One of the most important developments in recent sociological theory is the relationship between ‘social structure’ and ‘social agency.’ According to George Ritzer (1996), this issue has been mostly investigated among European theorists, while, on the other side, the parallel issue of the ‘micro-macro linkage’ has attracted the main interest in American sociological theory. Again, according to ...

THEME Two central themes permeate this paper-the interplay between structure and agency in integration processes and the extent to which this is mediated through sensemaking by individual actors. CASE STUDY The empirical base for the paper is provided by case study research from Wales which draws on examples of different types of integration in health and social care. The individual case stud...

This study examines the impact of capital structure on agency costs in 211 non-financial Chinese listed firms for the period 1999-2001. There are two main findings. (1) Firms with high debt to asset ratio have high ratio of annual sales to total assets and high ratio of return-on-equity. If a firm has a high debt to asset ratio, creditors are much more concerned about the payment of interest an...

Using data from a recent national survey of the ownership reform of state-owned enterprises in China, we study the effects of politician control and agency problems on the performance of the reformed firms. Taking into account of the endogenous nature of the reform, we find that firm performance is positively affected by the lessening of politician control through increasing the firm’s flexibil...

Do presidents use federal agencies as campaign resources? Scholars of distributive politics have long argued that political elites use public policy outcomes for electoral benefit. Of late, researchers have focused more closely on the president’s role in this process. However, little work examines how differences across agencies condition agency responsiveness to presidential electoral preferen...

We investigate the impact of founding family ownership structure on the agency cost of debt. We find that founding family ownership is common in large, publicly traded firms and is related, both statistically and economically, to a lower cost of debt financing. Our results are consistent with the idea that founding family firms have incentive structures that result in fewer agency conflicts bet...

Decision-making in emergencies requires non-traditional approach and tools characterized by non-hierarchical structure and flexibility. The dynamic environment of disasters makes it imperative to invest in inter-sector and inter-agency cooperation and coordination. Focusing on the Emergency Management Assistance Compact’s (EMAC) response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, this article exam...