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WTO colloquia bring in outside speakers to present on recent research of interest to the great Stanford community engaged in organizational research. Talks are held on Mondays from 12:00-1:15pm and lunch is served. Further details about each colloquium, including the title of the talk, an abstract and the colloquium's location are distributed via email prior to each event.
Please email liulei [at] stanford [dot] edu to sign up for the colloquia distribution list.
We are pleased to announce our 2012-2013 academic year speakers:
| Fall 2012 |
| Sep 24, 2012, Nano 232
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Royston Greenwood |
University of Alberta
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Title: The Influence of the Institutional Context on Corporate Illegality |
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Abstract: According to Zahra, Preem and Rasheed (2005: 804) "fraud has become a worldwide problem" and Schnatterly (2003) estimates that in the US alone corporate fraud ranges from $200 to $400 billion each year. Not surprisingly, there is renewed interest in understanding the causes of this form of corporate behavior. The present paper contributes by examining the relatively neglected role of the institutional context; and, by raising the understudied question of how organizations successfully conceal illegality for lengthy periods of time despite being surrounded by networks of professional regulators and analysts – Coffee's "gatekeepers" (2006) – whose responsibilities are to identify and prevent it. For, as Time Magazine (2004) pointed out, "one huge mystery remains: how could such a crude forgery have continued for so long, and on such a massive scale?" Our paper, therefore, turns the institutional lens upon corporate illegality and asks not only how and why it occurs, but also how it could be sustained by organizations despite their being encircled and policed by an elite cluster of gatekeepers.
We analyze accounting fraud conducted by Parmalat - a large, multinational Italian dairy and food corporation - which practiced "one of the largest and most brazen corporate financial frauds" (SEC, 2003) before filing for bankruptcy in late 2003. |
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| Oct 22, 2012, Nano 232
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Michel Anteby |
Harvard Business School
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Title: Being Seen and Going Unnoticed: Working under Surveillance |
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Abstract: Since the advent of industrialization, controlling the workforce has been a recurring concern in organizations. Surveillance has increasingly been viewed as a crucial solution to this concern and new technologies have greatly facilitated the degree to which surveillance can be carried out. Yet research on how employees experience such intensified surveillance is sparse. This article, drawing on an interview-based study of U.S. Transportation Security Administration employees at a large urban airport, examines what it means for individuals to work under surveillance. We first identify an apparent contradiction: the coexistence of employee visibility and invisibility to management. Despite being constantly seen, most employees reported going unnoticed by management. The main explanation for this contradiction is that employees distinguished the visibility of their behavior from that of their selfhood. While their behavior was visible to management, employees felt that their selves remained largely invisible. Furthermore, visibility and invisibility were not solely imposed by management but also actively mobilized by employees to overcome surveillance. In fact, to deal with surveillance, employees mobilized strategies of invisibility and visibility involving both their behavior and their selfhood. Thus invisibility should be conceptualized as both a problem and a resource for employees. We discuss the implications of this proposition for theories of surveillance and control. |
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| Oct 29, 2012, Nano 232
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Amy Edmondson |
Harvard Business School
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Title: Team Scaffolds: How Minimal In-group Structures Support Fast-paced Teaming |
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Abstract: Across many industries, particularly in health care delivery, interdependent work is performed under conditions that make bounded stable teams infeasible, creating a need to understand factors that foster teaming in the absence of team stability. Teaming refers to coordination and mutual adjustment that occurs during episodes of interdependent work. The present research investigates teaming in the high-stakes, fast-paced setting of a hospital emergency room, and focuses on the effects of a new organizational structure, which we call a team scaffold, on teaming effectiveness and performance outcomes. Using a hybrid multi-method research design that adapts and blends qualitative interview and observational data with quantitative network methods on operational processes and outcomes, we examine whether and how team scaffolds facilitate teaming in a dynamic, knowledge-intensive work environment. Although team scaffolds were implemented with little or no membership stability, their introduction triggered significant changes in teaming networks and behaviors in ways that improved operational performance. |
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| Winter 2013 |
| Jan 14, 2013, Nano 232
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Susan Fussell |
Cornell University
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Title: TBD |
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Abstract: TBD |
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| Feb 11, 2013, Nano 232
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Brian Pentland |
Michigan State University
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Title: TBD |
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Abstract: TBD |
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| Mar 04, 2013, Nano 232
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JoAnne Yates |
MIT
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Title: TBD |
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Abstract: TBD |
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For information on past colloquia click here.
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