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This chapter considers whether and how race/ethnicity can be examined using experimental methods.

We begin by discussing the highly contextual nature of race/ethnicity and reviewing the properties of experiments. After examining existing experimental literature that focuses on race/ethnicity, we turn to our current study that uses the incompatible complexity condition to examine the multilevel interactions of diverse racial/ethnic groups composed of Mexican American and White participants in Texas and Black and White participants in Ohio.

We argue that experiments, when guided by formal theoretical approaches that allow for general inquiries of theoretical principles, are especially suitable for studying interactional characteristics such as race/ethnicity.

We suggest a particular approach that emphasizes interactional aspects of race/ethnicity and how these aspects can be utilized to diminish inequality in group processes.

Organization theory seeks to explain how people coordinate their behaviors to achieve common objectives, but it has offered little insight into how organizations emerge from such coordination. Fully understanding entities requires knowing their origins. The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to and to suggest an approach for fortifying a foundational weakness in organization theory: pre-organization theory.

To develop pre-organization theory, this paper employs an evolutionary approach that integrates three theories. This paper first employs memetics to articulate a unit of selection, the i-memeplex, and next introduces inducement-contribution theory to tailor the i-memeplex to pre-organization, yielding a founder’s mental map for exchanges of inducements and contributions. It then applies generalized Darwinism to complete its evolutionary theory of pre-organization.

Memetics, inducement-contribution theory, and generalized Darwinism can be integrated to create a promising theoretical solution, but further investigation is needed to assess the empirical and practical value of pre-organization theory.

This paper contributes to organization theory by (1) explicating a foundational weakness in organization theory – its lack of pre-organization theory – and (2) integrating a novel set of theories to develop an evolutionary theory of pre-organization.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of personality and mentorship on expatriates’ psychological well-being. The authors argue that certain personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience) have positive effects on expatriates’ psychological well-being and that these personality traits enable them to derive a greater benefit from mentorship. By doing so, this study identifies for which personality traits which type of mentoring (home or host country mentor) is most beneficial.

Based on socioanalytic theory, the authors develop theory-driven hypotheses and test them against data of 334 expatriates.

The study shows that several personality traits as well as home country mentorship have a significant positive impact on psychological well-being, whereas host country mentorship shows no significant positive effects. Moreover, the study indicates that home and host country mentorship partially moderates the relationship between personality traits and psychological well-being.

Since the authors derive important implications for the selection process of expatriates as well as for the implementation of mentoring in multinational corporations, this study is of value for researchers and practitioners in the areas of human resource management and organizational studies.

Despite the apparent philanthropic concerns of the new imperialism and the rhetoric of the civilising mission, the Second Boer War (1899–1902) revealed British irrational ambition, military reverses, scandals and evidence of inadequate administration. In this context, the South African concentration camps where the Boers, mostly women and children whose houses and farms had been destroyed by the British forces, were concentrated, stand out as examples of a seemingly arbitrary power. The controversies over such camps, and over the War itself, were heightened after Emily Hobhouse's Report was made public. Emily Hobhouse, an active humanitarian, obtained permission to visit the camps in order to write a report on the living conditions there. Upon returning to England, she had a meeting with Campbell-Bannerman, the leader of the Liberal Party, who eventually denounced the methods of barbarism carried out in such places. The Report appeared soon after the meeting and waves of protest ensued. Both Emily Hobhouse and Campbell-Bannerman were under crossfire.

My intention in this paper is, firstly, to briefly address the social, political and economic context underlying British imperial expansion and struggle for space at the turn of the nineteenth century, as far as controversies over the Boer War are concerned; secondly, to study the characteristics and living conditions in South African ‘concentration camps’ relying, to a great extent, on Emily Hobhouse's account; and thirdly, to analyse the social and political impact of the denunciation of such camps as places of wholesale cruelty in Hobhouse's (in) famous Report.

This study is aimed at developing and validating an index designed to measure the level of social disclosure of external social programs of firms listed on the Brazilian stock market.

The index of social disclosure is composed of 13 items distributed in three dimensions: past information, prospective actions, and accessibility. Its validation involved: (a) pre-test, (b) analysis by referees, (c) exploratory factor analysis, (d) Cronbach’s alpha test, and (e) final validation. The sample is composed of 83 Brazilian firms listed on the Brazilian Stock Exchange from 2005 to 2009.

The index presented robustness in all validation stages. It was found that size, industry sector, internationalization, auditing, and listing on social responsible investment funds are decisive factors for increasing the level of social disclosure.

The index of social disclosure evaluates external social programs only. Hence, some types of social information are not captured, such environmental ones. Besides, the sources of information for the index are restricted to annual and sustainability reports, so that information from other sources, such as official announcements and company websites, are not captured.

The social disclosure index developed can be useful to analysts and investors assessing listed firms, as well as to financial-market regulators defining policies applicable to the disclosure of corporate social information.

(a) Construction of a social disclosure index validated and tested in Brazilian firms, which is liable to replication; (b) Utilization of a representative sample of firms listed on an important emerging stock market.

Terrorism has much in common with genocide and sometimes may even be a form of genocide. In this chapter I systematically compare these two phenomena.

Drawing mainly from Donald Black’s work on terrorism and my own work on genocide, I examine the conceptual and theoretical overlap between terrorism and genocide.

Terrorism and genocide are similar and sometimes overlapping, and they occur under similar social conditions – in response to conflicts between socially distant and unequal groups. Conceptually they differ mainly in that terrorism is covert and carried out by civilians, and genocide may not be. The main theoretical difference is that terrorism tends to be upward – against more powerful targets – while genocide tends to be downward – against less powerful targets. Terrorism tends to be less effective than extreme genocide, then, and the most extreme cases have death tolls much lower than the most extreme cases of genocide.

This analysis draws from previous theories of terrorism, genocide, and social control to better place terrorism in a broader sociological context. In doing so it highlights and explains key features of terrorism, and it even helps us to speculate about the future of terrorism. That is, technological advances might in the long run destroy the social conditions conducive to terrorism, thus leading to terrorism’s ultimate demise, but in the short run they might allow terrorists to more effectively kill, leading terrorism to resemble extreme genocide in its deadliness.