Organizational Logic Research Articles

“Paired competition”: A new mechanism for the innovation of urban grassroots governance

In recent years, the focus of urban grassroots governance in China has experienced a fundamental change in direction from economic growth to public service and social management. Economic growth can be easily quantified, while public service and social management cannot, thus performance evaluation is largely dependent on “impression-based results”. Under such circumstances, a new mechanism of “paired competition” has been put in place to pair superior vertical lines of authority ( tiao) with subordinate horizontal levels of grassroots governments ( kuai) on a voluntary basis. Pairs compete with other pairs in areas of public services and social management. Paired competition can facilitate close cooperation between the tiao side and the kuai side, promote innovation, and generate quick “impression-based results”. However, the mechanism also generates negative incentives, which lead to excessive innovation and the reluctance to adopt good practices on the part of rival pairings. The case study detailed here is that of a “community analysis tool” promoted by the civil affairs bureau of “district A” in a major Chinese city. In addition to examining the organizational and operational logic of “paired competition”, this study also compared “paired competition” with the traditional methods of the “promotion tournament competition” and “special-purpose project system”.

Revisiting Anita Desai’s Fiction: Tracing Generational Relevance towards a Third Culture/Third Space Spectrum

The paper attempts to trace the generational relevance of produced fiction by Anita Desai (b. 1937) towards the possibility of locating third culture subjectivity and the scope of the third space spectrum. The association ranges from the character aesthetics to strategic spatial intervention in her fiction, and the scope of extending the same to new pressures of readership pertaining to constantly mobile and restructured locales. The world around shows signs of disintegration of the individual vis-a-vis dislocation, migration, and dynamic forms of locomotion. It is, therefore, imperative that the modern Indian-English novel should seek new techniques to articulate the experienced inner and outer realities, merging textuality, spatiality, and subjectivity. Desai's preoccupation with the individual highlights their psychological motivations, identity constructs, organizational logic of family institutions, disintegration, sense of failure, the absence to offer a clear binary, and her keen awareness of the futility of existence radiates from most of her novels. The paper tries to fathom such possibilities through analyses of her major fiction into a third culture spectrum, which may serve as a major constituent to tackle her oeuvre and accommodate her major themes.

Multi-Criteria Optimization for Governmental Projects Priority Ranking Depending on Fuzzified Experts’ Opinion using Hygiene Approach

Each organization struggles to exploit each possible opportunity for gaining success and continuing with its work carrier. In this field, organization success can be concluded by fulfilling end user requirements combined with optimizing available resources usage within a specified time and acceptable quality level to gain maximum profit. The project ranking process is governed by the multi-criteria environment, which is more difficult for the governmental organization because other organizations' main target is maximizing profit constrained with available resources. The governmental organization should consider human, social, economic and many more factors. This paper focused on building a multi-criteria optimizing projects ranking framework using hygiene methodology from sequential stages. The proposed framework can deal with numerical and linguistic criteria considering experts, or consultant evaluation on projects, in addition to criteria weights. Fuzzy logic and Preference Ranking Organization Method for Enrichment of Evaluations (PROMETHEE) methods are used to control the ranking process within a limited allocated budget. The importance of the proposed approach is making projects ranking getting out from dependence on economic measures that govern the overall process to non – measurable criteria that affect organization success and the proposed projects selection process.

A distributed model of collective creativity in free play

A group of children engaged in collective free play can spontaneously create new rules, learn to follow them, or find opportunities to break established ones. This rule-playing can be considered as a specific manifestation of the more general phenomenon of collective creativity. In behavioral sciences, collective creativity is often discussed as a collection of individuals each being creative. An alternative perspective views collective creativity as a distributed phenomenon: collective creativity is not a property of individual agents but rather, it emerges from the interactions within a group. Approaching free play as a case of distributed collective creativity, we understand rule-playing in terms of two complementary modes – group exploration and group exploitation-, and the transition between them. Free play is not easily amenable to fine-grained observational analysis. To overcome this, we developed the Grid Game, a new experimental setup which supports detailed empirical investigation while preserving the essence of free play. The Grid Game is a group improvisation game that uses the turn taking logic and spatial organization of typical board games, without any other predefined rules. Small groups of kids (4–5 participants) took turns in freely moving or manipulating a provided set of objects on a large 4 × 4 grid on the floor for 10 min, while being video-recorded. Despite the absence of predefined goals, simple proto-games withad hocrules often emerge, for example, placing objects on top of each other (create a tower) or an aiming-to-a-target shooting game. We propose an analysis of the emergence of such proto-games in terms of group exploration and exploitation. Building on our previous work on the Creative Foraging Game, we focus on cases of transition from exploration to exploitation underlying the discovery of a new form or rule. Based on Choreographer João Fiadeiro’s body of work, we describe these phase shifts as a distributed process composed of three stages: (1)Suggestion, (2)Recognition, and (3)Confirmation. We provide detailed descriptions of game moments according to this model which demonstrate the distributed nature of collective creativity in free play.

Epithelial and stromal co-evolution and complicity in pancreatic cancer.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas are distinguished by their robust desmoplasia, or fibroinflammatory response. Dominated by non-malignant cells, the mutated epithelium must therefore combat, cooperate with or co-opt the surrounding cells and signalling processes in its microenvironment. It is proposed that an invasive pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma represents the coordinated evolution of malignant and non-malignant cells and mechanisms that subvert and repurpose normal tissue composition, architecture and physiology to foster tumorigenesis. The complex kinetics and stepwise development of pancreatic cancer suggests that it is governed by a discrete set of organizing rules and principles, and repeated attempts to target specific components within the microenvironment reveal self-regulating mechanisms of resistance. The histopathological and genetic progression models of the transforming ductal epithelium must therefore be considered together with a programme of stromal progression to create a comprehensive picture of pancreatic cancer evolution. Understanding the underlying organizational logic of the tumour to anticipate and pre-empt the almost inevitable compensatory mechanisms will be essential to eradicate the disease.

Trueque y dinero: Impacto de las lógicas del mercado en las formas comunales de organización andina de los pobladores de Cachi (Salta, Argentina)

Bartering practices based on complementarity between different ecological zones constituted an important strategy for ensuring food supply among pre-Hispanic populations in the Andes. These mechanisms, stemming from a logic of collective and reciprocal organization, were affected when European capitalist frameworks were introduced in the Americas. However, many of these principles persisted despite the inequality of forces. This paper aims to analyse how the logics that informed the exchange of goods have been affected by the presence of market forces since the second half of the twentieth century in localities of the Cachi department (Salta, Argentina). Ethnographic observations indicate that after the 1990s such exchanges were scarce, mostly monetarized, motivated by self-sufficiency and involved products outside the buying and selling circuit.

ON THE CLASSICAL SANCTUARY SPACE AND ITS NATURAL CONTEXT: NATURE AS EXTENSION OR CONTAINER?

Even though nature is accepted to be an integral part of classical architecture, there is limited scholarship on this aspect. This paper aims to contribute to this literature with a focus specifically on the transformation of attitudes towards nature in the classical culture and on the influence of this transformation to sanctuary planning. Through an argument focusing not only on architecture, but also on art and literature, it tries to establish an overall understanding of the natural in the classical culture. 
 
 An earlier attitude towards nature was a result of the mythological tradition, in which the boundary between gods and humans was blurred. Anthropomorphic gods and goddesses, who controlled the human destiny, resided in the nature. So as the boundary between gods and humans were blurred, the boundary between the man-made and the natural was also blurred. In the Archaic Greek literature and art, nature was not depicted as a space or a background, in which the events took place, but it was integrated into the narrative as an extension of the figures integral to them. Similarly, in the Sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, nature does not constitute a background/container, but it is an extension of the man-made, integral to the god’s abode made by humans. In this sanctuary, located at a magnificent landscape endowed with mythological significance, myth, nature and the man-made merge by way of an organizational logic that integrates gaze and movement as its major constituents. This paper attempts to explain this classical phenomenological logic by cinematic concepts. The seemingly haphazard planning of the sanctuary allows for multiple moving/viewing sequences, which can be thought of as multiple montages extending the space and time of the sanctuary to various geographies and times in history. These multiple montages are brought back to here and now through unifying frames resembling establishing shots in filmmaking. By these shots, the man-made is merged with the landscape in a single unified frame. 
 
 A later attitude towards nature was a result of the philosophical tradition, in which man separated himself from the almighty gods and defined himself as the constructor of his own order through democratization of the polis. As a result of this separation, uncontrolled nature became the container of the mythical, separate from the controlled man-made realm. In Roman landscape paintings rooted in the Hellenistic stage paintings, nature as the realm of the mythical is viewed from behind the architectural screens like in the Sanctuary of Athena at Lindos or the Sanctuary of Fortuna at Praeneste. In these Hellenistic sanctuaries, perspectival concepts could be thought as instrumental in creating a controlled man-made interior that is detached from its natural environment. This interior can be defined as a mathematical abstract construct exercising an obsessive control over how the point of view of the observer should be located in space. The calculated axial spatial organization of these sanctuaries, therefore, contrasts starkly to the psychophysiological space of the Sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, allowing various moving/viewing sequences in full integration with the surrounding nature.

Research on the standardization model of data semantics in the knowledge graph construction of Oil&Gas industry

At present, knowledge graphs in both general and vertical fields rarely consider the problem of data semantic standardization in the process of constructing from a global perspective, which brings trouble and loss to the sharing and interoperability of domain information. Therefore, it is very important to construct a set of standardized and semantically consistent knowledge organization model, and to propose a data semantics standardization methodology on this basis, so as to fundamentally solve this serious problem that hinders data sharing. This paper first proposes a model of data semantic standardization theoretically through the research on knowledge organization, concept triangle and concept logic and other theories, combined with ISO 1087 international standard, and proposes the important idea that the key issue of data semantic standardization is conceptual standardization as the core. Then, based on this theoretical model, a comprehensive study and combing of various vocabulary standards in the international Oil&Gas industry was carried out, and the Oil&Gas industry reference vocabulary standardization model (OIRVSM) used to guide the construction of data semantic standards in the oil and gas industry is proposed. Finally, under the guidance of the W3C best practice framework, combined with the proposed model, an operational algorithm for constructing standardized knowledge graph (ACSKG) in Oil&Gas industry and a construction example are given, which verifies the rationality and correctness of data semantic standardization model and vocabulary standard system model. The two models proposed in this paper are innovative. Although they are proposed in the context of Oil&Gas industry, they also have application and reference significance in other fields.

Muslim community-based health organisations: a hybrid of voluntary, religious and healthcare logics

Muslim community-based health organisations (MCBHOs) represent a new wave of non-profit organisations outside of mosques and Islamic community centres. In this article we examine MBCHOs’ core management competencies because they are instantiations of institutional logics, which result in different forms of organisational hybridity within the third sector. Theoretically, we focus on the instantiations that are associated with a societal institutional logic (religion) and two organisational field logics (voluntarism and healthcare). Empirically, we draw from a survey, maps, tax filings and strategic plans. We observed convergences in financial and human resource management and divergences in community engagement and patient assessment among 110 MCBHOs located in the United States. Volunteering and patient care hold the meaning of faith. Our findings suggest that most MCBHOs resemble an assimilated hybrid, characterised by managerial practices that adhere to the core logics of healthcare and voluntarism, with traces of the Islamic religious logic. We thus introduce the concept of ‘faithwashing’.

Cell types and molecular architecture of the Octopus bimaculoides visual system

Cephalopods have a remarkable visual system, with a camera-type eye and high acuity vision that they use for a wide range of sophisticated visually driven behaviors. However, the cephalopod brain is organized dramatically differently from that of vertebrates and invertebrates, and beyond neuroanatomical descriptions, little is known regarding the cell types and molecular determinants of their visual system organization. Here, we present a comprehensive single-cell molecular atlas of the octopus optic lobe, which is the primary visual processing structure in the cephalopod brain. We combined single-cell RNA sequencing with RNA fluorescence in situ hybridization to both identify putative molecular cell types and determine their anatomical and spatial organization within the optic lobe. Our results reveal six major neuronal cell classes identified by neurotransmitter/neuropeptide usage, in addition to non-neuronal and immature neuronal populations. We find that additional markers divide these neuronal classes into subtypes with distinct anatomical localizations, revealing further diversity and a detailed laminar organization within the optic lobe. We also delineate the immature neurons within this continuously growing tissue into subtypes defined by evolutionarily conserved developmental genes as well as novel cephalopod- and octopus-specific genes. Together, these findings outline the organizational logic of the octopus visual system, based on functional determinants, laminar identity, and developmental markers/pathways. The resulting atlas presented here details the "parts list" for neural circuits used for vision in octopus, providing a platform for investigations into the development and function of the octopus visual system as well as the evolution of visual processing.

Економічна стійкість у контексті інституційної логіки

Economic resilience of the system is one of the main indicators that characterizes its qualitative and quantitative aspects, response to external and internal shocks and challenges. The problem of resilience becomes especially important in extreme situations (economic and financial crises, ecological and natural disasters: typhoons, floods, earthquakes, etc., political revolutions, military conflicts). The current Russian-Ukrainian war has become a serious test of the stability of the domestic economy, in which relative macroeconomic balance is ensured in extremely difficult conditions due to the maximum mobilization of domestic resources and effective foreign aid. An important component is institutional stability, i.e. operational response to changes in the economic situation of authorities and management at all levels, legislative institutions, financial and banking institutions, foreign economic sphere, attention to such attributes of institutionalism as trust, social optimism, mentality, traditions, habits, etc. In a generalized form, at the theoretical level, institutional sustainability is proposed to be considered in the article in the context of institutional logic in three hypostasises at the micro-, macro-, and geo-economic levels. Institutionalism, including economic theory, is dominated by traditional, formal logic, which mainly uses natural (scientific) language. Consciously or intuitively, the main laws of logic are taken into account: identity, contradiction, the Law of Exclusion, sufficient reason. The logic of evolutionism is considered the basis of institutional logic, which provides a general idea of changes in all components of the institutional environment. In the institutional economic theory, two levels of institutional logic are visible: the macro level (Veblen and the old American school, North) and the micro level (Coase, Williamson, etc.). In the publications of the last quarter of the 20th century the logic of the global (mega) level is also analyzed. Evolutionism is the basis of the logical construction of institutional logic in economic theory. Generalizing indicators that synthesize different approaches of institutional logic regarding economic sustainability are the institutional logic of sustainability (ILS) and the logical index of sustainability (LIS). Institutional logic of the micro- level was initiated by R. Coase, continued by O. Williamson and others. The logic of transaction costs of R. Coase is formulated in two theorems: regarding zero costs, ownership and economic results, and the principle of internalization. The second theorem was called "comparative logic of economic organization". In critical relation to both of Coase's theorems, they remain basic constructs of micro-level resilience. Among the indicators and criteria of macro-level economic resilience, monetary components are of leading importance, which, under the conditions of a free market, provide a kind of warning signals to the economic system as a whole. A feature of this approach was the transformation of the monetary component into a system of "monetary and financial analysis". This reflects fundamental qualitative changes in recent decades regarding the structure of the economy, in which the financial subsystem acquires dominant (key) importance, affecting aggregated macroeconomic indicators: growth, inflation, employment, etc. Globalization, that is, the mega-level, its economic resilience, inevitability and irreversibility are characterized by three deterministic logics: technical (technological), economic and political.

Dissection of the long-range projections of specific neurons at the synaptic level in the whole mouse brain

Through synaptic connections, long-range circuits transmit information among neurons and connect different brain regions to form functional motifs and execute specific functions. Tracing the synaptic distribution of specific neurons requires submicron-level resolution information. However, it is a great challenge to map the synaptic terminals completely because these fine structures span multiple regions, even in the whole brain. Here, we develop a pipeline including viral tracing, sample embedding, fluorescent micro-optical sectional tomography, and big data processing. We mapped the whole-brain distribution and architecture of long projections of the parvalbumin neurons in the basal forebrain at the synaptic level. These neurons send massive projections to multiple downstream regions with subregional preference. With three-dimensional reconstruction in the targeted areas, we found that synaptic degeneration was inconsistent with the accumulation of amyloid-β plaques but was preferred in memory-related circuits, such as hippocampal formation and thalamus, but not in most hypothalamic nuclei in 8-month-old mice with five familial Alzheimer's disease mutations. Our pipeline provides a platform for generating a whole-brain atlas of cell-type-specific synaptic terminals in the physiological and pathological brain, which can provide an important resource for the study of the organizational logic of specific neural circuits and the circuitry changes in pathological conditions.

Through the Front Door: Why Do Organizations (Still) Prefer Legacy Applicants?

When screening candidates, organizations often give preference to certain applicants on the basis of their familial ties. This “legacy preference,” particularly widespread in college admissions, has been criticized for contributing to inequality and class reproduction. Despite this, studies continue to report that legacies are persistently admitted at higher rates than non-legacies. In this article, we develop a theoretical framework of three distinct sense-making strategies at play when decision-makers screen applicants into their organizations—the meritocratic, material, and diversity logics. We then apply this framework to investigate how legacy preferences either support or undermine each organizational logic using comprehensive data on the population of applicants seeking admission into one elite U.S. college. We find strong support for the material logic at the cost of the other two organizational logics: legacies make better alumni after graduation and have wealthier parents who are materially-positioned to be more generous donors than non-legacy parents. Contrary to the meritocratic logic, we find that legacies are neither more qualified applicants nor better students academically. From a diversity standpoint, legacies are less racially diverse than non-legacies. We conclude with a discussion of our study’s implications for understanding the role of family relationships and nepotism in today’s organizational selection processes.

Whitehead and Continental Philosophy in the Twenty-First Century: Dislocations

Whitehead and Continental Philosophy in the Twenty-First Century: Dislocations

A stakeholder perspective on risk and safety planning in a major sporting event

PurposeThis study analyses the impact of institutional logics on the outcomes of a sporting event's risk process.Design/methodology/approachThe research design is an exploratory case study of the 2017 Road World Cycling Championship using a qualitative approach. By drawing on multiple sources, documents and experiences of six key stakeholders the richness of the qualitative data were utilised to provide a deeper understanding of the impact of institutional logics on the process.FindingsStakeholders relied on different organisational and professional logics in arguments for certain risk preferences and strategies. Further, the logics behind stakeholder attention varied between stakeholder groups and within a stakeholder group. This led to a tension-filled relationship amongst stakeholders working in the same organisation and between those in different organisations. Finally, new professional practices emerged; however, there were also unintended consequences, such as a large financial deficit, with a significant part of the cost overrun being the risk assessment work.Research limitations/implicationsThe study includes a case study of a major sporting event that was arranged some years ago. Events are usually organised as temporary projects in collaboration with public sector organisations and must be arranged in accordance with the logics of efficiency as well as meeting the particular needs of citizens. Assuming similar risk planning processes may occur in other contexts is reasonable.Originality/valueThe study contributes to knowledge about the impact of logics on the outcome of risk planning and improves scholars' understanding of risk management and the outcomes of planning mega-sporting events. Moreover, insights into these micro-level processes reveal the importance of dealing with the logics that lie beneath stakeholders' perceptions of risk in order to collaborate, achieve common goals, and prevent cost overruns.

Coordination versus organization: Diverging logics of firm cooperation in Denmark and Sweden

AbstractEmployers and their business associations have become increasingly important actors promoting market competition – even in once highly coordinated and regulated European economies. Based on a comparison of the Danish and Swedish telecommunications industries, we ask how differences in business association structures relate to the ways firms cooperate in competitive markets. In Denmark, fragmented, competing business associations encouraged a more unstable logic of coordination, with firms predominately focussed on pursuing particularistic interests in public policy lobbying and exit‐oriented strategies in employment relations. In contrast, the unified business association in Sweden encouraged a logic of organization, with firms predominately seeking collective good provision in public policy lobbying and engaging in mutual gains bargaining. Findings contribute to debates on the role of business associations in fostering firm cooperation and collective regulation.

Circular Moonshot: Understanding Shifts in Organizational Field Logics and Business Model Innovation

We aim to understand how actors respond to field logic plurality and maintain legitimacy through business model innovation. Drawing on a longitudinal field study in the fashion industry, we traced how de novo and incumbent firms incorporate circular logics in business models (for sustainability) and uncover how the intersection between issue and exchange fields creates institutional complexity and experimental spaces for business model innovation. Our findings showed a shift in the discourse on circular logic that diverted attention and resources from materials innovation (e.g., recycling) to business model innovation (e.g., circular business models). By juxtaposing institutional complexity and external pressure to maintain legitimacy, we derived four strategic business model innovation responses—preserve, detach, integrate and extend—that illuminate how actors leverage shifting logics and innovate extant business models (for sustainability). We make novel contributions to the literature on organizational fields, business models for sustainability, and business model innovation.

Circular Moonshots: The Influence of Business Models for Sustainability on Field Change

We aim to understand the interaction between shifting organizational field logics and field actors’ responses to reconcile logic plurality and maintain legitimacy through business model innovation. Drawing on a multimethod, longitudinal field study in the fashion industry, we traced how de novo and incumbent firms integrate circular logics in business models (for sustainability) and uncover how productive tensions in field logics lead to experimental spaces for business model innovation. Our findings showed a shift in the discourse on circular logic that diverted attention and resources from materials innovation (e.g. recycling) to business model innovation (e.g. circular business models). By juxtaposing the degree of field logic tension and the degree of business model innovation, we derive four types of business model hybridization responses that actors engaged in to maintain legitimacy – constrained, limited, integrated, and expanded. Our study generates new insights on business models for sustainability as vehicles for organizational field change.

An Experimental Study on How SEs Build Rhetorical Legitimacy and Its Effects on Consumer Responses

Legitimacy has long been a central construct of interest by organizational scholars. The burgeoning research on legitimacy has increasingly seen the importance of legitimacy building for emerging and novel organizations, especially social enterprises (SE) that embrace a hybrid organizational logic. However, little is known about how SEs can build legitimacy effectively, particularly legitimacy as it is assessed by consumers, and whether the legitimacy-building efforts will translate into favorable consumer responses. Drawing on cultural entrepreneurship theory, we designed a scenario-based experiment to examine whether using different rhetorical strategies will help SEs acquire legitimacy as assessed by consumers and to what extent legitimacy drives positive consumer responses. Our experiment results reveal that the use of social and membership discourse in SEs’ identity building will effectively enhance SEs’ legitimacy as perceived by consumers. More importantly, this legitimacy will further catalyze desirable consumer responses on both social and commercial sides. This research offers novel contribution by addressing “legitimacy-consumer” gap in organization and SE literature, enriches consumer studies in SE by bringing the social dimension of consumer responses into the field, and demonstrates the use of experiment as a promising method in advancing SE studies. This research also provides practical implications for SE practitioners and policymakers to harness the rhetorical tools for SEs’ legitimacy building.

Distinctive character and added value of civil society organizations - a collaborative project within the Swedish integration system

ABSTRACT Expectations on collaboration between public authorities and civil society organizations (CSOs) have increased in Sweden the past decades, partly due to changes in the organization of welfare services. This article investigates a collaborative project within the migrant integration policy area. It is a collaboration between the employment offices in a region of Sweden and local CSOs with the common goal of easing the integration of migrants. Theories about civil society as service providers emphasize a possible added value of these non-statutory services related to CSOs distinct character. This link has seldom been empirically investigated. This article explores the distinctive character and added value of CSOs as they unfold in a collaborative project. Two previous studies were conducted by the researchers and this study is an extrapolation of the results. The analysis shows that discrepancies between CSOs and public authorities related to both ideology and organizational logics can be linked to an added value for the participants of the project. Paradoxically, the tensions and discrepancies enabled activities revolving around a more personal and informal understanding of integration that departed from the government agencies’ agenda whilst at the same time being enabled through the collaboration with them.