Law and Development

This is a draft of a book to accompany a course on the sociology of law and law and development at Boston University

Don\u27t Argue with the Members

Mel Pollner regularly cautioned researchers not to argue with the members of settings under consideration. He warned against substituting the researcher’s meaning for the meanings of those being studied. This article discusses facets of the caution as they relate to the research process. Seemingly simple, the tenet is nuanced in application. The article adds to the nuance by distinguishing what is called the “replacement” of meaning with the “displacement” of meaning, providing a way of understanding what members could mean if the contexts and settings of their accounts were taken into consideration

Innovation and Reduction in Contemporary Qualitative Methods: The Case of Conceptual Coupling, Activity-Type Pairs and Auto-Ethnography

During the course of this paper we mobilise an ideal typical framework that identifies three waves of reduction within contemporary qualitative inquiry as they relate to key aspects of the sociological tradition. The paper begins with a consideration of one of sociology\'s key questions; namely how is social organisation possible? The paper aims to demonstrate how this question moves from view as increased specialisation and differentiation in qualitative methodology within sociology and related disciplines results in a fragmentation and decontextualisation of social practices from social orders. Indeed, the extent to which qualitative methods have been detached from sociological principles is considered in relation to the emergence of a reductionist tendency. The paper argues that the first wave is typified by conceptual couplings such as \'discourse and the subject\', \'narrative and experience\', \'space and place\' and the second by \'activity type couplings\' such as \'walking and talking\' and \'making and telling\' and then, finally, the third wave exemplified through auto-ethnography and digital lifelogging. We argue each of these three waves represent a series of steps in qualitative reduction that, whilst representing innovation, need to reconnect with questions of action, order and social organisation as a complex whole as opposed to disparate parts.Social Order, Discourse, Narrative, Mobile Methods, Auto-Ethnography, Reflexivity, Innovation, Qualitative Methods

Coordination & cooperation in financial regulation: Do regulators comply with banking culture?

This paper identifies cultural gaps as a possible stumbling block in the efficient exchange of information and the sharing of problems and goals among regulators and the industry, with respect to the recent innovations introduced in the financial sector, which are orienting the supervisory authorities towards the adoption of new interaction models with the supervised financial intermediares.

Banking regulation towards advisory: the “culture compliance” of banks and supervisory authorities

The financial regulation is moreover based on self-regulation and the coordination of external and internal supervision. This determines an evolution in the role played by the supervisory authorities, and in the manner in which they interact - with and almost advisory function - with the governance bodies of the banks, such as the board of directors, top management and external and internal auditors. The capacity to adequately perform such advisory functions entails the existence of consistent objectives, consistent knowledge and consistent cultural models. Our paper points at cultural gaps as a possible stumbling block in the efficient exchange of information and the sharing of problems and goals among regulators and the industry. We develop a cultural survey based on the application of a text-analysis model to a corpus of reference texts produced by two samples, drawn from among the supervisory bodies and the supervised entities. The empirical survey results reveal numerous fields of cultural differentiation, alongside several important areas in which the orientations of the two parties tend to overlap.Financial Regulation; Banking Culture; Cultural Compliance

Proceedings ICPW'07: 2nd International Conference on the Pragmatic Web, 22-23 Oct. 2007, Tilburg: NL

Proceedings ICPW'07: 2nd International Conference on the Pragmatic Web, 22-23 Oct. 2007, Tilburg: N

Flexible virtual learning environments: a schema-driven approach using sematic web concepts

Flexible e-Iearning refers to an intelligent educational mechanism that focuses on simulating and improving traditional education as far as possible on the Web by integrating various electronic approaches, technologies, and equipment. This mechanism aims to promote the personalized development and management of e-learning Web services and applications. The main value of this method is that it provides high-powered individualization in pedagogy for students and staff.Here, the thesis mainly studied three problems in meeting the practical requirements of users in education. The first question is how a range of teaching styles (e.g. command and guided discovery) can be supported. The second one is how varieties of instructional processes can be authored. The third question is how these processes can be controlled by learners and educators in terms of their personalized needs during the execution of instruction.In this research, through investigating the existing e-Iearning approaches and technologies, the main technical problems of current virtual learning environments (VLEs) were analyzed. Next, by using the Semantic Web concepts as well as relevant standards, a schema-driven approach was created. This method can support users' individualized operations in the Web-based education. Then, a flexible e-learning system based on the approach was designed and implemented to map a range of extensive didactic paradigms. Finally, a case study was completed to evaluate the research results. The main findings of the assessment were that the flexible VLE implemented a range of teaching styles and the personalized creation and control of educational processes

M&A and post merger integration in banking industry: the missing link of corporate culture

The intense concentration process taking place in the financial systems of the major countries has attracted substantial attention from stakeholders and academics. The impact of M&A on value creation and efficiency / effectiveness improvements of banks involved appears, on the whole, disappointing and still hard to create benefits for customers. The reason seems to lie in the difficulty of governing a post-merger integration process, which generally requires good governance and management practices, significant experience and attention to cultural profiles and individuals’ behavior. More in detail, management literature recognizes the importance of corporate culture, considered as the set of values and decisions that drive individuals’ behaviors within organizations, for explaining alliance success in M&A operations. In fact cultural clashes could determine conflicts and negative effects, on one hand, on the timing and the effectiveness of the post-merger integration process and, on the other hand, on motivation and turnover of individuals. Set in Italian banking industry, this paper proposes a framework, applied to a representative sample of cases (about 78,2% of market share, based on total assets), for assessing cultural similarity of actors involved in M&A operations. Corporate culture is measured using an ethnographic approach focusing on language as its special artifact. The assessment is based on the definition of some key concepts that are relevant for the banking industry (e.g., competencies, competition, customer, disclosure, human resources, innovation, risk) and on a text-analysis model applied to a corpus of reference texts produced by the surveyed banks three years before M&A. The elaboration of data uses Wordsmith 4, a text analysis software developed by Oxford University. The paper is organized as follows: at first, we analyze and explain how low levels of cultural compatibility before M&A could limit the success of post-merger integration processes of banks. After, we propose and describe the measurement procedure of the cultural fit among bidder and target banks, based on text analysis. Lastly, we conclude with the discussion of the results obtained for each couple of banks involved in M&A and with suggestions for future applications of our framework.Banks; Merger & Acquisitions; Post-merger Integration; Corporate Culture