International labour migration and tacit knowledge transactions: a multi‐level perspective

Abstract There has been limited research on the role of international migration in the transfer of tacit knowledge, as opposed to skills and capital. In part, this results from lack of engagement between research on migration and that on knowledge and learning, even in debates concerning the relative importance of distanciated versus localized knowledge transfers. However, positioning international migration in relation to the literature on knowledge management opens up new perspectives on its role in the overall transfer of knowledge in the economy. Starting from the premise that all tacit knowledge transactions are socially situated, in this article I set out a multi‐level approach to understanding the role of migrants in knowledge exchanges. The national, the urban and the firm constitute key levels in this study, although these are understood as interfolded rather than as discrete sites of analysis.     

Informal Networks of Care: Issues Raised by Barclay

Summary In calling for the creation of ‘community social work’,the Barclay Report argues that social workers should aim todevelop informal caring networks. This entails exploiting anindividual's informal social contacts, such as kin, friends,and neighbours, to provide care. This paper firstly examinesthe assumptions and thinking behind the concept of informalcaring networks. It then assesses the feasibility of using differentinformal relations in care provision by analysing the normativepatterning and exchange content underlying them. It concludesthat strategies like Barclay's are unlikely to be successfulbecause they entail a transformation of these relationshipsthat is incompatible with their normal organisation.     

A Hormonal Interpretation of Collins's Micro‐sociological Theory of Violence

Collins (2008) provides a grand theory that unifies all forms of human violence occurring in face‐to‐face situations, ranging from spousal abuse to medieval warfare. Laitin (2008) appreciates Collins's microscopic analysis of diverse data but points to important shortcomings in the theory, especially Collins's metaphoric explanations that are not testable. Here Collins's theory is merged with an existing biosocial model of dominance, replacing the metaphors with tangible, measurable hormonal mechanisms.     

MANIPULATING VOTING PROCEDURES

A voting procedure can be manipulated if, by misrepresenting his preferences, some individual can secure an outcome which he prefers to the outcome he gets when he is honest.
This is an expository paper on the theory of voting manipulation. Section I is an historical sketch of the contributions of Condorcet, de Borda, Arrow, and others. Section II provides a set of examples of manipulation: of plurality voting, of majority voting, of exhaustive voting, of the single transferable vote procedure, and of approval voting. It also contains an example of a nonmanipulable random voting scheme. Section HI provides a simple proof of the Gibbard-Satterthwaite manipulation theorem.