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Low‐income transitional countries in the region of the Caucasus and Central Asia lack the existence of a solid assessment of public perceptions regarding the causes of poverty during transition. The purpose of this paper is to fill that gap in the existing literature.

This paper uses the secondary analysis of a recent cross‐sectional multinational survey to shed light on public beliefs of the causes of poverty in seven countries of the region – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. In addition, Russia and Ukraine are used as a comparison point. The theoretical framework for this study is that the subjective beliefs regarding the explanations of poverty can be classified into three broad groups: individualistic, fatalistic, and structural. Hence, regression coefficients and marginal effects of the multinomial logit regression model (MNLM) are estimated to associate the set of various individual, households, and community characteristics selected in the conceptual framework with the likelihood of choosing one of the three afore‐mentioned explanations of poverty.

The results of cross‐tabulation reveal that in a majority of the countries studied, the predominant explanation for poverty is structural, with the exception of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, where predominant explanations are, respectively, fatalistic and individualistic. The results of MNLM show that most individual, household, and community characteristics possess the expected direction and are in line with previous findings. However, some of the characteristics have a similar significant effect across several countries, while other characteristics are significant for a single country only.

These findings demonstrate that despite the dominant post‐socialist ideology which favors individualistic and fatalistic explanations of poverty based on the economic rationality of market capitalism, the efforts of the elites in promoting and imposing these ideologies has not been fully successful. Nevertheless, no single unified model of the determinants of beliefs regarding the causes of poverty in the countries of the region is observed.

This is one of the very few papers aimed at assessing public perceptions regarding the causes of poverty in transitional countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia.

This paper aims to explain how the dynamic demand environment influences strategic firm behavior along an industry’s evolutionary path. A conceptual gap concerning the influence of demand-side environmental factors (vis-à-vis changes in technology and policy) on firms’ strategic choices motivates the theory developed herein. The paper’s contribution to the literature on “evolutionary perspective in strategy” also addresses an important gap in the emerging literature on “strategy dynamics”.

The conceptual framework in this paper features a dynamic demand environment that provides the structural context for firms’ strategic choices. It conceptualizes demand-side competence as a mediating firm-specific construct to explain the endogenous relationship between the characteristics of the demand environment and firms’ path dependent demand-side investments.

A review of the literature on evolutionary perspective in strategy reveals an important conceptual gap concerning the structural determinants of dynamic firm behavior. There is no explanation of the endogenous relationship between dynamic demand structure, firms’ dynamic demand-side competence, and temporally heterogeneous strategic choices.

The demand-side explanation of how idiosyncratic firm behavior is endogenously determined, with both structural characteristics (demand structure) and firm competences (demand-side competence), addresses an important conceptual gap. The novelty of the theory developed herein lies in its explication of the effect of dynamic demand environment on the evolution of idiosyncratic strategic firm behavior – entry, investment and exit – along the evolutionary path of an industry. The theory developed herein not only explains the effect of both determinants of idiosyncratic strategic firm behavior – the external industry environment (dynamic market structure) and internal firm environment (dynamic firm competences) – but also explains how the determinants evolve along the industry’s lifecycle.

The purpose is to forward systems theory one more step towards social theory and integrate problem-solving and theory-building, and search for the integration and unity of science by revealing the nature and role of critical systems thinking (CST).

This article describes relations between systems theory and social theory in three parts. First, it examines the links of systems methodologies with three social science approaches as well as the role of CST. Second, the focus of theory and the form of explanation are discussed from critical social science (CSS) perspective. Third, the direction of theorizing of a CST-based systems theory is investigated.

First, CST is a hidden assumption of system dynamics (SD)/systems thinking (ST). Second, systems theory is positioned in CSS. Third, CST integrates traditional and soft systems methodologies (SSM), and connects systems science and social science. Fourth, this article reveals hidden links between systems approaches and three corresponding social science approaches. Fifth, the theoretical focus of a CST-based systems theory could be formal/structure theory and/or substantive/content theory. Sixth, the form of explanation could be structural/mechanismic explanation combining causal and interpretive explanations. Seventh, a CST-based systems theory may adopt abduction, which complements a defect in deduction and induction in a difficulty of nonlinearity.

It illustrates a graph of the competing approaches in systems science corresponding to paradigms in social science.

This chapter examines the goals and outcomes of intergroup dialogue through the evaluation of a dialogue program between city and suburban high school students located in Syracuse, NY. The Community Wide Dialogue to End Racism, Improve Race Relations and Begin Racial Healing (CWD) organizers share with a wide range of conflict theorists and practitioners the impulse to bring citizens together to talk about complex social conflicts. Two of the main goals of this program, to build participants’ understandings of institutional racism and white privilege, are examined here. Drawing on in-depth interviews with a small sample of dialogue participants, a framework is developed for categorizing participant awareness and understanding of institutional racism and white privilege. The analysis suggests that relatively modest levels of understanding of both concepts should be anticipated from participants both before and after completion of a dialogue of this type. While dramatic changes resulting from the dialogue are not found, the data indicate that the dialogue does have demonstrable impacts on the ways participants think and talk about institutional racism and white privilege. The central challenges faced by participants in understanding the concepts, specifically ability to personalize white privilege and capacity to adopt structural ways of thinking about institutional racism, are identified and described. This research helps to clarify the range of outcomes we can feasibly expect when bringing citizens together to talk about social conflicts by providing a qualitative framework for measuring awareness and understanding of white privilege and institutional racism.

Supply chain fraud is a significant global concern for firms, consumers and governments. Evidence of major fraud events suggests the role of supply chain structures in enabling and facilitating fraud, as they often involve several parties in complicated networks designed to obfuscate the fraud. This paper identifies how the structural characteristics of supply chains can play an important role in enabling, facilitating and preventing fraud.

The research follows a theory elaboration approach. The authors build on structural holes theory in conjunction with a multiple case study research design to identify new concepts and develop propositions regarding the role of network structure on supply chain fraud.

This research shows how structural holes in a supply chain can create advantages for unscrupulous firms, a role we call tertius fraudans, or the cheating third. This situation is exacerbated by structural ignorance, which refers to the lack of knowledge about structural connections in the network. Both structural holes and structural ignorance can create information gaps that facilitate fraud, and the authors propose solutions to detect and prevent this kind of fraud.

This paper extends structural holes theory into the domain of fraud. Novel concepts including tertius fraudans, structural ignorance and bridge collapse are offered, alongside a series of propositions that can help understand and manage structural supply chain fraud.

This chapter evaluates the allure and the danger of attributing race-laden crime politics to displaced anxiety. Stuart Scheingold's “myth of crime and punishment” was a path-setting theory of redirected fear, arguing that socioeconomic “fear of falling” is displaced onto street crime, where the simple morality tale of lawbreaker-versus-state offers the illusion of control. The danger of this theory, I argue, is that it purports to analyze post-1960s’ structural inequality, but it replicates the post-civil rights logic and language of racism as nonstructural – an irrationality, a misplaced emotion, a mere epiphenomenon of class. As a theory that hinges on the malfunction of redirecting structural anxieties onto symbols and scapegoats, the vocabulary of displaced anxieties links punitive (white) subjects to punished (black and Latino) objects through a diagnosis that is, by definition, beyond rationality. The vocabulary of displaced anxiety categorizes the racial politics of law and order as an emotional misfire, thereby occluding the ways in which racial interests are at stake in crime policy and carceral state development.

The purpose of this conceptual paper is to provide a theoretical explanation for the persistence of the glass ceiling keeping women from assuming leadership positions.

The methodological approach of this paper is to compare and contrast social role theory and expectation states theory as theoretical underpinnings to explain the persistence of a glass ceiling for women leaders.

Both social role theory and expectation states theory belong to the structural/cultural models describing differences between the genders. Social role theory and expectation states theory explicate diverse reasons for the emergence of these differences. However, both theories propose that gender differences will result in evaluation bias against women.

As a result of evaluation bias against women, the glass ceiling phenomenon keeping women from assuming top leadership positions continues to occur.

This paper is being written on the 20 year anniversary of the term glass ceiling being coined. It adds to the body of literature by closely examining two structural/cultural theories as possible causes to an invisible barrier which keeps women leaders from entering top level management positions.

The purpose of this study is to determine if observed ratings on a multi‐source feedback (MSF) instrument reflect the same cognitive constructs of leadership across multiple rating pairs based on rater and ratee gender.

The independent variables of this quantitative research study are MSF rater and ratee gender. The dependent variables are leadership constructs reflected by MSF ratings. During phase I of the data analysis, five models of leadership constructs are built. During phase II of the data analysis, the five models are compared against each other to discover if the same factors determine the cognitive constructs of leadership comprising each model.

Findings from this study indicate that constructs of leadership across multiple rating pairs reflect the same cognitive constructs of leadership. Measurement equivalence for the MSF instrument under investigation has been established.

It is concluded that the MSF instrument is free of bias, thus not contributing to the existence of a “glass ceiling” keeping women from entering top‐level leadership positions. The potential for a “social epidemic” in the near future whereby the glass ceiling will be shattered and many women will enter into top leadership positions is confirmed.

Findings are contrary to the conclusions drawn from the literature review of social role theory, expectation states theory, and leadership categorization theory. This study fills a gap in the empirical body of knowledge, by including a large number of female managers.

The purpose of this study was to explore the cultural and structural conditions that influence male and female physicians’ career choices and career expectations. Although women constitute 59 percent of the physicians and 55 percent of the specialists in Finland in 2014, the rate of women in oto-rhino-laryngology (38 percent) was one of the lowest among the specialties. The data consist of semi-structured interviews with young physicians (N = 19), who have entered a career in oto-rhino-laryngology (ORL) in Finland.

The results point to three features which characterize the career pattern in the specialty. First, the specialty is not one that draws students to medicine per se but rather one that is chosen during medical training. The decision to specialize in ORL was by many respondents framed as a “coincidence,” while others were attracted by the diverse character of the specialty. Second, the skills needed for being a “good” practitioner were defined as handiness, courage, and social skills, but these were not defined in a gendered way. Third, the career prospects for women within the specialty were defined by a neutralizing or a gendering framework. The neutralizing framework was represented by the pipeline argument which suggests that there is a temporary time lag in women’s representation in higher positions and that women are advancing steadily in the academic and administrative pipeline. The gendering framework pointed to the male ethos of the surgical tasks in the specialty as a barrier for women’s advancement in those areas. This chapter concludes that the pipeline view belittles existing gender inequalities in men’s and women’s medical careers and views gender differences as temporary maladjustments rather than inherent features of gendered organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to explore female business faculty perceptions about attrition from a business school to uncover factors that might assist in female faculty retention in business schools.

Using a qualitative study approach and guided by past literature, the paper systematically analyses open-ended responses to interview questions and notes emergent themes.

The major themes that emerged as factors leading to attrition: first, an exclusionary and managerialist culture which marginalized and demoralized women; second, curtailed career opportunities, including a lack of gender equity in promotion and tenure; third, poor leadership; and fourth, break up of a critical mass of women. The factors then that might assist in female faculty retention are a critical mass of women, gender equity, inclusive, collaborative cultures, psychological safety, and ethical leadership. The career patterns of the women indicated that a labyrinth is an apt metaphor for their career paths.

This research examines just one school from the perspective of women who left. It holds promise as the basis for future studies across business schools and to faculty within business schools to determine whether the emergent themes hold across schools.

This study examines women in business academe through the attraction-selection-attrition framework and by extending the labyrinth career metaphor to an academic setting. The paper also provides a conceptual model of female faculty retention.