Michael Gilding

• PhD Macquarie
• Head of Faculty at Swinburne University of Technology

This study takes a network approach to investigate coordination among knowledge workers as grounded in both formal and informal organization. We first derive hypotheses regarding patterns of knowledge‐sharing relationships by which workers pass on and exchange tacit and codified knowledge within and across organizational hierarchies to address the...

A recent study assessed the investor performance of the Australian drug development biotech (DDB) sector over a 15-year period from 2003 to 2018. The current study builds on that research and extends the analysis to 2020, using a 10-year period starting 2010, to exclude the impact of the global financial crisis in 2008/09. Based on a value-weighted...

The family business literature barely addresses wives’ influence in family business succession. Where it does so, the result is often tokenistic, stereotypical, and imprecise. Drawing on 34 in-depth interviews, this article makes three contributions. First, it identifies wives’ critical influence in family business succession through socialization...

This article traces the trajectory of biotechnology firms, clusters and collaborations in Australia between 2003 and 2014. Combining descriptive analyses, network visualizations and statistical modelling of longitudinal data collected from multiple sources, we investigate Australian firms’ ability to overcome the three challenges characterizing bio...

A substantial literature demonstrates how social movements pioneer new economic spaces, engaging in activities that create the conditions for new markets. This article applies this insight to the creation of the organic food market in Australia. In doing so, it makes three contributions. First, it highlights the importance of judgement devices – no...

This article examines the mobilisation of small and mid-tier companies in the mining industry's campaign against the Resources Super Profits Tax (RSPT), drawing on interviews with 18 industry players. The government anticipated that small exploration and development companies would support the RSPT, on account of its promise to contribute towards t...

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...

There are five times as many DNA paternity tests per capita in the US than Australia. This is not a consequence of ‘technological lag’, but a combination of political, cultural and economic factors. First, government agencies in the US enforce relatively more tests, at least partly because of legislative differences in the presumption of paternity....

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...

Economic sociology investigates the detail of economic, inter-organizational and social networks in business and industry. It explores embedded patterns of activity and interaction across the economy and the impact on people and societies. Inter-organizational networks involve operational partnerships mixed with relations of finance, investment, an...

The failure of the Henry Tax Review to fuel public debate around inheritance taxes in Australia leads some commentators to suggest that inheritance taxes are taboo in Australia. This article uses Beckert's historical analysis of inheritance law in the United States, Germany and France to assess this claim from a comparative perspective. It argues t...

Australia leads the world in the mass adoption of HPV vaccines, a new frontier in mass vaccination programs. This article reports on participatory workshops with the first generation of young Australian women to participate in the HPV mass vaccination program. In particular, it addresses the themes of trust and confidence. A substantial literature...

The mobilisation of the mining industry in opposition to the proposed Resources Super Profits Tax (RSPT) was a landmark event in Australian business-government relations. In this paper, we examine news media framing of the RSPT issue through an analysis of the stories published by major Australian newspapers. We contend that news stories were heavi...

This article describes three case studies of the commercialisation of early-stage technologies involving Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO); extended-wear contact lenses, biostable biocompatible polymers for medical implant devices, and biodegradable biocompatible polymers for medical implant devices. The case stud...

The paper examines succession strategies among the super rich. It is based on interviews with fifty individuals drawn from the Business Review Weekly Rich Lists. The paper identifies five types of succession strategies, their strengths and weaknesses. First, some interviewees aspired to dynastic succession, perpetuating the family business across g...

This article provides unique empirical evidence of post mortem giving in Australia, through a random sample of probate records in Victoria in 2006. The records show that decedents overwhelmingly leave their estates to their immediate family; first spouses, and then children in equal measure. They also show that there is a significant discrepancy be...

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...

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...

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 evol...

Regional governments around the world hope to become significant players in the world biotechnology industry through their support for local clusters. This article explores whether or not this is a realistic ambition. It does so through network analysis of biotechnology firms located in Melbourne, Australia, the leading biotechnology cluster in the...

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-...

Immigration boosts Australia’s population growth. A growth lobby concentrated among interests based in housing, land development and construction profits from this and actively lobbies for it. During the early years of the Howard Government (1996 to 1999) the lobby faced the novel situation of a presumably pro-business government that reduced immig...

There has been a substantial shift of opinion among Australians in support of DNA paternity testing without the knowledge of the mother. The shift has been driven by the influence of the media, fanned by the fathers' rights movement.

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...

Based on interviews with 43 individuals fromBusiness Review Weekly's 'Rich 200' list of Australia's largestfortune-holders, this study sheds light on the roles of family relationships inwealth accumulation, succession, and inheritance. Despite the decline of familycontrol in the largest companies around the world, the role of the family incapitalis...

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 int...

The renewed attention to family business in western societies is usually attributed to a past lack of attention to the subject because of its private character and to the resurgence of family business in the context of economic restructuring. This paper argues that there is a third reason for the renewed attention to family business, namely, the ch...

In the 1970s and 1980s there was a surge of research concerning power and wealth in Australian society. One line of inquiry was framed in terms of ‘elites’, the other in terms of the ‘ruling class’. This article builds upon both lines of inquiry, exploring the new wave of entrepreneurs and their articulation with the structure of power and wealth....

This article examines how comfortable Australians are in relation to the rate of technological change; how comfortable they are about different technologies; and how much they trust different institutions, organisations and groups in relation to information about technological change. It finds that Australians are mostly comfortable about the rate...

This article reports on the findings of the Swinburne National Technology and Society Monitor in relation to public perceptions of DNA paternity testing, with particular reference to the effects of gender. The Monitor included a large-scale random survey and focus groups. Taken together, the survey and focus groups suggest that most Australians are...

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 individuals on the cusp of a speculative wave. Even so, the lists provide the best available profile of large p...

Since the 1950s a growing literature has addressed the extent of paternal discrepancy (PD) in human populations. This literature overwhelmingly rests its claims on medical testing – initially serological testing, and from the late 1980s DNA testing. The problem with this evidence is that it is based on samples where paternity confidence is sometime...

This paper addresses the emergence of a new market in genetic paternity testing in the Australian context, drawing on the work of the US economic sociologist Neil Fligstein. In particular, it addresses Fligstein's concept of 'conceptions of control', namely the claims made by entrepreneurs and managers so as to avoid price competition and stabilize...

This paper draws upon interviews with the CEOs of 14 Australian biotechnology companies to explore the relevance of the new economic sociology in understanding economic behaviour. In the course of interviews, CEOs regularly described 'cheap scientists' as a comparative advantage of the Australian industry, consistent with neo-liberal economic theor...

This paper arises from a replication of a major US study on the 'network logic' of biotechnology companies. Walter Powell, the leading sociological authority in this field, has argued that such companies are exemplars of new forms of economic and organizational behaviour. He has also observed that 'this new logic of organising' might well 'diffuse...