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This paper analyzes the impact of managerial social status on the normative evaluation of managerial acts in organizational contexts. We test several propositions on the relationship between social status and normative evaluation derived from Donald Black's theoretical framework on social control. The research design consists of a factorial survey of 200 managers. Each respondent evaluated the seriousness of a normatively questionable managerial act. In each vignette, the perpetrator's social status was systematically manipulated in either a high or a low condition. The results generally support the argument that the higher a manager's social status the less vulnerable that individual is to unfavorable normative evaluations, holding constant the act. The paper closes with discussion of our findings in light of social structural and rational choice perspectives on informal social control in organizations. Additionally, we discuss methodological issues related to experimental research on informal social control in organizations, the consistency of our findings with those from previous studies of social control across diverse settings, potential theoretical applications and extensions of Black's framework in organizational contexts, and practical implications for the implementation of corporate codes of conduct and corporate dispute resolution systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have access to an unprecedented amount of fine-grained data on cities, transportation, economies, and societies, much of these data referenced in geo-space and time. There is a tremendous opportunity to discover new knowledge about spatial economies that can inform theory and modeling in regional science. However, there is little evidence of computational methods for discovering knowledge from databases in the regional science literature. This paper addresses this gap by clarifying the geospatial knowledge discovery process, its relation to scientific knowledge construction, and identifying challenges to a greater role in regional science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research on social capital has explored trends in membership in voluntary organizations. However, there is currently little robust evidence on such trends in the UK since the 1970s, nor is there any analysis of whether participation bridges social divisions or accentuates them. This paper explores trends in participation in England and Wales since 1972 using data from the Social Mobility Inquiry of 1972 and the British Household Panel Survey of 1992 and 1999. We are concerned with social exclusion mechanisms in social capital generation in Britain over the three decades. Using binomial and multinomial models to 'unpack' the effects of socio-cultural factors on civic participation and on different types of associational membership, we test the thesis of across-the-board decline in social capital by Putnam (2000) and that of rising levels of middle-class social capital versus consistent low levels of working-class social capital by Hall (1999). The results show significant socio-cultural-gender differences, a relative stability of middle-class participation, and a rapid decline in the working-class access to social capital. We challenge the established accounts of both theses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic development involves elemental processes of great complexity and scope and that those who would move from a traditional to a modern society must relate themselves differently to the environment, shifting from an organic to an inorganic energy base, they must alter their ontology, accepting a different cognitive base for their relief system, they must adopt new values, forsaking old ones or integrating them somehow with the new values, indeed, they must psychologically refashion traditional man and his energizing and motivational system. The encompassing task of development requires the involvement of all sectors of society and different types of social units. This paper examines the nature and position of voluntary associations in the historic process of modernization and development.

Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) 50th anniversary was celebrated in Washington, D.C, on August 21, 1986, just before the 94th annual meeting of the American Psychological Association. It was marked by a series of panels devoted to the history of the society and was capped by a musical comedy that gave still another version of SPSSI story. Following the anniversary meeting, various SPSSI members asked about the possibility of publishing those presentations that had been written out. And although "Journal of Social Issues" had just recently published a commemorative number-"50 Years of Psychology and Social Issues" (Harris, Unger, & Stagner, 1986)-the feasibility of such an additional stocktaking has been promised.

Reports developments related to behavioral science as of October 1993. Calls for papers announced by the American Association for the History of Medicine for the 1994 Annual Meeting; Venue of the World Congress of Sociology; Schedule of the meeting of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry.

Presents updates on several organizations related to behavioral sciences as of June 2000. Information on the September 2000 issue of the "Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences"; Organization of the Franz Brentano Society at the University of Würzburg; Information on the Leo P. Chall Dissertation Fellowship in the History of Sociology.

In enhancing a proposal by Luhmann, this contribution shows that it is possible to locate different types of systems between 'face‐to‐face‐interaction' and 'society': groups, organizations, families and protest movements. The common ground of these is that they use membership to attribute persons to the system or not. However, they differ fundamentally in regard to how they understand membership. In contrast to Luhmann's differentiation between interaction, organization and society, it is not only possible to imagine different types of interlocking systems but also coequal combinations of and transitions between the different types of social systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the developments related to the periodical "Sociological Inquiry." The author would like to congratulate his predecessor, professor Harry Johnson, for the excellent job he did in editing the journal "Sociological Inquiry" and for the high quality of the manuscripts published during his tenure. The author would also like to thank him for the aid he has given him during the transition period. This issue as well as Volumes 52, Number 2 and 52, Number 3 contain manuscripts which were accepted and processed during the time Professor Johnson was editor. Alpha Kappa Delta (AKD) is the International Sociology Honor Society. Its purpose is to promote an interest in sociology, sociological research, and other social and intellectual activities concerned with the human condition. "Sociological Inquiry" is the official journal of Alpha Kappa Delta. It is designed to implement the scientific aims of AKD by communicating and reviewing developments of sociological interest in the service of faculty, investigators, and students alike. Since the journal has a broad constituency, to meet its objectives it must maintain a perspective general enough to cater to the interests and needs of sociologists and other social scientists with differing theoretical and methodological backgrounds engaged in a wide variety of activities in and out of academia. Thus it supports no particular theoretical, methodological or substantive area interest, but in a larger sense is concerned with them all.

The article presents information on the condition of sociology in the Federal Republic of Germany. The seventeenth Congress of the German Sociologists, organized by the German Society for Sociology, was held in Kassel from October 31 to November 2, 1974. The interest it attracted was enormous: about 800 participants had been expected. It is probable that all the others were laymen interested in sociology. These proportions were in themselves in a certain respect typical of the present state of sociology in the Federal Republic of Germany, as is also the fact that this congress was not related to one particular scientific topic, as is usually the case, but was intended to arrive at a provisional balance-sheet of sociology in Germany in the mid-seventies. Naturally, this over-all view had itself to be divided into sectors corresponding to specific topics, so that two days were first devoted to the comparison of theories in sociology. This was followed by an exhaustive discussion of methods, in which all possible analytical procedures and related problems were gone into. Listed in this way and considered as a whole, this certainly presents an impressive picture of sociological activities in the Federal Republic and it is to be stressed that the papers presented to the congress included some notable pieces of work.

Fifth Decennial Conference of the Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and Commonwealth, University of Manchester, 14-18 July 2003 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sociology of work is particularly poised to study the meaning of time within institutions and organizations at its most sociological manifestation - the point where groups of people come together to accomplish joint goals. Previous work has offered useful concepts to help us understand temporality and tempography, home and work balance, temporal practices and mindsets towards time. Most of this work, however, which directly or peripherally treats time in the workplace, has focussed on the work-life balance. The actual temporal experiences of workers, however, are relatively absent in this literature. In this review article, I outline previous contributions from sociologists of work and offer ways in which work from the broader literature on the sociology of time can enhance this field. I address how future research should focus on how 'time work' is accomplished in workplaces and on issues of class and gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on developments related to the International Social Science Council (ISC) as of December 2005. ISSC president Lourdes Arizpe has addressed the 33rd Unesco General Conference. Four organizations have been accepted to membership in the council which includes the Economic Social and Research Council, German Research Foundation, Research Council of Norway and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research. Two task forces were set up in pursuit of the Strategic Planning Advisory Committee recommendations. The International Global Social Change Programme was successfully held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on September 7-8, 2005.

More than 200 freshly minted doctoral graduates enter the field of organization science every year. A non-trivial number of existing faculty members move from one university to another every year, while other organization science faculty leave academia to enter retirement, consulting, or industry. Despite the importance of this large, complex system of entries and exits, few attempts have been made to explicitly understand how the system works. Drawing upon sociology of science and careers research, we studied the underlying form of the position allocation system by focusing on the relative importance of research success and prior affiliations as antecedents of movement and stability across positions. We used three theoretical models: accumulative advantage, sponsored mobility, and contest mobility. Tracking hundreds of faculty members for 16 years post doctorate, we find a downward cascading of affiliation prestige over time that affects people more dramatically and quickly than we expected, especially women. Accumulative advantage, the most predictive of our models, does help to maintain relative but not absolute prestige, at least until its effects wane in later years of the career. These findings are relevant to scholars interested in the sociology of science, organization scholars interested in the underlying dynamics of their discipline, and individuals making career choices. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Responding to the growing gap between the sociological ethos and the world we study, the challenge of public sociology is to engage multiple publics in multiple ways. These public sociologies should not be left out in the cold, but brought into the framework of our discipline. In this way we make public sociology a visible and legitimate enterprise, and, thereby, invigorate the discipline as a whole. Accordingly, if we map out the division of sociological labor, we discover antagonistic interdependence among four types of knowledge: professional, critical, policy, and public. In the best of all worlds the flourishing of each type of sociology is a condition for the flourishing of all, but they can just as easily assume pathological forms or become victims of exclusion and subordination. This field of power beckons us to explore the relations among the four types of sociology as they vary historically and nationally, and as they provide the template for divergent individual careers. Finally, comparing disciplines points to the umbilical chord that connects sociology to the world of publics, underlining sociology's particular investment in the defense of civil society, itself beleaguered by the encroachment of markets and states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Approximately 75 rural sociologists who attended the annual meeting of the American Sociological Society were called into attend the special session conducted by Dr. George von Tungeln, Chairman of the Section on Rural Sociology, to hear the report of a special committee appointed in December, 1936, to consider ways and means of better organization for rural sociologists. The committee suggested certain changes to article VIII, Section 2 amendment of the American Sociological Society. The modified amendment now states that "A section of the society shall be composed of members of the society interested in a common field of sociological specialization, or may consist of an independent society or association devoted to a special field of sociology, a majority of whose members are members of the American Sociological Society. The constitution or by-laws of such an independent association must specify that it is a section of the American Sociological Society. Sections shall meet annually during the time of, and in the same city as the annual meeting of the Society."

This article begins with a discussion of the functions that publications serve, and ends with speculations on the future of SPSSI's publication programs. The five main sections of the article describe the SPSSI book publishing program, separately review the history of both SPSSI-sponsored books and SPSSI's journal publications, provide a citation analysis of the Journal of Social Issue (JSI), and comment on recurrent themes in SPSSI's publishing activities. Included in tables are lists of all SPSSI-sponsored books, all JSI editors, the most frequent contributors to JSI, the most cited JSI articles (1965-1979), and the most cited JSI issues (1965-1979). Oriented toward academics and students, SPSSI publications have typically either focused on such social issues as prejudice and peace or been social psychological textbooks. A small set of elected SPSSI officers have played a key role in organizing and guiding the Society's publication program. The intellectual roots of JSI articles are primarily in psychology, but the journal's impact is multidisciplinary. Despite the difficulties inherent in the publishing process, JSI and SPSSI-sponsored books have contributed greatly to SPSSI's identity and economic well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The participant-observer study of the Cheshire Home in Great Britain which is described in this article was intended to bring some fieldwork evidence to bear on popular speculations in the field of the sociology of knowledge. These speculations are best known through the writing of Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, which draws heavily on the work of Alfred Schutz. Berber's sociology of knowledge draws heavily on notions of socialization which are derived from Goffman's studies of institutional life and from a too simple interpretation of G. H. Mead. This article therefore examines a Cheshire Home as a marginal world which perhaps gave a base for a counter reality and a cluster of counter identities by focusing on processes of resocialization. In view of the great weight given by Berger and Luckmann to temporality as a constituent of reality, special attention was given to the temporal framework within which inmates apprehended both daily agenda and personal biographies. The picture that emerges is of a remarkably tenacious normality. The Cheshire Home was not a base for a counter reality. The three categories which give shape and meaning to the lives of most adults held firm and were still prime categories for interpreting their lives and the world and for structuring relationships.