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This paper aimed to analyze the ways in which Niklas Luhmann's theory of the functional differentiation of society can be applied to historical studies. To achieve this, a semantic analysis of the development of modern insurance in Germany during the nineteenth century was conducted.

Through an examination of the significant features of Luhmann's theoretical frameworks in empirical objects, Luhmann's semantic analysis was reformulated as an approach based on a middle-range theory, similar to that of Robert K. Merton, where the potential of the theory can be maximized for empirical research. This paper embodies this proposal, citing several developments within organizations that imbued insurance technology with various ideas and values.

The theory of the functional differentiation of society can be reconstructed as a working hypothesis from a methodological perspective, instead of a general theory that explains every part of society. Applying this to empirical social practices leads to progress in historical studies conducting the semantic variations connected to the institutional formation and their boundary works.

This paper provides a practical research perspective for historical studies in the social sciences, employing a reinterpretation of sociological theory that may be understood only as a structural presupposition of modern society. Furthermore, the increased possibility of historical-comparative studies on modern insurance is indicated by illustrating the applicability of this framework to a detailed case study of modern insurance.

Are entrepreneurial opportunities discovered or created? The debate around this question has crucial implications for successful organizational change management in the business world. The present conceptual paper transcends this debate by embedding the concept of the entrepreneurial opportunities within a Luhmannian systems – theoretical framework which accentuates the unique role of organization and change in the age of functional differentiation. The purpose of this paper is to show how the strategic navigation of the borders between function systems such as politics, science, education, religion, art, or, of course, economy leads to the discovery or creation new opportunities for both business and social entrepreneurship.

The paper combines Niklas Luhmann’s theory of social differentiation with Kim and Mauborgne’s Blue Ocean Strategy. The key argument is that the alternative regimes of social differentiation, such as segmentation, centralization, stratification, and functional differentiation, create distinct pools of entrepreneurial opportunities to be discovered, created, and exploited by adequate business models. (Business) Organizations, therefore, need to strategically adjust the amount of attention they devote to the different forms of social differentiation. The argument is buttressed with illustrative examples of business models related to the regime of functional differentiation.

A paradoxical finding is that the multifunctional business models which explicitly draw on the value creation potential of the most recent form of social differentiation, functional differentiation, remain little known even though they infuse business organizations with a unique capacity of new venture discovery and creation in the modern society.

Multifunctional business models have so far remained unexplored in entrepreneurship theory and practice. This paper develops a first strategic approach to the discovery or creation of both multifunctional business models and a broader framework of multifunctional organization models.

The purpose of this study is to explore the interaction between information communication technology (ICT) and the school's organizational structure, and propose an analytical model based both on Luhmann's system theory and empirical findings.

The approach of building a theory from a case study research along with an instrumental multi‐case study method were applied to analyzing nine Israeli schools that successfully implemented ICT‐based pedagogical innovation.

The findings suggest that ICT generates three kinds of differentiation within the school's structure: segmentation, stratification and functional differentiation. The type of differentiation correlates with the school's communication and set of contingencies which includes ICT usage types, leadership style, time and space arrangement, source of expertise, and the champions – those who bear the burden. All the differentiation types were found to increase internal complexity and enhance school adaptability, and in a recursive process, affect school communication and its sensitivity toward further ICT integration.

The fact that the chosen schools demonstrated extreme cases of successful ICT integration might limit the generalizability of the findings, but nonetheless it offers a significant contribution to the development of a substantive ICT and school structure theory.

Supporting ICT integration called for intervention at the school's top management level; supporting an initial ICT‐based project enhances the school's control over the implementation process, and provides schools with additional resources.

This study bears a substantive theory regarding ICT and school structure, and fosters new insights and propositions for further research.

According to community policing advocates, police agencies should implement a variety of important organizational changes. These changes are supposed to occur in a number of different substantive domains, including the culture, behavior, and structure of police organizations. This paper examines the evidence for change in just one of these domains: formal organizational structure. Based on concepts derived from organization theory, and using data from six different data sets, the paper explores whether the structures of US police organizations changed during the 1990s. Overall, it finds mixed evidence. Some changes have occurred in the direction encouraged by community policing reformers, some changes have occurred in the opposite direction, and some changes have not occurred at all.

Aside from a few groundbreaking studies, there has been little empirical exploration into the structure of American police organizations. Traditional organizational inquiries have suggested that structural characteristics can be differentiated between those that represent complexity or differentiation within the organization and those that represent control mechanisms to coordinate and manage the complexity. This research investigates whether these various structural elements are indicative of two latent constructs by developing and testing measurement models representing structural complexity and control. Organizational scholars have also argued that structural complexity increases the demand for structural control. Maguire investigated this issue in the context of police organizations and found little support for the hypothesis. The paper reexamines this relationship by extending and replicating Maguire’s analysis to ascertain if a different specification and sample sustain his conclusion. Utilizing data from the 1997 Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics survey and a survey conducted by Edward Maguire, the paper explores these issues using a sample of 401 large, municipal police organizations in the USA. The results indicate that structural control is unidimensional, while structural complexity is not. This study also provides modest evidence supporting an association between structural complexity and control.

Descriptive analyses of campus police agencies reveal that agencies’ tactical and operational features are similar to those found in municipal agencies. The problem is that none of these studies have examined, using multivariate models, the structural characteristics of these organizations. Using LEMAS data collected in 1995, this study answered two main questions: what are the organizational characteristics of campus police agencies; and what factors, both internal and external, explain variation in the structural dimensions of the agencies. The results indicated that campus police agencies possess the same structural characteristics of municipal police agencies identified by 40 years of police organizational research, and internal agency characteristics were most important in explaining variation in the organizations’ structural dimensions. The degree to which campus agencies have adopted organizational structures that are similar to those of municipal police is discussed and framed within an institutional perspective.

This paper aims to understand the process of initiating ingredient/component (IC) branding from the supplier's perspective. It proposes modeling entrepreneurial orientation (EO) as an antecedent factor and differentiation abilities (functional and reputational) as mediators. Investigating IC branding from the supplier's perspective is critical given the cost and risk associated with implementing such a strategy.

A total of 5,254 manufacturing companies were screened to identify IC supplier firms that meet certain criteria. Survey data were collected from 77 top managers (Chief Executive Officers or Chief Marketing Officers) of IC supplier firms. The paper uses partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and SPSS in analyzing data.

The results indicate that IC branding is a complex strategy – one involving a number of steps that need to be taken in a specific order. More specifically, results indicate that IC branding starts with EO exerting a positive influence on IC functional differentiation ability (FDA). FDA facilitates reputational differentiation ability (RDA), which in turn encourages the supplier to initiate IC branding.

This paper addresses an important gap by studying the process through, which suppliers initiate IC branding.

For the past 35 years, Wilson’s theory of local political culture has influenced many students of policing and has greatly contributed to the erudition of American police practices. Wilson, based on empirical study, found that variation in the structural arrangements of police organizations could be explained by examining the local political culture of the municipalities in which they are located. Police departments in cities with a professional form of government, for example, focused more on law enforcement activities and had a more bureaucratic structure than agencies residing in cities with a traditional form of government which focused more on order maintenance activities and, correspondingly, had a less bureaucratic structure. The purpose of this paper is to test the utility of Wilson’s theory in today’s police organizations. Data collected from a sample of large, municipal police departments were included in the analysis. The findings suggest that the relationship between local political culture and police organizational structure that Wilson identified many years ago has indeed attenuated. The sample of large municipal police agencies, finds no relationship between local political culture, as measured by Wilson, and four dimensions of organizational structure: formalization, vertical differentiation, functional differentiation, and centralization.

The current research explores the structural elaboration of municipal American police organizations, specifically, the structural complexity of police organizations and its relationship to time. The purpose of this paper is to describe and test essential elements of the structural elaboration hypothesis.

The authors explore the structural elaboration hypothesis utilizing a sample of 219 large police departments across the USA. Data are drawn from multiple waves of the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics survey and are analyzed using tobit and OLS regression techniques.

While there is some evidence that police departments are becoming more elaborate, little evidence for the structural elaboration hypothesis as a function of time is found.

This project is the first to specifically explore the structural elaboration hypothesis across multiple time points. Additionally, results highlight structural trends across a panel of large American police organizations and provide potential explanations for changes. Suggestions for large-scale policing data collection are also provided.