The Development of Capitalist Agriculture and State Formation in the Dominican Republic, 1870-1924

This article looks at the development of the sugar industry and the traditional export sectors of Dominican agriculture in relationship to state formation. It seeks to show that early on it their development the pioneers of the sugar industry helped lay the basis for the emergence of a local bourgeoisie and that the traditional export sectors failed to raise above small-scale production and its consequences. The integration of the Dominican economy into the international capitalist system inhibited the development of these two sectors in Dominican society, a pattern that was reflected in the formation of a weak state. In examining the formation of the state, this investigation establishes a distinction between political regime and the state. Following Fernando Henrique Cardoso, political regime is defined as the formal rules that link the main political institutions (legislature to the executive, executive to the judiciary, and party system to them all), as well as the issue of the political nature of the ties between citizens and rulers. In highly abstract terms, the notion of state refers to the basic alliance, the basic \u27pact of domination,\u27 and the orms which guarantee their dominance over the subordinate strata. In the words of Oscar Oszlak, the state is a social relationship, a political medium through which a system of social domination is articulated. Thus, this study focuses on the relationship between class and state, that is, how class forces shaped themselves in relation to the early development of the capitalist state, and not on the political regime

Putting a Human Face on the Minimum Wage

What is a “livable wage,” and should we strive to raise wages for American workers? There are lots of conflicting studies and reports. The Congressional Budget Office projects that an increase in the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to$10.10 an hour would eliminate 500,000 jobs while raising the incomes of nearly 17 million Americans. Even prominent economists like David Card and David Neumark diametrically disagree on the likely consequences of raising the minimum wage, and their studies of results in New Jersey have consistently yielded conflicting results for decades. [excerpt

Generational Diversity Can Enhance Trust Across Boundaries

In interorganizational project teams, generational diversity among team members undermines the experience of trust within demographically similar dyads but enhances the experience of trust within demographically dissimilar dyads

Relational Cohesion Theory

[Excerpt] Relational cohesion theory explains how and when people who are exchanging things of value develop stable, cohesive relations. It starts from the idea that people tend to interact or do things with others because they get something they value or want from those others. They give something to the other and receive something in return. This is termed a social exchange. The valued goods” that are exchanged may be tangible or intangible. Employees exchange their labor for pay, clients exchange money for services, neighbors exchange assistance with each other\u27s yards, coworkers exchange advice and information, roommates exchange respect for each other\u27s belongings, and friends exchange emotional support for each other

A Multilateral Approach to Bridging the Global Skills Gap

[Excerpt] In 2012, McKinsey & Company forecasted a troubling outlook on the labor market through the year 2020. The report highlighted three talent shortages across the globe: nearly 40 million too few college educated workers in the global labor market; a 45 million shortfall of workers with secondary and vocational education in developing countries; and up to 95 million workers that lack the skills needed for employment in advanced economies. This global crisis is known as the skills gap. It impacts nearly every industry, job and employer. Simply put, critical talent supply will fail to meet employment demand in the coming decade. Such an imbalance can be crippling to economic progress, put strain on governments, and leave millions unemploye

Good Lamps Are the Best Police: Darkness Increases Dishonesty and Self-Interested Behavior

Darkness can conceal identity and encourage moral transgressions; it may also induce a psychological feeling of illusory anonymity that disinhibits dishonest and self-interested behavior regardless of actual anonymity. Three experiments provided empirical evidence supporting this prediction. In Experiment 1, participants in a room with slightly dimmed lighting cheated more and thus earned more undeserved money than those in a well-lit room. In Experiment 2, participants wearing sunglasses behaved more selfishly than those wearing clear glasses. Finally, in Experiment 3, an illusory sense of anonymity mediated the relationship between darkness and self-interested behaviors. Across all three experiments, darkness had no bearing on actual anonymity, yet it still increased morally questionable behaviors. We suggest that the experience of darkness, even when subtle, may induce a sense of anonymity that is not proportionate to actual anonymity in a given situation

Role of Status in Group Processes

[Excerpt] This chapter organizes the other chapters of the volume around a fundamental status-affirmation principle, namely, that status differentials generate corresponding differences in performance expectations which, in turn, produce behaviors that affirm performance expectations. The chapters in this volume elaborate that proposition by showing how information exchange, patterns of privilege, and the accuracy of power perceptions reflect or strengthen the status-affirmation process. Several chapters also suggest conditions that forestall or weaken this process such as claims to expertise and communication styles. Other chapters can be construed as offering applications of the status-affirmation principle to the performance of corporate project teams and to the relationships between standard and nonstandard employees in the workplace. Overall, the chapters reflect the strength and vitality of the tradition of work on group processes

Power Dependence and Power Paradoxes in Bargaining

[Excerpt] What this article (and our larger program of work) is designed to demonstrate is that these very simple ideas represent a particularly suitable starting point for understanding the power struggle between parties who regularly engage in negotiation. Specifically, in this article we show that the approach contains certain paradoxes regarding the acquisition and use of power in an ongoing bargaining relationship. The dependence framework treats the ongoing relationship as a power struggle in which each party tries to maneuver itself into a favorable power position

Work Teams

Work teams are composed of two or more individuals; who exist to perform organizationally relevant tasks; share one or more common goals; interact socially; exhibit interdependencies in task workflows, goals, and/or outcomes; maintain and manage boundaries; and are embedded in a broader organizational context that sets boundaries, constrains the team, and influences exchanges with other units in the organization. Work team effectiveness is enabled by team processes that combine individual efforts into a collective product

Introduction to a Special Issue on Inequality in the Workplace (“What Works?)

[Excerpt] While overt expressions of racial and gender bias in U.S. workplaces have declined markedly since the passage of the original Civil Rights Act and the creation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission a half century ago (Eagly and Chaiken 1993; Schuman, Steeh, Bobo, and Krysan 1997; Dobbin 2009), a steady stream of research indicates that powerful, if more covert forms of bias persist in contemporary workplaces (Greenwald and Banaji 1995; Pager, Western, and Bonikowski 2009; England 2010; Heilman 2012). In line with this research, high rates of individual and class-based lawsuits alleging racial and gender discrimination suggest that many employees perceive workplace discrimination to be an important, continuing employment problem (Hirsh 2009). Hence, to ensure workplace equity, prevent legal claims of discrimination, and/or rectify past and potential problems of bias, employers have implemented a growing array of organizational policies and practices aimed at reducing discrimination and increasing inclusion. Sometimes these efforts are voluntary; other times they are driven by specific mandates assigned to firms by courts as part of verdicts or settlements in cases involving charges of discrimination. Given the millions of dollars spent on making and monitoring such changes, surprisingly little evidence exists on the efficacy of various policies and practices adopted by organizations to address the problems and to capture the benefits of having a demographically diverse workforce. And even less evidence is available on the conditions that may moderate the impact of these policies and practices. Within the past decade, however, a limited but increasing body of research has focused on gauging how different practices associated with the label ‘‘diversity management’’ actually affect outcomes for women and minorities in organizations. The aim of this special issue is to bring together contemporary research that builds on this foundation in order to extend our understanding of the current variety of organizational arrangements that are intended to reduce bias and to promote more inclusive workplace