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This paper uses a social network approach to explore converging world‐systems hypotheses regarding the effects of increasing integration of socialist countries into the capitalist world economy since the height of the Cold War. Research on interdependence and other power relations among states in the world order cite the development of Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs) and their expanding numbers as evidence of an evermore sophisticated network in which countries have unique positions related to their functioning in the world order. Theories of International Development and International Relations suggest that at the beginning of the Cold War, capitalist states and socialist states functioned in effectively mutually exclusive realms. The balance of power between the US and the USSR perpetuated a world order in which, for the most pan, capitalist states did not engage in political or economic relations with socialist states and vice versa.

Contemporary labor economics has a ready explanation for the role of job training in the labor market. The human capital framework pioneered by Becker (1962, 1993) and Mincer (1962) and now extended by many, many others sees training as an investment in productive capacity that benefits both workers and employers. Employers enhance the productivity of their firms by investing in the skills of their workers, and these productivity gains are passed on to workers in the form of higher wages. Key to all of this is the distinction between general and specific skill. According to the theory, employers will not pay for or provide general skills (i.e. those that are transferable and hence valuable to other employers), because they are averse to being “poached” by more high-wage employers. They will, however, invest in workplace-specific skills, which assure them a return on their training investments.

Human capital theory hypothesizes that no firm rationally invests in general job skills training because its competitors might hire the trained employees away before the firm could recoup its costs through higher worker productivity. Drawing from four explanatory perspectives, we developed several research hypotheses about the organizational and environmental sources of variation in company-provided job skills training for core employees, which we tested with a national sample of U.S. work establishments. Contrary to human capital theory expectations, the large majority of employers with core training programs reported providing skills that were either “to a great deal” or “to some extent” useful to other employers. Our general skills training analysis supported only one hypothesis, suggesting the inadequacy of human capital theory for explaining company training investments. We found evidence that the substantive contents of company job skills training programs differentiated into technical skills and social skills dimensions. Multivariate equations supported several hypothesized effects of organizational and environmental factors on the social and technical skills contents of company core training investments. We conclude with a reassessment of the classic general-specific job skills hypothesis and speculate about future directions for job skills training theory and research.

The Soweto revolt of 1976 was mounted by black students in South Africa mobilized under the banner of the Black Consciousness (BC) ideology. However, when thousands of these youths were driven into exile by state repression, they joined the African National Congress (ANC) or its military wing. When hundreds of them returned as guerrillas after 1978, some were arrested and tried, while others were involved in spectacular shootouts with the police. The resulting press coverage began to revive ANC ideology in popular consciousness. With further publicity in 1980 from a Free Mandela campaign, and from luridly successful sabotage attacks, popular support for the ANC soared, shaping political events for the rest of the decade. The only other noteworthy tendency among blacks was the Zulu‐based Inkatha movement led by Chief Gatsha Buthelezi, whose support among young people was slight because of his hostile stance to both BC and the ANC.

We construct a theory of team collaboration to explain how social actors activate their network ties to gain access to and acquire the use of social capital held by other network actors. Drawing from weak-strong tie theory and closure-brokerage models of network structures, our theory specifies dynamic processes in which relations vary in their potential for activation, and thus, project teams have differential probabilities of mobilizing and gaining collective use of the varied resources held by their network alters inside and outside the team. The theoretical scope is interorganizational team whose members are employed by two partnering organizations and are assigned to a joint project with a single task or goal to be accomplished within a limited period. We present and discuss a set of propositions about factors that affect the ability of a team to access its members’ social capital for use in a project task.

The purpose of this paper is to engage in a comprehensive review of the research on strategic alliances in the last decade.

After presenting a typology of diverse alliance governance forms, reviews recent analyses of alliance formation, implementation management, and performance outcomes of collaborative activities.

Strategic alliances developed and propagated as formalized interorganizational relationships. These cooperative arrangements represent new organizational formation that seeks to achieve organizational objectives better through collaboration than through competition.

The paper provides future research directions on partner selection, networks patterns and processes, understanding the integration in alliances through fusion, fission, and how to manage developmental dynamics.

Concludes with some future directions for theory construction and empirical research.

We use Canadian data to examine the help‐seeking strategies of women dealing with the consequences of violent victimization. Consideration of the help‐seeking strategies of victimsmay provide insight into other decision‐making processes. The analytic framework integrates research on police reporting and intimate partner violence with the wider help‐seeking literature. This integration allows for an examination of the effect of the victim’s relationship to her offender on decisions to seek help from family, friends, doctors, social service agencies and the police. The research has two objectives. First, we aim to determine whether help‐seeking exists as isolated choices or whether there is a discernable set of help‐seeking strategies used by crime victims. Although many victims do not call the police, they often rely on family, friends, social service and mental health interventions.We find that those victims who report their victimizations to the police also seek support from family and friends. Second, we examine the correlates of these help‐seeking decisions. In doing so, we explore the effects of the offender relationship on decisions to seek help. We explore differences in help‐seeking across attacks by strangers, spousal offenders, dating offenders, and other known offenders. Our findings suggest that women victimized by a spousal offender are more likely than others to use a substantial help‐seeking strategy that includes disclosure to the police, doctors and social service agencies.

Tocqueville's theory emerged from a social movement–infested society rather than from the rather bucolic and static American democracy that he sometimes portrays. And while Putnam (2001) and others try to resurrect this cooperative view of society using the concept of social capital, this approach is inadequate to explain major changes in society and, indeed, only repeats power resources theory with a different linguistic cloak.