Internal Ties Research Articles

The Influence of Contextual Factors on Collective Actions for Locating Facilities with Externalities: Applying the Institutional Collective Action Framework

This study applies the Institutional Collective Action Framework to two cases: proposals for the construction of Taekwondo Park and the location of a nuclear waste dump site in Booahn. While the proposed park caused excessive competition because its benefits were overestimated and its private goods were considered necessary, the proposed nuclear waste site resulted in excessive conflict because of uncertainty about its potential harms and because its public goods were considered unnecessary. The former case showed homogeneity of political power and cooperation based on trust, whereas the latter case showed heterogeneity of political power and conflict based on distrust. Both cases showed politicians` active participation based on their reelection goals and a blocked network structure between central and local governments. Stakeholders in both cases showed strong internal ties with other stakeholders with similar potential political and economic benefits.

Risk-taking and relational perspective on turnover intentions

This study investigated risking-taking and network ties and their impact on an individual's intention to quit from a relational perspective. Using the social identity and social capital as the theoretical foundation, hypotheses were developed to examine how internal instrumental and external ties as well as ties with higher ranked individuals and their association with turnover intention. These hypotheses were empirically tested using data collected from 126 full-time employees in a Chinese setting. The results showed that high risk propensity was positively associated with turnover intention. Not only internal ties that binds, but external networking also matter in turnover decisions.

Spinning the web: New social contacts of Prague’s suburbanites

Suburbanization is one of the most important processes changing the nature of metropolitan regions in Europe’s post-socialist countries. This paper evaluates the importance of social contacts of new suburbanites on local level social cohesion and development. The paper employs examples from empirical research into new suburban communities in the Prague metropolitan region of the Czech Republic. Our results show that both internal and external social ties are developing in such newly built areas, which is important for the well-being of both the neighborhood and the municipality. Internal ties foster the social cohesion of a neighborhood, while external ties encourage development of the whole municipality (e.g., via political participation or informal contacts).

The Role of School Board Social Capital in District Governance: Effects on Financial and Academic Outcomes

Social capital refers to the nature of ties within a social unit, as well as the unit's external relationships. We draw from organizational sociology and political science, and also build upon existing insights in school board research, to offer an approach that address the effects of bonding (internal ties) and bridging (external ties) by board members. We hypothesize that these two sources of social capital are positively associated with financial and academic outcomes at the district level. Results, based on data from 175 Pennsylvania districts between 2004–05 and 2006–07, support our hypotheses. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

When the State Mirrors the Family: The Design of Pension Systems

This paper studies the transmission mechanism from family culture to economic institutions, by analyzing the impact of the within family organization on the original design of the public pension systems. We build a simple OLG model with families featuring either weak or strong internal ties. When pensions systems are initially introduced, in society with strong ties they replicate the tight link between generations by providing earnings related benefits; whereas in societies with weak family ties they only act as a safety net. To test this transition mechanism, we consider Todd (1982) historical classification of family types across countries. We find that in societies dominated by absolute nuclear families (i.e., weak family ties), pension systems act as a flat safety net entailing a large within-cohort redistribution, and viceversa in societies characterized by stronger family ties where pension systems are more generous. This link between the type of families and the design of pension systems is robust to testing for alternative explanations, such as legal origin, religion, urbanization and democratization of the country at the time of their introduction. Interestingly, historical family types matter for explaining the design of the pension systems, which represents a persistent feature, but not their size, which have largely changed over time.

Local R&D Strategies and Multi-Location Firms: The Role of Internal Linkages

This study looks at the role of firms' internal linkages in highly competitive technology clusters, where much of the world’s R&D takes place. The leading players in these clusters are multi-location firms that organize and integrate knowledge across sites worldwide. Strong internal links across locations allow these firms to leverage knowledge for competitive advantage without risking critical knowledge outflow to competitors. We examine whether multi-location firms increase internal ties when they face appropriability risks from direct competitors. Our empirical analysis of the global semiconductor industry shows that when leading firms co-locate with direct market competitors, innovations tend to be quickly internalized, and are more likely to involve collaboration across locations, particularly with inventors from the firm’s primary R & D site. Our results suggest that R&D dynamics in clusters are heavily influenced by multi-location firms with innovative links across locations, and that future research on technology innovation in clusters should account for these links.

Polska kostucha

The author discusses the presence of death in the social public sphere in the context of Polish national identity. She describes the area of popular collective imagination that is part of a broader category: religiousness arising from folk culture. In the Polish public sphere the traditions of death are represented by two trends: the myths of the Passion and Martyrdom. The internal ties of the Polish tribe are sustained by the cult of ancestors and the practice of mourning, the symbol of which is Our Lady of Dolours from the pictures in Częstochowa and Licheń. As a consequence of the dolorous aspect of Polish fundamental tribal emotions people spontaneously organize themselves during religious and national festivals which commemorate the events that entailed a heavy toll of human life. The arche of the Polish death is terror, mourning and redemption by a sacrifice of blood.

Experimental Study on Bond-Strengthening Hooks for RC Beams

This paper presents an experimental investigation of bond-strengthening hooks as a new method to increase bond strength along flexural reinforcing bars in reinforced concrete (RC) beams. The proposed method attempts to increase confining stiffness around the flexural bars by placing U-shaped hooks and to prevent premature bond splitting failure. Ten specimens with different numbers and sizes of hooks were prepared to verify the strengthening effectiveness under monotonic four-point loading. The test results indicated that the hooks increased the bond strength along flexural bars although the strengthening effectiveness was limited by the effective number of anchors of hooks Nbe. This limit is determined by the size of the stress-transmitting zones of the concrete around the anchors of the hooks. The bond-strengthening effectiveness of hooks was found to be equivalent to that of conventional internal ties.

The Limits of Collaboration: A Qualitative Study of Community Ethical Review of Environmental Health Research

We assessed the effectiveness of various systems of community participation in ethical review of environmental health research. We used situation analysis methods and a global workspace theoretical framework to conduct comparative case studies of 3 research organizations at 1 medical center. We found a general institutional commitment to community review as well as personal commitment from some participants in the process. However, difficulty in communicating across divides of knowledge and privilege created serious gaps in implementation, leaving research vulnerable to validity threats (such as misinterpretation of findings) and communities vulnerable to harm. The methods used in each collaboration solved some, but not all, of the problems that hindered communication. Researchers, community spokespersons, and institutional review boards constitute organizational groups with strong internal ties and highly developed cultures. Few cross-linkages and little knowledge of each other cause significant distortion of information and other forms of miscommunication between groups. Our data suggest that organizations designed to protect human volunteers are in the best position to take the lead in implementing community review.

Global careers: a social capital paradox

Global careers, typically defined as involving multiple international relocations including various positions and assignments in several countries, have recently received increasing research attention. This interest is driven by a growing corporate need for managers who are able to deal with global integration and co-ordination in large multinational corporations. An important aspect of the competency of a global manager is his or her social capital, i.e. the network relationships he or she possesses. However, while the concept of social capital has been widely used in a number of research fields recently, it has received relatively little attention thus far in the IHRM context. This paper contributes to this research gap, and seeks to answer the empirical research question of how multiple international relocations affect the social capital of a manager. Our qualitative interviews of 20 Finnish MNC managers with global careers identified that such careers represent a ‘social capital paradox’. Global careers are characterized by a broad and diverse network of both internal and external ties. This breadth and diversity relate to (1) the managers' internal contact networks of weak ties (2) their internal support networks of strong ties and (3) their external networks of both strong and weak ties. These typical characteristics represent three major social capital paradoxes in the sense that they carry both significant social–capital-related benefits as well as potential risks.

Effect of Confinement on the Axial Performance of Fibre Reinforced Polymer Wrapped RC Column

The combined effect of internal steel ties and external FRP wrap was investigated using nine reinforced concrete columns with varying thickness of external wrap. The load, deflection and lateral expansions were studied at yield state and ultimate state. The results from the experimental investigations were used for performing a multi-variate linear regression analysis incorporating the contribution of tie spacing as a term. The predictions of the regression equation agreed well with the experimental results and showed sensitive difference in compressive strength for changes in tie spacing.

La sincronizzazione multimediale come risorsa per l'e-learning

A multimedia synchronization, or time-based hypermedia, is a multimedia artefact whose design and interpretation is determined by time and space variables; they are directly involved to draw the structure, as internal ties to the product and to its interpretation. From a terminological contextualization, this contribution focuses on the innovative value of the synchronization, according to a communicative and technological point of view. The analysis of some proposed models considers its implications and affordances within on line education, and demonstrates the possibility to recover a narrative thought from a time and space-based structure. The analysis – also the semiotic one – considers the role of technology (Flash, SMIL) and the interactions between the internal time of each medium and the whole synchronization. As a results, it helps to observe how the interaction of heterogeneous media and their inference increase the different learning levels, allowing therefore a customized and fl exible approach to contents. In e-learning you can use the synchronization to produce contents; its added value arises from integrating the communicative affordances of many media interacting in one single context and from creating new learning models.

Multilateral airline alliances: Balancing strategic constraints and opportunities

This paper explores multilateral airline alliances through the lenses of structural holes and network closure. The structural holes theory sees network ties as opportunities linking together separate network segments through brokers and weak ties. The opposing view argues that network closure would generate superior “social capital” and thus superior “economic rent” as we would have more trust, reputation and cooperation within a closed group with strong internal ties. We discuss these theories in the context of multilateral airline alliances and argue that the two concepts in combination advance our ability to explain alliance processes in the airline industry.

Geography: a different sort of discipline?

Debate continues about the inter‐relationships between human and physical geography and their different research and publication practices. Relatively little data about these are available, however. Using an analysis of all publications submitted by UK geographers to the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise, this paper identifies a substantial difference between human and physical geographers in their publication strategies. Most physical geographers place their research papers in specialized inter‐disciplinary journals and make relatively little use of geography outlets: most human geographers, on the other hand, publish in geography journals. Comparisons with other disciplines – in the earth and environmental and social sciences respectively – also identify differences between geographers and their peers. The overall conclusion is that, with regard to research and publication at least, UK geography cannot be presented as a single academic community with strong internal ties, but rather as a conglomerate of separate communities writing for different audiences.

On-line utility tie power factor control

Large industrial operations with internal electrical generation capabilities and parallel utility ties have always worked to control watt and VAr flows across their tie lines. In today's economic climate, the ability to control tie line operation can significantly impact a facility's bottom line. In a power system expansion, Union Camp Corporation's Savannah pulp and paper mill installed a tie line power factor control system that has proven to be reliable and effective. It uses load tap changers on two pairs of utility tie transformers to maintain control within the guidelines of the utility contract. It is implemented by a programmable logic controller (PLC) and other nonproprietary hardware. An analysis of this project illustrates how this scheme can be implemented on simple or complex power systems.

A New Transmission Line Construction Post Type Towers

The new construction described is intended to secure a sturdy and simple tower, not sensitive to irregularities in footing conditions; it is generally applicable where a horizontal arrangement of conductors is feasible. The tower consists of an articulated overhead transverse bridge carrying the conductors and hinged at the tops of the footings. Two or three intermediate towers are used between stabilizer towers. Transverse strength is secured by crossed internal ties and longitudinal stresses are taken up in the stabilizer towers by heavy guys and in the intermediate towers by the ground wires and conductors, which transmit these stresses to the stabilizer towers. The wide base structure thus secured has substantially no resultant uplift on the footings, offering a very large saving in foundation costs. This saving, together with the lesser material and erecting costs and the great ease with which it is adapted to varying ground conditions make this a very economical type of tower.

Abridgment of a new transmission line construction: Post type towers

The new construction described is intended to secure a sturdy and simple tower, not sensitive to irregularities in footing conditions; it is generally applicable where a horizontal arrangement of conductors is feasible. The tower consists of an articulated overhead transverse bridge carrying the conductors and hinged at the tops of the footings. Two or three intermediate towers are used between stabilizer towers. Transverse strength is secured by crossed internal ties and longitudinal stresses are taken up in the stabilizer towers by heavy guys and in the intermediate towers by the ground wires and conductors which transmit these stresses to the stabilizer towers. The wide base structure thus secured has substantially no resultant uplift on the footings, offering a very large saving in foundation costs. This saving, together with the lessening of material and erecting costs, and the great ease with which it is adapted to varying ground conditions, makes this a very economical type of tower.