Introduction Corporations have been central institutions in industrialized economies since the tu... more Introduction Corporations have been central institutions in industrialized economies since the turn of the twentieth century. While corporations have existed for centuries as a legal device, and stock exchanges for trading corporate shares emerged during the early seventeenth century, the public corporation as we know it today co-evolved with mass production and distribution around the time of the second industrial revolution. By the start of World War I, public corporations had become a standard way of organizing economic activity in the most advanced industrial economies. Yet the common term ‘corporation’ masks enormous diversity in corporations around the world. About half the world's economies did not have a domestic stock market in 2012, and those that did varied enormously in how common listed companies are, from Uruguay (6) to India (more than 5000). The number of public corporations was not tightly linked to the size or vibrancy of the economy. Germany, with a vast export-oriented economy, had 665 listed companies; Serbia, with a GDP 1/100 th that of Germany, had 1086; while the Netherlands – birthplace of the public corporation – had only 105. Corporations also varied in size and structure: Denmark's largest domestic company had over one-and-a-half million employees (albeit not all in Denmark), while the largest domestic company in Colombia – with ten times the population of Denmark – was only a fraction of that size. Corporations differ in basic aspects of structure required by law, from the protection of minority shareholder rights in different legal systems to whether women or labour must be represented on the board of directors. In short, the term ‘corporation’ is applied to entities that often have little in common. The sociology of corporations emphasizes that corporations are products of national systems of institutions that vary across cultures and over time. Corporations are often central elements of the economic landscape, with enormous influence on societal outcomes from economic mobility and inequality to public policy. Yet their diversity around the world is under-appreciated in most research traditions, and much work remains to be done.
The world of work has seen a vast transformation in the three decades since Hackman and Oldham pu... more The world of work has seen a vast transformation in the three decades since Hackman and Oldham published their foundational research on work redesign. At the broadest level, the US has nearly completed the transition from a manufacturing to a service economy foretold by Daniel Bell (1973). By 2010, perhaps as little as 10 per cent of the American workforce will be employed in agriculture and manufacturing—growing food and making things. During the years of the Bush administration, the manufacturing sector suffered a net loss of 3.8 million jobs—more than one in five. Although the steep decline in manufacturing employment is often attributed to offshoring, another fundamental source of job loss is productivity growth. The US still leads the world in manufacturing value added, with almost one-quarter of the world’s total. It simply no longer takes as many people to accomplish this. Just as 1 per cent of the population is sufficient to produce all the food we need, it is possible to fo...
The Oxford Handbook of Organizational Change and Innovation, 2021
Organizations are increasingly subject to political demands from outside actors and their own mem... more Organizations are increasingly subject to political demands from outside actors and their own members. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are enabling a flourishing of grassroots social innovations and demands for justice that challenge traditional top-down theories of change. Over the past twenty years, scholars have found that social movement theory provides a useful approach to understanding movements within organizations, movements that target organizations, and movements that create organizations and industries. We review this recent work and propose an account that can help guide future research on the increasingly prevalent tide of politicallyoriented movements within organizations. We conclude that this is an especially promising domain for future research aimed at informing practice.
The resource-based view of the firm has become dominant within the field of strategic management,... more The resource-based view of the firm has become dominant within the field of strategic management, yet it has had surprisingly little influence within organization theory. In this article, we document the divide between strategy and organization theory and propose an interpretation. Choices of theories are largely driven by a researcher’s dependent variables, and the questions “Why do firms do what they do?” and “Why do some firms perform better than others?” can have distinct answers. Thus, strategic management scholars and organization theorists are like howler monkeys and spider monkeys, coexisting peacefully in the same ecosystem by dining on different dependent variables. We further speculate on the looming existential crisis for both fields as traditional firms are increasingly unsustainable due to the transformation wrought by the digital revolution in product markets and the markets for capital, labor, and supplies.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2018
Social science has distinct advantages and challenges when it comes to communicating its findings... more Social science has distinct advantages and challenges when it comes to communicating its findings to the public. Its topics are often highly accessible to the general public, yet its findings may be counterintuitive and politically contentious. Conveying recent changes in the organization of the American economy provides an illustration of the difficulties and opportunities for engaging the public. The declining number of public corporations in the United States is associated with a shrinking middle class, lower opportunities for upward mobility, and a fraying social safety net, with important implications for individuals and public policy. Attempting to convey this set of findings to a broad public has demonstrated that some strategies and communication channels work better than others, and that some online media are particularly effective.
Organizational research is guided by standards of what journals will publish and what gets reward... more Organizational research is guided by standards of what journals will publish and what gets rewarded in scholarly careers. This system can promote novelty rather than truth and impact rather than coherence. The advent of big data, combined with our current system of scholarly career incentives, is likely to yield a high volume of novel papers with sophisticated econometrics and no obvious prospect of cumulative knowledge development. Moreover, changes in the world of organizations are not being met with changes in how and for whom organizational research is done. It is time for a dialogue on who and what organizational research is for and how that should shape our practice.
An Interdisciplinary, Searchable, and Linkable Resource, 2015
“Financialization” describes the increasing centrality of finance and financial considerations to... more “Financialization” describes the increasing centrality of finance and financial considerations to the workings of the economy. This essay reviews the evidence that (i) creating shareholder value became a predominant concern for corporations since 1980, particularly in the United States, and (ii) the financial sector gained increasing prominence and power in the economy, with a number of consequences for the operations of corporations and the organization of society. Opportunities for future research are discussed including documenting the rise of securitization and its effect on the finance industry; understanding the emergence of new noncorporate forms of organization not tied to financial markets; finance and social movements; and finance and culture. Keywords: financialization; shareholder value; corporate governance; corporations; economy
We examine the antecedents and consequences in developing countries of creating a national stock ... more We examine the antecedents and consequences in developing countries of creating a national stock exchange, a core technology of financial globalization. We study local conditions and global institutional pressures in the rapid spread of exchanges since the 1980s and examine how conditions at the point of adoption affected exchanges' subsequent vibrancy. Little prior research connects the process of diffusion with the operational performance of adopted policies. We find that international coercion was associated with more ceremonial adoption but that, contrary to expectations common in institutional research, contagion processes via peer groups and normative emula-tion of prestigious actors enhanced vibrancy.
Page 1. 1 Politics and financial markets Gerald F. Davis Ross School of Business The University o... more Page 1. 1 Politics and financial markets Gerald F. Davis Ross School of Business The University of Michigan 701 Tappan St. Ann ... including sociology, political science, economics, law, and business (Aguilera and Jackson, 2009). ...
Introduction Corporations have been central institutions in industrialized economies since the tu... more Introduction Corporations have been central institutions in industrialized economies since the turn of the twentieth century. While corporations have existed for centuries as a legal device, and stock exchanges for trading corporate shares emerged during the early seventeenth century, the public corporation as we know it today co-evolved with mass production and distribution around the time of the second industrial revolution. By the start of World War I, public corporations had become a standard way of organizing economic activity in the most advanced industrial economies. Yet the common term ‘corporation’ masks enormous diversity in corporations around the world. About half the world's economies did not have a domestic stock market in 2012, and those that did varied enormously in how common listed companies are, from Uruguay (6) to India (more than 5000). The number of public corporations was not tightly linked to the size or vibrancy of the economy. Germany, with a vast export-oriented economy, had 665 listed companies; Serbia, with a GDP 1/100 th that of Germany, had 1086; while the Netherlands – birthplace of the public corporation – had only 105. Corporations also varied in size and structure: Denmark's largest domestic company had over one-and-a-half million employees (albeit not all in Denmark), while the largest domestic company in Colombia – with ten times the population of Denmark – was only a fraction of that size. Corporations differ in basic aspects of structure required by law, from the protection of minority shareholder rights in different legal systems to whether women or labour must be represented on the board of directors. In short, the term ‘corporation’ is applied to entities that often have little in common. The sociology of corporations emphasizes that corporations are products of national systems of institutions that vary across cultures and over time. Corporations are often central elements of the economic landscape, with enormous influence on societal outcomes from economic mobility and inequality to public policy. Yet their diversity around the world is under-appreciated in most research traditions, and much work remains to be done.
The world of work has seen a vast transformation in the three decades since Hackman and Oldham pu... more The world of work has seen a vast transformation in the three decades since Hackman and Oldham published their foundational research on work redesign. At the broadest level, the US has nearly completed the transition from a manufacturing to a service economy foretold by Daniel Bell (1973). By 2010, perhaps as little as 10 per cent of the American workforce will be employed in agriculture and manufacturing—growing food and making things. During the years of the Bush administration, the manufacturing sector suffered a net loss of 3.8 million jobs—more than one in five. Although the steep decline in manufacturing employment is often attributed to offshoring, another fundamental source of job loss is productivity growth. The US still leads the world in manufacturing value added, with almost one-quarter of the world’s total. It simply no longer takes as many people to accomplish this. Just as 1 per cent of the population is sufficient to produce all the food we need, it is possible to fo...
The Oxford Handbook of Organizational Change and Innovation, 2021
Organizations are increasingly subject to political demands from outside actors and their own mem... more Organizations are increasingly subject to political demands from outside actors and their own members. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are enabling a flourishing of grassroots social innovations and demands for justice that challenge traditional top-down theories of change. Over the past twenty years, scholars have found that social movement theory provides a useful approach to understanding movements within organizations, movements that target organizations, and movements that create organizations and industries. We review this recent work and propose an account that can help guide future research on the increasingly prevalent tide of politicallyoriented movements within organizations. We conclude that this is an especially promising domain for future research aimed at informing practice.
The resource-based view of the firm has become dominant within the field of strategic management,... more The resource-based view of the firm has become dominant within the field of strategic management, yet it has had surprisingly little influence within organization theory. In this article, we document the divide between strategy and organization theory and propose an interpretation. Choices of theories are largely driven by a researcher’s dependent variables, and the questions “Why do firms do what they do?” and “Why do some firms perform better than others?” can have distinct answers. Thus, strategic management scholars and organization theorists are like howler monkeys and spider monkeys, coexisting peacefully in the same ecosystem by dining on different dependent variables. We further speculate on the looming existential crisis for both fields as traditional firms are increasingly unsustainable due to the transformation wrought by the digital revolution in product markets and the markets for capital, labor, and supplies.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2018
Social science has distinct advantages and challenges when it comes to communicating its findings... more Social science has distinct advantages and challenges when it comes to communicating its findings to the public. Its topics are often highly accessible to the general public, yet its findings may be counterintuitive and politically contentious. Conveying recent changes in the organization of the American economy provides an illustration of the difficulties and opportunities for engaging the public. The declining number of public corporations in the United States is associated with a shrinking middle class, lower opportunities for upward mobility, and a fraying social safety net, with important implications for individuals and public policy. Attempting to convey this set of findings to a broad public has demonstrated that some strategies and communication channels work better than others, and that some online media are particularly effective.
Organizational research is guided by standards of what journals will publish and what gets reward... more Organizational research is guided by standards of what journals will publish and what gets rewarded in scholarly careers. This system can promote novelty rather than truth and impact rather than coherence. The advent of big data, combined with our current system of scholarly career incentives, is likely to yield a high volume of novel papers with sophisticated econometrics and no obvious prospect of cumulative knowledge development. Moreover, changes in the world of organizations are not being met with changes in how and for whom organizational research is done. It is time for a dialogue on who and what organizational research is for and how that should shape our practice.
An Interdisciplinary, Searchable, and Linkable Resource, 2015
“Financialization” describes the increasing centrality of finance and financial considerations to... more “Financialization” describes the increasing centrality of finance and financial considerations to the workings of the economy. This essay reviews the evidence that (i) creating shareholder value became a predominant concern for corporations since 1980, particularly in the United States, and (ii) the financial sector gained increasing prominence and power in the economy, with a number of consequences for the operations of corporations and the organization of society. Opportunities for future research are discussed including documenting the rise of securitization and its effect on the finance industry; understanding the emergence of new noncorporate forms of organization not tied to financial markets; finance and social movements; and finance and culture. Keywords: financialization; shareholder value; corporate governance; corporations; economy
We examine the antecedents and consequences in developing countries of creating a national stock ... more We examine the antecedents and consequences in developing countries of creating a national stock exchange, a core technology of financial globalization. We study local conditions and global institutional pressures in the rapid spread of exchanges since the 1980s and examine how conditions at the point of adoption affected exchanges' subsequent vibrancy. Little prior research connects the process of diffusion with the operational performance of adopted policies. We find that international coercion was associated with more ceremonial adoption but that, contrary to expectations common in institutional research, contagion processes via peer groups and normative emula-tion of prestigious actors enhanced vibrancy.
Page 1. 1 Politics and financial markets Gerald F. Davis Ross School of Business The University o... more Page 1. 1 Politics and financial markets Gerald F. Davis Ross School of Business The University of Michigan 701 Tappan St. Ann ... including sociology, political science, economics, law, and business (Aguilera and Jackson, 2009). ...
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