Unidades de Conservação Ambiental – uma Análise Pragmatista da Gestão e dos Modos de Existência Organizacional de uma Estação Ecológica

Protected areas are the main instrument used for protecting and conserving nature (UN, 2018). In Brazil, these areas are called Unidades de Conservação (UCs), or Conservation Units in English, and despite their territorial coverage and the complexity of their problems, they have not been properly studied by the area of administration. As a result, in this article we aimed to broaden the understanding about the modes of existence, as well as about the management of a protected area in a particular territory. For this, we took a pragmatist epistemological approach, favoring action above all. The study material derives from ethnographic research using participant observation at a UC managed by the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity (ICMBio). As results, we identified three distinct modes of existence of the organization, namely: environmental education; production of expertise; and protection and inspection of nature. The analysis of these modes of existence enabled a better understanding of how specific organizational configurations emerge that situationally position the actors in different ways, engendering collective action and its management. Finally, we forge arguments that highlight possible contributions of a pragmatist epistemology to the organizational analysis of UCs.

Environmental Conservation Units – a Pragmatist Analysis of the Organizational Management and Modes of Existence of an Ecological Station

Protected areas are the main instrument used for protecting and conserving nature (UN, 2018). In Brazil, these areas are called Unidades de Conservação (UCs), or Conservation Units in English, and despite their territorial coverage and the complexity of their problems, they have not been properly studied by the area of administration. As a result, in this article we aimed to broaden the understanding about the modes of existence, as well as about the management of a protected area in a particular territory. For this, we took a pragmatist epistemological approach, favoring action above all. The study material derives from ethnographic research using participant observation at a UC managed by the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity (ICMBio). As results, we identified three distinct modes of existence of the organization, namely: environmental education; production of expertise; and protection and inspection of nature. The analysis of these modes of existence enabled a better understanding of how specific organizational configurations emerge that situationally position the actors in different ways, engendering collective action and its management. Finally, we forge arguments that highlight possible contributions of a pragmatist epistemology to the organizational analysis of UCs.

Upending American Politics

Analysts and citizens alike struggle to comprehend recent gyrations in US politics. The country did an apparent U-turn in just eight short years, from the election of Barack Obama and an all-Democratic Congress in 2008 to the election of Donald Trump and confirmation of GOP control of Congress in 2016. Twice in under a decade, ordinary citizens reacted by organizing local grassroots groups all over the country—with Tea Parties starting in 2009 and anti-Trump resistance groups starting in late 2016. Upending American Politics offers a fresh perspective on these developments by focusing on recent and newly changing organizational configurations, such as voluntary local citizens’ groups, elite advocacy organizations, consortia of wealthy donors, and candidate-led political campaigns. Contributors have collected many new kinds of data to document and probe changing organizational configurations at the national level and in the pivotal states of Wisconsin, North Carolina, Michigan, Florida, Texas, and Pennsylvania. The volume offers insightful answers to key questions: Why has partisan polarization unfolded in a heavily rightward-tilted manner that sees Republicans embracing ever-more extreme positions? Why have widespread grassroots citizens movements erupted twice just eight years, and what impact have these movements had on the major political parties?

Organized Civil Society Under Authoritarian Populism: Cases from Ecuador

This article examines how civil society organizations (CSOs) in Latin America cope with authoritarian populism. In particular, it outlines cases of coping and adaptive strategies by CSOs in Ecuador during the years of President Rafael Correa’s presidency (2007–2017). Ecuador provides an example of an authoritarian, leftist populist administration; thus situating our discussion in the general civil society-government relations literature, we link together trends of authoritarianism and populism and its implications on CSOs. Using a qualitative-interpretive approach with long-term fieldwork in Ecuador, we outline a selection of coping strategies used by organized civil society that include formal, semi-formal and informal organizational configurations.

Global production networks: mapping recent conceptual developments

In this framing paper for the special issue, we map significant research on global production networks during the past decade in economic geography and adjacent fields. In line with the core aim of the special issue to push for new conceptual advances, the paper focuses on the central elements of GPN theory to showcase recent rethinking related to the delimiting of global production networks, underlying political-economic drivers, actor-specific strategies and regional/national development outcomes. We suggest that the analytical purchase of this recent work is greater in research that has continued to keep a tight focus on the causal links between the organizational configurations of global production networks and uneven development. Concomitantly, considerable effort in the literature has gone into expanding the remit of GPN research in different directions, and we thus engage with five domains or ‘constituent outsides’ that relate to the state, finance, labour, environment and development. We believe such cross-domain fertilisation can help realize GPN 2.0’s potential for explaining uneven development in an interconnected world economy.

IT CLUSTERS IN UKRAINE: ECONOMIC POTENTIAL

As an organizational form of economic relations, clusters play a key role in development projects of the regions of Ukraine. Traditionally, industrial, agrarian, tourist, logistic and trade clusters predominate in the general structure of national clusters. However, such a structure is a real indicator of the technological diversity of Ukrainian economy at the level of restrained development. At the same time, high-tech IT clusters of various organizational configurations become guarantors of timely innovative modernization and sustainable economic growth. There are almost no programs for the development of information technology at the regional level in Ukraine. This significantly limits access of IT clusters to necessary resources, in particular, to financial, intellectual and social capital. This problem is especially acute in the framework of budgetary decentralization, when, taking into account the economic and social inconsistency of the regions to their own self-reproduction, priority of the development of IT clusters and high-tech industries in general is lost. In the course of the study, the following results and conclusions were drawn: changes in financial and economic nature are substantially related to the macroeconomic level and should be defined in the national policy of clusterization development. It is necessary to: (i) actively implement budget decentralization, which will increase the financial participation of local governments in the development of infrastructure projects of IT clusters; (ii) weaken tax pressure on small and medium-sized IT companies by providing a tax investment loan that involves delaying the payment of income tax for a specified period; (iii) develop a system of guarantees for IT companies involved in projects of public interest, in particular, in attracting external loans for the creation of new infrastructure objects; (iv) use the mechanism of “real custom duty” to recover the cost of investment.

Shaping and Being Shaped: How Organizational Structure and Managerial Discretion Co-evolve in New Managerial Roles

As new roles emerge in organizations, it becomes critical to understand how organizational structure can impede or enable the managerial discretion available to role incumbents. We leverage the rich context provided by the emergent role of sustainability managers to examine the interplay between the top-down forces of structure and the bottom-up influences of managerial discretion in shaping new organizational roles over time. We analyzed qualitative data collected from in-depth interviews with sustainability managers in 21 case study organizations in India and Australia, supplemented with archival and observational data. We identified three organizational configurations, with varying levels of top-down structural and bottom-up managerial discretion dynamics at play. Each configuration had different implications for the manager’s role. Our analysis suggests that the third configuration—with semi-structured formalization and a decentralized sustainability program—provided the most conducive conditions for managers to use their discretion to champion innovative sustainability initiatives. New managerial roles in the other configurations, however, do not have to be static. With the maturation of organizational programs and active championing by managers, the structuring of organizational functions and managerial roles can co-evolve. Our findings describe a process of “shaping and being shaped,” as structure and managerial discretion co-evolve over time.