Automatic thematic classification of election manifestos

We digitized three years of Dutch election manifestos annotated by the Dutch political scientist Isaac Lipschits. We used these data to train a classifier that can automatically label new, unseen election manifestos with themes. Having the manifestos in a uniform XML format with all paragraphs annotated with their themes has advantages for both electronic publishing of the data and diachronic comparative data analysis. The data that we created will be disclosed to the public through a search interface. This means that it will be possible to query the data and filter them on themes and parties. We optimized the Lipschits classifier on the task of classifying election manifestos using models trained on earlier years. We built a classifier that is suited for classifying election manifestos from 2002 onwards using the data from the 1980s and 1990s. We evaluated the results by having a domain expert manually assess a sample of the classified data. We found that our automatic classifier obtains the same precision as a human classifier on unseen data. Its recall could be improved by extending the set of themes with newly emerged themes. Thus when using old political texts to classify new texts, work is needed to link and expand the set of themes to newer topics.     

Multinational subsidiary knowledge protection—Do mandates and clusters matter?

International knowledge spillovers, especially through multinational companies (MNCs), have recently been a major topic of academic and management debate. However, most studies treat MNC subsidiaries as relatively passive actors. We challenge this assumption by investigating the drivers of knowledge protection intensity of MNC subsidiaries. We argue that knowledge protection intensity is determined by MNC subsidiary mandates and by opportunities and risks originating from the host region. We hypothesize that not just competence-creating but also competence-exploiting mandates increase knowledge protection intensity. In addition, technological cluster regions in the host country can be expected to provide opportunities for knowledge sourcing and MNC subsidiaries may be willing to protect knowledge less intensively to participate in cluster networks. We test our hypotheses using a dataset of 694 observations of 631 MNC subsidiaries in Germany and develop recommendations for research, managers and policy makers.     

Freelancers and the absorption of external knowledge: practical implications and theoretical contributions

The term absorptive capacity (AC) describes the process of utilising external knowledge. Although firms are becoming increasingly reliant on highly skilled freelancers as a source of external knowledge, the literature on AC has not incorporated this collaboration for freelancers. In this paper, we address this research deficit in two ways: First, we argue that the ability to collaborate effectively and efficiently with freelancers plays a crucial role in the process of absorbing external knowledge. Second, we argue that the example of freelancers challenges researchers to rethink the conceptualisation of organisational boundaries within the concept of AC. Our paper is based upon previous theoretical insights and exploratory empirical data from a research project on German IT freelancers. For the practice of knowledge management, our paper elaborates upon how organisations can enhance their AC by investing in practices and routines that contribute to successful collaboration with freelancers.     

Brazilian soccer: symbolic dimensions of its practice

This essay explores the symbolic dimensions of soccer in Brazilian society from the perspective of sports anthropology. It discusses how the founding of the game was handled, in terms of stylization and standardization of rules. This, as the essay argues, would effect amplified representations in emotional regimes and adhesion to the game, thus making it a singular sports modality for understanding societies such as Brazil.     

The challenge of being small and unknown

Authors who write in little-known languages, or who are at the beginning of their careers, have difficulty in finding an international audience. Their problems include the inability of editors to evaluate untranslated work, the absence of foreign publishers' agents and scouts in small countries, the inability of foreign publishers to place a new work in its national context, lack of interest among readers in some countries in foreign literature, and the dearth of foreign rights managers in the publishing houses of small countries.     

Two secondary teachers’ understanding and classroom practice of dialogic teaching: a case study

Dialogic Teaching (DT) is effective in fostering student learning; yet, it is hard to implement. Little research focused on secondary teachers’ learning of DT and on the link between teachers’ understanding and practices, although these two are usually strongly intertwined. Using a wide range of evidence, this case study systematically investigated and compared two secondary teachers’ understanding and practice of DT during their participation in a continuing professional development programme (CPDP). The CPDP appeared effective to some extent. The History teacher’s understanding of DT, i.e. being a co-learner, appeared highly effective in implementing DT, whereas the Mathematics teacher’s understanding of DT, i.e. creating a democratic learning environment, seemed only effective to some extent. Focusing on both teachers’ understanding and practice when developing DT seemed fruitful in explaining differences in practice. Future research could further explore to what extent understanding DT as being a co-learner facilitates professional development.     

‘We are more than EFL teachers – we are educators’: emancipating EFL student-teachers through photovoice

The prevailing pedagogical orientations of English as a foreign language (EFL) education in Spain oppress learners intellectually in ways that are counterproductive to their learning. As a reaction to this, 129 EFL student-teachers (STs) took part during the 2013/14, 2014/15, and 2015/16 academic years in a workshop which drew on the methodology of participatory action research and on photovoice as a data-creating strategy, in order to emancipate these STs intellectually, boost their EFL development, and offer an alternative critical model for their future EFL teaching. The research was assessed collectively through a variety of qualitative strategies. Results showed that the photovoice workshop created a rich and meaningful context for EFL learning, one which enabled the STs to fully actualize their intellectual potential by producing knowledge collectively, thereby setting a memorable educational example for their own future teaching.     

The postmodern perfectionist,the pragmatic hedonist and the materialist maximalist: understanding high school students’ profile choices towards or away from mathematics,science and technology (MST) fields in the Netherlands

This study focuses on high school students’ profile choices and the choice for or against the Nature and Technology (NT) profile in the Netherlands. A mixed-methods approach is used to study cultural values that affect this choice. The quantitative part of the study shows that being female is negatively correlated with the choice for the NT-profile, irrespective of the grade average for mathematics, chemistry and physics. It further shows that students’ ethnic background does not have a significant effect on this choice. The qualitative part of the study reveals that students’ choice processes towards or away from NT can be categorised in three ideal types: the postmodern perfectionist, the pragmatic hedonist and the materialist maximalist. Gender differences appear to be more pervasive across these types than differences in ethnic background.