Showing papers by "Paul DiMaggio published in 2003"

The Twenty-First-Century Firm: Changing Economic Organization in International Perspective

Abstract: Students of management are nearly unanimous (as are managers themselves) in believing that the contemporary business corporation is in a period of dizzying change. This book represents the first time that leading experts in sociology, law, economics, and management studies have been assembled in one volume to explain the varying ways in which contemporary businesses are transforming themselves to respond to globalization, new technologies, workforce transformation, and legal change. Together their essays, whose focal point is an emerging network form of organization, bring order to the chaotic tumble of diagnoses, labels, and descriptions used to make sense of this changing world. The first three chapters report systematically on change in corporate structure, strategy, and governance in the United States and Western Europe, East Asia, and the former socialist world. They separate fact from fiction and established trend from extravagant extrapolation. This is followed by commentaries on them: Reinier Kraakman affirms the durability of the corporate form; David Bryce and Jitendra Singh assess organizational change from an evolutionary perspective; Robert Gibbons considers the logic of relational contracting in firms; and Charles Tilly probes the deeper historical context in which firms operate.

New social survey perspectives on the digital divide

Abstract: Most studies of the digital divide are concerned with the simple criterion of access, usually in the convenient locale of one’s home. That divide could be exacerbated by usage differences after such access has been achieved, however. This article takes advantage of usage data from the General Social Survey and other surveys to examine whether more highly educated respondents also have such advantages in usage processes after access has been achieved. Education has emerged from the NTIA and other national surveys as a more important multivariate predictor than income. Using a framework developed by DiMaggio and Hargittai (2001), it is found that college-educated respondents possess clear advantages over high-school educated respondents in using the Internet to derive occupational, educational and other benefits. The clearest advantage appears in terms of the types of sites visited, uses made and political discussion. Here, multivariate evidence shows that education—and occasionally income, age and marital status—is associated with consistently more long-term uses related to enhanced life chances via work, education, health or political participation; education is also related to less use for simple, short-term, entertainment or personal purposes. The advantages to the college educated are also evident in their keeping in contact with a wider range of friends and relatives, particularly by email. On the other hand, in several areas (e.g. search strategies employed; receiving assistance from relatives) little gap by education exists.

From Unequal Access to Differentiated Use: A Literature Review and Agenda for Research on Digital Inequality

Abstract: This paper reviews what we know about inequality in access to and use of new digital technologies. Until recently, most research has focused on inequality in access (the "digital divide"), measured in a variety of ways. We agree that inequality of access is important, because it is likely to reinforce inequality in opportunities for economic mobility and social participation. At the same time we argue that a more thorough understanding of digital inequality requires placing Internet access in a broader theoretical context, and asking a wider range of questions about the impact of information technologies and informational goods on social inequality.

Information Inequality and Network Externalities: A Comparative Study of the Diffusion of Television and the Internet

Abstract: This paper sheds light on whether intergroup inequality in Internet access is likely to persist as the diffusion process continues. To what extent is a given level of inequality in technology diffusion (e.g., use of the Internet) a long-term policy challenge or a temporary inconvenience? What general factors account for group-specific patterns of technology adoption? This paper draws on notions of network externalities to help answer this question. It also presents findings from a comparative analysis of household adoption of television from 1948 to 1957 and the Internet from 1994 to 2002.

Nonprofit Organizations and the Intersectoral Division of Labor in the Arts

Abstract: This paper takes stock of what we know about the role of nonprofit enterprise in the production and distribution of the arts (broadly defined), primarily in the United States. After briefly discussing measurement, I present data on the extent of nonprofit activity in a range of cultural subfields. I then review theoretical explanations of the prevalence of nonprofits in cultural industries and discuss some puzzles that existing theories do not adequately solve. After reviewing research and theory about behavioral differences between nonprofit and for-profit arts firms, I explore how the art-and-culture sector is evolving in the face of demographic change, the weakening of the cultural hierarchy, and the emergence of new production and distribution technologies. I conclude with a research agenda.

An Ecological Perspective on Nonprofit Research

Abstract: Richard Steinberg’s chapter (this volume) is a work of remarkable scope, which cuts a trail through most of the issues that engage nonprofit researchers. The underbrush is thick and one can only marvel at the sharpness and clarity with which he slices away to reveal, in some cases, cumulating wisdom and, in others, more interesting and sophisticated research problems.

La sociología como disciplina

Abstract: LA PRESENTE es una traduccion del texto “Epilogue: Sociology as a Discipline”, escrito por Paul DiMaggio para el libro Sociological Visions editado por Kai Erikson y publicado en 1997 por la casa Rowman y Littlefield Publishers, Inc, de Boston, Massachusets, EU y Oxford, Inglaterra (295 pp. en total). El libro logro reunir una verdadera pleyade de intelectuales norteamericanos de la talla de Neil J. Smelser, Alan Wolfe, Charles Tilly, Daniel Bell, Michael Katz, Gerald Holton, Robert K. Merton, Ira Katznelson y el mismo Paul DiMaggio. En el prefacio, el editor de ese libro explica que en el otono de 1991 era evidente que, aludiendo razones financieras, las autoridades de la Universidad de Yale pensaban eliminar el ya para entonces reducido Departamento de