How does social control theory explain the relationships between business firms and organizations? This book aims to answer that question. Providing a comprehensive organizing framework of control (1st, 2nd, and 3rd party control), this book focuses on informal and formal applications of control mechanisms such as contracts, monitoring mechanisms, incentives, and punishments. In doing so, it reviews existing control/governance theories such as transaction cost analysis, agency theory, power/dependence theory, contract theory, incentives theory and others. Social control theory is introduced as a meta-theory of governance and control. The derivation of control, the outcomes of control and, particularly, when and how control might be successful are discussed in detail.The book hypothesizes that the control mode and mechanisms in use are a function of the cost of control to the controller based on its desire to manage the relationship and its outcomes, and the target of control's extent of agreement with the control processes in use. The various components of costs of control are identified and discussed. Drawing on interdisciplinary sources of information, it is a must-read for all who are interested in understanding the mechanisms of control and relationships underpinning business organizations.

Jens Hutzschenreuter determines the effect of management control forms on the performance of innovative small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). His findings suggest that in fact indirect control forms have a stronger performance impact than traditional control forms.

This book constitutes revised selected papers from the 11th international Global Sourcing Workshop 2017, held in La Thuile, Italy, in February 2017. The 10 contributions included were carefully reviewed and selected from 45 submissions. The book offers a review of the key topics in sourcing of services, populated with practical frameworks that serve as a tool kit to students and managers. The range of topics covered in this book is wide and diverse, offering micro and macro perspectives on successful sourcing of services. Case studies from various organizations, industries and countries are used extensively throughout the book, giving it a unique position within the current literature offering.

'Taking a broad view of regulation, and covering a wide range of issues and industries, this collection is the most innovative effort to date to understand the responses of business firms to regulation. The book brings together an impressive group of scholars who analyze the concept of compliance and offer theoretically informed studies of its assumed links to regulation. A must read for both academics and practitioners, this ground-breaking collection firmly establishes a scholarly field of compliance studies.' Ronen Shamir, Tel Aviv University, Israel 'Business responses to regulation is a key area of social science research. Parker and Nielsen's collection brings together an excellent group of scholars with innovative, and I believe highly influential contributions that problematize the relations between regulation and compliance. The collection is a highly welcome addition to our field, that will redefine the research agenda on compliance. A significant achievement that will help to improve policy making and frame the scholarly research agenda for the years to come.' David Levi-Faur, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel and the Free University of Berlin, Germany 'A timely and important set of analyses on how and why businesses respond to regulation in the way that they do from some of the leading authors in the field, covering business responses to both state and non-state regulatory systems.' Julia Black, London School of Economics, UK Explaining Compliance consists of sixteen specially commissioned chapters by the world's leading empirical researchers, examining whether and how businesses comply with regulation that is designed to affect positive behaviour changes. Each chapter consists of reflective summaries on business compliance with different state or voluntary regulation, and the theoretical lessons to be drawn from it. As a whole, the book develops understanding and explanations of how, why and in what circumstances, firms come to comply with regulation, and when they do not. It also uncovers the complexity, ambiguity and transformation of regulation as it is interpreted, implemented and negotiated by firms, their stakeholders and internal constituencies in everyday business life. This unique and detailed resource will appeal to academics, graduate students and senior undergraduates in law, political science, sociology, criminology, economics, and psychology, as well as business and interdisciplinary areas such as law and society, and law and economics. Anyone researching business regulation, corporate social responsibility, regulation and compliance, enforcement and compliance, and public administration, will also find this book beneficial.

This book explores the premise that organizations are significantly influenced by their inter-organizational relationships; moreover, these relationships may generate important externalities, both positive and negative, impacting the environment at several levels. The advent of the Internet era, on the other hand, has resulted in disruptive changes in traditional inter-organizational networks, and some completely new inter-organizational settings are now arising. In its first part the book reviews the most commonly cited theories explaining inter-organizational phenomena: transaction costs economics, agency theory, resource dependence theory, game theories, collaborative networks theory, institutional theories, organizational ecology, resource-based / relational-based view of the firm, and knowledge network / social network theories. In Part II it thoroughly reviews the literature on a number of key IT-enabled inter-organizational systems currently on the rise, such as virtual organizations, e-intermediators and e-marketplaces. Lastly, Part III presents the case of the Yoox Group, a leading firm offering e-commerce services for fashion and design products. A framework is proposed for systematically linking the different possible types of inter-organizational relationships to specific, suitable sets of theories. The range of possible inter-organizational relationships is described on the basis of three pairs of opposites: conformism-breach, exploitation-exploration, and cooperation-competition. This results in a model that makes it possible to combine different theories in order to study the effects of inter-organizational ambidexterity and dynamism on performance.

The rapid development of information communication technologies (ICTs) is having a profound impact across numerous aspects of social, economic, and cultural activity worldwide, and keeping pace with the associated effects, implications, opportunities, and pitfalls has been challenging to researchers in diverse realms ranging from education to competitive intelligence.

The world economy in which we are living poses challenges that lead to a realization that 'more of the same' will be difficult to sustain. This provides an illustration that, in order to create new or modified knowledge practices, strengthen customer relationships and thus positively influence customer satisfaction, organizations must be flexible in configuring (combining) knowledge and knowledge structures in a way that is appropriate for delivering value to the customer. It must simultaneously develop effective strategies for updating the knowledge of its staff members necessary for underpinning the creation and delivery of appropriate knowledge services. Thus, unlearning (forgetting) becomes a critical means for organizational success. The ECKM community of scholars has already initiated dialogue that links its particular strengths to innovation issues. This conference aims to further that dialogue by attracting leading edge work that leverages the ECKM community's in-depth understanding of learning and unlearning to better understand knowledge management. Our aim is to stimulate breakthrough research streams linking learning, unlearning and knowledge management. How can organizations tailor, use, and extend techniques and tools from knowledge management for improving their business practices and processes? Building upon existing work on knowledge management (KM) and organizational learning, the conference will promote interdisciplinary approaches from computer science and information systems, business, management and organization science as well as cognitive science. Emphasis will be put on systematic learning from experience, KM tools and KM success factors. A special interest belongs to knowledge management initiatives which are lightweight (i.e., do not place considerable additional burden on users and KM experts), allow an incremental adoption (i.e., do not require large up-front investment before any return of investment is at least visible), and are flexible regarding frequent changes in experts and topics. Continuing the success of the ECKM conference series since 2000, the 2015 conference will provide an international communication forum bringing together academia and industry for discussing the progress made and addressing the challenges faced by continuous learning in knowledge-intensive organizations.

The Business of Education—a comprehensive view of how education policy is made in the US and, in some cases, globally—analyzes and critiques the influence of educational policy networks in a wide range of contexts and from a variety of perspectives, including testing, college preparation, juvenile detention centers, special education, the arts, teacher evaluation systems, education of undocumented immigrants, college faculty preparation, and financial aid. A network chart in most chapters illustrates how the major political actors, mainly private philanthropic foundations, for-profit companies, government officials, and politicians involved in the network, are linked. Joel Spring, internationally renowned scholar and analyst of educational policy, situates and frames the network studies in an introduction discussing general theories of education policy networks.

This three-volume work offers a comprehensive review of the pivotal concepts, measures, theories, and practices that comprise criminology and criminal justice. No longer just a subtopic of sociology, criminology has become an independent academic field of study that incorporates scholarship from numerous disciplines including psychology, political science, behavioral science, law, economics, public health, family studies, social work, and many others. The three-volume Encyclopedia of Criminology presents the latest research as well as the traditional topics which reflect the field's multidisciplinary nature in a single, authoritative reference work. More than 525 alphabetically arranged entries by the leading authorities in the discipline comprise this definitive, international resource. The pivotal concepts, measures, theories, and practices of the field are addressed with an emphasis on comparative criminology and criminal justice. While the primary focus of the work is on American criminology and contemporary criminal justice in the United States, extensive global coverage of other nations' justice systems is included, and the increasing international nature of crime is explored thoroughly. Providing the most up-to-date scholarship in addition to the traditional theories on criminology, the Encyclopedia of Criminology is the essential one-stop reference for students and scholars alike to explore the broad expanse of this multidisciplinary field.

divDespite being commonplace in American households a generation ago, corporal punishment of children has been subjected to criticism and shifting attitudes in recent years. Many school districts have banned it, and many child advocates recommend that parents no longer spank or strike their children. In this book, social theorist Michael Donnelly and family violence expert Murray A. Straus tap the expertise of social science scholars and researchers who address issues of corporal punishment, a subject that is now characterized as a key issue in child welfare. The contributors discuss corporal punishment, its use, causes, and consequences, drawing on a wide array of comparative, psychological, and sociological theories. Together, they clarify the analytical issues and lay a strong foundation for future research and interdisciplinary collaboration. /DIV