Elite Organizations Research Articles

Communism on tomorrow street: mass housing and everyday life after Stalin

This fascinating and deeply researched book examines how, beginning under Khrushchev in 1953, a generation of Soviet citizens moved from the overcrowded communal dwellings of the Stalin era to modern single-family apartments, later dubbed khrushchevka. Arguing that moving to a separate apartment allowed ordinary urban dwellers to experience Khrushchev's thaw, Steven E. Harris fundamentally shifts interpretation of the thaw, conventionally understood as an elite phenomenon. Harris focuses on the many participants eager to benefit from and influence the new way of life embodied by the khrushchevka, its furniture, and its associated consumer goods. He examines activities of national and local politicians, planners, enterprise managers, workers, furniture designers and architects, elite organizations (centrally involved in creating cooperative housing), and ordinary urban dwellers. Communism on Tomorrow Street also demonstrates the relationship of Soviet mass and urban planning to international efforts at resolving the housing question that had been studied since the nineteenth century and led to developments in Western Europe, the United States, and Latin America as well as the USSR.

Accounting academic elites: The tale of ARIA

“Golden age” accounting theorists Robert Sterling, George Staubus, Yuji Ijiri and Arthur Thomas joined together to create an elite organisation, the Accounting Researchers International Association (ARIA) in 1974, with its chief instigator Robert “Bob” Sterling serving as its first President. Written correspondence between the early members, in conjunction with oral testimony, suggest that ARIA’s formation was motivated by a desire to protect and advance normative-based research. The early members also shared a mutual zeal for intellectual progress and a common passion to rid accounting practices of its defects. They shared a conviction that bringing together a well-recognised, dedicated group of scholars would create an environment in which individual differences would wilt under the pressure of scholarship.This paper reveals that ARIA’s early members failed to protect and advance their specialist knowledge base—normative theorisation—and their elite position within the scholastic social order. In the social space occupied by these leading normative theorists, strategic errors included the absence of effective strategies to protect ARIA’s reputational system through “reproduction of the corps” (Bourdieu, 1988, p. 84) and to defend themselves against empiricists-cum-positivists’ commitment to revolutionise the academy’s research agenda. The history of ARIA also reveals a fatal inability to create a system of shared dispositions and cognitive structures amongst its early members capable of resisting the propensity towards the “circulation of elites” (Pareto, 1935). The irony of the tale is that, in failing to recognise fully the implications of the empirical revolution in US academic accounting, ARIA recruited the very individuals whose choice of degree school and scholarly pursuits labelled them as academics committed to superseding within the academy the type of scholarship and values that the early members espoused.

Ethnic Elite Organisation and Political Transitions in Nigeria: Ohanaeze Ndigbo in Perspective

Abstract Nigeria has experienced various phases of political regime transitions. Though a lot of studies have been done on these transitions, there has been no systematic study of the roles of ethnic elite socio-political organizations in the transition processes. Where they were studied, organizations were subsumed into civil society and portrayed either as constituting an opposition to political repression or as agents of public accountability. Yet, such organizations are usually composed of ruling and opposition figures. It is against this backdrop the paper attempts to examine the role of Ohanaeze Ndigbo in the Nigeria’s political transitions from 1985 to 2003. Key words : Ethnicity; Ethnic organization; Elitism; Political transitions

Why Do Voters Dismantle Checks and Balances?

Voters often dismantle constitutional checks and balances on the executive. If such checks and balances limit presidential abuses of power and rents, why do voters support their removal? We argue that by reducing politician rents, checks and balances also make it cheaper to bribe or influence politicians through non-electoral means. In weakly-institutionalized polities where such non-electoral influences, particularly by the better organized elite, are a major concern, voters may prefer a political system without checks and balances as a way of insulating politicians from these influences. When they do so, they are effectively accepting a certain amount of politician (presidential) rents in return for redistribution. We show that checks and balances are less likely to emerge when (equilibrium) politician rents are low; when the elite are better organized and are more likely to be able to influence or bribe politicians; and when inequality and potential taxes are high (which makes redistribution more valuable to the majority). We show that the main intuition, that checks and balances, by making politicians “cheaper to bribe,” are potentially costly to the majority, is valid under different ways of modeling the form of checks and balances.

Why Do Voters Dismantle Checks and Balances?

Voters often dismantle constitutional checks and balances on the executive. If such checks and balances limit presidential abuses of power and rents, why do voters support their removal? We argue that by reducing politician rents, checks and balances also make it cheaper to bribe or influence politicians through non-electoral means. In weakly institutionalized polities where such non-electoral influences, particularly by the better organized elite, are a major concern, voters may prefer a political system without checks and balances as a way of insulating politicians from these influences. When they do so, they are effectively accepting a certain amount of politician (presidential) rents in return for redistribution. We show that checks and balances are less likely to emerge when the elite is better organized and is more likely to be able to influence or bribe politicians, and when inequality and potential taxes are high (which makes redistribution more valuable to the majority). We also provide case study evidence from Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela consistent with the model.

Studying and Explanation the Ways of Promotion Corporate Social Responsibility in Universities and Didactic Institutes Case Study: Islamic Azad University, Chalous, Iran

CSR is the sensible and considerable subject in the latest years. In intellectual's belief, it is the most fundamental parameter for survival of every organization. Elite organizations express their commitment to CSR with transparency, respect and responsibility to their beneficiary for their work, they should be sure this commitment is done in organizations. Thus CSR has bilateral benefit. It means both organization and society benefit from moral and integrated approach and beneficiary can judge better about their ability. This investigation emphasizes both conception and significant of CSR and study about economic, social, cultural, legal approach to promote CSR. Components and particles were showed by analytical model, proposes the best ways to arise and arrive the organizational purpose. According to this investigation main question is; 1-How we can promote CSR in the universities and institution's didactic? Social statistic in our investigation includes the member of academic and educational specialist in the Azad university of Chalus branch. Data accumulated by questioner. After assuring reliability and validity, Data analyzed with SPSS software, Although 4 approaches have different roles and all of them are effective. In addition between the opinion of member academic and educational specialist are meaningful and strong relationship.

Free Spaces as Organizational Weapons of the Weak

Free spaces are arenas insulated from the control of elites in organizations and societies. A basic question is whether they incubate challenges to authority. We suggest that free spaces foster collective empowerment when they assemble large numbers of people, arouse intense emotion, trigger collective identities, and enable individuals to engage in costly collective action. We analyze challenges to authority that invite repression: mutinies of regiments in the East India Company’s Bengal Native Army in India in 1857. We take advantage of an exogenous source of variation in the availability of free spaces—religious festivals. We predict that mutinies are most likely to occur at or right after a religious festival and find that the hazard of mutiny declines with time since a festival. We expect community ties to offer alternate avenues of mobilization, such as when regiments were stationed close to the towns and villages from which they were recruited. Moreover, festivals are likely to be more potent instantiations of free spaces when regiments were exposed to an oppositional identity, such as a Christian mission. Yet even free spaces have a limited ability to trigger collective action, such as when the political opportunity structure is adverse and prospective participants are deterred by greater chances of failure. These predictions are supported by analyses of daily event-history data of mutinies in 1857, suggesting that free spaces are an organizational weapon of the weak and not a substitute for dissent.

From Symbolic Violence to Economic Violence: The Globalizing of the Scottish Banking Elite

The financial crisis has raised questions about the role of corporate elites in contemporary organizations. This article follows recent work on organizational elites that argues for critical sociological approaches to the study of such elites, using, for example, Bourdieu’s concept of field, and for studies of elites in contexts outside North America. Applying Bourdieusian concepts such as forms of violence, we look at the particular case of the Scottish banking elite, focusing on changing enactments of violence within that field, from symbolic violence to economic violence. We trace the movement of the Scottish banking elite from the national-traditional to the global and modernized and demonstrate how members of an elite field can operate in the field of power within their own organization and at the same time within a transorganizational field of peer competitors, thus illustrating how a specific national elite has been affected by neoliberal globalization and its crisis.

America's National Parks: The Transnational Creation of National Space in the Progressive Era

The rise of support for national parks in the United States after 1900 occurred amid a transnational circulation of information on the apparent destruction of – or imminent threat to – nature on a global level. Arguments for creating and protecting national parks included preservation of “wild” areas, proto-ecological ideas, and social reformist and economic utilitarian pressures during the Progressive Era. Advocacy for park protection as it developed to 1916 reflected this complex cluster of ideas rather than any clearly articulated concept of wilderness. It was influenced by international sensibilities on the social construction of nature and its putative preservation at the moment of industrialization in Europe and the American Northeast, the intrusion of mechanization into the countryside and, outside the metropolitan centres of the Euro-American world, high imperialism that exposed widespread destruction of nature in Europe's colonies. The case of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society (ASHPS), an elite organization that combined national park, public-park and human-heritage advocacy in a continuum of values, is examined as a transnational conduit for and shaper of these socially constructed ideas in the United States, and as a neglected aspect of Progressive Era development of national parks.

The Inuit Circumpolar Council in an Era of Global and Local Change

For over 30 years, the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) has represented and promoted the interests of Inuit peoples across the circumpolar north. This transnational organization has championed a number of political, cultural, and environmental causes that are important to the Inuit, and raised the profile of Arctic and Inuit issues in multilateral forums such as the Arctic Council and the United Nations. In the words of Poul Krarup, the editor of Sermitsiaq, a leading Greenlandic newspaper: At age 30, most organizations are still trying to define their goals, but the ICC. ..is already a success: it has accomplished everything that was on its original to-do list.' Krarup argues that the ICC is still needed and he seems to envision a role for it as a government watchdog and advocate for social justice. But he also argues that the ICC should focus on economic integration and using climate change as a means of achieving unity founded on a healthy economy.2Krarup is correct in his observations that the ICC has enjoyed considerable political success. These successes have been well documented in the scholarly literature.3 Indeed, the ICC has played a prominent and influential role in multilateral discussions around contentious issues such as climate change, persistent organic pollutants, Arctic security, and regional autonomy. It has also served as forum in which representatives from lnuit regions in four different states can share information, experiences, and best practices on a range of issues that affect their communities. As such, the ICC has become the collective voice of the lnuit in their interactions with each other and with the broader global community. This voice, we have argued elsewhere, has challenged the state-centric status quo and dominant economic ideologies that shape the current world order.4 The traditional knowledge that informs its discourse has also functioned to counter western scientific constructions of the world in which we live.That being said, it would be misleading to suggest that the ICC has not encountered divisions and problems along the way. For many years, the lnuit family was separated by the geopolitical divisions of the Cold War, with the Russian Inuit only becoming active in the organization after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the early 2000s, an editorial in the Nunatsiaq News expressed concern about the rise of violent crime and suicides and criticized the ICC as an elite organization that is out of touch with the social realities of Inuit peoples.5 In the mid-2000s, the Inuit of Alaska, who were the driving force behind the creation of the ICC, seemed to lose interest in circumpolar collaboration once their goals of self-determination had been met. Most recently, the contentious issue of resource development has revealed a range of different opinions and perspectives within the organization on its future direction.6In light of these divisions, it is important that we continue to assess critically the activities and goals of this organization as it attempts to confront such new questions as resource development. In the past, the issues that the ICC has encountered have either been unifying (the threat posed by persistent organic pollutants to the Arctic), manageable (Alaska's temporary lack of interest in circumpolar collaboration), or outside its control (the Cold War). Some issues, such as the social disparities faced by Inuit peoples, have remained unresolved, but not because of a lack of effort by Inuit leaders to draw attention to them. Overall, the ICC was able to weather these issues and, in many cases, emerge stronger as a result. The question is whether the issue of resource development in an era of rapid and dramatic climate change represents a continuation of this trend or a wholly different set of problems that will be neither unifying nor manageable in the long term.Unlike previous issues, resource development is especially contentious because it reveals the tensions between, and the contested nature of, the values that inform this transnational organization. …

Navigating Between Dialogue and Confrontation: Phronesis and Emotions in Interviewing Elites on Ethnic Discrimination

Interviews with political or organizational elites often constitute a valuable source of knowledge about organizational culture, values, and strategies. However, such interviews often confront the researcher with either reluctant or control-seeking respondents, especially for sensitive issues such as human rights and ethnic discrimination, issues that may involve strong emotions. Drawing inspiration from a qualitative methodology focusing on resistance and power, the article argues that in such situations, the interviewer needs to integrate both dialogic and agonistic interview methodologies through phronesis, Aristotle’s concept of practical rationality. A phronetic approach, involving reflections on the link between reason and emotions, is well suited for handling both dialogue and confrontation in the interview process. Empirically, the article draws on interviews with representatives of trade unions and employer organizations on the subject of human rights and ethnic discrimination in the Danish labor market.

The Pithotomy Club: R.I.P.

The Pithotomy Club: R.I.P.

Prophetic at Any Price? Clergy Political Behavior and Utility Maximization*

Objective. I examine the degree to which U.S. clergy might be considered utility maximizers in determining whether to undertake political behavior among their parishioners. Specifically, I investigate whether mainline Protestant clergy elect not to engage in political activities due to a general concern that their behavior might lead to a downturn in parishioner contributions. Methods. Six maximum likelihood models are employed to analyze survey data of clergy in the Presbyterian Church, USA, and the Episcopal Church, USA. Results. Evidence from six maximum likelihood models shows that clergy are less likely to undertake political behavior when this financial motive is in play, suggesting that even religious elites are susceptible to the maximization motive. Conclusions. These results have implications for elites in voluntary organizations more generally. An example is interest group leaders who might be compelled to take the views of their rank-and-file members into account in making policy when group solvency is a concern. Overall, these findings advance the literatures on clergy politics, interest groups, and elite theory, and recommend a reexamination of the general assumptions about elite influence in organizational settings—both religious and secular.

Corporate Citizenship and Urban Problem Solving: The Changing Civic Role of Business Leaders in American Cities

ABSTRACT:Our concern in this article is corporate civic elite organizations and their role in social production and urban policy in the United States. Recent urban literature has suggested that the power and influence of CEO organizations has declined and that there has been some disengagement of corporate elites from civic efforts in many urban areas. Yet while these trends and their likely consequences are generally acknowledged, relatively little empirical research has been conducted on the nature and extent of the shifts in corporate civic leadership and on how these shifts have affected the civic agendas of central cities and metropolitan regions. In this study we obtain data from 19 large metropolitan areas in order to more systematically examine shifts in corporate civic leadership and their consequences. Our results suggest that the institutional autonomy, time, and personal connections to the central cities of many CEOs have diminished and that the civic organizations though which CEOs work appear to have experienced lowered capacity for sustained action. These trends suggest that while many CEOs and their firms will continue to commit their time and their firms’ slack resources to civic enterprises, the problems they address will differ from those tackled in the past. We discuss the important implications these shifts have for the future of corporate civic engagement in urban problem solving and for the practice of urban governance.

Soviet legacies in post-Soviet Russia: insights from crisis management

This paper singles out elements of continuity in the Russian path to development and growth after transformation to market under the assumption that Soviet legacies have a bearing on current policies and provide some insights as to how the Russian market system may develop in the future. Drawing from the development and the specifics of the financial crisis in Russia, the paper focuses on the frame of mind, behaviour, goals and means of Russian policy-makers that are reminiscent of Soviet formal and informal institutions and may have an impact on post-crisis developments and structures. A sui generis corporate state is emerging, the basic features of which range from the complex of the great power and belief in the state as a driver of growth to secrecy, mutual distrust, lack of transparency and accountability, and efforts to increase command on resources. The seeds of a Russian-style corporate state that emerged in the early 2000s with the creation of goskorporatsii are reinforced by economic slow-down and Russia-specific market failures. Competition for power – the President versus the Premier – may help strengthen the demand from below for a stronger state and limited property rights. Retrenchment from competition, openness to Foreign Direct Investment and commitment to entry into the WTO expose the country to the risk of prolonged technological backwardness and possible regression to a society where private elite organisations are closely tied to the state and institutions are subservient to the leadership: a framework highly unsuitable for modernisation and growth.

ORGANIZING CONTESTS FOR STATUS: THE MATTHEW EFFECT VERSUS THE MARK EFFECT.

The article presents management science research on competition between individuals within the same organization for status. A mathematical model is created to assess the value of two means to manage such competition, which are termed the Effect, in which status rewards are disproportionately distributed to the high end of the competition, and the in which they are distributed more evenly. Empirical testing of the models is said to find that while the Mark Effect creates better social welfare outcomes in most cases, competitions within elite organizations perform better under the Matthew Effect.

Who Does an Elite Organization Emulate?

We advance theories of the diffusion of innovations by examining the structure of emulation that emerged in one bank's benchmarking program. Prestigious firms and firms linked to the bank through executive migration were disproportionately likely to be recruited as benchmarking partners and, once visited, to be highly influential. Firms tied to the bank by board interlocks and geographic proximity were neither overrepresented nor influential. The bank also paid modest attention to other financial service providers, particularly rival money centers. These relationships hold net of area-specific recognition for excellence, which promotes attention but not influence, and financial performance, which affects neither. We emphasize the way organizational identity and decision-making processes activate and deactivate network ties as potential channels of innovation diffusion.

From Streets to Suites: How the Anti- Biotech Movement Affected German Pharmaceutical Firms

How do social movements affect decisions within corporations, such as the commercialization of new technologies? We suggest that the effect of movement activism is conditioned by the internal polity and therefore varies across organizations. This article examines how the anti-genetic movement in Germany during the 1980s affected six domestic pharmaceutical firms' commercialization of biotechnology. We develop a process model of how movements penetrate the relatively closed polity of private organizations. External contestation weakened the position of internal champions of biotechnology, precipitated divisions among organizational elites, and undermined collective commitment to the technology. The movement also increased perceptions of investment uncertainty, but the consequences of this uncertainty depended on organizational logics of decision making. As a result, investments in some firms were tilted away from domestic biotechnology projects. The model also explains this variation in organization-level outcomes of movement contestation.

Methodological Dilemmas and Opportunities in Interviewing Organizational Elites

AbstractThis article discusses the challenges and opportunities encountered in interviewing organizational elites. Drawing on a wide range of experiences in elite interviewing, I offer suggestions for gaining access to elites, controlling the interview, obtaining the highest‐quality interview data, and writing effectively about those data. I also discuss the ‘dilemma of seduction’ that can occur in elite interviewing and suggests ways to both present and critique the worldview of elites when writing about qualitative interviews.

Stigma and Settling Up: An Integrated Approach to the Consequences of Organizational Misconduct for Organizational Elites

In this article, I address the question of the apportionment of the consequences of organizational misconduct to individual members of the organizational elite. I argue that this process can be best understood by marrying the behavioral aspects of stigma theory to the economic mechanisms of ex post settling up. Viewed in conjunction with stigmatization, ex post settling up following organizational misconduct can be seen as the result of attempts to avoid stigma by association. Efforts at stigma avoidance on the parts of various stakeholders produce the diminished social interaction associated with ex post settling up: departure from the focal firm, and loss of seats on other boards. This also suggests that the process of stigmatization, and hence ex post settling up, can be influenced by characteristics of social interaction unrelated to the misconduct itself.