This paper addresses the role of knowledge metaphors in knowledge sharing interventions. Open space can be treated as a specific technology for blending knowledge sources and as a broader knowledge metaphor that focuses on self-regulating knowledge processes. The paper outlines the experience of applying the open space technology in a large-scale civic society initiative, ‘My Estonia’, in 2009 …
In the project ‘Competence-Driven Project Portfolio Analysis’ (CDPPA), an integrated system for supporting R&D project selection, staff assignment and activity scheduling with special consideration of the strategic development of competencies has been designed and implemented prototypically. The system has been field-tested at the Electronic Commerce Competence Center (EC3), a public–private pa…
Malaysia is one of the leading countries in Asia that are at the forefront in the development of a knowledge-based economy (KBE). The Malaysian government has been making substantial investments in both physical and technological infrastructure to facilitate knowledge-intensive economic activities. Foreign and local firms in Malaysia are encouraged to take advantage of the opportunities brought…
According to a widespread assumption, party–interest group links are significantly weaker than they used to be. Both sets of organizations, it is said, now prefer autonomy over the constraints implied by close relationships, especially in supposedly ‘cartelized’ established party systems but also in new democracies. In this article, we briefly review existing literature on party–group links and…
Political parties and major economic interest groups often used to be closely linked, but over recent decades they seem to have become more and more detached. Until now, this process has primarily been described in almost deterministic structural models that tell us little about how this detachment takes place and imply that it affects all players at around the same time. The article analyses t…
The aim of this article is twofold. First it sheds light on the types of relationship established by political parties with interest groups in new democracies through the identification of the strategies applied by parties towards civil society. Analysis of the Spanish case allows the mapping of three different strategies: the creation and/or sponsoring (of social organizations), penetration (i…
This article assesses the relationship between parties and civil society in Portugal between 1999 and 2009, examining the mediating role of parties in patterns of state funding to civil society organizations. We find evidence of a relationship between parties and organized civil society – albeit an instrumental one, largely based on reward-motivated linkages. The analysis of state grants indica…
Europe has brought about important changes in representation by strengthening the ability of national interest groups to influence policy at the expense of national political parties. Nevertheless, results from a project on the relationship between interest groups and political parties in Denmark, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom show that interest groups still attach high priority to int…
Building on recent work on contemporary forms of bias in meritocratic personnel systems, the author assesses sources of racial disadvantage in an output-based pay-for-performance system for compensating financial advisers in a large financial services firm. Using data from expert reports submitted in racial discrimination litigation, the author shows how racial differences in access to white we…
Not all biases are equivalent, and not all biases are uniformly negative. Two fundamental dimensions differentiate stereotyped groups in cultures across the globe: status predicts perceived competence, and cooperation predicts perceived warmth. Crossing the competence and warmth dimensions, two combinations produce ambivalent prejudices: pitied groups (often traditional women or older people) a…
This article summarizes literatures on power, status, and influence in sociology’s group processes tradition and applies them to issues of diversity in organizations. Power—defined as the ability to impose one’s will even against resistance from others—results primarily from position in a social structure. Influence—defined as compelling behavior change without threat of punishment or promise o…
Despite the popularity of diversity management, there is little consensus on how to design diversity practices that work. In this article, the author provides an inside look into one type of diversity practice: diversity recruitment. Drawing on qualitative evidence from hiring in elite law firms, investment banks, and management consulting firms, the author analyzes what diversity recruitment l…
Explanations of minority underrepresentation among organizational managers have focused primarily on either employee deficits in human and social capital or employer discrimination. To date, research has paid little attention to the role of developmental practices and related cultural values within organizations. Using data on large U.S. law firms, the authors investigate the role of formal dev…
Since 1970, women have made substantial inroads into management jobs. But most women are in lower- and middle-management jobs; few are in top-management jobs. Human capital theory uses three individual-level variables to explain this vertical gender gap: women acquire fewer of the necessary educational credentials than men, women prefer different kinds of jobs than men, and women accumulate les…
Data from the 1998 to 2005 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics are used to assess the particularistic mobility thesis, which maintains that among women there is a racialized continuum in the determinants of and timing to mobility into two “upper-tier” occupational categories. Findings support this theory, though racial gaps along the continuum are greater for professional/technical than…
This article explores the manner in which race, ethnicity, and gender intersect to produce inequality in wages and employer benefits among “workers” (employees with no job authority), “supervisors” (employees with broad supervisory responsibilities), and “managers” (employees who can hire/fire and set the pay of others). Using data uniquely suited to examine these relationships, the author find…
The goal of this study is to examine whether women in the highest levels of firms’ management ranks help to reduce barriers to women’s advancement in the workplace. Using a panel of more than twenty thousand firms during 1990 to 2003 from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the authors explore the influence of women in top management on subsequent female representation in lower-le…
Scholars differ on whether the increase in minority managers represents real or vacuous progress toward the elimination of racial bias in the labor market. This study uses the National Study of the Changing Workforce to examine racial differences in work outcomes across the authority divide. On balance, this study finds more support for the pessimistic view of the minority presence in managemen…
A large body of research has examined the organizational factors that promote women’s access to positions of workplace authority. Fewer studies explore how women’s access to these positions influences gender inequality among subordinates. Utilizing a 2005 national sample of South Korean organizations, this article examines whether having women in managerial and supervisory roles is associated w…
What factors are associated with variation in the racial/ethnic composition of hospital health care professionals? Institutional theories suggest that organizations react to external environmental and internal structural pressures for the racial/ethnic integration of workers. Using an institutional framework, we bring to bear new insight into how hospitals respond to such pressure for diversity…