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The theory of third order inference is a theory of how cultural beliefs influence individuals' decisions under conditions of interdependence and uncertainty. In this study, I build on prior work extending the theory to the role of third order information on social trust in public goods dilemmas. Namely, I argue that when second order information on the beliefs of those relevant to the group task are present, this information should influence decision-making over first and third order.

I test this argument in an experimental public goods game. After measuring first order social trust, participants are randomly sorted into one of four conditions – two that pair third and second order information on social trust as parallel and two that pair them as in conflict.

The results suggest that in the presence of second order information on social trust, third order information doesn't have an effect on cooperation.

The study extends the theory of third order inference to understanding the role of social trust at the first, second, and third levels in public goods dilemmas. It puts second order information in competition with third order in predicting cooperation. It suggests that resolving the uncertainty over the second order beliefs of a collective is key to preventing inefficient equilibriums when second and third order beliefs conflict.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of agency on basis of a pragmatist philosophy framework of analysis. Agency is a key analytical concept in management studies, debated in terms of its theoretical elements and its degree of empirical substantiation. Agency is commonly either assumed to be the case, understood as some generic human capacity to act with integrity, or, alternatively, agency is considered to be derived from social structures, say professional norms or occupational identities acquired through socialization. In contrast, in an attempt to escape the agency/structure model, agency may be considered as what is generated in and through meso-level interactions, constituted as recurrent practices wherein accomplishments in the past serve as the template for new activities that further reinforce agential capacities.

Drawing on the work of pragmatist philosopher Donald Davidson and what he calls the principle of charity, this paper presents an analytical model wherein agency is generated on basis of a shared everyday language wherein beliefs and preferences are constituted and thereafter serve as the basis of agential action.

Davidson’s externalist theory of action is supportive of the theory and study of meso-level interactions and helps to overcome the question whether agency is exogenously given or the effect of social structure.

This paper reviews recent social science literature on agency and introduces pragmatist philosophy concepts to better examine under what conditions social actors can reasonably have faith in an interaction being premised on beliefs that are held on basis of rational and reasonable grounds. This adds to an integrated theory of agency, being of importance for social theory and organizational analysis more specifically.

We argue that aspects of the Luhmannian strand of systems theory could be mobilized in a crypto-normative way for an immanent critique of certain trends in contemporary social development, especially the growing economic determination of different spheres of life and the formation of sectorial industries – such as healthcare, education, crime control, etc. – with the consequent erosion of the autonomy of these spheres and the progressive exhaustion of social conditions for the exercise of freedom and the experience of difference.

A decisive step in this approach to systems theory lies in the indication of certain “elective affinities” between Luhmann and Adorno, reinforcing the plausibility of an internal connection between these different theoretical conceptions – not their mere instrumental appropriation and external juxtaposition. From this point of view, we argue that aspects of Luhmann's conceptual construction – notably the way the system-environment relationship is thought – hold a strong family resemblance with the Adornian mode of conceiving the subject–object relationship in the speculative key of negative dialectics.

Conceived as a critical model that modulates society's real abstractions toward difference and systemic autonomy, and especially as a critical model that underlines possibilities of reciprocal mediation between system and environment, systems theory seems to emphatically put itself in tension with what, at least in part, could be seen as its other: neoliberal governmentality, the generalization of the commodity form and the instrumentalization of the individual by unilateral systemic imperatives in global capitalism.

The popular uprising in Sri Lanka on July 9th, 2022, led to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fleeing the country. It represented a stunning culmination of a wave of protests during the recent past. The proximate cause of the uprising was the worst economic crisis that Sri Lanka had experienced since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The breakdown was long in the making since the island nation became the first country in South Asia to take the neoliberal turn in the late 1970s. The dramatic collapse was catalyzed by a sovereign debt crisis with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Nevertheless, like all great revolts, it has led to a counter revolution by the ruling class, including the reconfiguration of the old regime.

We examine the tremendous consequences of recent events, both in terms of Sri Lanka's long history of struggles involving working people and the global unravelling underway. We explore whether Sri Lanka is a harbinger of more global political economic changes to come. The process includes the possibility of systemic resistance to financialization in the scores of countries in the Global South experiencing tremendous debt distress. In this regard, we ask whether Sri Lanka's revolt could yet become a revolution. To frame the potential implications, we turn to a deeper interrogation of classic Marxist theories and concepts.

Planetary sociology starts out from the supposition that sociology as a discipline emerged in the context and out of an interest in the fate of modern “national” societies. Yet, as a discipline, it emerged with tools designed to identify, track, and analyze processes and forms of organization which today are playing out and observable at the planetary level. For sociology to be in the position to make important contributions to the challenges modern societies are facing in the twenty-first century, it must apply the tools it developed over the course of more than a century, to processes and phenomena that are transforming and applying to planetary civilization and Earth's ecosystem. The necessary starting point is the critical investigation of the interconnected structuring principles that have been shaping both societies and individual identities, and how they reinforce patterns which thwart both sociology's ability to make increasingly necessary contributions, and modern societies' ability to embrace qualitative rather than quantitative forms of progress. A reinvigorated enlightenment will be necessary to increase the probability that sociology will be well-positioned to provide decision-makers and actors with the insights, tools, and knowledge needed to confront impending challenges and crises constructively.

This paper examines the ways in which Chinese university middle managers evaluate subordinate performance in response to the Chinese Double First-Class University Plan, a national project that ranks the performance of universities. In exploring compromise arrangements, the hybridised valuing activity of middle managers is found to be shaped by emergent and extant macro-foundations.

The qualitative data from 49 semi-structured interviews at five Chinese public universities were conducted. Drawing on macro-foundational studies and the sociology of worth (SW) theory, the analysis helps to identify socially shared patterns of actions and outcomes.

The findings elucidate the interplay between diverse economic, social, political and institutional values and the compromise-making by middle managers. The authors find that contextual factors restrict Chinese academic middle managers' autonomy, preventing workable compromise. Through the selective adoption of international and local management practices, compromise has evolved into a private differential treaty at the operational level.

A nuanced explanation reveals how the macro-foundations of Chinese society influence middle managers who engage with accounting when facilitating compromise. This study helps outsiders better understand the complex convergence and divergence of performance evaluative practices in Chinese universities against the backdrop of global market-based forces and the moral dimensions of organisational life. The findings have wider implications for the Chinese government in navigating institutional steps and developing supportive policies to enable middle managers to advance productive but also sustainable compromise.

Reality breakdowns generate reflexivity and awareness of the constructed nature of social reality. These pivotal moments can motivate institutional inhabitants to either modify their social worlds or reaffirm the status quo. Thus, reality breakdowns are the initial points at which actors can conceive of new possibilities for institutional arrangements and initiate change processes to realize them. Studying reality breakdowns enables scholars to understand not just how institutional change occurs, but also why it does or does not do so. In this paper, we investigate how institutional inhabitants responded to a reality breakdown that occurred during our ethnography of collegial governance in a large North American university that was undergoing a strategic change initiative. Our findings suggest that there is a consequential process following reality breakdowns whereby institutional inhabitants construct the severity of these events. In our context, institutional inhabitants first attempted to restore order to their social world by reaffirming the status quo; when their efforts failed, they began to formulate alternative possibilities. Simultaneously, they engaged in a distributed sensemaking process whereby they diminished and reoriented necessary changes, ultimately inhibiting the formulation of these new possibilities. Our findings confirm reality breakdowns and institutional awareness as potential drivers of institutional change and complicate our understanding of antecedent microprocesses that may forestall the initiation of change efforts.

The incentive cost of enterprises increases significantly with the rapid growth of the social commerce (SC) market. In this context, enterprises need to develop the optimal strategy to improve incentive effectiveness and reduce cost. Different types of consumers’ responses to incentives bring different values to enterprises. Hence, this paper proposes the social commerce value network (SCVN) to help enterprises study the contributions of different types of consumers to the network.

Based on the graphical evaluation and review technique (GERT), the authors construct the social commerce value GERT (i.e. SCV-GERT) network and design three progressive experiments for estimating the value contributions of “network stage”, “consumer type”, and “resource type” to the SCVN under the same incentives. The authors initialize the SCV-GERT model with consumer data in SC and distinguish the most valuable consumers by adjusting the incentive parameters.

The results show that the SCV-GERT model can well describe the value flow of SCVN. The incentive on forwarding consumers brings the greatest value gain to the SCVN, and social trust contributes the most to forwarding consumers.

Under the guidance of the results, platforms and enterprises in SC can select the optimal type of consumers who bring the maximum network value so as to improve the effectiveness of incentive strategy and reduce marketing costs. A four-level incentive system should be established according to the ranking of the corresponding value gains: forwarding consumers > agent consumers > commenting consumers > potential consumers. Enterprises also need to find ways to improve the social resource investments of consumers participating in SC.

This paper investigates the incentive problem in SC grounded in the SCVN and uses the GERT method to construct the SCV-GERT model, which is the first attempt to introduce GERT into the SC context. This study also makes up for the lack of comparative research on different types of consumers in SC and can provide support for enterprises’ customer relationship management and marketing decisions.