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Professional structure and its relations to certain social fields is an underdeveloped topic of research. A common understatement is that new eras require new professions, that is, when fields change the professional structure also changes. In some cases, the statement might be correct, but this common-sense understanding has little theoretical or empirical support. It ignores the fact that professional structures sometimes actually remain unchanged for long periods, even though the related fields have developed, or vice versa. Nor does it take into account that the knowledge base of the professions can be modified to suit new requirements. Moreover, it seems to underestimate the opportunities for professions to take part actively in field definition. In this paper, a conceptual framework is proposed to enable an analysis of professional structures and their relations to social fields. The professional structure is defined as the composition of professional groups and the power relations between them. The social field is defined as an institutionalized power area comprising actors and institutions struggling for influence. Swedish urban planning offers an excellent case for illustrating the theoretical and methodological findings in the paper. It is concluded that the field of urban planning has changed in some respects, but not fundamentally. The professional structure, on the other hand, has shifted dramatically. The variation in jurisdictional claims and influence can explain why the structure has developed in the ways it has. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, recent research on the economics of institutions is summarized and assessed. The economics of institutions is an attempt to integrate recent research in various sub-fields of economics and the other social sciences in order to present a coherent research program for exploring the link between institutions and wealth. Although the core of the framework is a modified version of neo-classical economics, it is argued that the optimal deviation from the neo-classical model varies with the level of analysis and the types of variables that we seek to endogenize. The unifying theme of the analysis is the introduction of transaction costs and the related concept of property rights, which give organizations and institutions a central role in economic life. The paper provides a summary view of the economics of institutions, and discusses in some detail two common lines of criticism: that the approach ignores power relationships in economic affairs, and that its use of the rational choice model is inappropriate. The need for augmenting the economics of institution with an operational theory of mental models and learning is recognized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Typical criteria for deciding whether to use one or two tailed tests of significance are examined in this paper and found to be too ambiguous to give the researcher useful guidance. This is unfortunate in that the decision creates a dilemma for the researcher. On the one hand, always using symmetric two tailed tests involves a substantial loss of power in the test. On the other hand, using the one tailed test may create the suspicion that the researcher 'peeked' at his data when the results are narrowly significant, and, moreover, should the results substantially differ from the prediction, the researcher may be unable to attach any statistical weight to the findings. It is suggested here that this dilemma can be satisfactorily surmounted by avoiding the use of one tailed tests entirely in hypothesiscentered research; instead where the researcher has clear outcome expectations, using asymmetric two tailed tests with 90% of the probability in the expected tail and 10% in the unexpected direction to enable the researcher to pick up the serendipidous finding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]