Social Institutions and Social Change Series

Large organizations, particularly corporations, possess considerable resources, and with that comes considerable power, often extending beyond a single community or nation-state. Networks among large corporations enhance that power to the point that they exert a major impact on national and multinational economies and policies, influencing decision-making to achieve their own goals.Networks of Power applies interorganizational analysis to the study of power in three main areas: national policy domains, community influence structures, and national corporate structures. The main body of the text is comprised of original research by the leading authorities in the field and covers such areas as national policy decisions in health and energy, corporate structure, innovative theoretical and methodological approaches, and a critical review of network analysis of interorganizational relations and power. Also presented is an agenda for future research.

Japanese Auto Transplants in the Heartland

by Robert Perrucci

Published June 1994

The idea for this book was formed during the early 1980s when the author was studying the impact of plant closings on displaced workers and communities. In one community, workers who were displaced by a plant closing expected to receive retraining funds through the Job Training and Partnership Act (JTPA), only to find that the state had committed all the JTPA funds to train new workers for a Japanese transplant. Soon it became apparent that deindustrialization, job loss, and economically depressed communities were linked with the escalating interstate competition to provide multi-million dollar incentive packages for businesses to settle in their state. When Japanese automobile companies considered coming to the United States, they fueled the interstate competition for these large projects, which promised thousands of jobs and economic growth.