Search results

According to status construction theory, a social attribute becomes imbued with status value through its association with valued resources. Yet, explanations for such associations have received scant attention. I propose that social identity processes may lead agents controlling resources to over-allocate to in-group members. This generates a doubly dissimilar situation in which actors are differentiated both with respect to a nominal characteristic and resources, leading the characteristic to become imbued with status value. I find support for this elaboration in a sample of newly founded organizations. I discuss the implications of this elaboration for further developments in status construction theory.

Ethnography is not only a set of tools with which to collect data, but an epistemological vantage point from which to apprehend the social world. In this vein, we articulate a model of teaching and learning ethnography that entails focusing on how to construct an ethnographic object. In this chapter, we describe our way of teaching ethnography as not simply a method of data collection, but as a manner of training that pays particular attention – before, during, and after fieldwork – to the theory-driven moments of the construction of sociological objects. How, as ethnographers, do we structure and give structure to the social milieu we investigate? In teaching the ethnographic craft, we focus on a specific series of elements: theory, puzzles, warrants, the relationship between claims and evidence, and the reconstruction of the local point of view. Moreover, we maintain that attention to these components of ethnographic object construction should be coupled with epistemological vigilance throughout the research process.

The idea of implementing supply chain management (SCM) principles for the construction industry was embraced by construction stakeholders to enhance the sector's performance. The analysis from the literature revealed that the implementation of SCM in the construction industry enhances the industry's value in terms of cost-saving, time savings, material management, risk management and others. The construction supply chain (CSC) can be managed using the pull or push system. This chapter also discusses the origin and proliferation of SCM into the construction industry. The chapter revealed that the concept of SCM has passed through five different eras: the creation era, the use of ERP, globalisation stage, specialisation stage and electronic stage. The findings from the literature revealed that we are presently in the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) era. At this stage, the SCM witnesses the adoption of technologies and principles driven by the 4IR. This chapter also revealed that the practice of SCM in the construction industry is centred around integration, collaboration, communication and the structure of the supply chain (SC). The forms and challenges hindering the adoption of these practices were also discussed extensively in this chapter.

To review three theoretical research programs accounting for the spread of status beliefs and their effects on inequality, and to identify similarities and differences in scope and theoretical principles in the three. We describe suggestions for further research that we hope readers may wish to pursue.

We summarize recent theory and research, identify areas of overlap and dissimilarity, and show how certain research topics could extend understanding of the processes and make connections among the three programs.

The three programs were built on ideas first codified more than five decades ago. Those ideas have been the foundation for empirical research and findings from that have been used to develop the theories, improving the range of situations addressed and the precision of predictions. While the programs here address similar issues, each presumes different initial conditions and behavioral outcomes. With some overlap, the programs also address different situations and propose different mechanisms for the spread of status.

Our review of the programs is necessarily incomplete, because work continues on the programs. The analyses and suggestions about important topics to pursue are ours, and others may identify other topics for theoretical and empirical development.

We hope that our interpretations of these programs make them more accessible to interested scholars who will extend the theoretical and empirical bases of the work. The processes described have implications for the status of immigrant groups, the social position of women, and the value attached to collector’s objects. We hope to foster applications of these theories to understand and alleviate some cases of unmerited inequality.

The processes involved affect mixed-gender interaction in businesses, hiring biases, anti-immigrant exclusion sentiments, influence and bargaining power of individuals, desirability of certain furniture and clothing styles, ability inferences, and other phenomena. We mention instances where these theories can help to understand processes and to develop interventions to produce desirable outcomes.

No readily accessible summary of these programs and no theoretical comparison of them has yet been developed. Formal theories such as these sometimes seem obscure and we hope to show how they apply to important actual situations. Of course, the interpretations and suggestions in this chapter are our own and the scholars whose work we discuss might interpret the work differently.

This chapter considers the role of entrepreneurship theory in the development of ideation techniques for entrepreneurship education. It begins by considering how metatheories impact theory construction in entrepreneurship research and discusses the role of ontology, epistemology, axiology, as well as the role of assumptions about human nature and social change. The chapter presents four different paradigms of thought that apply different philosophies and illustrates how these different paradigms conceptualize entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial opportunity differently. The four paradigms include the equilibrium paradigm, the disequilibrium paradigm, the disruptive innovation paradigm, and the social constructionism paradigm. Within each paradigm, the nature of entrepreneurial opportunity is discussed, and the chapter provides examples to show how different ideation techniques can be generated from these different conceptualizations. Forms of ideation technique are presented and explained, as they relate to each paradigm, and the chapter concludes by explaining the value of these techniques for ideation, opportunity discovery, and creation, in the entrepreneurial process.

On many occasions, organizational science research has been referred to as fragmented and disjointed, resulting in a literature that is, in the opinion of many, difficult to navigate and comprehend. One potential explanation is that scholars have failed to comprehend that organizations are complex and intricate systems. In order to move us past this morass, we recommend that researchers extend beyond traditional rational, mechanistic, and variable-centered approaches to research and integrate a more advantageous pattern-oriented approach within their research program. Pattern-oriented methods approximate real-life phenomena by adopting a holistic, integrative approach to research wherein individual- and organizational-systems are viewed as non-decomposable organized wholes. We argue that the pattern-oriented approach has the potential to overcome a number of breakdowns faced by alternate approaches, while offering a novel and more representative lens from which to view organizational- and HRM-related issues. The proposed incorporation of the pattern-oriented approach is framed within a review and evaluation of current approaches to organizational research and is supplemented with a discussion of methodological and theoretical implications as well as potential applications of the pattern-oriented approach.

Constructing and evaluating behavioral science models is a complex process. Decisions must be made about which variables to include, which variables are related to each other, the functional forms of the relationships, and so on. The last 10 years have seen a substantial extension of the range of statistical tools available for use in the construction process. The progress in tool development has been accompanied by the publication of handbooks that introduce the methods in general terms (Arminger et al., 1995; Tinsley & Brown, 2000a). Each chapter in these handbooks cites a wide range of books and articles on specific analysis topics.

The Spread of Status Value theory describes how new diffuse status characteristics can arise out of the association of initially non-valued characteristics to existing status characteristics that are already well-established in a society. Our objective is to extend this theory so that it describes how still other status elements, which have become of interest to researchers such as “status objects” (Thye, 2000) and “valued roles” (Fişek, Berger, & Norman, 1995), can also be socially created.

Our approach involves reviewing research that is relevant to the Spread of Status Value theory, and in introducing concepts and assumptions that are applicable to status objects and valued roles.

Our major results are an elaborated theory that describes the construction of status objects and valued roles, a graphic representation of one set of conditions in which this creation process is predicted to occur, and a design for a further empirical test of the Spread of Status Value theory. This extension has social implications. It opens up the possibility of creating social interventions that involve status objects and valued roles to ameliorate dysfunctional social situations.

Our elaborated theory enables us to understand for the first time how different types of status valued elements can, under appropriate conditions, be socially created or socially modified as a result of the operation of what are fundamentally similar processes.

We survey and organize over fifty years of theoretical research on status and expectation state processes. After defining some key terms in this theoretical approach, we briefly describe theories and branches in the program.

We also focus on a few theories that illustrate distinct patterns of theory growth, using them to show the variety of ways in which the research program has grown.

The program structure developed from a single set of theories on development and maintenance of group inequality in the 1960s to six interrelated branches by 1988. Between 1988 and today, the overall structure has grown to total 19 different branches. We briefly describe each branch, identifying over 200 resources for the further study of these branches.

Although the various branches share key concepts and processes, they have been developed by different researchers, in a variety of settings from laboratories to schools to business organizations. Second, we outline some important issues for further research in some of the branches. Third, we emphasize the value of developing new research methods for testing and applying the theories.

These theories have been used to explain phenomena of gender, racial, and ethnic inequality among others, and for understanding some cases of personality attributions, deviance and control processes, and application of double standards in hiring.

Status and expectation state processes often operate to produce invidious social inequalities. Understanding these processes can enable social scientists to devise more effective interventions to reduce these inequalities.

Status and expectation state processes occupy a significant segment of research into group processes. This chapter provides an authoritative overview of ideas in the program, what is known, and what remains to be discovered.

In this chapter honouring Professor Kathy Charmaz, her scholarship and her mentorship, I explore the impact of her work on my thinking and research. Specifically, I focus on the translation of her constructivist principles into my, and others', grounded theory methodological practice. Following the introduction, the chapter commences with a reflection upon coming across constructivist grounded theory (CGT) for the first time almost 20 years ago, and my excitement at finding a methodology that so well aligned with my social justice-oriented research. Already ‘seduced’ by (classical) grounded theory, I had been uncomfortable and wrestling with its problematic philosophical underpinnings, and Kathy's work provided an intriguing solution. This section also briefly reviews CGT's main features, including Kathy's central emphasis on critical reflexivity, interpretation and context, the researcher–participant relationship and the co-construction of knowledge with participants, whilst maintaining a focus on conceptual development. In Section Three, I examine the ‘translation’ of Kathy's constructivist principles into my and others' reflexive grounded theory methodological practice, focusing particularly on issues of researcher positionality/ies and participant involvement. I also consider the ways in which I am further extending these ideas in my ongoing CGT research, including in relation to researcher self-disclosure. In the concluding section, I observe that Kathy's scholarship not only put grounded theory on a new epistemological basis but also established constructivist GT's axiological foundation. I end with a reflection upon the legacy of her ‘curiosity and wonder’ as a scholar of the social world, her legendary mentorship and her generosity of spirit.