Browsing by Subject "CULTURE"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Credit and Classification: The Impact of Industry Boundaries in 19th Century America
    (Administrative Science Quarterly, 2009) Ruef, M; Patterson, K
    In this article, we examine how issues of multi-category membership (hybridity) were handled during the evolution of one of the first general systems of industrial classification in the United States, the credit rating schema of R. G. Dun and Company. Drawing on a repeated cross-sectional study of credit evaluations during the post bellum period (1870-1900), our empirical analyses suggest that organizational membership in multiple categories need not be problematic when classification systems themselves are emergent or in flux and when organizations avoid rare combinations or identities involving ambiguous components. As Dun's schema became institutionalized, boundaries between industries were more clearly defined and boundary violations became subject to increased attention and penalty by credit reporters. Our perspective highlights the utility of an evolutionary perspective and tests its implications for the salience of distinct mechanisms of hybridity. © 2009 by Johnson Graduate School, Cornell University.
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    Reused Cultivation Water Accumulates Dissolved Organic Carbon and Uniquely Influences Different Marine Microalgae
    (Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, 2019-05-14) Loftus, Sarah E; Johnson, Zackary I
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    Social Ontology and the Dynamics of Organizational Forms: Creating Market Actors in the Healthcare Field, 1966-1994
    (Social Forces, 1999) Ruef, M
    Social scientists have evidenced a long-standing interest in the cultural construction of ontologies - symbolic systems of categorization and meaning - but have yet to develop a widely recognized method for the empirical analysis of this process. Analyzing textual data from the area of health services research, this article illustrates a general framework that can be employed to isolate the tacit rules used to structure an ontology and identify changes in those rules over time. Focusing on the process of market reform in U.S. healthcare during the last thirty years, this study finds systematic variation in the dimensions used to differentiate discourse on organizational forms such as hospitals, health maintenance organizations, and nursing homes. Discourse in the sector suggests that the symbolic integration of forms along the dimension of accessibility during the heyday of welfare state policies has given way to symbolic integration along clinical and functional dimensions with the rise of neoliberal ideologies. These segregating and blending processes are discussed as a general response to uncertainty and the desire for ontological security among organizational actors.