Browsing by Subject "Sociology, Organizational"

The value of task-related conflict to team effectiveness continues to generate controversy in organizational studies. I argue that this debate reflects as much differences in the conceptualization of conflict by scholars from separate traditions as it does variation in empirical settings and methods. The model proposed in this research is a more general framework for the study of team conflict that clarifies, accommodates, and reconciles to a large degree the divergent findings of prior research. It suggests that recent pessimism about the value of team conflict is overstated, and it offers a number of promising paths through which task-related conflict may improve team performance and satisfaction. Chapter 1 reviews the history of this debate and introduces the model of team conflict. Chapter 2 documents a test of the model's propositions in a correlational study of 223 MBA teams conducting a decision-making exercise. Chapter 3 features an experimental test of the model with a forecasting task completed by 60 3-person groups. And Chapter 4 revisits the conflict over conflict in light of the studies presented herein.

Among the most significant changes to the agricultural sector in the twentieth century include a sharp decline in employment and the numbers of farms, a decline in the proportion of total value that accrues to agricultural producers, and an increase in farm level and regional specialization. Within the U.S., substantial differences in the characteristics of agricultural producers and the spatial distribution of production persist amid industry change. These changes coincided with changes in global markets, domestic consumption, consolidation and concentration within the processing and retailing sectors, and government policy. The causality that lies behind these developments is the key puzzle that this study addresses.

This study advances an institutional explanation of industry formation across locations within the U.S. Differences in industry constitution at the local level produce different impacts of and responses to global markets, reflected by economic changes and policy developments, as actors work to secure stability and advantage in markets (Fligstein 2001). This study uses the global value chains' definition of the industry, which incorporates the network of actors arrayed along a process of production, to capture the set of actors with the capacity to affect industry operation (Gereffi 1994). An assessment of the relative importance of local economic characteristics, global markets, organization and coordination within industries, and government policies to where production locates in the primary objective of the study.

The pork and non-cigar tobacco industries across several states within the United States from 1959 through 2005 allow for a contrast along the key changes identified above. Within case comparison is used to construct causal narratives of industry change at the state level. Panel and pooled time series analysis assess the relative importance the factors to agricultural change.

Local economic characteristics largely fade from significance with the inclusion of the theoretical perspectives. Total and net trade in agricultural and manufactured products is generally significant across industries for production, although this is not the case for specific tobacco types. The proportion of farms composed of small farms is significant for production and for farm structure in both industries. The presence of manufacture is significant for hog production and could not be assessed for tobacco. While federal policies are broadly significant for the tobacco industry, identified state policies exhibit few consistent effects for hog production. Importantly, farm structure measures were only available for Census years, which reduces sample size. Second, many of the measures are industry-specific, which reduces comparability.

The Chinese automobile industry has been experiencing some profound changes during the market transition and globalization. Regarding to the ownership structure and technological upgrading strategies of the domestic assemblers, there have emerged four major developmental models. Transitional theoretical perspectives have limitations in face of these differing models. In this study, a perspective of social construction is proposed to resolve this research question. This dissertation explores four representative cases including FAW, SAIC Group, Chery and Geely. The major argument is that the local political structure, developmental ideas and agencies as necessary components of local social construction have resulted in the divergent paths among these Chinese car makers.

The purpose of this project is to explain the transformation of Japanese corporate law in the last three decades. The data is collected in the field study in Japan between May 2005 and June 2006. This project shows that the chaning dominant policy paradigm that defines the nature of a corporation and its relationship with the society in the policy field has indispensable impact on corporate legislation. Before the mid 1990s Japanese corporate legislation was dominated by bureaucrats in Ministry of Justice and the community of law scholars; they saw a corporation as a special association that has profound impacts on social order. The economic crisis in 1990 and the diffusion of the U.S. economic thinking among young generation of economic bureaucrats led to the regime shift of corporate legislation. After 1997, corporate legislation was dominated by economic bureaucrats who saw a corporation as a nexus of contracts whose only relationship with society is producing wealth. This shift significantly changed the course of corporate legislation. First, the paradigm shift brought different regulatory schemes for corporate finance. Before the mid 1997, corporate finance was seen as a source of turbulence and was strongly restrained. After the paradigm shift in 1997, corporate finance was perceived as a positive way to raise shareholder value by economic bureaucrats. Therefore, the course of legislation shifted to substantial deregulation. Second, the paradigm shift also brought significant change to the regulations for governance structure. Before 1997, a corporation was seen as an association composed of stable shareholders. Therefore, the solution to managerial misconducts was to strengthen internal democracy. After 1997 because the perception of a corporation had shifted to a nexus of contracts that are constantly negotiated in financial markets, the solutions to managerial misconducts were to strengthen board independence and information disclosure. Third, before 1997 corporate restructuring was seen as an important event that entails complicated procedural requirements to protect shareholders and creditors. After 1997 because corporate restructuring was treated as a tool to enhance economic efficiency by economic bureaucrats, a variety of restructuring schemes were deregulated.

This dissertation examines offers a corrective to the world polity theory of globalization, which posits increasing convergence on a single global cultural frame. In contrast, I suggest that national culture limits the adoption of "world culture" by actors and institutions. Instead of adopting world cultural models wholesale, they are adapted through a process I call translated global diffusion. In order to assess my theory, I follow the creation and development of organizations founded by Australia, Canada, and the United States to foster scientific development within their borders. All three national organizations were initiated around 1915, part of an international wave of state science that prima facie appears to support the world polity thesis.

Through a comparative historical analysis that combines archival material and secondary histories from each case, I demonstrate that concerns tied to national identity mediate the incorporation of models sanctioned as part of a "world cultural canopy" of institutional scripts. More specifically, federal legislatures circumscribe new organizations to fit preexisting ideas of proper government. Secondly, the scientists effectively running state science organizations negotiate often conflicting nationalistic and professional impulses. Finally, the national news media report about science in a selective and nationally filtered way. The result is a kind of particular universality, science layered with national import only fully visible from within the nation-state.