Center for Organizational Research (COR)

“The New Cuban Economy: Global Integration and Local Solidarities”
A roundtable conversation with Rafael Betancourt, Raul Fernandez and
Mrinalini Tankha

Wednesday, January 27
3:00-5:00pm
Social and Behavioral Sciences Gateway, room 3323

The United States flag is flying on Havana’s historic waterfront, and a new era in Cuba-US diplomatic relations has sparked new intellectual and public interest in everyday life in Cuba, especially with regards to what is being called the “new Cuban economic model.” Legal reforms governing real estate sales and small businesses, efforts to transform monetary and tax policy, new infrastructure development, loosening restrictions on the use of the Internet, and increasing hype about foreign investment and burgeoning tourism have all contributed to this surge in interest. But they have also led to new opportunities for private-sector businesses and and self-employment and to new questions about access to such opportunities and resulting socioeconomic inequalities. In the midst of these changes, new models of economic practice and organization are emerging, including socially responsible enterprises and the so-called “solidarity economy.” What does this mean for Cubans’ everyday lives and livelihoods? How do these changes affect Cubans’ dependence on informal social networks to meet their basic consumption needs? More generally, what are the main obstacles for the process of change moving forward in terms of U.S.-Cuba relations? What is the potential for U.S. investments in Cuba given the current changes? What are some of the struggles and contradictions Cubans have and will encounter as their country becomes increasingly integrated into the global economy? And what are the promises and potential pitfalls of alternative economic models such as the solidarity economy?

Rafael Betancourt, visiting from Cuba, will be joined in a roundtable conversation by Raul Fernandez (Professor Emeritus of Chicano/Latino Studies and Executive Secretary of the UC-Cuba Academic Initiative) and Mrinalini Tankha (Postdoctoral Scholar, Institute for Money, Technology & Financial Inclusion) to respond to these questions. Discussion will be moderated by Taylor C. Nelms (Postdoctoral Researcher in Anthropology).

Rafael J. Betancourt, PhD (ABD) in Economics (University of Florida, USA) and MSc in Urban & Regional Planning (ISPJAE, Cuba) is an economist with 30 years of employment and academic experience in international cooperation, business administration, local development, strategic urban and environmental planning, program development, project management and evaluation, and economic and social research. He is currently a consultant at Havanada Consulting Inc., a Canada-based nonprofit dedicated to promoting socially responsible entrepreneurship and social and solidary economy in Cuba; a professor at Colegio Universitario San Gerónimo de La Habana, Universidad de La Habana, and Instituto Superior Politécnico José Antonio Echevarría (CUJAE), where he teaches urban economics and project management; and Editor of Revista Temas. He has numerous published articles and is a frequent speaker in Cuba and the US on current economics, the social and solidarity economy, socially responsible entrepreneurship, and foreign investment in Cuba.

This event has been made possible through the generous support of:

• Dean of the School of Social Sciences
• Center for Organizational Research
• Center for Global Peace & Conflict Studies
• Jack W. Peltason Center for the Study of Democracy

Talk of Interest to COR community:

“Shifting Levels of Abstraction: How Faceted Category Systems Influence Market Valuation Processes”

Friday December 11th, 2015
2:00pm~3:3pm

Professor Peer Fiss
Associate Professor of Management and Organization
University of Southern California: Marshall School of Business

SB2 306 Executive Conference Room

While prior work on the relationship between categories and valuation assumes that product category systems are structured according to a uni-dimensional hierarchy, modern product markets increasingly rely on faceted category systems that classify products according to multiple dimensions. We investigate the relationship between faceted category systems and valuation by conducting an inductive, qualitative study of the online advertising industry. We find that market actors deal with the challenge of categorizing products in a faceted category system by shifting their perspective on categorical abstraction: at a high level of abstraction, they use broad, aggregated, averaged categories with few facets; at a low level of abstraction, they use granular, de-aggregated, de-averaged categories with numerous facets. We also find that conceptions of valuation differ depending on the level of categorical abstraction: at a high level, buyers rely on deductive theories of value and sellers construct custom solutions for buyers that promote these theories; while at a low level, buyers and sellers conduct inductive experiments to clarify and realize value by adding or reducing categorical facets. We contribute to the theoretical understanding of categories and valuation by showing how market actors dynamically shift levels of categorical abstraction to agree on value.

Heidi Hardt (Political Science)
Friday, November 6, 12:30-1:45pm in SBSG 1321.

Remembering Failure: An Experimental Study of Institutional Memory in
NATO Crisis Management

Maria Bermudez (UNDP and Visitor to Political Science) and
Jone Pearce (Merage School of Management) will serve as discussants.

Abstract
International organization elites contribute years of knowledge and experience to the field of crisis management. Institutional memory represents the first step in organizational learning, but scholars from across disciplines have treated institutional memory as a given without problematizing it. This paper identifies conditions under which elites contribute to an international organization’s institutional memory in the realm of strategic errors. Whereas organizations tout successes, they provide little information on failures. The paper presents an experiment in the field on 120 NATO elites. In contrast to past experiments on students or convenience samples, this approach captures elite behavior in the real and complex environment of the international organization itself. Findings first indicate that elites are more likely to share knowledge of an error with successors when secretariat staff frame the error. This reflects their critical role in the collection of knowledge and supports recent evidence of the influence of international organization bureaucrats on state behavior. Second, the paper challenges assumptions about the influence of the US in international organizations. In cases where the US frames an error as such, elites are significantly less willing to contribute to the organization’s institutional memory. Supported by supplementary interview data, these findings indicate that elites continue to assign less credibility toward US intelligence in the aftermath of the US-led intervention in Iraq. This study strengthens our understanding of how those deciding and planning operations assess and pass on knowledge of failure.

COR/Merage School Talk

“Explaining Identification with Relatively Low-Prestige Collectives: A Study of Nascar Fans”

Professor Kimberly Elsbach, University of California, Davis

Friday, October 30, 2015
3:30pm-5:00pm
SB1 5100 Corporate Partners Executive Boardroom

Abstract
Through a series of studies, we examined why fans identified with the relatively low prestige collective known as NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing). Anecdotal evidence and our own pilot research indicated that NASCAR was viewed as relatively low in Perceived External Prestige (a validated measure that has been shown to be the strongest predictor of collective identification across dozens of empirical studies) compared to most collectives in empirical studies of identification. In a first study, involving qualitative analysis of archival data, interviews, and observation of NASCAR experts and fans, we found evidence that identification with NASCAR was predicted, primarily, by what we call fan’s Perceived Opportunity for Authentic Self-Expression with NASCAR (i.e., the perception that fans could be their true selves when interacting with NASCAR). Further, we found that NASCAR fans identified with the collective because it provided the opportunity to self-express in relation to the specific value of patriotism which fans claimed was an important personal value that was difficult to affirm in other contexts. In a second, longitudinal study, involving three large-scale surveys of NASCAR fans, we confirmed that fans identification with NASCAR was predicted more strongly by Perceived Opportunity for Authentic Self-Expression with NASCAR vs. Perceived External Prestige. In turn, identification with NASCAR predicted fans collective-supporting behaviors, such as watching NASCAR races and recommending NASCAR to friends. Together, these findings suggest that individuals may strongly identify with relatively low-prestige collectives because those collectives allow them to express important, but difficult-to-affirm values that are part of their authentic or true selves. We discuss the implications of these findings for theories of collective identification.