Showing papers on "Embeddedness published in 2009"

Model of acceptance with peer support: a social network perspective to understand employees' system use

Abstract: Prior research has extensively studied individual adoption and use of information systems, primarily using beliefs as predictors of behavioral intention to use a system that in turn predicts system use. We propose a model of acceptance with peer support (MAPS) that integrates prior individual-level research with social networks constructs. We argue that an individual's embeddedness in the social network of the organizational unit implementing a new information system can enhance our understanding of technology use. An individual's coworkers can be important sources of help in overcoming knowledge barriers constraining use of a complex system, and such interactions with others can determine an employee's ability to influence eventual system configuration and features. We incorporate network density (reflecting "get-help" ties for an employee) and network centrality (reflecting "give-help" ties for an employee), drawn from prior social network research, as key predictors of system use. Further, we conceptualize valued network density and valued network centrality, both of which take into account ties to those with relevant system-related information, knowledge, and resources, and employ them as additional predictors. We suggest that these constructs together are coping and influencing pathways by which they have an effect on system use. We conducted a 3-month long study of 87 employees in one business unit in an organization. The results confirmed our theory that social network constructs can significantly enhance our understanding of system use over and above predictors from prior individual-level adoption research.

Unanticipated Gains: Origins of Network Inequality in Everyday Life

Abstract: PART I: PERSONAL TIES IN ORGANIZATIONAL SETTINGS 1. Social Capital and Organizational Embeddedness 2 PART II: SOCIAL TIES 3. Opportunities and Inducements: Why Mothers So Often Made Friends in Centers 4 Weak and Strong Ties: Whether Mothers Made Close Friends, Acquaintances, or Something Else 5 Trust and Obligations: Why Some Mothers' Support Networks Were Larger than Their Friendship Networks PART III: ORGANIZATIONAL TIES 6. Ties to Other Entities: Why Mothers' Most Useful Ties Were Not Always Social 7 Organizational Ties and Neighborhood Effects: How Mothers' Non-social Ties Were Affected by Location PART IV: BEYOND CHILDCARE CENTERS 8. Extensions and Implications

Agency vs. Stewardship in Public Family Firms: A Social Embeddedness Reconciliation

Abstract: Family businesses (FBs) play a key role in the world's economies. Unfortunately, the current literature surfaces disparate understandings and conclusions concerning their conduct and performance. M...

Principles and Practices of Knowledge Creation: On the Organization of “Buzz” and “Pipelines” in Life Science Communities

Abstract: This article links up with the debate in economic geography on “local buzz” and “global pipelines” as two distinct forms of interactive knowledge creation among firms and related actors and argues for a rethinking of the way social scientists should approach interactive knowledge creation. It highlights the importance of combining the insights from studies of clusters and innovation systems with an activity-oriented approach in which more attention is paid to the specific characteristics of the innovation processes and the conditions underpinning their organization. To illustrate the applicability and added value of such an alternative approach, the notion of embeddedness is linked with some basic ideas adopted from the literature on knowledge communities. The framework is then applied to a study of innovation activities conducted by firms and academic research groups working with biotechnology-related applications in the Swedish part of the Medicon Valley life science region. The findings reveal that local buzz is largely absent in these types of activities. Most interactive knowledge creation, which appears to be spontaneous and unregulated, is, on closer examination, found safely embedded in globally configured professional knowledge communities and attainable only by those who qualify.

The evolution of structural embeddedness and organizational social outcomes in a centrally governed health and human services network

Abstract: This research examines the effects, over time, of network embeddedness, on three organizationally based social outcomes. We argue that in a centralized, publicly funded but mixed sector health and human services network, an organization's structural embeddedness in the network, as measured by its centrality, will be related to its trustworthiness, reputation, and influence, as rated by other network members, and that this relationship will strengthen over time as the system matures. We also examine how service performance is related to network evolution.

From Politics to Co-operation: The Dynamics of Embeddedness in Alternative Food Supply Chains

Abstract: Alternative food supply chains have been the subject of a number of studies utilising the concept of embeddedness to account for their various dimensions, but they have been little analysed in terms of the relations between producers. As part of the body of research into the social construction of markets, this article aims to consider the nature and dynamics of ties between producers involved in the development of these chains. The study presented here relies on a series of quantitative and longitudinal network analyses in different systems of direct selling in the South of France. We consider here the example of a farmers' market and contrast it with vegetable box schemes. Our research demonstrates that alternative supply chains can renew ties between producers by decoupling political relations and through the embeddedness of sales activity in technical and friendship relations, both of which favour co-operation towards innovation. This article also aims to encourage a reconsideration of sociometry, as well as alternative food supply chains, to analyse and accompany sustainable local food systems.

Consumer quest for embeddedness: a case study of the Brantford Farmers' Market.

Abstract: Farmers' markets (FMs) in the US, Canada and Britain are often held as one key response to the unsustainability of conventional food production systems, as they provide consumers with a potentially more comprehensive valuation venue for their food purchases This paper categorizes and examines the range of consumer motivations at the Brantford FM in Ontario, Canada using the concept of embeddedness Though not a simple concept, embeddedness proves useful for framing non-economic values sought by consumers at FMs in a way that helps to build our understanding of the context-specific quality of patron motivations at FMs In the study, values of social embeddedness (social interaction, knowledge of vendors, etc) and spatial embeddedness (food freshness, supporting the ‘local’, etc) emerge as core sets of consumer motivations at this FM, while natural embeddedness values (organic production, ‘food-miles’ concerns, etc) are less strongly held This case study helps advance that specific sets of embedded values are expressed at FMs – consumer motivations partly reflect their historic and situated contexts, while contributing to our understanding of the importance of the embeddedness concept to alternative food system arguments for change

Subsidiary Strategy: The Embeddedness Component

Abstract: This article develops the concept of internal subsidiary embeddedness as the canvas within which subsidiary strategy takes place. Developing an inductive model, we identify three hierarchical levels of embeddedness. The first level is operational embeddedness, which relates to interlocking day-to-day relations. The second level is capability embeddedness, which concerns the development of competitive capabilities for the multinational as a whole. The third level is strategic embeddedness, which concerns a subsidiary's participation in a multinational corporation's strategy setting. We derived our concept of embeddedness from an in-depth case study. Embeddedness is not merely an outcome of the institutional setting in which a subsidiary is situated, but is a resource a subsidiary can manage by means of manipulating dependencies or exerting influence over the allocation of critical resources. A subsidiary can modify its embeddedness to change its strategic restraints. Therefore, the development of subsidiary embeddedness becomes an integral part of subsidiary strategy.

Interpersonal influence as an alternative channel communication behavior in emerging markets: The case of China

Abstract: Channel communications in emerging markets are embedded in the intricacy of economic and sociocultural environments. Managing channel relationships in emerging markets therefore requires more than formal interfirm communication to rely on interpersonal influence. Extending embeddedness theory, we offer a conceptualization incorporating three embedding elements – task environment, social relations, and institutional norms – into a preliminary model that specifies the antecedents, moderators, and contingent consequences of interpersonal influence strategies in marketing channels. Specifically, dependence, firm boundary spanners’ social capital, and their cultural values (e.g., guanxi orientation) may combine to shape firm boundary spanners’ use of interpersonal influence in channel communications, which in turn affects channel member satisfaction. In a Chinese marketing channel context, we test our research hypotheses with parallel analyses of 395 matched supplier–retailer dyads. The empirical results provide general support for the predictions, and reveal differences between suppliers and retailers in terms of the focal effects. Journal of International Business Studies (2009) 40, 668–689. doi:10.1057/jibs.2008.84

Reconsidering Instrumental Corporate Social Responsibility through the Mafia Metaphor

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to critically evaluate the instrumental perspective on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in practice and theory by relying on sociological analyses of a well known organization: the Italian Mafia. Legal businesses might share features of the Mafia, such as the propensity to exploit a governance vacuum in society, a strong organizational identity that demarcates the inside from the outside, and an extreme profit motive. Instrumental CSR practices have the power to accelerate a firm's transition to Mafia status through its own pathologies. The boundaries of such instrumentalism are explored and lessons for future CSR research derived, with specific emphasis on a firm's social and normative embeddedness, taking into account the inherent challenge of regulating corporate behaviour in the global economy.

The strategic localization of transnational retailers: The case of Samsung-Tesco in South Korea

Abstract: This article contributes to the small but growing geographic literature on the internationalization of retailing by exploring the strategic localization of transnational retailers. While it has long been recognized that firms in many different sectors localize their activities to meet the requirements of different national and local markets, the imperative is particularly strong for retail transnational corporations (TNCs) because of the extremely high territorial embeddedness of their activities. This embeddedness can be seen through the ways in which retailers seek to establish and maintain extensive store networks, adapt their offerings to various cultures of consumption, and manage the proliferation of connections to the local supply base. We illustrate these conceptual arguments through a case study of the Samsung-Tesco joint venture in South Korea, profiling three particular aspects of Samsung-Tesco's strategic localization: the localization of products, the localization of sourcing, and the localization of staffing and strategic decision making. In conclusion, we argue that the strategic localization of transnational retailers needs to be conceptualized as a dynamic that evolves over time after initial inward investment and that localization should be seen as a two-way dynamic that has the potential to have a wider impact on the parent corporation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Market and society : the great Transformation today

Abstract: 1. Introduction: learning from Polanyi 1 Chris Hann and Keith Hart 2. Necessity or contingency: mutuality and market Stephen Gudeman 3. The great transformation of embeddedness: Karl Polanyi and the new economic sociology Jens Beckert 4. The critique of the economic point of view: Karl Polanyi and the Durkheimians Philippe Steiner 5. Towards an alternative economy: reconsidering the market, money and value Jean-Michel Servet 6. Money in the making of world society Keith Hart 7. Debt, violence and impersonal markets: Polanyian meditations David Graeber 8. Whatever happened to householding? Chris Gregory 9. Contesting The Great Transformation: work in comparative perspective Gerd Spittler 10. 'Sociological Marxism' in Central India: Polanyi, Gramsci and the case of the unions Jonathan Parry 11. Composites, fictions and risk: towards an ethnography of price Jane I. Guyer 12. Illusions of freedom: Polanyi and the third sector Catherine Alexander 13. Market and economy in environmental conservation in Jamaica James Carrier 14. Embedded socialism? Land, labour and money in eastern Xinjiang Chris Hann 15. Afterword: learning from Polanyi 2 Don Robotham.

Occupational embeddedness and job performance

Abstract: While researchers have recently focused their attention on organizational embeddedness, occupational embeddedness has received little theoretical and empirical attention. Using multisource data on 162 employees in multiple jobs and organizations, we found that occupational embeddedness is positively related to both task performance and creativity and is negatively related to counterproductive work behavior, even after controlling for the effects of organizational embeddedness. In addition, we found that trait affect moderated the relationships of occupational embeddedness to job performance. Occupational embeddedness was more strongly related to counterproductive work behavior when trait negative affect was high, while occupational embeddedness was more strongly related to both citizenship behavior and creativity when trait positive affect was high. Results also indicated that the various components of occupational embeddedness had different effects on job outcomes. Fit had a strong positive effect on core task performance, links had a positive effect on creativity, and sacrifice had a small positive effect on citizenship behavior. The article concludes with a discussion of implications for future research and management practice. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Transnational Entrepreneurship: Determinants of Firm Type and Owner Attributions of Success

Abstract: Building on a typology of transnational firm types, developed by Landolt, Autler, and Baires in 1999, we examine whether immigrant attitudes toward the host country and their degree of embeddedness...

Corporate social responsibility and corporate, governance in Italian SMEs: the experience of some ‘‘spirited businesses’’

Abstract: The study proposes to individuate the relationship between social engagement, social statements and governance of SMEs. Does an adhesion to the philosophy and to the practices of CSR, which are reflected in a firm’s mission and accountability, positively influences its governance? If so, is this influence more or less significant for SMEs with respect to large-sized firms? This paper winds itself around these questions and describes the principle findings that have emerged from a qualitative investigation focused on a selected group of “cohesive” Italian SMEs, in which their management complies with both economic and social issues. The empirical study finds that the diffusion of CSR is tied above all to the entrepreneur’s values and orientation and to the company embeddedness to the local socio-economic environment. The concluding reflections trace the features of a territorial model of socially responsible orientation centered on the best practices of SMEs who are excellent examples of “spirited businesses” and are part of a network (which includes institutions, trade associations, non-profit organizations, etc.) that contributes to the diffusion of an orientation towards CSR and to sustainability across the territory.

What Determines the Embeddedness of Forced-Return Migrants? Rethinking the Role of Pre- and Post-Return Assistance.

Abstract: Return migration is not always a process of simply “going home.” Particularly when return is not fully voluntarily, returnees face severe obstacles. This study argues that such return can only become sustainable when returnees are provided with possibilities to become re-embedded in terms of economic, social network, and psychosocial dimensions. We analyze the return migration experiences of 178 rejected asylum seekers and migrants who did not obtain residence permit to six different countries: Afghanistan, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sierra Leone, Togo and Vietnam. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods of data analysis, we identify several key factors that influence prospects for embeddedness, such as individual and family characteristics, position in the migration cycle, and the role of pre- and post-return assistance. We find that the possibilities for successful return are highly dependent on the living circumstances provided in the host country: returnees who were enabled to engage in work, had access to independent housing and freedom to develop social contacts proved to be better able to exercise agency and maintain self-esteem. Post-return assistance by non-governmental organizations will be particularly helpful when financial support is combined with human guidance and practical information to enhance a more sustainable return process.

Corporate Social Responsibility in Transnational Spaces: Exploring Influences of Varieties of Capitalism on Expressions of Corporate Codes of Conduct in Nigeria

Abstract: Drawing from the varieties of capitalism theoretical framework, the study explores the home country influences of multinational corporations (MNCs) on their corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices when they operate outside their national/regional institutional contexts. The study focusses on a particular CSR practice (i.e. corporate expressions of code of conducts) of seven MNCs from three varieties of capitalism – coordinated (2), mixed (2) and liberal (3) market economies – operating in the oil and gas sector of the Nigerian economy. The study concludes that the corporate codes of conduct of these MNCs operating in Nigeria, to a large extent, reflect the characteristics of their home countries’ model of capitalism, respectively, albeit with certain degree of modifications. The home countries’ model of capitalism is also found to have implications for the degree of adaptability of these MNCs’ CSR practices to the Nigerian institutional context – with the mixed market economy model of capitalism adapting more flexibly than the liberal and coordinated market economies, respectively. The findings of this study will contribute to the emerging literature on the institutional embeddedness of CSR practices in transnational social spaces, understanding of varieties of capitalism, and CSR in developing economies.

Emotions in economic action and interaction

Abstract: How do emotions influence economic action? Current literature recognizes the importance of emotions for economy because they either help individuals perform economic roles through emotion management or enhancement of emotional intelligence, or because they aid rationality through their influence on preference formation. All these strands of research investigate the link between emotions and economy from an atomistic/individualistic perspective. I argue for a different approach, one that adopts a relational perspective, focuses on emotional embeddedness and examines how emotions matter in economic interactions. Emotional embeddedness research starts with a premise that emotions result from and are influenced by interactions between economic actors during the economic process where emotional currents and their visceral and physical manifestations come to the fore. This increases the uncertainty in economic transactions and complicates the given means-ends logic of rational economic decision making, yielding economic action principles different from utility maximization. I propose two types of such creative economic action in this paper: improvisation and situational adaptation. Improvisation characterizes situations where ends (goals) and means are unclear at the beginning of a transaction process and get articulated as a consequence of emotional embeddedness experienced during a process. Situational adaptation characterizes situations in which means or ends of action change because of interaction-induced emotions that prompt actors to choose new means/ends. The article concludes with a call for empirical research that explicates further the influence of emotions not merely for rational economic action but also creative economic interactions.

Young People's Politics and the Micro-Territories of the Local

Abstract: In spite of the late modern interpellation of youth as mobile and globally oriented, and a perception of social and political issues as increasingly playing out in a transnational arena, young Australians exhibit strong local and individualised tendencies in expressing politics. They are bounded by the ‘micro-territories of the local’; that is, their political thinking and acting takes place within the spaces of home, friendship groups, school and neighbourhood. This paper draws on an ARC project with nearly 1000 mainly 15–17-year-old Victorians to examine the relationship between young people's embeddedness in their local worlds and their views of themselves as efficacious political actors. It considers how their competency within such micro-territories opens up neglected sites and strategies for political expression and engagement while limiting their sense of sense of political efficacy, and it asserts the significance of considering this age group, not for what these young people will become in the fu...

It Takes Two: The Interplay of Individual and Group Theology on Social Embeddedness

Abstract: Prior research argues that religious homophily in social networks is a product of overlapping interests and activities unintentionally leading to relationships or the intentional seeking of relationships with people of similar religious beliefs. This article advances research on religious homophily by including the role that exclusive theological beliefs play in explaining religious homophily among friends. We lay out three propositions for individual-, congregational-, and cross-level effects on the relationship between exclusive theology and embeddedness within one's congregation. Using multilevel models and data from the U.S. Congregational Life Survey (USCLS), we find support for our three propositions. We discuss our findings in terms of how exclusive theologies may contribute to bonding forms of social capital, but limit exposure to diverse social perspectives and bridging forms of social capital.

Indigenous Development and the Cultural Captivity of Entrepreneurship

Abstract: We use a critical discussion of contributions by Karl Polanyi and Robert Heilbroner to argue that thinking about entrepreneurship as a potential instrument of relief from endemic poverty and disadvantage, especially amongst the indigenous, has all too often been captive to a concept of entrepreneurship that is built out of constrained economic and cultural assumptions. The result is that approaches to venture have been encouraged that are sometimes a poor fit for the circumstances of those they are meant to benefit, and other forms that could have considerable promise have gone unexplored. We outline some features of indigenous culture, and build upon the analysis of David Harper to construct of notion of entrepreneurship that allows for these distinctive features. We conclude that research, and policy-making, concerning entrepreneurship as an instrument of development among the indigenous need to be undertaken with a re-constructed understanding of entrepreneurship that is a better fit for the realities of indigenous culture.

Collective efficiency, policy inducement and social embeddedness: Drivers for the development of industrial districts

Abstract: Where is the future of traditional industrial districts in global markets where competition is fiercer every day? This paper presents the case of the furniture district of Forli, Italy, as a means to explain the development process, the constraints and the growth prospects that involve this industrial district and, perhaps, a wider variety of districts and SME-based clusters. We hypothesise that development is more likely to be generated when three main drivers, taken from the main bodies of literature on districts and clusters, are taken together: ‘collective efficiency’, ‘policy inducement’ and ‘social embeddedness’. The case study of Forli helps to identify the trajectory of one among many Italian industrial districts and its solutions to deal with the new competition. Yet, our approach highlights some of the main difficulties that this district is facing nowadays and the related challenges for future development. The general lesson derived from this analysis is that traditional ways of regarding clust...

Embeddedness Perspectives of Economic Action within Family Firms

Abstract: Family firms are embedded in social structures that differ substantially from those of nonfamily firms. While these social structures can be sources of strength, they can also lead to dysfunctional consequences. The four papers and three commentaries contained in this special issue on theories of family enterprise deal with the various positive and negative aspects of family involvement in a firm. The purpose of this introduction is to attempt to establish linkages between these papers and to provide further insights on their contributions to knowledge and the directions that future research might take to build upon them.

Gender, Consumption and the Relocalisation of Food: A Research Agenda

Abstract: This article adopts a gendered approach to the study of alternative/local food consumption. Drawing on Allen and Sachs' three analytical domains, the article explores material, sociocultural and embodied conceptualisations of the relationship of women with alternative food consumption. Using original data collected from a study of food relocalisation in the UK, it argues that a gendered perspective that examines responsibilities for food preparation and for provisioning the household is important in understanding the motivation for and implications of decisions to consume local food. Local food consumption often involves consumers in choices over not only what they eat but how they cook, encouraging a move away from processed food and a greater emphasis on raw food and cooking from scratch. Such shifts have a disproportionate effect on women as they are still largely responsible for feeding the household. The article also explores ways in which social pressures around healthy eating and bodily fitness, particularly in relation to children's eating patterns, are increasingly relevant to local food consumption arguing. Again, such pressures fall unequally on different members of the household and are central to a gendered analysis of food consumption.

Motivational, Structural and Tenure Factors that Impact Online Community Photo Sharing

Abstract: In recent years, we have witnessed a significant growth of "social computing" services, or online communities where users contribute content in various forms, including images, text or video. Content contribution from members is critical to the viability of these online communities. It is therefore important to understand what drives users to share content with others in such settings. We extend previous literature on user contribution by studying the factors that are associated with users' photo sharing in an online community, drawing on motivation theories as well as on analysis of basic structural properties. Our results indicate that photo sharing declines in respect to the users' tenure in the community. We also show that users with higher commitment to the community and greater "structural embeddedness" tend to share more content. We demonstrate that the motivation of self-development is negatively related to photo sharing, and that tenure in the community moderates the effect of self-development on photo sharing. Directions for future research, as well as implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Global Production Networks

Abstract: This article positions, outlines, and evaluates an emerging body of work on global production networks (GPNs). GPNs are the globally organized networks of interconnected functions and operations of firms and nonfirm institutions through which goods and services are produced, distributed, and consumed. A key concern of GPN analysis is to explore how the nature of these complex networks affects processes of economic development in the various territories that they interconnect. The framework is operationalized by exploring the interaction of notions of value, power, and embeddedness within the network formations. The article has four sections: first, the theoretical background and context for the GPN approach are reviewed; second, the main conceptual building blocks of GPN analysis are introduced; third, the implications of the framework for understanding (subnational) regional development are considered; and fourth, the most significant challenges facing ongoing research in this area are profiled.

‘City of London, City of Learning’? Placing business education within the geographies of finance

Abstract: The role of highly skilled financiers in shaping the spatialities of financial systems has been widely studied by social scientists. However, comparatively less attention has been paid to the growing use of business education to (re)produce 'highly skilled' financiers throughout the career life-course. In response, in this article, we adopt a cultural economy approach to report on the use of business education by investment banks operating in London's; financial district. Whilst business education in general and MBA degrees in particular are often claimed to facilitate globally mobile economic elites, we argue that the assembling of financial expertise through business education also serves to territorially and societally embed financiers into particular regulatory regimes and organizational cultures. As a result, we suggest that business education represents an important, yet hitherto neglected, set of activities in understanding the continued geographical and organizational heterogeneity of elite financial labour markets. In so doing, we argue that a focus on financial business education demonstrates the value of cultural economy approaches to financial geography and research into the variegated nature of finance capitalism more generally.

Invigorating the content in social embeddedness: an ethnography of life insurance transactions in China.

Abstract: Based on more than 14 months’ ethnographic research in China, this article brings in culture and symbolic interactionism to understand the social embeddedness of economic transactions. First, an analytic frame linking tie strengths to defining principles, relational properties, and interactions is constructed and applied to changes in life insurance transactions in China. The data suggest that strong tie transactions were common until the economic gains of the sellers were made public. The author argues that the ethical‐affective principle that defines strong ties and the high intensity of trust, affection, and asymmetric obligation that constitute these ties make them a double‐edged sword for economic transactions. Instead, ties with midrange or weak strength are more effective because of their relational complementarity (although direct economic exchanges may take place among strong ties under extreme institutional or contingency conditions). The author also reveals that dramaturgical interactions, thro...

East-Central Europe's changing energy landscapes: A place for geography

Abstract: issues that underpin the emergent 'geographies' of energy reform in ECE, as well as their embeddedness in relations of power stemming from organisational, infrastructural and economic inequalities in the region. It employs an analysis of local news reports, policy papers and statistical data to examine the intricate institutional networks and spatial formations that have governed the energy transformation process. In broader terms, the paper aims to emphasise the important role that human geography can play in making sense of the territorial differences and frictions that have emerged during the post-socialist reform process, while challenging the idea of a 'neat' neoliberal transition from a centrally planned to a market-based mode of energy regulation.