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This thesis aims to understand how older people cope with pensions through their social support networks. More specifically, their social support networks change through their lives until retirement, ultimately influencing their experiences during retirement. A case study in Santiago, Chile, is used as it is one of the first neoliberal pension systems in the world and one of the unequal countries in terms of economic distribution. The methodological aspect of the thesis is a mixed-method approach. I studied a group of 30 older people living in Santiago, divided equally by socioeconomic levels (high-, middle- and low-class districts) and gender (older women and men). They were asked for their history and social support networks during the important events of their lives. They chose the events and the construction of their social support network at those times. The data used for the networks was retrospective and from the ego's point of view. In addition, six dimensions (material aid, intimate support, advice, physical assistance, feedback and positive interactions) of the social support networks were considered, and negative interaction, which is more anti- support, was also evaluated. The main findings suggest the relevance of researching the association between older people's lives and their social support networks from a relational and longitudinal point of view. The results are divided into three chapters: First, there is information about older people's social support networks once they retire, divided by the dimensions measured. Second, three types of trajectories (opportunities, constraints and mobilization) shaping the retirement experience associated with social support networks over time are discussed. Third, conditions are identified that make an older person feel satisfied (or not) with their retirement is considered by applying the relational variables from the social network analysis. My research suggests that the social support networks of older people act as available resources or nets to cope with difficulties. They are the daily relationships constructed and embedded through their life histories that help, protect and sustain them and keep society going at the micro-level. However, they also cause strain and constraints for older people. That was clear considering the three types of trajectories and how they were associated with having or using social support networks over time. As I shall argue, people have their support networks because of their experiences rather than survival strategies.

The thesis investigates the usage of multigraphs to understand citation patterns among researchers in the Chilean astronomical and astrophysics community. The usage of multigraphs to study scientific networks in local contexts has been acknowledged in early developments from the sociological study of science and knowledge but has been scarcely addressed in current empirical research. This research will show that multiple networks can contribute to investigating why scientific networks evolve, considering stable processes that mix social, cognitive, and situational dimensions. In this research, processes of group formation using multigraphs are considered to enlighten the patterns of citations among researchers. The co-evolution of different networks is analysed, incorporating different levels (three-modes) and types of relationships that are jointly investigated. First, to understand how a group of academics generate interpersonal intercitations after the arrival of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. And, secondly, to inquire how the local scientific community prepares for the arrival of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. For the analysis, it is used quadratic assignment procedures and stochastic actor-oriented models. This research offered methodological advances to understand multilevel networks exploring new goodness of fit, often used in statistical network models, for multiplex and three-mode multilevel networks. And suggest as an analytical strategy the analysis of samples of multilevel networks to investigate broader communities. The research shows that the usage of citation-based measures is difficult to understand and that the consideration of different interpersonal relationships and the context allowed recovering the social dimension of the intercitation. The social relationships grounded on scientific collaboration and space proximity based on institutional affiliation are more accurately suited to understand the co-evolution of the networks and the intercitation among astronomers than cognitive-based networks when measured as the tendency to publish in similar journals. And, in the broader community, there is a tendency upon intercitation among researchers affiliated in the same external research centres creating closure in scientific niches (i.e., research centres) as a community's tendency towards diversity and multi-connectivity.

Insider dealing is a form of financial market misconduct that arises when individuals abuse their privileged access to confidential and price-sensitive information to deal in financial instruments in financial markets and/or to tip information to other individuals. Previous criminological research on insider dealing has mostly highlighted the individual and occupational aspects and some organisational elements that influence insider dealing activities. However, there is a knowledge gap related to the organisation of insider dealing in financial markets, specifically its structure of activities, legitimate opportunity structures and co-offending relationships. Inspired by the theoretical foundations of environmental criminology and crime opportunity theories and the organisation of crime perspective, this thesis addresses this gap in research by using crime script analysis and multi-mode multi-link multi-time network analysis based on 43 known cases in the UK between 2000 and 2020. The data used in this thesis is recorded from official records, news media reports, semi-structured interviews conducted with lawyers and compliance officers in the UK, and policy and legal documents. The key findings revealed through the crime script analysis are summarised as: (1) the access to insider information can be gained legitimately through occupational roles in certain organisations or illegitimately through unsupervised circumstances; (2) offenders rely on pre-existing dealing accounts and finances to carry out insider dealing, but additional accounts and finances also are acquired to leverage greater returns, and previous investment habits influence the financial products used for insider dealing; (3) tipping often occurs through pre-existing relationships between co-offenders and it involves abnormally frequent and efficient communications between co-offenders to coordinate illegal dealings; (4) concealment is achieved through the legitimate appearance of offenders, natural disguises of the legitimate and routine social and business settings, encrypted and anonymous communication channels, layers of offshore shell companies, third-party bank accounts, deception and collusion; and (5) insider dealing is generated and facilitated by the structure of legitimate financial markets. The key findings revealed through the network analysis include: (6) co-offenders cooperate to support the division of labour, flexibility and resilience to carry out the insider dealing scripts; (7) key actors in insider dealing networks can be identified not only based on their central position in the social network, but also their exclusive access to resources and activities needed for insider dealing to occur, and there are also emergent leaders who coordinate day-to-day operations in the scripts; (8) aside from pre-existing social relations, offenders establish instrumental relations to execute some scenes of the insider dealing scripts; (9) social networks may grow over time to strengthen the division of labour, flexibility and resilience to carry out the scripts; and (10) insider dealing involves a structure of relations not only among co-offenders but also shared resources, activities and locations, and this structure corresponds to the procedural requirements shown in the insider dealing scripts. The main substantive conceptual and theoretical contributions of this thesis to previous criminological research are: (1) understanding insider dealing as a dynamic structure of activities: insider dealing necessitates a specific sequence of scenes, but the execution of scenes varies depending on the specific procedural requirements of each case, and there are differences between core and contingent activities; (2) understanding insider dealing as a market-based crime: while previous research has mostly depicted insider dealer as a behaviour of financial professionals, or white-collar criminals, this research shows how insider dealing can be committed by offenders who do not work in the financial sector, and insider dealing originates in and is facilitated by the legitimate architecture of financial markets; (3) understanding the importance of social relations among co-offenders in the execution of insider dealing scripts: co-offenders cooperate by bringing in the resources needed in the various tasks they are assigned, thus enhancing the efficiency and security necessary to commit insider dealing; (4) recommending specific actions for public and private sector organisations to disrupt the organisation of insider dealing: the findings of the script and network analysis highlight critical points where situational crime prevention measures can be developed to alter the settings that facilitate insider dealing. While results presented here are highly distinctive and original, they are not free of limitations, and future work using alternative data sources and theoretical approaches is needed.

As Russel King wrote 'return is the great unwritten chapter of migration' (2000). Accordingly, very little is known about how returning migrants experience their return, especially in the context of a post-socialist Central European country. The thesis thus presents an inquiry into the lived experiences of high-skilled Hungarian returning migrants. As theoretical engagement with return has rather been fragmented and often marginal to migration theory, the thesis presents a novel Integrated Theoretical Framework, which draws on the insights of four key research areas: integration, re-integration, social networks and cultural identity. By combining the insights of the matrix of attachments, multi-dimensional re-embedding, social capital and support, and the Cultural Identity Model into a single framework, the thesis does not only address their individual shortcomings but enables a comprehensive analytical approach to understanding returnees' experiences as a multi-faceted process within the broader migration cycle. To do so, it takes a mixed-methods personal network approach, where it utilises personal network data and in-depth qualitative information from thirty-four returnees. As part of the data analysis, it combines Thematic Analysis, fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis, and descriptive social network measures as well as multi-level modelling techniques. It finds that migrants' experiences vary greatly from highly positive experiences to ambivalent or even hugely negative experiences. The thesis demonstrates that these experiences can be conceived as returnees re-embedding process on five dimensions, including their living standards, social, cultural, professional and political re-embedding, and that their social re-embedding plays a particularly important role. Moreover, returnees' experiences are directly and positively linked to their social capital, which can be understood as the function of their positive and negative social ties, where negative ties have a disproportionately strong negative effect. As the multi-level social network analysis reveals, networks with several emotionally close ties to Hungarians who also reside in the country provide the most social support to returnees. Additionally, based on their network compositions, returnees demonstrate five distinctive network trajectories throughout their migration cycle: transnationalism, ethnic maintenance, ethnification, host country attachment, and dispersion. These trajectories are underlined by different integration patterns and cultural identity changes, leading to markedly different re-embedding processes, social capital and consequently return experiences.

Over the past two decades, translation workplaces have been substantially transformed by technological developments (Drugan 2013; Risku et al. 2013), and by the emergence of production networks in which a language service provider (LSP) acts as an intermediary between translator and client (Abdallah and Koskinen 2007; Abdallah 2012). However, there is little research into how technologies are integrated in the various translation workplaces found in production networks. My research aims at enhancing our understanding of translation project management and translation quality in production networks by conceptualising project management as a practice (Shove et al. 2012). For this empirical study, a data set was collected based on 60 hours of workplace observations within a UK-based LSP and 10 semi-structured interviews with four project managers (PMs) and one vendor manager (VM). Drawing on concepts from practice theory, the study analyses routinised enactments of the practice by PMs, their integration of information technologies into such enactments, their understanding of translation quality, and their strategies to achieve quality in the translation production process. I propose that the practice of translation project management is deeply embedded into a larger complex of interdependent translation production practices. A practice-theoretical framework emphasises the socio-material and collective nature of the practice. My study demonstrates that project management is a joint effort between PMs and other actors in translation production. Based on an analysis of how PMs use CAT tools and an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system when they are managing translation projects, I argue that technologies are inextricably linked with enactments of production practices, and that they form part of the social structures surrounding the practice. The application of practice theory affords a new understanding of skills, or competence, in which the engagement in professional activities is vital, and in which building competence is an ongoing process. Finally, I suggest that buyers of translation products, i.e. clients, substantially contribute to translation quality, as PMs carry out project management based on the notion of translation as a service.

A democratic workplace is one where workers as a body have the right to determine the internal organization and future direction of the firm. Worker co-operatives are a type of democratic firm. In a worker co-operative employees are joint-owners of the firm and participate democratically in workplace governance. Much has been written about the supposed benefits of worker co-operatives for workers and for society. One thread of this research, originating with Carole Pateman’s theoretical work (Pateman 1970), argues that worker co-operatives act as sites of political learning for workers. By participating democratically in workplace decisions, individuals are thought to learn the skills and psychological dispositions needed to participate in political democracy. A second thread argues that co-operatives will improve worker well-being. Democratic governance will give workers control over work organization, increasing autonomy in their daily lives, and leading to an increase in non-material work rewards such as job satisfaction. Worker ownership will equalize the material rewards from work and improve job security. These arguments are premised on the idea that democratic governance structures and worker ownership will lead to widespread, effective worker participation in decision-making and the equalization of power at work. However, insufficient attention is given to the contextual factors beyond formal governance and ownership structures that shape the internal dynamics of workplace democracy. I conduct an in-depth, mixed-methods case study of a worker co-operative with 158 employees in the UK cycling retail industry. Using survey research, social network analysis, in-depth interviews and direct observation, I show how individual differences, firm-level contextual factors such as the social composition of the organization, and macro-level factors such as economic and cultural context, lead to unequal participation opportunities and different outcomes for different groups of workers within the firm. My research leads to three conclusions. First, the outcomes of workplace democracy for workers are highly context-dependent. They will differ across groups of workers within co-operatives, across different democratic firms, and across cultures. Second, the relationship between workplace democracy and political participation is more complex than the Pateman thesis suggests. It is contingent on the political identities of workers, which are themselves shaped by wider political economic context. Political identity affects both participation behaviour at work, and how workplace experience shapes political views. Third, the subjective well-being outcomes of workplace democracy depend on workers’ expectations about work. Expectations are shaped by the same forces that mould political identity. Workplace democracy raises expectations for certain groups of workers, leading to well-being harms when expectations are not met. Overall, the benefits of workplace democracy for workers and for society are overstated. In the UK context, co-ops are unlikely to realize the benefits attributed to them without large-scale public policy interventions.

This study explores the mechanisms underpinning policy efforts to build community in deprived urban neighbourhoods using a mixed-method comparative case study. Two neighbourhoods within the New East Manchester (NEM) urban regeneration area are examined, one of which hosted a New Deal for Communities (NDC) regeneration partnership from 1999-2010. In 2009 the NDC successor body established a community forum in each neighbourhood in an attempt to sustain and extend NDC’s participatory practices. The study compares the community infrastructure embodied by the residents’ groups eligible to participate in the forum in each neighbourhood. Social networks data, standard survey metrics and ethnographic material on 61 groups were collected. These elucidate the structure of groups’ relations, their collective action capacity and the extent to which NDC, and its successor, NEM, were implicated in the formation and development of these relations. NDC was the most prominent expression of the New Labour’s social capital-orientated “turn to community” (Duffy and Hutchinson, 1997). However, the final national evaluation of the scheme raised doubts about its impact, finding little effect on community relations at the neighbourhood level (CLG, 2010c). This gap between policy ambition and outcome is probed in this study using new tools and employing concepts from the social movements’ literature, rather than the social capital framework underpinning most existing research on NDC. It focusses specifically on social relations as a metric of community infrastructure, but resists the network analytic tendency to infer community from the mere presence of relations (Blokland, 2003). Instead it seeks evidence of the capacity for pairwise ties to be translated into communal mobilization through the interplay of relational, cognitive and contextual mechanisms, including specific facets of the political opportunity structures (POS) of NDC. The study contributes to debates on policy, theory and method relevant to: the practice of civic engagement and community development in regeneration; the sociology of community in deprived post-industrial neighbourhoods; and the measurement of community capacity and collective agency. Analysis of social networks considers three levels: the connection of individual residents to each group; relations between groups within the neighbourhood; and relations between groups and local service-providers. Results show very similar levels of network connectivity in the two neighbourhoods, but greater evidence of the growth of sustainable grassroots organising and leadership capacity in the non-NDC area. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of POS concludes that NDC was instrumental in generating a constrained, controllable form of community engagement to meet the delivery requirements of the scheme. This process stifled the development of a wider, independent self-organising capacity on the ground, sustainable beyond the life of NDC.