Search results

This article presents an exploratory account of how medical professionals understand the relationship between new technology and their professional identities. Drawing on interview data with senior surgeons from a variety of surgical disciplines, the article draws attention to how new technologies provide occasions for the evaluation of existing intra- and inter-professional relationships, and professional identity as a whole. In particular, the role of changing insider/outsider dynamics is emphasized, as is the importance of recognizing professional identity as in constant flux at micro-, meta- and macro-levels. The implications for existing theory are discussed, and further research questions identified.

This research explores a theoretical and practical paradox in megaprojects. According to transaction cost economics (Williamson, 1975) high uncertainty, high asset specificity, situated knowledge and the high frequency of transactions associated with megaprojects should drive managers to internalise resources. However, evidence from case studies reveals the following paradox: managerial incentives to invest in internal resources through vertical integration are limited because of fixed time horizons; yet, the alternative of outsourcing and contract management through the market mechanism escalates transaction costs. This research therefore seeks to identify how practitioners might improve performance through more efficient engagement with each other and overcome the technical, psychological and political barriers uncounted in the delivery of megaprojects (Flyvbjerg, 2006). This study also identifies the extent to which the transaction costs approach applies to temporary governance structures such as mega-projects. At this stage, this paper is mainly theoretical and seeks to provide a conceptual framework for the understanding of megaprojects, as governance structures. After a brief overview of the difference forms of governance associated to organisations (section I), this paper shows that the hybrid form is, to a large extent, the most suited to megaprojects (section II). Yet, the temporary nature of megaprojects as organisations provides distinctive and additional feature to this hybrid form of governance, not initially considered by Williamson's contributions (section III).

This research explores a theoretical and practical paradox in megaprojects. According to transaction cost economics (Williamson, 1975) high uncertainty, high asset specificity, situated knowledge and the high frequency of transactions associated with megaprojects should drive managers to internalise resources. However, evidence from case studies reveals the following paradox: managerial incentives to invest in internal resources through vertical integration are limited because of fixed time horizons; yet, the alternative of outsourcing and contract management through the market mechanism escalates transaction costs. This research therefore seeks to identify how practitioners might improve performance through more efficient engagement with each other and overcome the technical, psychological and political barriers uncounted in the delivery of megaprojects (Flyvbjerg, 2006). This study also identifies the extent to which the transaction costs approach applies to temporary governance structures such as mega-projects. At this stage, this paper is mainly theoretical and seeks to provide a conceptual framework for the understanding of megaprojects, as governance structures. After a brief overview of the difference forms of governance associated to organisations (section I), this paper shows that the hybrid form is, to a large extent, the most suited to megaprojects (section II). Yet, the temporary nature of megaprojects as organisations provides distinctive and additional feature to this hybrid form of governance, not initially considered by Williamson's contributions (section III).

This research explores a theoretical and practical paradox in megaprojects. According to transaction cost economics (Williamson, 1975) high uncertainty, high asset specificity, situated knowledge and the high frequency of transactions associated with megaprojects should drive managers to internalise resources. However, evidence from case studies reveals the following paradox: managerial incentives to invest in internal resources through vertical integration are limited because of fixed time horizons; yet, the alternative of outsourcing and contract management through the market mechanism escalates transaction costs. This research therefore seeks to identify how practitioners might improve performance through more efficient engagement with each other and overcome the technical, psychological and political barriers uncounted in the delivery of megaprojects (Flyvbjerg, 2006). This study also identifies the extent to which the transaction costs approach applies to temporary governance structures such as mega-projects. At this stage, this paper is mainly theoretical and seeks to provide a conceptual framework for the understanding of megaprojects, as governance structures. After a brief overview of the difference forms of governance associated to organisations (section I), this paper shows that the hybrid form is, to a large extent, the most suited to megaprojects (section II). Yet, the temporary nature of megaprojects as organisations provides distinctive and additional feature to this hybrid form of governance, not initially considered by Williamson's contributions (section III).

When do parties use emotive rhetoric to appeal to voters? In this article, we argue that politicians are more likely to employ positive affect (valence) in their rhetoric to appeal to voters when parties are not ideologically distinct and when there is uncertainty about public preferences. To test these propositions, our article uses well-established psycholinguistic affect dictionaries to generate scores from three time series of political text: British party manifestos (1900-2015) and annual party leaders' speeches (1977-2014) as well as U.S. Presidents' State of the Union addresses (1880-2016). Our findings corroborate our expectations and have important implications for the study of party competition by illuminating the role of valence in the way politicians communicate their policies.