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Many neo-Weberians adopt the state’s authority-monopolizing aim as their theoretical expectation. Through a case study of the Peruvian state and Lima’s squatter settlements, I provide evidence in support of the opposite contention: that states may unintentionally produce non-state extractive-coercive organizations. During the mid- to late-twentieth century, Lima’s population grew rapidly. Since they had few economic resources, the new urban poor requisitioned public lands and set up dozens of squatter settlements in the city’s periphery. Other researchers have identified several novel political phenomena stemming from such urban conditions. I focus here on the impact of the state. Using secondary and primary data, I examine three periods during which the state applied distinct settlement policies and one in which it did not apply a settlement policy, from 1948 to 1980. I find that when it applied each of the settlement policies, the state produced non-state political authorities – neighborhood elites – who extracted resources from squatters and tried to control neighborhood turf even against state encroachment, and that the state’s non-involvement did not produce them.

Expert witnessing in asylum cases involves depicting the conditions of the applicant’s home country as a context for judging a well-founded fear for life or safety. Most of the elements involved in the work of the expert country witness are dynamic and change over time, creating new challenges and new resources for describing and interpreting country context. Examining several characteristic Honduran asylum cases separated by 20 years reveals not only an increasingly complex and multifaceted set of relevant conditions in both the sending and the host country, but also a significant broadening of the anthropological “tool kit” available to the expert country witness (as the expert witness becomes aware of its relevance to country conditions at a particular time), and an increasingly reflexive and complex relationship of the expert witness to the country in question and to the court. In the interim, emerging problems of contextual complexity, subjectivity, changing and competing images of reality, and the shifting applicability of legal and sociological definitions and categories arise and can be partially addressed with emerging anthropological or social scientific resources, raising anew the nature of the relationship of the expert witness to the court and the possible mutual influence of social science and legal culture upon each other over time. As the number of refugee seekers increases globally, can expert witnesses trained in social sciences help asylum courts to imagine new ways of bridging the gap between legal regimes of governmentality and the subjectivity of refugees?

Purpose –– The purpose of this chapter is to test the managerial decision-making knowledge of Mexican administrators managing maquiladora plants, or ‘twin plants’, in the effort to devise a practical skill set assessment.

Design/methodology/approach –– A sample of Mexican maquiladora managers was studied along dimensions of gender, experience, proximity to parent firm and upward mobility in order to assess the managers' level of ‘managerial intelligence’, where the constructs of tacit knowledge and intuition were used as proxies for managerial intelligence.

Findings –– While managerial decision-making may be classified as special forms of knowledge, assessment of this knowledge as forms of tacit ‘knowing’ did not prove successful.

Research limitations/implications –– Due to limitations of time and money in conjunction with the characteristically low response rate on surveys in Mexico, the sample was rather limited given the number and size of ‘twin plants’ and not wholly random. Thus, future research will need to address these shortcomings.

Originality/value –– This chapter is an effort to fill a gap in the literature regarding measures of tacit knowledge and the effort to elucidate the operation and management of plants in Mexico's maquiladora industry.

This study develops a typology of web site structure and then makes a cross-national comparison between Korea and Australia. Using a content analysis method, the study classifies 383 corporate web sites based on the typology. The study identifies two general types of web site structure: the hypermedia type and static image type and uses cluster analysis and discriminant analysis to verify the results. The study then tests predictions as to which type of web site will be more prominent in Australia versus Korea based on cultural factors. Results show that Korean firms employ the hypermedia type more frequently, whereas Australian companies are more prone to use the static image type. Cultural factors and industry-based factors are used to explain the results.

Tourism in Iran and Iranian tourism policies are more a consequence of the country’s political economy than from explicit planning. The emphasis on adhering to domestic social norms, and the obligation on inbound tourism to obey these rules, have had no other result than a reduction of its markets. Iran’s present share of tourism is as low as 1/800th of the glocalized tourism industry. This chapter discusses the main factors influencing tourism development in Iran, particularly the political economy and oil.

Organizations have become increasingly interested in developing their human resources. One tool that has been explored in this quest is mentoring. This has led to a surge in mentoring research and an increase in the number of formal mentoring programs implemented in organizations. This review provides a survey of the empirical work on mentoring that is organized around the major questions that have been investigated. Then a conceptual model, focused on formal mentoring relationships, is developed to help understand the mentoring process. The model draws upon research from a diverse body of literature, including interpersonal relationships, career success, training and development, and informal mentoring. Finally, a discussion of critical next steps for research in the mentoring domain is presented.