The enabling role of institutional entrepreneurs in the adoption of IPSAS within a transitional economy: The case of Estonia

In the light of neoinstitutional theory and by adopting case study research methodology, this article explains the adoption of International Public Sector Accounting Standards for modernizing public sector accounting in Estonia. This article reveals that the smooth—yet gradual—adoption of International Public Sector Accounting Standards‐compliant accounting systems was enabled by the involvement of powerful actors (i.e., institutional entrepreneurs) with foreign and/or business backgrounds. In addition, the change in public sector accounting in Estonia was facilitated by the developments in its international positioning, characterized by the transition from a Soviet communist to a market economy and subsequent European Union membership and by the absence of past accounting practices, which could potentially hinder the change.     

Managing the new organization: some problems of institutional transition—a New Zealand perspective

The article presents a policy-maker's view of one of the most radical and most-consistently sustained policy and institutional reforms. It begins by reviewing factors affecting the nature and tempo of New Zealand's reform initiatives, including ‘woodenheadedness’, the political capacity to deliver sustained economic change, the failure of universities and other centres of research and scholarship to generate new ideas; the resistance of entrenched systems; the significance of generating a popular conceptual framework for reform in a literate, articulate society. Issues that are relevant in implementing policy initiatives include: the scarcity of competent managers, particularly associated with the country's small scale; the impact of geography and technology; timing and queuing; loss of institutional memory; the power of communication to fail; and the persistence of ideological, professional ways of thinking, backed by the power of unions and professional associations. This article surveys essential concepts and elements of New Zealand's state sector reforms, focusing on: the guiding philosophy—transparency and consistency; operating principles—the distinction between outputs and outcomes, purchaser and provider, government and departments; the principal instruments—purchase agreements between ministers and chief executives, delegation, performance measures. (© 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)     

Innovation strategies for the adoption of new information technology in government: an Australian experience

Adopting and diffusing new technology, creating user awareness and managing organizational innovation effectively are major tasks for contemporary organizations. In large-scale organizations, with centralized information technology (IT) environments, the tasks of technology evaluation, IT change and diffusion require considerable coordinating efforts. The article recounts the experience of a large-scale public organization in managing work-process innovation and the adoption of IT options that could be adequately cost-justified. Such options need, at least, to encourage users to simultaneously learn to utilize IT to improve current practices and to embrace entirely new functions.     

'It's the romance,not the finance,that makes the business worth pursuing': disclosing a new market culture

This paper argues that the new economy was a rhetorical fabrication, which, through the ability of stakeholders like the cultural circuit of capital, was able to define what the facts consisted of and to train up bodies that bent to those facts. This fabrication could therefore produce regularities in the world. In the first instance, the chief beneficiary was the financial sector, which was able to use the new economy rhetoric to engineer a financial bubble. But, even after the inevitable financial crash, the new economy has left a legacy which should not be scoffed at.     

Group size and the free-rider hypothesis: An examination of new evidence from churches

Conventional economic wisdom maintains that expansion of group size exacerbates group members' free riding tendencies. Nevertheless, experimental studies attempting to account for the effects of group size on free riding have failed to support a pure “numbers effect.” This study corroborates these experimental findings by examining contributions of church members from congregations of three prominent U.S. Protestant denominations. As a whole, these results show that, for congregations ranging from 7 members to 3,294 members, per member contributions do not decline with increased membership. The free-rider problem does not appear to be exacerbated by increases in group size.     

The politics of policy adoption: a saga on the difficulties of enacting policy diffusion or transfer across industrialized countries

While studies of policy diffusion and policy transfer have focused largely on industrialized countries, it is the exact opposite when it comes to pension policies where the focus remains on national elements such as institutions and partisanship. Focusing on a case with a high degree of programmatic similarities, this contribution fills this gap by analyzing the adoptive process in an industrialized country. The empirical analysis involves the transfer and diffusion of the Swedish pension reform in Norway. Norway has a long history of borrowing from Sweden. Following a highly publicized Swedish pension reform embraced by the World Bank, Norwegian policy makers could have easily introduced this reform at home when they embarked into a reform process in the early 2000s. By analyzing core policy instruments of the Swedish pension reform and the agenda-setting and the formulation stages in the policy process in the Norwegian case, this contribution explains why it proves complex and difficult to attribute the outcome of a reform to a diffuser and it argues that more attention is needed on the process behind the adoption of policies from abroad.     

An assessment of the 2000 US presidential election: a set of political marketing guidelines

This paper comprises a set of marketing guidelines using the 2000 presidential election as an example, and analysing the image building of the two candidates, Al Gore and George W. Bush. It is not hard to understand, with hindsight, why Bush was the winner. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications     

Contextual influences on the decision calculus: A cross-national examination of proximity voting

It is generally held that individuals vote for the party that most closely aligns with their preferences, yet previous research identifies numerous factors which lead individuals to stray from the proximity logic. To shed light on this phenomenon, I examine proximity voting from a comparative perspective. Results from a multilevel model indicate that several individual- and election-level factors affect the likelihood of a proximity vote. I also find proximity voting to occur less in countries where political variation is not well-captured by a single dimension. These findings shed light on the bases of proximity voting and add to the general understanding of the nature of voting behavior.     

Counting on codes: An examination of transnational codes as a regulatory governance mechanism for nanotechnologies

This article examines the rise of nanotechnology‐specific codes of conduct (nano‐codes) as a private governance mechanism to manage potential risks and promote the technology. It examines their effectiveness as well as their legitimacy as regulatory instruments in the public domain. The study first maps the rise of voluntary nano‐codes and the roles played by different actors. Focusing on five specific nano‐codes, the article then discusses their adequacy in terms of scientific uncertainty, gaps in existing regulatory regimes, and broader societal concerns. It concludes that these voluntary nano‐codes have weaknesses including a lack of explicit standards on which to base independent monitoring, as well as no sanctions for poor compliance. At the same time it also highlights the potential power of these governance mechanisms under conditions of uncertainty and co‐regulation with government. It is likely that nano‐codes will become the “first cut” of a new governance regime for nanotechnologies.     

Managing organizations in the third world: A case study of management control in a Bangladeshi jute mill

This article reports on a study of the operation of management control systems in a large nationalized jute mill of Bangladesh. The study seeks to describe how ‘control’ operated in practice and to explain why the systems of control worked in these ways. Investigations revealed a number of significant factors. First, the organization operated in both competitive and regulated environments; it had little authority over its operational activities and, head office and the sponsoring ministry were prominent in organizational planning and control. Second, the accounting system in the mill was mainly a response to external legitimacy (e.g. stewardship and tax matters). Third, although budgeting was perceived as part of the formal structure of control, it was not a dominant mode of control in the organization; the budgeting system was created to comply with head office and state requirements. Fourthly, the mill managers used a variety of social/informal control and mechanisms to cope with the complexity and uncertainty around the mill's operations. This study reinforces the conclusions of other research claiming that the wider social, economic, political and institutional contexts govern the ways management control operates in an organization.     

当代中国政治发展目标的规范分析:一条新道路之思考

当代我国政治发展的目标定位可以通过稳定性、结构专业化、法治化和民主化等方面来考虑 ,目标主要是指维护安定团结的政治局面、加大政治结构的专业化建设、建设高度法治国家与实现政治民主化。政治发展的目标通过稳妥的推进政治体制改革而获得实现 ,其实现的社会条件是市民社会的成熟、中介组织的健全和公民精神人格的形成。民主与民主化的路径成为政治发展的路途的主要指向。重新确定政府、党团与民众的制度化关系 ,实现宪政、党内民主与基层民主三维互动是民主化道路研究可以参考的一种分析思路。开放体制的能否形成标志着宏观领域改革能否取得重大突破的关键。政治精英内部平等的态度、同情的了解、渐进政治的原则与和平地处理冲突则是民主化和政治转型的基本精神。     

Turkish delight a public affairs study on family business: The influence of owners in the entrepreneurship orientation of family‐owned businesses

Family‐owned businesses (FOBs) are as unique as the families that own and control them. As reported by Miller, Steier, and Le Breton‐Miller (2003, p.513), the founders of many of these businesses try to continue their legacy and ensure continued family control via intergenerational succession, as when they hand over leadership to their children. The initial statistics suggest only approximately one third of FOBs survive into the second generation, with just 12% remaining “viable” by the third, and only about 3% operating into the fourth generation or beyond. Thus, one of the central problems for FOBs is this inability to ensure competent cross‐generational family leadership through successful transfer of ownership and management to the next family generation. This is a core issue for the modern public affairs practitioner and policy maker, nationally and internationally, and the Turkish case is a good example of the multicomplex issues evident in succession planning and leadership for business founders and leaders in these organisations. A firm's strategic orientation is an indicator of the processes developed to integrate new information, to coordinate decisions, to examine the evolution of environmental factors, and to assess new projects (Escriba‐Esteve, Sanchez‐Peinado & Sanchez‐Peinado, 2009). However, few studies have provided a framework that jointly analyses the FOB owner characteristics, the mediating processes and attitudes by which owners shape the direction of their family firms, and the effect of these postures on firm performance. This paper addresses the influence of family business owner, over the behaviour of FOBs. By treating FOB owners' characteristics as predictors of a firm's strategic orientation, we seek to provide a deeper understanding of how the characteristics of FOB owners shape decision making process and FOBs' behaviours in order to successfully survive in generations. This study introduced the concept of FOB's entrepreneurship orientation (EO) as a variable that mediates between FOB owners' characteristics and business performance. The objective of this paper is twofold: (a) to identify the demographic predictors FOBs' EO and (b) to analyse the role of EO as a mediator of the relationship between FOB owners' characteristics and FOBs' performance.     

Surviving local government policy intervention: the case of embedded markets within a historical cultural cluster

China's name derives from “china” (porcelain), and “China” (pronounced as “Changnan”) is the former name of Jingdezhen, the capital city of porcelain—through whose exports of “blue‐and‐white” china the country gained international renown. The 2200‐year‐old porcelain cluster in Jingdezhen has survived through multiple empires with distinct policies towards the development of the city's dominant industry. This in‐depth case study examines interactions between local government and the business community to discover the effectiveness of policies and the perception of those policies by entrepreneurs through qualitative research employing Grounded Theory methodology. The centralized institutional structure in China contributes significantly to the findings of a total split of “government action” from “public perception” and leads to new considerations for policy‐makers to redesign their economic development strategies and plans to engender real effects in the desired direction. This paper also provides an exemplary lesson for historical cultural clusters seeking to escape from unfavorable policy interference. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.