Session Summary

Session Number:733
Session ID:S108
Session Title:The More Things Change . . . : The Persistence of Class as a Factor in Organizational Strategy and Structure
Short Title:Social Class and Strategy
Session Type:Division Symposium
Hotel:Hyatt East
Floor:LL2
Room:Columbus I/J
Time:Tuesday, August 10, 1999 3:40 PM - 5:00 PM

Sponsors

OMT  (Joseph Porac)j-porac@staff.uiuc.edu (217) 244-7969 

General People

Chair Marens, Richard S. U. of Washington parvus@u.washington.edu (206) 781-1804 
Discussant Domhoff, G. William U. of California, Santa Cruz Domhoff@cats.ucsc.edu (831) 459-4637 
Discussant Nord, Walter R. U. of South Florida wnord@coba.usf.edu (813) 974-1787 

Submissions

The Circulation of Elites: A Trickle-Up Theory 
Presenter Stearns, Linda Brewster U. of California, Riverside stearns@mail.ucr.edu (909) 787-5444 
Class, Corporate Elites, and Corporate Behavior 
Presenter Palmer, Donald A. U. of California, Davis dapalmer@ucdavis.edu (530) 752-8566 
Financial Markets and Classes in Late Capitalism 
Presenter Davis, Gerald F. U. of Michigan Gfdavis@umich.edu (734) 647-4737 
Institutional shortcomings: Negotiating hegemony in the Climate Change Negotiations 
Presenter Levy, David L. U. of Massachusetts, Boston levy@umbsky.cc.umb.edu 617-327-1093 

Abstract

Social and economic class are constructs with enormous potential for understanding business strategy and organizational structure. Often dismissed as reductionists and determinists, class theorists have actually put the concept to subtle and varied uses. Residual class interests, conflicts, and collaboration should achieve greater explanatory importance characterized by increasingly attenuated ties within and between organizations. The four presenters use class to illuminate important episodes in the evolution of business organization. Linda Brewster Stearns disputes the presumption that the class boundaries encompassing business elites are permeable. Examining the role of financiers in the 19th Century merger movement, she finds that what maverick financiers innovated, elite bankers could imitate, thus foreshadowing recent more events by marginalizing the mavericks. Donald Palmer examines the diversification movement of the 1960s to argue that mainstream organizational theory misses an important factor by ignoring the class background of corporate decision-makers. Those with elite backgrounds were less likely to risk violating "class solidarity" by aggressively pursuing diversification. Gerry Davis finds irony in how corporate managers and politicians have increasingly looked to market signals for vindication of policies. Since investors do not need to use authority or social connections to "get their way," they do not literally function as a "ruling class." David Levy, analyzing coalition-building around greenhouse emission standards, uses Gramsci's concept of hegemony to steer between institutional theory, and its emphasis on conformity, and the Marxian primacy of class conflict. William Domhoff and Walter Nord discuss common and divergent themes in these pieces.