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Proto-Bureaucracies

By on September 12, 2022 in Articles

Monica Prasad

Sociological Science September 12, 2022
10.15195/v9.a15

Abstract

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The emergence of bureaucracy is often described as occurring at a particular historical period in a society, as a result of the pressures of war, the improvement of communication and transportation technologies, or societywide cultural changes. But recently many scholars have drawn attention to examples of meritocratic bureaucracies in societies otherwise organized according to patrimonial logics, what I call proto-bureaucracies. In this article I investigate one aspect of proto-bureaucracies that has not been examined in the literature: in a society characterized by patrimonial relations, the sudden introduction of meritocratic principles of recruitment may be interpreted as violating the principles of rewarding loyalty or kinship. This can fragment the political coalitions necessary to sustain a proto-bureaucracy. I argue through in-depth examination of one case, and secondary analysis of several others, that to manage the problem of exclusion successful proto-bureaucracies enact performative adherence to nonmeritocratic logics while protecting their meritocratic core. I argue that understanding contemporary proto-bureaucracies can help to develop an organizational strategy for strengthening governance and reducing corruption. The main lesson of proto-bureaucracies is that effective institutions generate exclusion, but meritocratic practices can be sustained if the exclusions they generate can be addressed in other ways.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Monica Prasad: Department of Sociology and Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University
E-mail: m-prasad@northwestern.edu

Acknowledgments: For comments on earlier versions of this article I am grateful to Sam Cohn, Erin McDonnell, Michael Roll, audience members at the American Sociological Virtual Engagement Event of 2020, and especially Dinsha Mistree, whose fascinating dissertation inspired this research and who has been an enthusiastic supporter throughout the project. I am also particularly grateful to the two faculty members at the new IIT who hosted me and facilitated my research.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Prasad, Monica. 2022. “Proto-Bureaucracies.” Sociological Science 9: 374-405.
  • Received: May 30, 2022
  • Accepted: July 12, 2022
  • Editors: Ari Adut, Gabriel Rossman
  • DOI: 10.15195/v9.a15


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The Problems and Promise of Hierarchy: Voice Rights and the Firm

By on March 5, 2018 in Articles

Robert F. Freeland, Ezra W. Zuckerman Sivan

Sociological Science, March 5, 2018
DOI 10.15195/v5.a7

Abstract
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The firm’s continued importance for coordinating economic activity is puzzling given that (1) economists have not demonstrated that the greater alignment of effort they expect from hierarchical coordination overcomes the reduction in employee effort created by “low-powered” incentives, (2) employee effort is further threatened by the alienating effects of hierarchical control, and (3) firms, as we show, are necessarily hierarchical. Why, then, do firms dominate the capitalist economy? Our theory is rooted in a more subtle set of rights that is also intrinsic to the firm hierarchy: “voice rights” (who can speak within and on behalf of the firm). Control of voice is crucial for endowing the firm with a capacity that cannot be acquired by a mere “nexus” of contractors: it can become a reliable and accountable actor. This, in turn, gives the firm three necessary (if insufficient) ingredients for creating strong identification with the collective enterprise. Our theory thus suggests why firms remain important despite their inherent limitations and why some firms are marked by alienation and perfunctory performance while others are marked by strong identification and consummate performance.

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Robert F. Freeland: Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Email: freeland@ssc.wisc.edu

Ezra W. Zuckerman Sivan: Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Email: ewzucker@mit.edu

Acknowledgements: We are grateful for feedback from the following conference and seminar audiences: ESSEC Business School (2011), the American Sociological Association (2012), the Saïd Business School (2014), the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (2012), and the Economic Sociology Working Group (2012), the IWER Seminar (2013), and the MIT-Harvard Economic Sociology Seminar. We have also benefited from help, advice, and feedback from Matthew Bidwell, Rodrigo Canales, Phech Colatat, Gabriella Coleman, Frank Dobbin, Bob Gibbons, Sandy Jacoby, Ethan Mollick, Woody Powell, Tom Kochan, Kieran Healy, Pam Oliver, Paul Osterman, Jeff Pfeffer, Mike Piore, Hiram Samel, Mike Sauder, Cat Turco, Eric van den Steen, and Nate Wilmers. The usual disclaimers apply.

  • Citation: Freeland, Robert F., and Ezra W. Zuckerman Sivan. 2018. “The Problems and Promise of Hierarchy: Voice Rights and the Firm.” Sociological Science 5: 143-181.
  • Received: July 15, 2017
  • Accepted: January 7, 2018
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Gabriel Rossman
  • DOI: 10.15195/v5.a7

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Pathways to Carbon Pollution: The Interactive Effects of Global, Political, and Organizational Factors on Power Plants’ CO2 Emissions

By on January 25, 2018 in Articles

Don Grant, Andrew K. Jorgenson, Wesley Longhofer

Sociological Science, January 25, 2018
DOI 10.15195/v5.a4

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Climate change is arguably the greatest threat to society as power plants, the single largest human source of heat-trapping pollution, continue to emit massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Sociologists have identified several possible structural determinants of electricity-based CO2 emissions, including international trade and global normative regimes, national political–legal systems, and organizational size and age. But because they treat these factors as competing predictors, scholars have yet to examine how they might work together to explain why some power plants emit vastly more pollutants than others. Using a worldwide data set of utility facilities and fuzzy-set methods, we analyze the conjoint effects of global, political, and organizational conditions on fossil-fueled plants’ CO2 emissions. Findings reveal that hyperpolluters’ emission rates are a function of four distinct causal recipes, which we label coercive, quiescent, expropriative, and inertial configurations, and these same sets of conditions also increase plants’ emission levels.

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Don Grant: Department of Sociology, University of Colorado Boulder
Email: Don.GrantII@colorado.edu

Andrew K. Jorgenson: Department of Sociology and Environmental Studies, Boston College
Email: jorgenan@bc.edu

Wesley Longhofer: Department of Organization and Management, Emory University
Email: wesley.longhofer@emory.edu

Acknowledgements: Direct all correspondence to Don Grant, Department of Sociology, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder CO 80309. This research was supported with a collaborative grant from the National Science Foundation (#1357483, 1357495, 1357497). We thank Jamie Vickery and Urooj Raja for their excellent research assistance. We also thank Jason Boardman and Ryan Masters for their technical comments and assistance. Liam Downey, Giacomo Negro, David Frank, Elizabeth Boyle, Sarah Babb, Juliet Schor, and audiences at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, 2016 Future of World Society Theory Conference, Boston College’s Environmental Sociology Workshop, and Emory Law School provided helpful comments on earlier drafts.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Grant, Don, Andrew K. Jorgenson, and Wesley Longhofer. 2018. “Pathways to Carbon Pollution: The Interactive Effects of Global, Political, and Organizational Factors on Power Plants’ CO2 Emissions.” Sociological Science 5: 58-92.
  • Received: November 15, 2017
  • Accepted: December 8, 2017
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Sarah Soule
  • DOI: 10.15195/v5.a4

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The Partial Deinstitutionalization of Affirmative Action in U.S. Higher Education, 1988 to 2014

By on August 28, 2017 in Articles

Daniel Hirschman, Ellen Berrey

Sociological Science, August 28, 2017
DOI 10.15195/v4.a18

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Since the 1990s, affirmative action opponents have targeted colleges’ and universities’ race-conscious admissions policies and secured bans on the practice in eight states. Although scholarly and media attention has focused on these dynamics at a handful of elite institutions, little is known about race-conscious admissions across the broader field of higher education. We provide a descriptive, quantitative account of how different types of colleges and universities responded to this political context. Through analysis of almost 1,000 selective colleges and universities, we find a dramatic shift in stated organizational policy starting in the mid-1990s. In 1994, 60 percent of selective institutions publicly declared that they considered race in undergraduate admissions; by 2014, just 35 percent did. This decline varied depending on status (competitiveness) and sector (public or private). Race-conscious admissions remain the stated policy of almost all of the most elite public and private institutions. The retreat from race-conscious admissions occurs largely among schools lower in the status hierarchy: very competitive public institutions and competitive public and private institutions. These patterns are not explained by implementation of state-level bans. We suggest that the anti–affirmative action movement had a diffuse impact whose effects varied across different strata of American higher education.

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Daniel Hirschman: Department of Sociology, Brown University
Email: daniel_hirschman@brown.edu

Ellen Berrey: Department of Sociology, University of Toronto
Email: ellen.berrey@utoronto.ca

Acknowledgements: We thank Prabhdeep Kehal for his excellent research assistance and instructive comments. Mikaila Mariel Lemonik Arthur, Ronit Dinovitzer, Steve Hoffman, Ashley Rubin, and Terri Taylor provided feedback that improved this article. Research funding was provided by Brown University’s Program in Business, Entrepreneurship and Organizations.

  • Citation: Hirschman, Daniel, and Ellen Berrey. 2017. “The Partial Deinstitutionalization of Affirmative Action in U.S. Higher Education, 1988 to 2014.” Sociological Science 4: 449-468.
  • Received: June 21, 2017
  • Accepted: July 28, 2017
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Sarah Soule
  • DOI: 10.15195/v4.a18


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A Comparative Analysis of Corporate and Independent Foundations

By on December 15, 2015 in Articles

Justin Koushyar, Wesley Longhofer, Peter W. Roberts

Sociological Science, December 15, 2015
DOI 10.15195/v2.a28

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Notwithstanding some visible debates, systematic evidence about the implications of greater corporate involvement in the social sector is sparse. We provide some of this evidence by examining one channel of corporate influence within the nonprofit sector–company sponsorship of philanthropic foundations. Our analysis shows that corporate foundations raise more funds and distribute grants with lower overhead than similar independent (i.e., non-corporate) foundations. However, their grantmaking is also more dispersed and less relational, and they tend to be governed by more ephemeral groups of officers and trustees. These findings suggest that corporate foundations benefit from having access to the resources of the companies that sponsor them but are constrained by their additional market-based motivations. The findings also update and refine what nonprofits might expect from corporate foundations relative to their more traditional independent counterparts.
Justin Koushyar: Goizueta Business School, Emory University  Email: justin.koushyar@emory.edu

Wesley Longhofer: Goizueta Business School, Emory University  Email: wesley.longhofer@emory.edu

Peter W. Roberts:  Goizueta Business School, Emory University  Email: peter.roberts@emory.edu

Acknowledgements: The authors thank Joe Galaskiewicz, Giacomo Negro, faculty at Georgia State University, and participants at the 2012 EGOS Colloquium, the 2013 Society for the Study of Social Problems Annual Meeting, the 2013 American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, the 2014 Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability Research Conference, and the 2014 Academy of Management Annual Meeting for their insightful feedback and suggestions.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Koushyar, Justin, Wesley Longhofer and Peter W. Roberts. 2015. “A Comparative Analysis of Corporate and Independent Foundations.” Sociological Science 2: 582-596.
  • Received: December 15, 2015.
  • Accepted: February 19, 2015.
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Sarah Soule
  • DOI: 10.15195/v2.a28

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