Zeitschriftenartikel zum Thema „Incumbent User Privacy“

Background: Unlike other financial services, technology-driven changes in the insurance industry have not been a vastly explored topic in scholarly literature. Incumbent insurance companies have hitherto been holding their positions using the complexity of the product, heavy regulation, and gigantic balance sheets as paramount factors for a relatively slow digitalization and technological transformation. However, new technologies such as car telematic devices have been creating a new insurance ecosystem. The aim of this study is to assess the telematics technology acceptance for insurance purposes. Methods: The study is based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). By interviewing 502 new car buyers, we tested the factors that affect the potential usage of telematic devices for insurance purposes. Results: The results indicate that facilitating conditions are the main predictor of telematics use. Moreover, privacy concerns related to the potential abuse of driving behavior data play an important role in technology acceptance. Conclusions: Although novel insurance technologies are mainly presented as user-driven, users (drivers and insurance buyers) are often neglected as an active party in the development of such technologies.

Why does natural resource wealth prolong incumbency? Using evidence from parliamentary elections in the Islamic Republic of Iran, the author shows that natural resource revenues boost incumbent reelection rates because they are used to provide public or private goods to constituents, which incentivizes voters to reelect incumbents over challengers. To test this hypothesis, the author employs originally assembled data on five parliamentary elections in Iran (1992–2008) in longitudinal hierarchical regression analyses at the district and province levels. By leveraging Iran's mixed-member electoral system, he shows that the resource-incumbency mechanism works primarily in single-member districts with little evidence of an incumbency advantage for politicians in resource-rich multimember districts. Building on the rentier theory of natural resource wealth, the results suggest that voting for the incumbent is attributable to patronage and public goods distribution. The findings offer new insights into the understudied context of Iranian legislative elections, illustrate the mechanisms driving the relationship between resource wealth and incumbency advantage at the subnational level in a nondemocratic setting, and highlight the mediating effects of electoral institutions on the resource-incumbency relationship.

Are voters’ attitudes towards corrupt candidates affected by the details they learn about candidates’ wrongdoing? This study examines the effect of including different pieces of information emphasising the public costs or private gain of a similar corruption incident on the probability of support for the incumbent mayor’s re-election. I use three surveys experiments with online convenience samples of Brazilian subjects. The survey experiments use various vignettes presenting a fictitious Brazilian incumbent mayor with antecedents of misuse of public funds, running for re-election. I manipulate the details that subjects learn on those antecedents to assess whether information on the public costs of the corruption incident or on the candidate’s illicit enrichment stimulates a stronger rejection. Additional manipulations are used to test rival hypotheses. Results consistently show that information showing the candidate’s illicit enrichment drives a stronger negative response than every alternative treatment.

This article focuses on the role of private patronage within the Church of England. Private patrons own advowsons. These property rights can no longer be traded but may still be bequeathed or transferred without value. When there is a vacancy in a benefice, a patron has the right to nominate a new incumbent in accordance with the Patronage (Benefices) Measure 1986. This article uses contemporary and historical records to define private patronage and analyse the current role of the four broad categories of private patrons: private individuals, educational bodies, guilds and patronage societies. While acknowledging the benefits that patronage can bring, this article advocates substantive reform for the future including a sunset rule for private individual patronage. The article suggests that reform of the law of private patronage will make a positive contribution to other contemporary issues before the Church by promoting diversity in vocations, facilitating necessary pastoral reorganisation and adding to the dialogue about the future of the parish system.

In 2018, India had 1.2 billion subscribers, and it was the second largest telecommunications market in the world. The industry had witnessed the emergence, ascendency, and dominance of private sector players during the last two decades. The telecom sector was characterized by a growing wireless user base and Internet subscriber base. The dwindling average revenue per user (ARPU) in the mobile telephony segment and the declining average cost to subscriber per GB of data were manifestations of the intense rivalry in the sector which had led to price wars among incumbent players. The Supreme Court of India’s judgement on Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) in October 2019 obligated the industry players to pay ₹1,470 billion as payment towards their licence fee and spectrum usage charges. Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel, two leading players, collectively owed 60% of the aforementioned liability. Declining revenue had already squeezed the profitability and liquidity of these companies. The AGR liability augmented their challenges.

Spectrum management based on private commons is argued to be a realistic scenario for cognitive radio deployment within the current mobile market structure. A scenario is proposed where a secondary entrant operator leases spectrum from a primary incumbent operator. The secondary operator innovates incorporating cognitive radio technology, and it competes in quality of service and price against the primary operator in order to provide service to users. We aim to assess which benefit users get from the entry of secondary operators in the market. A game theory-based model for analyzing both the competition between operators and the subscription decision by users is proposed. We conclude that an entrant operator adopting an innovative technology is better off entering the market, and that a regulatory authority should intervene first allowing the entrant operator to enter the market and then setting a maximum amount of spectrum leased. This regulatory intervention is justified in terms of users utility and social welfare.

This study mainly focused on learning to Read in English in Differing Environments. Selected public and private schools in Lusaka and Mufulira urban districts in Zambia were targeted, with a population of all Grade 3 learners, totaling 150. Reading tests, semi-guided interviews, focus group discussions and a check list for lesson observation were done. A qualitative approach was used to probe and to get deep insights of how reading in English was taught. The qualitative data was analysed through the identification of teachers' common themes, descriptions and experiences. Conclusions were reached and analysed with reference to the research questions. Quantitative data was analysed using a t-test to compare the reading levels between learners in public basic and private schools. The findings indicate that learners in private schools have a conducive environment for learning how to read in English. The study found that public basic schools do not use the recommended PRP. Public schools did not have enough teaching and learning materials. It was established that learners in public schools did not read according to their reading levels while learners in private schools did that effectively. The recommendations were that the Ministry of Education needed to provide enough equipment and materials, and train teachers appropriately as well as early out regular inspection exercises. In the same way, it was incumbent on the school authorities to cooperate with parents.

Objectives To assess the impact of provider diversity on quality and innovation in the English NHS by mapping the extent of diverse provider activity and identifying the differences in performance between Third Sector Organisations (TSOs), for-profit private enterprises, and incumbent organizations within the NHS, and the factors that affect the entry and growth of new providers. Methods Case studies of four local health economies. Data included: semi-structured interviews with 48 managerial and clinical staff from NHS organizations and providers from the private and third sector; some documentary evidence; a focus group with service users; and routine data from the Care Quality Commission and Companies House. Data collection was mainly between November 2008 and November 2009. Results Involvement of diverse providers in the NHS is limited. Commissioners' local strategies influence degrees of diversity. Barriers to entry for TSOs include lack of economies of scale in the bidding process. Private providers have greater concern to improve patient pathways and patient experience, whereas TSOs deliver quality improvements by using a more holistic approach and a greater degree of community involvement. Entry of new providers drives NHS trusts to respond by making improvements. Information sharing diminishes as competition intensifies. Conclusions There is scope to increase the participation of diverse providers in the NHS but care must be taken not to damage public accountability, overall productivity, equity and NHS providers (especially acute hospitals, which are likely to remain in the NHS) in the process.

Abstract Recent research has provided broad accounts of what high institutional quality is; bureaucrats should be impartial and recruited on merit, public power should not be used for private gain, there should be rule of law, and property rights should be secure. Many scholars argue the reason why, in spite of this knowledge, recent institutional reforms have had limited success is that improvements are not in the interest of incumbent elites. Constraining elites is, therefore, crucial for institutional improvements. In this article, I argue that economic diversification functions as one such constraint on elite behavior, affecting their ability to form collusive coalitions. When the economy is concentrated to a few sectors, elite interests are more uniform making it easier for them to organize. However, as the economy becomes more diverse, collusion becomes harder and elites must settle for impartial institutions more often. I test the theory using cross-national time series data covering the last 25 years; the results corroborate the theory, as the economy of a country becomes more diverse, institutions become more impartial.

Continental pawnbroking institutions, Monts-de-Piété, were introduced in Ireland in the 1830s and 1840s but did not establish a permanent status. Irish social reformers believed that a Mont-de-Piété system would reduce the cost of borrowing for the poor and also fund a social welfare network, thus negating the need for an Irish Poor Law. This article explores the introduction of the Mont-de-Piété charitable pawnbroker in Ireland and outlines some reasons for its failure. It uses the market incumbents, private pawnbrokers, as a base group in a comparative study and asks why the Monts-de-Piété were the unsuccessful ones of the two. The article finds that the public nature and monopoly status of Monts-de-Piété on the Continent realised economies of scale and gave preferential interest rates on capital, as well as enabling the Mont-de-Piété loan book to be cross-subsidised. These conditions were not replicated in Ireland, hence the failure of the Monts-de-Piété there.

Method of setting minimum wages has been a debatable issue across the world. Various countries have adopted various methods of minimum wage determination process primarily formulas, government rate setting, union bargained rates, and rate recommended by an expert body. International Labour Organization (ILO) puts forth that the process of setting-up minimum wages should be scientific and accommodative of the needs of the workers and their families. Although minimum wages remains an utmost prority as a redistributive tool, studies shows that its fixation are mostly driven by political interest of the incumbent government and the interest of the private sector. Nepal is not an exception to this. This paper attempts to propose a need based method of setting minimum wages for Nepal. In addition to the food and non-food information, unlike previous need based approaches, this study uses housing information from the nationally representative household survey to derive the minimum wages for Nepal. The minimum monthly salary/wages at 2019/20 prices per household is estimated at NRs. 21799 and daily wages is estimated at NRs. 838.43.This study is expected to guide policy makers in setting evidence-based minimum wages for Nepal.

An understanding of the relationships among the integration of computer technology by women educators in higher education and effective teaching could have a significant impact on education. Pennsylvania Universities and Colleges have made their commitment to educational technology and provided support for the implementation of such technology. Currently, we have little empirical evidence to show that the use of computer technology by women educators actually does improve learning. Incumbent upon this commitment to educational technology, women educators have a right to ask if their investment of time and effort in learning how to use and implement the technology will produce significant benefits for their students. This research developed a survey instrument to rank statements and gain an understanding of the perceptions of women in higher education concerning the integration of computer technology and teacher effectiveness. The methods used to develop the instrument involved the analysis of relevant research, construction of appropriate items, identification of the population sample, validity and reliability, and pilot testing. The population under study was limited to two Colleges and one University in Northeastern Pennsylvania during the spring and fall semesters of 2007. The results indicated that the women surveyed felt teacher effectiveness is most strongly associated with the availability of technology tools to collect data for the purposes of instructional planning. Conversely, participants felt that teacher effectiveness was not strongly associated with lesson sequences that integrate technology resources, implementation of procedures consistent with school policies that protect the privacy of electronic student data, and demonstration of ethical behaviors regarding the use of technology.

This article examines how Algerians negotiate property and public space and how citizens encounter and engage the state. It explores the phenomenon of squatting and appropriation of public space in contemporary Algeria through the lens of the polysemic term beylik, which can be simultaneously used to define the state, public domain, and no man’s land. It argues that, in addition to individual motivations for personal gain or out of necessity, squatting and the appropriation of public space is also a silent yet highly political act that reimagines the relationship of rights and obligations incumbent between citizen and polity. The appropriation of beylik is a process that comes from widely-held beliefs that types of unused state property are somehow unnatural, if not illegitimate, or that, as a citizen, one has the right to re-model and re-fashion it for either individual or collective use. In this sense, beylik is an empty space in which citizens re-imagine how the community should be governed. By seizing and transforming beylik, a citizen is simultaneously forgetting (or ignoring) the state, while projecting a different governing order for both private and public spheres. The silent encroachment of citizens into the domains of the state – in occupying and re-ordering state space – reveals the fluidity of Algerian institutions, inasmuch as it reveals that institutions are themselves negotiated between state and society.

Purpose – The succession process represents one of the most critical events in the family business lifecycle. The purpose of this paper is to explore this process while focussing first on the drivers behind the choice of successor and, second, on the impact of this choice on the entrepreneurial behavior of the siblings. Design/methodology/approach – The qualitative approach was used in which multiple case analyses were performed. A total of 12 cases were purposively selected from the Lebanese private sector, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with the successors and the founders when available. The interview data were transcribed and a coding scheme was created to generate relevant categories. Those categories were named and later re-assessed by an external researcher to ensure inter-rater reliability. Findings – The three dimensions of social capital were found to have a profound influence on the succession decision with much focus on familial stewardship as an emerging cognitive driving force. When “familial stewardship” is shared by incumbent and sibling, it strengthens the latter’s chances of being chosen as successor. Further, a succession pathways model was introduced that depicts the siblings’ behavior following the succession decision which seems to often trigger further entrepreneurship. Originality/value – This study is distinct as it introduces a new cognitive construct that helps rationalize the successor-selection decision in a Middle Eastern context. It also goes beyond the succession event to depict potential entrepreneurial behavior triggered by succession.

In February 1912 Theodore Roosevelt sought the Republican nomination for president on a radical platform of reform that had a devotion to the Constitution as its central plank. Such an analysis differs from the standard historical explanation for Roosevelt's challenge to the incumbent Republican president, William Howard Taft, which argues that, bored with private life after his return from big game hunting in Africa in 1910 and consumed by an obsessive pursuit of presidential power, he ran to seek revenge on the successor who had failed to live up to the mentor's hopes. By initiating anti-trust suits against US Steel and International Harvester, which Roosevelt had examined when president but had not filed suit against, and by letting the Republican Party be dominated by regulars rather than Progressives, Taft had earned Roosevelt's unyielding enmity; Roosevelt's response was to seek the presidency.1 This article argues that far more important than any personal motivation, however, was Roosevelt's conviction that the issue at stake in 1912 was in essence a crusade for constitutionalism.Throughout Roosevelt's long career constitutional issues played a primary role in formulating his political views. This was particularly true of the period after he left the presidency in 1909 when his interpretation of the Constitution was used as a means to advance various political ends. The debate about the Constitution, one which had become deep rooted in the national psyche by the close of the first decade of the twentieth century, and the judiciary's role in its interpretation was central to Roosevelt's political philosophy.

In March 2015 Australia became the 50th country in which US video streaming company Netflix had set up a local operation to supplement its planned global expansion in 200 countries. Newcomers Presto and Stan also joined in to further add to the extraordinary rate of growth of all forms of video traffic in Australia, now over half of Telstra’s Internet business. So who is Netflix, and how well might it expand its business in addition to those customers in Australia who are already using virtual private networks (VPNs) to access and pay for their programmes? The company began as a DVD on-line mail rental service in the US over fifteen years ago, but its management always saw the huge potential to use the Internet as –“direct mail on steroids”– for the on-line delivery of movies to homes. Whilst Netflix commendably offers more choice of programmes for Australian viewers, an examination of its business model could hardly support the notion that the established commercial television networks now face a fundamental existential threat. Nor should the notion of “mass digital connectivity” be taken for granted – not only because Australia still has so far go to reach ubiquity of the connection of homes to high capacity broadband, but also because of the serious lack of affordability of direct user pay services for so many Australians. The most likely future scenario is the on-line streamers will be welcomed by a growing number of paying customers, but as a complementary sector to the strong network television incumbents.

A good point-of-care diagnostic test holds a promise to reduce inappropriate use of antibiotics by enabling early detection of the pathogen and facilitating rapid testing of antimicrobial susceptibility. India has taken many initiatives in the recent past to augment the development and deployment of diagnostics in Indian health care system. Funding opportunities to promote innovation in diagnostics development were started in early 2000s through various ministries and departments. India released National Essential Diagnostics List which enlists essential tests and there is now Free Diagnostics Service Initiative of Government of India under National Health Mission that mandates to provide all essential tests free of cost. We wanted to understand how these initiatives have impacted the diagnostics that could be of use in containment of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and whether there is a smooth process for bringing indigenously developed products relevant to AMR into the healthcare system. We conducted a longitudinal survey (January 2019 and January 2021) to understand the availability of market ready indigenous rapid diagnostics for AMR in the country and their progress towards introduction in the private market or uptake in healthcare system. We found that many innovators and developers are working towards development of rapid tests that can be useful in the containment of AMR in India. While there are many promising diagnostics on the horizon, the pathway for uptake of indigenously developed diagnostics in healthcare system remains disjointed and needs to be harmonised for the investments made towards development to translate as tangible gains. Since most of these efforts are government funded, it is incumbent upon the government to also provide a seamless pathway to make these diagnostics available in health care system. In absence of this guidance, most of these diagnostics will sit with the innovators/developers and will never be used for the purpose they were intended to serve.

It is often assumed that the globalization of the world economy will drive societies and societal change in a broadly similar direction, leading to convergence in the process of urbanization. The observed diversity between places is the result of the engagement of the macroeconomic process with local social and political structures. Inner-city decline in many older metropolitan centers of the USA and the United Kingdom has occurred through economic restructuring and job loss, with smaller urban centers and amenity-rich areas benefiting concomitantly. Demographic processes have accentuated this decline: most notably suburbanization, counterurbanization, inner-city renewal programs, and urban resettlement to new towns. Since the early 1980s, however, selected inner cities have been the focus of reinvestment, and a return of population through so-called ‘gentrification’. In the United Kingdom, in particular, public policy has played an important role in the reinvigoration of inner cities. The substantial literature on UK and US cities is reviewed insofar as it might shed light on convergent processes in Latin American inner cities. In fact, the evidence suggests little convergence. The demography is different, with relatively low levels of visible population decline; and the economy of the inner city remains vibrant, focusing upon services and small-scale artisan activities, with no corresponding decline in heavy industry. Although large-scale redevelopment projects in and around the downtown were common during the 1940s to the 1960s, the demise of authoritarian and dirigiste-type leaders, 1980s austerity, and a growing democratic base, have imposed severe limitations on the extent of large-scale urban redevelopment and reinvestment. Cultural and aesthetic influences also militate against a demand from the middle-income and upper-income groups to gentrify the inner city; nor is the ‘rent-gap’ sufficient to stimulate private-sector supply of new or refurbished homes a likely option in the city center. Policy prescriptions in Latin America should take account of this divergence and fundamental differences in kind, and should aim to develop existing opportunities and land uses for an incumbent working-class population, rather than seeking to attract new uses and better-off populations into the core.

ABSTRACT Homeland Security Presidential Decision Directive Five (HSPD-5) directs federal agencies to work with state, county, and local governments and municipalities to establish a single, comprehensive approach for domestic incident management. It requires all levels of government throughout the Nation to develop the capabilities to work together in an efficient and effective manner. HSPD-5 directs the Federal Government to treat crisis and consequence management as a single integrated function rather than as two separate tasks.5 Similarly, the United States Coast Guards (USCG) Maritime Strategy for Homeland Security prescribes several guiding principles that dovetail with the philosophy of HSPD-5. The Maritime Strategy affirms that securing the homeland requires shared responsibility amongst all agencies. Further, the Maritime Strategy stresses the USCG must leverage assets, acquire new resources and partner with public and private stakeholders.6 As the lead federal agency for Maritime Homeland Security and the Federal On Scene Coordinator, it is incumbent upon the USCG to spearhead joint planning and incident command initiatives to meet the requirements of HSPD-5 and the USCG Strategy for Homeland Security, and to adequately protect and respond to environmental and terror threats in the new normalcy of the post 9–11 world. To this end, the requirement for development of an Area Maritime Security Plan (AMSP) is appropriate and timely as it is intended to provide the overarching philosophy to unify the port and its stakeholders—much like the Area Contingency Plan did post Exxon Valdez for pollution response. Further, it provides guidance to effectively and efficiently detect, deter, respond to, and recover from a Transportation Security Incident (TSI) which by all definitions may at some point include some sort of environmental response. The foundation of the AMSP is the development of a network of federal, state and local agencies that have a stake in preventing and recovering from a TSI or other port contingency. This is a critical step towards building a unified port response network, and if appropriately merged with the Area Committee and Area Contingency Plan efforts, will only bolster the pollution response preparedness in a given port region. The Response Network concept provides tactical-level guidance for integrating the functional relationships required by the “Hierarchy of Readiness,” and the response infrastructure (a port incident management team) necessary to meet the requirements described in current and emerging federal guidance. This concept could be used as a map to facilitate every port in attaining true Port Readiness.

International Journal of Innovation - IJI completes 7 yearsInternational Journal of Innovation - IJI has now 7 years old! In this editorial comment, we not only want to talk about our evolution but get even closer to the IJI community. It is our first editorial comment, a new IJI's communication channel. Some of the changes are already described on our website.IJI is an innovation-focused journal that was created to support scientific research and thereby contribute to practice. Also, IJI was born internationally, receiving and supporting research from around the world. We welcome articles in Portuguese, English, and Spanish.We have published eight volumes in IJI since 2013, totaling 131 articles. Our journal is indexed in: Dialnet and Red Iberoamericana de Innovación y Conocimiento Científico; Ebsco Host; Erih Plus; Gale - Cengage Learning; Latindex; Proquest; Redalyc; Web of Science Core Collection (Emerging Sources Citation Index), among others. We provide free access “open access” to all its content. Articles can be read, downloaded, copied, distributed, printed and / or searched.We want to emphasize that none of this would be possible without the authors that recognized in IJI a relevant journal to publicize their work. Nor can we fail to mention the tireless and voluntary action of the reviewers, always contributing to the articles' improvement and skilling up our journal, more and more.All editors who passed through IJI have a fundamental role in this trajectory. And, none of this would be possible without the editorial team of Uninove. Everyone who passed and the current team. We want to express that our work as current editors of IJI would not be possible without you. Changes in the Intenational Journal of Innovation – IJIAs we mentioned earlier, IJI was born in 2013. And, over time, we are improving its structure always to improve it. In this section, we want to show some changes we made. We intend that editorial comments become a communication channel and that they can help our readers, authors, and reviewers to keep up with these changes.Although IJI is a comprehensive Innovation journal, one of the changes we want to inform you is that now, at the time of submission, the author will choose one of the available topics that best suit your article. The themes are: Innovative Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Learning; Innovation and Sustainability; Internationalization of Innovation; Innovation Systems; Emerging Innovation Themes and; Digital Transformation. Below, we present each theme so that everyone can get to know them:Innovative Entrepreneurship: emerging markets provided dynamic advantages for small businesses and their entrepreneurs to exploit the supply flows of resources, capacities, and knowledge-based on strategies oriented to the management of innovation. Topics covered in this theme include, for example: resources and capabilities that support innovative entrepreneurship; innovation habitats (Universities, Science and Technology Parks, Incubators and Accelerators) and their influences on the development of knowledge-intensive spin-offs and start-ups; open innovation, triple/quadruple helix, knowledge transfer, effectuation, bricolage and co-creation of value in knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship ecosystems; and adequate public policies to support innovative entrepreneurship.Innovation and Learning: discussions on this topic focus on the relationship between learning and innovation as topics with the potential to improve teaching and learning. They also focus on ways in which we acquire knowledge through innovation and how knowledge encourages new forms of innovation. Topics covered in this theme include, for example: innovative projects for learning; innovation-oriented learning; absorptive capacity; innovation in organizational learning and knowledge creation; unlearning and learning for technological innovation; new learning models; dynamics of innovation and learning; skills and innovation.Innovation and Sustainability: discussions on this topic seek to promote the development of innovation with a focus on sustainability, encouraging new ways of thinking about sustainable development issues. Topics covered in this theme include, for example: development of new sustainable products; circular economy; reverse logistic; smart cities; technological changes for sustainable development; innovation and health in the scope of sustainability; sustainable innovation and policies; innovation and education in sustainability and social innovation.Internationalization of Innovation: the rise of developing countries as an innovation center and their new nomenclature for emerging markets have occupied an important place in the international research agenda on global innovation and Research and Development (RD) strategies. Topics covered in this theme include, for example: resources and capabilities that support the internationalization of innovation and RD; global and local innovation and RD strategies; reverse innovation; internationalization of start-ups and digital companies; development of low-cost products, processes and services with a high-value offer internationalized to foreign markets; innovations at the base of the pyramid, disruptive and/or frugal developed and adopted in emerging markets and replicated in international markets; institutional factors that affect firms' innovation efforts in emerging markets.Innovation Systems: regulation and public policies define the institutional environment to drive innovation. Topics include industrial policy, technological trends and macroeconomic performance; investment ecosystem for the development and commercialization of new products, based on government and private investments; investment strategies related to new companies based on science or technology; Technology transfer to, from and between developing countries; technological innovation in all forms of business, political and economic systems. Topics such as triple helix, incubators, and other structures for cooperation, fostering and mobilizing innovation are expected in this section.Emerging Themes: from the applied themes, many emerging problems have a significant impact on management, such as industry 4.0, the internet of things, artificial intelligence or social innovations, or non-economic benefits. Intellectual property is treated as a cognitive database and can be understood as a technological library with the registration of the product of human creativity and invention. Social network analysis reveals the relationships between transforming agents and other elements; therefore, encouraged to be used in research and submitted in this section. The theoretical field not fully developed is not a barrier to explore any theme or question in this section.Digital Transformation: this interdisciplinary theme covers all the antecedents, intervening, and consequent effects of digital transformation in the field of technology-based companies and technology-based business ventures. The technological innovator (human side of innovation) as an entrepreneur, team member, manager, or employee is considered an object of study either as an agent of innovation or an element of the innovation process. Digital change or transformation is considered as a process that moves from the initial status to the new digital status, anchored in the theories of innovation, such as adoption, diffusion, push / pull of technology, innovation management, service innovation, disruptive innovation, innovation frugal innovation economy, organizational behavior, context of innovation, capabilities and transaction costs. Authors who submit to IJI will realize that they now need to make a structured summary at the time of submission. The summary must include the following information:(maximum of 250 words + title + keywords = Portuguese, English and Spanish).Title.Objective of the study (mandatory): Indicate the objective of the work, that is, what you want to demonstrate or describe.Methodology / approach (mandatory): Indicate the scientific method used in carrying out the study. In the case of theoretical essays, it is recommended that the authors indicate the theoretical approach adopted.Originality / Relevance (mandatory): Indicate the theoretical gap in which the study is inserted, also presenting the academic relevance of the discipline.Main results (mandatory): briefly indicate the main results achieved.Theoretical-methodological contributions (mandatory): Indicate the main theoretical and / or methodological implications that have been achieved with the results of the study.Social / managerial contributions (mandatory): Indicate the main managerial and / or social implications obtained through the results of the study.Keywords: between three and five keywords that characterize the work. Another change regarding the organization of the IJI concerns the types of work. In addition to the Editorial Comment and Articles, the journal will include Technological Articles, Perspectives, and Reviews. Thus, when submitting a study, authors will be able to choose from the available options for types of work. Throughout the next issues of the IJI, in the editorial comments, we will pass on pertinent information about every kind of work, to assist the authors in their submissions.Currently, the IJI is available to readers with new works three times a year (January-April; May-August; September-December) with publications in English, Portuguese and Spanish. From what comes next, we will have some changes in the periodicity. Next stepsAs editors, we want the IJI to continue with a national and international impact and increase its relevance in the indexing bases. For this, we will work together with the entire editorial team, reviewers, and authors to improve the work. We will do our best to give full support to the evaluators who are so dedicated to making constructive evaluations to the authors. We will also support authors with all the necessary information.With editorial comments, we intend to pass on knowledge to readers, authors, and reviewers to improve the articles gradually. We also aim to support classroom activities and content.Even with the changes reported here, we continue to accept all types of work, as long as they have an appropriate methodology. We also maintain our scope and continue to publish all topics involving innovation. We want to support academic events on fast tracks increasingly. About the articles in this edition of IJIThis issue is the first we consider the new organization of the International Journal of Innovation - IJI. We started with this editorial comment talking about the changes and improvements that we are making at IJI—as an example, showing the reader, reviewer, and author that the scope remains the same. However, at the time of submission, the author has to choose one of the proposed themes and have a mandatory abstract structured in three languages (English, Portuguese, and Spanish).In this issue, we have a section of perspectives that addresses the “Fake Agile” phenomenon. This phenomenon is related to the difficulties that companies face throughout the agile transformation, causing companies not to reach full agility and not return to their previous management model.Next, we publish the traditional section with scientific articles. The article “Critical success factors of the incubation network of enterprises of the IFES” brings critical success factors as the determining variables to keep business incubators competitive, improving their organizational processes, and ensuring their survival. Another published article, “The sharing economy dilemma: the response of incumbent firms to the rise of the sharing economy”, addresses the sharing economy in terms of innovation. The results of the study suggest that the current response to the sharing economy so far is moderate and limited. The article “Analysis of the provision for implementation of reverse logistics in the supermarket retail” made it possible to observe that through the variables that define retail characteristics, it is not possible to say whether a supermarket will implement the reverse logistics process. And the article “Capability building in fuzzy front end management in a high technology services company”, whose main objective was to assess the adherence among Fuzzy Front End (FFE) facilitators, was reported in the literature its application in the innovation process of a company, an innovative multinational high-tech services company.We also published the article “The evolution of triple helix movement: an analysis of scientific communications through bibliometric technique”. The study is a bibliometric review that brings essential contributions to the area. This issue also includes a literature review entitled “Service innovation tools: a literature review” that aimed to systematically review the frameworks proposed and applied by the literature on service innovation.The technological article “A model to adopt Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Business Intelligence (BI) among Saudi SMEs”, in a new IJI publication section, addresses the main issues related to the intention to use ERPBI in the Saudi private sector.As we mentioned earlier in this editorial, IJI has a slightly different organization. With the new format, we intend to contribute to the promotion of knowledge in innovation. Also, we aim to increasingly present researchers and students with possibilities of themes and gaps for their research and bring insights to professionals in the field.Again, we thank the reviewers who dedicate their time and knowledge in the evaluations, always helping the authors. We wish you, readers, to enjoy the articles in this issue and feel encouraged to send your studies in innovation to the International Journal of Innovation - IJI.

This issue of M/C Journal rejects the association of darkness with immorality. In digital communication, the possibilities of darkness are greater than simple fears of what is hidden in online networks. Instead, new work in an emerging field of “dark social” studies’ consider “dark” as holding the potential for autonomy away from the digital visibilities that pervade economic, political, and surveillance logics of the present age. We shall not be afraid of the dark. We start from a technical rather than moral definition of darkness (Gehl), a definition that conceives of dark spaces as having legitimacies and anonymities against structural surveillance. At the same time, breaking away from techno-centric critiques of the dark allows a humanisation of how dark is embodied and performed at individual and structural levels. Other readings of digitally mediated dark (Fisher and Bolter) suggest tensions between exploitative potentials and deep societal reflection, and the ability for a new dark age (Bridle) to allow us to explore unknown potentials. Together these perspectives allow our authors a way to use dark to question and upend the unresting pressure and acceptance of—and hierarchy given to—the light in aesthetics of power and social transformation. While we reject, however, the reduction of “dark” to “immoral” as we are not blind to “bad actors” lurking in hidden spaces (see Potter, forthcoming). Dark algorithms and their encoded biases shape our online lives. Not everyone has the ability to go off grid or create their own dark networks. Colonial settlerism often hides its brutal logics behind discourses of welfare. And some of us are forced to go dark against our will, as in the case of economies or nations being shut out of communication networks. But above all, the tensions produced in darkness, going dark, and acting dark show the normative powers beyond only focusing on the light. Taken as a whole, the articles in this issue explore the tensions between dark and connected, opting in and opting out, and exposure and retreat. They challenge binaries that reduce our vision to the monochromaticism of dark and light. They explain how the concept of “dark” expands opportunities for existence and persistence beyond datafication. They point to moral, ethical, and pragmatic responses of selves and communities seeking to be/belong in/of the dark. The issue starts with a high-stakes contest: what happens when an entire country is forced to go dark? While the articles in this issue were in review, Australian Facebook users were abruptly introduced to a unique form of darkness when, overnight, all news posts were removed from Facebook. Leaver’s feature article responds to tell the story of how Facebook and Google fought the Australian media law, and nobody won. Simply put, the platforms-cum-infrastructures did not want the government to mandate terms of their payments and business to traditional news organisations, so pulled the plug on Australia. As Leaver points out, Facebook’s cull not only made news media go dark, but in the midst of a pandemic and ongoing bushfires, prevented government agencies from posting and sharing government public health information, weather and wind patterns, and some State Emergency Services information. His article positions darkness on the spectrum from visibility to invisibility and focuses on the complex interplays of who is in control of, or has the power over, visibility. Facebook’s power to darken vital voices in society was unprecedented in Australia, a form of “de-platforming at scale” (Crawford). It seemed that Facebook (and as Leaver explains, Google, to a lesser extent) were using Australia to test platform power and legislative response. The results of this experiment, Leaver argues, was not a dawn of a new dark age—without the misinforming-glare of Facebook (see Cinque in this issue)—but confirmatory evidence of the political economy of national media: News Corp and other large traditional media companies received millions from Facebook and Google in exchange for the latter being exempt from the very law in question. Everyone won, except the Australians looking to experiment and explore alternatives in a new darkness. Scared of the dark, politicians accepted a mutually agreed transfer of ad-revenue from Google and Facebook to large and incumbent media organisations; and with that, hope of exploring a world mediated without the glare of digital incumbents was snuffed out. These agreements, of course, found user privacy, algorithmic biases, and other concerns of computational light out of scope. Playing off the themes of status quo of institutionalised social media companies, Cinque examines how social online spaces (SOS) which are governed by logics of surveillance and datafication embodied in the concept of the “gazing elite” (data aggregators including social media), can prompt anxieties for users regarding data privacy. Her work in the issue particularly observes that anxiety for many users is shaped by this manifestation of the “dark” as it relates to the hidden processes of data capture and processing by the mainstream platforms, surveillant digital objects that are incorporated into the Internet of Things, and “dark” or black boxed automated decisions which censor expression and self-representation. Against this way of conceptualising digital darkness, Cinque argues that dark SOS which use VPNs or the Tor browser to evade monitoring are valuable to users precisely because of their ability to evade the politics of visibility and resist the power of the gazing elite. Continuing away from the ubiquitous and all consuming blue glow of Facebook to more esoteric online communities, Maddox and Heemsbergen use their article to expand a critique on the normative computational logics which define the current information age (based on datafication, tracking, prediction, and surveillance of human socialities). They consider how “digging in the shadows” and “tinkering” with cryptocurrencies in the “dark” is shaping alternative futures based on social, equitable, and reciprocal relations. Their work traces cryptocurrencies—a “community generated technology” made by makers, miners and traders on darknets—from its emergence during a time of global economic upheaval, uncertainty and mistrust in centralised financial systems, through to new generations of cryptocurrencies like Dogecoin that, based on lessons from early cryptocurrencies, are mutating and becoming absorbed into larger economic structures. These themes are explored using an innovative analytical framework considering the “construction, disruption, contention, redirection, and finally absorption of emerging techno-potentials into larger structures”. The authors conclude by arguing that experiments in the dark don’t stay in the dark, but are radical potentials that impact and shape larger social forms. Bradfield and Fredericks take a step back from a focus on potentially arcane online cultures to position dark in an explicit provocation to settler politics’ fears and anxieties. They show how being dark in Australia is embodied and everyday. In doing so, they draw back the veil on the uncontested normality of fear of the dark-as-object. Their article’s examples offer a stark demonstration of how for Indigenous peoples, associations of “dark” fear and danger are built into the structural mechanisms that shape and maintain colonial understandings of Indigenous peoples and their bodies as part of larger power structures. They note activist practices that provoke settlers to confront individuals, communities, and politics that proclaim “I’m not afraid of the Dark” (see Cotes in Bradfield and Fredericks). Drawing on a related embodied refusal of poorly situated connotations of the dark, Hardley considers the embodied ways mobile media have been deployed in the urban night and observes that in darkness, and the night, while vision is obscured and other senses are heightened we also encounter enmeshed cultural relationships of darkness and danger. Drawing on the postphenomenological concept of multistability, Hardley frames engagement with mobile media as a particular kind of body-technology relation in which the same technology can be used by different people in multiple ways, as people assign different meanings to the technology. Presenting empirical research on participants’ night-time mobile media practices, Hardley analyses how users co-opt mobile media functionalities to manage their embodied experiences of the dark. The article highlights how mobile media practices of privacy and isolation in urban spaces can be impacted by geographical location and urban darkness, and are also distinctly gendered. Smith explores how conversations flow across social media platforms and messaging technologies and in and out of sight across the public domain. Darkness is the backstage where backchannel conversations take place outside of public view, in private and parochial spaces, and in the shadow spaces where communication crosses between platforms. This narrative threading view of conversation, which Smith frames as a multiplatform accomplishment, responds to the question held by so many researchers and people trying to interpret what people say in public on social media. Is what we see the tip of an iceberg or just a small blip in the ocean? From Smith’s work we can see that so much happens in the dark, beyond the gaze of the onlooker, where conversational practices move by their own logic. Smith argues that drawing on pre-digital conversational analysis techniques associated with ethnomethodology will illuminate the social logics that structure online interaction and increase our understanding of online sociality forces. Set in the context of merging platforms and the “rise of data”, Lee presents issues that undergird contemporary, globally connected media systems. In translating descriptions of complex systems, the article critically discusses the changing relational quality of “the shadow of hierarchy” and “Platform Power”. The governmental use of private platforms, and the influence it has on power and opportunity for government and civil society is prefigured. The “dark” in this work is lucidly presented as a relationality; an expression of differing values, logics, and (techno)socialities. The author finds and highlights the line between traditional notions of "infrastructure" and the workings of contemporary digital platforms which is becoming increasingly indistinct. Lee concludes by showing how the intersection of platforms with public institutions and infrastructures has moulded society’s light into an evolving and emergent shadow of hierarchy over many domains where there are, as always, those that will have the advantage—and those that do not. Finally, Jethani and Fordyce present an understanding of “data provenance” as a metaphor and method both for analysing data as a social and political artefact. The authors point to the term via an inter-disciplinary history as a way to explain a custodial history of objects. They adroitly argue that in our contemporary communication environment that data is more than just a transact-able commodity. Data is vital—being acquired, shared, interpreted and re-used with significant influence and socio-technical affects. As we see in this article, the key methods that rely on the materiality and subjectivity of data extraction and interpretation are not to be ignored. Not least because they come with ethical challenges as the authors make clear. As an illuminating methodology, “data provenance” offers a narrative for data assets themselves (asking what, when, who, how, and why). In the process, the kinds of valences unearthed as being private, secret, or exclusive reveal aspects of the ‘dark’ (and ‘light’) that is the focus of this issue. References Bridle, James. New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future. London, UK: Verso Books, 2018. Crawford, Kate (katecrawford). “It happened: Facebook just went off the deep end in Australia. They are blocking *all* news content to Australians, and *no* Australian media can post news. This is what showdowns between states and platforms look like. It's deplatforming at scale.” 18 Feb. 2021. 22 Apr. 2021 <https://twitter.com/katecrawford/status/1362149306170368004>. Fisher, Joshua A., and Jay David Bolter. "Ethical Considerations for AR Experiences at Dark Tourism Sites." 2018 IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality Adjunct (ISMAR-Adjunct) (2018): 365-69. Gehl, Robert. Weaving the Dark Web: Legitimacy on Freenet, Tor, and I2p. The Information Society Series. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2018. Potter, Martin. “Bad Actors Never Sleep: Content Manipulation on Reddit.” Eds. Toija Cinque, Robert W. Gehl, Luke Heemsbergen, and Alexia Maddox. Continuum Dark Social Special Issue (forthcoming).

This case features the challenges of a startup in the crowdfunding space in 2015 as its leadership assesses potential sources of growth for the company s future. Founded in Israel in 2012 by a renowned venture capitalist, OurCrowd was a venture capital crowdfunding platform that strove to connect high-growth startups raising capital with accredited private investors from around the world. Its value proposition was to democratize an inefficient market for private equity that had historically been dominated by a small number of highly connected venture capital firms (VCs). The case asks students to put themselves in the shoes of OurCrowd s head of investor community as he prepares for a meeting with the company s board of directors to discuss potential strategies for growth: Should the company partner with the incumbent VCs it initially sought to disrupt, emphasize marketing its Portfolio Reserve fund, strive to provide its investors and investees with higher value-added services, target a broader swath of investors by aggressively marketing the platform in international markets, or attempt to go up-market and pursue increasingly larger deals with later-stage companies? Through assessing these options and discussing this case, students will learn about incentive problems in two-sided markets as well as how different types of crowdfunding platforms create value for users.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of competing logics on the implementation of risk-based management controls (RBMC) by providing evidence of resistance due to competing logics. Moreover, the study proposes solutions to logic contestation. These solutions may help the company override logic complexity. Design/methodology/approach This study draws upon the theory of institutional logics. It adopts an interpretative qualitative research approach and uses the case study method. Data were collected from one of the biggest private sector insurance companies in Egypt through a triangulation of interviews, observations and documents. Findings We found that internalised and institutionalised roles and structures – represented by the incumbent corporate and community-related sets of logics – compete and disrupt the emerging enterprise risk management and RBMCs. The newly imposed RBMCs produced heterogenic practices that changed the means of controls at the case company. However, this change was faced by resistance from local employees, as it represented a challenge to the prevailing cultural symbols and norms in their traditional work environment. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature by offering new evidence on resistance to Western risk-based management control projects applied in emerging markets. Moreover, it extends the cultural political economy of management accounting and control by illustrating that management accounting in emerging markets is also an operational manifestation of culture, community and location.

Purpose What are the trade-offs between public and private ownership in the business and how does this impact industries responsible for providing and offering services on critical national infrastructure? The privatisation of British Telecom (BT), the UK telecommunications provider that was initially part of the British Post Office, is used to explore this question. By broadening the business perspective beyond the political goals and economic consequences of privatisation; this study aims to approach management history provides new perspectives of the benefits and challenges offered by both public and private ownership. Design/methodology/approach To fulfil its purpose, this paper examines how the UK telecommunications incumbent proactively adapted from being an organisation shaped by its unique position within the public sector, to one embracing the challenges offered by the private sector. The analysis is synthesised by linking an understanding of the customer’s requirements, services and technology with surveys of the secondary literature, supported where applicable by archival material, combining perspectives from authors both within the organisation and external to it. Sources include specialist and more general academic material and contemporary and reflective publications from practising engineers and managers; supplemented by material held at the BT Archives and the Guildhall Library in London. It links the debate on ownership to the evolution of the market under study and provides a balanced view across the business, its market, competition and technology. Findings The arguments surrounding public or private ownership, are complex, in particular, it is difficult to separate effects due to liberalisation and privatisation. Whilst the former provided the impetus for beneficial change, the latter reduced the level of detrimental entanglement with government policy and enabled the technology and structural changes that took the market forward. Originality/value A new and balanced view of the privatisation of BT is taken, with an emphasis on how the company needed to change to thrive in a liberalised market, noting how technological change both required organisational change and enabled it. In contrast to many studies, the emphasis is on what was driving the organisation rather than the policy of privatisation and its effectiveness.

The purpose of the research is to show the political impression management of the president and vice president candidates, Prabowo Subianto and Sandiaga Uno in social media, in the presidential election 2019. Instagram is the focus of social media in the research. Specifically, the research would like to know the created impression in each Instagram account of the political figure, @Prabowo and @Sandiuno on August 10, 2018 to September 23, 2018. The method used in the research was content analysis method, which followed Simunjak Typology (2017) to know the candidate skills and virtues, disclosing private information, attacking political opponents, speaking in colloquial language, emphasizing particular issues. One of the interesting investigation results showed both Prabowo and Sandiaga used Instagram as a political tool to create their political impression as the religious candidates. Another result was Prabowo did not use his own social media account to offend his political rival, while Sandiaga offended incumbent candidates about the economic policy. Penelitian ini bertujuan mengungkap manajemen citra politik pasangan capres-cawapres, Prabowo Subianto dan Sandiaga Uno di media sosial, dalam Pilpres 2019. Media sosial yang menjadi fokus kajian adalah Instagram. Lebih spesifik, penelitian ini ingin mengetahui citra yang dibangun di akun Instagram masing-masing tokoh politik, @Prabowo dan @Sandiuno dalam rentang 10 Agustus 2018 hingga 23 September 2018. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode analisis isi, yang mengikuti tipologi Simunjak (2017) untuk mengetahui kemampuan kandidat (candidate skills and virtues), kehidupan pribadi kandidat (disclosing private information), menyerang lawan politik (attacking political opponents), bicara bahasa sehari-hari (speak in colloquial language), dan penekanan isu tertentu (emphasizing particular issues). Salah satu temuan menarik dari penelitian inimenunjukkan baik Prabowo dan Sandiaga menggunakan Instagram sebagai alat politik untuk membangun citra politik mereka sebagaikandidat pemimpin yang religius. Temuan menarik lainnya yang muncul dalam penelitian ini adalah Prabowo tidak menggunakan akun media sosialnya untuk menyerang rival politiknya, sementara Sandiaga menyerang kandidat petahana tentang kebijakan ekonominya.

This research aims at a quick and effective solution to economic, commercial and other disputes. The Saudi legislator and the Malaysian legislature have taken measures that resulted in a series of regulations related to strengthening the arbitration system and law in both countries. Accordingly, the follower of the legislative systems and arbitration laws in Saudi Arabia and Malaysia will stand on the apparent progress and developments in the field of trade and economic development that (countries are witnessing) in all private and public sectors, with the use of appropriate mechanisms to resolve disputes, bearing in mind that the new Saudi system and the Malaysian law are based on the issue Arbitration to the UNCITRAL Model Law (which made it incumbent upon them to keep abreast of developments in line with the rules of Islamic law). The research used scientific methods, including: the analytical approach: to highlight and analyze the features of arbitration in the Saudi arbitration system and the Malaysian Arbitration Law. The inductive approach: in the extrapolation of the Saudi arbitration system and the Malaysian arbitration law. The comparative approach: In comparing the two systems, the Saudi arbitration system and the Malaysian arbitration law. The most important findings of the researchers, including: 1. Keeping pace with the new Saudi arbitration system and the Malaysian Arbitration Law for the concrete developments in the field of arbitration. 2. The Saudi system and the Malaysian law for arbitration recognize international control decisions and give them the executive formula that was not clearly contrary to the general international system. The researchers recommended wills, including: Developing data for everything related to the procedures and references required by the arbitration process, so that it relies on clear and accurate data so that it is within the reach of litigants who want to conduct the way of arbitration to resolve their disputes instead of the regular judiciary. Create a list of arbitrators specialized in various types of disputes and attract competencies in the field of Sharia and law without age or nationality as a barrier for them. Develop strategic plans for the establishment of a specialized body, whose task is to settle disputes in peace, and provide the necessary assistance to litigants to implement the award after its issuance.

"Birds of a feather (and colour) will flock (and fly) together." — Old English Proverb, 1545 (approx) While the notion of the 'coalition' is one normally associated with formalised alliances between political parties, coalitional affiliations are not limited to mainstream politics, and instead share a focus on strategy and outcome across the full range of human endeavours. Parties with varying priorities will put to one side their differences in order to focus on overlapping concerns. Thus coalitions come in all shapes and sizes and cross all walks of life: from families, clubs and teams to friendships, churches and sects, from companies and co-operatives to scientific formula, mathematical groupings and multimedia/multi person online gaming environments. This issue of M/C Journal mounts a timely critical reflection on the multiple contemporary meanings and uses of 'coalition' and coalitional thinking. Some of the questions the authors of this edition have addressed include: how does the notion of coalition inform political practices and powers? How have coalitions changed in recent times? What other (non-political party) coalitions exist and how might they work? How do coalitions inform understandings and expressions of race and whiteness, gender and sexuality, class and poverty, nations and borders? What does it mean to be 'post-coalitional' and how might we map persistence and change in recent political and non-political groupings and collectives? Recent history has revealed large cracks and major shifts in public and political alliances. In Australia for example, November 2007 marked a change in politics and culture that saw the demise of then Prime Minister John Howard and his Coalition government. The coupling of neoliberalism and social conservatism was said to be the hallmark of that government's commitment to 'old Australian values', to severe forms of border control, the refusal of same-sex marriage, scepticism toward climate change, and rapid privatisation policies for public services. The Coalition, it appeared, no longer represented the interests of the public. Since then, the incumbent Labor leader was deposed from within his own party, and Australia’s first female Prime Minister, after having lost a majority, formed a new coalition with smaller parties and independents in order to keep governing. This new coalition came in the wake of Britain’s 2010 election, in which the Conservatives joined with the Liberal Democrats to form the first ever British coalition government, and later was followed by the mid-term resurgence of Republican power in the American Lower House. And of course it was not too long ago that the ‘coalition of the willing', as a collective American-led force fighting the war-or-terror, fell apart in the later stages of the Bush administration, and that the 2008 shift in American politics to Barack Obama's presidency became a singular moment of international historical significance. We ask then, as connections to particular coalitions shift, what new affiliations are formed? And which aspects of older coalitions continue in the midst of change? What do regions, nations and individuals do when the groups they belong to fall apart or lose power? Larger coalitional shifts tell us much about culture, history, law, media, technology and human behaviour. As Australia and the Western world continually move away from supporting the power and policy of previously dominant groups, questions emerge as to the nature and ethics of collectives (of all kinds) as the expression of political, social and personal change. And despite these changes, borders are strengthened, and the associated fears of difference and otherness (from racism to war, Islamaphobia to homophobia) continue to reassert themselves across the globe. This logic of coalition is systematically unpacked and interrogated in this edition’s feature essay by Nick Mansfield. In “Coalition: The Politics of Decision”, Mansfield draws upon the work of Jacques Derrida to carefully analyse the implications of coalition for contemporary politics. Coalition can be distinguished from community or family, and is more akin to friendship, according to Mansfield. This is for two fundamental reasons: firstly, coalitions involve “decision”, and secondly, coalitions are always inevitably in relation to enmity. While coalitions start with a gesture of friendship, Mansfield argues via Derrida’s reading of Schmitt, that this category can slip into enemy territory. Mansfield’s paper uses this theoretical framework in order to comment on political action today. Indeed, each of the papers presented in this volume understand and illuminate ‘coalition’ as a critical tool or useful conceptual framework. In this collection, coalition is deployed in a manner which illuminates the relationships between different parties, interest groups, affiliational thinking and behaviours, and even the bodily senses. Coalitions are understood as contesting and reiterating dominant political paradigms and socio-cultural norms. Ann Deslandes, Randall Livingstone and Christopher Phillips bring our attention to the coalitions that contest dominant forms of political power. Deslandes’s thoughtful engagement with the ‘global justice movement’ focuses on the “ethical scene of activist coalition”. Deslandes examines what she terms the three ethics of coalition, risk, prayer and gift. In so doing, she asks important questions of privileged activists, who must risk the possibility of repeating “domination”. In both Livingston and Phillips, the Internet is a primary tool and site for critical engagement. Livingstone’s paper looks at the “virtual coalition” of online editors concerned with combating Western bias on the major Web encyclopaedia Wikipedia: “WikiProject: Countering Systemic Bias”. Since its inception in 2001, Wikipedia has grown in popularity to be one of the most accessed websites available. This research provides much needed insight into the extent to which Western bias frames the information uploaded to Wiki. At a time when there is a temptation to regard the Internet as liberatory, discussion of its uneven political power is significant. After all, as Livingstone reiterates, the Web does not dissolve border and boundaries. Further exploring relations between visibility and democracy. Phillips takes Gailbraith’s A Good Society as a starting point for a discussion of how contemporary coalitions work, and what larger coalitions of previously marginalised or silenced groups might look like. In this way, Phillips asks if Gailbraith’s vision has been borne out in the American context with particular reference to the 2008 Obama campaign’s use of Internet technologies and the more recent rise of the Tea Party to a position of considerable influence. Given the surprising similarities between such opposing forces, might an understanding of the coalitional ground shared by both be possible? An ongoing theme of this edition of M/C is its engagement with the current local/global coalitional and post-coalitional conditions in which people live - from larger contexts of geopolitics through to the micropolitics of everyday practices, pleasures and identifications. Elaine Kelly engages with the changes to land rights legislation in Australia over the past five years, with the Northern Territory Intervention and more recently with the decision by the Labor Party to uphold the nomination of Muckaty as a site for nuclear waste. Kelly extends the discussion of coalition to encompass its etymology – to grow together. Framing her discussing using critical race and whiteness theory, Kelly argues that private and governmental coalitional interests are at play in land rights reform. This in turn reiterates a relationship between neoliberalism and social conservatism which prompts the question: in whose interests is this “growth”?Also in the Australian context, Anthony Lambert’s paper “Rainbow Blindness” filters contemporary government attitudes and legislative change with respect to marriage and same-sex relationships through the effects of recent coalitional changes in the Australian and global political landscape. Lambert argues that the confusion surrounding the issue of gay marriage and the blurring/changes within political positions constitutes Australia as living within a ‘post-coalitional’ framework – one defined by persistence and change, where a new sensibility towards equity and difference is accompanied by the reassertion of larger coalitional affiliations and normative regimes. Duncan McKay’s paper sees a coalitional model of engagement as potentially providing productive possibilities between governmental bodies and the Western Australian Arts community. McKay passionately critiques the WA Department of Culture and the Arts (DCA) policy document Creating Value arguing that it “may be considered that the DCA and many WA cultural producers may not be engaged in the same project at all, let alone be in effective partnership or coalition”. Blair McDonald’s poetic contribution contends that out of a reading of Foucauldian resistance to sexual norms, new coalitions of behaviour and identity may be possible. In a coalitional context, Foucault cannot and does not simply seek to exit the networks of power and sexuality that he himself constructs. In retracing Foucault’s attention to power and sex-desire, the author seeks a movement toward “new coalitions” or “rallying points” at the limits of bodies and pleasures; in the bodies that are as yet ”unformed” and pleasures that are as yet “unknown”. Meanwhile, Lauren Cruikshank’s “Synaestheory: Fleshing Out a Coalition of the Senses” demonstrates how understanding the relationship between senses as coalitional breaks down the Cartesian dominance regarding subjectivity as exemplified by the mind/body split. Cruikshank’s careful analysis also challenges the privileging of vision in Western culture. As noted above, around the world, many new coalitional minority governments have taken power in recent times. In Australia, Christopher Payne of the Liberal Party referred to the negotiations following the August 2010 election (which resulted in a hung parliament) as Labor, the Independents and the Greens “trying to put together a coalition of the mongoose and the cobra” (ABC). Here, Payne attempts to cast doubt over the stability of this sort of coalition, by positing the Greens as the cobra and the Independents as potential pray to be attacked and devoured. More importantly, Payne has referenced, as this collection of papers does, the changeability of coalitions, and the sometimes antagonistic relationships that may need to co-exist in coalitions of all kinds. ReferencesAustralian Broadcasting Authority (ABC) Online News. “Pyne Warns of Labor ‘Mongoose and Cobra Coalition.” 4 Sep. 2010. 1 Dec. 2010 ‹http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/04/3002524.htm›.