Meeting (the) Pandemic: Videoconferencing Fatigue and Evolving Tensions of Sociality in Enterprise Video Meetings During COVID-19.

When COVID-19 led to mandatory working from home, significant blind spots in supporting the sociality of working life-in the moment and over time-were revealed in enterprise video meetings, and these were a key factor in reports about videoconferencing fatigue. Drawing on a large study (N = 849) of one global technology company's employees' experiences of all-remote video meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic, we use a dialectic method to explore the tensions expressed by employees around effectiveness and sociality, as well as their strategies to cope with these tensions. We argue that videoconferencing fatigue arose partly due to work practices and technologies designed with assumptions of steady states and taken-for-granted balances between task and social dimensions of work relationships. Our analysis offers a social lens on videoconferencing fatigue and suggests the need to reconceptualize ideas around designing technologies and practices to enable both effectiveness and sociality in the context of video meetings.

Guest editorial: Global branding management in a rapidly changing environment

[...]the renascence of consumer ethnocentrism, patriotism, local identity and global company animosity has shadowed the prospect of global brands (He and Wang, 2015). [...]in an age of emerging and growing antipathy towards globalization, perhaps fueled by global crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, a relevant issue within the global branding literature needs to be answered. Lang, Behl, Guzman, Pereira and Del Giudice (The role of advertising, distribution intensity and store image in achieving global brand loyalty in an emerging market) investigate the simultaneous impact of advertising efforts, distribution intensity, and store image on global brand loyalty of fast-moving consumer goods in emerging markets. The study reveals variations among the selected marketing mix elements and brand loyalty, contributing to the understanding of global consumer culture, marketing mix, brand equity and global brand loyalty.

Pandemic Capitalism: Metabolic Rift, World-Ecology Crossing Dialectical Biology

In this article, I contrast two of the main schools of thought within eco-Marxism, namely Metabolic Rift (MR) and World-Ecology (WE). These differ above all else in their accounts of the ontological status of society and nature. The Covid-19 pandemic constitutes a moment of concretisation of this long-standing debate, which is able to dissolve at least in part its issues. The article consists of four parts. I begin with a summary of the two schools of thought and their core stances, before proceeding to unpack their respective theoretical points of contention. I subsequently proceed to explore the conceptualisation of health according to the Marxist scientists Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin through the model of dialectical biology. In the third section, I unpack the conceptualisation of the Covid-19 pandemic by the epidemiologist Robert Wallace, before finally concluding with the contrasts of the two schools in the light of dialectical biology. Keywords © 2023 Brill Academic Publishers. All rights reserved.

Cultural differences in the construal of suffering and the COVID-19 pandemic

The present research examines how suffering is construed across cultures. Study 1 (N1 = 264;N2 = 745) asked participants to provide free associations for suffering. Chinese individuals generated more positive associations than did Euro-Canadians. Study 2 (N = 522) had participants create a hypothetical potion of suffering to represent what people would experience while suffering. Chinese participants added more positive ingredients and fewer negative ingredients than Euro-Canadians did. How would cultural differences in the construal of suffering matter in a real-life negative situation? Study 3 (N = 608) showed that Chinese participants generated a greater proportion of potential positive outcomes for the COVID-19 outbreak and reported more positive affect during the pandemic than did Euro-Canadians. Thus, Chinese construe suffering more positively than Euro-Canadians. These findings are consistent with previous research on cultural differences in dialectical thinking and lay theory of change and have implications for coping and resilience. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Couples on trial since the "Covid Crisis”: Therapeutic perspectives

This paper examines the impact of the Covid and subsequent crises on couple relationships and therapy. Supported by research and clinical data, it highlights how couples face a significant contradiction. They must support individuals, parenting, careers, sexuality and sometimes the survival of multiple generations while adjusting to the upheaval of its external resources and internal arrangements. Frequent changes and uncertainty related to new life, work and socialization contexts require making conscious and renegotiating the way it deals with relational distance and dialectics, boundaries, rules and thirds. Through two clinical cases seen in Paris and New York, this paper examines the therapists' interventions and positioning as they, in parallel, face a changing paradigm. © De Boeck Supérieur. Tous droits réservés pour tous pays.

Couples on trial since the "Covid Crisis”: Therapeutic perspectives

This paper examines the impact of the Covid and subsequent crises on couple relationships and therapy. Supported by research and clinical data, it highlights how couples face a significant contradiction. They must support individuals, parenting, careers, sexuality and sometimes the survival of multiple generations while adjusting to the upheaval of its external resources and internal arrangements. Frequent changes and uncertainty related to new life, work and socialization contexts require making conscious and renegotiating the way it deals with relational distance and dialectics, boundaries, rules and thirds. Through two clinical cases seen in Paris and New York, this paper examines the therapists' interventions and positioning as they, in parallel, face a changing paradigm. © De Boeck Supérieur. Tous droits réservés pour tous pays.

Counter-Hegemonic narratives of white weddings: Brides responses to wedding disruptions during the covid-19 pandemic

Dominant cultural discourses dictate what the ideal wedding should look like, and these discourses often center around the white wedding. White weddings typically include a bride in a white dress, a large reception, and a honeymoon. Given that western culture privileges the white wedding, weddings that deviate from this norm are sometimes delegitimatized. We used Relational Dialectics Theory 2.0 to examine dominant discourses of weddings during Covid-19. Covid-19 necessitated that many couples alter their wedding plans and prompted them to explicitly consider the taken-for-granted assumptions of the white wedding. We conducted a contrapuntal analysis of 87 recently married women's open-ended survey responses about how Covid-19 changed their wedding plans and what the women liked and disliked about these changes. These disruptions in wedding plans afford the opportunity to explore dominant white wedding discourses among brides. The following discourses emerged from our analysis: the centripetal discourse of the white wedding, the centrifugal discourse of the focus on relationships, the centripetal discourses of the perfect day, and the centrifugal discourses of the perfect day. [ FROM AUTHOR]

Features of Criminal Liability of Medical Workers

In the context of the global coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, the professional activity of medical workers has become one of the foundations of the life of civilized society, so the provision of medical services must be clearly regulated, in particular, by legal means. At the same time, both legislative and by-law irregularities in most aspects of professional activity of medical workers, lack of objective criteria for evaluating their activities, low level of social support of medical staff, a significant nu mber of gaps in criminal law, which provide for liability for professional offenses of this category of individuals, which collectively encourages health professionals to neglect their professional responsibilities, as well as the confidence to avoid any kind of liability for such actions. Copyright © 2021, SILAE (Italo-Latin American Society of Ethnomedicine). All rights reserved.

The COVID-19 Crisis: A Case of Capitalism’s Dialectic of Failure

Acknowledging the multiple ways capitalism fails humanity and the planet, regularly triggering anticapitalist resistance, this essay employs the term “dialectic of failure” to examine how capitalist failures often boost profits and facilitate capitalism’s reproduction. This tendency for capitalism’s failures to create opportunities as well as risks for itself is analyzed with respect to the COVID-19 pandemic. After first analyzing the pandemic as a capitalist failure, and while acknowledging the social-justice and anticapitalist struggles the pandemic has given rise to, the essay examines how the pandemic may also be facilitating capital accumulation and the reproduction of the prevailing socioeconomic order.

Control and Insecurity in Australian and Canadian Universities during the COVID-19 Pandemic

We studied 14 universities across Canada and Australia to examine how the COVID-19 crisis, mediated through management strategies and conflict over financial control in higher education, influenced workers’ job security and affective outcomes like stress and happiness. The countries differed in their institutional frameworks, their union density, their embeddedness in neoliberalism and their negotiation patterns. Management strategies also differed between universities. Employee outcomes were influenced by differences in union involvement. Labour cost reductions negotiated with unions could improve financial outcomes, but, even in a crisis, management might not be willing to forego absolute control over finance, and it was not the depth of the crisis that shaped management decisions. Alternate :Cette étude examine comment la pandémie de COVID-19 et les stratégies mises en oeuvre par la gestion universitaire ont influencé la sécurité d'emploi, le stress et le bonheur des travailleurs de l'enseignement supérieur. Les données quantitatives et qualitatives primaires proviennent d'une enquête menée dans quatorze universités en Australie et au Canada, complétée par des recherches secondaires. L'analyse examine les réponses des institutions et des travailleurs à la pandémie, ainsi que les conflits qui en résultent en matière de contrôle financier et ce, tant aux niveaux macro (secteur), méso (université) et micro (individu). Au niveau macro, les réponses des universités ont été façonnées par les politiques publiques de l'État aux niveaux national et infranational. Dans les deux pays l’approche avait une forme nettement " néolibérale ". Toutefois, les universités australiennes ont été davantage exposées à la pression financière en faveur des suppressions d'emplois, et la direction de ces universités a peut-être été plus encline à procéder à des mises à pied que l'ensemble des universités canadiennes. Les différences au niveau du soutien institutionnel au syndicalisme au niveau macro ont influencé la manière dont le personnel universitaire a été affecté aux niveaux méso et micro. La restructuration des universités, dans les deux pays, a eu un impact négatif sur la sécurité d'emploi et les perspectives de carrière, ce qui a entraîné une diminution de la satisfaction professionnelle et une augmentation du stress. Pour de nombreux membres du personnel professionnel, le travail à domicile était nouveau et libérateur, tandis que pour d’autres membres du personnel universitaire, le travail à domicile était une expérience négative. Notre analyse démontre que les expériences du personnel universitaire ont été influencées par d'autres facteurs que les modalités de travail mises en place par les universités pendant la pandémie de COVID-19. Les approches des universités en matière de protection de l'emploi, de restructuration et d'engagement avec le personnel par le biais des syndicats semblent influencer la satisfaction, le stress et le bonheur du personnel. Nos résultats s'inscrivent dans le prolongement de la littérature qui documente la manière dont les processus de néolibéralisation sont régulièrement contestés par le personnel universitaire dans le cadre de diverses actions individuelles et collectives, en particulier en temps de crise. Nous soutenons que la théorisation des luttes pour le contrôle du travail devrait être étendue aux luttes pour le contrôle des finances.

Manufacturing the Debt Republic of America: Mounting Student Loan Debt and Dismantling Its Neoliberal Political Ideology

This paper explores the political debate on student loan forgiveness from a religious (Christian) ethical perspective. In so doing, I answer the three specific questions. First, what are the prospects and limits of different political approaches to the issue? Second, what are the structural or ideological backgrounds that have given birth to the student loan crisis, but are not fully addressed by the president’s executive ordering? Last, what is the Christian ethical response to the issue, and how could it be theologically justified? Answering these questions, I argue that it is time now for American society to reckon with the neoliberal economy of debt that has relentlessly undertaken every aspect of our social and political lives. I also contend that student debt should be regarded as a form of social gift offered by society to the future generation.

Beyond Accessibility: A Multidimensional Evaluation of Urban Park Equity in Yangzhou, China

Evaluating park equity can help guide the advancement of sustainable and equitable space policies. Previous studies have mainly considered accessibility when evaluating park equity while ignoring the selectivity and convenience of entering parks and residents’ recognition of parks. Measuring equity based mainly on spatial thinking has resulted in the social aspects of parks receiving insufficient attention. In this study, we therefore integrated the spatial and social equity of parks and developed a multidimensional framework to evaluate park equity in four dimensions: accessibility (Ai), diversity (Di), convenience (Ci), and satisfaction (Si). Empirical analysis from Yangzhou, China showed that: (1) in Yangzhou’s built-up districts, 23.43% of the communities received high- or relatively high-level park access but 17.72% received little or no park access. (2) The Gini coefficient indicated that all three dimensions showed a mismatch with population distribution, except for satisfaction (Si), which showed a relatively reasonable match. (3) Park access was generally better in communities with better locations, environments, and facilities. High-income groups enjoyed significantly better park access than low- and middle-income groups. These findings could help urban planners and policymakers develop effective policies to reduce inequality in park access.

Working Toward Becoming Doctoral Researchers: A Collective Autoethnography of International Students in Australia

It is well established that international education can profoundly influence a student, including identity and agency formation and the acquisition of knowledge and culture. This study applies the concept of self-formation to reconceptualize the international student experience. It captures the development, changes, and operation of identity and agency during self-formation. Utilizing collective autoethnography, the authentic experiences of three international students studying in Australia during the Covid-19 pandemic were collected. These stories illustrate their transformation from international students to student researchers. Through thematic analysis, three phases have been identified in this study, which are self-exploration, self-positioning, and self-determination and shedding light on the role of agency and hybrid identity. A further scholarly investigation is advocated to enrich the discussion of self-formation and add a nuanced investigation into the variability of individual experiences.

Ensemble Dal Niente: confined.speak. New Focus Recordings, FCR308

[...]dialectics is built into the title, in a pun that can either mean demented string, as appears in the title, or ‘of sound mind’, as in ‘de mente cuerda’. [...]the dramatic capital of gestures that suggest growth (glissandos) and release (a big double-handed pizzicato) are used up rather quickly. A soupy texture of whistles and trickles lasts for four minutes, interrupted abruptly by a pre-recorded sonic collage of text-to-speech which jostles with another, muffled voice and an old recording of a particularly caustic orchestra.

Risk Communication During COVID-19: What Can We Learn from New Zealand?

At a challenging juncture in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic (SARS-Cov-2- COVID-19), Global Health faces one of the greatest challenges in history to control the spread of the virus, whose main characteristic is the speed of contagion and high mortality rates. Risk communication is a fundamental component of any emergency response. Analyze the risk communication strategy developed by New Zealand in response to COVID-19. Qualitative research, based on the argumentation theory seeking to understand the production of symbolic phenomena, their social role, effects and meanings of the Risk Communication Strategy (RCS) developed in New Zealand. The collection consisted of 19 publications from the official website of the New Zealand government and 7 open access videos with statements made by the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, during the period from March to December 2020. The whole documentary corpus was analyzed using webQDA content analysis. In response to COVID-19 New Zealand developed a solid RCS, in which each of the components suggested by WHO were dynamically and creatively included, with a strong focus on community/diverse actor participation and promotion of solidarity as a core value of the New Zealand society, using clear and consistent messaging. The RCS gave relevance to decisions based on the best scientific evidence, with a marked promotion of non-pharmacological interventions. Qualitative research and CAQDAS such as webQDA are fundamental tools for studying relevant topics such as risk communication, emphasising political discourse and its implications in the development of strategies to control COVID-19 and the infodemic. A modern approach to argumentation theory and the pragmatic analysis of language allows both the assessment and critique of the forms of communication in health and offer elements for the search for answers to health crises, seeking to compensate for the asymmetry of knowledge and power. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

The coronavirus' two bodies

This chapter explores that the university's two bodies in a dialectical fashion, for surely it would be churlish to ignore the very real benefits of this Internet qua unconscious of the coronavirus. And I mean this very gathering from which this volume derives (which, with its midnight sessions for those of us on the West Coast of North America, remind us that we still do have bodies, living in the solar-derived time zones of the planetary real), and, by extension, the possibilities of intellectual resistance and solidarity, across YouTube videos and Instagram memes, libgen book piracy and email collaborations, Facebook live poetry readings or activism. university's two bodies in a dialectical fashion, for surely it would be churlish to ignore the very real benefits of this Internet qua unconscious of the coronavirus. And I mean this very gathering from which this volume derives (which, with its midnight sessions for those of us on the West Coast of North America, remind us that we still do have bodies, living in the solar-derived time zones of the planetary real), and, by extension, the possibilities of intellectual resistance and solidarity, across YouTube videos and Instagram memes, libgen book piracy and email collaborations, Facebook live poetry readings or activism. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Confiscation of proceeds and property related to crimes: international standards and the ECHR practice

Organized crime and corruption in the context of globalization pose a huge threat to the security of all countries without exception. Therefore, the common European and national crime prevention systems pay great attention to criminal activity economic sense deprivation. This is achieved through the application of confiscation of property and proceeds related to crime. For transitive legal systems development the reference points are the international standards and ECHR practice which are studied using dialectical, formal legal and comparative legal methods. The study showed that the international standards and ECHR practice make it possible to find a balance between public and private interests, ensure maximum seizure of proceeds and property related to crimes, and guarantee the protection of property rights as an essential human right. On the example of Ukraine the peculiarity of the confiscation regulation in countries with a transitive legal system is shown and the perspectives for domestic law improving in this aspect are outlined.

Novelty Experience in Prolonged Interaction: A Qualitative Study of Socially-Isolated College Students' In-Home Use of a Robot Companion Animal.

Social distancing policies such as limits on public gatherings and contact with others were utilized around the world to slow the spread of COVID-19. Yet, decreased social interactions may also threaten people's well-being. In this project, we sought to understand novelty-relevant experiences surrounding in-home companion robot pets for adults that were living in some degree of social isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. After 6-weeks of participants living with the robot companion, we conducted semi-structured interviews (N = 9) and six themes emerged from our iterative analysis (expectations versus reality, ontological comparisons, interactions, third-party influence, identity, and comfort). Findings suggest that novelty is a complex phenomenon consisting of various elements (i.e., imagined novelty, technology novelty, and relational novelty). Each component influences the user's experience. Our findings also suggest that our understanding of novelty as a nonlinear resource may hold important implications for how we view human-robot relationships beyond initial encounters.

Digital transformation during a pandemic: Stretching the organizational elasticity.

How can firms turn their COVID-19 pandemic-driven digitalization efforts into sustainable digital transformation? Firms accelerated their digitalization efforts during the global pandemic to an emergency speed. This speed of implementation of digital technologies left organizations with little time to adapt their structures, processes, and culture to the new environment. We argue that firms currently remain in a stretched operations mode that will either bounce back to normal after the pandemic or ultimately lead to organizational failure. Seven in-depth case studies based on 11 interviews of top management support our argument and show that, during this crisis, firms have been operating in a state of exception. We take an organizational elasticity perspective to investigate this status and develop an agenda for firms to facilitate sustainable digital transformation. Our study provides important insights into organizational elasticity as a framework to manage the long-term organizational impact of the current pandemic.

Labor migration: current and perspective challenges for Ukraine

The main purpose of this study was to analyze the labor resources migration phenomenon from Ukraine in the context of theoretical basics of it generalization and against the background of its evolution and world trends, to identify its specific features, real consequences and possible perspectives regarding the regulation possibility taking into account the specifics of the nature and structure of this phenomenon in this country. The research methodology is formed on the basis of the classic economic theory of migration in combination with the behavioral approach and the interpretation of human as homo oeconomicus. Methods were used in the research process: dialectical, historical and semantic analysis, method of theoretical generalization and scientific ion, induction and deduction, monographic, graphic, statistical and analytical. The main findings are related to the detection of the tendency to increase the scale of labor migration from Ukraine even under conditions of pandemic, the identification of threats and harms connected with this phenomenon. Substantiated recommendations for eliminating the threats and harms of international labor migration from Ukraine may have practical applications. The originality of the article is determined by its timeliness and by diversified set of used sources of information, what together forms its value as well.