2012. Vol. 13. No. 4

Research on interactions between business and politics indicates that business ties are a predictor of political behavior. This paper redirects attention from the question of how business ties have an impact on politics to the question of how political ties have an impact on business. Specifically, do divisions within the field of politics become divisions in the field of business networks? To study the co-evolution of the political and economic fields, we conduct an historical network analysis of the relationship between firm-to-party ties and firm-to-firm ties in Hungarian economy. We construct a data set of all senior managers and boards of directors of the largest 1696 corporations and the complete set of all political officeholders from 1987 to 2001. The findings of our field interviews and dyadic logistic regression models demonstrate that director interlocks depend, to a significant extent, on political affiliations. Although the economic and political fields have been institutionally separated, firms and parties have become organizationally entangled. Firms of either left or right political affiliation exhibit a preference for partnerships with firms in the same political camp while increasingly avoiding ties with firms in the opposite camp. Our historical analysis demonstrates that political camps in the Hungarian economy occur not as a direct legacy of state socialism but as the product of electoral party competition.

Each organization has to deal with employee turnover issues implying a process of employees’ interfirm mobility and worker quits. The paper focuses on voluntary turnover when employees leave organizations at their own will. The paper aims at examining factors affecting Russian employees’ intentions to leave or to stay in organizations. Based on a sample of 2380 respondents from 80 firms in eight Russian regions, the authors found out that wage satisfaction is dominant but not exclusive factor of Russian employees’ decisions with regard to their interfirm mobility. Work content, autonomy at the work place, and career prospects are also highly significant predictors. In contrast to previous research conducted in foreign companies, the presented research findings do not reveal the significance of social relations and psychological atmosphere as important factors influencing employees’ intentions to leave or to stay in organizations. This suggests stronger “mercenary–individualistic” orientations of Russian workers in comparison with Western labour markets. The authors concluded that an organization’s attempts to retain the more desirable employees should be based on “rules of games” established within the organizational field rather than specific practices of human resource management.

In The Gifts of Athena, Joel Mokyr constructs an original framework to analyze scientific and technical progress appeared in the modern West in the past two centuries. The progress was driven not just by the appearance of new technological ideas but also by the improved access to these ideas in society at large. Through a wealth of historical evidence set, he shows that changes in the intellectual and social environment and the institutional background in which knowledge was generated and disseminated brought about the Industrial Revolution, followed by sustained economic growth and continuing technological change.The journal publishes chapter 7 of The Gifts of Athena — «Institutions, Knowledge, and Economic Growth», in which Joel Mokyr discusses the role of institutional factors and useful knowledge for the economic growth of the Western economies.

The paper is devoted to emanation of a network order in the world economy under its current transition to postindustrial paradigm. This new order is described as a functional synthesis of hierarchic and market modes of social coordination, which suits both the globally modified communication environment (sharply increased dynamism, uncertainty and interdependencies) and the regime of continuous innovation. The author associates the global crisis with transformation of the world economy’s organizational code at all levels of social interactions, particularly, with the shifts from rigid vertical structures towards transformative networks, and from industries to trans-industrial clusters as a basic structural element. Special attention is paid to collaboration between three leading institutional sectors, including science, business, and government, since their model of network interactions (Triple Helix model in terms of Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff) forms an organizational matrix of knowledge-based clusters and innovation-led economies. The paper graphically illustrates clusters’ functioning as innovation ecosystems, their institutional contrasts with other types of agglomerations, and the cluster synergy effect of productivity growth, as described by M. Porter. The success of modern innovation mega clusters is exemplified by Silicon Valley (USA) and ScanBaltBioRegion (the Baltic Sea Region). In addition, the paper discusses reasons why there are no dynamic innovation clusters in the Russian economy and opportunities for their formation. The author proposes that Russia will be able to jump and change the direction and level of its development, omitting the consequential stages, if it initiates intensive collaboration with the neighboring Baltic Sea Region, learning the progressive institutional structure and adapting cluster and network technologies. 

Based on German sociological literature, authors review peculiarities of the systemic transformation and modernization of the new federal lands after reunification of Germany. They demonstrate key problems faced by the German government, business, and financial circles. Main approaches developed by German economic sociologists and depicting possible future scenarios of the Eastern Germany are presented. These approaches stress the importance of social and economic analysis and consider the transformation as a continuous cumulative process. Authors present economic perspectives of the new federal lands in the times of so-called double fracture, describe strategies of preservation (and increasing) of population of the former German Democratic Republic, and discuss a problem of decreasing (and shrinking) of cities. It is proved that the continuous social development of the Eastern Germany requires fundamental changes in the life of all German citizens.