Association Of Institutions Research Articles

Review of the recruitment process for a large investigator-initiated trial in early Parkinson\u2019s disease

IntroductionOrganizing and executing a large clinical trial is a complex process, and often recruitment targets are not met. We describe the organization of the Levodopa in the Early Parkinson’s disease (LEAP) trial and the results of an external assessment of the recruitment process.MethodsSeveral strategies were used to ensure that recruitment for the trial was effective and efficient. We analyzed the patterns in referrals, inclusions, and non-inclusions to investigate whether there were bottlenecks in the referral and inclusion process. For the external assessment of the recruitment process, the QuinteT Recruitment Intervention (QRI-Two) was used retrospectively, focusing on finding possible issues impeding recruitment that are less easily recognized.ResultsRecruitment took 57 months, which was 27 months longer than initially expected. 6.8% of the estimated eligible patients in the Netherlands were included. The number of referrals differed widely between participating centers and regions in the Netherlands, with the region of the principal study center having the most referrals. Reasons of exclusion varied across regions, as in some regions more patients already started, wanted to start, or did not want to start with Parkinson medication compared to other regions.DiscussionExecuting a large, investigator-initiated clinical trial on a limited budget still remains possible by focusing on minimizing administrative and organizational procedures. Our study suggests that centers with closer institutional ties to a principal study center tend to have a higher referral rate. The review of the LEAP trial recruitment strategies and data using the QRI-Two suggested that the variations in referrals and reasons of non-inclusion could indicate the presence of issues related to clinical equipoise, patient eligibility, or study presentation. Integrating a recruitment intervention could have explored issues with study presentation and equipoise that might have increased recruitment efficiency.Trial registrationISRCTN ISRCTN30518857. The registration was initiated on 02/08/2011 and finalized on 25/08/2011. Recruitment started on 17/08/2011, after the initiation of public registration.

Cross-Border Higher Education: The Expansion of International Branch Campuses

The international expansion of higher education has intensified in recent decades with a rapidly growing number of international branch campuses appearing on the scene. This study investigates the economic, cultural and institutional, and educational determinants of transnational higher education on both the extensive margin (number of international branch campuses), and the intensive margin (the total number of educational programmes offered). Using the gravity equation, we applied fixed-effect empirical methods to a panel dataset that combined and extended the raw data from campuses and master’s programmes in 33 source countries and 76 host countries in the period from 1948 to 2016. Estimates reveal that although cultural, economic and institutional ties foster cross-border educational relationships, their effect differs significantly from one margin to another. The study highlights the relevance of globalisation, research activities, and aggregate demand in international higher education.

Social support networks for women in situation of intimate partner violence.

to analyze the possibilities of support that the social support network offers to women in situations of intimate partner violence. qualitative research anchored in Sanicola's social network framework. A total of 21 women attended at a specialized social assistance service in Porto Velho-Rondônia, Brazil, participated in a semi-structured interview. the analysis of network maps showed that the secondary social support network mobilized had a central character in the lives of women in situations of violence. These women sought the third sector's secondary network, the churches, from which they received emotional-affective and spiritual support. understanding the social network setting and the type of support offered can contribute to improving care for women and strengthening interpersonal and institutional ties that help in the search for breaking the situation of violence.

Measuring Political Trust in a Modern Democracy

Systematic review of articles on the problem of measuring political trust published in such authoritative scientific journals as “European Political Science Review”, “British Journal of Politics and International Relations”, “Parliamentary Affairs”, “Journal of Public Policy”, “Political Science Quarterly”, “Perspectives on Politics” and “International Journal of Public Opinion Research”, demonstrates considerable attention of scientists to the problem of political trust in a modern democracy and pursues as its goal the development of a methodological basis for political trust research. The methodology of the review on the problem of measuring political trust involves a comparative analysis of the results of studies in the field of assessing political trust. Among the main tasks of the article are: generalization of scientific approaches to political trust, development of methods for political trust measurements and its result interpretation, characterization of the crisis of trust in a modern democracy. The objectives of the study include identifying conceptual scientific works of Western scientists for the period 2011–2021, which allow tracing the modernization of ideas about the object of political trust, characterize the methods of measuring the level of political trust used in modern socio-political science, and reveal differences in the formation of moral and strategic trust. The differences in moral political trust, where trusting relationships are formed on the basis of the experience and personal interaction of subjects, and strategic trust, where political culture is formed and certain expectations that political leaders will make correct, rational decisions are based on fundamental ideas about the political an order where constant change forms personal and institutional ties. Measuring political trust, which is the basis of interaction between citizens and the state, is an issue of fundamental importance for characterizing the quality of democracy, and the rule of law is impossible without a high level of political trust.

Organización social y relaciones de cooperación para el cuidado infantil en una población rural del Noroeste Argentino

We describe relationships and resources involved in the social organization of childcare in a rural community, based on qualitative data obtained within the framework of an ethnographic research. Social support for caretaking comes mainly from parental ties, intergenerational and intragender cooperation and complementarity, and to a lesser extent, from domestic and institutional ties, the choice of which combines personal attributes, location, accessibility and trust. Evidence is provided on strategies and forms of social organization of sectors of the population that have been scarcely studied to serve as a basis for public policies to address diverse lifestyles.

Homicides among youths: local sociabilities in fostering lethal interpersonal aggression

This paper seeks to understand why interpersonal aggressions that lead to homicides in young people can be tolerated, claimed or acclaimed in the contexts of sociability in which they occur. The methodology developed was qualitative, namely it sought to document and analyze the meanings and experiences of the actors from their perspectives. The field work was carried out with young men from popular sectors that inhabit six municipalities in the Buenos Aires suburbs between 2014 and 2017. Among the results, we argue that empowerment of lethal aggressions is linked to a reduction in youth sociability in peer groups with strong territorial inks. This reduction is expressed as a consequence of the weakness of family, work and institutional ties in shaping the social experience of young people. In peer groups, responses to insults can be valued not only as a way of intervening in conflicts, but also as a source of belonging and social recognition. We conclude that these reduced sociabilities express socio-political inequalities that contribute to homicide being an exceptional event with recurrent spaces for interaction.

Job autonomy, unscripted agility and ambidextrous innovation: analysis of Brazilian startups in times of the Covid-19 pandemic

PurposeThis study aims to analyze the influence of job autonomy and unscripted agility on ambidextrous innovation in startups in times of the Covid-19 pandemic.Design/methodology/approachA survey was conducted with founders and managers of Brazilian startups in the e-commerce segment, resulting in a sample of 84 startups. Symmetric (structural equation modeling) and asymmetric (fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis) analyses were performed. The variables' external financing and institutional ties were controlled.FindingsThe symmetric findings indicate that unscripted agility is a full mediator between job autonomy and ambidextrous innovation. The asymmetric findings offer two solutions for startups to achieve high ambidextrous innovation.Research limitations/implicationsThe implications of the research for the literature are discussing elements associated with ambidextrous innovation, exploring the context of innovation in startups in times of crisis, specifically in the Covid-19 pandemic, and considering the role of resilience in startups.Practical implicationsThe study provides informational inputs to founders and managers of startups on how job autonomy and unscripted agility can propel incremental and radical innovations.Originality/valueThis study provides new insights and success factors into startups, based on the discussion of entrepreneurship in times of crisis, as in the case of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Fragmented governance architectures underlying residential property production in Amsterdam

While the entrepreneurialisation of local administrations is widely acknowledged, the extent and format of institutional and organisational structures that accompany market-oriented ideological shifts and transitions in urban governance often remain unnoticed. This article provides an original theoretical argument and frame of analysis to forensically study the underlying infrastructures of entrepreneurial governance systems. We argue that complex institutional and organisational arrangements in market-oriented urban development can be comprehended through fragmented governance architectures, a conceptual perspective that we borrowed from governance studies and operationalised in relation to property development. We illustrate the application of the framework by examining entrepreneurial transformations in Amsterdam’s residential property production. Based on rich empirical evidence, including discourse analysis, policy analysis and in-depth interviews with key policy and property industry actors, we illuminate divergent public-sector regulation of market activities, intra-organisational discrepancies, and fuzzy narratives in policy interventions which are tied to specific spatial interventions mushrooming in the city. Uncoordinated and sometimes contradictory institutional ties link public and private actors in these property production processes, forming a complex and chaotic landscape of regulations, actors, and relations. This fragmentation, we posit, warrants recognition as it lies at the heart of scattered investments in the urban built environment.

A network perspective on foreign entry modes of small knowledge-intensive services firms

PurposeIntegrating network attributes from studies of social networks, business relationships and small- to medium-sized enterprise (SME) internationalization, this study adopts a perceptual view of a firm’s focal “net” of relationships to examine foreign market entry mode choice. This study aims to examine how the interaction between knowledge-intensive service (KIS) firm’s network ties, embeddedness and position is related to choice of mode and subsequently the firm’s perceived insidership status within its focal net.Design/methodology/approachThis research is based on qualitative interviews with 25 small- to medium-sized KIS firms engaged in direct exporting or foreign direct investment (FDI). This study derives an empirically grounded framework of four distinct network patterns of these KIS firms through an iterative process of triangulation between cases and theory.FindingsThe four network patterns illustrate the complex interaction between network attributes and entry mode choice by KIS firms. The findings suggest formal ties and centrality in closed network relationships provide the “central controller” firm discretion over their entry mode choice. Resource-intensive FDI by “opportunistic investors” proved essential to securing centrality through formal, institutional ties. Less optimal patterns lacking institutional ties and centrality, however, precluded choice of FDI by “specialized exporters” and “client followers.” The study finds that entry modes are less likely to be influenced by the firm’s embeddedness in open or closed network relationships, but rather by the desire to achieve a more central network position and legitimacy through more formal, less imitable ties.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings demonstrate the importance of network structure, a position of centrality, and strength of professional and institutional ties to small KIS firm internationalization. By adopting a more finely grained examination of the interaction between key attributes of the firm’s focal net, this study provides a valuable first step in conceptualizing the complexities associated with networking and adoption of export/investment internationalization modes.Practical implicationsThere are a number of implications for the strategic and operational facets of smaller KIS firm internationalization. To avoid excessive network liability for resource-deficient SMEs, practitioners should consider network positioning as a strategic activity, with the costs associated with building and maintaining networks offset against economic- and resource-related returns.Originality/valueThe authors contribute to a better understanding of entry mode choices of KIS by taking a network perspective that accounts for the combined effects of different network attributes. The four network patterns identified extend current theoretical knowledge on the role of networks for entry mode choices of small KIS by highlighting that entry mode choices reflect the particular firm’s focal net and its attempt to achieve insidership status through high centrality and formal ties.

Le fil institutionnel en période Covid : utilisation de la plateforme Discord au CMPA

The COVID crisis led hospitals to reorganize care services and to develop innovative strategies to provide care at a distance. In our health care and education centre for adolescents, which provides both long-term psychiatric care and high school education, inpatients and outpatients were mostly confined at home. In order to ensure continuity of care as well as maintain institutional ties, different communication tools were used. Among them, we particularly relied upon Discord (social network initially designed for gamers) which allowed us to set up an entire virtual ward, maintain individual and group care programmes as well as team meetings. This innovation generated a number of preliminary questions and precautions which guided our decisions regarding the server settings. The outcome of this experiment is globally positive, both quantitatively and qualitatively, even if care at a distance showed its limits. Despite the involvement and creativity of health professionals, the confinement period disrupted and even led to the discontinuation of some care projects.

Contested Indigeneity and Traditionality in Environmental Litigation: The Politics of Expertise in Regional Human Rights Courts

ABSTRACT In times when intricate concerns for social and ecological justice are becoming ever more prominent in global environmental discourses, conflicts between minorities’ rights and environmental policies present delicate trade-offs that demand ingenious balancing by regional human rights courts. Such conflicts tend to boil down to oppositions between ‘indigenous’ or ‘traditional’ practices set against ‘modern’ ideals, thereby displaying and performing important normative, epistemic and political implications. To legitimise and strengthen their cases, parties resort to expert interventions. While the involvement of experts speaking on behalf of minorities can bolster the communities’ legal protection, the shared assumptions, rhetorical style and professional sensibility of intervening experts can trigger unintended consequences for the identity and (self-)perception of the peoples they represent. The case-law analysis presented here instantiates how networks of experts with shared institutional ties intervene before courts, use specific discursive strategies to further their representatives’ claims and reinforce the normative salience of their interventions through cross-jurisdictional and cross-cultural referencing. Drawing on insights from discourse analysis, (legal) anthropology and cultural geography, the article develops a critique of the politics of expert-based approaches to conflict management in regional human rights settings.

Inter-Community Cooperation at a Regional Level: Methods of Assessing Migration and Institutional Ties

The article reveals the assessing methods of inter-community cooperation at the regional level regarding its migration and institutional ties. The recommendations on the assessment of inter-municipal relations are focused on the development of appropriate strategies for cooperation between local communities. The article defines the algorithm of analysis and evaluation of inter-municipal relations. The essence and peculiarities of the relevant stages of cooperation are examined and revealed. The components of the assessment of inter-municipal relations and methods of their definition are offered. The matrix and the corresponding coefficients of inter-municipal ties are examined.

THE CONCEPT OF ORGANIZATIONAL AND INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GREEN ECONOMY

The European green course has influenced the introduction of a "green" economy, the implementation of which requires the application of processes and procedures that will ensure the activities of the enterprise in agriculture in accordance with the developed national strategy and goals. Such a system, expressed through the organizational and institutional support of the green economy, will achieve the set economic, social and environmental goals and adhere to measures to meet the needs of future generations. Accordingly, the aim of the article was to reveal the peculiarities of the conceptualization of organizational and institutional support for the development of a "green" economy in agriculture. During the writing of the article in the process of research dialectical methods of scientific knowledge of the process of ensuring the development of green economy in agriculture, first of all analysis and synthesis, were used. Induction and deduction methods were also used to characterize the organizational and institutional parts of the provision. The study found that the system of organizational and institutional support of the "green" economy combines various interdisciplinary aspects of economic, social, environmental and institutional components for the organization of activities under the European Green Course, the National Concept of Green Transition, National Environmental Policy Strategy and others regulations. Institutional support for the development of the green economy is responsible for the formation of appropriate formal and informal institutions that will create conditions for further activities to achieve the goals. In general, institutional ties are just forming. Accordingly, the system of organizational and institutional support of the "green" economy, which combines various interdisciplinary aspects of economic, social, environmental and institutional components for organizing activities on the main objectives of the "European Green Course" and the national concept of "green" transition and "green" energy will not be formed. Also, the institutional component of the green economy is not yet fully formed and is in the process of formation, and the development of components of both organizational and institutional direction depend on each other. These systems highlighted the main points of organizational and institutional support of the green economy in agriculture and helped to reveal the main components of this process.

Sino-Russian rapprochement and Greater Eurasia: From geopolitical pole to international society?

Can international anarchy be stabilized, if not globally, then at least regionally? Those scholars who give a positive answer usually refer to the North Atlantic community which can be categorized as an international society from the viewpoint of the English school. The emergence of such a community outside the West is traditionally considered hardly possible. However, this article argues that it may already be emerging in Eurasia, with Russia and China being the key drivers of this trend. In the past few years, these two powers have put forward a number of major initiatives aimed at developing transport networks and logistics, and deepening economic and institutional ties between different parts of the continent. These include but are not limited to Eurasian Economic Union, supported by Russia, and China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Together, Moscow and Beijing began to form a new platform for security and economic cooperation “from Kaliningrad to Shanghai”—the community of Greater Eurasia. Based on the analysis of the geopolitical logic of these initiatives, this article suggests that a new, non-Western international society may be forming in Eurasia among the states with different political systems and cultures, but common geopolitical aims and fears.

“I Wish There Was a Treaty We Could Sign”: An Inquiry into the Making of the Global Pact for the Environment

This article provides ethnographic insights into the making of the latest UN-backed instrument for transnational environmental law and governance: the Global Pact for the Environment (GPE). It narrates the rise and fall of a contemporary policy project designed to unify and strengthen international environmental law. The story starts in 2015 on the premises of a Parisian legal think tank and ends in May 2019 at the headquarters of the United Nations Environment Programme in Nairobi, where states ultimately decided not to adopt the GPE as a legally binding instrument but opted to prepare a political declaration to be presented in 2022 at the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the UN Conference on the Human Environment. The time between 2015 and 2019 is divided in two periods. From 2015 to 2017, the GPE was imagined, drafted, and promoted by a group of non-state actors mainly constituted by legal academics. From 2017 to 2019, the GPE was introduced in the UN machinery and turned into a state-oriented policy process. Based on original interview material and an unexplored archive of primary sources, the article traces the multiplicity of actants enrolled in the GPE, the interests that held them together, and the institutional ties they built for the project to materialize. It draws on actor-network theory's model of translation—through problematization, interessement, enrolment, and mobilization—to reassemble the bonds between human and nonhuman actants in the making of the "global," the "pact," and the "environment." The account sheds light on the informal processes and the relational and agential dynamics at play in this laboratory of transnational environmental lawmaking, thereby illuminating and questioning the politics of policy-entrepreneurship and consensusbuilding—the tenuous and fragile modes of existence that mark contemporary international law.

ИСТОРИЯ ЦЕНТРА СОВРЕМЕННОГО ИСКУССТВА НА ЯКИМАНКЕ. АРХИВНАЯ ОПТИКА

The history of the Center for Contemporary Art on Yakimanka is analyzed through the prism of archival documents that are stored in the Media Library of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. The investigation of the all types of the archival documents allows us to consider the Centre for contemporary art not as an art institution but as the embodiment of the “artistic tusovka”. This term was suggested by Victor Misiano. The magnitude of the exhibition and other art projects that were created in the Center (the newspaper of contemporary art “Vernisage”, the magazine “Artograph”, the Curators’ workshop, Visual Anthropology workshop, etc.) confirms this hypothesis. Despite the weak institutional ties that characterize artistic tusovka, the Centre became one of the important milestones in the development of contemporary Russian art.

People, Armies, Peoples: Tolstoy and the Subject of War

The article is devoted to the politics of war as described by Leo Tolstoy in War and Peace. Tolstoy overturns Carl Clausewitz’ interpretation of war as a “continuation of politics,” paradoxically generalizing and radicalizing one of his theses: the provisions on the “superiority of a defensive strategy” over an offensive strategy. As Tolstoy understands it, defensive strategy is transformed into a negative one that questions the understanding of power and its origin (arche), both in terms of attitude toward the commanding authority and in terms of the impact of individual will on the course of history. Through reflection on the significance of partisan warfare as a privileged form of people’s warfare, this leads to a negative rethinking of the idea of how the “people” and “army” are conjoined. In the final analysis, the “people,” acting as a fundamental historical force that manifests itself in a war for liberation or a struggle for the common good loses its metaphysical characteristics as a subject. However, its communal essence and the truth about politics beyond politics, or at its extreme boundaries where institutional ties disappear, comes to the surface symbolically in the providential meeting between Pierre Bezukhov and Platon Karataev. But this fragile experience forms and symbolizes the vital element that establishes the community of the people apart from any private interests and institutions.

Corporate sustainability strategies in institutional adversity: Antecedent, outcome, and contingency effects

AbstractThis study examines (i) how top‐level managerial institutional ties drive corporate sustainability strategies of emerging market firms operating under conditions of institutional adversity; (ii) the impact of corporate sustainability strategies on market performance; and (iii) the moderating role of financial resource slack on the relationships between corporate sustainability strategies and market performance. The study builds from institutional development logic and the structure–conduct–performance paradigm. Primary data are collected from 300 firms operating in a major sub‐Saharan African market. Findings show that top‐level managerial institutional linkages with regulatory national governmental officials, local community leaders, and top managers at other firms drive corporate proactive and responsive sustainability strategies, which in turn influence market performance. In addition, the findings reveal that financial resource slack strengthens the path between corporate proactive sustainability strategies and market performance, but not the path between corporate responsive sustainability strategies and market performance. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Support and barriers in long-term recovery after Hurricane Sandy: improvisation as a communicative process of resilience

ABSTRACT This study examines the long-term recovery and resilience processes of households on the New Jersey coast after Hurricane Sandy. Based on theoretical frameworks of community ecology, communication ecology, and the Communication Theory of Resilience, we analyzed focus group interviews and timeline data to examine the sources and forms of support and barrier and provide a detailed account of the ways in which individuals engaged with support and barrier sources. Results show that resilience was enacted through the process of mobilizing and improvising networks of informal and institutional ties, sometimes joining them, to access resources. Communicative processes were central to improvisation, and ineffective communication and coordination constituted a majority of barriers in accessing social support for recovery. Results also detail how processes varied temporally. This study contributes to the literature on resilience as a communicative process, with improvisation at its core, that is enacted through interacting informal, institutional, and physical systems in communities.

How do managerial ties influence the effectuation and causation of entrepreneurship in China? The role of entrepreneurs’ cognitive bias

ABSTRACT Drawing on social cognitive theory and social network theory, this study investigates the relationships between managerial ties, entrepreneurs’ cognitive bias, and the effectuation and causation of behavioural modes of entrepreneurship. It uses structural equation modelling to analyse a sample of 214 entrepreneurs in China. The empirical results indicate that business ties lead entrepreneurs to use effectual approaches by prompting the entrepreneurs’ overconfidence, whereas institutional ties enable entrepreneurs to use both causation and effectuation by prompting the entrepreneurs’ illusion of control. This study delineates how different types of managerial ties affect causation and effectuation through different cognitive mechanisms.