the situation. Finally, methodologically, this article introduces grounded theory as a systematic approach to analyzing novels in contrast to current heterogeneous uses of literary fiction in organization and management studies.     

小说学与“长时段”:论胡怀琛的中国小说史学

民国学者胡怀琛著有《中国小说研究》、《中国小说概论》、《中国小说的起源与演变》等普及型文学史著作,其研究理念与著述体例有别于鲁迅的《中国小说史略》。胡怀琛的中国小说史学以小说类型为经,以时代为纬,讲求小说学与小说史学的融合互渗,注重把握小说文体演变的内在逻辑与宏大结构。胡怀琛以现代意义的小说观为参照,重新整合经史子集中具有"小说"意味的文本,藉此重新发现中国的"小说",并重建各种历史文本与文类的关联性和有序性。胡怀琛将"长时段"的历史思维与解释方法运用于中国小说史研究,从"形"与"质"两方面勾勒出中国小说历史演化的基本轮廓。     

A new financial stress index model based on support vector regression and control chart

Financial stress index (FSI) is considered to be an important risk management tool to quantify financial vulnerabilities. This paper proposes a new framework based on a hybrid classifier model that integrates rough set theory (RST), FSI, support vector regression (SVR) and a control chart to identify stressed periods. First, the RST method is applied to select variables. The outputs are used as input data for FSI–SVR computation. Empirical analysis is conducted based on monthly FSI of the Federal Reserve Bank of Saint Louis from January 1992 to June 2011. A comparison study is performed between FSI based on the principal component analysis and FSI–SVR. A control chart based on FSI–SVR and extreme value theory is proposed to identify the extremely stressed periods. Our approach identified different stressed periods including internet bubble, subprime crisis and actual financial stress episodes, along with the calmest periods, agreeing with those given by Federal Reserve System reports.