W. Richard Scott, a core faculty member of CRGP since 2003, is editing a book with the working title, "Global Projects: Institutional and Political Challenges." The chapters will describe research done by CRGP faculty and scholars with emphasis on the institutional-political context of these projects. He hopes to have it completed in Summer 2008.

As currently planned, the book will include four major sections:

• An introductory section defining global projects, describing their institutional context, and considering why they are likely targets of political opposition and resistance.
• A series of empirical papers describing selected institutional conflicts, their associated costs, and attempted resolutions along with other papers examining the ways in which some projects succeed in employing institutional differences as learning opportunities.
• Empirical studies of the determinants and indicators of political conflicts along with consideration of the types of governance mechanisms that can be employed to prevent or mitigate them.
• Several papers describing possible applications of the ideas, for example, in the development of institutional and political risk analysis strategies and in the aligning of strategy, structure and cultural differences.

As a sociologist, Dick will integrate the content, attempting to knit a series of theoretical essays and empirical studies into a comprehensive and coherent argument. The focus of his own research has been on organizations whose front-line workers are professionals, ranging from social workers and teachers to doctors and engineers. During the last two decades, his interests have shifted to examine the interaction of institutional environments and organizations, organizational populations, and organization fields. The third edition of his book Institutions and Organizations: Ideas and Interests will be published this Fall by Sage Publications.

Dick is a long-term member of the Department of Sociology at Stanford, holding courtesy appointments in the Schools of Business, Education, and Medicine. From 1972 to 1989 he directed a Training Program on Organizations Research supported by the National Institutes of Mental Health and in 1988 became the director of the Stanford Center for Organizations Research (SCOR), both programs serving as a research training network linking organizational researchers across disciplines, schools, and universities. His collaboration with Professor Ray Levitt, Director of CRGP, grew out of these early associations

Posted by rjorr at October 10, 2007 11:36 PM