Peripheral Actors Research Articles

Beyond brokering: Sourcing agents, boundary work and working conditions in global supply chains

The role that sourcing agents, autonomous peripheral actors located in developing economies, play in the governance of working conditions in global supply chains has been greatly underexplored in the literature. The present article reports on an in-depth qualitative study of garment supply chains that examined the boundary work of Indian sourcing agents aimed at dismantling or bridging the boundaries that affect the interaction between western buyers and local suppliers, in order to facilitate development and implementation of meaningful working conditions or social relations at work. We identify four types of boundary work that sourcing agents used to manage combinations of accommodative and non-accommodative buyers and suppliers in order to work through boundaries created by buyers’ liability of foreignness: reinforcing, flexing (type 1 and 2) and restoring. We also found four essential conditions for a sourcing agent to become an effective boundary spanner in practice: acquiring knowledge about the relevant fields and actors, gaining legitimacy in the relevant fields and in the opinion of the parties involved, effectively translating the expectations of each party to the other, and benefiting from satisfying incentives. We contribute to the literature on governance for working conditions in global supply chains, boundary theory and liability of foreignness.

Learning Designers in the ‘Third Space’: The Socio-Technical Construction of MOOCs and Their Relationship to Educator and Learning Designer Roles in HE

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are frequently portrayed as “agents of change” in higher education (HE), impacting on institutional practices, processes and structures throughout HE. However, these courses do not “fit” neatly with the established aims and functions of universities, and accounts of technology-led change in universities predominate, simplistically emphasising technologically determinist narratives with incidental social effects. This study aims to explore the consequences of introducing these courses into HE in terms of the roles of educators, learning designers and the socio-technical construction of MOOCs. The research takes a socio-technical perspective, combining the established analytical strategy of Socio-Technical Interaction Networks (STIN) with the social theoretical ‘third space’ framework of HE activity. The paper reports on the first of three institutional cases studies, finding that learning designers occupy a hub-like position in the networks of actors involved in MOOC development within an emergent ‘third space’ between academic and managerial roles. The analysis also reveals how the massive and open elements of these courses elicit involvement of seemingly peripheral actors, who exert a strong influence on course production processes and content, with educators taking a less central role. This work adds a socio-technical element to understandings of third space activity in higher education, and can inform the planning and development of online education projects in accounting for changing roles in HE where massiveness and openness are combined in a course.

Appropriating democratic discourse in North Africa

Political actors across the globe often use the language of democracy, but they do not all use the same language. Drawing on content analysis of 1935 speeches given between 2000 and 2010, this study examines how five North African autocrats appropriated the global discursive form of democracy by altering its content. These leaders proposed that the special circumstances of each country preclude any one-size-fits-all global definition of democracy, whose imposition in their countries, they claim, would be inappropriate, ineffective, or dangerous. Through their speeches, these rulers redefined democracy by engaging in active ideological work, weaving together discourses that combined global norms, state interests, and local values. This suggests that, in addition to being a benchmark by which to measure modes of governance, ‘democracy’ is also a language game played between actors on a global stage. By synthesizing theoretical frameworks drawn from world polity and social movement studies traditions, this study shows that peripheral actors may adapt global discourses purposefully and strategically rather than encountering them as passive participants in a purely mimetic cultural diffusion process. This has implications for a wide range of global norms that are open to appropriation by local actors drawing on domestic and external political developments and experiences.

La performance des lieux de cocréation de connaissances

Les laboratoires de fabrication numérique sont en plein essor. Leur réalité est diverse et les questions de performance et de la nature de leur encastrement socio-économique dans des clusters ou des éco-systèmes restent très largement ouvertes. A partir d’une base de données originales de 48 FabLab mondiaux nous montrons que la production de projets documentés, ie codifiés et mis à disposition de la communauté et de transformation de ces projets en nouvelles entreprises dépend des interactions nouées entre le FabLab et son éco-système. En particulier, toutes choses égales par ailleurs, l’interaction avec une périphérie foisonnante et plus exploratoire de petits acteurs favorise la créativité du FabLab et la production de projets documentés, en revanche la transformation en nouvelle entreprise est favorisée avec une position d’intermédiaire entre cette périphérie et un cœur d’acteurs en place, de taille plus importante en capacité d’exploiter et transformer la créativité du FabLab.

Forest in crisis: 2 decades of media discourse analysis of Bangladesh print media

Forest conservation is a major challenge in Bangladesh. It is believed that mass media is a powerful channel in political communication of different political actors in communicating their perception on certain issues. Forest discourses are not limited to the scientific and political sphere but also a popular topic for mass media in Bangladesh. In this study, media discourses from 1989 to 2009 from the “The Daily Ittefaq” of Bangladesh are analyzed. A quantitative-qualitative content analysis of newspaper articles on forest topics was the chosen methodology. The forest discourses in the Bangladeshi print media from 1989 to 2009 was built around the crisis argumentation i.e. the forest of Bangladesh is in a crisis. Deforestation and wildlife conservation dominated the Bangladesh forest media discourse where genuine events like illegal logging, forest destruction, wildlife poaching and wildlife human conflicts were most prominent issues discussed in the mass media of Bangladesh. Journalists were the prominent speaker in the print media and primarily shaped the discussion around the problems of the Bangladeshi forest sector. This study finds that the presence of center political actors like politicians and administration do not have much media standing in forest discourse. Therefore they have limited influence or interest in the formulation of forest discourse in the Bangladeshi print media. On the contrary the peripheral actors enjoyed dominant standing in the Bangladeshi print media discourse and thus influence the forest discourses in the print media.

Enabling Social Identity Interaction: The Secret to Building Embeddedness

The context of new transnational entrepreneurs approaching Diaspora communities provides a unique opportunity to explore the processes by which peripheral actors achieve higher network position. To...

La militarización, un obstáculo para la gobernanza democrática de la seguridad en México

<p>La bibliografía especializada coincide en que la evolución de la política de seguridad en México corresponde a un proceso de militarización. De un lado, este proceso se ha caracterizado por la reconstitución de las instituciones y organizaciones militares en ejes centrales de la política de seguridad, y de otro, por la adopción de lógicas y prácticas castrenses por los actores e instituciones civiles. En este artículo analizamos el caso de México desde una noción de militarización inspirada en los conceptos de campo organizacional y cambio isomorfo del nuevo institucionalismo sociológico. Esta aproximación teórica<br />permite integrar las transformaciones mencionadas, como procesos interdependientes, en una reconfiguración general del campo organizacional de la seguridad en México. Un proceso en el que las organizaciones e instituciones civiles involucradas sufren procesos de cambio isomorfo, relacionados con la constitución de las Fuerzas Armadas como actor<br />hegemónico y que como parte de la reorientación de tipo castrense de los componentes civiles del campo, los componentes militares también cambian. Derivado del análisis del caso, discutimos la manera en que las modificaciones de los actores civiles y militares constriñen su capacidad para proponer e instrumentar acciones que reorienten el campo<br />hacia esquemas democráticos. En este artículo identificamos cuatro obstáculos, tanto institucionales como simbólicos, para la gobernanza democrática de la seguridad en México:<br />a) cesión del control civil, b) relaciones jerárquicas entre los actores hegemónicos y periféricos del campo, c) una organización centralizada del campo y d) la acción totalizante de una legitimidad centrada en la retórica de la eficiencia militar. Argumentamos que estos cuatro elementos, junto con la escalada de violencia e impunidad frente a la violación<br />sistemática de los derechos humanos, así como la progresiva retirada del Estado mexicano de sus funciones sociales, contribuyen a consolidar la trayectoria de la militarización del<br />campo de la seguridad en México, lo que disminuye cada vez más la probabilidad de su reorientación democrática.</p>

Power and logics in Scottish football: the financial collapse of Rangers FC

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the implications of power imbalance and over-emphasis on commercial logic on the structure and governance of Scottish football.Design/methodology/approach– An in-depth analysis of secondary sources is used to identify the logics at play in Scottish football and to explore implications of the liquidation of Rangers for the structure of the game.Findings– Over-emphasis on commercial logic has led to power being concentrated in two clubs, Celtic and Rangers, and to other clubs and the league itself becoming financially dependent on those clubs. The collapse of Rangers thus threatened the stability of other clubs and the league. The case highlights the challenge of reconciling competing logics and the role played by previously peripheral actors in bringing about change in the field.Research limitations/implications– The on-going nature of the case, related investigations and legal process meant that it was not possible to supplement the secondary source material with primary evidence.Practical implications– It demonstrates the multi-faceted nature of elite contemporary football and of the challenges faced by leagues and governing bodies in accommodating logics and multiple stakeholder interests. It also highlights the need for more effective financial regulation of corporate football clubs and their officials and emphasises the importance of inclusive stakeholder governance.Originality/value– It highlights the risks inherent in football business in small markets dominated by one or a few clubs. It highlights the role that previously peripheral actors can play in bringing about change within a field.

On the trail of core–periphery patterns in innovation networks: measurements and new empirical findings from the German laser industry

It has been frequently argued that a firm’s location in the core of an industry’s innovation network improves its ability to access information and absorb technological knowledge. The literature has still widely neglected the role of peripheral network positions for innovation processes. In addition to this, little is known about the determinants affecting a peripheral actors’ ability to reach the core. To shed some light on these issues, we have employed a unique longitudinal dataset encompassing the entire population of German laser source manufacturers (LSMs) and laser-related public research organizations (PROs) over a period of more than two decades. The aim of our paper is threefold. First, we analyze the emergence of core–periphery (CP) patterns in the German laser industry. Then, we explore the paths on which LSMs and PROs move from isolated positions toward the core. Finally, we employ non-parametric event history techniques to analyze the extent to which organizational and geographical determinates affect the propensity and timing of network core entries. Our results indicate the emergence and solidification of CP patterns at the overall network level. We also found that the paths on which organizations traverse through the network are characterized by high levels of heterogeneity and volatility. The transition from peripheral to core positions is impacted by organizational characteristics, while an organization’s geographical location does not play a significant role.

The hidden abode of network orchestration: The case of de-legitimated diesel cars in Japan

The purpose of this study is to examine the failure of network orchestration blocked by peripheral actors, including governments. The paper sheds light upon the anti-diesel car campaign led by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) in Japan around the year 2000. The campaign had a severe impact on the negative perception of diesel cars in Japan. Most importantly, due to the campaign, the network orchestration concerning diesel cars faced extreme difficulty. For the analysis, the paper employs persuasion strategies (different types of theorization) offered from the institutional perspective. The novel evidence of this study suggests the necessity to reconsider the existing treatment of boundary concerning the whole picture of network orchestration.

Stars, Peripheral Scientists, and Equations: The Case of M. N. Saha

Peripheral actors rarely make an appearance in the general story of scientific practice, and their work in science is usually viewed as somewhat derivative of the practices of the main community. Contrary to this received model, here I argue that the peripheral contexts of science can be quite important and reveal novel conduits to creative scientific thinking. Not only can such contexts offer us a new window into how contributory expertise in science could be born amid difficult circumstances, they also allow us to see how new scientific communities could be founded during such encounters. Using case studies of M. N. Saha and other physicists in early twentieth-century India, I argue that such modest practices begin when peripheral protagonists seek to initiate new trading zones with the established centers of science. The resulting exchanges can give rise to new breakthroughs and conceptual changes in scientific practice. Such peripheral breakthroughs can be studied cognitively, giving us newer models of scientific practice as well as creating a new kind of self-image for such scientists.

Periphery Discourse: An Alternative Media Eye on the Geographical, Social and Media Peripheries in Egypt's Spring

The growing literature on the use of social media for social protests generally, and during the Arab Spring in particular, has generally failed to show a periphery-inclusive perspective. This article employs statistical data on the use of alternative media outlets (Facebook, Twitter, blogs and YouTube) in Egypt's spring to show how an alternative media structure was expanding which not only empowered social and geographic peripheral actors but was, in turn, also empowered by their contributions. YouTube videos and Twitter messages from peripheral areas exposed police brutality towards protestors in the backstreets that could otherwise have been unnoticed and saved lives in isolated areas in Egypt. Social media thus gained critical mass and expanded to the point that it had an overflow effect from the virtual sphere to the real world. Contrasting the roles of alternative and state-run media machines in different phases of the revolution, the article traces how peripheries could challenge the existing opportunity structure through alternative media, but also how their role has contracted again after the revolution reached its peak.

Establishing New Codes for Creativity in Haute Cuisine. The Case of Ferran Adrii and elBulli.

Ferran Adria is one of the most recognized chefs in the world. His restaurant, elBulli was awarded five times the title of the Best Restaurant in the World. This article analyzes how a peripheral actor in a field like Adria managed to create a new global movement by establishing new codes for creativity, challenging long-time well-established rules. The analysis of the last 30 years of the creative journey of Adria and his team at elBulli provides some clues to the deconstruction of their creative process.

What Got You Here Won't Get You There: Peripheral Knowledge Workers and Their Strategies for Success

This study examines the knowledge and skills that marginal actors prioritize in service of their professional development and advancement. I analyze over 1,000 stories from a rich dataset of 105 semi-structured interviews with senior leaders of a global investment bank. Through inductive analysis of stories, I build on a nascent literature about peripherality, which refers to individuals’ perceptions of being outsiders at work. I find that those who perceive themselves to be peripheral disproportionately value technical knowledge. I argue that peripherality is associated with the pursuit of technical knowledge for two reasons. First, technical knowledge is accessible, relatively independent from interactions and relationships with others. Second, technical knowledge is legitimate, perceived as rational and meritocratic. These findings may expose knowledge-seeking behaviors as a mechanism behind stratification within internal labor markets. As peripheral actors pursue technical knowledge, they may actually neglect knowledge about interactions and relationships that is necessary for the upper echelons of organizations and management. That different knowledge-seeking behaviors may have negative consequences for career outcomes of peripheral members demonstrates the importance of attending to the micro-foundations of human capital.

The Civil Wars after 1660: Public Remembering in Late Stuart England, by Matthew Neufeld

The Civil Wars after 1660: Public Remembering in Late Stuart England, by Matthew Neufeld. Woodbridge and Rochester, The Boydell Press, 2013. xiv, 284 pp. $99.00 US (cloth). This is an enterprising addition to a burgeoning field. There has been, at least since the 1970s, an ever-growing study in how the English civil wars were remembered and debated in the half century after they ended (with the Restoration of the monarchy in May 1660) and indeed in the Victorian age, both representing prisms through which we still read this central episode in English and British History. Most attention has been focused on the publication, often in severely and revealingly bowdlerised forms, of the memoirs and diaries of both principal and peripheral actors, and several books have been devoted to the way the central figure of Oliver Cromwell was memorialized--more demonized than sanctified in the late seventeenth century, the reverse from the 1840s on. Neufeld engages with these literatures and has new things to say about the canonical texts. His discussion of the prefaces written by Henry Hyde, earl of Rochester, to the first edition of his father's History of the Great Rebellion is a case in point. But he is even more interesting in his close encounter with much less familiar material such as the hundreds of petitions written by war veterans seeking disability pensions in the Restoration, or the sermons preached annually on 29 May--the day on which Charles II entered London to reclaim his throne in 1660 (and also, as it happens) his birthday--not only in Charles II's reign but right down to the Hanoverian succession in 1714. What would have been an equally innovative chapter on how the Anglican clergyman John Walker sent out questionnaires to every parish so as to chronicle and gloss the sufferings of the clergy for Church and King in the 1660s and which he finally published in 1714 has been somewhat overtaken by the publication of a monograph on the subject (Fiona McCall, Baal's Priests, Famham, 2013), although Neufeld is still well worth reading on the subject. His central thesis is that public remembering of the civil wars and interregnum after 1660 was concerned with re-fighting the old struggle, but rather commending and justifying, or contesting and attacking, the Restoration settlements that underlay the Anglican confessional state (emphasis mine, p. 2). The phrase not ultimately is a bit careless here and Neufeld needed to tread more carefully. I do doubt that he is on to something important and well worth saying, and indeed perhaps the most compelling parts of his analysis come in the chapters covering the period after 1689--for example the chapter devoted to a wholly new analysis of 29 May day sermons shows no decline in the incidence or polemical clout of those sermons right down to the Hanoverian succession. …

A geopolítica da política externa bolivariana

The article performs a geopolitical analysis of the Bolivarian antissistemico movement, highlighting especially the formation of Alba while regional alliances system from Venezuela power projection. Thus, the theoretical framework of World-Systems Analysis of Immanuel Wallerstein, is recontextualizado in addition to the categories of Center, outskirts and semiperiferia, and in such a way as to encompass the national power projects peripheral actors or semiperifericos such as Venezuela.

How Early Implementations Influence Later Adoptions of Innovation: Social Positioning and Skill Reproduction in the Diffusion of Robotic Surgery

We report on a multilevel study investigating the diffusion of robotic surgery in the Italian health care system between 1999 and 2010. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods allowed us to link organization-level processes associated with the adoption and implementation of the innovation to its diffusion at the population level. Our findings advance the understanding of how early experiences with the implementation of an innovation influence later adoptions, and they draw attention to how the search for social gains drives some peripheral actors to pioneer an innovation and engage in practices of discursive persuasion and skill reproduction that, in turn, constitute them to be “exemplary users.” These practices eventually trigger and support the isomorphic diffusion of the innovation, even in the presence of persistent uncertainty about its technical or economic benefits.

Managerial perceptions of service-infused IORs in China & India: A discursive view of value co-creation

This paper explores the managerial challenges facing firms seeking to build relationships with other network actors while doing business in foreign markets. By taking a critical perspective on an area of increasing importance in both manufacturing and service sectors, that of value co-creation, the paper explores how managers in different cultural contexts make sense of the notion of ‘value’ in inter-organizational B2B relationships between New Zealand service and service-infused supplier firms and buyers in China and India. From an analysis of the interview-based accounts on both sides of the buyer–seller dyad marked differences emerge regarding value-creation within managers' discourse around partnerships, collaboration and cooperation. Our findings suggest that the Indian manager's discursive use of ‘partnership’ draws on service-dominant logic in viewing this type of interaction as a means for co-creating value; they and their New Zealand suppliers are jointly involved in co-creating value within a service system, creating value-in-use. In contrast, the predominant perspective seen in the discourse of Chinese managers is the use of cooperation as a means of making transactions more cost-effective, or to fill gaps in their supply chains, resulting in the creation of transaction-based, co-production of value, which suggests a value-in-exchange orientation. In both cases, there is repeated reference to more peripheral actors whose efforts result in what we interpret as network value creation, based on their interactions with actors within the buyer–seller dyad.

Incident Command and Information Flows in a Large‐Scale Emergency Operation

In this article social and information network theory is used to study information flows through the incident command post in a large‐scale emergency operation. The case presented is the 2011 terrorist attacks in Norway. The data were collected from evaluation reports, media and interviews with the incident, fire, medical and ambulance commanders. The article presents the incident command system in Norway and how this was used as a base for improvisation during the operation on initiative from rescue workers on scene. The main internal information flows in each separate rescue service were connected and coordinated at the incident command point through strong ties between the commanders. Important and novel information also reached the commanders through weak and informal ties to more peripheral actors.

Теория “естественных границ” и завоевание Кульджи (1870−1871 гг.): Автопортрет российских военно-дипломатических элит Санкт-Петербурга и Туркестана

This is a microhistory of the decision making leading to the conquest of Kuldja (Ghulja) by the Russian troops in 1871–1881. Svetlana Gorshenina deconstructs different understandings of the theory of a “natural border” that influenced the changing opinions of the Petersburg military and diplomatic elites, colonial administrators of Turkestan and Central Asia, and military commanders on the ground. The article presents a nuanced and multilayered picture of the discursive reality behind the conquest of Kuldja, thus explicating a complex mechanism of interaction of the metropole and peripheral actors, the role of local versus universal knowledge, and the influence of diplomatic considerations vis-à-vis Europe and China. The study is based on archival documents assembled in the course of 1901–1905 by the military engineer, lieutenant colonel Andrian Serebrennikov, for the Collection of Materials for a History of the Conquest of the Turkestan Region . The Kuldja-related documents of the collection remained unpublished and are now preserved in the Central State Archive of the Republic of Uzbekistan.