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Field theory is one of the most visible approaches in the new political sociology of science, and Fligstein & McAdam’s (F&M) Theory of Fields is the most visible recent attempt to further it. This paper evaluates F&M’s theory of field transformation by comparing it with Berman’s (2012a) field-based explanation of the changes in the field of US academic science. While F&M’s general framework is quite useful, their explanation, which focuses on struggles between incumbents and challengers over whose conception of the field should dominate, does not map neatly onto the changes in academic science, which saw no such field-level struggles. This suggests that tools are also needed for explaining new settlements that do not result from intentional efforts to establish them. In particular, the case of US academic science shows that local innovations with practices based on alternative conceptions of the field can lead to field-level change. Attention to the interaction between local practice innovations and larger environments provides insights into how change ripples across fields, as well as the ongoing contention and dynamism within even relatively stable fields.

The burden social theorists must be willing to accept, respond to, and act upon pertains to the difficulties that predictably accompany all efforts to convey to nontheorists the unwelcome fact of heteronomy – that as actors, we are not as autonomous as we were told and prefer to assume – and to spell out what heteronomy in the form in which it has been shaping the developmental trajectory of modern societies means for professional theorists. I introduce the concept of “vitacide,” designed to capture that termination of life is a potential vanishing point of the heteronomous processes that have been shaping modern societies continuing to accelerate and intensify in ways that prefigure our future, but not on our human or social terms. Heteronomy pointing toward vitacide should compel us as social theorists to consider critically both the constructive and destructive trajectory that social change appears to have been following for more than two centuries, irrespective of whether the resulting prospect is to our liking or not. In this context, the classical critical theorists of the early Frankfurt School, especially Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, pursued what turned out to be an evolving interest in rackets, the authoritarian personality, and the administered society – concepts that served as foils for delineating the kind of theoretical stance that is becoming more and more important as we are moving into an increasingly uncertain future.

Louisiana State University (LSU)’s Office of Strategic Initiatives (OSI) is an award-winning office devoted to developing effective, educational approaches that incorporate guidance and exploration, increase students’ academic standing, and support measures to improve the institution’s diversity, predominantly in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) departments. Through the incorporation of three main factors, Mentoring, Education, and Research, OSI has developed a holistic development model that offers students strategies to overcome those factors that affect their persistence in STEM. OSI houses several programs with a diverse population of students ranging from the high school to doctoral levels. Although varied in student population, these programs unite under the holistic development model to provide support and opportunities to students at each critical educational juncture. OSI’s holistic approach has successfully supported over 135 high school, 560 undergraduate, and 100 graduate students. Of the 560 undergraduate students served, 51% were underrepresented minorities and 55% were women. The undergraduate initiatives have garnered 445 bachelor’s degrees, with 395 degrees from STEM disciplines, and an impressive overall graduation rate ranging from 64% to 84%. Through all of the remarkable work performed in OSI, the greatest accomplishment has been the capacity to offer students from mixed backgrounds tools and strategies to thrive at any point in their academic career.

Empirical evidence for the positive correlation between company size and competitiveness is widely supported in the literature and research. Of the many ways in which companies can increase in size, mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are the most common. M&As are now a strategic option for corporations to exploit emerging opportunities in order to expand. This paper reviewed the literature on how M&As impact company’s performance, comparing pre-merger and post-merger situations. We found that while scholars have explored this topic extensively, no minimum level of consensus has been reached, not only in conclusions but neither in methodologies nor in identifying independent and dependent variables. The evidence from the M&A literature is extremely inconsistent. Based on these mixed findings, we identified directions for future research, and suggested how to develop the scholarship to reach a consensus on the answer to the research question: does company performance improve after M&As?

The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) creates rights for covered employees, defines conduct that violates those rights, and deems that conduct an unfair labor practice. But while given broad remedial powers under the Act, the Board's options were curtailed by the Supreme Court's limit on the use of deterrence as an express remedial justification. The Board was left with a strongly make-whole, i.e., ex-post, focus to undo the consequences of a violation.

Put differently, the current NLRA remedies reflect a pay-or-play philosophy. The goal is restoration after the fact, using ex-post remedies to give parties the benefit or status quo that they expected. An actor willing to pay may use a cost–benefit analysis and strategically choose to violate the Act, accepting the make-whole remedies later. But the Act created ex-ante statutory rights, not agreed-upon contractual terms. By statutory enactment, employees are given something of value deemed worthy of protection. Assigning value to compliance with the law in the first instance not only prevents sometimes irreparable harm but also reaffirms the inherent value of the right itself.

The impact of the Board's limited remedies is therefore a broad value-driven one. Without ex-ante deterrence, the available ex-post make-whole remedial options make a normative statement about individuals' rights under the Act: those rights may not be inherently worth enough to incentivize legal compliance. The make-whole focus can imply that financial compensation for the portion of harm that can be calculated and “undoing” some nonfinancial effects is sufficient. There is little drive to deter infringement before the fact. By examining the remedial philosophy behind contrasting approaches in the common law of torts and contract, this Article asserts that the current remedial strictures and framework undermine both the Act and the worth of its rights in the eyes of the public and the employees who hold them.

To demonstrate how awareness of Neo-Marxist critical theory and Neo-Weberian comparative–historical sociology would have been beneficial to U.S. policy planners and decision-makers, especially Presidents.

This study employs qualitative analysis of available sources rather than quantitative data analysis.

Based on its practical application to a specific historical instance, the heuristic value of Max Weber’s ideal-type model of traditional authority (Herrschaft [domination]) is confirmed, as it is apparent that Henry Kissinger’s interpretation of the meaning of Realpolitik harmed U.S. foreign policy.

There is an imminent need to be critical of claims to expertise by advisors of major decision-makers. The practical relevance of possessing an adequate grasp of a given situation as the context in which actors must make choices is evident, as applies with regard to the current crises facing the world, which must be approached and addressed as scrupulously as possible.

Prevailing critiques of Kissinger and American foreign policy have tended to accept the premise that Kissinger was well-informed and giving good advice based on extensive and appropriate scholarship. That was not the case in Vietnam, in Indonesia, or in other regions. There are no available studies that examine Kissinger’s Eurocentric and limited perspective in light of critical theory and comparative–historical sociology.

Within North American institutions of higher education, the sociopolitical construct of whiteness comprises an often implicit set of lessons that are reflected not only in policy and curricula but also in the teaching practices of faculty. Such lessons perpetuate white centricity and supremacy, at enormous costs to those who have been negatively racialized. Therefore, it is critical for white faculty to engage meaningfully with ongoing processes of self-reflection, self-education, and skill development so that they can contribute positively to the interrogation and disruption of whiteness in higher education. This chapter discusses seven processual considerations for white educators who seek to interrogate and disrupt the problem of whiteness in teaching and learning.

Purpose — To develop methodologies to evaluate search engines according to an individual's preference in an easy and reliable manner, and to formulate user-oriented metrics to compare freshness and duplication in search results.

Design/methodology/approach — A personalised evaluation model for comparing search engines is designed as a hierarchy of weighted parameters. These commonly found search engine features and performance measures are given quantitative and qualitative ratings by an individual user. Furthermore, three performance measurement metrics are formulated and presented as histograms for visual inspection. A methodology is introduced to quantitatively compare and recognise the different histogram patterns within the context of search engine performance.

Findings — Precision and recall are the fundamental measures used in many search engine evaluations due to their simplicity, fairness and reliability. Most recent evaluation models are user oriented and focus on relevance issues. Identifiable statistical patterns are found in performance measures of search engines.

Research limitations/implications — The specific parameters used in the evaluation model could be further refined. A larger scale user study would confirm the validity and usefulness of the model. The three performance measures presented give a reasonably informative overview of the characteristics of a search engine. However, additional performance parameters and their resulting statistical patterns would make the methodology more valuable to the users.

Practical implications — The easy-to-use personalised search engine evaluation model can be tailored to an individual's preference and needs simply by changing the weights and modifying the features considered. A user is able to get an idea of the characteristics of a search engine quickly using the quantitative measure of histogram patterns that represent the search performance metrics introduced.

Originality/value — The presented work is considered original as one of the first search engine evaluation models that can be personalised. This enables a Web searcher to choose an appropriate search engine for his/her needs and hence finding the right information in the shortest time with the least effort.