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The following is an introductory profile of the fastest growing firms over the three-year period of the study listed by corporate reputation ranking order. The business activities in which the firms are engaged are outlined to provide background information for the reader.

My warm thanks to Dean James Hunt, Provost, and Professor Jacqueline Muir-Broaddus, Chair of the Psychology Department, for making a home at Southwestern University, Georgetown, Texas, for cultural ergonomics and the International Center of Cultural Ergonomics, and for facilitating preparation of this book. Southwestern students Kendra Francisco, Staci Benson, and Ellen Gass contributed helpful assistance. At Elsevier, Fiona Barron, Publishing Editor, has been extraordinarily helpful, and the consideration and support there from Becky Lewsey and Deborah Raven have been particularly noteworthy. Dr. Pierre Falzon, Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers in Paris, made possible the acquisition of documents written by Professor Alain Wisner, who died recently. Computer advice and assistance provided by Richard H. Troxell have been invaluable. Communication and interchange of documents and information with Dr. Eduardo Salas at the University of Central Florida were facilitated by Marcella Maresco and Diana Furman.

This introduction unpacks the key question that informs the articles in this special issue. How does a social sphere inform regulation and, more specifically, how can the regulatory capacity of a social sphere be harnessed, as an alternative or significant complementary force to state regulation and reliance on the self-regulatory capacity of markets? This question is salient and topical also in light of the search for new regulatory strategies and perspectives in the aftermath of the 2007 financial and subsequent EU sovereign debt crises, which have led to a major realignment of economy and society in a number of countries.

This introduction argues that economic sociology is a crucial reference point for understanding more about the social practices that constitute business behavior. It enables to explore the scope and significance of often interlinked social and legal norms for regulating various transnational risks that economic activity can give rise to. The introduction therefore locates the quest for understanding more about the regulatory capacity of a social sphere in debates that draw on Karl Polanyi’s analysis of the embedding, disembedding, and re-embedding of economic activity into social norms. The introduction highlights one of the key themes developed in this special issue, the idea of society within economy which questions an assumed conceptual distinction between economy and society.

This introduction concludes by specifying how the accounts of risk regulation developed in this special issue chart a path that is different from recent explorations of the role of a social sphere in regulation, which were conducted under the banner of “the sociological citizen,” “regulatory sociability,” and “collaborative governance.”

The authors report on a study that examined how academics in two faculties (Business and Science) at a large, research-focused university use information about student diversity to inform their teaching. Ninety-nine Science academics completed an online survey regarding their knowledge of their student cohort’s demographic, cultural, language, and educational backgrounds at the beginning of semester. They then received a concise two-page, course-specific document, Knowing Your Students (KYS) report, summarizing aspects of their students’ diversity. At the end of the semester, 44 of the same staff completed a second survey with open-ended questions regarding how they used the report information in their teaching and curriculum design. The report was new to Science while Business academics had received the reports for three years. To compare Science with Business, Business academics also completed the second survey. Academics across both faculties had a very positive response to the reports and engaged with the information provided. Provision of the report to Science academics brought their self-assessed knowledge of their student cohort’s diversity to a level comparable with that of Business. This chapter shares how KYS reports improved academics’ knowledge of student diversity, and challenged them to respond with suitable curriculum and pedagogical changes.

In elite professional firms, minorities are actively recruited but struggle to move upward. The authors argue that initiatives aimed at general skill development can have unintended consequences for firm diversity. Specifically, the authors contend that approaches that win partner support through motivational significance and interpretive clarity provide a more effective avenue to skill development for minorities, who have less access than White peers to informal developmental opportunities. The authors also argue that a longer “partnership track,” which imposes a time limit on skill development, will benefit minority professionals. Using data on 601 offices of large US law firms in 1996 and 2005, the authors investigate the effects of five developmental initiatives and partnership track length on the representation of African-Americans, Latinxs, and Asian-Americans among partners. Observed effects are consistent with expectations, but patterns vary across racial-ethnic groups.