caa a22 4500 445294612 CHVBK 20180317142538.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170323e20100901xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s12117-010-9095-8 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s12117-010-9095-8 Gangs as contractors: the social organization of American Taiwanese youth gangs in Southern California [Elektronische Daten] [Kay Pih, Akihiko Hirose, KuoRay Mao] This paper examines the organizational structure and operations of Taiwanese organized crime and youth gangs in Southern California. In-depth interviews were used as the principle method of research. In contrast to transnational criminal conspiracy claims and the La Cosa Nostra model of vertically integrated organizations, our findings suggest that these criminal groups consist of discrete local Taiwanese youth gangs which operate as largely independent economic units that show no substantive and operational ties to criminal organizations in Taiwan. The formation of Taiwanese criminal organizations and gangs in Southern California is primarily governed by the availability of financial opportunities. Furthermore, both the inter-gang relations and intra-gang structures exhibit a distinct form of contractor arrangement which consists of market-like weak ties that are simultaneously circumscribed by the criminal embeddedness. We argue that that these economic weak ties, which seem to render conventionally understood criminal organizational boundaries administratively less meaningful, still function as an operationally significant governance mechanism of the organizational structures of American Taiwanese youth gangs. In addition, the paper discusses the implications that the embeddedness has on the somewhat paradoxical and incoherent organizational structure. Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 2010 American Taiwanese youth gangs nationallicence Criminal organizations nationallicence Embeddedness nationallicence Organizational structures nationallicence Weak ties nationallicence Pih Kay Department of Sociology, California State University, SN 311, 18111 Nordhoff Street, 91330, Northridge, CA, USA aut Hirose Akihiko Department of Sociology, University of Colorado Denver, Denver, CO, USA aut Mao KuoRay Department of Sociology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA aut Trends in Organized Crime Springer-Verlag 13/2-3(2010-09-01), 115-133 1084-4791 13:2-3<115 2010 13 12117 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12117-010-9095-8 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12117-010-9095-8 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Pih Kay Department of Sociology, California State University, SN 311, 18111 Nordhoff Street, 91330, Northridge, CA, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Hirose Akihiko Department of Sociology, University of Colorado Denver, Denver, CO, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Mao KuoRay Department of Sociology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Trends in Organized Crime Springer-Verlag 13/2-3(2010-09-01), 115-133 1084-4791 13:2-3<115 2010 13 12117 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer