Organizations and their Effectiveness (2016)

This is a page to collect resources, links, and supplementary information related to the 2016 Summer Institute on Organizations and their Effectiveness held at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University.

Please create an account (reload the page if it gives you a hard time), be bold, and add/organize/discuss as you see fit.

If you need help with wiki-markup or anything else, feel free to [mailto:aaronshaw@northwestern.edu email Aaron].

Workshop Information

 * The workshop website has more detailed information about (note that a login is required to access some resources).

Our esteemed leaders



Rules Versus Statutes and Type I versus Type II Incomplete Law
This is a random selection. More of the important ones coming.


 * [[Media:Baier_sjms_1986.pdf|Baier, Vicki Eaton, James G. March, and Harald Saetren. "Implementation and ambiguity." Scandinavian Journal of Management Studies 2, no. 3 (1986): 197-212.]]
 * [[Media:SSRN-id1160987.pdf|Pistor, Katharina, and Chenggang Xu. "Law enforcement under incomplete law: Theory and evidence from financial market regulation." LSE STICERD Research Paper No. TE442 (2002).]]
 * [[Media:Funk_amr_2016.pdf|Funk, Russell, and Daniel Hirschman. "Beyond nonmarket strategy: market actions as corporate political activity." Academy of Management Review (2015): amr-2013.]]

Standards and Standard-Setting Organizations

 * Bonatti and Rantakari (2016) on Standard-Setting Organizations, The Politics of Compromise (from Bob)
 * Timmermans and Epstein's (2010) review article on sociological research on standards: A World of Standards but not a Standard World
 * Ahrne and Brunsson's (2008) theory of Meta-Organizations, an organization with organizations as members
 * Bromley and Meyer's (2015) book on hyper-organization, and an article (2013) that summarizes the main argument

Cooperation

 * Kollock (1998). "Social Dilemmas: The Anatomy of Cooperation"

Dan W
Definition: The probability that one can carry out some desire on the basis of resource dependence, legitimacy, or normative commitment in a social setting despite potential resistance to that desire. (Inspired by: Weber (1905), Cook and Emerson (1983))

Important elements of my definition:

- “social setting” - power is only meaningful when one can exercise it over at least one other person. - “potential resistance” - the other party in a social setting need not actively resist the use of power for power to be manifest. - “resource dependence” - Source #1 of power: the other party depends on a focal individual for some resource, which is why the focal individual can exercise power despite the other party’s resistance. - “legitimacy” - Source #2 of power: the other party acknowledges the widespread legitimacy of the focal individual’s power, even if the other party disagrees with the individual’s use of it. - “normative commitment” - Source #3 of power: the other party disavows the legitimacy of an individual’s power and does not rely on the individual for some resource, but can exercise no real challenge because the individual’s incumbency is woven into the very norms that guide social action.

Example:

- All of Dan Carpenter's readings??

Dan W
Definition: A non-random set of meaningful relationships distributed among individuals (or organizations, or any other purposive entities) that together do not reduce to the aggregate properties of those connected individuals (Inspired by: Scott (1991) -- the one and only textbook on social networks anyone ever needs!).

Important elements of my definition:

- “non-random” - social relationships emerge between entities in a social environment for some articulable, and often observable, reason. - “meaningful” - a set of relationships that contributes interpretive richness to the entities connected by those relationships beyond their individual characteristics. - “purposive” - entities connected by network relationships have their own desires which are sometimes liberated and sometimes shackled depending on the pattern, strength, and nature of the networks in which they are embedded.

Example:

- Padgett and McLean (2006): intermarriage network between families representing different guilds after the Ciompi revolt around the time of Renaissance Florence redefined the economic and social actions of those families, giving birth to the partnership system of economic organization

Romain
Definition: a network is a collection of nodes and a collection of ties among these nodes.

Types of networks: Several common distinctions are often made when talking about networks. A network can be directed or undirected (tie from $i$ to $j \neq$ tie from $j$ to $i$), and weighted or unweighted. One can also consider static vs. dynamic networks (ties or nodes are created/disappear over time), or multiplex networks (there are several types of ties).

When talking about networks, one should always define: (1) what type of network are we talking about, (2) what is a node, (3) what is a tie. Examples: friendship network [type = undirected, unweighted network, node = person, tie = $i$ and $j$ are friends], airport traffic [type = weighted, directed network, node = airport, tie = number of daily flights from airport $i$ to airport $j$]

(Theoretical) network models: Two broad distinctions: (1) network formation vs. process on a network, (2) non-strategic [no game theory] vs. strategic [game theory].

Examples:

Non-strategic game of network formation: Barabassi and Albert's model of preferential attachment. Question: Why do networks often exhibit a hub and spoke structure [few nodes with many connections, many nodes with few connections]? Model: start with one node. At each time period, a new node is created and forms 1 tie with some old node selected at random. Old nodes with more connections are selected with higher probability.

Strategic game of network formation: Matt Jackson's coauthor's model. Question: how does a population of scholars pick coauthors? Authors choose whether to form ties with other authors. Two authors with a tie are coauthors. Players' utility increases with the number of coauthors, but busy coauthors (ie coauthors with many connections) give less benefits less than non-busy coauthors.

Non-strategic process on a network: probabilistic diffusion model. Some disease diffuses on a network. Question: which structures lead to a pandemic (everybody is infected), which do not? On a network, an initial node is infected (the seed). She infects her neighbors with some probability. At each time period, newly infected nodes infect their neighbors with some probability.

Strategic process on a network: Chwe's model of social movements. Question: which network structures lead to a revolution (every node protests)? On a network, each node has a threshold. A node protests if the number of her neighbors who protest is above that threshold.

Romain
Real-valued function representing preferences over choices. That is, suppose there are many alternatives $x_1, ..., x_n$. Suppose I have well-defined preferences over those choices (that is, for each pair of choices, I can say which one I prefer). A utility function is a function over those choices is function such that if I prefer $x_i$ to $x_j$, then $u(x_i) \geq u(x_j)$.

Romain
I am rational when I select the choice that maximizes my utility.