Three Problems in The Analysis of Community Power

Polsby, Nelson W.

doi:10.2307/2088567

Cited by 21 publications

(7 citation statements)

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“…Diverse information is also "commensurate with a richer set of opportunities" (McEvily et al, 1999(McEvily et al, :1138. Stakeholders in any political environment vary across a broad range of parameters including their prioritization of issues (Polsby, 1959;Wolfinger, 1960), the cognitive schema that creates a sense of identity (Rowley et al, 2003), and the basis (i.e., informal vs. formal) and magnitude of power. These differences may be driven by variation in ethnicity, demographics, religion, ideology, education and myriad other factors.…”

Section: Network As Pipesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore the range of the firm's network is contingent upon ties to qualitatively different partners (Koka et al, 2002) at different parts of the network. Improving stakeholder relations is stymied by the complexity and diversity of stakeholders in the network in terms of types, issues (Polsby, 1959;Wolfinger, 1960), identities (Rowley et al, 2003), power (informal vs. formal), ethnicity, beliefs, religion, political affiliations, education, and myriad other factors. Further, different stakeholders have different abilities to impact the firm (Eesley & Lenox, 2006;Mitchell et al, 1997).…”

Section: H1a Firms Whose Network Positions Bridge a Greater Number Omentioning

confidence: 99%

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Networks of Influence: Implementing Politically Sustainable Multinational Stakeholder Strategies

Nartey¹

2011

AMPROC

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In a bid to gain stakeholder support for their operations, multinational firms operating in politically uncertain environments often inappropriately apply a rational financial approach to a sociopolitical problem. Using the tools of network theory, I present an alternative sociopolitical approach to gaining stakeholder support by engendering cooperative relations and increasing tie formation while minimizing conflict. This dissertation comprises three paper chapters. The first, theory, paper chapter outlines a theory of influence exploring how the firm's strategic position within the network of stakeholders affords it positional benefits of information and reputation, while also highlighting the costs of exposure to pre-existing conflict and the fostering of conflict through asymmetric relations. The second, empirical, paper chapter explores how firms can best manage altercentric and egocentric uncertainty in the nonmarket environment and compares the efficacy of the ex ante strategies that the firm can use to manage both types of uncertainty. I hypothesize and find that through strategic network positioning that affords it information, the firm can manage its egocentric uncertainty; and, by managing how it is perceived through its associations, the firm can also manage stakeholders' altercentric uncertainty. When both strategies are assessed together, I find greater returns to firms in terms of engendering cooperation, minimizing conflict and forming ties by managing altercentric uncertainty through strategic associations. In the third, also empirical, paper chapter, I use insights from structural balance theory to explore the relationship between dyadic structure and triadic closure among networks of actors in the sociopolitical context. I outline and test hypotheses of four types of structural homophily of the actors in the triad-access to resources, status, likeability and number of ties (popularity)-on the likelihood of the closure of that triad. I find that a link that closes an open directed triad is more likely when the actors of the triad have different access to resources, different status, and similar numbers of ties to other actors. I also find that likeability among actors in the triad has no impact on the likelihood of closing that triad. My empirical papers test the relationships among firms and stakeholders in a novel hand-coded database of 51,754 stakeholder events linking 4,623 unique stakeholders of a population of 19 publicly traded gold mining firms which operate 26 mines in 20 largely emerging economies.

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Section: Network As Pipesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: H1a Firms Whose Network Positions Bridge a Greater Number Omentioning

confidence: 99%

Networks of Influence: Implementing Politically Sustainable Multinational Stakeholder Strategies

Nartey¹

2011

AMPROC

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“…First, it was biased toward identifying persons who were more generalized leaders and thus would seem to favor identification of persons who have lived in the community for longer periods. Second, the reputational technique has been criticized by both pluralist (Polsby 1959) and radical scholars (Lukes 1974) as distorting the true picture of power in the local community. differential items that were intended to measure different aspects of a leader's attachment to his or her local community on a scale from one to seven.…”

Section: Selection Ofleadersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Community Attachment Among Leaders in Five Rural Communities¹

O’Brien

Hassinger

1992

Rural Sociology

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The relationship between the different ways leaders may relate to rural communities and their ability to relate to extracommunity individuals and organizations is examined. Drawing from the insights of Merton (1957) into local and cosmopolitan influentials and a newer literature on community attachment, two dimensions of attachment to the local community are identified. A survey of 75 leaders in five midwestern rural communities provides evidence that sociodemographic and socialnetwork characteristics of leaders have different relationships to the two dimensions. Implications of the findings for understanding the effectiveness of leadership in rural communities are discussed. I This is a revised version of a paper presented at the annual meetings of the Rural Sociological Society in Columbus, Ohio, August 18-21, 1991. We wish to thank anonymous reviewers for helpful suggestions for revision of the manuscript. Address all correspondence to David]. O'Brien, Department of Rural Sociology, 204A Sociology Building, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211.

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“…Local community studies continued-or redefined-opinion leader researches, and by investigating local/community power and mapping relations among individuals/organizations (Dahl, 1958, Polsby 1959, 1962 for example) foresaw the social capital, embeddeddness and social network approaches.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Structural holes in the local governments’ tendering activity network in a Hungarian subregion

Bodor-Eranus¹,

Kónya²,

Letenyei³

2016

Socio.hu

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The paper discusses the collaboration network of local governments through their tendering activity.Although many tenders in the Hungarian tendering system have given special attention to those joint actions that targeted cross developments of multiple localities, collaboration between local governments in the tendering activity cannot be considered typical. This observation is corroborated by our research conducted in 2009-2010, mapping all tender collaborations by local governments in the Kaposvár sub-region, a total of 54 localities. Our research identified a social network with structural holes of tender collaboration between local governments in the sub-region. Network structural holes allow the presence of a 'third party' that profits from this network structure. This paper seeks to identify which actors benefit from the structural characteristics of the collaboration network of local governments in tendering activity.

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Three Problems in The Analysis of Community Power

Cited by 21 publications

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Networks of Influence: Implementing Politically Sustainable Multinational Stakeholder Strategies

Networks of Influence: Implementing Politically Sustainable Multinational Stakeholder Strategies

Community Attachment Among Leaders in Five Rural Communities¹

Structural holes in the local governments’ tendering activity network in a Hungarian subregion

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Three Problems in The Analysis of Community Power

Cited by 21 publications

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Networks of Influence: Implementing Politically Sustainable Multinational Stakeholder Strategies

Networks of Influence: Implementing Politically Sustainable Multinational Stakeholder Strategies

Community Attachment Among Leaders in Five Rural Communities1

Structural holes in the local governments’ tendering activity network in a Hungarian subregion

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Community Attachment Among Leaders in Five Rural Communities¹