Mitchel Y Abolafia
Biographic Data
| ID | 142825 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mitchel Y Abolafia |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mitchel Y |
| FAMILY NAME | Abolafia |
| SIGNATURE | ABOLAFIA M Y |
| AFFILIATIONS | University at Albany, State University of New York |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 163 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1979 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Mike Savage. The Return of Inequality
Taking the Floor
Stewards of the Market
Narrative Construction as Sensemaking
How do elite policy-making groups make sense of complex and ambiguous environments while remaining consistent with the group’s institutionalized operating model? This paper identifies a sensemaking process based in shared narrative construction. It is a social process of pattern recognition involving abduction, the comparison of culturally approved models to the current conditions to establish relevant facts and events; plotting, the reordering o…
Imagining the `iron cage
In this article we argue that the rhetorical power of critical ethnography cannot be fully explained by current concepts in rhetorical studies. Although rhetorical studies acknowledge the role played by sympathy and imagination, they have not recognized the extent to which organizational ethnographers elicit the identification of readers with characters through the depiction of `hidden emotions.' Hidden emotions are those that are subjectively ex…
Structure and Strategy on the Exchanges
Framing Moves
Interpretive politics is a contest over the framing of ideas. In the context of closed-door, elite policymaking groups, interpretive politics shapes the thinking of both group members and the wider community of stakeholders. This article identifies a temporal structure to interpretive politics in group policymaking settings and a related set of “framing moves.” Framing moves are actions taken by meeting participants to challenge existing policy f…
Bureaucratic Entrepreneurship and Institutional Change
This study develops a model for the analysis of institutional change in public-sector organizations. We use sense-making theory to explore the role of bureaucratic entrepreneurial action in institutional change. Metaphors from music composition illustrate the pace and depth of institutional change. We elaborate this analytic model by examining a major institutional change: housing for the developmentally disabled. The data trace changes in the in…
Success and Survival on Wall Street
On Improving Qualitative Methods in Public Administration Research
What do exemplary qualitative accounts look like, and how do they convince readers of their correctness? What sort of standards can be used to assess qualitative research accounts for public administration? To address these questions, the authors examined 72 recent qualitative research journal articles. Proceeding from a set of preliminary guidelines, they worked iteratively between articles and the emergent template to produce refined guidelines…
Markets as Cultures
The approach to the markets as cultures supposes at least three fields of studies: constitutive rules and roles; local rationality; dynamics of authorities and changes. The paper deals with each of the fields. The methodological issues of the study the markets as cultures are discussed after that. The author supports his statement by giving examples of his own ethnographic studies of the stock exchange, bond market and futures markets on the Wall…
Karl Polanyi meets the Masters of the Universe
Bureaucratic Politics
From a broad ethnographic study of political activities among lower participants, the authors formulate a model of politics from below that contrasts with Graham Allison's model of bureaucratic politics among those at the top. They find that, because of their relatively less powerful hierarchical positions, lower participants engage in political activities that are primarily about the pursuit of identity rather than specific organizational outcom…
Making Markets
Procedural Entrepreneurship
What do administrators do when established procedures get in the way of getting work done? They change the procedures. Because procedures, however, may have been originally installed to impose controls that ensure neutrality and obedience to political masters or equity in the delivery of public services, such procedural entrepreneurship tends to be hidden. To what extent to administrators engage in procedural entrepreneurship? What are the conseq…
Hyper-Rational Gaming
A vast and growing literature in game theory shows that a wide variety of human conflicts and competitions can be modeled as games. Most of this work is done through deductive logic, mathematical modeling, and computer simulation. It relies on the assumption that humans are self-interested rational maximizers. This study examines a group of actors who are given extraordinary incentives and resources to apply their rationality to a competitive gam…
Morality, Rationality, and Efficiency
Values in the Marketplace
Chronicles of Corporate Change
Coordinating for the Collective Good
This article investigates resistance to the implementation of a federal program of coastal zone planning. Interviews were conducted with officials in New York State and Washington, D.C., to explore the dynamics of state and local responses to a federal grant-in-aid. Resistance was found at every level of government, as well as in the environments of these levels. Segmentation of the program and the displacement of federal intention were found to …
Framing Moves
Interpretive politics is a contest over the framing of ideas. In the context of closed-door, elite policymaking groups, interpretive politics shapes the thinking of both group members and the wider community of stakeholders. This article identifies a temporal structure to interpretive politics in group policymaking settings and a related set of “framing moves.” Framing moves are actions taken by meeting participants to challenge existing policy f…
On Improving Qualitative Methods in Public Administration Research
What do exemplary qualitative accounts look like, and how do they convince readers of their correctness? What sort of standards can be used to assess qualitative research accounts for public administration? To address these questions, the authors examined 72 recent qualitative research journal articles. Proceeding from a set of preliminary guidelines, they worked iteratively between articles and the emergent template to produce refined guidelines…
Markets as Cultures
The approach to the markets as cultures supposes at least three fields of studies: constitutive rules and roles; local rationality; dynamics of authorities and changes. The paper deals with each of the fields. The methodological issues of the study the markets as cultures are discussed after that. The author supports his statement by giving examples of his own ethnographic studies of the stock exchange, bond market and futures markets on the Wall…
Bureaucratic Politics
From a broad ethnographic study of political activities among lower participants, the authors formulate a model of politics from below that contrasts with Graham Allison's model of bureaucratic politics among those at the top. They find that, because of their relatively less powerful hierarchical positions, lower participants engage in political activities that are primarily about the pursuit of identity rather than specific organizational outcom…
Bureaucratic Entrepreneurship and Institutional Change
This study develops a model for the analysis of institutional change in public-sector organizations. We use sense-making theory to explore the role of bureaucratic entrepreneurial action in institutional change. Metaphors from music composition illustrate the pace and depth of institutional change. We elaborate this analytic model by examining a major institutional change: housing for the developmentally disabled. The data trace changes in the in…
Hyper-Rational Gaming
A vast and growing literature in game theory shows that a wide variety of human conflicts and competitions can be modeled as games. Most of this work is done through deductive logic, mathematical modeling, and computer simulation. It relies on the assumption that humans are self-interested rational maximizers. This study examines a group of actors who are given extraordinary incentives and resources to apply their rationality to a competitive gam…
Stewards of the Market
Procedural Entrepreneurship
What do administrators do when established procedures get in the way of getting work done? They change the procedures. Because procedures, however, may have been originally installed to impose controls that ensure neutrality and obedience to political masters or equity in the delivery of public services, such procedural entrepreneurship tends to be hidden. To what extent to administrators engage in procedural entrepreneurship? What are the conseq…
Imagining the `iron cage
In this article we argue that the rhetorical power of critical ethnography cannot be fully explained by current concepts in rhetorical studies. Although rhetorical studies acknowledge the role played by sympathy and imagination, they have not recognized the extent to which organizational ethnographers elicit the identification of readers with characters through the depiction of `hidden emotions.' Hidden emotions are those that are subjectively ex…
Structure and Strategy on the Exchanges
Coordinating for the Collective Good
This article investigates resistance to the implementation of a federal program of coastal zone planning. Interviews were conducted with officials in New York State and Washington, D.C., to explore the dynamics of state and local responses to a federal grant-in-aid. Resistance was found at every level of government, as well as in the environments of these levels. Segmentation of the program and the displacement of federal intention were found to …
Coordinating for the Collective Good
This article investigates resistance to the implementation of a federal program of coastal zone planning. Interviews were conducted with officials in New York State and Washington, D.C., to explore the dynamics of state and local responses to a federal grant-in-aid. Resistance was found at every level of government, as well as in the environments of these levels. Segmentation of the program and the displacement of federal intention were found to …
Chronicles of Corporate Change
Values in the Marketplace
Morality, Rationality, and Efficiency
Procedural Entrepreneurship
What do administrators do when established procedures get in the way of getting work done? They change the procedures. Because procedures, however, may have been originally installed to impose controls that ensure neutrality and obedience to political masters or equity in the delivery of public services, such procedural entrepreneurship tends to be hidden. To what extent to administrators engage in procedural entrepreneurship? What are the conseq…
Hyper-Rational Gaming
A vast and growing literature in game theory shows that a wide variety of human conflicts and competitions can be modeled as games. Most of this work is done through deductive logic, mathematical modeling, and computer simulation. It relies on the assumption that humans are self-interested rational maximizers. This study examines a group of actors who are given extraordinary incentives and resources to apply their rationality to a competitive gam…
Karl Polanyi meets the Masters of the Universe
Bureaucratic Politics
From a broad ethnographic study of political activities among lower participants, the authors formulate a model of politics from below that contrasts with Graham Allison's model of bureaucratic politics among those at the top. They find that, because of their relatively less powerful hierarchical positions, lower participants engage in political activities that are primarily about the pursuit of identity rather than specific organizational outcom…
Making Markets
Markets as Cultures
The approach to the markets as cultures supposes at least three fields of studies: constitutive rules and roles; local rationality; dynamics of authorities and changes. The paper deals with each of the fields. The methodological issues of the study the markets as cultures are discussed after that. The author supports his statement by giving examples of his own ethnographic studies of the stock exchange, bond market and futures markets on the Wall…
On Improving Qualitative Methods in Public Administration Research
What do exemplary qualitative accounts look like, and how do they convince readers of their correctness? What sort of standards can be used to assess qualitative research accounts for public administration? To address these questions, the authors examined 72 recent qualitative research journal articles. Proceeding from a set of preliminary guidelines, they worked iteratively between articles and the emergent template to produce refined guidelines…
Success and Survival on Wall Street
Bureaucratic Entrepreneurship and Institutional Change
This study develops a model for the analysis of institutional change in public-sector organizations. We use sense-making theory to explore the role of bureaucratic entrepreneurial action in institutional change. Metaphors from music composition illustrate the pace and depth of institutional change. We elaborate this analytic model by examining a major institutional change: housing for the developmentally disabled. The data trace changes in the in…
Framing Moves
Interpretive politics is a contest over the framing of ideas. In the context of closed-door, elite policymaking groups, interpretive politics shapes the thinking of both group members and the wider community of stakeholders. This article identifies a temporal structure to interpretive politics in group policymaking settings and a related set of “framing moves.” Framing moves are actions taken by meeting participants to challenge existing policy f…
Structure and Strategy on the Exchanges
Imagining the `iron cage
In this article we argue that the rhetorical power of critical ethnography cannot be fully explained by current concepts in rhetorical studies. Although rhetorical studies acknowledge the role played by sympathy and imagination, they have not recognized the extent to which organizational ethnographers elicit the identification of readers with characters through the depiction of `hidden emotions.' Hidden emotions are those that are subjectively ex…
Narrative Construction as Sensemaking
How do elite policy-making groups make sense of complex and ambiguous environments while remaining consistent with the group’s institutionalized operating model? This paper identifies a sensemaking process based in shared narrative construction. It is a social process of pattern recognition involving abduction, the comparison of culturally approved models to the current conditions to establish relevant facts and events; plotting, the reordering o…
Stewards of the Market
Taking the Floor
Mike Savage. The Return of Inequality
Political science (11 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Economics (10 works) · Law (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Management and Organizational Studies (7 works) · Politics (6 works) · Public relations (6 works) · Business (5 works) · Computer Science (5 works)