Value Sinks: A Process Theory of Corruption Risk during Complex Organizing.

Theories and studies of corruption typically focus on individual ethics and agency problems in organizations. In this paper, we use concepts from complexity science to propose a process theory that describes how corruption risk emerges from conditions of uncertainty that are intrinsic in social systems and social interactions. We posit that our theory is valid across multiple levels of scale in social systems. We theorize that corruption involves dynamics that emerge when agents in a system take actions that exploit disequilibrium conditions of uncertainty and ethical ambiguity. Further, systemic corruption emerges when agent interactions are amplified locally in ways that create a hidden value sink which we define as a structure that extracts, or 'drains,' resources from the system for the exclusive use of certain agents. For those participating in corruption, the presence of a value sink reduces local uncertainties about access to resources. This dynamic can attract others to join the value sink, allowing it to persist and grow as a dynamical system attractor, eventually challenging broader norms. We close by identifying four distinct types of corruption risk and suggest policy interventions to manage them. Finally, we discuss ways in which our theoretical approach could motivate future research.

Push or Pull: Changes in the Relative Risk and Growth of Entrepreneurship Among Older Households.

Purpose of the study: Amid insufficient retirement savings and the growing need to work longer, it is important to understand why self-employment, especially entrepreneurship, has grown among older households. Older households may have been pushed into entrepreneurship by the growing risks of wage-and-salary employment as wages and jobs have become less stable. Alternatively, older households may have been pulled into entrepreneurship as the associated risks have declined, for instance, due to greater opportunities to diversify income away from risky business income. We examine the economic causes of the rise in entrepreneurship among older households. Design and Methods: We use summary statistics and multinomial logit regressions to analyze the link between economic pressures in wage-and-salary employment, financial strength of entrepreneurship, and the presence and change of entrepreneurship among older households-aged 50 years or older. We use household data from the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances from 1989 to 2013. Results: We find little support for the claim that increased economic pressures are correlated with rising entrepreneurship. Instead, our results suggest that the growth of older entrepreneurship is coincident with increasing access to dividend and interest income. We also find some evidence that access to Social Security and other annuity benefits increases the likelihood of self-employment. Implications: Entrepreneurship among older households increasingly correlates with income diversification. Policymakers interested in encouraging more entrepreneurship among older households could consider increased access to income diversification through social insurance.

Strategic, political, and cultural aspects of IT implementation: improving the efficacy of an IT system in a large hospital.

Healthcare spending will exceed $4 trillion by 2017, a trend that is leading executives to implement information technology (IT) systems to contain these rising costs. Studies show that numerous factors determine the outcome and net benefits of IT in healthcare. However, what happens when a newly implemented IT system results in negative outcomes? We explore this question by examining a newly implemented IT system in a large hospital that was yielding none of the benefits for which its designers had hoped. Using an expanded set of analytic lenses, our in-depth study found that political issues were a major stumbling block to the implementation of this IT system, as the interests of IT managers were different from those of the system's users. In addition, cultural values among these stakeholders were not aligned. The new IT system carried very different meanings for these two key groups. These political and cultural issues, which reflect a broader set of factors than is commonly applied in IT or in management, led to specific recommendations designed to improve the system's viability and benefits. In a follow-up analysis we found that these alternative lenses helped increase the intended usage of the IT system by 16 percent in the first year, yielding a 20 percent improvement in performance. By better understanding the cultural and political significance of IT implementation, managers may thus improve the effectiveness of new information technologies for containing costs in hospitals.