Action group
- For the military usage of task group, see Task force
In sociology and anthropology, an action group or task group is a group of people joined temporarily to accomplish some task or take part in some organized collective action.
As an example, imagine that in a hypothetical culture, four bridesmaids are traditionally selected to play a role in a wedding ceremony, and eligibility to be chosen as a bridesmaid is dependent on being a young, female relative of the bride. Several people may fall into this social category: they have no automatic entitlement to the role but are eligible to assume it if chosen. Most members of the category who could theoretically be bridesmaids at the wedding are not selected. There are no criteria relating to kinship, age, or other such status that necessitate this, but for simpler reasons of practicality or chance four members of the category are chosen, and it is these who form the action group.
As the members of the action group are brought together on a single occasion and then disband, they cannot be regarded as constituting a full-fledged social group, for which they would need to interact recurrently in accordance with their social identities.
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Action Groups are often formed by many shareholders when they disagree with actions by the Board of Directors of a Public Company or the Government like the forced Nationalisation of Northern Rock [1], Railtrack with 49,000 members [2]. Action groups are co-ordinated by private investors in shareholder associations or their legal representatives in court. Institutional investors often find loose alliances with private investor lead shareholder association actions groups useful in applying mass political pressure or to publicly embarrass Directors at Annual general meetings into making changes.
The largest established shareholder action group associations are Sveriges Aktiesparares Riksförbund (the Swedish Shareholders' Association) part of the Euroshareholders group in the UK ShareSoc,. American Shareholders Association, Australian Shareholders Association and Japan Sōkaiya also have action groups.
[edit] In Latin American context
In Cuba and elsewhere in Latin America, the word "action group" (grupo de acción) was given to violent activists who gathered together to perform violent guerrilla activities e.g. (see Antonio Guiteras, Fidel Castro, Emilio Tro, Lauro Blanco and Rolando Masferrer when young university students) [2][3]. Commonly regarded as gang-related killing there were said to have been 200 of these killings in the Grau administration alone.
(Martin, Lionel. The Early Fidel: Roots of Castro's Communism. 1978. Lyle Stuart, Secaucus New Jersey; 1st ed, p. 25). ISBN 0-8184-0254-7.
[edit] In Nigeria
[edit] References
- ^ [1] Appeal bid denied for Northern Rock shareholders". The Journal. 2009-12-22. Retrieved 2009-12-22.
- ^ RPSAG: Appeal Decision RPSAG, 21 October 2005
[edit] External links
- Student sets up action group to lobby for 360p Telegraph, 16 October 2001
- Defeat for Railtrack shareholders BBC News, 14 October 2005 49,000-strong Railtrack Private Shareholders Action Group
- Guardian, 15 October 2005, "Railtrack shareholders lose court battle for compensation"
- [4] Roger Lawson of the UK Shareholders Association said that there was a 'good chance' that they would appeal the decision.
- [5] Ray Heath (December 2002). "Japan reels from Sokaiya scam". ThisIsMoney.co.uk. Retrieved 2007-03-18.
- [6] ShareSoc the UK Individual Shareholder Association UKISS
- [7] UK Shareholders Association UKSA
- [8] American Shareholders Association
- [9] Dutch Shareholders Association
- [10] Euroshareholders
