This paper examines the usefulness of the diffusion of innovation research in developing theoretical accounts of the adoption of complex and networked IT solutions. We contrast six conjectures underlying DOI research with field data obtained from the study of the diffusion of EDI. Our analysis shows that DOI based analyses miss some important facets in the diffusion of complex technologies. We ...

Almost a decade ago, Paul Milgrom and John Roberts (1988, p. 450), two of the leaders in the formalist branch of the New Institutional Economics, made the following observation. ”The incentive based transaction costs theory has been made to carry too much of the weight of explanation in the theory of organizations. We expect competing and complementary theories to emerge theories that are found...

Preliminary data were presented in a poster at the 14th annual Cochrane Colloquium in Dublin, Ireland, 23–26 October 2006. Final results were presented orally at the 68th Annual Meeting of the Society for Investigative Dermatology in Los Angeles, CA, U.S.A., 9–12 May 2007. This study was funded in part by National Cancer Institute grant K-07CA92550 (R.P.D.), National Institute of Health grant T...

INTRODUCTION Women represent a growing proportion of older people and experience increasing disability in their longer lives. Using a universally agreed definition of disability based on the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, this paper examines how, apart from age, social and economic factors contribute to disability differences between older men and women. M...

In "Replicating Milgram: Would People Still Obey Today?" Jerry M. Burger reported a high base rate of obedience, comparable to that observed by Stanley Milgram (1974). Another condition, involving a defiant confederate, failed to significantly reduce obedience. This commentary discusses the primary contributions of Burger's study in terms of (a) its novel methodological variation on Milgram's o...

The article explores two key factors which contribute to shape the poor working conditions of nursing in Argentina. A first objective focuses on exploring the effect of the occupation's care component, closely associated with cultural images of "inherent" female qualities, on working conditions. A second objective aims to examine the way in which the organization of health services provision in...

This article provides an overview of the structure and evolution of the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework and a short introduction to its use by scholars to analyze a diversity of puzzles. It then addresses the relationship of IAD to a more complex framework for the analysis of social-ecological systems and concludes with a short discussion of future challenges facing IAD s...

In The Invisible Hand of U.S. Commercial Banking, Margaret Polski provides an instructive account of the transformation in U.S. commercial banking during the latter part of the twentieth century. On one level, she uses this case study to explain the evolution from a highly regulated industry, where state and federal laws determined product lines, geographic locations, and prices, to a deregulat...