Donald Palmer

Late Adoption of the Multidivisional Form by Large U.S. Corporations: Institutional, Political, and Economic Accounts

In a system and method for automatically starting, synchronizing and operating a steam turbine, control means for valve position limiting wherein such limit can be changed non-linearly. Means are provided whereby the system operator has the ability to manually select a minimum incremental change of the valve position limit as a keyboard-entered constant. If the operator enables a continuing change in the limit it is introduced arithmetically, permitting large swings in a reasonably short period of time.

Challengers, Elites, and Owning Families: A Social Class Theory of Corporate Acquisitions in the 1960s

This paper analyzes data on 461 large U.S. industrial corporations to determine the factors that led large firms to participate in the wave of diversifying acquisitions that peaked in the late 1960s. We elaborate and test a class theory of corporate acquisitions, maintaining that firms pursued acquisitions in this period when they were commanded by well-networked challengers who were central in elite social networks but relatively marginal with respect to social status, isolated from the resistance of established elites, and free from control of owning families. We also consider a wide range of factors highlighted by alternative accounts of acquisition likelihood, including resource dependence, institutional pressures, and principal-agent conflicts. The results provide support for our main theoretical arguments, even when controls related to alternative explanations are taken into account.

Broken Ties: Interlocking Directorates and Intercorporate Coordination

For detailed comments on the most recent versions ot this paper, I wish to thank Ronald Burt, Maggie McLoughlin, Jeffrey Pfeffer, Jerry Ross, and an anonymous ASQ reviewer. For comments on earlier drafts, I wish to thank Charles Perrow, Michael Schwartz, Joanne Martin, Jon Bendor, Dick Scott, the participants of the NIMH Research Training Program at Stanford University, and the members of the MACNET Research Group at SUNY-Stony Brook For patience, I thank the union waiters and waitresses at Zims. Little is known about the specific types of relationships that interlocking corporate directorates facilitate. This study examines the connective and directional continuity of all ties disrupted accidentally among 1,131 large U.S. corporations between 1962 and 1964to determinethe relative likelihood that different types of interlock ties facilitate relationships of formal coordination. In accordance with previous theory, the number and type of interlocks of which a tie consists was found to be related to the likelihood that it is a vehicle of formal coordination. However, previous assumptions aboutthe percentage of ties in thefull network that facilitate such relationships and the significance of interlock direction were not supported. The implications of these results for interpreting past results and directing future research are also discussed.@

Lost in space : The geography of corporate interlocking directorates

The article studies the causes of local and nonlocal interlocking directorates among the largest U.S. industrial corporations in 1964. The authors hypothesize that interlocks are spatial phenomena‐ with spatial attributes and spatial determinants. Consistent with this hypothesis, they find that local and nonlocal interlocks have different correlates. Further, three spatial structures influence interlocking: the location of a corporations headquarters vis‐a`‐vis other corporate headquarters and upper‐class clubs, the territorial distribution of a firms production facilities, and the spatial configuration of a corporations ownership relations. This suggests that previous interlock research, which ignores spatial considerations, has been seriously misspecified.

Organizations Gone Wild: The Causes, Processes, and Consequences of Organizational Misconduct

AbstractAlthough research on organizational misconduct has a long history and a recent increase in popularity, important questions are still unexplored. We review and critique research on misconduct with an emphasis on organizational causes. In addition to reviewing some active areas of research, we also examine less‐trodden areas and make suggestions for their development. We find that the definition of misconduct is often implicit and the role of social‐control agents in identifying misconduct has been neglected, suggesting a need for more rigor in how researchers define the boundary of misconduct and measure the labeling of misconduct. The spread of misconduct within and among organizations has also seen relatively little attention, as has the spread of the consequences of misconduct, suggesting a need to examine diffusion of misconduct. Finally, organizational misconduct has been an effective context for testing theories on themes such as motivation, control, power, labeling, and status, and will cont...

The Economics and Politics of Structure: The Multidivisional Form and the Large U.S. Corporation.

We thank Ellie for her quiet patience, Maggie McLoughlin and Linda Pike for their editorial insights, and James Baron, Bill Bielby, Nicole Biggart, Richard Daft, Neil Fligstein, Mark Granovetter, Gary Hamilton, Michael Schwartz, W.R. Scott, and four anonymous ASQ reviewers for their comments on an earlierdraft. Special thanks to Bill Domhoff and all the others who still look for the ghost in the machine. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the annual meetings of the Academy of Management, Boston, 1984, and the American Sociological Association, Washington, DC, 1985. Until recently, explanations of why firms use the multidivisional form (MDF) have focused on economic processes. We develop alternative political and ecological/life-cycle explanations of the MDF and test them, along with the dominant economic ones, by estimating a structural equation model with data on large U.S. industrial corporations. The results conform closely to one version of the economic explanation. While industrial diversity and geographic dispersion directly stimulate use of the MDF, size does so only indirectly, by increasing diversity and dispersion. Further, producing in the petroleum and agriculture industries inhibits diversification. The results also support the political and, to a lesser extent, ecological/life-cycle explanations. Bank-dominated firms are less diverse, and both familyand bank-dominated firms are less dispersed and less likely to use the MDF. Further, producing in the metals and materials and the petroleum and agricultural industries increases dispersion, and the latter inhibits use of the MDF. Age, however, has no effect on the extent to which firms are diverse, dispersed, or likely to use the MDF. These results suggest that future analyses of organizational behavior should view economic transactions as embedded in social structures and should focus more explicitly on the spatial dimension of organizational behavior.

Physiology and enzymology of frog photoreceptor membranes

Abstract We have developed a convenient and reproducible assay for observing visual excitation and dark adaptation in suspensions of isolated bullfrog rod outer segments. These outer segments can be separated from other contaminating membranes using gentle procedures which do not destroy their physiological activity. Rhodopsin phosphorylating activity and cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterase remain with these outer segments; ATPase and adenyl cyclase generally thought to be associated with outer segments are not present. In the light-induced rhodopsin phosphorylation reaction low levels of illumination cause the incorporation of more than one phosphate per rhodopsin bleached. This is the only reaction yet characterized in this system which involves an obvious amplification mechanism.

Rigor and Relevance in Organization Studies

Many organization studies (OS) scholars are motivated by the desire to generate theory and research that is relevant to practicing managers. But concerns about the irrelevance of OS theory and research surfaced early in the fields development and have intensified recently. Many believe that a growing preoccupation with theoretical and methodological rigor underpin the increasing generation of theory and research that is irrelevant to managers. But there is little empirical research on: 1) historical trends in theoretical and methodological rigor, 2) historical trends in relevance, and 3) the relationship between the two. This is partly because the measurement of theoretical and methodological rigor, as well as of relevance, is fraught with conceptual problems. This article describes a study that attempts to address these gaps in our knowledge, partly by tackling the conceptual problems responsible for them. We then present preliminary findings from that study. We conclude by pondering the value of research aimed at assessing the level and determinants of the relevance of OS scholarship.

A normal accident analysis of the mortgage meltdown

We use normal accident theory to analyze the financial sector, especially that part of the financial sector that processed home mortgages, and the mortgage meltdown. We maintain that the financial sector was highly complex and tightly coupled in the years leading up to the mortgage meltdown. And we argue that the meltdown exhibited characteristics of a system or normal accident; the result of a component failure (unusually high mortgage defaults) that, in the context of unique conditions (which included low interest rates and government policy encouraging home loans to less credit-worthy households), resulted in complex and tightly coupled interactions that financial elites and government officials were ill-equipped to control. We also consider the role that agency and wrongdoing played in the design of the financial system and the unfolding of the mortgage meltdown. We conclude that a fundamental restructuring of the financial system, so as to reduce complexity and coupling, is required to avert future similar financial debacles. But we also conclude that such a restructuring faces significant obstacles, given the interests of powerful actors and the difficulties of labeling those responsible for the meltdown as wrongdoers.

The geography of corporate production: Urban, industrial, and organizational systems

This paper examines how the territorial organization of corporate production — the extent to which firms connect places in the city system through intraorganizational relationships of ownership and control — is shaped by urban, industrial, and organization factors. Specifically, we study the determinants of the dispersion of corporate production facilities in the U.S. urban system. We analyze the number of U.S. cities and states in which the largest 500 industrial corporations operated plants in 1964 as a function of the characteristics of the location of the corporate headquarters, the predominant industries in which their plants produce, and their organizational structure. We find that corporate dispersion is shaped by some of the same factors that have been shown to organize the market-based territorial division of labor — the size and functional specialization of cities and the locational requirements of industry. But in addition, organizational attributes — a firms industrial diversity, its age, and the extent to which it is controlled by families as opposed to managerial coalitions — also influence its geographic dispersion.