[Truncated abstract] The links between the quality of a country’s institutions and its level of economic development is an important, and growing, area of research in economics. Broadly speaking, these institutions define the ‘rules of the game’, or the conditions under which firms and individuals operate within and between markets. The better the quality of these institutional arrangements, the more confidence market participants have to conduct transactions. Although the links between these institutions and economic growth have been empirically tested many times (and shown to be extremely important), several gaps still exist in our understanding of this relationship. Two of the more important issues are (i) what the causal relationship may be between institutions and economic growth, and (ii) what the (undoubtedly complex) transmission mechanisms may be between them . . . Using a variety of alternative variables and samples, the evidence presented here strongly suggests that institutional quality is a major causal determinant of investment and human capital (particularly higher levels of education), as well as having an additional (though weaker) causal effect on growth itself. There is also an indication that there is reverse causality running from economic growth back to institutions. The evidence of a causal relationship between institutional quality and trade remains somewhat mixed, however, there is a strong suggestion that the influence of trade on institutional quality depends heavily on what type of goods are being traded (specifically, primary commodities or manufactured goods).

Thesis (M.Sc.)--University of North Carolina, 2009. / Title from pdf file main screen (viewed on May 26, 2010). A Master's paper submitted to the faculty of the School of Information and Library Science of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Information Science, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. "April 2009." Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Sc.)--University of North Carolina, 2009. / Title from pdf file main screen (viewed on May 26, 2010). A Master's paper submitted to the faculty of the School of Information and Library Science of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Information Science, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. "April 2009." Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 92-101).

We investigate a multinational corporation's (MNC) decision to appoint host-country national (HCN) managers to foreign subsidiaries based on the institutional context of and familiarity with the host country. HCN managers are commonly associated with specialized knowledge, superior responsiveness, and higher legitimacy. Yet, we argue that local familiarity of HCNs can also be perceived as risky or harmful by MNC parents. We analyze how formal and informal institutions affect the trade-off between positive effects and potential costs associated with HCN managers ("Local allies" vs. "Trojan horses"). We find that legal institutions protect foreign MNCs from potential costs, encourage the use of HCNs and reinforce their benefits. Corruption and corruption distance, however, increase perceived costs associated with HCN managers up to a point at which they outweigh their perceived benefits.

This dissertation explains the existence, sources, and variability of intra-organizational conflict in a hybrid organization. It assesses the usefulness of "structural" and "cultural" explanations of conflict and ultimately advances an alternative explanation for the presence of and variability in conflict in a hybrid organization. Homeowners' associations are used as a case for understanding the development of multiple institutional logics and the relationship between institutional pluralism and complexity and the presence of and variability in conflict in a hybrid organization. Drawing from quantitative and qualitative research conducted on homeowners' associations in the Greater-Boston area, including 250 surveys and 56 in-depth interviews with board members of homeowners' associations, I show how the American history and ideology of homeownership has generated two multiple, permanent, and functionally contradictory institutional logics--one based on the market and the other based on the community--in homeowners' associations. Using institutional theory and the concepts of institutional work and ambidexterity, I argue that organizational actor's responses to the presence of institutional pluralism and complexity, as evidenced in their perceptions and practices, determine whether a hybrid organization is subject to more or less conflict. My findings lead to three general conclusions. First, many homeowners' associations experience significant conflict. Second, structural and cultural explanations of conflict only partially explain the presence of conflict in homeowners' associations. They do not explain the variability of conflict in homeowners' associations. Third, and most significantly, the micro-actions of organizational actors matter in situations of institutional pluralism and complexity. I propose that organizational actors' responses to institutional pluralism and complexity explain variability in conflict; organizational actors either "don't do" or "do" logics. Organizational actors who "don't do" logics respond to institutional pluralism and complexity by eliminating and compartmentalizing logics. They perceive multiplicity as novel and problematic and enact disruptive practices to contest and separate logics. This results in more conflict. Organizational actors who "do" logics respond to institutional pluralism and complexity ambidextrously. They perceive multiplicity as routine, and even beneficial, and enact practices to maintain multiple institutional logics via context-specific and purposeful practices including adjustment, improvisation, and switching. This results in less conflict.

AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF LORI A. BARROW, for the Master of Science degree in FORESTRY, presented on October 18, 2012 at Southern Illinois University Carbondale TITLE: ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AND INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT FOR USDA FOREST SERVICE PARTNERSHIPS MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Erin Seekamp and Dr. Andrew Carver In an era of constrained appropriations and increasingly complex social and environmental challenges, partnerships have become an essential tool for public land management agencies, such as the USDA Forest Service (USFS), to accomplish critical tasks, meet management goals, and enhance service delivery. Despite the growing practice and reliance on partnerships as an alternative management strategy, few empirical assessments of this management approach have been conducted, and knowledge is limited regarding the structure and function of these relationships. Therefore, the goals of this study were to expand the established partnership knowledge base by systematically examining the institutional characteristics necessary to foster a vibrant partnership culture, uncovering and documenting the various partnership structural types being utilized, and determining whether or not institutional characteristics or external environment characteristics are related to the partnership approach utilized by USFS personnel. To explore these partnership characteristics, and assess whether differences existed between administrative levels and between national forest, an online questionnaire was administered to agency personnel on 13 randomly selected forests during the fall of 2011. Forests were randomly selected from three stratum of internal commitment from all 155 national forests' "Working Together" webpage. Of the 1584 respondent sample, 611 completed the questionnaire (40% response rate). Data collected clearly document a steady increase in the reliance of partnerships as a management strategy in recreation and resource service delivery. While the findings reveal diverse partnership support networks, respondents reported few incentives to cultivate partnerships and limited recognition for their partnership work. Furthermore, this study confirms that agency personnel work with multiple types of volunteer or partnering groups on a fairly regular basis, and make strategic choices when selecting and cultivating partnerships based on the types of work typically performed and their access and proximity to different partnering groups. Moreover, a mixed-method cluster analysis provided further insight into agency-partner interactions by identifying and defining partnership structural types and exposing variation in personnel's capacity to engage partners based on the level of internal support received, the extent of the national forest's partnership dependency, and type of external environment that categorizes the communities adjacent to the national forest (i.e., urban or rural). As the partnership phenomenon continues to be espoused by the USFS as an innovative and alternative management strategy, this thesis provides agency personnels' depiction of the agency's capacity to engage and support partnerships at multiple administrative levels and on different national forests, and helps build the foundation for managing national forests through partnerships.

This article unpacks the notion of institutional complexity and highlights the distinct sets of challenges confronting hybrid structural arrangements. The framework identifies three factors that contribute to the experience of complexity - namely, the extent to which the prescriptive demands of logics are incompatible, whether there is a settled or widely accepted prioritization of logics within the field, and the degree to which the jurisdictions of the logics overlap. The central thesis is that these "components" of complexity variously combine to produce four distinct institutional landscapes, each with differing implications for the challenges organizations face and for how they might respond. The article explores the situational relevance of an array of hybridizing responses and discusses their implications for organizational legitimacy and performance. It concludes by specifying the boundary conditions of the framework and highlighting fruitful directions for future scholarship.

The United States has unusually high rates of violence among developed nations, including the victimization of and perpetration by youth. Using Institutional Anomie Theory (IAT) as the theoretical framework, this study analyzes the relationships between social institutions and crime and the interactive relationships among the institutions in a sample of Virginia localities. Multivariate analyses are conducted to produce additive and multiplicative models, and simple slope analyses are conducted to clarify interaction/moderation effects. Findings yield mixed support for IAT. Localities with higher levels of monthly welfare per recipient (a measure of polity) have lower juvenile violent crime arrest rates, and welfare moderates the relationship between income inequality and juvenile violent crime arrests. Controlling for all variables, no support was found for the direct effects of any other institution on juvenile violent crime arrests. Policy recommendations include maintenance of welfare programs and improvement of work participation supplementary programs.

D.Litt. et Phil. / Refer to full text to view abstract