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This paper explores Great Basin arid-zone hunter–forager rock art as signalling behaviour. The rock art in Lincoln County, Nevada, is the focus, and this symbolic repertoire is analysed within its broader archaeological and ethnographic contexts. This paper mobilises an explicitly theoretical approach which integrates human behavioural ecology (HBE) and the precepts of information exchange theory (IET), generating assumptions about style and signalling behaviour based on hunter–forager mobility patterns. An archaeological approach is deployed to contextualise two characteristic regional motifs—the Pahranagat solid-bodied and patterned-bodied anthropomorphs. Contemporary Great Basin Native American communities see Great Basin rock writing through a shamanistic ritual explanatory framework, and these figures are understood to be a powerful spirit figure, the Water Baby, and their attendant shamans’ helpers. This analysis proposes an integrated model to understand Great Basin symbolic behaviours through the Holocene: taking a dialogical approach to travel backward from the present to meet the archaeological past. The recursive nature of rock art imagery and its iterative activation by following generations allows for multiple interpretive frameworks to explain Great Basin hunter–forager and subsequent horticulturalist signalling behaviours over the past ca. 15,000 years.

This chapter contains sections titled: Abstract Style as Social Strategy Western Desert Aggregation and Dispersion Patterns Why did Western Desert People Produce Rock Art? Archaeological Test Implications Conclusions References

Acritical omission in the coworker influence literature is how a coworker influences a closely related (focal) employee’s job performance behaviors and whether this influence is contingent on that coworker’s own behaviors. By integrating social information processing and social cognitive theories with social exchange and role theories, we hypothesize that there are, at least, three distinct types of coworker dyadic influence. Accordingly, we developed and tested a moderated mediation model to explicate such influence. Two multisource, field-design studies conducted in Hong Kong support the modeled relationships in that employee role ambiguity partially mediated the relationships between coworker–employee exchange and two types of employee job performance behaviors—task performance and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Furthermore, coworker OCB fostered employee job performance behavior both directly and interactively, acting as a moderator to weaken the relationships between employee role ambiguity and the two types of job performance behaviors.

This accessible book provides an introduction to the analysis and design of dynamic multiagent networks. Such networks are of great interest in a wide range of areas in science and engineering, including: mobile sensor networks, distributed robotics such as formation flying and swarming, quantum networks, networked economics, biological synchronization, and social networks. Focusing on graph theoretic methods for the analysis and synthesis of dynamic multiagent networks, the book presents a powerful new formalism and set of tools for networked systems. The book's three sections look at foundations, multiagent networks, and networks as systems. The authors give an overview of important ideas from graph theory, followed by a detailed account of the agreement protocol and its various extensions, including the behavior of the protocol over undirected, directed, switching, and random networks. They cover topics such as formation control, coverage, distributed estimation, social networks, and games over networks. And they explore intriguing aspects of viewing networks as systems, by making these networks amenable to control-theoretic analysis and automatic synthesis, by monitoring their dynamic evolution, and by examining higher-order interaction models in terms of simplicial complexes and their applications. The book will interest graduate students working in systems and control, as well as in computer science and robotics. It will be a standard reference for researchers seeking a self-contained account of system-theoretic aspects of multiagent networks and their wide-ranging applications. This book has been adopted as a textbook at the following universities: University of Stuttgart, GermanyRoyal Institute of Technology, SwedenJohannes Kepler University, AustriaGeorgia Tech, USAUniversity of Washington, USAOhio University, USA

The goal of this paper is to determine holistic archetypes of information technology (IT) outsourcing strategy. It does this through an overarching theoretical framework that integrates three dominant theories of interorganizational relations in the IT outsourcing literature, namely transaction cost economics, resource dependency, and social exchange theories. A contingency fit theoretical framing is married to a configurational approach to explicate the intricate relationships that spring up between a focal firm and its outsourcing vendors when they are working toward specific strategic objectives under varying contingencies. In line with this theoretical objective, we used qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), a set-theoretic configuration method that can handle the interdependent complexity among multiple elements of IT outsourcing. The technique was applied to a sample of 235 companies that have outsourced some or all of their IT functions. Findings at the project level of analysis empirically reveal two sets of configurations of strategic IT outsourcing elements, one set of configurations resulting in high economic benefit and the other set leading to high strategic benefit. Next, we compare similarities and differences among multiple, equifinal configurations and infer archetypes of IT outsourcing strategy internally congruent in terms of the strategic objectives as well as matching specific contextual contingencies. Our holistic archetypes take the form of theoretical propositions integrating the previous fragmented and inconsistent knowledge in IT outsourcing resulting from the causal ambiguity and complexity inherent in IT outsourcing projects as well as from divergent theories in the literature. Furthermore, by defining specific contingency boundaries, our archetypes provide managers with context-specific guidelines for strategic decisions regarding their relationships with outsourcing vendors, helping different sized firms to effectively succeed in IT outsourcing, contingent on the IT type being outsourced. Finally, we discuss new insights and implications of this study for complementing and extending the extant theories in IT outsourcing.

Purpose Employees’ knowledge management, which influences creativity, is a pivotal resource in organizational innovation activities, as it helps activate the knowledge resource pool and improves knowledge flow. Using social information processing theory, this study aims to construct a cross-level model to examine how knowledge hiding plays a role in the relationship between leader–member exchange differentiation (LMXD) and employee creativity. Design/methodology/approach This study surveyed 754 leader–employee matching samples from 127 teams in China innovation enterprises at two time points. Confirmatory factor analysis, convergent analysis, hierarchical regression analysis and bootstrapping method by SPSS and AMOS were used to test the hypotheses. Findings The empirical results demonstrate the cross-level model’s efficiency and reveal the following findings: Team-level LMXD is negatively related to employee creativity, whereas it is positively related to knowledge hiding; knowledge hiding is negatively associated with employee creativity; thus, knowledge hiding plays a mediating role in the relationships between them. Originality/value Based on the knowledge-hiding perspective, this study analyzed an underlying mechanism between LMXD and employee creativity, thereby further enriching the literature on the influence of knowledge management. This proposed connection has not been established previously. Moreover, the findings respond to the reasons for the inconsistent conclusions of previous literature on the cross-level relationship between LMXD and employee creativity based on the social information processing theory. It thus clarifies the cross-level influence path, as well as provides a theoretical basis for further research on the relationship between the two.

Social computing technologies typically have multiple features that allow users to reveal their personal information to other users. Such self-disclosure (SD) behavior is generally considered positive and beneficial in interpersonal communication and relationships. Using a newly proposed model based on social exchange theory, this paper investigates and empirically validates the relationships between SD technology use and culture. In particular, we explore the effects of culture on information privacy concerns and the desire for online interpersonal awareness, which influence attitudes toward, intention to use, and actual use of SD technologies. Our model was tested using arguably the strongest social computing technology for online SD-instant messaging (IM)-with users from China and the United States. Our findings reveal that cross-cultural dimensions are significant predictors of information privacy concerns and desire for online awareness, which are, in turn, found to be predictors of attitude toward, intention to use, and actual use of IM. Overall, our proposed model is applicable to both cultures. Our findings enhance the theoretical understanding of the effects of culture and privacy concerns on SD technologies and provide practical suggestions for developers of SD technologies, such as adding additional control features to applications.

We examine how the speed of learning and best-response processes depends on homophily: the tendency of agents to associate disproportionately with those having similar traits. When agents' beliefs or behaviors are developed by averaging what they see among their neighbors, then convergence to a consensus is slowed by the presence of homophily but is not influenced by network density (in contrast to other network processes that depend on shortest paths). In deriving these results, we propose a new, general measure of homophily based on the relative frequencies of interactions among different groups. An application to communication in a society before a vote shows how the time it takes for the vote to correctly aggregate information depends on the homophily and the initial information distribution.

Purpose Knowledge hiding as an important topic in knowledge management field might be triggered by abusive supervision, but few studies discussed how to alleviate the effect of abusive supervision on knowledge hiding. Drawing on both reactance theory and conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study aims to build a moderated mediation framework to examine effects of abusive supervision on knowledge hiding via job insecurity and under moderation of motivational climate (including mastery climate and performance climate). Design/methodology/approach The paper uses a two-wave survey study among 155 knowledge workers from educational and manufacturing industries. Findings Results show that abusive supervision is not significantly related to knowledge hiding directly but indirectly via job insecurity. Abusive supervision’s interaction with mastery climate is negatively related to knowledge hiding, but its interaction with performance climate is positively related to knowledge hiding. The indirect relation of abusive supervision to knowledge hiding via job insecurity is significantly moderated by mastery climate but not by performance climate. Research limitations/implications Despite contributions, this study also has some limitations. Variables rated from the same source (i.e. employees) may have common method bias although the two-wave design does help alleviate this concern. Practical implications The paper highlights important reasons why people hide knowledge at work (because of abusive supervision and job insecurity) and identifies a boundary condition (mastery climate) which will reduce abusive supervision’s influence on knowledge hiding. Originality/value This paper contributes to knowledge hiding literature which is an important part of knowledge management from the perspective of abusive supervision based on both reactance theory and COR theory.

PurposeThis paper aims to examine how interfirm transactional and relational assets drive firm performance (FP) in digitally integrated supply chains.Design/methodology/approachThe authors combine the Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) and Relational Exchange Theory (RET) frameworks to hypothesize that FP will be a function of Asset Specificity (AS), Digital Technology Usage (DTU) and Collaborative Information Sharing (CIS). In addition, the authors hypothesize that Supply Chain Integration (SCI) will partially mediate the effect of DTU and fully mediate the impact of AS and CIS on FP. A cross-sectional survey of supply chain managers is used to test the hypotheses.FindingsFindings indicate that specific investments in digitally integrated supply chains would increase FP. In addition, SCI fully mediates the relationships between AS and FP and CIS and FP, while SCI partially mediates the influence of DTU on FP.Practical implicationsManagers could strategically engage in the technologies that effectively fit within the firm’s supply chain strategies and seek to develop a pragmatic expertise that enables the effective use of technology in a comprehensive setting.Originality/valueThe study enriches the extant literature by incorporating TCE and RET as contradictory viewpoints on AS and investigating how transactional and relational assets affect FP in digitally integrated supply chains.