Mobility and Professional Networks in Academia: An Exploration of the Obligations of Presence

This article explores the obligations of presence behind work-related mobility for academics in internationalizing higher education systems. By further developing John Urry’s concept of ‘meetingness’, the article reveals how academics depend on corporeal and virtual mobility to create and maintain a networked professional life outside their own institution, which is crucial in the context of changing work conditions. Our insights are drawn from original qualitative research (42 interviews) in a Flemish and Danish context. The data reveal obligations of presence associated with an interrelated mix of functionality, and the construction of dense and sparse social networks that together support career success and work at the frontiers of academic knowledge. Despite the now well-recognized costs of corporeal mobility, obligations of presence result in virtual and corporeal mobility coexisting, rather than the former substituting for the latter. Virtual mobility is mainly used when conflicting obligations of presence exist, and as a means of sustaining networks over time given the processual nature of meetingness, rather than as a means to reduce levels of corporeal mobility.     

Improving Africa's Roads: Modelling Infrastructure Investment and Its Effect on Sectoral Production Behaviour

Given the scarce resources for public investment in developing countries, policy analysis should include a detailed perspective on the effects of infrastructure. This article develops a modelling framework for analysing the effects of improved road infrastructure on the economy of African countries. The theoretical framework is tested empirically and used for simulations in a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model, and the effects on production and welfare are analysed. The model also serves to investigate the effect of roads on the economic participation of rural households.     

Social networks and the organisation of big business groups in post New Economic Policy (NEP) era in the 1990s in Malaysia

Personal ties are generally regarded as important to big business growth in Malaysia, particularly after the New Economic Policy (NEP) in the 1990s. Common types are informal ones established between multi-ethnic big business people and Malay key state and political leaders. Other types of ties, company directorship links and informal ties, are seldom studied especially those between the business people and former state bureaucrats and corporate professionals. Thus, by conceptualising the directorship links and informal personal ties as social networks, the author conducted a sociological analysis of some intra- and inter-ethnic directorship links and ties established by four prominent big businessmen after the NEP in the 1990s. This article reports the main finding on the links and ties becoming a common organisational mechanism of business groups owned and controlled by the businessmen, besides providing access to the state. Therefore, another understanding of inter- and intra-ethnic personal ties in big business growth, especially after the NEP is achieved.     

Bid-rigging networks and state-corporate crime in the construction industry

This study highlights the symbiotic relationship that may arise between political and business actors in conspiracies organized around public construction bids. Based on a core-periphery social network analysis, the study tracks the emergence of such a conspiracy in the city of Laval (Canada) by illustrating the evolution of bid-rigging networks revolving around suspected and persistent acts of corruption, bid-rigging, and bribery. To assess this process, the study monitors irregular bidding indicators across a data set compiled from more than 7000 public construction tenders that were processed by the city from 1966 to 2013. Findings reveal that firms suspected of bid-rigging activities were perennial core participants largely as a result of a state-corporate crime system that served as the guiding force for agreements between the main construction entrepreneurs.     

Personal networks typologies: A structural approach

Building typologies allows to compare networks on multiple dimensions, and to approach a generalization grounded on empirical data. In this article, we present a typology of personal networks only based on indicators related to the structure of relations between alters. It is designed from very detailed data on young French people who were involved in a longitudinal study. Our typology mobilizes a small number of indicators to discriminate the types that compose it. In so doing, we intend to make it applicable to various surveys.     

Social capital of entrepreneurs in a developing country: The effect of gender on access to and requests for resources

This paper addresses gender differences in the social capital of entrepreneurs in a developing country. Social networks are often an important asset for accessing resources; however, they may also be a liability in developing countries, since entrepreneurs are often expected to support their contacts. Using a recent survey among urban and rural Ugandan entrepreneurs, we focus on the financial resources that entrepreneurs can obtain from their contacts on the one hand, and requests for financial support made to the entrepreneurs from these contacts on the other hand. Our results show that there are gender differences associated with access to, and requests for, financial resources.     

Peer influence on protest participation: Communication and trust between co-workers as inhibitors or facilitators of mobilization

In this article, we investigate how communication and trust networks between employees affect participation in a strike. We analyze whether the strength of network relations is related to congruence in strike behavior using social network data on 59 Dutch workers. We find that private communication networks and trust networks lead to similar strike behavior. This finding indicates that networks not only promote protest mobilization but are also vehicles for demobilization, albeit through different network relations.     

Social network effects on academic achievement

How peer groups contribute to educational outcomes has long interested researchers. However, the possibility that peer groups dominated by either low- or high-achieving youth can have substantively different effects on achievement has been largely ignored. In this paper, we show that while being embedded in a high-achieving network of friends is not associated with increased own achievement, being embedded in a low-achieving network is associated with decreased own achievement. In additional analyses, we present evidence that these associations are at least in part due to influence, as opposed to only selection effects or shared environment. We also examine whether the structure of the network in which a student is embedded might affect their educational achievement. We show that achieving at higher levels positively predicts how centrally located a student is in their network, but being more centrally located does not predict concurrent achievement. This finding suggests that the behavior of individuals is affecting the formation of network structure and not the reverse.     

Social Networks Derived from Affiliations and Friendships, Multi-informant and Self-reports: Stability, Concordance, Placement of Aggressive and Unpopular Children, and Centrality

This study compares three variations in how researchers construct middle childhood social networks: (1) with friendships or affiliations as a relational tie; (2) with children providing self reports of relationships, or in addition, multi-informant reports of relationships in which they are not involved; and (3) whether network computation is correlational or distance-based . The sample was 357 fourth- and fifth-grade students in 17 classrooms. The strongest differences were between self-reported friendship and affiliative networks. Results showed that compared with affiliations, friendship networks had smaller groups, more isolates, and lower fall-to-spring stability. Agreement in social placement between friendship and affiliative networks was generally average, but poor for unpopular and aggressive children. Multi-informant affiliative networks were most robust in their positioning of aggressive children. Multi-informant centrality was uniquely uncorrelated with aggression. Network computation differences were not substantial. Discussion focuses on recommendations for research and the educational promise of network technology.     

Interdisciplinary Practice in Developmental Disabilities

ABSTRACT

This article explores the development of interdisciplinary team practice within the field of development disabilities. Various interdisciplinary models are described, and the role of the social worker is specifically reviewed. As social workers practice as members of teams in a variety of contexts, a greater understanding of an interdisciplinary approach is warranted.