Analysis Of Institutional Structure Research Articles

Institutional innovations in the Forest industry in Russia: a case study of Irkutsk province

Abstract Multiple global changes are impacting Russia today. Economic transformations in Russia have prompted the establishment of new business relations, which are based on innovations in the economic, institutional and ecological spheres, including within the Forest industry. This paper focuses on the Forest sector in Irkutsk province and beyond, examining the basic problems related to the institutional innovations in the Forest industry of the province, and the major factors and conditions influencing the dynamics of institutional innovations. A brief historical background and analysis of institutional structures are also presented.

Action and institution, network and function: The cybernetic concept of social structure

A program of research on the formal representation and analysis of institutional structures is taken a step further by integrating it with recent developments in the formal representation of hierarchical levels of inclusion or part-whole relations. We begin by reviewing a cybernetic conception of action and show how this relates to the construction of production system models of institutional structures. Thereafter, we treat the inclusion hierarchy to show how the production rule constitutes the conceptual unit integrating social knowledge and social action upon which are built two hierarchies, involving institutional entities and social networks, respectively. We indicate some of the detailed forms of control involved in these hierarchies and then show how a form of functional analysis can be undertaken on this basis. Finally, we provide a lengthy discussion of the promise and problems of this mode of structural analysis.

Role-Programme Models and the Analysis of Institutional Structure

Our aim is the development of a formal basis for the analysis of institutional structure. While the concept of an institution is a central one in sociology, there has been much doubt about its analytical utility (Buckley, 1967: 161). The notion of a role-programme model, set out and discussed in this paper, appears to offer a precise analytical version of the institution concept. Its formal basis rests on representational techniques developed in information science. The approach is presented and exemplified with reference to a common institution, the restaurant, specifically waitress-customer interaction patterns, and its main implications for the analysis of institutional structure are discussed.