An investigation of the centrality of competing institutional logics for social enterprises.

Social enterprises have recently been recognized as organizations located in the field where two competing institutional logics co-exist preeminently. My dissertation attempts to examine the conditions under which the centrality of competing institutional logics, referring to the degree to which two competing institutional logics are both important to organizational functioning, is higher or lower in social enterprises. Using hand-collected data from the survey of 190 social enterprises in South Korea, this dissertation not only presents a validated and reliable measure for the centrality of competing logics, but also identifies the factors associated with variation in a social enterprise’s centrality of competing logics. Building on the perspective of heterogeneity in intra-stakeholder group, the Study 1 reveals that the heterogeneity within stakeholders can play a role in shaping the degree of centrality of competing logics. Specifically, ethical investors within investor stakeholders and cross-workers within employee stakeholder may enhance the centrality of competing logics. Drawing on imprinting perspective, Study 2 shows that there is the curvilinear effect of social entrepreneurs’ non-profit experience on the centrality of competing logics. Social entrepreneurs’ non-profit experience has a positive influence on the centrality of competing logics until reaching a certain point, beyond which that point is likely to be negative. Moreover, the effect of social entrepreneurs’ non-profit experience on the centrality of competing logics is less profound in the social enterprises with a highly ambivalent founder. This dissertation contributes to connect distinct research areas together, which are: (1) social entrepreneurship, (2) institutional logics, (3) stakeholder theory, and (4) imprinting perspective

Linear operators that strongly preserve regularity of fuzzy matrices

An $ntimes n$ fuzzy matrix $A$ is called {regular} if there is an $ntimes n$ fuzzy matrix $G$ such that $AGA=A$. We study the problem of characterizing those linear operators $T$ on the fuzzy matrices such that $T(X)$ is regular if and only if $X$ is. Consequently, we obtain that $T$ strongly preserves regularity of fuzzy matrices if and only if there are permutation matrices $P$ and $Q$ such that it has the form $T(X)=PXQ$ or $T(X)=PX^tQ$ for all fuzzy matrices $X$

Voiding Dysfunction after Total Mesorectal Excision in Rectal Cancer

Purpose The aim of this study was to assess the voiding dysfunction after rectal cancer surgery with total mesorectal excision (TME). Methods This was part of a prospective study done in the rectal cancer patients who underwent surgery with TME between November 2006 and June 2008. Consecutive uroflowmetry, post-voided residual volume, and a voiding questionnaire were performed at preoperatively and postoperatively. Results A total of 50 patients were recruited in this study, including 28 male and 22 female. In the comparison of the preoperative data with the postoperative 3-month data, a significant decrease in mean maximal flow rate, voided volume, and post-voided residual volume were found. In the comparison with the postoperative 6-month data, however only the maximal flow rate was decreased with statistical significance (P=0.02). In the comparison between surgical methods, abdominoperineal resection patients showed delayed recovery of maximal flow rate, voided volume, and post-voided residual volume. There was no significant difference in uroflowmetry parameters with advances in rectal cancer stage. Conclusions Voiding dysfunction is common after rectal cancer surgery but can be recovered in 6 months after surgery or earlier. Abdominoperineal resection was shown to be an unfavorable factor for postoperative voiding. Larger prospective study is needed to determine the long-term effect of rectal cancer surgery in relation to male and female baseline voiding condition