where do markets come from production markets have two sides producers are a fully connected clique transacting with buyers as a separate but aggregated clique each producer is a distinctive firm with a distinctive product each side continually monitors reactions of the other through the medium of a joint social construction the schedule of terms of trade each producer is guided in choice of volume by the tangible outcomes of other producers not by speculation on hypothetical reactions of buyers to its actions each producer acts purely on self interest based on observed actions of all others summarized through a feedback process the summary is the terms of trade schedule which reduces to constant price only in limiting cases the market emerges as a structure of roles with a differentiated niche for each firm explicit formulae both for firms and for market aggregates are obtained by comparative statics methods for one family of assumptions about cost structures and about buyers evaluations of differentiated products not just any set of firms can sustain terms of trade with any set of buyers there prove to be three main kinds of markets and three sorts of market failure within a parameter space that is specified in detail one sort of market paradox has a madison avenue flavor another is more conventional grind and a third crowded is a new form not included in any existing theory of markets current american industrial markets are drawn on for 20 illustrations of which three are presented in some detail inequality in firms market shares measured by gini coefficients is discussed

the credit crisis as a problem in the sociology of knowledge this article analyzes the role in the credit crisis of the processes by which market participants produce knowledge about financial instruments employing documentary sources and 87 predominantly oral history interviews the article presents a historical sociology of the clusters of evaluation practices surrounding abss asset backed securities most importantly mortgage backed securities and cdos collateralized debt obligations despite the close structural similarity between abss and cdos these practices came to differ substantially and became the province e g in the rating agencies of organizationally separate groups in consequence when abs cdos cdos in which the underlying assets are abss emerged they were evaluated in two separate stages this created a fatally attractive arbitrage opportunity large scale exploitation of which sidelined previously important gatekeepers risk sensitive investors in the lower tranches of mortgage backed securities and eventually magnified and concentrate

kinship in the shadow of the corporation the interbuilder network in clyde river shipbuilding 1711 1990 the authors identify a system of intercompetitor affiliation that helped clyde river shipbuilding companies to thrive but was ultimately undermined by the rise of corporate capitalism they find that connections between companies through their leaders family ties or friendships were common and beneficial as every such tie maintained by a company reduced its annual risk of failure by 10 percent this average effect however masks an important contingency the direct benefits of interbuilder ties accrued only to family firms which enjoyed a reduced risk of failure of 34 percent with each tie and not at all to corporations the authors maintain that the shift to the corporate form inhibited the operation of the interbuilder network by reducing the autonomy of leaders to work through personal relations with their competitors the results encourage heightened attention both to the idea that horizontal ties within an industry may be a key determinant of organizational success and to the idea that some m

competitive tension the awareness motivation capability perspective this paper investigates competitive tension or the strain between a focal firm and a given rival that is likely to result in the firm taking action against the rival drawing on the awareness motivation capability perspective we show how perceived competitive tension as constructed from managers and industry stakeholders competitor assessments is influenced by the independent and interactive effects of three factors relative scale rival s attack volume and rival s capability to contest our results provide a new avenue for studying competitors and the relationship between competitor analysis and interfirm rivalry in science there is a steady state in which opposing forces hold each other in check until the build up of tension turns the static relationship into dynamic interplay the point when the steel cable snaps the steam chamber s pressure valve opens or one psychological force overwhelms the other in business practice a similar phenomenon exists when tension that one opponent imposes on another triggers rivalrous actions competitor analysis is central to strategy and organization research hitt ireland hoskisson 2005 porter 1980 previous research has explored a number of important issues including conjecture variation amit domowitz fershtman 1988 competitor identification porac thomas 1990 and blind spots zajac bazerman 1991 and has made advances in such areas as theoretical integration of competitor analysis and interfirm rivalry chen 1996 fundamental questions such as who a focal firm s competitors are and how much competition the firm faces from each rival have been implicitly or explicitly addressed by a variety

the social structure of a national securities market in this article a national securities market the stock options market is characterized as a social structure represented by the networks of actors who traded options on the floor of a major securities exchange trading among actors exhibited distinct social structural patterns that dramatically affected the direction and magnitude of option price volatility the argument that this market is socially structured is constructed in four parts behavioral assumptions about the nature of economic actors models of micronetworks models of macronetworks and price consequences in the ideal typical model of the market actors are assumed to be hyperrational and never to act opportunistically with these behavioral assumptions the micronetworks of actors should be expansive a condition which would result in undifferentiated and homogeneous macronetworks such macronetworks would tend to reduce the volatility of option prices but in the empirical market studied here actors are subject to bounded rationality a

bank control owner control or organizational dynamics who controls the large modern corporation there has been a long standing debate over who controls the large american corporation the results presented here indicate that existing power relations within the firm the conception of control that dominates the firm s actions and the actions of competitors account for the economic actions undertaken by large firms while the differences in manager or owner or bank control and the presence of bank interlocks do not a sociology of markets is therefore more likely to account for the courses of actions of large firms by considering these relations rather than focusing on the construction of interests by bankers owners or board interlocks

global microstructures the virtual societies of financial markets using participant observation data interviews and trading transcripts drawn from interbank currency trading in global investment banks this article examines regular patterns of integration that characterize the global social system embedded in economic transactions to interpret these patterns which are global in scope but microsocial in character this article uses the term global microstructures features of the interaction order loosely defined have become constitutive of and implanted in processes that have global breadth this study draws on schutz in the development of the concept of temporal coordination as the basis for the level of intersubjectivity discerned in global markets this article contributes to economic sociology through the analysis of cambist i e trading markets which are distinguished from producer markets and by positing a form of market coordination that supplements relational or network forms of coordination

comparing systems approaches to innovation and technological change for sustainable and competitive economies an explorative study into conceptual commonalities differences and complementarities this paper makes a distinction between three theoretical frameworks that have been highly influential in the discourse on innovation competitiveness and sustainability sectoral systems of innovation ssi technological innovation systems tis and socio technical systems st systems these frameworks share a common systems approach to innovation but are often positioned as different bodies of literature that correspond to different epistemic communities this paper is explorative and conceptual in nature it presents a systematic comparative review of ssi tis and st systems based on the following analytical dimensions 1 system boundaries 2 actors and networks 3 institutions 4 knowledge 5 dynamics and 6 policy approach in the concluding section commonalities and differences of the three approaches are presented and suggestions for complimentarily are made c 2010 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

legitimacy and multi level institutional environments implications for foreign subsidiary ownership structure in this study we examine from an institutional perspective the legitimacy rationale behind the choice of subsidiary ownership structure among multinational corporations mncs we suggest that when under a strong pressure to conform at the host country and local industry levels of their institutional environment mncs are likely to take a lower ownership stake in exchange for external legitimacy in the host country or local industry that their foreign subsidiaries are entering we also suggest that mncs are likely to take a higher ownership stake in response to strong internal pressure to sustain their internal legitimacy at the corporate level of their institutional environment we also propose that mncs are more likely to exchange ownership for legitimacy in local industries than in host countries and in local markets with a high level of political instability than in those with a low level of political instability these propositions are generally supported by our analysis of 4451 subsidiaries established by 898 japanese mncs that operated in 39 countries across 52 industries two digit sic between 1988 and 1999

tools of the trade the socio technology of arbitrage in a wall street trading room to analyze the organization of trading in the era of quantitative finance we conduct an ethnography of arbitrage the trading strategy that best exemplifies finance in the wake of the quantitative revolution in contrast to value and momentum investing we argue arbitrage involves an art of association the construction of comparability across different assets in place of essential or relational characteristics the peculiar valuation that takes place in arbitrage is based on an operation that makes something the measure of something else associating securities to each other the process of recognizing opportunities and the practices of making novel associations are shaped by the specific socio spatial and socio technical configurations of the trading room calculation is distributed across persons and instruments as the trading room organizes interaction among diverse principles of valuation

the spread of the multidivisional form among large firms 1919 1979 the multidivisional form is the favored form of organization for the large firms that dominate the american economy this study takes up the causes of the dissemination of that form among large firms from 1919 to 1979 five theories are initially proposed as possible explanations for the changes observed and these theories are operationalized and tested the model that seems most consistent with the data emphasizes the ability of key actors to alter structure under three circumstances when the firm has a product related or unrelated strategy which is consistent with chandler s 1962 theorizing when the corporate presidents have a background in sales or finance and when other firms in the industry alter their structures the implications of these results for theories of organizational change are discussed with special reference to the importance of conceiving how actors operate with varying rationalities in this process

getting off to a good start the effects of upper echelon affiliations on underwriter prestige the initial public offering ipo is one of the most critical events in the lifetime of a young firm prior research has shown that firms tend to have successful ipos if they go public with the endorsement of a prestigious lead underwriter this paper examines the antecedents to receiving endorsement by a prestigious underwriter and links this to the experience base of a firm s upper echelon we theorize that the amount and type of upper echelon experience serve as important symbols of a young firm s legitimacy to critical outsiders we introduce a typology of upper echelon experience that distinguishes between upper echelon upstream horizontal and downstream employment based affiliations and suggest that these different types of upper echelon affiliations allay different types of endorser concerns regarding firm legitimacy affecting the endorsement process further we theorize that the relationships between upper echelon experience and investment bank prestige will be moderated by technological uncertainty we test our assertions on a comprehensive sample of public and private biotechnology firms that were founded between 1961 and 1994 and that went public between 1979 and 1996 analyses of the five year career histories of the over 3 200 executives and directors that make up the upper echelons of these firms show that firms with upper echelons with affiliations with prominent downstream organizations i e pharmaceutical and or healthcare companies and with prominent horizontal organizations i e biotechnology companies are more likely to attract the endorsement of a prestigious investment bank we also find that the greater the range of upper echelon affiliations across the categories of upstream horizontal and downstream affiliations the more prestigious the firm s lead underwriter we also find that these latter results are moderated by technological uncertainty the present research has implications for the study of organizational legitimacy interorganizational endorsements and entrepreneurship

linkage to dynamic markets and rural territorial development in latin america summary linkage to dynamic markets is a key factor in understanding why different rural territories in latin america perform differently this paper combines two conceptual frameworks from the new economic geography and economic sociology for an in depth analysis of the mechanisms that operate in this linkage and to identify key factors that allow for inclusive economic development this analysis considers three rural territories that exemplify market linkages frequently observed in latin america where although high transaction costs and limited access to financial capital prevail other types of capital social cultural and human capital available to rural dwellers can be mobilized

a role based ecology of technological change this article considers what factors determine whether an innovation becomes a foundation for future technological developments rather than a dea end the authors introduce the concept of the technological niche which includes a focal innovation the innovations on which the focal innovations builds the innovations that build upon the focal innovation and the technological ties among the innovations within the niche using patents and patent citations to measure characteristics of innovation niches within the semiconductor industry the authors show that the size of the niche and the status of the actors within the niche have a positive effect on the likelihood that subsequent innovations will build upon the focal innovation competitive intensity within the niche has a negative effect on this likelihood

defense against recession u s business mobilization 1950 19701 the unexpected investment decisions of companies during recessions often frustrate commentators and policy makers who view the economy from the top down companies may act against immediate market signals during recessions because of uncertainties about strategy and the future direction of the economy a mesolevel sociological model of how firms interpret and respond to economic conditions in uncertain times improves understanding of firms variable responses to recessions which cumulatively shape macroeconomic trajectories examining firm level employment during four recessions from 1950 to 1970 the author generates results from dynamic panel models to show that firms set their employment levels against profits and market share and in alignment with peers and political affiliations firms manage uncertainty by imitating peers but also by endeavoring to construct their environment collectively through business associations this article s counterintuitive economic findings and the evidence of social and

the persistence of lenient market categories research across disciplines presumes that market categories will have strong boundaries categories without well defined boundaries typically are not useful and so are expected to fade away we suggest many contexts contain lenient market categories or less constraining market categories that persist and become important we argue that this fact can be explained by looking at market categories from the producer perspective lenient market categories have more flexibility and allow for a wider range of fit as a result we expect to see high rates of entry into lenient categories at the same time lenient market categories have drawbacks they do not clearly convey what an organization does and do not identify specific sets of potential consumers this means organizations are more likely to exit when entry rates are higher than exit rates lenient market categories will endure over time we also predict that organizations exiting lenient categories will enter other lenient categories further fueling the persistence of such categories finally this trend is exaggerated when influential external agents favor leniency we find support for these ideas in a longitudinal analysis of organizational entry into and exit from market categories in the software industry

the embeddedness of networks institutions structural holes and innovativeness in the fuel cell industry plentiful research suggests that embeddedness in alliance networks influences firms innovativeness this research however has mostly overlooked the fact that interorganizational ties are themselves embedded within larger institutional contexts that can shape the effects of networks on organizational outcomes we address this gap in the literature by arguing that national institutions affect the extent to which specific network positions such as brokerage influence innovation we explore this idea in the context of corporatism which fosters an institutional logic of collaboration that influences the broker s ability to manage its partnerships and recombine the knowledge residing in its network as well as the extent of knowledge flows among network participants we argue that differences in institutional logics lead brokerage positions to exert different effects on firm innovativeness we propose that the firm spanning structural holes obtains the greatest innovation benefits when the firm the broker or its alliance partners are based in highly corporatist countries or under certain combinations of broker and partner corporatism we find support for these ideas through a longitudinal study of cross border fuel cell technology alliance networks involving 109 firms from nine countries between 1981 and 2001

market networks and corporate behavior data on market relations between a large population of corporations and investment banks are used to study the organization market interforce the pattern of direct market ties between a firm and its banks forms of interfaces range from a long term exclusive tie the relationship interface to many short lived episodic ties the transaction interface with hybrid forms between the two poles contrary to widespread belief the article finds that strong relationships still exist transactions interfaces are rare most firms use hybrid interfaces a firm s interface is conceptualized as the intentional result of its efforts to reduce dependence and exploit power advantages observed interfaces are shown to be related systematically to various power dependence concepts including resource intensity number of transactions and dollar amounts raised criticality the availability of resource alternatives power asymmetry between a firm and its main bank organization size standardization of exchange and

on the social structure of markets economic theorists have seldom discussed the social structures behind markets even though market trading relies heavily on seller buyer roles and personal relations among traders this paper considers the structural basis of markets and proposes a layered approach which accommodates a wide range of competitive and relational trade within a definition of markets that distinguishes them from non market exchange giving due regard to social structures lays bare the institutional character of markets and provides a rationale for case studies of how particular markets function

the stability of american markets much of the evidence of coordination between corporations and their markets comes from cross sectional conducted within portions of the american economy during the past two decades we know especially for manufacturing during the late 1960s that certain structural qualities of markets predict profits and the organization of large firms but this evidence is open to an uncomfortable empirical question to what extent did the social structural qualities determining resource dependence in american markets change during the 1960s and 1970s so as to limit the generalizability of cross sectional evidence the analysis here shows that markets were dramatically stable in he social structure of production relations known to predict the structure of large firms relying principally on department of commerce data the article traces the american economy through the 1960s and 1970s in terms of 77 broadly defined markets describing the stability of market boundaries and patterns of transactions with suppliers and c

okun s micro macro system a review article prices and quantities is the brilliant and disturbing last work of arthur m okun 1928 1980 for more than a decade okun was the foremost practitioner of macroeconomics in the united states his critical intelligence at both the theoretical and empirical ends of economics was unsurpassed these facts were virtually a manufacturer s warranty that the book whatever its argumentation and evidence would be significant we want to know what okun thought but this background was no guarantee of an important treatise and it must have taken some courage to venture a big theoretical work in an accessible style on urgent questions in fact okun has delivered a creative and virtuosic study in economic theory the book s contribution is to provide a complete description of an economy in which rational economic agents consider the distributional consequences of wage and price decisions the perspective adopted one which is winning growing favor of late is contract theoretic because they wish to economize on their costly transactions with one another people trade repeatedly with the same agent so trust and fidelity to understandings are important the ensuing analysis lodges some basic dissents from the informational expectational paradigm developed over the last score of years it is particularly stimulating and troubling on the main policy controversy of the decade the question of disinflation

the emergence of a market society changing mechanisms of stratification in china this article examines the effect of institutional change the shift from redistribution to markets in altering the mechanisms of stratification new institutionalists maintain that interests are emb

when market information constitutes fields sensemaking of markets in the commercial music industry in this paper we outline a key mechanism through which organizational fields are constituted we suggest that in competitive fields the market serves as a magnet around which groups of actors consolidate and that cognition of markets occurs through the creation distribution and interpretation of a web of information about the market to illustrate our theory we present a case study of thebillboard music chart from the commercial music industry to show that changes in either scope methodology or political tone with which market information is presented can provide a major jolt to the participants understanding of their field

an asian route to capitalism religious economy and the origins of self transforming growth in japan modern capitalism is a self transforming dynamic that proliferates market niches new products and techniques the industrial revolution could take place only in the context of preexisting agricultural capitalism that in turn required a breakout from the obstacles constituted by agrarian coercive societies organizational conditions necessary for self sustaining capitalist growth included markets not only for commodities but for all factors of production land labor and capital combined under control of entrepreneurs motivated by an economic ethic of future oriented calculation and investment weber was mistaken in holding that the capitalist breakthrough occurred only in christian europe the author proposes a neo weberian model in which the initial breakout from agrarian coercive obstacles took place within the enclave of religious organizations with monasteries acting as the first entrepreneurs the model is illustrated by the case of buddhism in late medieval japan the leading sector of monastic capitalism spread into the surrounding economy through religious movements of mass proselytization which narrowed the gap between clergy and laity confiscation of buddhist property at the transition to the tokugawa period transferred the capitalist dynamic to the secular economy of an agricultural mass market opening the way for a distinctive japanese path through the industrial revolution

sources of transfer problems in within industry diversification this research examines how firms accumulation of experience in other markets within an industry causes transfer problems and limits the performance advantage of within industry diversification using data on the japanese nonlife insurance industry between 1907 and 1940 we demonstrate that a firm s performance in a focal market decreases with more experience in other markets i e nonfocal markets this cumulative nonfocal market experience causes managers to transfer preexisting routines extensively and inappropriately to the focal market we show that the negative effect deteriorates when the firms have already entered such nonfocal markets prior to their entry into the focal markets and such nonfocal markets are populated by performance comparable peers we also find that the negative effect increases when firms transfer knowledge from nonfocal markets in which the focal market has low realized financial synergies and when firms experience prior to entry into the focal market was successful these findings explicate mechanisms by which negative performance effects of within industry diversification occur and advance our understanding of within industry diversification by applying the idea of transfer problems from the literature on organizational learning

market positioning the shifting effects of niche overlap organizational ecology models of market dynamics emphasize the competitioninducing role of inter organizational niche overlap targeting similar market niches increases competitive pressure and thus reduces organizations fitness recent studies however have suggested that moderate niche overlap may positively influence organizational viability by enhancing comparability and promoting legitimacy spillovers data on consumers impressions of dutch music festivals and on the growth and decline of early internet search engines were used to test the proposition that niche overlap may in fact be non monotonically related to organizational fitness since new organizations must first gain recognition by being comparable to others they will benefit more from niche overlap than older incumbents the results confirm that both the appeal that organizations generate as well as their growth rates are non monotonically related to niche overlap and that positive effects of niche overlap decrease with organizational age

threshold models of interpersonal effects in consumer demand abstract whether one buys may be determined in part by how many others have when the correlation is positive we refer to bandwagon effects and when negative reverse bandwagons we construct demand schedules in the presence of such effects and with simple assumptions about supply investigate the existence of and approach to equilibrium stable price quantity equilibria exist but for many plausible parameter values equilibria are asymptotically unstable and system trajectories consist of cycles that can move with slight parameter changes via successive bifurcations into what has been called chaotic dynamics essentially indistinguishable from random noise these conditions occur despite assumptions of erfect information profit maximizing firms and utility maximizing individuals

inequality among equals embedding market and authority in league sports in league sports the regulatory authority of leagues is thought to counter market pressures that would otherwise concentrate player talent in smsas with the largest market potential the presumed opposition between authority and markets is not supported by league histories in the four major team sports these histories show that contrary to expectations market potential has the greatest influence on winning when league authority is formally strongest market potential has no influence on performance when league authority is opposed by antitrust law player unions rival leagues or league members to explain this anomaly authority and market relations must both be seen as embedded within the multiplex relations among team owners these relations changed dramatically with the rise of national audiences in the past three decades inequality among equals replaced inequality among unequals as the support of a rootless national audience replaced rooted and unequal local audiences altering the opportunity

network location and learning the influence of network resources and firm capabilities on alliance formation this paper presents a dynamic firm level study of the role of network resources in determining alliance formation such resources inhere not so much within the firm but reside in the interfirm networks in which firms are placed data from extensive fieldwork show that by influencing the extent to which firms have access to information about potential partners such resources are an important catalyst for new alliances especially because alliances entail considerable hazards this study also assesses the importance of firms capabilities with alliance formation and material resources as determinants of their alliance decisions i test this dynamic framework and its hypotheses about the role of time varying network resources and firm capabilities with comprehensive longitudinal multi industry data on the formation of strategic alliances by a panel of firms between 1970 and 1989 the results confirm field observations that accumulated network resources arising from firm participation in the network of accumulated prior alliances are influential in firms decisions to enter into new alliances this study highlights the importance of network resources that firms derive from their embeddedness in networks for explaining their strategic behavior copyright 1999 john wiley sons ltd

the rise and fall of small worlds exploring the dynamics of social structure this paper explores the interplay between social structure and economic action by examining some of the evolutionary dynamics of an emergent network that coalesces into a small world system the study highlights the small world system s evolutionary dynamics at both the macro level of the network and the micro level of an individual actor this dual analytical lens helps establish that in competitive and information intensive settings a small world system could be a highly dynamic structure that follows an inverted u shaped evolutionary pattern wherein an increase in the small worldliness of the system is followed by its later decline as a result of three factors 1 the recursive relationship between the evolving social structure and individual actors formation of bridging ties which eventually homogenizes the information space and decreases actors propensity to form bridging ties creating a globally separated network 2 self containment of the small world network or increasing homogenization of the social system which makes the small world less accepting of and less attractive to new actors thereby limiting formation of bridging ties to outside clusters and 3 fragmentation of the small world network or the small world system s inability to retain current clusters the study uses data on interorganizational tie formation in the global computer industry in the period from 1996 to 2005 to test the hypothesized relationships

stretchwork managing the career progression paradox in external labor markets changes in employment relationships have diminished the degree to which internal labor markets shape careers using comparative field studies we examine how contract workers try to achieve career

capital market development and mass privatization are logical contradictions lessons from russia and the czech republic the introduction of mass privatization policies in russia and the czech republic depended on the creation of impersonal capital markets to finance the needs of privatized companies and to provide a secondary market for the trading of securities yet mass privatization created the contradictory conditions of generating millions of poorly informed shareholders with no efficient markets for the sale of the shares the absence of financial markets created systematic pressures to move assets by illegal or non transparent means to users who value them more privatization created the incentives to destroy the financial markets critical to its success a comparative case analysis of post privatization market formation in both these countries demonstrates that the functional necessity for these markets does not engender their own creation in the absence of institutional mechanisms of state regulation and trust markets become arenas for political contests and economic manipulation the irony of these policies is that a principal lesson has been that market reforms cannot create viable markets only institutional formation can copyright 2002 oxford university press

the sociological approach to financial markets as a part of the renaissance and growth of economic sociology during the past two decades and in response to processes such as economic globalization financial markets have been increasingly scrutinized by sociologists their investigation is seen as relevant with respect to understanding the structure and dynamics of advanced societies the dynamics of social development as well as fundamental aspects of human behaviour this paper charts recent developments in the sociology of financial markets its starting point is the treatment of the concept of information within three sociological orientations the social structural approach sociological neo institutionalism and the newer social studies of finance by highlighting their different assumptions about information and market behaviour i discuss how these approaches conceptualize financial markets the methodological implications and the ways in which they contribute to the study of financial exchanges

oppositional identities and resource partitioning distillery ownership in scotch whisky 1826 2009 we build on recent theory and research on the role of categories in resource partitioning we analyze scotch whisky making between 1826 and 2009 a case that seemed initially to fail to conform to the pattern of the beer industry now treated as prototypical on close examination both qualitative and quantitative we find that high concentration in the center of the market is not sufficient to generate a partition rather we see a long delay between the heightening of concentration in the industry and the emergence of a cluster of peripheral producers that claim an identity in opposition to the dominant generalists we explain the source of the delay as a function of the nature of the audience which until recently did not regard conglomerate or foreign ownership of distilleries as an impediment to producing authentic whisky only when critics started to question how ownership of distilleries related to authenticity did the revival of the traditional form of ownership begin to occur by analyzing entries

organizing contests for status the matthew effect vs the mark effect what is the best way to design tournaments for status in which individuals labor primarily for the esteem of their peers what process in other words should organizers of status based contests impose upon those who covet peer recognition we propose a formal model of status based competition that contrasts two competing alternatives the first following merton is the matthew effect according to which a tournament s architect directs slack resources to elite actors and thus widens the distribution of rewards by favoring cumulative advantage the second is the mark effect under which a tournament s designer instead pushes slack resources to marginal actors and thus tightens the distribution of rewards our results suggest that although the mark effect is better for the social welfare of most tournaments the matthew effect is preferable in two distinct contexts in small tournaments where variation in underlying ability translates into acute advantages for the most capable contestants and in large tournaments whose contestants face constant rather than rising marginal costs a condition we relate to contestants perception of their work as intrinsically valuable our contributions are twofold we find counter to the thrust of merton s work that cumulative advantage is not invariably optimal for the functioning of status contests and we identify circumstances in which the production of superstars is likely to make contests for status better off in aggregate implications for future research on status and management are discussed this paper was accepted by olav sorenson organizations and social networks

globalization pressures and the state the worldwide spread of central bank independence the authors examine the impact of globalization on state structures in the specific instance of the central bank following the world system world society and neoinstitutional perspectives in sociology they assume that states are in cultural political and economic competition with each other thereby seeking to maintain their position and status frequently by adopting organizational forms or practices that make them isomorphic with their environment the authors predict that countries boost the independence of their central bank from the political power as their exposure to foreign trade investment and multilateral lending increases they also model the cross national dynamic process of diffusion of central bank independence by examining the impact of cohesive and role equivalent trade relationships between countries they find support for their hypotheses with information on 71 countries between 1990 and 2000

the simplicity of competitive repertoires an empirical analysis this research explores the notion of competitive simplicity a tendency of some firms to concentrate intensely on just a few central activities our focus here is the simplicity inherent in the repertoire of concrete market oriented actions used by companies to compete these actions include product introductions pricing or advertising decisions and changes in market scope the simplicity of a competitive repertoire can be assessed by its range of actions and its degree of concentration on one or a few dominant types of actions we argue that competitive simplicity is largely a function of organizational and environmental properties that attenuate managerial search or restrict knowledge of competitive alternatives these properties include good performance munificent homogeneous or certain markets a lack of breadth in competitive experiences and the complacency that may accompany age and size paradoxically although good past performance may contribute to simplicity simplicity can hurt subsequent performance especially during periods of uncertainty and growth many of these ideas were borne out in a study of the major carriers of the post deregulation domestic airline industry

a multiple constituency status based approach to interorganizational mobility of faculty and input output competition among top business schools a study of inputs students and new faculty and outputs mba and ph d graduates of 20 business schools found that status perceived by certain stakeholder groups constituencies affects the mobility of individuals between schools and limits the competition among schools for student inputs and for output placement the study examined schools that differed in status perceived by three constituencies the national business community the academic community and mba students the results indicate that depending on their status in the opinion of different constituencies the schools engaged in different degrees of student input creaming scrambling for inputs input targeting input avoidance and output streaming all terms developed as part of the model proposed herein the results suggest that in ph d markets status hierarchies tend to make groups of schools a closed system leading to homosocial reproduction of senior faculties and social isolation and immobility for certain ph d graduates barrier

an ecological analysis of competition among us communities we apply the ecological concept of the organization s niche pioneered by john freeman and mike hannan to the study of geographic communities we define a community s market niche by the ties linking a community to the industries on which it depends for growth we then hypothesize that the extent to which a community s market niche is occupied by other communities is a source of constraint and opportunity depending on the geographical locations of the communities that occupy the same market niche geographically distant communities occupying similar market niches are hypothesized to experience primarily constraint arising from competition for opportunities of exchange geographically proximate communities occupying similar market niches are hypothesized to face constraint arising from competition for exchange opportunities as well as opportunity arising from access to valuable resources associated with the existence of similar others empirical analyses of firm foundings and exits across us communities support these hypotheses implications of our findings for ecological research on the niche and for the literature on communities are discussed copyright 2012 the author 2011 published by oxford university press on behalf of associazione icc all rights reserved oxford university press

a model of the natural rate of unemployment since the publication of edmund phelps volume the new macroeconomics has treated the labor market as a dynamic process of rational search by unemployed workers for available vacancies wages are viewed as at least potentially flexible though free contracting between workers and firms may lead to fixed wages in the short run imperfect information is a crucial element of the theory for it implies both a need for contracting and a need for rational search rather than simple market clearing in each period a positive rate of frictional unemployment may exist in equilibrium denoted as the natural rate this unemployment is due to the frictions in the search process and imperfections in information rather than to any deficiency in aggregate demand milton friedman defined the natural rate as the level that would be ground out by the walrasian system of general equilibrium equations provided there is embedded in them the actual structural characteristics of the labor and commodity markets including market imperfections stochastic variability in demands and supplies the cost of gathering information about job vacancies and labor availabilities the costs of mobility and so on p 8 this paper reexamines the micro foundations of the natural rate in a model of labor market equilibrium in which turnover flows and imperfect information are explicitly considered workers may quit their current jobs to enter the unemployment pool in order to search among available vacancies for a more preferred position firms economize on turnover by an appropriate wage policy

purchasing behavior in embedded markets this article explores the concept of market embeddedness and its impact on purchasing behavior in a consumer market embeddedness exists when consumers derive utility from two sources simultaneously from attributes of the product and from social capital found in preexisting ties between buyers and sellers this framework is applied to the home party method of direct sales we find that the degree of social capital present as measured by the strength of the buyer seller tie and buyer indebtedness to the seller significantly affects the likelihood of purchase we cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed as in filling a vessel drop by drop there is at last a drop which makes it run over so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over boswell 1777 1835

market culture and authority a comparative analysis of management and organization in the far east three frameworks purport to explain industrial arrangements and practices a market approach that emphasizes economic characteristics a cultural approach that sees organization as the expression of patterned values and an authority approach that explains organization as a historically developed structure of domination the efficacy of each approach is tested in explaining the organizational structures of three rapidly growing east asian economies japan south korea and taiwan the paper argues through comparative analysis that organizational growth is best explained by market and cultural factors but that authority patterns and legitimation strategies best explain organizational structure

mergers and the market for organization capital abstract in this paper mergers are an equilibrium outcome in which acquirers marry targets so as to gain access to their organization capital firms with lower learning costs about the new technology are not necessarily those that manage it best once it is mature since there are gains from trade a market for organization capital can arise through mergers this model generates a merger wave after a shock to technology and is consistent with several other stylized facts on mergers documented in the literature