Disruptions of self,place and mobility: digital nomads in Chiang Mai,Thailand

ABSTRACT

This article considers the growing lifestyle trend of digital nomadism, whereby individuals leverage digital technology to combine work, leisure and hypermobile travel interests. Based primarily on ethnographic fieldwork in Chiang Mai, Thailand, I examine the lifestyle and mobility pathways of digital nomads through two distinct yet coexisting notions of disruption. On one level disruption is viewed as a radical expression of flexibility, fluidity and newness, that evokes a sense of breaking free from a traditional past. At the same time, I consider disruption on more subtle terms, addressing ways in which historical formations pertaining to work and tourism feed into and unsettle understandings of self, place and mobility. In this article, I examine the role of a work-leisure distinction, colonial imaginaries of place and emerging norms of hypermobility in complicating attempts by digital nomads to establish a coherent sense of self, work and productivity in and across tourism destinations. These seemingly fluid lifestyle practices, I suggest, promote a continual preoccupation with boundaries, as digital nomads try to make sense of work, identity and newness amid an in/visible and intersecting constellation of mobility pathways involving Western backpackers, Chinese tourists, resident foreigners, visiting family and friends, and other nomads.     

The persistence of platforms: The role of network,platform, and complementor attributes

Existing research on digital platforms emphasizes the contexts that enable such platforms – and their sponsoring firms - to emerge and achieve market dominance. However, this body of research has not sufficiently addressed the ability of certain platform sponsors to persist over time, despite the existence of competing platforms or new entrants. Drawing upon research on network effects, competitive dynamics, and complementor interaction, we develop propositions highlighting the role of network, platform, and complementor attributes that facilitate or hinder the persistence of a technology-based platform in the market. In doing so, we conceptualize platform dominance as part of a dynamic process, rather than a static outcome as often characterized by previous literature. Our propositions advance research on digital platform strategy and user networks by examining the factors that enhance the continued viability of a platform, and generates a number of important directions for future research on technology management, innovation, and strategy, as well as for managerial practice in platform-mediated markets.     

Digital methods in a post-API environment

ABSTRACT

Qualitative and mixed methods digital social research often relies on gathering and storing social media data through the use of APIs (Application Programming Interfaces). In past years this has been relatively simple, with academic developers and researchers using APIs to access data and produce visualisations and analysis of social networks and issues. In recent years, API access has become increasingly restricted and regulated by corporations at the helm of social media networks. Facebook (the corporation) has restricted academic research access to Facebook (the social media platform) along with Instagram (a Facebook-owned social media platform). Instead, they have allowed access to sources where monetisation can easily occur, in particular, marketers and advertisers. This leaves academic researchers of digital social life in a difficult situation where API related research has been curtailed. In this paper we describe some rationales and methodologies for using APIs in social research. We then introduce some of the major events in academic API use that have led to the prohibitive situation researchers now find themselves in. Finally, we discuss the methodological and ethical issues this produces for researchers and, suggest some possible steps forward for API related research.     

Pluralist perspectives and diverse responses: Exploring multiplexed framing in incumbent responses to digital disruption

Research applying a socio-cognitive lens to disruptive digital innovation often fails to account for intra-firm heterogeneity in how an established incumbent frames and responds to disruptive innovation. To explore the heterogeneous framing processes involved within a firm, we conducted an in-depth case study of the response of a multinational insurance group to a digitally-led disruptive innovation: the rise of internet-based general insurance aggregator platforms between 2002 and 2007. We map different response frames across three separate framing dimensions: the Challenge Type, Response Urgency and Firm Heritage, and explore their interplay in shaping responses to disruption. We introduce the idea of multiplexed framing – comprised of multiple, non-binary frames – and propose that these are holographically distributed – such that conflicting frames can be held by members of the same organizational department or group. This allows managers to leverage the ambiguity generated by multiplexed frames to select the same response strategies for different reasons leading to an equifinal resolution of conflict. We show how such framing enables the organization to trial and adaptively iterate between different strategic responses to disruptive innovation, particularly amid high uncertainty and ambiguity.     

Top management team characteristics and digital innovation: Exploring digital knowledge and TMT interfaces

On their journey toward digital transformation, industrial firms need to embrace digital innovation. The top management team (TMT) is expected to set the course for digital innovation, which is a challenging endeavour given the novel and cross-functional nature of digital innovation. We draw on role theory to make sense of emerging role requirements for the TMT and combine this view with upper echelon theory to hypothesize on the specific TMT characteristics that are needed for digital innovation. We first theorize that firms could benefit from TMT digital knowledge. Second, we argue that the effective utilization of TMT digital knowledge can be fostered at internal TMT interfaces, such as between the chief executive officer (CEO), respectively a chief digital officer (CDO), and other top managers. Finally, we consider the TMT hierarchical structure as a contextual factor in the stimulation of TMT integration processes by integrative CEOs and CDOs. We employ panel data regressions to a longitudinal dataset of US industrial firms and find a positive relation between TMT digital knowledge and digital innovation, on average. We additionally find evidence for the integrative roles of CEOs and CDOs. However, our findings also indicate that the CDO's integrating role can be hampered by a strong hierarchical structure in the TMT.     

The great reset of management and organization theory. A European perspective

In mid-2020, the World Economic Forum (WEF) announced the Great Reset, an initiative launched to assert, describe, and shape the direction of an epochal transition brought about by the global coronavirus crisis. Rooted in a European tradition of social theory, this article aims to articulate the broader social context of this scenario and pinpoint its implications for management and organization theory. One of these implications is that our fields face a significant risk of co-performing rather than studying the looming “great transformation” from an economy-to a health-dominated society, thus merely replacing one reductionism with another. It follows that what is required are management and organization theories that analyze rather than ride the macro social trends that shape organizations and their environments. The article concludes that if crises are the golden moments of alternative mainstreams, then for those interested in alternatives to the emerging “new normality” the golden moment to develop the next alternative mainstream theories is now.     

Financial literacy and its influence on internet banking behavior

This paper presents the survey results for financial literacy among Cypriot adults and reports their financial aptitude and behaviour. Additionally, it investigates for the first time the implications of financial literacy on respondents’ usage of digital financial services, particularly internet banking (i-banking). The focus is on Cyprus, a country that experienced an unprecedented financial crisis in 2013 that resulted in a bail-in and an enormous subsequent shrinkage of the banking sector. Cypriot consumers face an ever-increasing need for financial sophistication to effectively utilise and manage digital banking services. Neverthless, financial literacy is still low in Cyprus, whereby only 37.33% of survey respondents showed proficiency in financial knowledge. The findings indicate that there is a statistically positive relationship between the levels of financial knowledge and the frequency of i-banking use. More importantly, financially illiterate consumers appear to report far more often than their financially literate peers the lack of trust in i-banking, as well as a lack of self-confidence in financial and digital skills as the main reasons for not using this service. The findings highlight the interplay between financial literacy and digital proficiency, and their implication on individuals’ use of i-banking services.     

Spatial politics in the digital realm: the logistics/precarity dialectics and Deliveroo’s tertiary space struggles

This paper uses the case of mobilization of delivery workers from digital platform Deliveroo in order to illustrate the production of space of resistance, which develops as a result of the tension of two emerging factors shaping the digital labour realm: logistics and precarity. On the one hand, I consider how logistics in the digital capitalist context produce precarious workers whose ICT-driven connectivity and flexibility responds to the logistical imperatives of effective commodities circulation. On the other hand, taking advantage of the tech-savvy precarious position they were hired for, Deliveroo workers display the capability to strategically cut across “abstract” and “differential” space, and therefore re-territorialize a third space dimension where digital labour can organize and antagonize digital capitalism.     

数字普惠金融促进包容性增长的机理及有效性检验

发展数字普惠金融是实现包容性增长的重要战略举措。本文基于广义Bonferroni曲线测度社会包容度指数的基础上,利用一元并行多重中介模型、FY分解方法和面板平滑转换模型,探究数字普惠金融对包容性增长的影响机理并对其有效性进行评估。研究发现:数字普惠金融对包容性增长存在明显的边际促进作用,这种促进作用主要通过财富渠道和创新渠道显现,金融渠道传导作用有限;数字普惠金融对包容性增长的贡献度总体上升,但表现出明显的区域异质性,西部地区贡献率增长最快。究其原因,地区人均GDP、城镇化率和金融市场化程度的区域差异,使得数字普惠金融的服务效能存在明显的区制转换效应。本文可为数字普惠金融政策提供量化分析,也为理解数字普惠金融的服务效能提供理论依据。     

个性化信息服务:数字图书馆的必由之路

数字图书馆是未来图书馆发展的必然趋势 ,而提供个性化信息服务则是数字图书馆发展的必由之路。个性化信息服务包括图书馆的个性化 ,信息利用的个性化以及根据读者需求的变化动态地更新信息服务。数字图书馆个性化信息服务的实现 ,必须依赖于全国数字图书馆的客观科学规划 ,先进技术的支持 ,高素质信息服务队伍的培养和知识产权问题的解决