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David Stark and Balazs
Vedres
Political Holes in the Economy: Business Camps and Partisanship
2011 December
When firms reach out to allies in the political field, partisanship can constrain the
choice of business partners in the economy. To study the evolution of politicized
business camps, we conduct an historical network analysis of the relationship
between firm-to-party ties and firm-to-firm ties in the Hungarian economy. We
construct a dataset of all senior managers and boards of directors of the largest
1,696 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 in Hungary 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 avoiding ties with firms in the opposite
camp. Subsequently, firms with politically balanced boards seize a brokerage
opportunity to occupy the political holes in the economy opened up by the growing
division between left and right. 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.
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of citations: 0
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Maathijs de Vaan, Balazs
Vedres, and David Stark
Disruptive Diversity and Recurring Cohesion: Assembling Creative Teams in the Video Game Industry, 1979-2009
2011 December
To test the proposition that a high level of recurring cohesion and a high level
of stylistic diversity can combine for successful team performance, this study
constructs a dataset of the careers of 139,727 individuals who participated in
project teams producing 16,507 video games between 1979 and 2009. Findings
indicate that teams with more dissimilar stylistic experiences outperform teams
with more homogenous backgrounds, but only for higher levels of recurring
cohesion. Teams with high diversity and high social cohesion are better able to
harmonize the noisy cacophony of an (otherwise) excessive plurality of voices,
thereby exploiting the potential beneficial effects of cognitive diversity.
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of citations: 0
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Marco Scotti and Balazs Vedres
Supply security in the European natural gas pipeline network
2011 March
Energy security of natural gas supplies in Europe is becoming a key concern. As demand
increases, infrastructure development focuses on extending the capacity of the pipeline
system. While conventional approaches focus mainly on source dependence, we argue
for a network perspective to also consider risks associated with transit countries, by
borrowing methods from ecological food web analysis. We develop methods to estimate
exposure and dominance of each country, by using network datasets of the present
pipeline system, and future scenarios of 2020 and 2030. We found that future scenarios
will not increase the robustness of the system. Pipeline development to 2030 will shift the
relative weight of energy security concerns away from source to transit countries. The
dominance of politically unstable countries will increase. The exposure will be slightly
redistributed by improving the security of already secure countries, and increasing the
exposure of those countries that are already in a vulnerable position.
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of citations: 0
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Laszlo Bruszt and Balazs
Vedres
Local developmental agency from without
2010 March
Decades of increase in external aid programs sparked a wide range of criticisms pointing
to misaligned interests, lack of accountability, and the reproduction of developmental
traps. The success of development from without is more likely if it generates domestic
developmental agency. In this article, we contribute by conceptualizing and measuring
dimensions of developmental agency. Our research analyzes the strategic case of European
Union regional development programs in Eastern Europe, where this external organization
spent nearly a decade on establishing local developmental agency. We collected survey
data of 1200 local organizations from two regions in each of Czech Republic, Hungary and
Poland. We examine the post-accession position of organizations that participated in
pre-accession assistance programs. We test a hypothesis of marginalization in the
framework of recentralized developmental governance, and we examine links between
patterns of pre-accession involvement and post-accession developmental agency. We
identify factors that might make external developmental programs more likely to foster
local developmental agency.
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of citations: 0
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Balazs
Vedres and David Stark
Structural Folds: Generative Disruption in Overlapping Groups
2010 January
Entrepreneurial groups face a twinned challenge: recognizing new ideas and
implementing them. Recent research suggests that connectivity reaching outside
the group channels new ideas, while closure makes it possible to act on them. By
contrast, we argue that entrepreneurship is not about importing ideas but about
generating new knowledge by recombining resources. In contrast to the
brokerage-plus-closure perspective, we develop a concept of intercohesion and
identify a distinctive network position, structural fold, at the overlap of cohesive
group structures. Actors at the structural fold are multiple insiders, participating
in dense cohesive ties that provide close familiarity with the operations of both
groups. Intercohesion provides familiar access to diverse resources. First, we test
whether intercohesion contributes to higher group performance. Second, because
entrepreneurship is a process of generative disruption, we test intercohesion’s
contribution to group instability. Third, we move from dynamic methods to
historical network analysis and demonstrate that coherence is a property of
interwoven lineages of cohesion that are built up through an ongoing pattern of
separation and reunification. Business groups use this pattern of interweaving to
manage instability while benefitting from intercohesion. To study the evolution
of business groups, we construct a dataset that records personnel ties among the
largest 1,696 Hungarian enterprises from 1987-2001.
Number
of citations: 3
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Balazs
Vedres and David Stark
Opening Closure: Intercohesion and Entrepreneurial Dynamics in
Business Groups.
2008 October
The
twinned challenge for entrepreneurial groups is recognizing
new ideas and implementing them. In one view, connectivity reaching
outside the group channels new ideas while closure makes it
possible to act on them. We argue that entrepreneurship is not
about importing information but about generating new knowledge
through recombining resources. In contrast to the brokerage-plus-closure
perspective, we identify a distinctive network position, intercohesion,
at the overlap of cohesive group structures. The multiple insiders
at this intercohesive position participate in dense cohesive
ties that provide close familiarity with the operations of the
members in their group. But because they are members of multiple
cohesive groups, they have familiar access to diverse resources.
We first test whether intercohesion contributes to higher group
performance. Second, because entrepreneurship is a process of
creative disruption, we test intercohesion’s contribution
to group instability. Third, moving from dynamic methods to
historical network analysis, we demonstrate that coherence is
a property of interwoven lineages of cohesion built up through
separating and reuniting in an ongoing pattern of interweaving
by which business groups manage instability while benefitting
from intercohesion. To study the evolution of business groups,
our dataset records personnel ties among the largest 1,696 Hungarian
enterprises from 1987-2001.
Number
of citations: 3
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Laszlo
Bruszt and Balazs Vedres
The Politics of Civic Combinations.
2008 June
In
this paper we explore the ways in which partnerships with the
state within state-led developmental programs might effect the
autonomy of civic organizations and their readiness to enter
in political action. We did not find support for the theses
that mixing with the state might undermine the autonomy of COs
and lead to their political neutralization. Also, we did not
find support for the hypotheses that political action is solely
about money or it is the property of non autonomous NGOs. We
have identified several mechanisms that allow COs to combine
participation in partnership projects with maintained autonomy
and political activism.
Number
of citations: 2
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Balazs
Vedres
Pathways from Postsocialism: Ownership Sequence and
Performance of Firms in Hungary, 1991-1999.
2007 February
Corporate
ownership structures were important means to navigate postsocialist
uncertainties, and as relational structures, they were vulnerable
to subsequent path dependencies. Organizational innovations
might outlive their relevant environments, locking firms in
to underperform. This article analyzes the ownership sequences
and performance of the 200 largest Hungarian firms between 1991
and 1999. Hungary in the nineties is a strategic historical
case to understand turning points, sequencing and performance.
Optimal matching analysis is used to identify pathways, and
dynamic scaling analysis to delimit ownership regimes in time.
Hypotheses about how sequences mattered are tested by regression
models of performance. The findings indicate that network forms
buffered uncertainties up to 1995, contributing to high labor
and capital efficiency. After this period domestic corporate
coalitions locked firms in, leading to inferior performance
compared to manager buy-outs, domestic subsidiaries, and foreign
owned firms. Joint ventures on the other hand provided protection
and then later the option for concentrating ownership, outperforming
other pathways of ownership.
Number
of citations: 2
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David
Stark, Balazs Vedres, and Laszlo Bruszt
Rooted transnational publics: Integrating foreign ties and civic
activism
2006 June
Can
civic organizations be both locally rooted and globally connected?
Based on a survey of 1,002 of the largest civic organizations
in Hungary, we conclude that there is not a forced choice between
foreign ties and domestic integration. By studying variation
in types of foreign interactions and variation in types of domestic
integration, our analysis goes beyond notions of footloose experts
versus rooted cosmopolitans. Organizations differ in their rootedness
according to whether they have ties to their members and constituents,
whether they have ties to other organizations in the civic sector,
and whether they associate with actors from outside the civic
sector. Similarly, we specify different types of foreign ties.
In both domains our emphasis is on the type of action involved
in the tie–especially relations of accountability and partnership.
By demonstrating a systematic relationship between the patterns
of foreign ties and the patterns of domestic integration, we
chart three emerging forms of transnational publics.
Number
of citations: 18
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David
Stark and Balazs Vedres
Social Times of Network Spaces: Sequence Analysis of
Network Formation and Foreign Investment in Hungary, 1987-2001.
2006 May
We
model, from its inception, inter-enterprise network formation
and its interaction with foreign investment across an entire
epoch of rapid and profound economic transformation, we gathered
data on the complete ownership histories of 1,696 of the largest
Hungarian enterprises from 1987to 2001. We develop a combination
of network and sequence analysis to identify distinctive pathways
whereby firms use network resources to buffer uncertainty, hide
or restructure assets, or gain knowledge and legitimacy. During
this period, networked property grew, stabilized, and involved
a growing proportion of foreign capital. Cohesive networks of
recombinant property were robust, and in fact integrated foreign
investment. Although multinationals, through their subsidiaries,
dissolved ties in joint venture arrangements, we find evidence
that they also built durable networks. Our findings suggest
that developing economies do not necessarily face a forced choice
between networks of global reach and those of local embeddedness.
Number
of citations: 56
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Balazs
Vedres
The social structure of research accountability:
Regimes of worth, claims of representation, and networks of accountability
in research.
2005 October
The
real accountability issue is not just how public money is spent,
but whether science is helping to further sustainable development.
Answering this question requires us to consider the interplay
between the different ways we value things, the different people
who claim the right to attach values, and the different ways
they connect to each other.
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of citations: -
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Balazs
Vedres, Laszlo Bruszt, and David Stark
Organizing Technologies: Genre Forms of Online
Civic Association in Eastern Europe.
2005 January
How
do civic associations in Eastern Europe organize themselves
online? Based on data collected on 1,585 East European civil
societyWeb sites, the authors identify five emergent genres
of organizing technologies: newsletters, interactive platforms,
multilingual solicitations, directories, and brochures. These
clusters do not correspond to stages of development. Moreover,
newer Web sites are more likely to be typical of their genre,
suggesting that forms are becoming more distinctive. In contrast
to the utopian image of a de-territorialized, participatory
global civil society, the authors’ examination of the
structure of hyperlinks finds that transnational types of Web
sites are not inclined to be participatory. Whereas other paradigms
focus on inequality of users’ online access, the authors
probe inequality in the accessibility of Web sites to potential
users through search engine technology and show how this varies
across different types of civil society Web sites.
Number
of citations: 12
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Balazs
Vedres and Peter Csigo
Negotiating the End of Transition.
2002 April
The
initial question of this paper is how the large scale social
process of postsocialist transition ends. We argue that transition
is closed by discursive innovations in the political field,
rather than just spontaneous crystallization. The political
field is depicted as a dynamic symbolic structure that is an
arena of local action. First the possible discourse positions
are extracted from the two mode network of speech acts and statements.
Then using these typical positions the dynamics of responses
and responses to responses is explored. We give an account of
an emergent univocal government position that represents a successful
role claim (an exit from the loops of local action) on the government's
side to coherently frame the end of transition.
Number
of citations: 3
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David
Stark and Balazs Vedres
Pathways of Property Transformation.
2001 August
This
study analyzes the restructuring of a national economy by identifying
the career pathways of its enterprises. This analysis is conducted
in a setting strategically chosen as a case of rapid and profound
economic transformation: the postsocialist Hungarian economy
between 1989-2000. The goal of this study is to chart the multiple
pathways of property transformation. Property pathways are conceptualized
as the patterned sequences of change that firms undergo 1) in
the composition of their ownership structure and 2) in their
position within network structures of ties to other enterprises.
These career pathways are neither unidirectional nor plotted
in advance. The landscape and topography of the socioeconomic
field are given shape and repeatedly transformed by the interaction
of the multiple strategies of firms attempting to survive in
the face of variable political, insitutional, and market uncertainties.
Number
of citations: 5
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Balazs
Vedres
Towards the Economic Sociology of the Internet.
2000 December
This
paper is about the conceptual model of the Internet economy.
The sociological papers concerning the Internet usually address
questions about the social effects of the Internet. The main
question of my paper is that what coordination mechanisms are
there in the Internet economy. I conceptualize the Internet
as a multiple layer coordination system. Besides describing
the coordination problems I assess the importance of symbols
in the coordination process. As an example I analyse the Hungarian
Internet economy. My approach contains the network analysis
of hyperllinks, hosting relations and peering relations.
Number
of citations: -
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Balazs
Vedres
The Constellations of Economic Power.
1999 March
The
fundamental question of this paper is that what is the power
structure of the economy now (in 1997) in Hungary. The first
task is to define power, that is borrowed from Weber. Power
is a probability of interest enforcment in a social relationship,
that can be based on several qualities or constellations.
The basic task in the paper is to identify constellations
increasing the power-probability based on theoretical considerations,
and then to trace these constellations empirically using social
network analysis.
Number
of citations: 15
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Balazs
Vedres
Locked in Centrality.
1998 September
The
paper is the English version of my paper "Bank and Power".
The main question is that what is the position of banks in the
network of the largest Hungarin enterprises. The analysis of
centrality is the main methodological path besides the determination
of bank position regarding structural equivalence and cohesive
subgroups. The study shows that while baks are the most central
in the network, centrality is linked to monitoring clients whith
questionable debt. Higher centrality on the banks side means
higher amount of bad debt, while higher centrality on the firms
side means higher indebtedness and worse performance.
Number
of citations: 3
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Barnabas
Gero and Balazs Vedres
Interlocking Comrades.
1998 February
The
main question of this paper is that what can we conclude about
the relevance of the hypotheses of market transformation if
we create an analitical strategy where we can thest those hypotheses
at the same time. For accomplishing this task we were using
the data of the directirate interlocks of the largest corporations
and political actors. The method proposed in the paper is labeled
as "nested blockmodeling": the examination of blockmodel
structures step-by-step after deleting the ties of political
actors and financial institutions. The results suggest that
both the state dominance, the financial hegemony and the managerialism
theories have relevance.
Number
of citations: 3
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Balazs
Vedres
Econocratic Manager Elite: The Winners of the Transformation?
1996 September
In
this paper I would like to draw a picture of the business elite
in transformation showing the impact of the market transition
on the criteria of success and recruitment. The main thesis
of the paper is that the value of the different types of cultural
capital has changed: the value of a diploma in economics has
increased compared to the others; and the group of the economists
has gained advantage over the other educational groups. I have
used samples of managers in 1993 to test my hypotheses. I have
compared the present and the former value of the various resources
of the managers by comparing their incomes and value of possessions
(as a measure of the former incomes, controlling for the alternative
explanations). The models show, that the economic diploma is
among the resources that have an increasing value. An alternative
of using income data is the career path. In a simple analysis
I compared the year to enter the elite in the case of the 1993
and the 1988 business elite. In 1993 the newcomers are mostly
those who have a diploma in economics, while in 1988 there is
no significant difference
Number
of citations: 2
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