Strange Things Happened In The Outer Solar System

Decked out in colorful clown-like bands and pockmarked by whirling crimson storms, our Solar System’s largest planet, Jupiter, is truly the planetary monarch of our Sun’s fabulous family. This magnificent banded-behemoth, like other monarchs, has a devoted retinue of followers accompanying its every move as it wends its way around our Sun. The Jovian Trojan Asteroids are a large group of rocky followers that share their planet’s orbit, and compose two distinct stable groups–one group that travels ahead of the planet in its orbit, while the other trails it from behind. In September 2018, planetary scientists at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in San Antonio, Texas, announced their new findings revealing the true nature of an unusual and delightful duo of Jupiter Trojans. Their new study points to an ancient planetary shake-up and consequent rearrangement of our Solar System when it was still quite young and forming.The Trojan Asteroids are named for heroes appearing in the classic Greek epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, both attributed to Homer. The duo of Trojan Asteroids studied by SwRI scientists carry the fabled names of Petroclus and Menoetius. The duo are also targets of NASA’a upcoming Lucy mission that aims to explore the rocky followers of our Solar System’s largest planet.Petroclus and Menoetius are both approximately 70 miles wide and orbit each other as they circle around their planet together, both bound slavishly to their wandering enormous world. They are the only large binary known to exist among the two heavy populations of Trojan Asteroids.”The Trojans were likely captured during a dramatic period of dynamic instability when a skirmish between the Solar System’s giant planets–Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune–occurred,” noted Dr. David Nesvorny in a September 10, 2018 SwRI Press Release. Dr. Nesvorny, who is of the SwRI, is lead author of the paper describing this new study under the title: Evidence for Very Early Migration of the Solar System Planets from the Patroclus-Menoetius Binary Jupiter Trojan, published in the journal Nature Astronomy.This ancient planetary rearrangement of our Solar System pushed the duo of ice-giants Uranus and Neptune outward, where they met up with a large primeval population of small bodies believed to be the ancestors of today’s Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs), that dance around our Star in our Solar System’s outer limits. The Kuiper Belt is the distant, frigid home of a frozen multitude of comet nuclei, dwarf planets, and tiny icy tidbits. In this distant region of perpetual twilight the Sun casts its weak fires from so far away that it hangs suspended in the sky as if it were just an especially large Star sailing through a dark celestial sea with myriad other stars. The dwarf planet Pluto is one of the largest known KBOs.”Many small bodies of this primordial Kuiper Belt were scattered inwards, and a few of those became trapped as Trojan Asteroids,” Dr. Nesvorny added. Jupiter and the beautiful “Lord of the Rings”, Saturn, are gas-giants. In contrast, their outer Solar System neighbors, Uranus and Neptune, are ice-giants. The pair of gas-giants are much larger than our Solar System’s duo of ice-giants, and they also sport much thicker gaseous envelopes. The smaller ice-giants are thought to have larger solid cores enshrouded by thinner gaseous atmospheres than those that cloak both Jupiter and Saturn. Also, the gas-giant pair may not even contain solid cores at all, but may be composed entirely of gases and liquids.The Jupiter Trojans are dark, and show featureless, reddish spectra. There is no strong evidence of the presence of water, or any other specific compound, on their surfaces based on their spectra. However, many planetary scientists propose that they are encased in tholins, which are organic polymers formed by our Sun’s radiation. The Jupiter Trojans display densities (based on studies of binaries or rotational light curves) that vary, and they are thought to have been gravitationally snared into their current orbits during the early stages of our Solar System’s evolution–or, perhaps, slightly later, during the period of the migration of the giant planets.All stars, our own Sun included, are born surrounded by a whirling, swirling disk of gas and dust, which is termed a protoplanetary accretion disk. These rings encircle baby stars, and they contain the important ingredients from which an entourage of planets, as well as smaller objects, ultimately emerge.Our Solar System, as well as other systems surrounding stars beyond our Sun, evolve when an extremely dense and relatively small blob–tucked within the undulating folds of a dark, frigid, giant molecular cloud–collapses gravitationally under its own relentless and merciless gravitational pull. Such enormous, beautiful, and billowing clouds inhabit our Milky Way Galaxy in large numbers, as if they were lovely floating phantoms swimming through the space between stars. These dark clouds serve as the strange birthplace of infant stars.Most of the collapsing blob collects at the center, and ultimately ignites as a result of nuclear-fusion reactions–and a star is born. What remains of the gas and dust of the erstwhile blob becomes the protoplanetary accretion disk from a solar system forms. In the earliest phases, such accretion disks are both extremely massive and very hot, and they can linger around their youthful star (protostar) for as long as ten million years.By the time a star like our Sun has reached the T Tauri stage of its toddler years, the extremely hot, massive surrounding disk has grown both thinner and cooler. A T Tauri star can be compared to a human tot. These stellar toddlers are variable stars, and are extremely active at the tender age of a mere 10 million years. T Tauris are born with large diameters that are several times greater than the diameter of our Sun today. However, T Tauris are in the act of shrinking. Unlike human tots, T Tauris shrink as they grow up. By the time a stellar toddler has reached this stage of its development, less volatile materials have started to condense close to the center of the swirling encircling disk, thus forming extremely sticky and smoke-like motes of dust. These “sticky” particles of dust contain crystalline silicates.The little grains of dust eventually collide in the crowded disk environment, and glue themselves to one another, thus creating ever larger and larger objects–from pebble-size, to mountain-size, to asteroid-and-comet-size, to moon-size, to planet-size. These growing objects become a stellar system’s primordial population of planetesimals, which are the building blocks of planets. What is left of a heavy population of planetesimals, following the era of planet-formation, can linger around their parent-stars for billions of years after a mature system–such as our own Solar System–has formed. In our own Solar System, comets and asteroids are remnants of the primordial planetesimals.The term “trojan” has come to be used more generally to refer to other small Solar System bodies that display similar relationships with larger bodies. For example, there are Martian trojans and Neptune trojans. In addition, the gas-giant planet Saturn has an entourage of trojan moons. Indeed, NASA has recently announced the discovery of an Earth trojan! The term Trojan Asteroid itself is commonly understood to specifically refer to the Jupiter Trojans because the first Trojans were discovered close to Jupiter’s orbit–and Jupiter also currently has by far the most known Trojans.History Of The HuntIn 1772, the Italian-French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange (1736-1813) predicted that a small body sharing an orbit with a planet by residing 60 degrees ahead or behind it will be gravitationally snared if it is close to certain points (Lagrange Points). Lagrange, who based his prediction on a three-body problem, demonstrated that the gravitationally trapped body will librate slowly around the point of equilibrium in what he described as a horseshoe or tadpole orbit. These leading and trailing Lagrange Points are called the L4 and L5 Lagrange Points. The first asteroids to be captured in Lagrange Points were discovered more than a century after Lagrange had announced his hypothesis. Those associated with Jupiter were the first to be observed.Relative to their enormous host planet, each Jovian Trojan librates around one of Jupiter’s two stable Lagrange Points: L4 that is located 60 degrees ahead of Jupiter in its orbit, and L5 which is situated 60 degrees behind.The American astronomer E.E. Barnard (1857-1923) conducted the first recorded observation of a trojan, (12126) 1999 RM11 (identified as A904 RD at the time of its discovery), in 1904. However, neither Barnard nor other astronomers understood its significance at the time. Indeed, Barnard mistakenly believed that he had detected the then-recently discovered Saturnian mini-moon Phoebe, which was a mere two arc-minutes away in the sky at this time. Barnard alternatively entertained the possibility that this tiny object was an asteroid. The strange object’s puzzling identity was finally understood when its true orbit was calculated in 1999.The first reliable detection of a trojan occurred in February 1906, when the German astronomer Max Wolf (1863-1932) of Heidelberg-Konigstuhl State Observatory discovered an asteroid lingering at the L4 Lagrangian point of the Sun-Jupiter system. The object eventually was named after the lengendary Trojan War hero 588 Achilles. During the period 1906-1907 another duo of Jupiter Trojans were discovered by another German astronomer August Kopff (1882-1960). The newly discovered pair were named after the Trojan War heroes 624 Hektor and 617 Patroclus. Hektor, like Achilles, belonged to the L4 population–traveling “ahead” of Jupiter in its orbit. In contrast, Patroclus became the first trojan known to dwell at the L5 Lagrangian Point situated “behind” its banded behemoth host planet.The number of known Jupiter Trojans had risen to only 14 by 1961. However, as the technology used by astronomers continued to improve, the rate of discovery began to skyrocket. By January 2000, a total of 257 Jupiter Trojans had been discovered, and by May 2003, the number had ballooned to 1,600! As of February 2014, 3,898 known trojans had been discovered near the L4 point, while 2,049 trojans had been detected at the L5 point.Estimates of the total number of Jupiter Trojans are based on deep surveys of limited regions of the sky. The L4 swarm is believed to consist of between 160-240,000 members, with diameters that are greater than 2 kilometers and approximately 600,000 with diameters greater than 1 kilometer. If the L5 swarm consists of a comparable number of objects, there are over 1 million Jupiter Trojans of 1 kilometer in size or larger. All of the objects that are brighter than absolute magnitude 9.0 are probably known. These numbers are remarkably similar to kindred asteroids dwelling in the Main Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter. The total mass of the Jupiter Trojans is calculated to be approximately 0.0001 the mass of our own planet. This is equivalent to one-fifth the mass of the denizens of the Main Asteroid Belt.More recently, two studies now suggest that the members of both swarms mentioned above may be greatly overestimated. Indeed, the two new studies suggest that the true number of Jupiter Trojans may really be seven times less. The overestimate could be the result of the assumpton that all Jupiter Trojans have a low albedo of only about 0.04, in contrast to small bodies that may have an average albedo as high as 0.12; a mistaken assumption concerning the distribution of Jupiter Trojans in the sky. According to these more recent estimates, the total number of Jupiter Trojans with a diameter greater than 2 kilometers is 6,300 plue or minus 1,000 and 3,400 plus or minus 500 in the L4 and L5 swarms, respectively. These numbers could be reduced by a factor of 2 if small Jupiter Trojans are more reflective than larger members of their kind.The largest Jupiter Trojan is 624 Hektor, which has an average diameter of 203 plus or minus 3.6 kilometers. There are few large Jupiter Trojans when compared to the general population. The smaller the size, the greater the number of Jupiter Trojans–there are many more smaller swarm members than larger ones, and the number of smaller trojans increases rapidly down to 84 kilometers. The increase in number of smaller trojans is much more extreme than in the Main Asteroid Belt.Some Strange Things Happened Long AgoA key issue with the new Solar System evolution model is determining exactly when the ancient shake-up occurred. In this new study, the SwRI team of planetary scientists demonstrate that the very existence of the Patroclus-Menoetius duo strongly suggests that the dynamic instability among the quartet of gaseous giant planets must have occurred within the first 100 million years of our then-young Solar System’s evolutionSome recent models showing small body formation indicate that these types of binaries are relics of that primeval era when pairs of small bodies could still form directly from the encircling cloud of “pebbles” during our Solar System’s youth.”Observations of today’s Kuiper Belt show that binaries like these were quite common in ancient times. Only a few of them now exist within the orbit of Neptune. The question is how to interpret the survivors,” study coauthor Dr. William Bottke explained in the September 10, 2018 SwRI Press Release. Dr. Bottke is director of SwRI’s Space Studies Department.If that primeval instability had been delayed by many hundreds of millions of years, as proposed in some Solar System formation models, collisions within the ancient small-body disk would have shaken up these relatively delicate and fragile binaries, thus leaving none to be snared in the Jupiter Trojan population. Earlier dynamical instabilities would have permitted more binaries to remain intact, thus increasing the probability that at least one would have been captured in the Trojan population. The team developed some new models that demonstrate that the existence of the Patroclus-Menoetius binary strongly suggests that there had been an earlier instability.This early dynamical instability model has important consequences for the inner rocky terrestrial planets, especially in regard to the ancient excavation of large impact craters on Earth’s Moon, Mercury, and Mars that apparently were formed by the crashing impacts of smaller objects about 4 billion years ago. Our Solar System is approximately 4.56 billion years old. The impactors that excavated these large craters are less likely to have been hurled out from the outer domain of our Solar System. This suggests that they were formed by small-body relics left over from the ancient era of terrestrial planet formation.This new study strengthens the importance of the population of Jupiter Trojan asteroids in shedding new light on the primeval history of our Solar System. Much more will likely be discovered about the Patroclus-Menoetius binary when NASA’s Lucy Mission, headed by SwRI planetary scientist and study coauthor Dr. Hal Levison, surveys the duo in 2033. This will culminate a 12-year mission conducted to tour both Jupiter Trojan asteroid swarms.NASA’s Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI) and the Emerging Worlds programs, as well as the Czech Science Foundation, funded this new study. Lucy is a Discovery class mission that will address important key science questions about our Solar System. It is scheduled to launch in May 2021.

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Globalizations Impact on Accounting Standards and Education

Globalization is defined as the act or process of globalizing : the state of being globalized; especially : the development of an increasingly integrated global economy marked especially by free trade, free flow of capital, and the tapping of cheaper foreign labor markets. Globalization has altered accounting standards by creating the need for a universal set of reporting standards. As a result of the urgent need for Globalized Accounting Standards, globalization has further created an impact on accounting education as well. The impacts of globalization in the accounting profession must be addressed in order for accountants to successfully compete in today’s globalized economy and to provide users of financial information with comparable data.Relevant and reliable financial information is a critical success factor in any functioning, developing or growing capital market. To aid in successful capital markets, effective accounting standards and procedures are set to ensure that relevant and reliable financial information is being provided. In the United States, these standards are referred to as generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). GAAP is defined as a common set of accounting standards and procedures, for which either an authoritative accounting rule-making body has established a principle of reporting in a given area, or over time, a given practice has been accepted as appropriate because of its universal application. International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are all the accounting rules accepted for international use, issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) (Kieso, Weygandt, & Warfield, 2012). The major difference between the two is that IFRS is very broad and subject to interpretation, while GAAP is very specific and complex. Users of IFRS often have an advantage over the users of GAAP, which does not provide users of financial information with comparable information needed for investment purposes.The accounting scandals of many US companies such as Enron and World Com brought focus to the convergence of GAAP and IFRS. In 2002 FASB and IASB signed the “Norwalk Agreement” with the aim of convergence of GAAP and IFRS into high quality Global Accounting Standards. In February 2006, the two boards reaffirmed this shared objective. On November 15, 2007, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) no longer required foreign firms to reconcile their statements from IFRS to GAAP when filing on US stock exchanges (Fosbre, Kraft, & Fosbre, 2009).It goes without saying that the globalization’s impact on accounting standards has in turn impacted accounting education as well. The move toward IFRS has affected the knowledge that accountants must possess to compete in today’s globalized marketplace. For Example, Accountants in the U.S. must understand the differences between IFRS and GAAP reporting standards and be capable of conveying these differences to clients making investment decisions. The SEC’s decision to allow the usage of both IFRS and GAAP on U.S. stock exchanges is another example of why it is essential for accounting education to include both IFRS and GAAP into the curriculum. Additionally, Bruce Pounder has made a valid point in regards to the impact on accounting education as follows; “as international accounting standards have begun to overshadow U.S. standards in significance, most U.S. accountants will find that their knowledge, skills, and abilities are obsolescing faster than ever before” (Pounder, 2006). With this in mind it could be assumed that U.S. accountants have no choice but to adapt to both GAAP and IFRS to prepare themselves for the shift toward IFRS.ReferenceFosbre, A., Kraft, E., & Fosbre, P. (2009). The Globalization of Accounting Standards: IFRS vs. US GAAP. Global Journal of Business Research, Vol. 3, No. 1, 61-71.Kieso, D., Weygandt, J., & Warfield, T. (2012). Intermediate Accounting. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.Pounder, B. (2006). How Globalization is Affecting U.S. Accountants. Accounting Web.

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Getting High Risk Personal Loans With Bad Credit: 3 Online Loan Options to Consider

Having a poor credit history hardly works in favor of applicants who are hoping to secure a loan. The good news, however, is that no matter how bad that history is, there are attainable loan deals out there. Sometimes the best option available is a high risk personal loan, with bad credit forcing leaps of faith on both sides.Low monthly repayment sums are the ideal arrangement for borrowers, but when bad credit is a feature in the loan agreement, then interest rates are going to be higher and pressure to meet repayments greater. Being offered such factors is par for the course, and securing online loans usually depends on it.But while the pressure is high for borrowers, and the risk equally high for lenders, there are still personal loan options that are affordable. But what are the pros and cons of these various loans? We look at 3 such deals to find the answer.1. Cash Advance (Payday) LoansThis option is probably the most common, mainly because it has the highest degree of approval. In fact, approval confidence is extremely high despite the fact the applicant is seeking a high risk personal loan with bad credit. But they are also the most expensive option.Granted against an upcoming paycheck, this loan basically cashes that check in advance. As a result, the loan limit is very low (maximum $1,500). Securing online loan approval can take just a few minutes, and funds can be deposited into a bank account in as little as 2 hours. So, this is an ideal solution for financial emergencies.The price of getting a high certainty of approval is a very high interest rate, with some lenders charging 30%. And with repayment terms as short as 14 days, the pressure to repay this personal loan can be very acute. In fact, a $1,500 loan could require a single repayment of $1,950 to clear it.2. Person 2 Person (P2P) LoansIn complete contrast, this is one of the least common options, but one that is growing in popularity. The problem with getting high risk personal loans with bad credit, is convincing the lender. But a P2P loan makes that easier, while also negating the influence of bad credit scores over interest rates.A P2P lending website connects individuals rather than applicants to lending institutions, and the required sum is shared by these people, thus lowering the risk for them. These individuals view the loan as an investment as they earn a small profit through interest. In terms of securing online loans, this is a plausible option.The loans work thus. An applicant needs a personal loan of $3,000, and calculates a monthly repayment budget of $150. Three individuals invest $1,000 each, to be repaid over 3 years. With repayments of $150, each make a profit of $800.3. Cosigner LoansOf course, when it comes to larger loans, there can be a problem with both of the first two options. To get a large high risk personal loan with bad credit, of $10,000 to $25,000, a cosigner is needed. Because a cosigner guarantees the monthly repayments, the risk is effectively removed. So, a lender can lower the interest rate charged.Often, securing online loans comes down to issues like income and affordability, but a qualifying cosigner makes almost every loan deal affordable. But to qualify, they must have an excellent credit history and have enough income to be able to make the monthly repayments on the personal loan, if necessary.

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Bad Credit Financing – A Brief Guide

The term ‘financing’ might sound a bit fancy, but it’s just another way of saying ‘loan’ (albeit a loan with a specific purpose). Basically, a loan taken out solely for purchasing one thing with no money left over afterward is known as financing – for instance, borrowing money to pay for a car is ‘car financing.’ In most cases, financing loans can be arranged through the people providing the service you’re paying for, although they merely act as brokers for specific lenders rather than lenders themselves; so using the same analogy, car dealers can generally offer finance to people buying cars from them, as do many home improvement firms.Of course, since financing is exactly the same as a loan, that means the same rules apply when you try to get it: you’ll be subject to a credit check, asked to fill in paperwork and generally means tested to ensure you can afford to pay the money back. That’s not so good if you’ve got bad credit, County Court Judgements (CCJs) or any other form of financial difficulties, since those will count against you in your application. That isn’t to say you won’t be approved in some cases, because the lending options available may be flexible enough to offer higher rates of interest to compensate for your bad credit situation. However, you’re far more likely to be turned down using the limited finance options provided by the people you’re buying from (be it a car dealer, home improvement company or whoever), so it’s best to instead source your financing from another lender once you know what you’d like to buy.Thankfully, there are many lenders who specialise in financing for people with bad credit – some offer very specific loans for cars, while others will simply provide a Bad Credit Loan for the exact amount required. Not surprisingly though, these loans will usually have a significantly higher rate of interest so it’s unwise to just go with the first firm that’s willing to accept you. As with all Bad Credit Loans, shopping around is the key to finding the best rate – you can do this yourself or turn to a loan broker, who can do all the work in the fraction of the time it would take you. So long as you specify that you want the loan for financing purposes and can show what you’re looking to buy, finding the best rate for you shouldn’t take very long at all.In SummaryBad Credit Financing…
Can be hard to get if you try to get them from service providers like car dealerships
Is best sourced from an external lender before you try to buy whatever you’re after
Will generally have a higher interest rate than normal financing loans
Isn’t impossible to get if you employ the services of a good loan brokerCopyright: Individual Finance, 2010

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Characteristics of the Network Organization

A number of management researchers have turned to examining organizations as networks of dynamic relationships. This view offers a mechanism to enable managers to analyze the processes of interaction unfolding in their organizations and to think about the real complexity of organizational life. The dynamic perspective may also provide easier solutions to problems. It is sometimes easier for managers to change one or a few network patterns in the interest of increased efficiency or improved attitudes than to shift entire departments around, as one would have to do in manipulating organizational charts.Analysis of the static structural elements tends to focus on the organization as a whole, to take a long-range view. A good deal more is added in network research. One can look more closely at individuals or subunits making up various networks and translate organizational issues of centralization into individual issues of centrality. One can specify in terms of interactions the various roles people play in networks. And one can move relatively easily from thinking about organizations as totalities to thinking about various individuals in those organizations.A network is a set of linkages among a defined set of people in which the character of the linkages is specified. Thus, a network may be built around job requirements or how best to get things done. It may be structured by social interactions or how people interact informally. Network observations began in laboratory research studies in the 1950s but were not done in real organizations. Groups of three, four, or five persons were studied to discover how variously imposed structures influenced problem solving and member attitudes. Structure was varied by imposing rules about who could talk to whom. The findings from these studies were consistent: for simple problems, centralized networks, in which information about the problem is sent to just one person, produced solutions faster with fewer errors than did decentralized networks, in which information was sent to everyone.However, when problems were complex,decentralized networks were superior. Unfortunately, findings from laboratory investigations such as these do not always generalize to people at work.For many years the results of these small-group network studies were presented in management textbooks as the gospel about how to engage in efficient problem solving. The research exhausted itself, however, and a number of years passed before interest was renewed in organizations as net works of relationships. One reason for the stagnated research was that larger organizational networks could not be studied. Yet these reflected the complex interrelationships found in reality. Complex networks were ignored until the 1970s because reducing data from them to understandable forms required high-speed computers that were not readily accessible. Today a number of computer programs are available for describing networks.One kind of network of interest to managers is the grapevine. Grapevines are naturally occurring net works that are familiar to all members of organizations. Efficient and fast, grapevines are an avenue for managers both to obtain information about what’s going on in their organizations and to send out important information. Political leaders understand the value of pretesting their constituents’ acceptance of new programs and plans by leaking them to large-scale networks. Grapevines offer informal ways for managers to move information for any of a variety of purposes.Various networks coexist in organizations and are used for purposes other than moving information. The three types, aside from the grapevine, are task networks, authority networks, and social networks. All the types overlap and serve different organizational functions. One set of high- technology military organizations over a six-month period found that task networks developed more quickly and became stable sooner than other kinds of networks. These were closely followed by the development of social networks. Authority networks were much slower to develop and never reached the level of maturity of the other two kinds. These findings are somewhat surprising, particularly for military organizations. They suggest that managers should pay close attention, in particular, to the development of task networks, implementing change where these networks appear to be dysfunctional to the goals of the organization.A number of network properties have been identified. Although it is not difficult to infer some of the consequences of these properties for organizations, little research relating them to organizational performance has been done. These network properties follow:- Connectedness, or the extent to which people in networks are interconnected
- Centrality, or the degree to which network relations follow the formal organizational hierarchy
- Reciprocity, or the degree to which there is two-way communication
- Vertical differentiation, or the degree to which different organizational levels are represented in the network
- Horizontal differentiation, or the degree to which different job areas are represented in the networkWithin a network are clusters that are more richly interconnected than the rest of the network. Coalitions and cliques are two types of clusters. Coalitions are temporary alliances among people for some distinct purpose, such as control over an activity. Coalitions often form in times of unusual or non-routine demand, perhaps when firms develop new products or when the environment appears threatening. A joint venture is a coalition, as is the formation of a cartel such as OPEC. Cliques are permanent clusters, often involving friendships, in which all members are directly linked and may or may not exchange information about things other than friendship. Coalitions and cliques can both be used to maximize the power of some group in an organization.While managers should be sensitive to the development of coalitions and cliques in their organizations, helping them to develop or to deteriorate depending on the circumstances, they also need to be aware of how networks within organizations are tied to the outside. This issue has surfaced in the sociological literature under the rubric of the strength of weak ties.The strength of a tie between two individuals within a network or in two different networks is defined by the amount of time, emotional intensity, intimacy, and reciprocal services that characterize the tie. The stronger the tie between any two individuals, the larger the proportion of people in a group to whom they will both be tied by either a strong or a weak tie. Strong ties produce dense networks, weak ties less dense networks. Strong ties are likely to create closed systems, impenetrable to outside information. Strongly tied groups cannot obtain or disseminate information, co-opt their environments, or develop coalitions with outsiders.If organizations are to reach their goals, they must be permeable and sensitive to outside conditions, however. Thus, some persons in any given cluster need to have weak ties with persons in other clusters. These weak ties afford opportunities for the flow of information, ideas, innovations, and resources across groups, making them enormously important for diffusion in and across organizations. The importance of weak ties might suggest to a manager that he needs to develop them where they are nonexistent and that removing them by transferring or firing people or by changing their jobs may actually harm the organization. Alternatively, strong internal ties have been related to low internal conflict.Thus far, the strength of weak ties has been investigated only in friendship networks, but the results offer insight to managers. One example of the function of weak ties is demonstrated in finding a job. It has long been known that American blue-collar workers find new jobs more frequently through personal contact than through any other method. This appears to be true, too, for professional, technical, and managerial positions. One investigation asked a sample of such workers where they obtained information that helped them get new jobs. The researchers concluded that the vast majority of people who found new jobs through personal contacts used weak ties (they had been in touch with those contacts occasionally or rarely). Because those with whom we have weak ties move in different circles, they have different information than we do, making them valuable job contacts.Source: http://en.articlesgratuits.com/characteristics-of-the-network-organization-id1486.php

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