Although the fields of organization theory and social movement theory have long been viewed as belonging to different worlds, recent events have intervened, reminding us that organizations are ...becoming more movement-like - more volatile and politicized - while movements are more likely to borrow strategies from organizations. Organization theory and social movement theory are two of the most vibrant areas within the social sciences. This collection of original essays and studies both calls for a closer connection between these fields and demonstrates the value of this interchange. Three introductory, programmatic essays by leading scholars in the two fields are followed by eight empirical studies that directly illustrate the benefits of this type of cross-pollination. The studies variously examine the processes by which movements become organized and the role of movement processes within and among organizations. The topics covered range from globalization and transnational social movement organizations to community recycling programs.
The British Academy proposes that some of the manifest failures of shareholder capitalism can be addressed by requiring corporations to declare a purpose – a profitable solution to the problems of ...people and planet that does not cause additional problems – and creating a set of supporting mechanisms to ensure the pursuit of purpose. Shareholder capitalism has a lot to answer for, arguably including the opioid and obesity epidemics, the hazards to people and democracy posed by profit‐driven tech firms, and catastrophic climate change. Moreover, the forces that orient public corporations toward share price are powerful and pervasive, while public corporations are disappearing in the USA and the UK under the weight of outside pressures. If we want the corporations that remain to behave themselves, the surest path is more democracy: greater worker control from below, and more effective state regulation from above.
Financialization of the Economy Davis, Gerald F; Kim, Suntae
Annual review of sociology,
08/2015, Letnik:
41, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Financialization refers to the increasing importance of finance, financial markets, and financial institutions to the workings of the economy. This article reviews evidence on the causes and ...consequences of financialization in the United States and around the world, with particular attention to the spread of financial markets. Researchers have focused on two broad themes at the level of corporations and broader societies. First, an orientation toward shareholder value has led to substantial changes in corporate strategies and structures that have encouraged outsourcing and corporate disaggregation while increasing compensation at the top. Second, financialization has shaped patterns of inequality, culture, and social change in the broader society. Underlying these changes is a broad shift in how capital is intermediated, from financial institutions to financial markets, through mechanisms such as securitization (turning debts into marketable securities). Enabled by a combination of theory, technology, and ideology, financialization is a potent force for changing social institutions.
Organizational research is guided by standards of what journals will publish and what gets rewarded in scholarly careers. This system can promote novelty rather than truth and impact rather than ...coherence. The advent of big data, combined with our current system of scholarly career incentives, is likely to yield a high volume of novel papers with sophisticated econometrics and no obvious prospect of cumulative knowledge development. Moreover, changes in the world of organizations are not being met with changes in how and for whom organizational research is done. It is time for a dialogue on who and what organizational research is for and how that should shape our practice.
The resource-based view of the firm has become dominant within the field of strategic management, yet it has had surprisingly little influence within organization theory. In this article, we document ...the divide between strategy and organization theory and propose an interpretation. Choices of theories are largely driven by a researcher’s dependent variables, and the questions “Why do firms do what they do?” and “Why do some firms perform better than others?” can have distinct answers. Thus, strategic management scholars and organization theorists are like howler monkeys and spider monkeys, coexisting peacefully in the same ecosystem by dining on different dependent variables. We further speculate on the looming existential crisis for both fields as traditional firms are increasingly unsustainable due to the transformation wrought by the digital revolution in product markets and the markets for capital, labor, and supplies.
Shareholder-owned corporations were dominant for much of the 20th century in the United States, yet their numbers are substantially declining in the 21st. This article argues that we are observing a ...regime shift in the transaction costs of organizing that disfavors traditional corporations. Accompanying this shift is the emergence of low-cost, small-scale production technologies that will allow locally based universal fabrication facilities. In combination, these changes are compatible with new forms of non-corporate enterprise. While corporations are basic units of production in many theories about the economy, they should be regarded as only one hypothesis about how production is and can be organized. Traditional alternatives to the corporation include producer and consumer cooperatives (e.g., Land o' Lakes, REI) and mutuals (e.g., State Farm, Vanguard). More recent possibilities include commons-based peer production (such as Linux and Wikipedia) and "platforms" that connect buyers and sellers (such as Uber and Airbnb). The raw materials are available for more democratic and locally oriented enterprise. Management scholarship has an opportunity to document and encourage this movement.
The vertically integrated corporation of the 20th century has been replaced by disaggregated global supply chains across many industries. Dis-integration can reduce costs, but also limits the ability ...to monitor and control critical processes, including labor practices and the sourcing of supplies. This article asks: What organizational factors distinguish corporations that are able to vouch for their supply chains from those that are not? Section 1502 of the Dodd–Frank Act of 2010 gave companies over three years to determine and report on whether their products contained "conflict minerals" from the Democratic Republic of Congo area. Our analysis of every conflict minerals report submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission by over 1,300 corporations found that almost 80% admitted they were unable to determine the country of origin of such materials, and only 1% could certify themselves conflict-free with certainty beyond reasonable doubt. Internationally diversified firms and those with large and more dispersed supply chains were less likely to declare their products conflict-free: complexity reduces the visibility of a firm's supply chain. Our results suggest that widespread outsourcing may have reduced the corporate sector's capacity to account for the practices that yield its products.
We present a model of how institutional pressures at the community level shape corporate social action--behaviors and practices that extend beyond immediate profit maximization goals and are intended ...to increase social benefits or mitigate social problems for constituencies external to the firm--within the metropolitan area where firms are headquartered. We propose that community isomorphism influences the nature and level of corporate social action within communities and conclude with theoretical implications emphasizing the community as the focal unit of analysis for understanding corporate social action.
Organization and management theory as a field faces criticisms from several scholars that it has an unhealthy obsession with ‘theory’, while at the same time seeing very little cumulative theoretical ...progress. Some have even accused the field of being mired in the 1970s. Lounsbury and Beckman counter with an expansive review of several thriving domains of contemporary organizational research that demonstrate the theoretical vibrancy of the field. This article responds by seeking to define ‘theoretical progress’ in ways that extend beyond just the volume of articles produced. It finds that 1970s‐era classics have seen a surge of citations since the turn of the twenty‐first century, consistent with a view of limited progress. It concludes by outlining three areas of problem‐driven research eminently worthy of attention from organizational researchers.
It may be hard to believe in an era of Walmart, Citizens United, and the Koch brothers, but corporations are on the decline. The number of American companies listed on the stock market dropped by ...half between 1996 and 2012. In recent years we've seen some of the most storied corporations go bankrupt (General Motors, Chrysler, Eastman Kodak) or disappear entirely (Bethlehem Steel, Lehman Brothers, Borders). Gerald Davis argues this is a root cause of the income inequality and social instability we face today. Corporations were once an integral part of building the middle class. He points out that in their heyday they offered millions of people lifetime employment, a stable career path, health insurance, and retirement pensions. They were like small private welfare states. The businesses that are replacing them will not fill the same role. For one thing, they employ far fewer people—the combined global workforces of Facebook, Yelp, Zynga, LinkedIn, Zillow, Tableau, Zulily, and Box are smaller than the number of people who lost their jobs when Circuit City was liquidated in 2009. And in the "sharing economy, " companies have no obligation to most of the people who work for them—at the end of 2014 Uber had over 160, 000 "driver-partners" in the United States but recognized only about 2, 000 people as actual employees.Davis tracks the rise of the large American corporation and the economic, social, and technological developments that have led to its decline. The future could see either increasing economic polarization, as careers turn into jobs and jobs turn into tasks, or a more democratic economy built from the grass roots. It's up to us.
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