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The purpose of this study is to explore some of the distinctive features of organizing and organization in France which set it apart from organization in other nations, and which are fundamental to its modus operandi. In particular, this article is concerned with elite connectivity and concerted action by elite “connectors”.

The research underpinning this article stems from a cross-national comparative project on business elites and corporate governance in France and the UK. This has three dimensions, being quantitative, qualitative and case study-based. Concerted action by the ruling elite is explored through two illustrative vignettes: the ousting from office of Jean-Marie Messier and State-sponsored expansion as pursued by EDF. Both examples shed light on the French business elite’s response to globalization and the development of international business.

The paper finds elite cohesion to be achieved quite differently in the two countries. In addition, it finds that the ties that bind French connectors tend to be strong and institutionally based.

The case of EDF suggests that the most ambitious of State-sponsored strategies can also be the most successful. It implies that elite ideologies in France have deviated relatively little from sentiments expressed by Rousseau and de Gaulle concerning the primacy of the national interest and the conviction that firms can serve as an (expansionist) instrument of the nation. The Messier case illuminates the pattern of close relationships among the French business elite. It demonstrates how a strategy of expansion may come unstuck when it is not grounded in the customary modes of business regulation.

This research confirms a slight preference on the part of the French business elite for more homogenous ties. Against this, the paper demonstrates that a significant proportion of the French elite act as boundary spanners, brokering relationships with others from more distant parts of the wider network. The integration of the French elite in the Eurozone has potentially favored bridge-building relationships and weakened national embeddedness. This may contribute to the decline of indigenous interlocks, while promoting the further internationalization of top management teams. The implications of this for organizational strategy, firm survival and economic performance form an agenda for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the role of public relations, conceptualized as a strategic management function, in foreign policy making, and implementation. This research study emphasizes the relational perspective and seeks to examine its applicability to the practice of public relations in foreign policy settings.

This qualitative research study was based on in-depth interviews with nine individuals who were in charge of public relations aspects of a particular foreign policy issue in Latvian government institutions. The examined foreign policy issue was development cooperation.

The research findings revealed that public relations contributed to the strategic management of the foreign policy process to a certain extent. Public relations built and cultivated relationships, researched and scanned environments, built communities around a foreign policy issue, facilitated dialogic encounters and socialized foreign policies. However, the public relations function was not involved in the entire strategic management process: analysis, planning, implementation, and evaluation. Although the relational perspective may be applicable to foreign policy settings and relationships that are cultivated by public relations practitioners in these settings bring outcomes on three different levels – national, organizational, and personal – this study found that public relations is not the only function that deals with relationships between an organization and its key publics.

This research study investigated two areas that are little explored in the public relations research literature: the strategic management role of public relations in government institutions and public relations contributions to policy, especially foreign, making.

This article aims to detail the scope of social capital (SC) in cultural events held in Catalonia and to analyze their tourism appeal. This study considers three elements of SC which play a role in event planning (motivation, internal network creation, and leadership) and analyzes their impact on the local tourism industry.

The current work assesses the presence and importance of SC factors at 263 surveyed events. This information was crossed with tourism appeal and impact data obtained from the same survey, and the statistical significance of the differences between various SC factors was evaluated via a χ² test.

This study's primary conclusion is that events with SC elements which strengthen their social cohesion, view and justify the event as a socializing fact, regardless of the scope of tourism at these functions. Additionally, research showed that the creation of relationship networks strengthened the community's internal cohesion, representativeness, and sense of identity. Finally, leadership elements which increase visibility and connect the event to external networks explain the current differences between events' tourism appeal and impact.

The study's major contribution lies in highlighting the role of SC as a factor which affects the social and tourism repercussions of Catalan events. Recommendations suggest the strategic importance of incorporating SC in managing and creating new products and tourism policies focused on cultural events.

Through the framework of Michael Porterʼs five forces, this article compares sustainability in the Oregon and British Columbia wine industries. After describing the contrasting characteristics of the green niche model and the government-led model of environmental change, the article analyzes the emerging challenges for each type of change.The distinct sources for profitability and future innovation suggests diversity within the sustainability movement and two very different processes of translating environmental values into entrepreneurial practice.

This paper seeks to provide an interview with Professor Stuart Hart discussing how multinational corporations can be a catalyst for a truly sustainable form of global development, solving social and environmental problems while prospering in the process.

This paper uses an interview technique to reveal Stuart L. Hart's views on how multinational corporations can be a catalyst for a truly sustainable form of global development.

Explains the focus of the base of the pyramid or BOP protocol which emphasizes the need for multinational corporations (MNCs) to acquire a “native capability” in order to understand developing markets and identify and respond to local needs and requirements. Puts forward an argument for forging unconventional partnerships in developing countries and stresses the importance of finding the right local partners and building businesses from the ground up.

This paper provides some useful views on multinational corporations.

Social movement scholars have increasingly drawn attention to the process of “bridge building” in social movements – that is, the process by which activists attempt to resolve conflicts stemming from different collective identities. However, most scholars assume that social movements primarily attempt to resolve tensions among activists themselves, and thus that bridge building is a means to other ends rather than a primary goal of social movement activism. In this chapter, I challenge these assumptions through a case study of a “bridging organization” known as Bridge Builders, which sought as its primary goal to “bridge the gap between the LGBT and Christian communities” at a Christian university in Nashville, Tennessee. I highlight the mechanisms by which Bridge Builders attempted to facilitate bridge building at the university, and I argue that Bridge Builders succeeded in bridging (a) disparate institutional identities at their university, (b) “structural holes” between LGBT- and religious-identified groups at their university, and (c) oppositional personal identities among organizational members. As I discuss in the conclusion, the case of Bridge Builders has implications for literatures on bridge building in social movements, cultural and biographical consequences of social movements, and social movement strategy.

This book provides a deeper understanding of what it means to promote social justice and equity work in schools and communities around the world. Throughout this book, narratives describe how authors continue to reshape the agenda for educational reform. They remind us of the significance meaningful relationships play in promoting and sustaining reform efforts that address the injustices vulnerable populations face in school communities. Their voices represent the need for engaging with obstacles and barriers and a resistant world through a web of relationships, an intersubjective reality (see Ayers, 1996). As authors engaged in thinking about addressing injustices, they describe how their thoughts transformed into actions moving beyond, breaking through institutional structures, attempting to rebuild and make sense of their own situations (see Dewey, 1938).

The present paper describes the interplay between the “why” and “how” in co-production based on a case study of community-based healthcare in Denmark involving municipalities and voluntary sports clubs. So far, policy practice and research have focussed on the “why” – the rationales and pre-requisites – of co-production. However, there seems to be a lack of knowledge about the “how” of co-production in the interplay between professionals and volunteers. The paper asks how co-production is being perceived and practised according to existing norms and objectives of public healthcare and civil society, drawing on the theory of institutional logics.

The paper uses a critical case study approach to examine the practice of co-production. The analysis builds on qualitative data from nine semi-structured interviews, two information interviews and project documents. Interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim and coded.

This paper demonstrates that compatibility of institutional logics was not given, nor did the co-existence of potentially competing logics necessarily result in conflict in co-production. Instead, in this case study co-production emerged as highly contingent, reflecting the dynamic interaction between logics and context-specific management.

This paper makes an original contribution to the conceptual understanding of co-production in emphasising the benefit of paying attention to the network logic when building bridges between public healthcare and civil society – and to unite the seemingly contradictory “why” and “how” of co-production in practice.

Suggests that the concepts of partnerships and strategic alliances are increasingly emphasized in literature and “real life”, which might lead managers to believe that partnership‐style relationships, as opposed to arm′s length relationships, are necessary for a firm to compete successfully. Explores why, how, and when to establish a wide range of possible business‐to‐business relationships. The inter‐organizational relationship literature suggests six reasons for forming relationships: necessity, asymmetry, reciprocity, efficiency, stability, and legitimacy. Compares this framework with six partnership characteristics based on the partnership‐building literature: planning, sharing of benefits and burdens, extendedness, systematic operational information exchange, operating controls, and corporate culture bridge building. Suggests that firms should concentrate on how to develop “good business relationships”, which may have varying levels of partnership characteristics.