Corporate Mobilities Regimes. Mobility,Power and the Socio-geographical Structurations of Mobile Work

Abstract

This article introduces the concept of mobility regimes and points out three discursive dimensions: the normalization, rationalization and time-space-compression of mobility. It concentrates on corporate mobility, business travel and mobile work, and gives a focused overview on current developments in research. Sociology has largely neglected the topic of spatial mobility. Dealings with distance and travel, however, are driving forces for the modernization of modern societies. Economic activity is based on mobility and companies deploy sophisticated mobility regimes to be present in markets. The increase in mobile work brings new issues centre stage such as the control of mobile workers, social cohesion and the spatial complexity of corporate activities. The author theorizes mobile work and business travel as signifiers for social change in the organization of work. He presents theoretical reflections based on empirical work conducted among mobile workers in the IT, mechanical and the chemical industries.     

Blur-generated non-separable space–time models

Statistical space–time modelling has traditionally been concerned with separable covariance functions, meaning that the covariance function is a product of a purely temporal function and a purely spatial function. We draw attention to a physical dispersion model which could model phenomena such as the spread of an air pollutant. We show that this model has a non-separable covariance function. The model is well suited to a wide range of realistic problems which will be poorly fitted by separable models. The model operates successively in time: the spatial field at time t +1 is obtained by 'blurring' the field at time t and adding a spatial random field. The model is first introduced at discrete time steps, and the limit is taken as the length of the time steps goes to 0. This gives a consistent continuous model with parameters that are interpretable in continuous space and independent of sampling intervals. Under certain conditions the blurring must be a Gaussian smoothing kernel. We also show that the model is generated by a stochastic differential equation which has been studied by several researchers previously.     

Explicating the public memory dialectic in public relations: The case of Donald Trump,The Oath Keepers,and January 6, 2021

The public relations practice participates in making, shaping, telling, and interpreting societal memory to influence issue positions and related actions. That claim implies several themes. One, societal memory is a useful concept for understanding the strategic processes of meaning and meaning making, narratives which constitute society. Two, the content of their prevailing memories shapes the choices individuals make separately and collectively. Public relations’ centrality to societal memory remains an underappreciated and underexplored research area. Scholars have explored the role public relations plays in societal memory by examining, for instance, the textuality of art as well as memorials and statues, their erection and erasure. To better understand this process, scholarship needs to examine strategic public relations efforts to “blur” societal memory as a means of creating alternative versions (revisionist history) of lived truth, values, norms, and policies. After examining memory, including blurring, we use the January 6, 2021 United States presidential election (Congressional Certification) Capitol “protest event” to demonstrate how blurring occurs and its potential adverse implications. We suggest and conceptualize in a model that societal memory occurs as a dialectic; some etched version of history (i.e., thesis) comes under question (i.e., antithesis), and through either a process of blurring, erasure, or retention, that etched history is then muddied, expunged, or lives on (i.e., synthesis). Meaning matters in the enactment and critical assessment of public relations’ role in societal agency.