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Wayne E. Baker

Bio: Wayne E. Baker is an academic researcher from University of Michigan. The author has contributed to research in topics: Social capital & Reciprocity (cultural anthropology). The author has an hindex of 28, co-authored 54 publications receiving 9879 citations. Previous affiliations of Wayne E. Baker include Princeton University & University of Chicago.


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TL;DR: This article found evidence of both massive cultural change and the persistence of distinctive cultural traditions in 65 societies and 75 percent of the world's population using data from the three waves of the World Values Surveys.
Abstract: Modernization theorists from Karl Marx to Daniel Bell have argued that economic development brings pervasive cultural changes. But others, from Max Weber to Samuel Huntington, have claimed that cultural values are an enduring and autonomous influence on society. We test the thesis that economic development is linked with systematic changes in basic values. Using data from the three waves of the World Values Surveys, which include 65 societies and 75 percent of the world's population, we find evidence of both massive cultural change and the persistence of distinctive cultural traditions. Economic development is associated with shifts away from absolute norms and values toward values that are increasingly rational, tolerant, trusting, and participatory. Cultural change, however, is path dependent. The broad cultural heritage of a society - Protestant, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Confucian, or Communist - leaves an imprint on values that endures despite modernization. Moreover, the differences between the values held by members of different religions within given societies are much smaller than are cross-national differences. Once established, such cross-cultural differences become part of a national culture transmitted by educational institutions and mass media. We conclude with some proposed revisions of modernization theory

4,551 citations

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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used market relations between a large population of corporations and investment banks to study the organization-market interforce-the pattern of direct market ties between a firm and its banks.
Abstract: 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 ...

1,163 citations

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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors characterized the stock options market as a social structure represented by the networks of actors who traded options on the floor of a major securities exchange and found that trading among actors exhibited distinct social structural patterns that dramatically affected the direction and magnitude of option price volatility.
Abstract: 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...

708 citations

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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyze the social organization of three well-known price-fixing conspiracies in the heavy electrical equipment industry and find that the structure of illegal networks is driven primarily by the need to maximize concealment, rather than the need for maximizing efficiency.
Abstract: We analyze the social organization of three well-known price-fixing conspiracies in the heavy electrical equipment industry. Although aspects of collusion have been studied by industrial organization economists and organizational criminologists, the organization of conspiracies has remained virtually unexplored. Using archival data, we reconstruct the actual communication networks involved in conspiracies in switchgear transformers, and turbines. We find that the structure of illegal networks is driven primarily by the need to maximize concealment, rather than the need to maximize efficiency. However, network structure is also contingent on information-processing requirements imposed by product and market characteristics. Our individual-level model predicts verdict (guilt or innocence), sentence, and fine as functions of personal centrality in the illegal network, network structure, management level, and company size. "People of the same trade seldom meet together but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some diversion to raise prices."

629 citations

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TL;DR: This article examined the degree of stability in the structure of the corporate elite network in the US during the 1980s and 1990s and found that the aggregate connec tivity of the network is remarkably stable and appears to be an intrinsic property of the interlock network, resilient to major changes in corporate governance.
Abstract: This paper examines the degree of stability in the structure of the corporate elite network in the US during the 1980s and 1990s. Several studies have documented that board-to-board ties serve as a mechanism for the diffusion of corporate practices, strategies, and structures; thus, the overall structure of the network can shape the nature and rate of aggregate corporate change. But upheavals in the nature of corporate governance and nearly complete turnover in the firms and directors at the core of the network since 1980 prompt a reassessment of the network's topography. We find that the aggregate connec tivity of the network is remarkably stable and appears to be an intrinsic property of the interlock network, resilient to major changes in corporate governance. After a brief review of elite studies in the US, we take advantage of the recent advances in the theoretical and methodological tools for analyzing network structures to examine the network properties of the directors and companies in 1982, 1990,...

555 citations


Cited by
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a model that incorporates this overall argument in the form of a series of hypothesized relationships between different dimensions of social capital and the main mechanisms and proces.
Abstract: Scholars of the theory of the firm have begun to emphasize the sources and conditions of what has been described as “the organizational advantage,” rather than focus on the causes and consequences of market failure. Typically, researchers see such organizational advantage as accruing from the particular capabilities organizations have for creating and sharing knowledge. In this article we seek to contribute to this body of work by developing the following arguments: (1) social capital facilitates the creation of new intellectual capital; (2) organizations, as institutional settings, are conducive to the development of high levels of social capital; and (3) it is because of their more dense social capital that firms, within certain limits, have an advantage over markets in creating and sharing intellectual capital. We present a model that incorporates this overall argument in the form of a series of hypothesized relationships between different dimensions of social capital and the main mechanisms and proces...

15,365 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Social capital has a definite place in sociological theory as mentioned in this paper, and its role in social control, in family support, and in benefits mediated by extra-familial networks, but excessive extensions of the concept may lead to excessive emphasis on positive consequences of sociability.
Abstract: This paper reviews the origins and definitions of social capital in the writings of Bourdieu, Loury, and Coleman, among other authors. It distinguishes four sources of social capital and examines their dynamics. Applications of the concept in the sociological literature emphasize its role in social control, in family support, and in benefits mediated by extrafamilial networks. I provide examples of each of these positive functions. Negative consequences of the same processes also deserve attention for a balanced picture of the forces at play. I review four such consequences and illustrate them with relevant examples. Recent writings on social capital have extended the concept from an individual asset to a feature of communities and even nations. The final sections describe this conceptual stretch and examine its limitations. I argue that, as shorthand for the positive consequences of sociability, social capital has a definite place in sociological theory. However, excessive extensions of the concept may j...

11,460 citations

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TL;DR: The major concepts and results recently achieved in the study of the structure and dynamics of complex networks are reviewed, and the relevant applications of these ideas in many different disciplines are summarized, ranging from nonlinear science to biology, from statistical mechanics to medicine and engineering.

9,441 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors develop one of perhaps multiple specifications of embeddedness, a concept that has been used to refer broadly to the contingent nature of economic action with respect to cognition, social structure, institutions, and culture.
Abstract: This chapter aims to develop one of perhaps multiple specifications of embeddedness, a concept that has been used to refer broadly to the contingent nature of economic action with respect to cognition, social structure, institutions, and culture. Research on embeddedness is an exciting area in sociology and economics because it advances understanding of how social structure affects economic life. The chapter addresses propositions about the operation and outcomes of interfirm networks that are guided implicitly by ceteris paribus assumptions. While economies of time due to embeddedness have obvious benefits for the individual firm, they also have important implications for allocative efficiency and the determination of prices. Under the conditions, social processes that increase integration combine with resource dependency problems to increase the vulnerability of networked organizations. The level of investment in an economy promotes positive changes in productivity, standards of living, mobility, and wealth generation.

9,137 citations

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TL;DR: A growing number of sociologists, political scientists, economists, and organizational theorists have invoked the concept of social capital in the search for answers to a broadening range of questions being confronted in their own fields as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: A growing number of sociologists, political scientists, economists, and organizational theorists have invoked the concept of social capital in the search for answers to a broadening range of questions being confronted in their own fields. Seeking to clarify the concept and help assess its utility for organizational theory, we synthesize the theoretical research undertaken in these various disciplines and develop a common conceptual framework that identifies the sources, benefits, risks, and contingencies of social capital.

8,518 citations