The evolution of prestige: freely conferred deference as a mechanism for enhancing the benefits of cultural transmission.

The instabilities of strategic alliances have been examined in the literature through a number of theoretical approaches. Alliance instabilities refer to major changes or dissolutions of alliances that are unplanned from the perspective of one or more partners. Although the literature identifies certain characteristics of strategic alliances that may lead to their unplanned dissolution, the extent of our understanding of this subject appears to be fragmented and incomplete. In this article we propose a comprehensive framework for adequately understanding alliance instabilities based on the notion of internal tensions. We suggest that strategic alliances are sites in which conflicting forces develop and which can be viewed as being constituted by three key pairs of competing forces--namely, cooperation versus competition, rigidity versus flexibility, and short-term versus long-term orientation. This tensions framework helps us in explaining the intrinsic vulnerability of alliances in terms of a wide range of internal contradictions and enables us to examine, in an integrated manner, the incidence, dynamics, and eventual dissipation of the inherent instabilities. We discuss the interrelationships among the different internal tensions and their impacts on different types of strategic alliances. We also examine the termination of alliances through mergers/acquisitions and dissolution. Finally, we suggest ways to empirically test the various ideas and propositions developed here and indicate directions for further research.

Instabilities of Strategic Alliances: An Internal Tensions Perspective

Beginning in the 1970s there has been a shift in cultural anthropological methodology from participant observation toward the observation of participation. During participant observation ethnographers attempt to be both emotionally engaged participants and coolly dispassionate observers of the lives of others. In the observation of participation, ethnographers both experience and observe their own and others' coparticipation within the ethnographic encounter. The shift from the one methodology to the other entails a representational transformation in which, instead of a choice between writing an ethnographic memoir centering on the Self or a standard monograph centering on the Other, both the Self and Other are presented together within a single narrative ethnography, focused on the character and process of the ethnographic dialogue.

From Participant Observation to the Observation of Participation: The Emergence of Narrative Ethnography

Over the past two decades, organizational scholars have increasingly argued that technology’s affects on organizations are socially constructed. Constructivists who study implementation generally hold that organizational change emerges from an ongoing stream of social action in which people respond to a technology’s constraints and affordances, as well as to each other. Although most students of technology and organizing generally agree on the ontology of constructivism, there are considerable differences in what scholars mean when they say that a technology’s affects are socially constructed. We show that research on the social construction of implementation clusters into five coherent perspectives, which we call perception, interpretation, appropriation, enactment, and alignment. The perspectives differ with regard to social phenomena they study and the processes by which they claim that construction occurs. The perspectives also focus on different phases of the implementation process and operate at different levels of analysis. After elucidating each perspective, we argue that students of technology and organizing could more directly engage issues central to organizational theory if grappled with materiality and power, which they have heretofore downplayed in an attempt to counteract the field’s earlier tendency toward technological determinism.

What’s Under Construction Here? Social Action, Materiality, and Power in Constructivist Studies of Technology and Organizing

The reenchantment of the world

1. Indigenous Peoples. Genocide in the Americas. Indigenous Peoples: Subordinated and Marginalized. Imperialism and Evolutionary Theory. Ethnocide and Its Justifications. Ethnocide: The Counter-Arguments. India: Where Indigenous Is Scheduled. Southeast Asia and Indonesia: Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities. Africa and the Politics of Tribalism. Conclusion. 2. Ethnic Groups. Uncertain Ethnicity. Large Multiethnic States. Ethnicity within the System. 3. Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing. Rwanda. The Former Yugoslavia. Conclusion. 4. The State. State and Nation. Ideal State and Real States. Ethnicity and the State Reconsidered. Tribalism as Marginality and Metaphor. 5. Different States, Different World. References.

Indigenous peoples, ethnic groups, and the state

Akwẽ-Shavante society

Dialectical societies : the Gê and Bororo of central Brazil

Explores why societies throughout the world organize social thought and institutions in patterns of opposites

The Attraction of opposites : thought and society in the dualistic mode

For thousands of years, traditional societies have been coping with the same problems of human existence that we face today. Yet, until recently, the modern world has tended to ignore their possible contributions, which can offer different views of the world to significantly enlarge our understanding of what humanity really is. From the deserts of Africa to the rainforests of Brazil, this book investigates traditional societies and gains insight into alternative ways of living by exploring different approaches to marriage, wealth, law and order, cultural integration, spirituality and wisdom. The book ties in with a ten-part BBC television series.

David Maybury-Lewis

Papers

Indigenous peoples, ethnic groups, and the state

Akwẽ-Shavante society

Dialectical societies : the Gê and Bororo of central Brazil

The Attraction of opposites : thought and society in the dualistic mode

Millennium: Tribal Wisdom and the Modern World