Change agency as performance and embeddedness: Exploring the possibilities and limits of Butler and Bourdieu

In this paper, we explore the dual role of human agency in maintaining the status quo and generating change. Judith Butler and Pierre Bourdieu offer differing conceptions of change agency in relation to organization and transformation of gender relations. Focusing on how those approaches would work, we analyse an empirical case study on a particular change process: getting women the right to vote in the Swiss cantons of Appenzell. We contribute to the current use of Butler's and Bourdieu's theories in organization studies in three main ways. First, we explore stability and change from the lenses of these two scholars. Second, we illustrate how change agency looks from these two distinct perspectives. Finally, we offer an empirical analysis that identifies the main elements of change agency in the two frameworks and discuss the possibilities and limitations of bringing these two approaches together to better understand change agency.     

地区官员腐败与企业代理成本——基于中国上市公司的实证研究

与已有围绕腐败对经济增长、财富分配、社会稳定等宏观效应的研究不同,文章将宏观制度环境与微观企业决策有机结合起来,重点考察官员腐败对企业代理成本的影响效应和传导机理.基于中国A股上市公司2000-2012年面板数据的实证研究表明,官员腐败显著提升了企业代理成本.具体表现为,随着企业所在地区官员腐败程度的上升,企业费用率显著增加,资产利用率则显著降低.研究还发现,相对于国有企业,官员腐败对非国有企业代理成本的影响效应更明显;同时,市场化改革也有利于缓解官员腐败对企业代理成本的影响强度.     

Games Played Through Agents

We introduce a game of complete information with multiple principals and multiple common agents. Each agent makes a decision that can affect the payoffs of all principals. Each principal offers monetary transfers to each agent conditional on the action taken by the agent. We characterize pure‐strategy equilibria and we provide conditions—in terms of game balancedness—for the existence of an equilibrium with an efficient outcome. Games played through agents display a type of strategic inefficiency that is absent when either there is a unique principal or there is a unique agent.     

A case study of failure to thrive and inter‐agency work

Social workers and medical professionals have an ambiguous relationship. Though expected to work together within the child protection regulations of the Children Act 1989, there are many tensions. In general, social workers and health visitors enjoy close working relationships, but tensions are frequently experienced as one proceeds higher up the medical hierarchy. The reasons for this may be numerous, but in practice may obstruct speedy action in detection and prevention of disease which is social in aetiology — yet all professionals have an important role. I hope to demonstrate this in the following case study, where ‘failure to thrive’ took 18 months to evidence but, without inter‐agency working, might have proved fatal to the child. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Toward an agency-centered iterative approach to social movement repression

There is a significant amount of research that analyzes the consequences of repression on social movement mobilization. Yet most studies do not examine the strategic agency of protesters, who can avoid, minimize, or transform punitive sanctions. In this article, I call for an agency-centered approach that highlights the iterative dynamics between protesters and agents of repression, emphasizing that the consequences of repression are largely shaped by activists' responses. Reviewing the literature on this topic, I summarize common methods of repression used by both the state and private citizens—such as information gathering, planting provocateurs, legal harassment, and direct violence. I also discuss movement counter-methods for muting the impact of repression, which include tactical shifts, decentralized organizational structures, and obstructing surveillance technologies, among others. While researchers have documented typical methods of social control, we must also capture protesters' tool kit of strategic responses that enable movements to persist during periods of repression.     

结构一能动性干扰：问卷调查精度的局限性分析

以往对于问卷调查精度的探讨通常局限在“访问员“受访者”或“研究者”的三维关系当中,或专门针对问卷本身进行技术改良,很少注意到与这三者紧密相关的社会环境因素。以人为客体的社会领域研究不同于自然科学,势必会受到社会环境因素的干扰。而在问卷调查过程当中,影响调查精度最深的社会性因素是行政管理结构,这一结构性因素贯穿于问卷调查的始末,在这一结构作用下,行政管理者可以依附结构力量,能动地对问卷调查的结果产生影响,引导问卷结果偏向更加有利的一面,通过对以往研究过程当中所遇到的此类现象进行综合分析,总结出行政管理者所采用的四种能动性影响方式,从而探讨其对问卷调查的影响。最终,将这一影响问卷调查结果的现象称为“结构一能动性干扰”,并认为这一因素可能造成问卷结果在很大程度上会偏离真实,而对这一问题的解决,难以简单从以往三维关系或问卷技术改良上得到改善。     

广州市体育产业发展探析——基于广州市体育产业现状调查的思考

国际体育产业快速发展,在社会经济的发展中扮演着越来越重要的角色。广州市在产业结构优化、产业升级的形势下应该如何谋划体育产业的发展。文章在广州市体育产业调查的基础上提出搭建体育产业公共创新平台、打造体育产业的集群经济、体育产业的＂区域一体化＂、完善体育产业的竞争环境、营造体育看台文化经济氛围等发展思路。     

‘He didn't mean to hit mom,I think’: positioning,agency and point in adolescents' narratives about domestic violence

This paper analyses the narratives of adolescents who have experienced domestic violence. It focuses on what we can learn about being an adolescent who experiences domestic violence, using a narrative approach. Attentive to both form and content, the paper sheds light on why the narrative is being told, who the actors in the narratives are, who are positioned in the forefront/background and what the point of the narrative is. The analysis shows that through the storytelling, the father's position as the reluctant/dangerous/weak aggressor is negotiated, the mother is positioned both in the background as a victim and in the forefront as an actor resisting his violent behaviour. The children position themselves as actors with power to alter the progress, to protect and stop the violence. The point of the narratives is to describe the father as the aggressor, and to describe the important role of the children. This picture of the father, mother and child questions the traditional understanding of the father as the aggressor, the mother as the victim and the child as a powerless bystander being exposed to the violence, and underlines the complexities of the dynamics in families living with domestic violence.     

Challenges of social workers' involvement in the recovery of the 5.12 Wenchuan Earthquake in China

This article explores the challenges of social workers' involvement in recovery work of the 5.12 Wenchuan Earthquake (12 May 2008). Six social workers working in three social work stations in Sichuan, China, were asked to report the challenges they faced in working with disaster survivors. Findings reveal that the social workers faced many challenges. These include lack of government support, low professional status of social work, rapid changes in the social environment in disaster‐affected areas, lack of supervision, lack of cooperation and coordination among social service agencies, and lack of experience and knowledge in working with disaster survivors. The practical, educational and policy implications of the findings are addressed.