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This chapter focuses on the Street Work Homeless Project that was the site of one of the ethnographic case studies conducted in Manchester and also one of the participatory action research projects. The participants – men with lived experience of homelessness – were in many ways the antithesis of those usually considered for inclusion in a study on youth participation. However, the chapter shows how there is much to learn from this project, particularly in terms of how marginalised groups can actively participate in and for society. In preparation for the chapter, Rowley and Charles revisited their reflections and learning from the project. From this process, they wrote conversations exploring tensions that ran throughout the project. These tensions, and an antidote, are explored in the chapter. The chapter emphasises the importance of relationality in building mutuality and trust, the limitations of empowerment due to internalising pathologising dominant narratives, and the need to witness rather than spectate the more discomforting aspects of learning participation. By working through these tensions, it was possible to shift relations and roles between those designated as facilitator and participant leading to the question ‘who was lost and who was found?’. The chapter concludes that such processes are necessarily agonistic and creative to enable more inclusive and democratic participation to occur for marginalised groups.

The argument that applications of social network research tools and theories to stakeholder research will advance our understanding of how organizations should and do interact with their stakeholders and how stakeholders influence organizations has been well known for over 15 years. However, the integration of social network analysis and stakeholder research has been limited to date. To motivate stakeholder network research, I illustrate the similarities and complementarities between these research streams, arguing that the social network perspective tackles weaknesses in stakeholder models supporting the creation of more fruitful models of organization–stakeholder environments. I illustrate how stakeholder power and legitimacy, and focal organization obligations can be better modeled theoretically and measured empirically using social network concepts and techniques.

Interorganizational partner selection decisions are plagued with uncertainty. When making partnering decisions, firms strive to answer two questions: does the prospective partner have resources which can be used to generate value in the relationship; and will the partner be willing to actively share these resources and cooperate in good faith? Answers to these questions help reduce three types of uncertainty – partner capability uncertainty, partner competitiveness uncertainty and partner reliability uncertainty. For a relationship to benefit both partners, they have to possess complimentary resources of comparable quality, avoid explicit competition as well as be willing to engage in the cooperative behaviors within the confines of their relationship. In this paper, we examine the importance of prospective partners’ characteristics (differences in size, status and specialization) as well as their network characteristics (existence of a common partner and membership in the same clique) to the formation and longevity of their social relationships, as these characteristics reduce firms’ value generation and partner reliability uncertainty.

Organizations are embedded in multiple interdependent networks comprising different types of relationships, which are managed by different functional units inside each organization. We define tie transfer across networks as the influence of relationships in one network on relationships in another. We argue that the probability of tie transfer will depend on the differences in context in which relationships are formed in two networks, on the past dynamics of relationships in a network into which the tie transfer takes place and on the relative salience of different networks. Our paper develops these conjectures into a relational multiplexity perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the following research question in partner selection decisions in business-to-business strategic partnerships/collaborations literature: How do inertia and uncertainty affect partner selection? Explicitly, the paper analyzes how inertia of previous alliance selection routines and uncertainty of entire market movement shape firms’ preferences regarding exploratory partner selection (i.e. selecting new partners who never collaborate with the focal firm).

Grounded on inter-firm partnerships, partner selection and network theory literature, the study empirically tests a fine-grained sample of 511 open-end funds initiated by 61 fund management firms in China. To do so, it runs Tobit regression for main analysis and applies a variety of sensitivity analyses to check the robustness.

Results show that inertia in previous partner selection has a negative effect on exploration. Importantly, these inertial forces impact domestic firms but not international firms. Market uncertainty also affects exploratory partner selection: short-term market uncertainty encourages exploration, whereas long-term uncertainty inhibits it. These effects also depend on firms’ type: long-term market uncertainty has a negative effect on exploration for international firms but not for domestic firms. Both types of firms exhibit a stronger tendency toward exploration when they encounter short-term uncertainty. However, this inclination is stronger in international firms.

Earlier research has examined how inertia affects exploitation but largely overlooked its effect on exploration. A critical examination of firm and environment level factors provides a deeper understanding of why and when firms have inconsistent preferences for specific partner selection strategies. Thus, this study offers a unique perspective for understanding firms’ exploratory partner selection by focusing on two important characteristics of focal firms: one internal (inertia) and one external (market uncertainty) in nature.

In this study, we seek to broaden the research focus in the strategic alliance literature from a firm's “partner strategy” to its “network strategy” by linking a firm's partnering choices to changes in its network position over time. Using data on all underwriting syndicates in Canada over nearly 40 years, we conceptualize and model the interplay between an investment bank's own and its partners’ syndicate participation. Our findings indicate that the lead banks, which have greater discretion in choosing syndicate partners than co-lead banks, are more likely to make partner selections that create bridging positions that provide access to timely and non-redundant information as well as opportunities to play a broker role across unconnected others. We also find, however, that lead banks’ bridging positions deteriorate when they form ties with other lead banks. Network-based competitive advantages are thus influenced by network opportunities and constraints as well as partner-specific concerns, suggesting that new insights into the dynamics of interfirm networks and competitive advantage of firms are possible within this broader view.

Commences with a review of the differences between consumer and business markets, and then proceeds to review the characteristics of the on‐line search services that have changed in order to facilitate the transition to end‐user services. Products have been significantly re‐designed to meet the needs of the end‐users. Interfaces have been improved, a range of different distribution channels are available, and products and services have been clustered. However, pricing strategies remain reminiscent of business markets. Online search services can not be regarded as retailers, but in offering products that are attractive to the end‐user are engaged in tactics that will push their products through the distribution chain.

School transitions have long been associated with drops in academic motivation. Literature is reviewed on both the transition from elementary school to middle school and the transition from middle school to high school, showing how changes in school context, combined with developmental changes in the child, may lead to either positive or negative changes in academic motivation. We summarize literature on school transitions for American youth in general as well as the limited literature on these transitions and their motivational consequences among African American youth. Contextual changes that occur with school transitions (e.g., race composition of schools and classrooms) co-occur with youths’ growing awareness of race, influencing the identity development and academic motivation of African American youth through several mechanisms. Three such mechanisms are discussed in detail. Race and gender academic stereotypes have the potential to shape youths’ self-perceptions, values, and goals. Racial discrimination occurs both at an institutional level (e.g., differences in school quality that place African American youth at a disadvantage) and at a personal level (e.g., a teacher’s failure to recommend a high-achieving Black child for an honors class). Racial identity can serve both as a protective factor and as a risk factor. Suggestions for future research include a closer study of specific aspects of school contexts that shape motivation, the role of families, ways in which school policies and pedagogical practices affect transition experiences, and the examination of ways in which school transitions are opportunities for fresh starts and positive change in African American youth.

We propose an information-based view of the dynamics of network positions and use it to explain why bridging positions become stronger. We depart from previous network dynamics studies that implicitly assume that firms have homogenous information about the network structure. Using network experiments with both students and managers, we vary a firm's network horizon (i.e., how much information a firm has about the network structure) and the network horizon heterogeneity (i.e., how this information is distributed among the firms within the network). Our results indicate that firms with a higher network horizon occupy a stronger bridging position, especially under conditions of high network horizon heterogeneity. At a more general level, these results provide an indirect validation of what so far has been an untested assumption in interfirm network research, namely that firms are aware of their position in the overall network and consciously attempt to improve their position.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a multi‐dimensional taxonomy for information kiosk‐based self service technologies (SSTs). This taxonomy has an important contribution to make to the integration of research and development, in relation to information kiosks. There are aspects that may also be extended to e‐service, online service and self‐service.

The conceptual context for this work is established by a review of previous literature. This focuses on taxonomies and classification schemes relating to information kiosks, traditional services (p‐services) and e‐services. A comprehensive database of information kiosk technologies and their applications is constructed. Longitudinal observation of the development of information kiosk technologies is the basis for this and has been extended by web research.

An iterative analysis of the kiosk database defines the nature of service delivery from kiosks, and supports the identification and verification of the dimensions and sub‐dimensions of the taxonomy. It is informed by earlier classification schemes and taxonomies in the information kiosk, e‐service and p‐service literature.

This taxonomy has four main dimensions: Location, User, Task and Technology. Sub‐dimensions are developed for each of these main dimensions. It can be used to classify all information kiosks.