Communities of place feature prominently in new urbanism movements and in master-planned inner-city developments that result from urban renewal. This paper’s point of departure is the stark contrast between the widespread use of mobile and ubiquitous media and communications technology by urban dwellers on the one hand and endemic forms of urban alienation and the disappearance or non-existence...

In traditional economics the decision-making process for individuals currently has effectively no role for ethics, as individuals are self-interested. The key concepts in economics which determine the role of ethics in the decision-making process are utility, rationality and methodological individualism and hence how these can be and are formulated and combined determines different roles for et...

The rapid rise of digital technologies forces us to re-think our current conceptualization of Information Technologies (IT) where recent theoretical approaches like complexity, evolutionary and network theories tend to remain silent on human (managerial and organizational) choices underlying the development of digital technologies. In this Research-in-Progress paper, we first describe the Socia...

In an essay published in 1973 James Doull defined the organization of contemporary society in terms of two principles, “an unlimited technical and economic expansion” and “the utopian confidence that men can live together in unity of purpose.” His purpose was to demonstrate the continuing validity of the tripartite Hegelian analysis of the modern state against subsequent criticism. He located t...

New institutionalism is an approach to the study of social events that is becoming increasingly popular. Different lines of new institutional research can be distinguished. In one line of research it is argued that the social sciences should transcend reductionist modes of explanation, in particular the methodological individualism exemplified by the theory of rational choice. In this view, red...

Many studies have shown that American culture has become more individualistic over time. However, it was unclear whether other cultures, especially East Asian cultures, have also shifted toward greater individualism. Therefore, this article reviewed studies investigating temporal changes in individualism in Japan and their ramifications on psychology and behavior. Japan has experienced rapid an...

We examined the negative effects of individualism in an East Asian culture. Although individualistic systems decrease interpersonal relationships through competition, individualistic values have prevailed in European American cultures. One reason is because individuals could overcome negativity by actively constructing interpersonal relationships. In contrast, people in East Asian cultures do n...