Locating the 17th Book of Giddens@@@The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration.
TL;DR: Giddens as mentioned in this paper has been in the forefront of developments in social theory for the past decade and outlines the distinctive position he has evolved during that period and offers a full statement of a major new perspective in social thought, a synthesis and elaboration of ideas touched on in previous works but described here for the first time in an integrated and comprehensive form.
Abstract: Anthony Giddens has been in the forefront of developments in social theory for the past decade. In "The Constitution of Society" he outlines the distinctive position he has evolved during that period and offers a full statement of a major new perspective in social thought, a synthesis and elaboration of ideas touched on in previous works but described here for the first time in an integrated and comprehensive form. A particular feature is Giddens' concern to connect abstract problems of theory to an interpretation of the nature of empirical method in the social sciences. In presenting his own ideas, Giddens mounts a critical attack on some of the more orthodox sociological views. "The Constitution of Society" is an invaluable reference book for all those concerned with the basic issues in contemporary social theory.
Citations
More filters
TL;DR: An action research study that develops and tests design principles for competence management systems and develops an integrative model of competence that not only outlines the interaction between organizational and individual level competence and the role of technology in this process, but also incorporates a typology of competence.
Abstract: Even though the literature on competence in organizations recognizes the need to align organization level core competence with individual level job competence, it does not consider the role of information technology in managing competence across the macro and micro levels. To address this shortcoming, we embarked on an action research study that develops and tests design principles for competence management systems. This research develops an integrative model of competence that not only outlines the interaction between organizational and individual level competence and the role of technology in this process, but also incorporates a typology of competence (competence-in-stock, competence-in-use, and competence-in-the-making). Six Swedish organizations participated in our research project, which took 30 months and consisted of two action research cycles involving numerous data collection strategies and interventions such as prototypes. In addition to developing a set of design principles and considering their implications for both research and practice, this article includes a self-assessment of the study by evaluating it according to the criteria for canonical action research.
405 citations
Cites background or methods from "Locating the 17th Book of Giddens@@..."
...Informed by the literature reviewed thus far and by Giddens’ (1984) structuration theory as a way of integrating the mutually dependent realm of organizational structure (macro level) and individual action (micro level), we now develop a model of competence in organizations (see Figure 1)....
[...]
...According to structuration theory (Giddens 1984), the structural properties of social systems (the structure level in Figure 1) are enacted through recurrent human action and interaction (the agency level in Figure 1)....
[...]
TL;DR: An analysis of WebGA, a bricks-and-clicks dotcom, highlights how the use of the self-serve technology made it more difficult for sales reps to build and maintain embedded relationships with their customers.
Abstract: Embedded relationships with customers have been key in generating repeat business and economic advantage, especially in business-to-business settings. Such relationships are typically maintained through interpersonal interactions between customers and their providers. Lately, however, firms have been seeking to make their service operations more scalable by offering customers access to Internet-based, self-serve technology. This raises questions about the implications of inserting self-serve technology into embedded relationships. Recent research on the role of information technology (IT) within interfirm network relations suggests that relationships and the use of IT are complementary. However, most of this research focuses on the organizational level and fails to consider the instantiation of these interfirm relations by the actions and interactions of individual actors (e.g., customers and salespeople) representing their respective firms. In this paper, we explore the implications of using IT within interfirm relations through an analysis of customers' and sales representatives' (reps) work activities and interpersonal relationships. We apply a practice perspective that highlights how macrolevel phenomena such as interfirm relations are created and recreated through the microlevel actions taken by firm members. This analysis reveals that managing the complementarity between relationships and IT in practice is fraught with considerable tension. This study of WebGA, a bricks-and-clicks dotcom, highlights how the use of the self-serve technology made it more difficult for sales reps to build and maintain embedded relationships with their customers. The use of IT altered the nature and quality of information shared by the participants, undermined the ability of sales reps to provide consulting services to customers, reduced the frequency of their interaction, and prompted sales reps to expend social capital to promote customers' technology adoption. These changes produced intended and unintended shifts in the network relations enacted by WebGA and its customers, and raised serious challenges to the viability of WebGA's business model.
403 citations
Cites background from "Locating the 17th Book of Giddens@@..."
...Practices are dynamic and ongoing, and engaged in by people as part of the structuring processes through which organizations and networks are constituted over time (Giddens 1984)....
[...]
...Giddens (1984) argues that social structures (or the structural properties of social systems) are enacted through recurrent human action and interaction....
[...]
...This paper was received on December 14, 2002, and was with the authors 4 months for 3 revisions....
[...]
Book•
11 Dec 2008TL;DR: In this article, the spirit and its expression in the ancient world, from Sun King to Revolution, and World War II to the present day, are discussed, and a survey of the results is presented.
Abstract: 1. Introduction 2. Fear, interest and honor 3. The spirit and its expression 4. The ancient world 5. Medieval Europe 6. From Sun King to Revolution 7. Imperialism and World War I 8. World War II 9. Hitler to Bush and beyond 10. General findings and conclusions.
403 citations
TL;DR: This paper explored the ways in which sociological perspectives can develop new understanding of the social contexts of care and dependence, drawing on the work of Kittay and others, and found that sociologists have scrutinised the social construction of dependency; politicians have ascribed negative connotations of passivity ; and medical and social policy discourse employs the term in a positivist sense as a measure of physical need for professional intervention.
Abstract: Research and theory on ‘ dependency ’ and ‘ care-giving ’ have to date proceeded along largely separate lines, with little sense that they are exploring and explaining different aspects of the same phenomenon. Research on ‘care ’, initially linked to feminism during the early 1980s, has revealed and exposed to public gaze what was hitherto assumed to be a ‘ natural ’ female activity. Conversely, disability activists and writers who have promoted a social model of disability have seen the language of and the policy focus upon ‘care ’ as oppressive and objectifying. ‘ Dependency ’ is an equally contested concept: sociologists have scrutinised the social construction of dependency; politicians have ascribed negative connotations of passivity ; while medical and social policy discourse employs the term in a positivist sense as a measure of physical need for professional intervention. Autonomy and independence, in contrast, are promoted as universal and largely unproblematic goals. These contrasting perspectives have led social theory, research and policies to separate and segregate the worlds of ‘ carers ’ from those for whom they ‘care ’. Drawing on the work of Kittay and others, this paper explores the ways in which sociological perspectives can develop new understanding of the social contexts of ‘ care ’ and ‘ dependence ’.
399 citations
TL;DR: A perspective on how managers search for a strategy is developed that reflects the reality of managerial behavior, that respects both the reasoning power of managers and the bounds on their rationality, and that permits organizations to change but within realistic limits.
Abstract: We develop a perspective on how managers search for a strategy. In the spirit of Cyert and March (1963), we aim for a perspective that reflects the reality of managerial behavior, that respects both the reasoning power of managers and the bounds on their rationality, and that permits organizations to change but within realistic limits. Our perspective employs the variable time to frame the question of strategy's origins in a distinctive way. Over time, the cognitive and physical elements that make up a strategy become less plastic, while mechanisms to search rationally for a strategy become more available. This generates a fundamental tension in the origin of strategy: Managers struggle to understand their environment well enough to search rationally for an effective strategy before their firms lose the plasticity necessary to exploit that understanding. A focus on time allows us to synthesize and extend the evolutionary and positioning models of strategic search. Toward this end, we couple induction and deduction. The inductive part of the paper uses detailed observation of the search for a strategy at one firm to identify constructs that play a crucial role in strategic search. The deductive part steps beyond our focal firm and uses these constructs to derive theoretical propositions about the typical path of strategic search and the mortality associated with different approaches to search.
399 citations
Cites result from "Locating the 17th Book of Giddens@@..."
...This assumption runs somewhat contrary to recent literature that, in the wake of structuration theory (Giddens 1984), emphasizes how organizations can act to shape their environments (e....
[...]
References
More filters