Social Mobility in Nineteenth Century Rural Sweden – A Micro Level Analysis

Abstract

Pre-industrial rural societies have often been pictured as stationary and immobile both in geographical and social terms. In the last decades this image has begun to change, especially as regards geographical mobility, while our knowledge of social mobility of rural pre-industrial Europe is still rudimentary. This study focuses on social attainment and mobility in a rural community of nineteenth-century southern Sweden, making use of high quality micro-level demographic and socioeconomic data. We show that intergenerational social mobility was quite frequent. Downward mobility was more prevalent than upward, and also increased over time. Social attainment and mobility were determined by a combination of inherited factors and individual agency. Social origin was of major importance, and so was the social origin of the spouse, which points to the crucial role played by partner selection in determining individual social outcome. Availability of networks as measured by place of birth also played a role in social achievement.     

人文学的毗邻大类

人文学不是通常意义上的一级学科，而是笼罩众多人文一级学科的学科大场合。要找人文学的左邻右舍，可以举出自然学、科学学和社会学三大门类。它们是好邻居。在人文学与自然学之间，科学学的科连科接，让文明成就非凡；社会学的经世致用，给世界许多关切。在人文学与科学学之间，自然学的泰然而然，使世界永远有其深远；社会学的励精图治，为使天下常有祥和的炊烟。在人文学与社会学之间，自然学的避熟避俗，提供了许多足令人文社科资始资生的前提性资源。用某一个笼统的学科涵摄一切失之芜杂，而日见繁琐的学科分裂又积重难返。揭示人文学、自然学、社会学和科学学相分相连的联系，关照的是当今世界文教发展的一种知其通而统其类的必然。     

Women groups formed in response to public video screenings on rice processing in Benin

When the Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice)¹ introduced improved parboiling technology in Benin in 2006 through farmer-to-farmer video, it enhanced women's creativity and motivation to parboil more and better the quality of rice. Their rice attracted more buyers and fetched a higher price which increased their profits and strengthened the women's social cohesion. The video motivated women to start parboiling as a group and to express group-based requests for credit and training. However, newly established women's groups in villages with strong negative experiences from the cotton sector did not last because of fear and mistrust. The video helped local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to improve their training methods and strengthened their relations with rural communities and between the women rice processors and input and output markets. Although these NGOs responded by facilitating access to micro-finance institutions, they were unwilling to provide credit to the groups because of past bad experiences. Instead, informal credit suppliers proved more responsive. Rice producers who attended the open-air video shows at the same time as the women rice processors became more willing to sell them rice on credit. We discuss the conditions and challenges of farmer-to-farmer video in creating organizational and institutional changes among service providers and rural entrepreneurs.     

Towards the Latin American Regiocentric Corporation

Abstract

Globalization and regionalism are emerging with force in Latin America and a new breed of Latin American corporations is making its mark in response to this new reality. These corporations are exploiting technology, low costs, and their in-depth understanding of the region's intricate cultural fabric to compete with global firms and become regional players in niches neglected by these powerful rivals. Using the integration-responsiveness framework, this paper describes the evolution and characteristics of regional strategies in selected Latin American companies and speculates on the potential reversal of these strategies as Latin American economies attempt to insulate themselves from the recent international financial crisis.     

The Response to the Commitment with Block-Leader Recycling Promotion Technique: A Longitudinal Approach

SUMMARY

This article focuses on the study of the changes in consumers' recycling beliefs, attitudes, and behavior due to the application of one promotion technique: a commitment by block leader technique characterized by the agreeing participant signing a request or statement in which s/he makes a commitment to recycle as a result of the encouragement of a person who belongs to the same social circle. We therefore carried out a quasi-experimental work whose results enable us to explain the response to this recycling promotion technique. It makes a contribution to existing environmental literature by (1) systemizing the set of existing doctrines in order to explain the response to this recycling promotion technique, and (2) revealing the effects of this technique on people's beliefs and attitudes. The practical implications that may stem from these contributions are of an educational nature and should be of use to the public management of promotion campaigns.     

Collaboration,motivation, and the size of organizations

We present an analytical model of an organization that offers operational drivers of limits on team size. The model trades off benefits from collaborative problem solving against the disadvantages of diminishing motivation when groups get large. Collaboration is represented as parallel employee activity combined with frequent sharing of partial information, with a resulting superlinear performance increase over team size. Motivation is modeled by team members periodically setting an effort level either to contribute to the best of their ability or to “cruise”; at the minimum level not recognizable as shirking. Each individual decision is limited by bounded rationality based on team rewards, the time horizon of team interaction, and individual expectations about colleagues’ behavior. The decision collapses to a simple “barrier rule”;. Work hard when a certain “barrier percentage”; of team members work hard, and otherwise shirk. The influence of team size on this barrier percentage depends on the extent of benefits from collaboration: As long as performance increases quadratically with team size, the increased benefits resulting from collaboration exactly balance the temptation to shirk, with the barrier percentage approaching a fixed limit for large team sizes. As soon as the performance increase slows to anything less than quadratic, shirking eventually sets in and limits the possible size of the team. This implies that cooperation is sustainable in large organizational units, provided the problem‐solving processes used are powerful enough to ensure sufficient performance increases. Thus, effective problem‐solving methods are of double value, improving direct productivity and mitigating the social dilemma from team production. A manager should enlarge his or her organization up to the minimum of the limit set by the cooperation barrier and the exogenous performance limit.     

Entrepreneurial resource acquisition via personal networks: an empirical study of German start-ups

This paper presents a resource-based theoretical model for an extended version of the network success hypothesis. It derives four main hypotheses for the relationships between resources obtained from personal networks of the founders and a new venture's success. The model takes into account a broad range of control variables. In the empirical study, based on a sample of 123 German entrepreneurs, we do not find much support for our hypotheses. We conclude that, quite in contrast to most existing theories, network links have close to no impact on getting cheap or exclusive resources.     

江苏应对人口老龄化问题的政策研究报告

对南京、扬州、张家港等地老年人的生存和精神状况进行实地调研，深度剖析江苏人口老龄化问题及其相关政策。江苏城镇养老服务社会化工作已初见成效，但是存在老年社会保障财政压力渐显、老年社会保障差异化加剧、现行老年保障体系呈现“碎片化”状态等问题。针对现存问题，提出完善江苏老年社会保障体系的对策和路径。     

企业兼并风险及对策研究

企业兼并是经济发展的必然趋势。在西方国家市场经济发展的过程中,先后爆发了四次大规模的企业兼并浪潮,对这些国家的经济发展产生了深远的影响。随着我国社会主义市场经济体制的建立和发展,这种产权交易活动也为众多的企业所关注和采用。但是目前企业兼并中还存在着财务、经营、审计、文化等风险。需要我们采取相应的对策加以解决。