The ‘Dark Side’ of Social Capital: A Cross-National Examination of the Relationship Between Social Capital and Violence in Africa

Social Indicators Research - Research and policy circles often emphasize the importance of social capital in achieving social transformation and economic development. There is also, however,...     

Behavioral Determinants of Nonprofit Board Performance

There is an increased awareness that the performance of boards (good governance) is not only determined by structural determinants but by behavioral determinants as well. These behavioral determinants might be particularly important for public and nonprofit governance, where the role of the board is more diffuse and heterogeneous than in corporate governance. Here we investigate how social dynamics within boards in secondary education influence their performance. We follow a concise model that includes cognitive conflict, the use of expertise, effort norms, and social cohesion as determinants of board task performance. A survey among all secondary schools in the Netherlands serves as the empirical underpinning for this process‐oriented model of good governance. We show that the behavioral determinants have different effects on the control task and advice task of boards. Also, we find that cognitive conflicts in supervisory boards do not lead to less but rather to more social cohesion within boards. Building on these findings, we suggest a revised model of the behavioral determinants of nonprofit board performance.     

Conflict in the boardroom: a participant observation study of supervisory board dynamics

We develop a conflict-oriented model of board task performance and argue that a common framework, that is, a shared understanding of its role, helps boards to perform well. Conflict is the mediating effect through which this plays out. We posit that a common framework increases board task performance because it reduces intragroup relationship conflicts, increases task conflicts within the board, and reduces conflicts in the relationship between board and CEO. We explore the model through a comparative participant observation study of 11 supervisory boards in action. The results show that while low levels of relationship conflict are typically considered a sign of a well-functioning board, the avoidance of relationship conflict negatively impacts board task performance and may lead to ‘cognitive blindness’. Boards of directors should manage—rather than avoid—relationship conflict. Based on our findings, we suggest an extended model of conflict in boards that takes into account the negative effect of conflict avoidance.     

Household and Context Determinants of Child Labor in 221 Districts of 18 Developing Countries

We develop a new theoretical framework that explains the engagement in child labor of children in developing countries. This framework distinguishes three levels (household, district and nation) and three groups of explanatory variables: Resources, Structure and Culture. Each of the three groups refers to another strand of the literature; economics, sociology and anthropology. The framework is tested by applying multilevel analysis on data for 239,120 children living in 221 districts of 18 developing countries. This approach allows us to simultaneously investigate effects of household and context factors. At the household level, we find that resources and structural characteristics influence child labor, whereas cultural characteristics have no effect. With regard to context factors, we find that children work more in rural areas, especially if there are more unskilled manual jobs, and in more traditional urban areas. In more developed regions, girls tend to work significantly less.     

Culture and Openness

Previous literature on openness has mainly dealt with the consequences of openness. In this paper, however, we are interested in the cultural determinants of openness. Conducting a cross-country analysis incorporating 53 countries over the period 1959–1997, we find that several aspects of national culture have an impact on openness. Specifically, we find positive effects of individualism and negative effects of uncertainty avoidance and power distance on openness. These findings point to the importance of taking cultural influences into account in future research on openness. Interestingly, the cultural effects were found to become stronger over time and to smoothen out in the end of the study period. This result is in line with the idea that the effect of culture may be expressed most clearly in situations where freedom of choice for policy makers is greatest. When this freedom is restricted, because of scarcity reasons or because there is a dominant view on best practice, the possibility of cultural preferences to influence policy decisions seems to be smaller.