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The paper analyzes SMSGupShup, a mobile-centric social networking platform in India. It focuses on a set of dominant users (young, male) who are re-defining the nature of micro-blogging and the creation of mobile networking communities. Like many social networking sites, assembling, maintaining and growing social networks are primary behaviors on GupShup. Unlike many others, where maintaining a personalized profile and conversing with a networked community take prominence, users of GupShup show markedly different messaging or broadcasting practices. While captivated by the idea of connecting with people all over India for the first time through the GupShup platform, the primary motivation of users is not conversation, forging a "second life" or building interest groups but optimizing the networking service to expand one's own group membership. From a qualitative study of user profiles, the paper demonstrates how GupShup can inform thinking about facets of mobile communities in developing countries: specifically, changing ideas about the networking platform as "second social life" to one of pecuniary "resource." (Pac Aff/GIGA)

A recent trend in policy scholarship is to explain policy changes and paradigm shifts by focusing on the features and interactions of policy networks. This paper aims to contribute to the current literature by exploring how policy networks affect policy paradigmatic change in China with reference to urban housing policy development. It is argued that both exogenous and indigenous factors can be attributed to the difficulties of paradigm replacement. The closed policy network in the housing field delimits the choices of policy instruments and hinders paradigmatic shifts. Contrary to mainstream studies, exogenous shocks are identified as serious handicaps to significant policy changes. (J Contemp China/GIGA)

When rebels make alliances, what informs their choice of allies? Civil wars are rarely simple contests between rebels and incumbent regimes. Rather, rival militant networks provide the context in which these fragmented conflicts unfold. Alliances that emerge within this competitive landscape have the power to alter conflict trajectories and shape their outcomes. Yet patterns of interrebel cooperation are understudied. The existing scholarship on rebel alliances focuses on why rebels cooperate, but little attention is given to the composition of those alliances: with whom rebels cooperate. We explore how power, ideology, and state sponsorship can shape alliance choices in multiparty civil wars. Employing network analysis and an original data set of tactical cooperation among Syrian rebels, we find compelling evidence that ideological homophily is a primary driver of rebel collaboration. Our findings contribute to an emerging literature that reasserts the role of ideology in conflict processes.

1. Knowledge intensive sectors in moderate innovative countries in Europe: overcoming the missing links, stepping over barriers; Isobel Salavisa and Carim Vali. - Part II: How are social networks relevant for technological entrepreneurship? An overview of the literature and methdological options . - 2. Dynamics, structure and content of innovation networks: an overview of the literature; Jana Almodovar and Aurora Teixeira . - 3. Networks and technological entrepreneurship; Cristina Sousa and Margarida Fontes . - 4. Using social network analysis to study entrepreneurship: methodological issues; Cristina Sousa. - Part III: The role of social networks in the creation and development of knowledge-intensive sectors in Portugal and Italy. - 5. Setting the scene; Margarida Fontes, Isabel Salavisa and Pedro Videira . - 6. Social networks and the entrepreneurial process in molecular biotechnology in Portugal: from science to industry; Margarida Fontes, Cristina Sousa and Pedro Videira. - 7. Social networks and the entrepreneurial process in molecular biotechnology in Southern Italy; Lorella Cannavacciula, Guido Capaldo and Pierluigi Rippa. - 8. Social networks and the entrepreneurial process in software for telecommunications in Portugal; Isabel Salavisa, Pedro Videira and Carim Vali. - 9. Comparing sectoral networks in software and biotechnology; Margarida Fontes, Isabel Salavisa and Cristina Sousa. - 10. Knowledge networks and technological regimes in biotechnology and software: searching for explanatory factors; Isabel Salavisa, Margarida Fontes, Cristina Sausa and Pedro Videiro. - Part IV: Strategic and policy implications. - 11. Location matters. Networking behaviour in different national contexts; Margarida Fontes and Guido Capeldo. - 12. Conclusions Isabel Salavisa and Margarida Fontes

Purpose– The purpose of this study is to explore the extent of relational and institutional pressures' influence on both the motivation for and diffusion of corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices of multinational corporation (MNC) subsidiaries in the food industries in Indonesia.Design/methodology/approach– This study uses qualitative approach, and the data were collected by interviewing CSR managers and investigating the CSR practices and the annual reports of six subsidiaries of food-manufacturing MNCs in Indonesia.Findings– This study found that internal pressures within MNC organisations are the main drivers of their CSR practices. These finding were, then, refined to account for local cognitive and normative institutional pressures. It was also found that while regulation in a host country was critical to its subsidiary compliance, it did not contribute appreciably to the precise types of CSR practices. The (isomorphic) similarity of CSR patterns had less to do with the institutional pressures but more with sector- or field-level pressures in food manufacturing. Most MNC subsidiaries focused on issues such as agricultural or rural development (related to their supply chain) or health and nutrition (related to their core business).Research limitations/implications– This study focuses on a specific industrial sector (food and beverage manufacture); therefore, the isomorphic patterns could not be concluded as an influential effect of the institutional context of Indonesia; rather, they are due to sectoral- or field-level pressure in food and beverage manufacturing. To confirm this study results, a multi-sectoral involvement in future studies is suggested.Originality/value– This study uses organisational dynamics and institutional theory to explore CSR adoption in multinational subsidiaries in Indonesia.

With an election campaign for a seat in Gujarat's state parliament as its backdrop, this article relates India's persistent forms of identity politics to the evolution of trust networks. Political scientists and anthropologists have adopted highly divergent approaches to account for the ways in which India's politicians use social identities to mobilize support. A point of convergence, this article argues, lies in the social networks through which people solve everyday problems and organize access to state resources. Discussing the ever-changing salience of social divisions in Gujarat's politics - from class to caste to religion and region - this article argues that two characteristics of such trust networks - the extent to which these networks are organized along social divides and the extent to which they lend themselves to facilitating clientelistic exchanges with politicians - can foster or impede the political salience of these social divisions. The particular historical development of trust networks and their entanglement in patronage networks impacts the likelihood of the emergence of divisive political discourse. (Crit Asian Stud/GIGA)

Papua New Guinea's first deep-sea mining project, once touted as the first of its kind in the world, now appears to be "dead in the water." The mining company behind it has been liquidated, the mining equipment has been rendered obsolete, and the host government has been made to look foolish for supporting the enterprise. This paper examines the application of two concepts—that of the "resource frontier" and that of the "actor-network"—to reach an understanding of the history of this apparent failure. By elaborating on the additional concept of a "network junction," it seeks to show how arguments about the feasibility or fallibility of this particular project, and deep-sea mining proposals more broadly, have been related to arguments about a range of other issues in which scientific and technological uncertainties are associated with environmental and social impacts or environmental and political risks. Instead of seeking to explain the failure of this project by reference to the attributes of a specific type of maritime resource frontier, the paper shows how the articulation of different policy networks creates the appearance of a frontier in which human and non-human actors have combined to produce a variety of unpredictable and open-ended outcomes. From this point of view, the history of this project's failure cannot simply be read as the outcome of a contest between two groups of human actors with clearly defined interests or ideologies, nor does it necessarily spell the end of the policy network in which this project has been embedded. (Pac Aff/GIGA)

PurposeCorporate social responsibility (CSR) is a new trend that has swept the world of business by storm. With globalization proceeding unabated and CSR acquiring global interest and resonance, examining how companies can make adaptations to their CSR in an international context becomes a timely and important issue.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on institutional theory, this study aims to identify three types of host country institutional complexity that accompany the internationalization process, namely, cultural, regulatory and economic, hence necessitating nuanced CSR adaptations in context and as illustrated in this paper requiring different tailoring and adaptation of CSR programs and interventions between developed and developing countries.FindingsThe authors propose a series of research propositions for exploration toward broadening and deepening the understanding of the above institutional complexities and the necessity of CSR tailoring and adaptation to accompany the internationalization process.Originality/valueThe paper is one of the first to highlight the necessity of CSR tailoring in the context of the internationalization process while considering host country institutional complexity highlighting nuanced differences between developed and developing country landscapes and implications for how multinational corporations should approach CSR in these differentiated environments.