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The purpose of this paper is to examine three explanatory perspectives in the academic literature on informal economies that seek to account for agents’ engagement in informal economic practices.

The paper draws on Pierre Bourdieu’s reflexive sociology to interrogate the existing perspectives and to provide a conceptual rethinking of informal economies and informal economic practices.

The paper reveals an inherent scholastic epistemocentrism in the established perspectives. By privileging either an objectivist or a subjectivist viewpoint, these accounts do not examine the practical knowledge and logic that constitute agents’ knowledgeable engagement in informal economic practices. By making use of Bourdieu’s thinking tools of “field”, “capital” and “the habitus”, the paper offers a conceptual rethinking of informal economic practices as the product of a dialectic relationship between socially objectivated structures and subjective representations and experiences.

The paper introduces a reflexive rethinking of informality that draws on but also develops an emergent literature on informal economic practices as relational and context bound.

The purpose of this paper is to suggest that the modern economic theory of bureaucracy developed by economists Breton and Wintrobe is a heretofore unrecognized precursor to the new public management (NPM) construct.

After presenting a comparison of the modern economic theory of bureaucracy to the basic principles of NPM, this paper offers a treatment of Breton and Wintrobe's modern economic theory of bureaucracy that uses the compelling episodic example of the 1944 attempt by the Nazi SS to deceive, through the now infamous Theresienstadt “Embellishment,” the International Red Cross and world communities about the existence of the Nazi Holocaust bureaucracy.

The comparison of the conceptual elements of the two models and the integration of the historical episodic example support the view that the modern economic theory of bureaucracy is a precursor to NPM.

This is the first study to date to present the modern economic theory of bureaucracy as a precursor to the principles of NPM. As such, future research in either area that recognizes the connection made in the present study is potentially enhanced.

Despite its central role in the influence process, power has largely been overlooked by scholars seeking to understand global leaders' influence over their constituents. As a consequence, we currently have limited understanding of the varieties of power that global leaders hold, how power is exercised in global contexts, and what impact exercising power has in global organizations. The intended purpose of this chapter is to mobilize research on this important topic through systematic review. The review is organized around the following guiding questions: (i) how is power defined in global leadership research? (ii) what power bases do global leaders possess? (iii) how do global leaders exercise power? (iv) what factors influence global leaders' exercise of power? and (v) what are the outcomes of global leaders' exercise of power? Based on a synthesis of extant insights, this chapter develops a foundation for future research on power in global leadership by mapping critical knowledge gaps and outlining paths for further inquiry.

Given the increasing relevance of emerging economies in the global economy and the neoclassical argument that technological progress is the main driver of economic growth, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the under-researched role of informal institutions on the likelihood that individuals will enter into technology entrepreneurship in emerging markets.

Since the authors combined individual-level and country-level observations, data were analyzed employing hierarchical linear modeling methods and random-effect logistic regressions to estimate the influence of country-level factors on the likelihood of individuals’ entry into techno-entrepreneurship. The data set comprised 10,280 observations for 18 emerging countries during the 2002-2008 period.

The selected informal institutions relate to techno-entrepreneurship as follows: the size of the shadow economy has a U-shaped relationship; ethnic diversity is positively associated; and ethnic polarization is negatively associated, though the latter is not significant.

The authors did not theorize on cross-level mechanisms through which these informal institutions could influence individual-level attitudes, nor did the authors assess the role of such institutions on general entrepreneurship. However, this paper provides a base for more fine-grained studies.

The authors disseminate novel insights into the particularities of emerging economies since all informal institutions studied here have been negatively associated with the overall economic experiences of developing and least developed countries. In addition, the authors provide a unique contribution by identifying a potential U-shaped relationship between the size of the shadow economy and the likelihood of individuals engaging in techno-entrepreneurship.

This study aims to investigate whether and how corporate seniority culture (a form of high power distance or hierarchy), a typical feature of Confucian norms, affects the corporate innovation efficiency in emerging markets.

This study defines and measures seniority culture through the ranking method of independent directors in company’s annual report. Unlike most companies in the USA where directors are listed alphabetically, the ranking of directors in China is meaningful and reflects hierarchy. This study considers a firm with seniority if independent directors are ranked according to their status, including age, social position and political connection. Using data from Chinese listed companies between 2009 and 2013, this study conducts multiple regressions to examine the impact of seniority on innovative efficiency.

The empirical results show that seniority culture is negatively associated with innovative efficiency. Moreover, the negative association between a corporate culture of seniority and innovative efficiency is more pronounced in firms with more male executives and knowledge-intensive firms. Further analysis reveals that seniority culture expands pay disparities among different classes, hinders their enthusiasm to communicate and ultimately damages the corporate efficiency of innovation.

Corporate seniority culture is an essential factor that may hinder employee communication and inhibit innovation efficiency. Therefore, companies should break the identity barrier at different levels and advocate a culture of equality to promote information exchange and knowledge sharing among employees.

This study extends the field of literature on the determinants of corporate innovation efficiency and deepens our theoretical understanding of the negative impact of corporate seniority culture.

The purpose this paper is to examine a prevailing assumption that the culture of organisations is homogenous. It explores the culture of one project organisation with multiple offices.

A quantitative questionnaire and qualitative research method of cultural immersion was used. The ethnographic Douglas grid‐group was used to filter the findings: isolate, competitive, hierarchical and egalitarian positions. Hofstede's dimensions were overlaid to enhance the analysis.

The research found distinct cultural differences in the same organisation. Competitive and hierarchical factors are found with some evidence of egalitarian behaviours. Regional cultural factors affected behaviour and organisational practices. Individuals actively negotiated dominant behaviours and cultural norms. The Hofstede dimensions are in evidence around roles and functions. The findings showed a stronger influence from the dominant social culture of the region than the organisational culture.

Organisations cannot be assumed as homogeneous. The influence of the dominant social culture and competing cultural influences within organisation requires further analysis.

Generating a coherent organisational culture with aligned norms is a difficult management problem, especially for an organisation with multiple offices. Establishing consistent norms also poses challenges for the management of projects.

The tendency to assume cultural homogeneity requires closer attention in organisational research and practice. This paper employed a unique combination of methods to explore the issue. The primary contribution is a demonstration of the need for practitioners and researchers to pay more attention to the dynamic formation and effects of culture in organisations and for projects.

The purpose of this paper is to critically reflect on the affective entanglement of both researcher and practitioners in a study of workplace diversity with a transformative agenda.

Events and experiences related to interventions in a municipal center are presented. The study is embedded in critical diversity research and applies engaged ethnographic methods.

The researcher reflects on how interventions designed to challenge the status quo faced difficulties while considering the impact of the research entry point, efforts to mobilize organizational members in favor of a diversity agenda and the micro-politics of doing intervention-based research.

The study reflects on how “useful” research with an allegedly emancipatory agenda might not be considered favorable to neither majority nor minority employees. The notion of affectivity is applied to deal with the organizational members’ multi-voiced response to the change efforts, as well as how the researcher’s position as researcher-change agent critically shaped the fieldwork experiences and their interpretation.

Few critical diversity scholars engage with practitioners to produce “useful” research with practical implications. In doing so, this paper contributes to critical diversity methods by exploring why presumably emancipatory initiatives apparently did not succeed, despite organizational goodwill. This involves questioning the implied assumption of the inherent “good” of emancipation, as well as notions of “useful research.”

Tocqueville's theory emerged from a social movement–infested society rather than from the rather bucolic and static American democracy that he sometimes portrays. And while Putnam (2001) and others try to resurrect this cooperative view of society using the concept of social capital, this approach is inadequate to explain major changes in society and, indeed, only repeats power resources theory with a different linguistic cloak.

Bureaucratic power – the power derived from the formal authority of the bureaucratic organization – has become a central organizing mechanism in modern societies. In this study, we develop theoretical arguments to identify institutional sources as well as limitations of bureaucratic power. We argue that the very institutional sources of bureaucratic power also cultivate the countervailing forces that set limit to the exercise of bureaucratic power in formal organizations. These arguments and considerations are illustrated in two case studies of the “inspection and appraisal” processes in the Chinese bureaucracy. Our study raises issues about organizational isomorphism and calls for a closer look at the behavioral patterns in organizational processes.