National University of Ireland, Maynooth
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Chief Executive Officer’s Dark Triad Personality and Firm’s Degree of Internationalization
No full textInternationalization decisions stand as a cornerstone of research in the field of international business. Scholars have dedicated nearly five decades to examining the role of decision-makers, specifically strategic actors, in shaping the internationalization strategies of firms. Unlike previous research that primarily examines the relationships and connections decision-makers possess, such as social capital, and their specific knowledge, such as international expertise, this dissertation aims to explore the intricacies of the decision-makers themselves. Who are these influential figures steering firms toward international growth? How do their characteristics shape and drive the internationalization process? This approach aims to bridge the existing gap in the literature by offering a fresh perspective on the personal dimensions of internationalization decision-makers. Specifically, this research examines the understudied realm of Chief Executive Officers’ (CEOs’) characteristics, with a particular focus on the dark triad of personality traits, shedding light on how these traits affect CEOs’ decisions in the complex landscape of international business. The dark triad personality encompasses narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism, which are known to have both positive and negative implications in various organizational contexts.
This research, grounded in the upper echelons theory and dynamic capabilities view, examines the CEO's dark triad personality and its influence on a firm's internationalization outcomes. First, focusing on the upper echelons theory, which suggests the influence of CEOs’ characteristics on firm-level outcomes, the research explores the direct effects of dark triad personality traits on a firm’s degree of internationalization and ambidexterity. Second, focusing on the dynamic capabilities view, the research examines the indirect effects mediated through ambidexterity, characterized by the pursuit of both exploration and exploitation. Cultivating a firm’s
dynamic capabilities to navigate complex international markets effectively necessitates a balance between exploitation and exploration.
This research comprises two studies aimed at examining the aforementioned relationships. Study 1 focuses on CEOs of firms in the United Kingdom and the United States, with data collected through the Prolific platform. The second study aims to extend the findings of the first study by testing the same hypotheses in a similar cultural context. Conducting a second study can help replicate and validate the findings of the first study, thereby increasing the explanatory power and generalizability of the results. Study 2 encompasses CEOs from Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Australia. For this study, data were collected by emailing CEOs and inviting them to participate, with the majority of participants being from Ireland, with a smaller representation from the United Kingdom and Australia.
Both Studies 1 and 2 utilize a quantitative research approach, analyzing survey data to examine the proposed relationships. In Study 1, the results of hypothesis testing provided support for all four hypotheses. Firstly, it was found that there is a positive and significant relationship between the CEO's dark triad personality and a firm's degree of internationalization. Secondly, the study showed a positive and significant relationship between the CEO’s dark triad personality and ambidexterity. Thirdly, the study demonstrated a positive and significant relationship between ambidexterity and a firm's degree of internationalization. Lastly, ambidexterity was found to mediate the relationship between the CEO's dark triad personality and a firm's degree of internationalization.
The results of Study 2 fail to substantiate the direct relationship between the CEO's dark triad personality and a firm’s degree of internationalization. While Study 2 did establish a positive and significant connection between ambidexterity and the degree
of internationalization, it did not find a significant relationship between the CEO's dark triad personality and ambidexterity. In contrast to Study 1, ambidexterity does not mediate the relationship between the CEO's dark triad personality and a firm's degree of internationalization. However, further examination of Study 2 revealed that dark triad CEOs tend to prioritize and engage in exploitation activities initially. Subsequently, these CEOs are more likely to engage in exploration activities, which in turn contribute to enhancing the firm's degree of internationalization.
The findings of this dissertation have several research and practical implications. Theoretically, they contribute to understanding how CEO dark triad personality traits shape firm internationalization behaviors, shedding light on the interplay between individual characteristics, ambidexterity, and firm-level outcomes. The research also extends the literature on the intersection of upper echelons theory and dynamic capabilities in the context of international business. Practically, the dissertation offers valuable insights for practitioners and decision-makers involved in international business operations. By recognizing the potential positive aspects of a CEO's dark triad personality, firms can strategically leverage specific traits. These traits include assertiveness, self-confidence, boldness, risk-taking, and strategic thinking. Such characteristics may help firms navigate complex international environments, foster innovation, and seize opportunities for growth and expansion. Moreover, the findings highlight the importance of fostering exploitation and exploration (ambidextrous) capabilities within small firms. Overall, the findings of this research present opportunities for future studies to expand upon and develop existing knowledge
Talking about relational youth work: why language matters
No full textThe literature on youth work emphasises the importance of
‘relationship’ to good practice, moreover, the characteristics of
the youth-work relationship have been posited as a defining
feature of youth work in the British-influenced tradition. Despite
this, little attention is paid to the choice of language used to
describe how professional youth workers relate to young people,
or how language choices reflect political framing of youth work
and of power relationships within their practice. Language choice
has implications for how youth workers perceive their
professional identity, for how accountability is construed, and for
inter-professional working. In this article we undertake a thematic
analysis to identify, analyse and critique various language
options, drawing on international literature, with an application
focus on Irish and Australian contexts. We address the question,
‘what language choices offer most precision and clarity about
youth work professional relationships in different contexts?’ We
identify three main ways the relationship between youth workers
and young people has been framed: as collaboration; as
transaction; or, as rights-based entitlement. We conclude with
discussion of how different relational language choices in youth
work should be selected to be congruent with the youth work
context, power relationships and purposes
Social Media, Newsworthiness, and Missing White Woman Syndrome: A Criminological Analysis
No full textMissing White Woman Syndrome has been widely acknowledged within traditional mainstream media, resulting in a heavy focus on missing white women and a simultaneous underrepresentation of missing women from minority ethnic communities. However, less is known about whether this has carried through to social media, wherein users play a key role in determining what becomes widespread news. This review seeks to examine this issue with reference to existing research. It begins by exploring the concept of newsworthiness and the ways in which social media influences the distribution of news. It will then review the concept of the ‘ideal victim’, and its continued association with ethnicity. Finally, the review will examine Missing White Woman Syndrome and the ways in which it has historically manifested within traditional media and continues to manifest on social media. The review will conclude with a discussion on findings and avenues for future research in Ireland and internationally
Examining Overshadowing and Blocking in Human Spatial Learning using a Virtual Water Maze
No full textSpatial navigation and learning have been previously investigated in animal and human studies with two major theories dominating the literature, associative learning theory (Pearce, 2009) and cognitive mapping theory (O Keefe & Nadel, 1978). Cue competition is a key feature of associative learning theory. Overshadowing and blocking are two cue competition effects which have featured in previous animal and human studies. The role of landmarks has been examined in animal studies using the Morris water maze (Morris, 1984). This task requires animals to navigate around a circular pool of water and locate a hidden platform. Animals use cues in the environment to learn the hidden platform's location over a series of trials. NavWell (Commins et al., 2020) is a virtual Morris Water Maze task developed by the Commins Lab to study human spatial behaviour and learning. This thesis examined overshadowing and blocking in healthy young human participants using NavWell. In experiment 1 (overshadowing), landmarks positioned near the goal controlled searching behaviour more than the distal landmarks demonstrating an overshadowing effect. Additionally, distal landmarks appeared to have been ignored suggesting that participants use a strategy requiring the least effort when learning. In experiment 2 (blocking), a single landmark learned in phase 1 did not interfere with learning of a novel landmark introduced in phase 2 and as such, a blocking effect did not occur. As cues were equidistant and proximity was not a factor, all cues were treated equally by participants and integrated into a cognitive map. Evidence for an associative account of learning (experiment 1), support for a cognitive mapping-based approach to learning (experiment 2) and the influence of proximal cues were discussed
Introduction: The Twenty-First Century Social Novel in French
No full textUpon awarding the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature to Annie Ernaux, the jury noted that her œuvre ‘examines a life marked by strong disparities regarding gender, language and class’, adding that ‘she with great courage and clinical acuity reveals the agony of the experience of class’.1 In 2018, Nicolas Mathieu won the Goncourt Prize for Leurs enfants après eux, a novel about class differences and youth in the deindustrialization context of North Eastern France. A commentator remarked that ‘Nicolas understands the destitute, the working class, in a way that most writers don’t’.2 Since 2014 and the critically acclaimed En finir avec Eddy Bellegueule, Édouard Louis has likewise been committed to shedding light on his childhood in a poverty-stricken village in the North of France and regularly examines how politics affects the lives of working-class individuals, because it is a matter of ‘life or death’.3 In the same vein, Mauritian-French writer Nathacha Appanah's work, including Tropiques de la violence (2016), plunges the reader into the intimacy of its characters while discussing social injustice, marginalization and immigration in a slum in Mayotte; Haitian writer Kettly Mars's Aux frontières de la soif (2013) denounces the precarious post-earthquake living conditions of those living in refugee camps and their experience of poverty, famine or prostitution; Cameroonian writer Djali Amadou Amal's Les Impatientes (2020) examines the feminine condition among the Peuls in Cameroon; and Québécois writer Kevin Lambert's Querelle de Roberval (2018), a queer ‘fiction syndicale’, tells the story of a strike in northern Quebec and explores conflict, desire and domination. All of these writers make contributions to the contemporary social novel genre, as they seek to raise awareness about social issues, injustices and the conditions of the working class and marginalized groups
Los Vínculos entre el Partido y la Base, la Movilización Contestataria y las “Tensiones Creativas” en Bolivia
No full textThe abstract is included in the text
Universal Error Correction Decoding Algorithms
No full textThere is no perfect communication channel, and any communication necessarily
involves some level of noise. Attempting to hold a conversation across a crowded
room, for instance, will likely result in miscommunication due to background noise.
Channel coding, as a field, is concerned with reducing the rate of error in such noisy
communication channels. This can be achieved by encoding messages with channel
codes, which allow communication errors to be detected and corrected. The study
of channel coding was launched in 1948 [78], and it now underlies critical technology
such as the Internet, space communications, and storage of digital information [57].
In this thesis, we develop new algorithms and channel coding techniques based
on Guessing Random Additive Noise Decoding (GRAND), a recently introduced
family of decoders for channel codes. GRAND algorithms, unusually, can decode
any channel code of any length that has a moderate amount of redundancy.
Assuming that all messages are equally likely, they achieve maximum-likelihood
decoding, which is the best possible outcome of decoding a channel code. GRAND
challenges several assumptions of traditional channel coding and asserts a new decoding
paradigm in which the particular channel code being used doesn't matter,
allowing greater flexibility in the design of communication schemes. Given that an
upper bound on GRAND's computational complexity increases exponentially with
the amount of redundancy in a code, it is impractical to directly decode arbitrary
channel codes that have a large amount of redundancy.
The goal of this thesis is thus to explore if GRAND can be used to decode such
high-redundancy codes, which are suitable for the noisiest channel environments.
To that end, we introduce and develop two iterative decoding algorithms, Iterative GRAND (IGRAND) and block turbo decoding with GRAND, for a powerful
class of channel codes known as product codes. Product codes are, in general,
high-redundancy codes formed from a concatenation of low- to moderateredundancy
component codes. The key insight of the algorithms considered here
is that GRAND can decode product codes by decoding each of their component
codes in turn, circumventing the aforementioned complexity constraint.
Soft information indicates the reliability of a received message and is useful for
a wide range of applications, including error detection and turbo decoding. In
addition to the goal of decoding high-redundancy codes, this thesis also investigates
the question of whether it is possible for GRAND decoding to output accurate soft
information. We derive probabilistic soft output formulae for GRAND algorithms,
evaluate their accuracy, and explore their application to error detection
Biobank donation in search of public benefits and the potential impact of intellectual property rights over access to health-technologies developed: A focus on the bioethical implications
No full textThe availability of biomaterials is a key component of health research and the development of new health-technologies (including, diagnostics, medicines, and vaccines). People are often encouraged by biobanks to donate samples altruistically to such biobanks. While empirical evidence suggests many donors are motivated by the desire to contribute towards developing new health-technologies for society. However, a tension can arise as health-technologies whose development is contributed to by donors’ biomaterials will often be protected by intellectual property rights (IPRs), including patents. Patents give rightsholders control over how patented technologies are used and can be used in a way that impedes public access to technologies developed. Yet, there are no binding European legal obligations mandating disclosure to donors of how IPRs can operate over downstream health-technologies and how they could impact access to health-technologies developed, nor are there legally binding obligations to ensure public accessibility of technologies developed. Focusing on the bioethical implications posed, this article argues that the current situation can impact donors’ autonomy and dignity interests. A more holistic approach is needed for biobank donation, which embeds a consideration of donors’ expectations/interests from the point of donation through to how such samples are used and how health-technologies developed are accessed. We put forward avenues that seek to address such issues
Working with your Child to Address School Avoidance: A Resource for Parents
No full textThis resource is intended to offer information
and advice to parents and guardians who have a
child or young person who has difficulties going
to school. We call this ‘school-avoiding behaviour’.
There is a lot of information in this resource. If you need help working
through it, ask someone you trust to go through it with you.
This resource is designed to support parents or guardians of children and
young people of all ages. We recommend that you read this along with one
of the two National Educational Psychological Service’s (NEPS) guides.
There is one guide for primary school children and another for secondary
school children.
• ‘Supporting your Child when they are Reluctant to Attend School:
Guidance for Parents and Guardians of Primary Schools’
• ‘Supporting your Child when they are Reluctant to Attend School:
Guidance for Parents and Guardians of Post-Primary Schools.’
Towards the end of this document, you will find a locally developed list of
groups and organisations that can help to support while you manage school avoiding behaviour
Long-Term Evolution of Significant Wave Height in the Eastern Tropical Atlantic between 1940 and 2022 Using the ERA5 Dataset
No full textStudies on the variability in ocean wave climate provide engineers and policy makers with information to plan, develop, and control coastal and offshore activities. Ocean waves bear climatic imprints through which the global climate system can be better understood. Using the recently updated ERA5 dataset, this study evaluated the spatiotemporal distribution and variability in significant wave height (SWH) in the Eastern Tropical Atlantic (ETA). The short-term trends and rates of change were obtained using the Mann–Kendall trend test and the Theil–Sen slope estimator, respectively, and decadal trends were assessed using wavelet transformation. Significant, positive monthly and yearly trends and a prevailing decadal trend were observed across the domain.
Observed trends suggest that stronger waves are getting closer to the coast and are modulated by the Southern and Northern Atlantic mid-latitude storm fields. These observations have implications for the increasing coastal erosion rates on the eastern coast of the Tropical Atlanti