Welcome to Research Repository UCD
Research Repository UCD is a digital collection of open access scholarly research publications from University College Dublin. Research Repository UCD collects, preserves and makes freely available publications including peer-reviewed articles, working papers and conference papers created by UCD researchers. Where material has already been published it is made available subject to the open-access policies of the original publishers. This service is maintained by UCD Library.
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- PublicationThe economic and social impact of higher education(Irish Universities Association, 2006)
46964 - PublicationCorporate governance, accountability and mechanisms of accountability : an overview(Emerald, 2008)Purpose – This paper reviews traditional corporate governance and accountability research, to suggest opportunities for future research in this field. The first part adopts an analytical frame of reference based on theory, accountability mechanisms, methodology, business sector/context, globalisation and time horizon. The second part of the paper locates the seven papers in the special issue in a framework of analysis showing how each one contributes to the field. The paper presents a frame of reference which may be used as a 'roadmap' for researchers to navigate their way through the prior literature and to position their work on the frontiers of corporate governance research. Design/methodology/approach – The paper employs an analytical framework, and is primarily discursive and conceptual. Findings – The paper encourages broader approaches to corporate governance and accountability research beyond the traditional and primarily quantitative approaches of prior research. Broader theoretical perspectives, methodological approaches, accountability mechanism, sectors/contexts, globalisation and time horizons are identified. Research limitations/implications – Greater use of qualitative research methods are suggested, which present challenges particularly of access to the “black box” of corporate boardrooms. Originality/value – Drawing on the analytical framework, and the papers in the special issue, the paper identifies opportunities for further research of accountability and corporate governance.
32739Scopus© Citations 263 - PublicationElderly care in Ireland - provisions and providers(University College Dublin. School of Social Justice, 2010-04)
31695 - PublicationEquality in education : an equality of condition perspective(Sage Publications, 2005)Transforming schools into truly egalitarian institutions requires a holistic and integrated approach. Using a robust conception of 'equality of condition', we examine key dimensions of equality that are central to both the purposes and processes of education: equality in educational and related resources; equality of respect and recognition; equality of power; and equality of love, care and solidarity. We indicate in each case some of the major changes that need to occur if we are to promote equality of condition. Starting with inequalities of resources, and in particular with inequalities tied to social class, we argue for abandoning rigid grouping policies, challenging the power of parents in relation to both selection and grouping, and changing curricula and assessment systems to make them more inclusive of the wide range of human intelligences. In relation to respect and recognition, we call for much more inclusive processes for respecting differences, not only in schools' organizational cultures, but also in their curriculum, pedagogy and assessment systems. Regarding inequalities of power, we call for democratization of both teacher-student relationships and school and college organization. For promoting equality of love, care and solidarity, we argue that schools need to develop an appreciation of the intrinsic role that emotions play in the process of teaching and learning, to provide a space for students and teachers to talk about their feelings and concerns, and to devise educational experiences that will enable students to develop their emotional skills or personal intelligences as a discrete area of human capability.
22552Scopus© Citations 123 - PublicationDiscretionary disclosure strategies in corporate narratives : incremental information or impression management?(University of Florida. Fisher School of Accounting, 2007)The purpose of this paper is to review and synthesize the literature on discretionary narrative disclosures. We explore why, how, and whether preparers of corporate narrative reports use discretionary disclosures in corporate narrative documents and why, how, and whether users react thereto. To facilitate the review, we provide three taxonomies based on: the motivation for discretionary narrative disclosures (opportunistic behavior, i.e. impression management, versus provision of useful incremental information); the research perspective (preparer versus user); and seven discretionary disclosure strategies. We also examine the whole range of theoretical frameworks utilized by prior research, and we put forward some suggestions for future research.
21960 - PublicationUsing Twitter to recommend real-time topical news(ACM, 2009-10)Recommending news stories to users, based on their preferences,has long been a favourite domain for recommender systems research. In this paper, we describe a novel approach to news recommendation that harnesses real-time micro-blogging activity, from a service such as Twitter, as the basis for promoting news stories from a user's favourite RSS feeds. A preliminary evaluation is carried out on an implementation of this technique that shows promising results.
21099Scopus© Citations 327 - PublicationFrom asset based welfare to welfare housing? The changing function of social housing in Ireland(Routledge, 2011)This article examines a distinctive and significant aspect of social housing in Ireland – its change in function from an asset-based role in welfare support to a more standard model of welfare housing. It outlines the nationalist and agrarian drivers which expanded the initial role of social housing beyond the goal of improving housing conditions for the poor towards the goal of extending home ownership and assesses whether this focus made it more similar to the ‘asset based welfare’ approach to housing found in south-east Asia than to social housing in western Europe. From the mid-1980s, the role of Irish social housing changed as the sector contracted and evolved towards the model of welfare housing now found in many other western countries. Policy makers have struggled to address the implications of this transition and vestiges of social housing’s traditional function are still evident, consequently the boundaries between social housing, private renting and home ownership in Ireland have grown increasingly nebulous.
20253Scopus© Citations 26 - PublicationConstructive approaches towards water treatment works sludge management : an international review of beneficial re-uses(Taylor & Francis, 2007-03)Till date, virtually all known drinking water processing systems generate an enormous amount of residual sludge, and what else to do with this rapidly increasing 'waste' stream in an economic and environmentally sustainable manner remains a significant environmental issue. Perhaps, the realization of this fact has led to series of concerted efforts aimed at beneficial re-uses in an effort to close the loop between efficient water treatment and sustainable sludge management. This paper therefore presents a comprehensive review of available literature on attempts at beneficial reuses of water treatment plant sludge, in an effort to provide a compendium of recent and past developments, and update our current state of knowledge. Four broad categories of uses, which included over eleven possible ways in which waterworks sludges can be reused were identified and examined. Obvious advantages of such reuse options were highlighted and knowledge gaps identified. Future issues that will assist in the development of sustainable waterworks sludge management options with a multi-prong approach were equally discussed.
19510Scopus© Citations 352 - PublicationExpansive cements and soundless chemical demolition agents : state of technology review(2009-10)Expansive cements and soundless chemical demolition agents (SCDAs) were first introduced in the early 1970s but failed to gain widespread adoption for selective removal of rock and concrete due to their proprietary nature and a lack of usage guidelines. Nearly 40 years later, the patents have expired, and a large number of competitive products have entered the market. These factors coupled with a heightened interest in their potential environmental benefits have greatly expanded their usage. Specifically, these chemicals can be introduced into a pattern of small, drilled holes in concrete and/or rock. After a specific period (usually less than 24 hours), the in-situ material will crack sufficiently that it can be removed without the use of traditional explosives or further percussive efforts. The products generate substantially less noise and vibration than usually associated with the removal of rock and concrete. This paper provides a state-of-the-technology review of five available products. The focus is on the proposed applicability of various products under specific conditions. Special attention is paid to the viability of such agents under varying temperatures and with materials of particular strengths.
18311 - PublicationClustering with the multivariate normal inverse Gaussian distribution(Elsevier, 2016-01)Many model-based clustering methods are based on a finite Gaussian mixture model. The Gaussian mixture model implies that the data scatter within each group is elliptically shaped. Hence non-elliptical groups are often modeled by more than one component, resulting in model over-fitting. An alternative is to use a mean–variance mixture of multivariate normal distributions with an inverse Gaussian mixing distribution (MNIG) in place of the Gaussian distribution, to yield a more flexible family of distributions. Under this model the component distributions may be skewed and have fatter tails than the Gaussian distribution. The MNIG based approach is extended to include a broad range of eigendecomposed covariance structures. Furthermore, MNIG models where the other distributional parameters are constrained is considered. The Bayesian Information Criterion is used to identify the optimal model and number of mixture components. The method is demonstrated on three sample data sets and a novel variation on the univariate Kolmogorov–Smirnov test is used to assess goodness of fit.
17307Scopus© Citations 52 - PublicationInequality and crime(MIT Press, 2000-11)This paper considers the relationship between inequality and crime using data from urban counties. The behavior of property and violent crime are quite different. Inequality has no effect on property crime but a strong and robust impact on violent crime, with an elasticity above 0.5. By contrast, poverty and police activity have significant effects on property crime, but little on violent crime. Property crime is well explained by the economic theory of crime, while violent crime is better explained by strain and social disorganization theories.
16843Scopus© Citations 390 - PublicationAgent-based coordination for the sensor web(ACM, 2010-03-26)The approach described advocates the use of a multi-agent system, and specifically the use of multi-agent distributed constraint optimisation algorithms. Developing software for low powered sensing devices introduces several problems to be addressed; the most obvious being the limited computational resources available. In this paper we discuss an implementation of ADOPT, a pre-existing algorithm for distributed constraint optimisation, and describe how it has been integrated with a reflective agent platform developed for resource constrained devices, namely Agent Factory Micro Edition (AFME). The usefulness of this work is illustrated through the canonical multi-agent coordination problem, namely graph colouring.
15948Scopus© Citations 2 - PublicationVisualization in sporting contexts : the team scenario(SciTePress, 2011-01-29)Wearable sensor systems require an interactive and communicative interface for the user to interpret data in a meaningful way. The development of adaptive personalization features in a visualization tool for such systems can convey a more meaningful picture to the user of the system. In this paper, a visualization tool called Visualization in Team Scenarios (VTS), which can be used by a coach to monitor an athlete’s physiological parameters, is presented. The VTS has been implemented with a wearable sensor system that can monitor players’ performance in a game in a seamless and transparent manner. Using the VTS, a coach is able to analyze the physiological data of athletes generated using select wearable sensors, and subsequently analyse the results to personalize training schedules thus improving the performance of the players.
15267 - PublicationProvision of childcare services in Ireland(University College Dublin. School of Social Justice, 2008-03)External report commissioned by and presented to the EU Directorate-General Employment and Social Affairs, Unit G1 'Equality between women and men'
14997 - PublicationCurriculum Design in Higher Education: Theory to Practice(University College Dublin. Teaching and Learning, 2015-09)This eBook emphasises the theory to practice of curriculum design in higher education. The book focuses on programme (not module) level of design; incorporates face-to-face, blended and online curricula; attempts to link theory to practice by giving some practical resources and/or exercises; draws the author's experiences of working and researching into curriculum design in the Irish higher education sector; is aimed at all staff involved in curriculum design, including academic staff (faculty), institutional managers, educational developers and technologists, support staff, library staff and curriculum researchers; is primarily drawn from literature and experiences in the higher education sector, however those in adult and further education may also find it useful. The structure of this book is based on a curriculum design process that the author has developed as part of her experience and research on curriculum design.
14962 - PublicationMichael White's narrative therapy(Springer Verlag, 1998)A systematized description of a number of practices central to Michael Whites' narrative approach to therapy is given. These include collaborative positioning of the therapist, externalizing the problem, excavating unique outcomes, thickening the new plot, and linking the new plot to the past and the future. The practices of remembering and incorporation, using literary means to achieve therapeutic ends, and facilitating taking-it-back practices are also described. A number of questions are given which may be useful for those concerned with narrative therapy to address.
14741Scopus© Citations 95 - PublicationFinancial statement fraud : some lessons from US and European case studies(Wiley-Blackwell, 2007-07)This paper studies 14 companies which were subject to an official investigation arising from the publication of fraudulent financial statements. The research found senior management to be responsible for most fraud. Recording false sales was the most common method of financial statement fraud. Meeting external forecasts emerged as the primary motivation. Management discovered most fraud, although the discovery was split between incumbent and new management.
14678Scopus© Citations 33 - PublicationFocus groups versus individual interviews with children : A comparison of data(Routledge (Taylor & Francis), 2006)In recent years there has been an increase in the use of qualitative data collection techniques in research with children. Among the most common of these methods are focus groups and individual interviews. While many authors claim that focus groups have advantages over individual interviews, these claims have not been tested empirically with children. The present study reports on the use of focus groups and interviews to collect qualitative data from 116 children in three age groups, with mean ages of 8.4, 11.5 and 14.3 years. The children were randomly allocated to participate in either focus groups or individual interviews where they were presented with identical material and questions relating to their beliefs about peers with psychological disorders. In line with previous research, the interviews produced significantly more relevant and unique ideas about the causes of these disorders than the focus groups, but the latter gave rise to greater elaboration of ideas. The participating children showed no significant difference in their preference for one method over the other. Thus, whether to choose individual interviews or focus groups is likely to depend on the nature of the research question in any given study.
13791Scopus© Citations 37 - PublicationThe effectiveness of family therapy and systemic interventions for child-focused problems(Wiley, 2009-02)This review updates a similar paper published in the Journal of Family Therapy in 2001. It presents evidence from meta-analyses, systematic literature reviews and controlled trials for the effectiveness of systemic interventions for families of children and adolescents with various difficulties. In this context, systemic interventions include both family therapy and other family-based approaches such as parent training. The evidence supports the effectiveness of systemic interventions either alone or as part of multimodal programmes for sleep, feeding and attachment problems in infancy; child abuse and neglect; conduct problems (including childhood behavioural difficulties, ADHD, delinquency and drug abuse); emotional problems (including anxiety, depression, grief, bipolar disorder and suicidality); eating disorders (including anorexia, bulimia and obesity); and somatic problems (including enuresis, encopresis, recurrent abdominal pain, and poorly controlled asthma and diabetes).
13744Scopus© Citations 146
Recent Submissions
- PublicationPosition Paper on Adult Safeguarding, Legislation, Policy and Practice(Irish Association of Social Workers, 2022-10-25)The issue of adult safeguarding is of utmost importance for social workers and for the IASW. For those adults in need of safeguarding, the support and vindication of their integrity, autonomy, and human rights, as well as their protection and safety, may be dependent in large part on the role played by state agencies and civil society. Social workers have a particularly key role to play in adult safeguarding. The present position paper has been developed in the context of emerging legislation and new structures, policies, and services. In publishing the present position paper, which now supersedes a previous paper, the IASW seeks to influence the development and implementation of appropriate legislation, policy, and practice. This is in line with human rights values and best practices and based on our unique role, expertise, and experience as social workers, as well as being influenced by the voices and needs of the people we work with and their families. This is ultimately to seek to ensure that those adults who need professional safeguarding interventions, and their loved ones, receive the best possible services and protection.
5 - PublicationAdult Safeguarding and People Living with Dementia in Nursing Homes(Alzheimer Society of Ireland (ASI) and University College Dublin, 2023-01-10)While there has been an increased focus on ageing in place in the Irish context, for some people, including people living with dementia (PLWD), nursing home care may be required to adequately meet their care needs as their dementia progresses and care needs increase. Nursing homes are the homes of many PLWD who, despite their frailty and health problems (including dementia), should be supported to enjoy a good quality of life, maintain, and develop relationships, and contribute to society (ADI, 2013).
4 - PublicationThe Assisted Decision-making Capacity Act, 2015: reflections for the profession of social work(Health Service Executive, 2021-10-24)The Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015 will provide the legal framework to maximise a person’s right to make their own decisions, with legally recognised supports. Once commenced, this significant piece of legislation will change everyone’s approach when working with and supporting people whose capacity is in question. This collection of essays, written from both personal and professional perspectives, highlights the importance of this ground-breaking piece of legislation. The powerful essays demonstrate the scale of impact that the Act may have on people’s lives — from the ability to write a legally binding advance healthcare directive to being supported to make their own decisions if they have difficulties with decision-making capacity. The idea for this collection of essays emerged from a conference held in University College Cork in November 2019, which was jointly organised by the Decision Support Service; the HSE National Office for Human Rights and Equality; and the Law School at UCC. The conference was intended to draw attention to the ongoing delays in commencing the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015 (the 2015 Act). At that time, there was no clear line to commencement and a growing concern that there was no political imperative to take the steps needed to bring the 2015 Act into force. We wanted to provide a reminder of the unsustainability of the current legal structures, the importance of the 2015 Act and why political procrastination had to stop.
5 - Publication'You can't fix this in six months': The intersectionality of women's substance use in the Irish context(University College Dublin and Merchants Quay Ireland, 2023-03-30)The aim of this research was to explore the experiences and support, and intervention needs of women who are dealing with multiple issues, including problem substance use, with a view to gaining an in-depth understanding of women’s life experiences, substance use trajectories and how these relate to factors such as motherhood, poverty, social exclusion, residency status, domestic violence, transactional sex, homelessness and incarceration. The objectives of the research were to: Explore the lived experiences of women with substance use and intersectional aspects, including their engagement with services. Define the unique gendered support needs and service pathways for women. Inform future Irish drug policy and service pathways. The study was funded under the Irish Research Council New Foundations programme that supports academic and non-governmental organisations (NGO) partnerships in order to address critical issues emerging within the Irish context.
4 - PublicationEmplaced Partnerships and the Ethics of Care, Recognition and Resilience(Springer, 2023)We began this special issue (SI) with the provocative aim ‘to put partnerships in their place’. Our intention was to create a forum where scholars from the domains of cross-sector partnerships (CSPs), place, and business ethics could combine their interests, advance novel theoretical and empirical insights, and reimagine a research agenda that explores CSPs from a place-based perspective. The aim of the SI is to bring to the fore the places in which CSPs are formed; how place shapes the dynamics of CSPs, and how CSPs shape the specific settings in which they develop. The papers of this issue collectively succeed in putting partnerships in their place by revealing the work involved in achieving this emplacement, each presenting a vivid illustration of how CSPs engage morally and materially with place, ranging from land to water, organized to wild spaces, and villages to transnational communities. The special issue offers new contributions to explaining how place enables and constrains organizing (Cartel et al., 2022; Lawrence, 2017), and it demonstrates that engaging with grand challenges such as climate change (Bowen et al., 2018) can enrich CSP theory in settings with entrenched inequality (Powell et al., 2018) and fragility (Welter et al., 2018). At a societal level, our SI connects critical sustainable development goals (SDGs), especially SDGs 3 (Good Health and Well-being), 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), 14 (Life below Water), 15 (Life on Land), and 17 (Partnerships). It also provides actionable insights into how firms address grand challenges in different contexts and at different scales (Chatterjee et al., 2022).
7 - PublicationEmergent Leadership in Online Communities: An Interactive Process of Co-influencing(Association for Information Systems, 2022-12-14)We propose a theoretical approach informed by a power-in-practice perspective that allows us to examine the emergence of leadership in online communities. We theorize leadership emergence as a process of co-influencing that is constituted by forces of ‘pushing’ and ‘pulling’ different enactments of power that are formative of communal interactions. More specifically we identify three pathways for emergent leadership based on different modes of community influence. These insights are based on a detailed exploration of interactions in one particular online community #WeAreNotWaiting, offering distinct contributions to the literature on leadership emergence, particularly in online communities without formal roles and hierarchies.
6 - PublicationGlobal Access to Medicines and the Legacies of Coloniality in COVID-19 Vaccine Inequity(Centre for Global Education, 2022)This article, written by two members of the advocacy organisation Access to Medicines Ireland, analyses current discourses and practices around global COVID-19 vaccine distribution. As vast imbalances in vaccination coverage continue to characterise global vaccine distribution, we argue that some of the public discourses and distribution mechanisms are coloured by a colonial legacy, which substitutes local capacity building in low and middleincome countries with donations, and substitutes a transparent public debate around how to tackle these inequalities with a discourse that explains them away through perpetuating such tropes as ‘vaccine hesitancy’ or ‘wastage’. Even though such claims have been continually refuted by scientific evidence, the pharmaceutical industry and many high-income country governments keep reiterating them. By dismantling such myths, we point to the legacies from which they have emerged. Flagging the possibility of alternative discourses and practices in global health, we trace the recent history of the access to medicines movement. We argue for a need to suspend intellectual property rights rules around COVID-19 health technologies through the so-called Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) waiver, citing positive exemplars of vaccines developed through an open science paradigm as a counterpoint to the pharmaceutical industry’s claims that such a waiver would have chilling effects on the global pharmaceutical innovation system. We close by highlighting development education opportunities around global access to medicines and universal healthcare.
6 - PublicationLeaning in or falling over? Epistemological liminality and the knowledges that make a market(Taylor and Francis, 2022-05-16)This article describes the experiences of two market studies scholars who became involved in an Applied Research Centre aimed at developing a societally valuable market in digital health–an experience that ended in failure. We introduce the concept of epistemological liminality as a theoretical tool to problematise our own positionality as ‘market experts’ in this failed academic-industry-government collaboration around a concerned market. Liminality involved entering a transitional space–time in which our academic knowledge as market studies scholars was suspended, but where we failed to successfully move into a new epistemic space of ‘applied market studies’. This state of suspension–and frustration–is a cautionary tale for the difficulties of linking different (and often contradictory) epistemic communities that meet in applied research. We stop short of providing a moral to this market (non)performance tale, but we do highlight the need for openness and debate on the knowledges that come together to make a market in such collaborations.
5 - PublicationTech sharing, not tech hoarding: Covid-19, global solidarity, and the failed responsibility of the pharmaceutical industry(SAGE Publications, 2023-01)The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of health technologies to mitigate the spread of the disease and improve care, including through life-saving vaccines. But the pandemic has also highlighted the vast inequalities in healthcare globally that the current biopharmaceutical business model engenders, based on the patent enclosure of these technologies and on the immense capital accumulation that this system creates. We believe that it is imperative on the pharmaceutical industry to enable and enact global solidarity through tech sharing instead of tech hoarding, but judging by current technology transfer practices we question their willingness to carry costs in organizing healthcare markets through solidaristic principles. While ample opportunities have existed during the Covid-19 pandemic for firms to work towards global healthcare sustainability and equity, these practices have remained fragmented acts of charity at best and mere publicity stunts at worst. In the absence of the voluntary adoption of solidaristic organizational practices by biopharmaceutical firms, the institutionalization of global solidarity as a fundamental organizing principle for healthcare markets by public bodies, chiefly the WHO, is necessary to strengthen resilience and know-how globally.
6 - PublicationAffective resonance and durability in political organizing: The case of patients who hack(SAGE Publications, 2023-02-27)We explore the role of affect in fuelling and sustaining political organizing in the case of an online Type-1 Diabetes community. Analysing this community’s interactions, we show that the drive towards political transformation is triggered by affective dissonance, but that this dissonance needs to be recurrently enacted through the balanced circulation of objects of pain and hope. We propose the notion of affective resonance to illuminate the dynamic interplay that collectively moderates and fosters this circulation and that keeps bodies invested and reverberating together around shared political goals. Affective resonance points researchers toward the fragile and complex accomplishment that affective politics represents. Focussing particularly on the community’s interactions on Twitter, we also reflect on the role of (digital) resonance spaces in how affects circulate. By adopting and transposing concepts from affect theories into the context of patient communities, we further add important insights into the unique embodied challenges that chronic illness patients face. Highlighting the hope induced by techno-bodily emancipation that intertwine into a particular form of political organizing in such healthcare movements, we give emphasis to patient communities’ deeply embodied affects as important engines for political, social, and economic change.
9 - PublicationDemocratic research: Setting up a research commons for a qualitative, comparative, longitudinal interview study during the COVID-19 pandemic(Elsevier, 2022-12)The sudden and dramatic advent of the COVID-19 pandemic led to urgent demands for timely, relevant, yet rigorous research. This paper discusses the origin, design, and execution of the SolPan research commons, a large-scale, international, comparative, qualitative research project that sought to respond to the need for knowledge among researchers and policymakers in times of crisis. The form of organization as a research commons is characterized by an underlying solidaristic attitude of its members and its intrinsic organizational features in which research data and knowledge in the study is shared and jointly owned. As such, the project is peer-governed, rooted in (idealist) social values of academia, and aims at providing tools and benefits for its members. In this paper, we discuss challenges and solutions for qualitative studies that seek to operate as research commons.
7 - PublicationCOVID-19 and techno-solutionism: responsibilization without contextualization?(Taylor and Francis, 2022)Since the onset of the pandemic, and underpinned by often promissory undertones in policy discourse, an array of technological solutions have come to be regarded as privileged modes of intervention to curb the spread of COVID-19. Yet all too often the policies around COVID technologies have suffered from a spectrum of shortcomings or ‘fallacies’ (Jasanoff et al., 2021), which, notwithstanding the distinctiveness of each country’s policies, have characterized the pandemic response of most (liberal) democracies globally. In particular, the rollout of COVID interventions in many countries has tended to replicate a mode of intervention based on ‘technological fixes’ and ‘silver-bullet solutions’, which tend to erase contextual factors and marginalize other rationales, values, and social functions that do not explicitly support technology-based innovation efforts (Jasanoff et al., 2021). As Hill et al. (2022) in this Special Section argue, driving public health policy through such techno-solutionism only risks exacerbating existing social inequalities and mistrust in governments.
10Scopus© Citations 4 - Publication(De-)assetizing pharmaceutical patents: Patent contestations behind a blockbuster drug(Taylor and Francis, 2022)Recent debates in public health and social sciences have shown how biofinancialization has been fuelled by patents’ transformation into ‘patent-as-assets’. This paper traces the historical construction of one such patent-as-asset bundle: the multi-billion worth architecture of patents behind the hepatitis C blockbuster drug sofosbuvir. Following this process from the late 1980s to present times, we highlight the ontological entanglements of pharmaceutical patents and the scientific, legal, commercial and political contestations that result from the focal firms’ assetization projects. By shining a light on these entanglements, our paper points to the extraordinary historical conditions required for the assetization of drug patents as well as to their vulnerability to contestations. In particular, we highlight new forms of patent activism that threaten the ‘asset condition’ of high-priced pharmaceuticals.
11Scopus© Citations 5 - PublicationOrganizing the Sharing Economy Through Experiments: Framing and taming as onto-epistemological work(SAGE Publications, 2023-03)Prior work on performativity has illustrated how theories intervene in economic organizing. We expand this body of research by studying how concepts, and particularly those that are loosely defined and/or not widely understood, provoke their own realities through experiments. We examine how different experimental set-ups allow these concepts to be seized by a multitude of actors all wishing to instantiate worlds in their own interests, and how they potentially open up multiple competing realities as a result. We follow the concept of mobility-as-a-service as it mobilizes various experiments across public and private realms in Stockholm and Dublin, and we analyse how specific types of experiment co-produce epistemic and ontological work. Our results illustrate how different experimental designs can be conducive in taming and/or framing ambiguous concepts through interconnected processes of such onto-epistemological work. This highlights the distributed and relational and also the ‘provocative’ facets of performing ambiguous concepts through experiments. We discuss the consequences of these insights for how we think about scaling from experiments to broader socio-economic realities.
4 - PublicationBuilding the weak hand of the state: tracing the market boundaries of high pharmaceutical prices in France(Taylor and Francis, 2022)Prices for new medications have strongly increased over the last decades, reaching levels that could endanger healthcare insurance systems. Focusing on the French case, this article builds on the structural approach of business power and investigates how this situation results from the construction of market boundaries that created unassailable spaces for high pricing. Starting from the 1990s, it traces how high drug prices relied on the construction of a market setting first designed to increase pharmaceutical prices, in which the negotiating position of the state was deliberately weakened. But the politics of maintaining such high drug pricing quickly required reshaping the boundaries of the pharmaceutical market and concentrating the favourable negotiation framework on a small number of innovative medicines. Most recently, the spiralling of prices for these medicines have necessitated yet another revisiting of these market boundaries. High drug prices do not result from direct business power by the pharmaceutical sector; rather, the pharmaceutical sector depends on boundary-work performed in cooperation with state institutions to carve out domains for favourable market pricing. Emphasising the politics of this boundary-work thus ultimately also signals its potential reversibility.
3Scopus© Citations 1 - PublicationBoundary resource interactions in solution networks(Emerald, 2022-02-02)Purpose: This study aims to explore the interactions between two different and potentially complementary boundary resources in coordinating solution networks in a digital platform context: boundary spanners (those individuals who span interorganizational boundaries) and boundary interfaces (the devices that help coordinate interfirm relationships, e.g. electronic data interchanges, algorithms or chatbots). Design/methodology/approach: The authors conducted a multiple case study of three firms using digital platforms to coordinate solution networks in the information communication technology and lighting facility industries. Data were collected from 30 semi-structured interviews, which are complemented by secondary data. Findings: As task complexity increases, smarter digital interfaces are adopted. When the intelligence level of interfaces is low or moderate, they are only used as tools by boundary spanners or to support boundary spanners’ functions. When the intelligence level of interfaces is high or very high, boundary spanners design the interfaces and let them perform tasks autonomously. They are also sometimes employed to complement interfaces’ technological limitations and customers’ limited user ability. Research limitations/implications: The industry contexts of the cases may influence the results. Qualitative case data has limited generalizability. Practical implications: This study offers a practical tool for solution providers to effectively deploy boundary employees and digital technologies to offer diverse customized solutions simultaneously. Originality: This study contributes to the solution business literature by putting forward a framework of boundary resource interactions in coordinating solution networks in a digital platform context. It contributes to the boundary spanning literature by revealing the shifting functions of boundary spanners and boundary interfaces.
7Scopus© Citations 1 - PublicationEmpowering students in the assessment and feedback of work-integrated learning: Key stakeholder views(International Academy of Technology, Education and Development (IATED), 2022-11-09)
11 - PublicationFeasibility of pair-housing of rats after cranial implant surgery(SAGE, 2022-10-10)Rat models employing cranial implants are increasingly employed to facilitate neural stimulation and recording in freely moving animals. Due to possible damage to wound, implant or attached devices, rats with cranial implants are traditionally housed singly, and little information is available on group- or pair-housing. Here we describe a protocol for pair-housing rats following cranial implant surgery and describe our experience with pair-housing during post-surgical recovery and up to 16 weeks following surgery.Thirty-six adult Wistar rats of both sexes were implanted with deep brain stimulation electrodes. Ten rats were equipped with an additional wireless headstage. Rats were housed in stable pairs before surgery and re-introduced 0-18 h post-surgery. Rat grimace scores did not indicate pain after conclusion of the analgesia protocol, physiological parameters were in the normal range three days post-surgery and weight loss did not exceed 10%. Rats with a cement cap only were pair-housed continuously without damage to the headcap. Rats carrying an additional fragile headstage had to be separated during lights-off periods to prevent headstage damage but could be pair-housed during lights-on periods. Pair-housing is a feasible and effective method to facilitate the rats' need for social companionship following cranial implant surgery.
15 - PublicationUncovering the affective affordances of videoconference technologies(Emerald, 2022-12-05)Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the role of videoconferencing technologies for mediating and transforming emotional experiences in virtual context. Design/methodology/approach: Drawing on empirical data of video conferencing experiences, this study identifies different constitutive relations with technology through which actors cope with actual or potential anxieties in virtual meetings. It draws on the phenomenological-existential tradition (Sartre and Merleau-Ponty) and on an interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) to conceptualize and illustrate the role of affective affordances in virtual settings. Findings: The study identifies four different body–technology–other relations that provide different action possibilities, both disclosing and concealing, for navigating emotional experiences in virtual encounters of mutual gazing. These findings offer insights into the anatomy of virtual emotions and provide explanations on the nature of Zoom fatigue (interactive exhaustion) and heightened feelings of self-consciousness resulting from video conferencing interactions. Originality/value: This paper builds on and extends current scholarship on technological affordances, as well as emotions, to suggest that technologies also afford different tactics for navigating emotional experiences. Thus, this paper proposes the notion of affective affordance that can expand current information system (IS) and organization studies (OS) scholarship in important ways. The focus is on videoconference technologies and meetings that have received little research attention and even less so from a perspective on emotions. Importantly, the paper offers nuanced insights that can advance current research discourse on the relationships between technology, human body and emotions.
9Scopus© Citations 5 - PublicationNovel zebrafish patient-derived tumor xenograft methodology for evaluating efficacy of immune-stimulating BCG therapy in urinary bladder cancer(MDPI, 2023-02-03)Background: Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) immunotherapy is the standard-of-care adjuvant therapy for non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer in patients at considerable risk of disease recurrence. Although its exact mechanism of action is unknown, BCG significantly reduces this risk in responding patients but is mainly associated with toxic side-effects in those facing treatment resistance. Methods that allow the identification of BCG responders are, therefore, urgently needed. Methods: Fluorescently labelled UM-UC-3 cells and dissociated patient tumor samples were used to establish zebrafish tumor xenograft (ZTX) models. Changes in the relative primary tumor size and cell dissemination to the tail were evaluated via fluorescence microscopy at three days post-implantation. The data were compared to the treatment outcomes of the corresponding patients. Toxicity was evaluated based on gross morphological evaluation of the treated zebrafish larvae. Results: BCG-induced toxicity was avoided by removing the water-soluble fraction of the BCG formulation prior to use. BCG treatment via co-injection with the tumor cells resulted in significant and dose-dependent primary tumor size regression. Heat-inactivation of BCG decreased this effect, while intravenous BCG injections were ineffective. ZTX models were successfully established for six of six patients based on TUR-B biopsies. In two of these models, significant tumor regression was observed, which, in both cases, corresponded to the treatment response in the patients. Conclusions: The observed BCG-related anti-tumor effect indicates that ZTX models might predict the BCG response and thereby improve treatment planning. More experiments and clinical studies are needed, however, to elucidate the BCG mechanism and estimate the predictive value.
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