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.
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TL;DR: The authors consider the value of using interviews to research routine practices and conclude that people can often talk in quite revealing ways about actions they may usually take as a matter of course and offer suggestions about how to encourage them.
Abstract: This paper considers the value of using interviews to research routine practices. Interviewing could easily be framed as inappropriate for this task, either because such practices are too difficult for respondents to talk about as a result of having sedimented down into unthinking forms of embodied disposition or because this method is out of step with a current enthusiasm for research styles that do not focus unduly on the representational. The discussion starts with how some key proponents of social practice theory have characterised the possibility of talking with people about these matters before turning to my own experience with two interview projects that attempted to do so inside city offices and older person households. I conclude that people can often talk in quite revealing ways about actions they may usually take as a matter of course and offer suggestions about how to encourage them.
298 citations
01 May 2003
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that people do not always have clear-cut identities or preferences, and that they regard "party politics" with a certain cynicism, and are much more "spectators" than participants.
Abstract: Could policymaking be constitutive of politics? Conventionally, policymaking is conceived of as the result of politics. In this view classical-modernist political institutions seek to involve people in politics via a choice of elected officials who are subsequently supposed to represent the interests of their voters, initiate policy and oversee its implementation. But what if people do not always have clear-cut identities or preferences? What if they regard ‘party politics’ with a certain cynicism, and are much more ‘spectators’ than participants (cf. Manin 1997)? Is that the end of politics? This chapter argues that this is not necessarily true. Citizens could also be seen as political activists on ‘stand by’ who often need to be ignited in order to become politically involved. This creates a new role for policymaking. In many cases it is a public policy initiative that triggers people to reflect on what they really value, and that motivates them to voice their concerns or wishes and become politically active themselves. Public policy, in other words, often creates a public domain , as a space in which people of various origins deliberate on their future as well as on their mutual interrelationships and their relationship to the government. The idea of a network society only adds to this. Nowadays policymaking often takes place in a context where fixed political identities and stable communities always be assumed.
297 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors revisited this issue from a number of angles: current approaches to enlisting SSA smallholders in agricultural development; the history of the phenomenal productivity growth in the USA, The Netherlands and Green Revolution Asia; and the current framework conditions for SSA productivity growth.
297 citations
Cites background from "Locating the 17th Book of Giddens@@..."
...Research on institutions has been pursued in a long-standing tradition in sociology and anthropology that started with Durkheim (Durkheim and Traugott, 1994) and was elaborated by people like Giddens (1984) and Douglas (1986) and her followers (e.g., Hood, 1998)....
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TL;DR: This paper examined the intellectual history of economic geography over the last 50 years, focusing on three major episodes of research activity: spatial analysis and regional science movement of the 1960s; the turn to political economic (especially Marxian) approaches in the 1970s; and the intensification of interest in regional global interactions since about the mid-1980s.
Abstract: The paper examines the intellectual history of economic geography over the last 50 years. Three major episodes of research activity are considered: (a) the spatial analysis and regional science movement of the 1960s; (b) the turn to political economic (especially Marxian) approaches in the 1970s; and (c) the intensification of interest in regional‐global interactions since about the mid-1980s. Two minor interludes are also briefly examined; these are represented by behavioural geography and the so-called localities debate. It is suggested that the course of economic geography over the last half-century can best be understood by reference to the sociology of knowledge, i.e., a contextualised but reasoned description of those contextualised but reasoned descriptions that constitute scholarly practice.
296 citations
TL;DR: This model theorizes an integrated process/activity model that characterizes DTS formulation and implementation in pre-digital organizations and shows that the crafting of a DTS is a highly dynamic process involving iterating between learning and doing.
Abstract: The formulation and implementation of a digital transformation strategy (DTS) has become a key concern for many pre-digital organizations across traditional industries, but how such a strategy can be developed remains an open question. We used interpretive in-depth case study research to study how a European financial services provider has formulated and implemented a DTS. By focusing on the underlying processes and strategizing activities, we show that digital strategy making not only represents a break with the conventions of upfront strategic information systems (IS) planning, but reveals a new extreme of emergent strategy making. Specifically, we conclude that a DTS is continuously in the making, with no foreseeable end. By building on theory from IS strategizing and strategy-as-practice literature, we theorize an integrated process/activity model that characterizes DTS formulation and implementation in pre-digital organizations. Our model shows that the crafting of a DTS is a highly dynamic process involving iterating between learning and doing.
295 citations
Cites background from "Locating the 17th Book of Giddens@@..."
...From a theoretical perspective, the described feedback loop underlines that the realized DTS represents a socially accomplished structure that is reproduced through social action, i.e. digital strategy making relying on distinct DTS practices (Giddens, 1984)....
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...Building on structuration theory (Giddens, 1984; Jones and Karsten, 2008; Orlikowski and Robey, 1991; Walsham, 2002), which sees agency and structure as mutually constitutive, the main idea is that those involved in strategy making have a choice between recursive ways of acting based on routines or…...
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