ORCID Profile
0000-0001-6966-3011
Current Organisation
Flinders University
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Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 02-2009
Abstract: Evolutionary psychologists aspire to show how —contrary to `soft' social sciences such as sociology — `seemingly capricious' occurrences in the realm of human behaviour follow biologistic `laws of greater generality' (Pinker, 2005: xii).This article is a case study of the `seemingly capricious occurrence' of paternity uncertainty. According to evolutionary psychologists, paternity uncertainty arises from the fact that men are `hard wired' to seek as many sexual partners as they can, and women to seek men of superior genetic quality. This account is said to be demonstrable through independent biological evidence of widespread discrepancy between putative and actual biological paternity in human populations.Yet close scrutiny of biological evidence and new evidence from representative sex surveys indicate that evolutionary psychologists consistently inflate estimates of paternal discrepancy. Evolutionary psychologists' account of paternity uncertainty highlights their overattachment to biologistic laws at the expense of understanding the social dimensions of human behaviour.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 12-2011
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 11-2010
Abstract: A growing body of sociological research on elites is done at close quarters, using interviews and ethnography. This article draws on interviews with the ‘super rich’ in Australia to examine the motives of elites in granting access to their lives and stories. The respondents of this study were largely indifferent to social science. In agreeing to be interviewed and engaging with the interview process, they drew upon two familiar points of reference — the media and therapy — as cognitive models or ‘templates’ for making sense of the process. The media template was outward looking, directed towards public relations and legitimacy. The therapeutic template was inward looking, directed towards families, peers and small world concerns. In turn, respondents were apparently motivated by contradictory considerations: on the one hand, wanting to promote their concerns to a wider audience and, on the other, wanting to reflect upon their predicaments in confidence. Yet respondents understood that neither template encapsulated the interview situation, causing respondents to shift between templates and motives in the course of interviews. This ambiguity meant that interviews demanded continuous negotiation and recalibration. It also enriched interviews, highlighting a reconfiguration of public and private worlds among elite communities.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 09-12-2014
Abstract: This study of 35 Vietnamese women imprisoned for drug crimes in Melbourne, Australia, demonstrates a strong association between problem gambling and illicit drug markets, notably heroin trafficking and cannabis cultivation. Specifically, problem gambling in Melbourne’s casino provided both the main motivation and the necessary network brokerage for drug-related crime. More generally, the study demonstrates the importance of socio-cultural dynamics in drug-related crimes: in particular, the social embeddedness of ethnic and immigrant participation in illicit drug markets through social relationships formed at the casino the influence of the institution of informal lending chơi hụi and women’s agency in drug markets, independently of their kinship and marital relations. The study also highlights the importance of minority perspectives in criminology, presenting an opportunity for policy officials to develop more finely-tuned interventions directed towards the articulation between gambling and drugs.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 12-2010
DOI: 10.1111/J.1468-4446.2010.01340.X
Abstract: There is a new orthodoxy in the field that was once understood as the sociology of the family, and is increasingly understood as the sociology of 'personal life', 'intimacy', 'relationships' and 'families'. The orthodoxy highlights the open-endedness of intimate relations at the expense of the family as an institution that is, reflexivity over and above convention. This article argues that the new orthodoxy not only overstates reflexivity at the expense of convention, but abdicates understanding to frameworks grounded in biologistic and economistic understandings of human behaviour. The article makes its point through attention to three areas of research at odds with the new orthodoxy: paternity uncertainty, inheritance and family business. It then proposes that conceptualization of the family as an institutional regime gives due weight to the reflexive reconfiguration of family relationships and practices on the one hand, and their institutional embeddedness on the other.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 09-2011
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 04-2014
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2008
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 12-2007
Abstract: Australian sociologists have barely engaged with the resurgence of economic sociology in the USA and Europe. It might be argued that this lack of engagement arises from a robust local agenda, immune from metropolitan fashions. This article argues that this is not the case. Rather, it arises from the enduring residualism of Australian sociology vis-a-vis economics. In turn, this residualism is grounded in sociology's late beginnings in Australia, the dominant framework at the time of its insititutionalization in the 1950s and 1960s, and the limited challenge presented by critical approaches from the 1970s. The article identifies four major lines of inquiry in the resurgence of economic sociology: network analysis, comparative political economy, field theory and performativity theory. Notwithstanding their differences, these approaches direct attention to the social construction of markets. In turn, they challenge both mainstream economics and sociology. The papers in this Special Edition of the Journal of Sociology build upon these lines of inquiry in the Australian context.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 03-2005
Abstract: Since the managerial thesis (notably Berle and Means’ classic study), the role of the family in capitalist enterprise and organization has often been viewed as an anachronism, the remnant of an earlier era. This article uses qualitative interviews with wealthy Australians to argue that family relationships are an enduring influence in relation to accumulation, succession and inheritance. There are two reasons. First, the decline of family control in big business is not just a historical event, but also an ongoing event that informs the passage of most entrepreneurial businesses as they grow in scale and complexity hence the enduring influence of nepotism in large companies such as News Corporation. Second, a variety of considerations - including dynastic ambitions, tax minimization and trust - encourage family members to cooperate in the management of inheritance through family business institutions, from family holding companies to family offices. These family business institutions possibly reflect the rise of ‘network forms of organization’ grounded in personal trust, at the expense of large companies.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2020
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 03-2015
DOI: 10.1111/ETAP.12040
Abstract: The family business succession planning literature routinely assumes two main motives on the part of incumbents: family business continuity across generations and family harmony. The cross–tabulation of these motives produces a typology consisting of four distinct combinations of motives for succession planning. In turn, these combinations suggest four outcomes of succession planning, framed as institutionalization, implosion, imposition, and in idualization. The first two outcomes—institutionalization and implosion—are fully elucidated in the literature. The other two—imposition and in idualization—are routinely overlooked. The proposed typology highlights the repertoire of motives that inform succession planning, and how they promote distinct succession outcomes.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 03-2013
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 04-1982
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 08-2004
Abstract: Earlier research on online communication has observed how its distinctive characteristics (such as limited cues and potential asynchronicity) facilitate online communication, notably ‘hyperpersonal communication’. Yet these distinctive characteristics do not explain the development of trust in online communication. This article uses qualitative interviews with 17 internet users to explore the foundations of trust in online friendships, drawing on Piotr Sztompka’s theoretical framework. It concludes that there are four main sources of online trust. First, reputation, whether grounded in a pseudonym or offline identity. Second, performance, due to the scope for enhanced performance in online communication. More than this, performance plays an especially important role in the building of online friendship, following Giddens’ model of the pure relationship (1991). Third, pre-commitment, through self-disclosure, which in turn encourages a ‘leap of faith’ and reciprocal self-disclosure. Finally, situational factors, especially the premium placed upon intimacy and the pure relationship in contemporary societies.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 02-01-2016
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 12-2013
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 08-1999
DOI: 10.1177/144078339903500203
Abstract: This paper examines the annual rich lists compiled by the magazine Business Review Weekly. Methodological considerations mean that the lists are tilted against old wealth spread around kinship networks, and towards new wealth assembled by in iduals on the cusp of a speculative wave. Even so, the lists provide the best available profile of large private fortunes ('superwealth') in Australia. More than this, the lists highlight the private wealth of entrepreneurs, a group largely overlooked by sociological research on the capitalist class. Further, they highlight private accumulation as a pathway to business leadership among ethnic groups otherwise excluded through social closure. In this context, ethnic and religious ersity among entrepreneurs have necessarily problematised the institutions, networks and collective self-identity that once informed the cohesiveness of the capitalist class in Australia.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 03-2004
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 09-2005
Abstract: This article reviews three recent books - one Australian, one European and one American - in order to reflect on the current state of play in economic sociology. Economic sociology is a fast-growing field of research in the US, and to a lesser extent in Europe, but it has barely registered in Australia. This is partly a reflection of the fact that economic sociology draws some of its inspiration from ‘new economy’ industries that are weak in Australia. It also reflects the influence of the Marxist tradition in Australia, focusing mainly on the state as a countervailing force to markets. The upshot is that the market is both a constant point of reference in sociological research, but also a ‘black box’ beyond social inquiry. The new economic sociology, in contrast, focuses upon the constitutive role of social institutions in relation to markets. It suggests promising new lines of inquiry in the Australian context.
No related grants have been discovered for Michael Gilding.