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Punctuated equilibrium theory seeks to explain policy volatility and stability in government attention. In previous research into the temporal dynamics of punctuations, scholars found that punctuations occur in clusters - a recent...
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Punctuated equilibrium theory seeks to explain policy volatility and stability in government attention. In previous research into the temporal dynamics of punctuations, scholars found that punctuations occur in clusters - a recent budgetary punctuation increases the likelihood of a subsequent punctuation. This article examines the direction, positive or negative, of budgetary punctuations over time. Are budgetary punctuations corrective, grouping positive and negative changes? Or, do budgetary punctuations occur in cumulative trends of positive or negative changes? These questions address the heart of the theoretical metaphor for punctuated equilibrium. In an analysis of over 1,000 Texas school districts for nearly a 20-year-period, results support the notion of reactive patterns of budgetary punctuations - positive and negative budgetary punctuations pair up at a rate much higher than expected by chance. The findings demonstrate that even though it is likely to see consecutive positive and negative punctuations, they are not always fully corrective.
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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how selected employees in China deliberately subvert organizational information systems (IS) policy by developing feral working practices in order to gain access to the applicati...
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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how selected employees in China deliberately subvert organizational information systems (IS) policy by developing feral working practices in order to gain access to the applications that they believe essential to work.
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This paper addresses the question of the formation and evolution of upland rural Alpine landscapes. The case study presented here refers to two upland valleysVal Molinac and Val Porelocated in the Alpine region of Trentino (Italy)...
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This paper addresses the question of the formation and evolution of upland rural Alpine landscapes. The case study presented here refers to two upland valleysVal Molinac and Val Porelocated in the Alpine region of Trentino (Italy). Archaeological fieldwork in the area has revealed a complex landscape; the main features of which are dry stone structures (enclosures, huts and rock shelters), mainly related to pastoralism. Archaeological data and documentary sources show that the investigated landscape underwent distinct formative phases or tipping points'in the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries AD and in the late eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries ADand suggest that its evolution has neither been gradual nor incremental, as generally assumed. Punctuated equilibrium paradigm', derived from evolutionary theory, is applied to address the discontinuous evolution of the upland landscapes of Val Molinac and Val Pore, and theoretical implications for the study of rural landscapes are discussed.
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Statistical models based on the asymptotic limit theorems of control and information theories allow formal examination of the essential differences between short-time "tactical" confrontations and a long-term "strategic" conflict ...
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Statistical models based on the asymptotic limit theorems of control and information theories allow formal examination of the essential differences between short-time "tactical" confrontations and a long-term "strategic" conflict dominated by evolutionary process. The world of extended coevolutionary conflict is not the world of sequential "muddling through." The existential strategic challenge is to take cognitive control of a long-term dynamic in which one may, in fact, be "losing" most short-term confrontations. Winning individual battles can be a relatively direct, if not simple or easy, matter of sufficient local resources, training, and resolve. Winning extended conflicts is not direct, and requires management of subde coevolutionary phenomena subject to a dismaying punctuated equilibrium more familiar from evolutionary theory than military doctrine. Directed evolution has given us the agricultural base needed for large-scale human organization. Directed coevolution of the inevitable conflicts between the various segments of that organization may be needed for its long-term persistence.
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We report on an Action Research investigation into knowledge-sharing practices in Velox, a global logistics organisation and in particular its operations in Guangzhou, China. Our study is premised on Work Systems Theory and Punctu...
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We report on an Action Research investigation into knowledge-sharing practices in Velox, a global logistics organisation and in particular its operations in Guangzhou, China. Our study is premised on Work Systems Theory and Punctuated Equilibrium Theory. Following a description of background and context, we describe two linked Action Research cycles, following the principles and criteria for Canonical Action Research. Our interventions were successful, with both managers and employees at Velox expressing satisfaction with the outcomes, which included radical changes to operational procedures. We discuss the implications and contributions for theory, practice and method.
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Under what conditions does the USA adjust its defense spending dramatically? Scholars have identified many factors that affect military budgets, from international threats to domestic politics. Yet, most existing studies use regre...
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Under what conditions does the USA adjust its defense spending dramatically? Scholars have identified many factors that affect military budgets, from international threats to domestic politics. Yet, most existing studies use regression analysis to estimate average marginal effects, thereby neglecting large-scale outlier punctuations that, though rare, supply theoretical insights, set institutional trajectories, and shape aspirations for future policy. Blending scholarship from public policy, international relations, and defense analysis, this article uses punctuated equilibrium theory (PET) and a mixed-method research design to argue that either a change in war policy or a presidential transition is necessary for a US defense spending punctuation. War debates and presidential transitions facilitate punctuations by triggering shifts in policymaker attention and policy subsystem structure, two mechanisms central to PET theorizing. In its quantitative section, the article uses a mathematical threshold to identify four punctuations since 1950: Truman's Korean War buildup, Eisenhower's post-Korean War drawdown, Kennedy's peacetime civil defense buildup, and Bush I's post-Gulf War, post-Cold War drawdown. War policy or a presidential transition figured prominently in each case. In its qualitative section, the article analyzes the Kennedy period in greater detail because, lacking a hot war, the case was least likely to witness a punctuation and therefore represents the hardest test for PET. In line with the theory's expectations, Kennedy's muscular agenda setting and subsystem shaping interacted with rising Cold War tensions to cause a dramatic-but-brief increase in civil defense funding to guard against a Soviet nuclear attack.
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Theories of public policy change, despite their differences, converge on one point of strong agreement: the relationship between policy and its causes can and does change over time. This consensus yields numerous empirical implica...
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Theories of public policy change, despite their differences, converge on one point of strong agreement: the relationship between policy and its causes can and does change over time. This consensus yields numerous empirical implications, but our standard analytical tools are inadequate for testing them. As a result, the dynamic and transformative relationships predicted by policy theories have been left largely unexplored in time series analysis of public policy. This article introduces dynamic linear modelling (DLM) as a useful statistical tool for exploring time-varying relationships in public policy. The article offers a detailed exposition of the DLM approach and illustrates its usefulness with a time series analysis of United States defense policy from 1957 to 2010. The results point the way for a new attention to dynamics in the policy process, and the article concludes with a discussion of how this research programme can profit from applying DLMs.
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Generalized Darwinian evolutionary theory has emerged as central to the description of economic process (e.g., Aldrich et al., J Evol Econ 18:577-596, 2008). Just as Darwinian principles provide necessary, but not sufficient, cond...
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Generalized Darwinian evolutionary theory has emerged as central to the description of economic process (e.g., Aldrich et al., J Evol Econ 18:577-596, 2008). Just as Darwinian principles provide necessary, but not sufficient, conditions for understanding the dynamics of social entities, so too the asymptotic limit theorems of information theory instantiate another set of necessary conditions that constrain socioeconomic evolution. These restrictions can be formulated as a statistics-like analytic toolbox for the study of empirical data that is consistent with generalized Darwinism, but escapes the intellectual straightjacket of replicator dynamics. The formalism is a coevolutionary theory in which punctuated convergence to temporary quasi-equilibira is inherently nonequilibrium, involving highly dynamic 'languages' rather than system stable points.
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摘要 :
Generalized Darwinian evolutionary theory has emerged as central to the description of economic process (e.g., Aldrich et al., J Evol Econ 18:577–596, 2008). Just as Darwinian principles provide necessary, but not sufficient, con...
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Generalized Darwinian evolutionary theory has emerged as central to the description of economic process (e.g., Aldrich et al., J Evol Econ 18:577–596, 2008). Just as Darwinian principles provide necessary, but not sufficient, conditions for understanding the dynamics of social entities, so too the asymptotic limit theorems of information theory instantiate another set of necessary conditions that constrain socioeconomic evolution. These restrictions can be formulated as a statistics-like analytic toolbox for the study of empirical data that is consistent with generalized Darwinism, but escapes the intellectual straightjacket of replicator dynamics. The formalism is a coevolutionary theory in which punctuated convergence to temporary quasi-equilibira is inherently nonequilibrium, involving highly dynamic ‘languages’ rather than system stable points.
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The Modern Synthesis (or "Neo-Darwinism"), which arose out of the reconciliation of Darwin's theory of natural selection and Mendel's research on genetics, remains the foundation of evolutionary theory. However, since its inceptio...
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The Modern Synthesis (or "Neo-Darwinism"), which arose out of the reconciliation of Darwin's theory of natural selection and Mendel's research on genetics, remains the foundation of evolutionary theory. However, since its inception, it has been a lightning rod for criticism, which has ranged from minor quibbles to complete dismissal. Among the most famous of the critics was Stephen Jay Gould, who, in 1980, proclaimed that the Modern Synthesis was "effectively dead." Gould and others claimed that the action of natural selection on random mutations was insufficient on its own to explain patterns of macroevolutionary diversity and divergence, and that new processes were required to explain findings from the fossil record. In 1982, Charlesworth, Lande, and Slatkin published a response to this critique in Evolution, in which they argued that Neo-Darwinism was indeed sufficient to explain macroevolutionary patterns. In this Perspective for the 75th Anniversary of the Society for the Study of Evolution, we review Charlesworth et al. in its historical context and provide modern support for their arguments.We emphasize the importance of microevolutionary processes in the study of macroevolutionary patterns. Ultimately, we conclude that punctuated equilibrium did not represent a major revolution in evolutionary biology-although debate on this point stimulated significant research and furthered the field-and that Neo-Darwinism is alive and well.
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