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This special issue introduces a new object of analysis: the organization of markets for collective concerns and their failures. This paper discusses how the study of this new object challenges key assumptions in recent social studies of markets. We focus on three issues, each related to the keywords of the title: organization, market, and concern. The first problem is the fluctuating conceptual value of the market-organization pair in the forms of expertise used to implement and repair markets for collective concerns. The second challenge pushes social researchers to develop a stronger analytical sensibility to the identification and understanding of the concepts of markets mobilized in their fields. Third, we show how the consolidation of professions involved in practices of market design challenges the political expectations found in social studies of markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Korean human resource management (HRM), characterized by lifetime employment and seniority-based promotion, has been suggested as an important factor contributing to the growth of Korean companies. However, the Asian financial crisis in 1997, raised questions about these practices, and Korean HRM underwent drastic changes, mainly by adopting a more flexible labor market approach. Despite Korean companies' efforts since then to change their HRM to a more western (US) style, much research indicates persistent challenges, both domestically and internationally. In an attempt to explain the challenges, we argue, in this conceptual paper, that it is necessary to consider the informal organization of Korean management in relation to formal organization. We suggest there are complementary overlaps and close integration between formal and informal organizational modes in Korean management. We fill a gap in the literature on the role of informal organization with indigenous Asian notions supporting the balance of opposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the importance of environments for managers’ successful introduction of a new management technique. Two empirical examples illustrate the interrelatedness of external and internal environments and its consequences for the propensity of organizations to accept and implement managerial propositions. It is suggested that an intrusive external environment, which clearly relates to generally accepted facts, facilitates managerial action and makes organizations change prone. Mangers, who seek to forestall future environmental problems, in contrast, seem likely to meet with a hostile and conservative internal environment. In both instances managers depend on the social construction of the external environment of their organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]